Steve gives Emmy to Tommy Smothers


http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2008/09/emmys-mad-men.html

chicagotribune.com
September 21, 2008
The 2008 Emmys: Good wins, a tedious and embarrassing broadcast

Someone thought it would be a good idea for five – count 'em, five – different reality-TV hosts to come out at the start of Sunday's Emmy broadcast on ABC and talk about how they didn’t have anything to say. Whoever thought that was a good idea should be fired.

Not that the winners weren’t deserving – the worthy “30 Rock,” “Damages” and “Mad Men” won big, while (thank goodness) “Boston Legal” won nothing – but much of the rest of the ceremony was embarrassing, terrible or both.

And now Rob Lowe can finally consider his 19-year-old Snow White Oscar duet forgotten. TV has a new train wreck to make fun of, in the form of the 2008 Emmy broadcast that aired on Sunday.

****

One of the high points of the otherwise colorless opening hour came when Steve Martin presented a commemorative Emmy to Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers.

“Tommy Smothers is a man who has given me so much,” said Martin, a former writer for the “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” “Nothing I wanted. Mostly corporate gifts.”

Martin pointed out that in 1968, when the rest of the “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” writing staff won Emmys, Smothers didn’t get a statue. He had taken his name off the list, thinking that it was too controversial and would ruin the show’s chances of winning. The television academy, “in an effort to fill time,” Martin joked, had decided to right that wrong and give Smothers his statue 40 years later.

“It’s hard for me to stay silent when I keep hearing that peace is only attainable through war. There’s nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action,” Smothers said in his acceptance speech. “I dedicate this Emmy to all people who feel compelled to speak out and not afraid to speak to power and won’t shut up and refuse to be silenced.”

****
- posted by sookeyjane 9/22/2008 05:27:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Get in Line Now


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080910/ap_en_mo/celeb_movie_night_1

Catch a flick with your favorite celeb for $25
Wed Sep 10, 4:17 PM ET

LOS ANGELES - Sit beside Steve Martin for a screening of "The Jerk," share a theater with Mike Myers for a showing of "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" or squirm in your seat alongside Jodie Foster during "The Silence of the Lambs."

These stars — along with Dustin Hoffman, Cameron Diaz, Denzel Washington, Annette Bening, Jim Carrey, Shirley MacLaine, Rita Moreno and Keanu Reeves — will share some of their most famous films with their fans next month at "Target Presents AFI Night at the Movies."

The one-night-only event is set to take over the ArcLight theater in Hollywood on Oct. 1, the American Film Institute announced Wednesday. The idea is to bring filmmakers and fans together to celebrate American movies, said AFI chief Bob Gazzale.

"It is a fireworks show of American film," he said, "and AFI's honor to celebrate the artists and their contributions to the rich cultural legacy of our nation."

Tickets are $25 and will be available beginning Sept. 17.

The complete list of stars and films:

• Connery, "The Man Who Would Be King.

• Bening, "American Beauty."

• Carrey, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

• Diaz, "There's Something About Mary."

• Foster, "The Silence of the Lambs."

• Hoffman, "Tootsie."

• MacLaine, "The Apartment."

• Martin, "The Jerk."

• Moreno, "West Side Story."

• Myers, "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery."

• Reeves, "The Matrix."

• Washington, "Glory."

___

On the Net:

http://www.AFI.com
- posted by sookeyjane 9/12/2008 12:26:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

More about Steve's part in the making of 'Traitor'


http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20080902/SCENE03/809020356/1011/rss05
'Traitor' resulted from quest for a cerebral thriller

By Ellen McCarthy • Washington Post • September 2, 2008


After Sept. 11, 2001, Steve Martin had an idea for a political thriller.
Advertisement

Yes, that Steve Martin -- the "Wild and Crazy" guy from "The Jerk" and "Father of the Bride."

The story line for the film, as he conceived it, would wade through the culture of Islamic extremists, the psychology of suicide terrorists and the bureaucratic chasms dividing federal agencies.

Martin pitched the concept, Disney bought it and an up-and-coming writer-director named Jeffrey Nachmanoff was brought in to craft the screenplay and make the movie. When Don Cheadle signed on to star in the film, called "Traitor," it seemed like a potential home run.

"The idea was to make this into a big commercial movie," Nachmanoff says. "But -- even though they liked the script at the studio -- they just felt it was too sensitive a subject to make as a mainstream release."

So the project sat and sat. It remained untouched for almost four years, until Disney released its rights and Nachmanoff persuaded his producers, including Martin, to make the film as an independent release.

Once "Traitor" found a home (plus a roughly $20 million to $30 million budget) at Overture Films, it took little more than a year to produce the film and get it onto the big screen.

"In 2002, no one had tried to take on the subject in a commercial way. It was a little bit early," the director concedes. "Everything was a little bit raw."

He is hoping that although the rawness has receded, the topic remains relevant enough to lure audiences to a cat-and-mouse chase film that follows a terror cell across the Middle East and Europe and into America.

"It has to be appealing to both a broad audience and a sophisticated art audience," Nachmanoff says. "We want a smart movie that provokes us, and we also want it to play in the rest of the country -- not just something that people in New York or L.A. or Washington are going to go see."

The first time Guy Pearce, who stars opposite Cheadle as an FBI agent, read the script, his impression was that "it was very well-observed and didn't feel as if it was shying away from anything," he recalls during a press tour with Nachmanoff. "That felt very real."

It was as real as Nachmanoff could make it, based on months of reading every book he could find about the FBI and CIA approach to Islamic terror threats in the 1980s and 1990s. He consulted with such national defense experts as Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution and former analysts involved in tracking al-Qaeda networks.

He also drilled into the other side of the equation, reading the journals of captured terror suspects who'd been radicalized by extremist sects at an early age and examining the incongruous lives of the Sept. 11 attackers.

"Once you start reading the stories of the real personalities -- well, you can't make this stuff up, as they say," Nachmanoff says. "We worked with a lot of Islamic and Muslim consultants who would read the scripts and give me notes. So we tried to do our best to get that part of the story right."

"Traitor" was made with a bigger budget than the typical indie flick and is being released with a nationwide advertising campaign. Nachmanoff hopes that will help counter an industry trend that he thinks is failing audiences. "It feels like we're being increasingly forced to choose between pure entertainment and thought-provoking movies that are good for you, but that you don't want to go see," he says.

Classic, '70s-era thrillers such as "All the President's Men" and "French Connection" provided the model for "Traitor," which leaves a question mark by its heroes and villains throughout the film.

"Maybe it's being greedy, but we'd like people to have essentially a terrific entertaining thrill ride on the movie and then go out to dinner talking about the ideas underlying the movie," Nachmanoff says. "We'll find out if that's how people experience the movie. But that would be my goal for it."
- posted by sookeyjane 9/02/2008 05:31:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

3 Steve Banjo Articles


These three articles all come from The Bluegrass Blog and concern Steve's new banjo album coming out very soon and the new banjo he used in some of the cuts.

http://www.thebluegrassblog.com/nedski-with-steve-and-tony/
Nedski with Steve and Tony
posted by John on 12.03.07 @ 9:42 am

Ned Luberecki, Steve Martin and Tony TrischkaWe got a note this morning from Ned Luberecki, banjo player extraordinaire, and one of the hosts of the Sirius Satellite Radio Bluegrass channel.

Ned had been out with Tony Trischka this past week, supplying the second banjo for a string of dates in support of Tony’s Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular CD, and told us that they had a surprise guest for Thursday’s show at The Cutting Room in New York City, in the person of Steve Martin.

“Tony told me earlier in the day that he had emailed Steve about the gig, not even knowing if Steve was in New York. We didn’t actually know that he was going to be there until just before show time. We had just a few minutes to rehearse before they opened the doors to the club, so we went over the triple banjo version of ‘The Crow’ with Steve playing the melody, Tony on the second and me on the third part. Then Tony asked if Steve would like to play anything else on the show.

Steve started playing a tune and asked if we wanted to figure it out. The song was ‘Pitkin County Turnaround’ which Steve had recorded on his ‘Steve Martin Brothers’ album. After Steve played through it once, I took a solo. Steve seemed surprised that I knew it. Afterward he asked me how I learned it so fast. I told him that I learned it from his record… 25 or 30 years ago!

For the record, I got my first banjo, and two Steve Martin records for Christmas the same year. If you were to look at those albums, you’d probably see the grooves worn clean on the parts where he played the banjo.

All joking aside, Steve was my original inspiration for starting to play the banjo. The first song I learned from a record (without tab) was his version of ‘8 More Miles To Louisville’ (which was part of his ‘You can’t play a sad song on the banjo’ bit). And believe it or not, I learned ‘Sally Goodin’ from the flip side of the 45 of ‘King Tut’ even before learning it from the Earl Scruggs book.”

Take that all you people who insist that Steve Martin had no impact as a banjo player!

Bela Fleck, Ned Luberecki and Tony Trischka on banjosNed also passed along this photo from a show he did with Tony back in October where they were joined by Bela Fleck for another Triple Banjo Bluegrass Extravaganza.

He also mentioned that there are a number of video clips from the recent Trischka dates up on YouTube.

-------------
http://www.thebluegrassblog.com/kel-kroydon-and-steve-martin/
Kel Kroydon and Steve Martin
posted by John on 01.14.08 @ 3:11 pm

Steve Martin and Tom Mirisola checking out Kel Kroydon banjos on the set of Pink Panther IIIn an earlier post, Casey Henry mentioned what a kick she got from knowing that she and Steve Martin played the same kind of banjo, referring to her recent signature model Kel Kroydon banjo.

I asked KK owner Tom Mirisola to tell us a bit more about the Steve Martin connection…

This all came about through Tony Ellis, who is a good friend of Steve’s, and an owner of a Kel Kroydon KK-11. One day Tony and I were talking about the Cryo Strings for a Cause charity and he mentioned he had a very good friend who wanted to talk to me about my banjos. When Tony told me it was Steve Martin I really didn’t know what to think. Tony asked if he could forward my contact information to Steve and we could talk banjos.

Well, of course I said OK. A few weeks later I was contacted by a production company who told me Steve would be in Boston filming the movie Pink Panther II and that he would like to get together with me during his stay. One afternoon in October 2007 we met Steve on set with my wife Karen and my granddaughter Casey.

I brought 5 Kel Kroydons with me for Steve to try out. Steve and I sat and picked, talked all about Kel Kroydon specifications and his 27 Florentine banjo. In between pickin’ and talking, Steve took all of us on set to watch the his new film being made. This was a thrill for all of us. Steve took the time to explain to Casey how the film was made, which she still talks about today. Casey can’t wait till the movie comes out.

Later that afternoon we left it if Steve was interested in a Kel Kroydon banjo we could build one to his specifications for him. Steve said he liked the Kel Kroydons and wanted to think about the banjo specifications he wanted to build. Steve said he would contact me after the movie was completed.

A few weeks later I received a phone call from Steve wanting to discuss his desired banjo specifications. He liked the ebony fingerboard, mahogany wood, and gold engraved plating, basically our Charlie Cushman model. Steve and I pulled up the American Made Banjo web site while we were on the phone, and he said, “That’s the banjo. It is beautiful.”

From there Robin Smith, Steve Gill and Charlie Cushman did their usual magic. The banjo was built and delivered to Steve just before the holidays. So far, he says the banjo looks and sounds great and the last I spoke with him he had taken the banjo with him on vacation. I’m sure in the future when Steve pops up out of nowhere to play at a venue, and you see him playing a banjo with an ebony fingerboard and “mother of toilet seat” peghead that sounds great, you will know exactly what he is playing.

Here are a couple more photos of Steve with his custom Kel Kroydon, and meeting with Tom’s family on the set.

------------------------------------
http://www.thebluegrassblog.com/steve-martin-banjo-cd-forthcoming/
Steve Martin banjo CD forthcoming
posted by John on 09.01.08 @ 10:28 am

Steve Martin celebrates Christmas with his new Kel Kroydon banjoWe made note late last year of the fact that comedian, actor and banjo player Steve Martin was preparing to record an album of serious banjo music.

The recording has been completed, produced by fellow banjo man John McCuen, with assistance from Tony Trischka and Pete Wernick. Helping out in the studio were Russ Barenberg on guitar, Matt Flinner on mandolin and Brittany Haas on fiddle, among others. New Martin compositions are the foucs, performed in both 3 finger and clawhammer styles.

We’ve not been able to find out yet whether a label is involved, or when the CD might be released. Steve is vacationing now in Greece, but we are hopeful of obtaining an interview upon his return.

We did reach producer John McCuen, who shared a number of thoughts about working with Martin in the studio.

“Steve’s playing was really good. Driving, yet sensitive when needed. This album will amaze many because it will show people that Steve takes his music as seriously as he does his other work and performs it at that level. Steve has written some of my favorite banjo tunes. I think after the release of Steve’s new album a couple of tunes might become standard fare for new pickers.

There was one time, during the opening of one song, where Steve had to play the exact same notes and rhythm as Russ Barenburg was playing on guitar, with just the two instruments opening. Well, Steve was rushing ahead of the guitar and Tony Trischka was a little concerned. Steve needs to lock with the guitar and he’s ahead. How do we get him to do that?

Knowing Steve was accustomed to taking direction and since I had the mantle of producer, I hit the talkback and said ‘Steve …. you’re ahead of the guitar!!!! You’re rushing!! It seems like you can’t wait for the tune to start. So, listen and do exactly what Russ is doing.’

Steve said, ‘Oh!! OK.’

In the middle of the next pass which was the take we kept, Tony Trischka and I looked at each and said at the same time with reference to Steve ‘I wish I could do that.’

Another song required that Steve count it off. Steve was setting the tempo right from the first beat for a big chord from all. Steve went ‘One, Two, Three, Four’ and started playing. I had to stop them and say ‘We need the last number to be silent, so it starts clean Steve, got it?’

Steve said, ‘OK. Here we go.. One, Two, Four’ and started playing except everyone was laughing. We started and counted right the next time.”

McCuen also spoke about the banjos used, including Steve’s newest banjo, a custom Kel Kroydon from American Made Banjo.

“It was great to have the Kel Kroydon banjo on hand for the Steve Martin Album. Although he used his other long time banjos on many cuts, the Kel Kroydon was the one of choice for three or four of the 15 songs recorded. This was determined by trying all the different banjos Steve brought.

Of course, his favorite Florentine that I had found for him in Kansas City in the late ’70s sounds great (I actually think his favorite Florentine is mine). He also brought his RB 250 that was his first banjo, the open back. They all sounded great, but there were some tunes the Kel Kroydon was the one of choice and it performed beautifully.”

It will be very interesting to see how much attention this release gets from the entertainment media, and I’m sure I’m not the only banjo picker eager to hear this recording.
- posted by sookeyjane 9/02/2008 05:28:00 PM PERMALINK 1 COMMENTS

 

Oxford American Redux


I just found out that Steve's article is a reprint -- this is an anthology.
- posted by sookeyjane 8/21/2008 06:24:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve with a new essay in the Oxford American


Steve previously had an article in the Oxford American on how he learned banjo. I assume this is a new essay the article talks about.

http://standard.arkansasonline.com/news/2008/aug/21/
magazines-oxford-music-issue-plans-2-cd-s-20080821/

MAGAZINES: Oxford music issue plans 2-CD set
Aug-21-2008 2:16:00 AM [Ellis Widner]

Music fans look forward to the arrival of the Oxford American’s annual music issue, due in no small part to the outstanding compact disc of tasty Southern musical treats and rarities that accompany it. “It is, by far, our best-selling issue of the year,” says Warwick Sabin, the magazine’s publisher, from his office at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. The magazine has about 20,000 subscribers; Sabin says newsstand sales are usually around 10,000 per issue, but sales jump to 20,000 for the music issue. This year’s edition is due Nov. 17. Oxford American’s music issue won the National Magazine Award for single-topic issue in 1999 and 2004, and it has the respect of many in the music industry. The inclusion of a CD with the magazine was a groundbreaker, a move other publications have followed, such as Paste, Mojo and Q. So with the music issue’s 10th anniversary coming up, editor and founder Marc Smirnoff, who also plans and organizes the CDs, wanted to do something special - a two-CD set. Cable channel CMT is making it happen. “CMT has sponsored our CDs for the past few years,” Sabin says. “We wanted to give them the first opportunity to underwrite it exclusively. It was a very easy sell. They are giving us $50,000 to produce the project.” Sabin says there are other promotions planned for the music issue’s anniversary, including a concert in Nashville, Tenn. There also may be some television opportunities, he says. Music fans and readers, however, will probably share Sabin’s excitement about another project - an anthology of the magazine’s music articles titled The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing, to be published in hardcover Nov. 1 by the University of Arkansas Press. The 466-page book, priced at $34.95, boasts a foreword by musician and composer Van Dyke Parks. The collection gathers 55 essays; contributors include novelist Roy Blount Jr., Arkansas novelist Kevin Brockmeier, musician Rosanne Cash, producer Jerry Wexler, artist R. Crumb, writer Robert Palmer, actor and writer Steve Martin and singer-songwriter Marty Stuart. Back to CDs: Smirnoff is planning 40 to 50 songs on two theme discs - past masters and future masters. About one-third of the songs, he says, are officially locked in. The exact content, he says, is not finalized, and Smirnoff is pretty tight-lipped about approved and pending song choices. “The element of surprise is important to me,” he says. “We’re going after songs we totally love and believe in. We get what we need, usually by the hair of our teeth.” He did reveal this: The wonderful pianist and singer Nellie Lutcher from Lake Charles, La., will be back. And Smirnoff says he has targeted two Lucinda Williams tracks, but won’t name them. Smirnoff says the magazine doesn’t pay licensing fees. “We couldn’t afford to do this project if we had to pay royalties,” he says. “We’re a poor nonprofit. We donated 15 percent of the music issue to the Music Maker Relief Foundation, which helps support older and indigent musicians. A lot of great labels, songwriters and musicians are willing to give us these songs for free.” Smirnoff makes the final decisions, but he “craves input from others.” “I look for great music I haven’t heard before ... I talk to musicians, record-store clerks, authors, everybody I can. The search for great, weird music has led me to do more Web site surfing than comes naturally for me.” And, lest wary fans are concerned that CMT will influence the CDs’ content, rest easy, Sabin says. “They will have no role, we have made that clear,” Sabin says. Sabin also is clear on Oxford American’s future. “When I took over in April, the magazine was in dire straits because of embezzlement. I want to solidify finances and get us on an ambitious publication schedule. We want to prove to people we are back.” To that end, Sabin has gotten the magazine back on a quarterly publication schedule. “The magazine has always been an excellent one. My goal is to make it an efficient publishing operation. I want this magazine to thrive,” Sabin says.
- posted by sookeyjane 8/21/2008 06:07:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve on Starbucks


Not being a coffee drinker, I am probably only finding out what you already know, but apparently Starbucks prints a series of quotes on their cups under the heading "The Way I See It."

Here's Steve's:

"If you've got a dollar and you spend twenty-nine cents on a loaf of bread, you've got seventy-one cents left. But if you've got seventeen grand and you spend twenty-nine cents on a loaf of bread, you've still got seventeen grand.
There's a math lesson for you." --Steve Martin
- posted by sookeyjane 8/21/2008 06:04:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

See Steve in a Bathing Suit


He's here.
- posted by sookeyjane 8/19/2008 05:20:00 PM PERMALINK 1 COMMENTS

 

Happy Birthday, Steve


Today is Steve's birthday. Happy Birthday, Steve, and many more.
- posted by sookeyjane 8/14/2008 11:07:00 AM PERMALINK 1 COMMENTS

 

Steve plays banjo for a disappointing pancake


As noted earlier, Lisa Loeb produced a new album with one track, "The Disappointing Pancake" where Steve plays banjo.

You can hear it here. Once the page is loaded, the song plays automatically.
- posted by sookeyjane 8/13/2008 07:49:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve's Movie 'Traitor" is coming soon


http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20195570,00.html?xid=rss-movies-20080812-Traitor

Entertainment Weekly
Traitor (2008)
Movie Preview
Traitor

This thriller comes from the unlikeliest of sources: Steve Martin's brain. The comedian dreamt up the espionage tale, took an exec-producer credit, then stepped aside and let the experts take over. And it turns out that's not the only unusual thing about Traitor. ''I've never seen a movie where a Muslim is the hero,'' says Don Cheadle, playing a CIA operative who manages to infiltrate a band of terrorists — with unexpected consequences. ''He gets caught up and has his allegiances, his Muslim faith, tested. It hopefully will serve as a good jumping-off point to examine this issue.'' (August 29, 2008)
- posted by sookeyjane 8/12/2008 04:56:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Banjo News on Steve


http://www.cybergrass.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5169

News: Dr. Banjo Joins Steve Martin in the Recording Studio!
BMNN wrote: on Aug. 03, 2008:
Pete Wernick, aka Dr. Banjo, informs us that he has recently been in the studio with friend and fellow banjo picker Steve Martin.

Pete says, "Steve's composed a slew of good banjo tunes, in a wide variety of styles both 3-finger and clawhammer, and finally decided it was time to do a record. He called me in as part of the production team, led by John McEuen, with Tony Trischka helping out as well. I got to play on a couple of tunes, including one I co-wrote with Steve."

Pete continues saying, "The musicians included Russ Barenberg, Matt Flinner, David Amram, and Brittany Haas, with the recording done at Bennett Studios in NJ, engineered by Tony Bennett's son Dae. No title or label or release date yet, but it will be a very interesting and tuneful record."

Pete also joined Hot Rize for their 30th Anniversary performances. Hot Rize performed in two shows celebrating the 30th anniversary of the band's formation: Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado on June 22 and the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in Oak Hill, NY on July 19. (Red Knuckles & The Trailblazers were even invited to take the stage, too.).

Pete says, "It amazes and gratifies me that 30 years after we started, we still get a chance to make this music that's so special to me. The fans have treated us really well and we've tried to rise to the occasion. As for the Trailblazer stuff, I'm not sure how that has gone, as I always miss that part."

Pete also joined Peter Rowan, Mike Bub & Jody Stecher for July shows at the Big Horn Mountain Festival and the Founder's Title Folk & Bluegrass Festival. On August 2nd, Pete teamed up with old Country Cooking buddy Tony Trischka at the Podunk Festival in Hartford, CT as part of a "Banjo Spectacular" with other banjo notables including Alan Munde, Bill Keith, and Ron Block. Later, Pete & Joan will join up with Don Rigsby at the Johnny Keenan Festival in Longford, Ireland September 27-28. The travel season finishes in early October with one more Hot Rize anniversary show at the mega-fest Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

Visit the calendar at DrBanjo.com for all the details!
- posted by sookeyjane 8/12/2008 04:52:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

A new Steve Interview in Scotland


This makes me wonder -- are Steve and Anne in Scotland for the Lonach Games? We'll have to keep checking.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity-interviews/2008/07/26/
comedy-star-steve-martin-able-to-smile-at-last-after-finding-marital-bliss-86908-20671581/

Comedy star Steve Martin able to smile at last after finding marital bliss
Jul 26 2008 By Siobhan Synnot

STEVE MARTIN has been making people laugh for years - including his latest scene-stealing role in Baby Mama.

He's the insane boss of main character Kate and some say his performance is worth the ticket price alone.

But off screen, Steve projects a very different image.

The silver-haired comic is far from a wild and crazy guy - the kind of character heplayed in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and a host of other movies.

He's like your tax accountant, only a little more shy and a little more distant.

Pal and talk-show host David Letterman, defends his serious style.

"If you go to the home of a guy who shines shoes all day," says Letterman, "you're probably not going to get your shoes shined when you walk in." However, at 62, Steve may now have more to smile about, having found love again with a woman half his age, and buried demons that include his own stern and distant dad.

Steve always loved beautiful women but had his heart broken more than a few times. Romances with Linda Ronstadt and Bernadette Peters were replaced by a seven-year marriage to Brit Victoria Tennant, until she left him for another man in 1993.

For a while, he found peace with best friend and co-star Diane Keaton, followed by a rather public love affair with actress Anne Heche when she was 25. She left him for Ellen DeGeneres after coming out as a lesbian. As part of the recovery process, he wrote Bowfinger, which includes a character who seemed rather familiar: a young, social climbing blonde actress who breaks hearts the way some break nails.

Then, last year, Hollywood's most famous "lonely guy", married New York writer Anne Stringfield, 35, by throwing a party - then telling his stunned guests, including Tom Hanks and Diane Keaton, that it was in fact a wedding ceremony.

The star says he's not ruling out being a father himself, although it's a role he never considered until "I played a movie dad".

Anne, who looks startlingly like Sex And The City's Kristin Davis, is credited with making her husband open up to the possibilities of life and love - and that has meant confronting his past.

Only now has he admitted his comedy was driven by dark forces.

In particular, his difficult and, on one occasion, violent relationship with his father casts a long shadow over Steve both as a performer and as a man.

Steve was doing magic and comedy from an early age, and found work after school by cycling to nearby Disneyland and setting up shows so he could perform.

However, Steve's father, Glenn, a failed actor, gave Steve no encouragement, and made it clear he didn't care for his son's stand-up, even when thousands crammed into stadium-sized venues to see the crazy guy in the white suit in the Seventies.

He remained unimpressed even after Steve's screen success in The Jerk, saying to Steve's friends: "He's no Charlie Chaplin." "He didn't speak much, only to criticise or be stern," admits Steve, who says he was devastated by his dad's dismissiveness but understands his father's own upbringing contributed to his harsh behaviour.

"We were from Texas, which was very much the Old West - staunch, stern.

"But I never thought of my childhood as difficult or hard until later. I had great friends. I had laughs - but not at home."

Their relationship nosedived before Steve was a teenager. One night, when he was nine, a seemingly innocent reply to a question resulted in his father beating him with a belt. The thrashing "never seemed to end," according to Steve.

"I curled my arms around my body as he stood overme and delivered the blows." So severe was the beating, he had to wear long trousers to school the next day to hide the marks.

AFTER that, he resolved "with icy determination that only the most formal relationship would exist between my father and me".

Yet, later, GlennMartin softened and started to admit to his son he was proud of his work, especially his writing. He also admitted he had been wrong to publicly criticise his son.

Father and son were reconciled when Glenn died aged 83.

"You did everything I wanted to do," a dying Glenn told his son, and Steve responded, "I did it for you."

Over the years, he thinks he's learned a lot about the problems of keeping love going. He says: "You hope for the perfect one, but you have to forgive and make allowances for people and your partner."

He's had to deal with disappointments like the break-up of his first marriage - he and Victoria still don't speak.

He also recalls one love affair where he later tracked down the woman and talked about the breakdown of their romance.

"I asked her why she slept with me, and she said, 'So I can tell my friends'." It's a punchline he doesn't find funny.

Steve Martin is an organised, disciplined man. He keeps his collection of expensive modern art meticulously catalogued in his laptop computer. He remembers friends' birthdays and answers emails and phonecalls promptly.

In past interviews, he's been polite and patient but he is not the loveable, slightly goofy guy of The Man With Two Brains, Parenthood or Cheaper By The Dozen.

"There's a difference between having a darker side and being crazy," says Steve, who is preparing for his second Pink Panther film, almost 50 years after Peter Sellers first brought the bumbling French policeman to the big screen.

"Peter Sellers was slightly, at least from what I've read, tortured. We all have our dark side, and I'msort of in the middle," says the actor, who embraced self-help books and therapy to ensure sanity.

There was a time in the mid-Seventies when he drank too much. Now he keep demons at bay, and avoids meat and booze. When he was first approached, Steve turned down the chance to remake Inspector Clouseau, a job also offered to Mike Myers and Kevin Spacey. Gradually, he came around to the idea.

"Look at the number of times they've remade King Kong. And A Star is Born. All these stories keep coming back and I've justified it by saying, well, it's like a play.

Nobody says, 'Ooooh, I can't do Hamlet because Richard Burton did it.' Inspector Clouseau is the Hamlet for comedians."

Even though he's hosted the Academy Awards, he doesn't mind never taking one home but reckons people underestimate how tough it is to do good funny work, and playing it straight can be easier.

"I had a friend who's a comedian. He had done a drama and got all these honours for it, and he said, 'Steve, if I got praised for dramatic acting, it's because I did a scene without blinking, and, when on a close-up, I was thinking about dinner.'"

Recent work like Baby Mama, Shop Girl and Bringing Down The House show his movies are popular, but he's now a dad rather than the restless, wacky wild-and-crazy guy. And that's fine by Steve.

"Time has helped me achieve peace with celebrity," he quips. "At first, I was not famous enough, then I was too famous and now I am famous just right."

Nowadays, a regular day for Mr and Mrs Steve Martin at their Beverly Hills home might include a long walk or yoga in the morning, lunch at a restaurant, a bit of writing for Steve and then dinner. Sometimes, he'll jam on the banjo.

"Sometimes, I get together with friends. I play with Billy Connolly. There are a few of us. I don't work very hard," he says.

"I'd like to be working a little bit more, actually."
- posted by sookeyjane 8/12/2008 04:50:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve's former mother-in-law died


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/03/BAQV11JBSR.DTL
Irina Baronova - last of the famed 'baby ballerinas' of Balanchine

Chris Pasles, Los Angeles Times
Thursday, July 3, 2008


Irina Baronova, the last of the three "baby ballerinas" whose international careers were launched by choreographer George Balanchine, has died. She was 89.

Ms. Baronova died in her sleep Saturday at her home in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia, according to the Australian News.

She came to fame at the age of 12 when Balanchine cast her in a 1931 Paris staging of composer Jacques Offenbach's operetta "Orpheus in the Underworld." French critic Andre Levinson wrote, "The sensation of the evening was the tiny child Baronova, who went through the final galop (gallop) like a whirlwind."

A year later, Balanchine recruited Ms. Baronova, Tamara Toumanova, 14, and Tatiana Riabouchinska, 15, to be the stars of a new Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, successor to the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev.

The three dancers were dubbed the "baby ballerinas" by British critic Arnold Haskell and promoted as such by impresario Sol Hurok for their first U.S. tour in 1933.

"Mr. Hurok liked the concept," Ms. Baronova told the Rocky Mountain News in 1995. "He would always say, 'It's good for publicity.' But I always hated it. I mean, 'baby ballerina'! Yuck!"

Toumanova died in 1996 in Santa Monica, and Riabouchinska in 2000 in Los Angeles.

Ms. Baronova, known for her beauty, grandeur and warm temperament, danced such classical and Romantic ballets as "The Sleeping Beauty," "Swan Lake," "Les Sylphides" and "Coppelia."

She created roles in Balanchine's "Cotillon"; Fokine's "Bluebeard"; Massine's "Les Presages," "Jeux d'Enfants" and "Le Beau Danube"; Lichine's "Helen of Troy" and Nijinska's "Les Cent Baisers" and "Les Noces."

Her stage partners included Serge Lifar and Anton Dolin. In those heady times, artists Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse often designed sets and costumes for the Ballets Russes.

Ms. Baronova was born March 13, 1919, into a wealthy, well-connected family in St. Petersburg, Russia, who fled the country in 1920 after the Bolshevik Revolution.

She grew up in the slums of Romania, where at her mother's insistence she took her first ballet lesson, holding onto a kitchen table instead of a barre.

"I didn't enjoy ballet to start with," she told the Melbourne, Australia, Herald Sun in 2005. "I felt it was a nuisance. I wanted to be climbing trees with my friends. I couldn't understand what it was all for, but one didn't argue with my mother. I knew that would end badly for me. I did what I was told."

When Ms. Baronova was 8, the family moved to Paris, where she was able to study with Russian emigre ballerina Olga Preobrajenska. In class, she met fellow student Toumanova, began to perform at society tea parties and was spotted by Balanchine.

Based in Paris, the Ballets Russes toured the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico and Cuba. In four months, the troupe danced in 125 cities.

Chafing under her mother's dictatorial rule, however, Ms. Baronova eloped with German (Jerry) Sevastianov, associate manager of the Ballets Russes, when she was 17, moving to the American Ballet Theatre when Sevastianov became managing director of that company in 1941. Their relationship was tumultuous, and the marriage lasted only three years.

In 1946, she married British theatrical agent Cecil Tennant, whose clients included Clark Gable and Laurence Olivier and his wife, Vivien Leigh, who became close friends of the family.

As a condition of their marriage, Tennant insisted she give up the stage and not see any of her former ballet colleagues for five years, giving her 48 hours to make up her mind. Ms. Baronova complied.

Asked in 2005 by a Sydney Morning Herald reporter in Australia whether she would have acceded to those conditions if given another chance, she said, "Yes, I would, because I had the most blissful, wonderful 18 years, with the most wonderful husband who made me very happy. We had three children, a wonderful home and family life and that is the end of it all. It was the most precious thing in life. If I had never had children, I would be a miserable old bag by now."

Their children were Victoria, Irina and Robert. Tennant died in a car accident in 1967. She later remarried Sevastianov, who died in 1971.

During her career, Ms. Baronova also appeared in several films, including "Florian" (1940) and "Yolanda" (1943), and in musicals and plays, including "Follow the Girls," "Bullet in the Ballet" and "Dark Eyes."

In 2005, she wrote her autobiography, "Irina: Ballet, Life and Love."

Ms. Baronova moved to Byron Bay in 2000 to be near her daughter, Irina. Survivors include her three children, six grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.

This article appeared on page B - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle
- posted by sookeyjane 7/03/2008 03:10:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve plays banjo for 'a disappointing pancake.'


http://wbjb.org/home.php/2008/06/06/lisa-loeb-and-steve-
martin-perform-a-song-about-pancakes/

Brookdale Public Radio - http://90.5TheNIGHT.org -
LISA LOEB AND STEVE MARTIN PERFORM A SONG ABOUT PANCAKES
Posted By Tom On June 6, 2008 @ 7:00 am In News, Music News

WASHINGTON (AP) - Lisa Loeb has gotten an unlikely collaboration partner for her new album of children’s music: Steve Martin. Loeb’s album, “Camp Lisa,” is full of songs that kids might sing at summer camp. She was working on a song called “The Disappointing Pancake” and she thought it would sound great with a banjo. She thought about who she knew who played banjo and thought of Martin. She had met him a couple of times and she took a gamble and called him. He returned her call. Loeb says Martin played “really really well” on the song. “Camp Lisa” is out this week.
- posted by sookeyjane 6/09/2008 04:34:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve, Go to Terre Haute


http://www.rushvillerepublican.com/entertainment/cnhinsentertainment_story_156094849.html/resources_printstory

City sets date to rekindle its '70s fling with Steve Martin
By Mark Bennett
THE TRIBUNE STAR (TERRE HAUTE, Ind.)
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. Mon, Jun 09 2008

— In many Terre Hauteans’ memories, the arrow through Steve Martin’s head is like Cupid’s arrow through the heart.

Steve bonded with us.

He put on a concert in Hulman Center that outdrew Larry Bird and the Indiana State Sycamores. He dissed Terre Haute in a Playboy magazine interview, complaining about the lack of downtown shops, the horizontal hold on his hotel-room television set, and the local TV stations’ fertilizer ads. He called the city “Nowhere, USA.” But 13 months later, he accepted the mayor’s invitation to take a wacky tour of the Haute. The world premiere of his first movie “The Jerk” happened in the old Towne South Cinema here. Steve even singled out Terre Haute as the only place destroyed by a giant cheese mold in another movie, “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.” And in theater previews for that flick, the comic actor asked movie patrons to decide — by pinching one side of their buttocks or the other — whether he should release “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” or “Manure for the Millions: The Story of Terre Haute, Indiana.” He even talked about us with Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show.”

That tongue-in-cheek, love-hate relationship lasted almost three years.

This month, Hauteans can rekindle that flame.

The producers of an upcoming documentary, “One Wild and Crazy City,” are inviting anyone with recollections of Terre Haute’s Steve Martin era to attend a film session from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 28 in the Indiana Theatre. Co-producers Gary Wood and Justin Escue of 3Docs Productions in Indianapolis and a film crew will tape interviews on the theater stage.

There should be a large talent pool. Martin’s Nov. 18, 1978, concert drew 7,348 fans. (Bird and the Sycamore basketball team attracted a crowd of 6,222 the next day.) More than 2,000 people — including media from around the world — watched Steve feign contrition and humility during his return visit Dec. 7, 1979. Many folks probably read his interview in Playboy, or at least bought the magazine. Hundreds packed local movie houses for his films.

Almost everyone living here at the time knew Terre Haute had become a running joke for the world’s most popular comedian.

Anyone is welcome to reminisce, Wood said. He emphasized that “it’s strictly volunteer; there’s no pay. They’ll get credit in the film, though.”

“People can get their five minutes of fame,” said Roger Aleshire, manager of the Indiana Theatre.

The production crew is looking for “anyone that has a story, anyone that has a memory of it, whether they like Steve Martin or didn’t like Steve Martin,” Wood explained. “Even if they weren’t there [for the ’78 concert or his return in ’79], they can come and say they love Steve Martin, or that they never liked Steve Martin.

“It’s going to be a fun day,” Wood added. “We have no idea what the turnout’s going to be.”

One thing he is sure about is the film’s potential. Wood thinks, given the quirky topic, the approximately 90-minute flick could win a coveted spot at one of the “big three” film festivals — Cannes, Toronto and Sundance.

“I can’t help but think this has got a really strong shot, if our quality is up,” Wood said.

The production already has drawn a strong dose of local support. The Indiana State University Foundation is providing some sponsorship funds and assistance, said Gene Crume, the foundation’s president. Martin’s 1978 concert crowd included a large group of student fans and occurred in a campus hotspot — Hulman Center.

“Indiana State University and the students really had such a prominent part in his coming to Terre Haute, and we wanted to show our support,” Crume said. The foundation urges other local groups and people to join in sponsoring the film, which producers would like to premiere at the Indiana Theatre.

The 3Docs documentary will show that Terre Haute has progressed from those days, Crume said.

“To have people view the city of Terre Haute and ISU in a different light is really a positive thing,” Crume said. The film, as conceived by the producers, “seems to be a very complimentary piece to all parties involved.”

Martin’s literary skills also have appeal to a university, Crume said, as a “thoughtful, educated person.” Martin has written books and commentaries for national publications. Last November, Martin released an autobiography, titled “Born Standing Up,” about his days of performing live on stage.

“It seems like now’s the moment,” Crume said, referring to the “One Wild and Crazy City” project. “He’s open to reconnecting with that part of his life, and Gary and his guys have really tapped into that.”

Wood hopes to persuade Martin to participate and agree to be interviewed. Wood would take his film team to meet Martin anywhere in the country, if necessary, he said. And Wood hopes to interview Carl Reiner, who directed four of Martin’s movies. Reiner also played the diabolical Nazi field marshal in “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid,” whose plot to destroy the world only managed to wipe out Terre Haute. Martin, playing the hero, answered with the classic line, “Damn. And they were just about to get a public library.”

Terre Haute kept its sense of humor. The townspeople played along for Martin’s return tour through a fertilizer plant, a car wash, a diner and a farm implement dealership. At the end, he conceded that Terre Haute transcended his perception as merely a place with TV ads about manure.

“Terre Haute has really got its s--- together,” Steve said, as his tour ended in 1979.

This movie gives the city a chance to reaffirm his outlook.


Casting Call


What: 3Docs Productions of Indianapolis, in association with the ISU Foundation, will film local people for its upcoming documentary, “One Wild and Crazy City,” about Terre Haute’s late-1970s connection to comic actor Steve Martin.

When: Interviews will be filmed from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, June 28, in the Indiana Theatre.

Who: Anyone who attended Martin’s concert Nov. 18, 1978, witnessed his return trip Dec. 7, 1979, saw his movies, remembers the talk around town, or just wants to share a memory or opinion of that saga is welcome. There is no pay involved, but producers say those interviewed will be credited on the movie.

Accessories: Producers ask people to wear brightly colored clothing; a toy arrow-through-the-head is optional. They could come with an original song or poem about those days. “The more outlandish, the more fun, the better,” said co-producer Gary Wood.
- posted by sookeyjane 6/09/2008 03:37:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve- A&E Biography


To see the A&E Biography of Steve, go here. It definitely requires broadband, but has a bunch of great old pics.
- posted by sookeyjane 5/29/2008 12:33:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve and Arianna Huffington pic


You can see a recent pic of Steve with Ariana Huffington from a party in L.A. on 21 May 2008 here.
- posted by sookeyjane 5/27/2008 04:40:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve sings with Lisa Loeb


Lisa Loeb is releasing a new album June 3rd of camp music. Steve does one track on the album with her. I don't know what the song is yet.
- posted by sookeyjane 5/27/2008 04:38:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

And now a second new SM movie with Diane Keaton in the works


Two articles:

http://www.cinematical.com/2008/05/13/steve-martin-and-diane-keaton
-to-re-team-in-another-comedy/cinematical
Steve Martin and Diane Keaton to Re-Team in Another Comedy
Posted May 13th 2008 10:02AM by Peter Martin

A comfortable and charming cinematic couple will reunite in two forthcoming comedies, but which will come first? At the end of March, Monika Bartyzel passed on the news that Steve Martin and Diane Keaton would re-team for the first time in more than a decade for the family comedy One Big Happy. Martin and Keaton were attached to the pitch from Party of Five creators Chris Keyser and Amy Lippman, which Paramount Pictures bought. Keyser and Lippman have other projects in various stages of development and no production timeline was mentioned.

Now, according to Variety, Paramount has bought another comedy pitch, this time from Steve Martin. Producer Robert Simonds presented Martin's idea for a comedy entitled From Zero to Sixty to all the major studios last week and Paramount was the "most aggresive in taking it off the table." Martin and Keaton would play a couple, but no other plot details emerged. Variety says production could start in the fall, but that's assuming a writer can be signed and the script completed very quickly. It may be that Paramount wants to fast track From Zero to Sixty because the script for One Big Happy will take a while to complete because of the writers' other projects.

Martin and Keaton starred together in Father of the Bride in 1991 and then followed that up with the sequel in 1995. Those films were very silly and forgettable, and I imagine these two new comedies will follow a similar path to box office success.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.variety.com/VR1117985544.html
Variety
VFilm
Posted: Mon., May 12, 2008, 8:30pm PT
Martin pitch propels Paramount
Actor will re-team with Diane Keaton
By MICHAEL FLEMING

Paramount Pictures has acquired "From Zero to Sixty," a Steve Martin pitch for a comedy that will reteam him with "Father of the Bride" co-star Diane Keaton.

Robert Simonds will produce.

Simonds pitched Martin's idea last week to each studio, and Par was the most aggressive in taking it off the table. Martin and Keaton would play a couple in the comedy.

WMA repped Martin and Simonds, Endeavor reps Keaton.

Paramount could put the pic into production this fall if a writer is drafted quickly.

Simonds is the producer of the "Pink Panther" series, and he and Martin just wrapped the Harald Zwart-directed "Pink Panther 2," which will be released in February. They have already begun talking with writers about "Pink Panther 3."

Keaton last starred in the Callie Khouri-directed "Mad Money."
- posted by sookeyjane 5/13/2008 04:36:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Why hide Anne?


I just looked at a series of pics of Steve out walking in his NYC neighborhood with his wife, Anne Stringfield, and their dog. According to the photographer, upon seeing paparazzi, Steve walked back leaving his wife (who was walking the dog) to avoid being photographed together.

I wonder why? It's not as though they haven't been photographed together. You never see her in any pics where he attends functions of one sort of another. It leaves people (including me) why he always seems to be without her.

Is it the age difference? Come on, Steve. Quit hiding your wife.
- posted by sookeyjane 5/06/2008 04:16:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve, April Gornick, and Eric Fischl talk about art in connecticut


http://www.newstimes.com/business/ci_9129763?source=rss
Ridgefield, Connecticut Times-News
Knock-knock. Who's there? Steve Martin!
Actor-comic and pair of artists help Aldrich raise $150,000 at dinner
By Deb Keiser
Article Last Updated: 05/02/2008 05:00:20 AM EDT


You can count on Steve Martin to take what could have been a very staid evening at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield and lighten it up.

Not that the actor doesn't take art seriously, he most certainly does. Actually, he's a passionate art collector, which is how he came to speak at the museum's patrons' dinner on Saturday in the first place.

With two friends, Eric Fischl and April Gornik, both contemporary artists, he spoke for about 45 minutes on a topic that usually wouldn't get too many laughs. But in his inimitable way, Martin delivered ad lib from a podium in a museum just as smoothly as he would from a stage in any comedy club.

His arrival at the cocktail reception could have gone unnoticed, but his height (about 6 feet tall) combined with his trademark white hair gave him away. But there was no slapstick, no loud laughter. He skipped the appetizers (which were mouthwatering little creations catered by Abigail Kirsch), and instead of a glass, he held a cap in his hands.

He looked all the serious art collector ­-- very understated in a beige sports jacket, quietly mingling with a group of people he seemed to know well. But his humor never lies too far from the surface: He could be overheard saying (if you got quite close to him), "Did you hear the one about joining a gym in France?"

The punch line was diluted by the ambient noise, but his privacy was completely respected as none of the event supporters approached him. There were no autographs this night. But there were quite a few laughs.

After a short introduction by museum administrators, the panelists stepped up to the podium. Fischl and Gornik (who are husband and wife) first; Martin followed and they all were seated.

Martin took the lead. "I was pleased to hear what it is we are here to talk about because I thought we were supposed to talk about Scientology."

When the laughs from the audience died down, he continued, "OK, so we are talking about art and art collecting. And Erik, why don't you take it from there?"

It became immediately evident that this was an impromptu discussion that was evidently unscripted. But there were no lapses in conversation and the audience -- approximately 140 attended -- enjoyed it.

Designer Alexander Julian, of Ridgefield, called it "a perfect combination of intellect and star power."

Amanda Martocchio of New Canaan said it was a fun, engaging evening.

"The panel discussion had moments of great creative insight, silliness, and relevance," said the architect. "Relaying between Steve Martin's seeking authenticity on stage or in words and Eric's or April's striving for what's real and meaningful on canvas was exhilarating."

Clearly, the three have been friends for many years, and Martin's art collection reflects his support of their work.

Fischl is considered this century's Edward Hopper, and he has been prominent in the art world since the '80s for his poignant representations of psycho-sexual dramas and suburban ennui.

Gornik is a landscape painter, who brings a modernity to the genre that was later discussed by the panel. Both she and her husband have had a long-standing relationship with the Aldrich, having exhibited there in the '80s and '90s.

Martin continued to deflect the spotlight from himself, asking the couple the most basic interview question, "Why did you two become artists?"

Maybe he wasn't really expecting a response, but he got one. Fischl responded quickly by saying, "Boredom. Art is a way of staving off boredom."

"Collecting is that way, too," said Martin. "It's a form of shopping!"

The conversation casually ambled as the artists discussed their work and how their sensibilities developed.

Martin explained that his interest in art began in college with friends who were artists. Since that was the mid-'60s, it was an exciting time in the art world with movements like abstract expressionism, color field and pop all in the forefront.

Yet what he began collecting first was 19th-century American landscape painting in the luminism style that captured the American unique landscape and light.

"Then I got interested in the backs of the paintings which became as interesting as the front. Authenticating a painting ­-- it's like detective work. Then I got interested in art in general"; and then I met you guys!" he said, indicating his two friends.

Martin enjoys Gornik's landscapes because, he said, "You can look at them for years; they don't evaporate. I think of certain pictures as 'never letting you down' ­-- something that keeps you looking at it and is always a pleasure to walk by."

Fischl observed that Martin's art collection is a reflection of his creative mind. "Steve Martin is unpredictable in his collecting of art. He is able to collect obscure artists ad well as the big ones. Yet his collection is cohesive."

Martin replied with humor: "My collection is what was available and what I could afford!"

The Patrons' Dinner raised $150,000 to benefit the museum's exhibition fund. It is one of two major museum fund-raisers for 2008. The second is a secret art sale, Aldrich Undercover, scheduled for Friday, Nov. 21. For more information on the Aldrich, visit www.aldrichart.org.
- posted by sookeyjane 5/04/2008 01:06:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve in Disguise


http://www.nypost.com/seven/04302008/gossip/pagesix/easy_to_spot_108736.htm
Page Six
Richard Johnson
New York Post Online
Essy to Spot

April 30, 2008 -- THE next time Steve Martin wants to go incognito, he shouldn't wear clown glasses. The white-haired comic strolled into the lobby at BAM for pal Paul Simon's show last week and made a beeline through the crowds wearing his trademark fedora. But, said our spy, "He had enormous glasses on. He looked like a cross between the Pink Panther and Richard Nixon . . . People were noticing him . . . he would have been less obvious with the arrow through his head."
- posted by sookeyjane 5/01/2008 10:11:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve and Lorne Michaels go to the premiere of Country Girl


For a pic of the dynamic duo, go here
- posted by sookeyjane 4/28/2008 09:47:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve at Baby Mama Premiere with pics


Pics of Steve at Baby Mama premiere: here, here, and here.


http://nycblog.citysearch.com/imbible/2008/04/tribeca-film-fe.html
Imbible
April 24, 2008
Tribeca Film Festival: Cast of "Baby Mama" Celebrates at the MoMA
Posted at 4:02:57 PM in Celebrity, Events, Gossip, Media, Midtown nightlife, Movies, Parties, Tribeca Film Festival, Videos
by Justine Goodman

The Tribeca Film Festival is off to a strong start, with the stars turning out for last night's world premiere of "Baby Mama" at the Ziegfeld. We were in attendance at the official after-party, held at the Museum of Modern Art, which could have been mistaken for a "Saturday Night Live" reunion. In addition to Lorne Michaels and "Baby Mama" stars Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, guests at the MoMa included a long list of present and former cast-members, like Jimmy Fallon (who eventually left the party with former "SNL" player Chris Kattan), Rachel Dratch, Jason Sudeikis, Fred Armisen, Molly Shannon and even Chevy Chase. But the superstar of the evening was Steve Martin, who sauntered in wearing a panama hat, spent most of his time at a table with Lorne and Chevy and later departed without obliging the fans who were waiting outside for an autograph. (That said, Martin's role in "Baby Mama" is much funnier than the rest of the movie.)

Other big name guests included Poehler's hilarious husband, Will Arnett, Seth Green (of "Family Guy" / "Austin Powers" / "Robot Chicken" fame), and Dax Shepard (whom I profiled in an interview piece last year), who doted on girlfriend Kristen Bell, star of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," most of the night.

Several sad people outside were hoping to catch a glimpse of Robert De Niro, who wasn't even there. One such fan informed me he was also there to see Frank Oz (better known as the voice of Yoda), who was my next-door neighbor on the Upper West Side for many years, and who I didn't see at the MoMa. Just as I was breaking the news that the Oz / De Niro gala must have been on the other side of town, Lorne Michaels walked outside. One eager fan yelled, "Lorne, can I get a picture?" to which Lorne responded, "I'm good, thanks," and jumped in a car.

****
- posted by sookeyjane 4/25/2008 09:20:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Go See Steve if You're in NYC


The premiere of Baby Mama is April 23 in New York City. You can go see Steve arrive if you're in the area.

WHERE: Ziegfeld Theatre
141 West 54th Street
New York City, NY
- posted by sookeyjane 4/17/2008 09:38:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Jack Handey -- and Steve


http://www.charlotte.com/200/story/578174.html
The Charlotte Observer

Jack Handey's thoughts get deeper
By JAKE COYLE
AP Entertainment Writer
Posted on Sat, Apr. 12, 2008

NEW YORK --
Jack Handey thinks dinosaurs are overrated.

"A world ruled by dinosaurs? It didn't make any sense! I could understand a world where dinosaurs had some say - but not rule," he says.

With absurdist musings such as these, Handey has established himself as the strangest of birds: a famous comedian whose platform is not the stage or screen, but the page.

It's been years since his "Deep Thoughts" was a staple on "Saturday Night Live." Since then, longer but equally surreal works by Handey have become commonplace in the pages of The New Yorker and other magazines.

After a series of "Deep Thoughts" paperback collections (a 1994 edition was titled "Deepest Thoughts: So Deep They Squeak") and a "Fuzzy Memories" compilation, which collectively have sold more than 1 million copies, Handey is releasing his first book of longer form material.

"It does feel like an accomplishment, kind of going to the adults table with a hardback cover," Handey said in a recent interview. "It does feel like, OK, this is playing with the big boys."

"What I'd Say to the Martians and Other Veiled Threats," published by Hyperion with a first print run of 25,000 copies, contains a few of his favorite "Deep Thoughts" and a handful of "little tiny stories," such as the dinosaur tale. But the meat of the book is shaped by short pieces such as the title story in which a caged narrator rants to his alien captors.

"So are we so different? Of course, we are, and you will be even more different if I ever finish my homemade flame thrower," he says.

Handey, 59, lives in Santa Fe, N.M., with his wife, Marta, who is also his editor. But that is a much too specific existence for many to accept. For years, some fans assumed he was only a character, a disembodied voice that soothingly read "Deep Thoughts" in the guise of the implausibly named "Jack Handey."

Handey, though, hasn't exactly discouraged this perception. In one of his "Martians" pieces - "How I Want to Be Remembered" - he eulogizes himself: "Jack was an expert in so many fields, it's hard to say what he was best at: the arts, the sciences, or the businesses."

"SNL" is generally reluctant to use a writer's name, preferring to keep the focus on the performers. Handey, though, eventually won the honor, thanks to the strength of his work on penning such sketches as "Unfrozen Cave Man Lawyer."

"The irony is that people think Jack Handey is a made-up name," says Handey. "You can't win is the lesson."

On his Web site, http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com, you can vote on whether Handey is a real person or not. One of the choices is that he's Steve Martin, which isn't a coincidence - the two comedians have a connection that goes back decades.

Handey, who was born in San Antonio and went to the University of Texas at El Paso, began as a newspaper reporter, often writing a humor column when he could. He still recalls the possibly influential headlines of one paper's tabloid evening edition: "Boy, 14, Sold for Chickens."

In the 1970s, Martin and Handey were at one point neighbors in Santa Fe. Martin took notice of Handey's articles and invited him to write jokes for his standup act and, eventually, for a comedy special. Handey calls it his proverbial big break.

A frequent guest on "SNL," Martin recommended to creator Lorne Michaels that Handey be hired because he could simply "write funny."

"Instead of going one leap forward, he goes about three leaps forward," says Martin of Handey's humor. Martin happily recalls jokes Handey wrote for him, like for one bit called "What I Believe" that was rattled off as a list. One entry: "I believe that robots are stealing my luggage."

Martin is also a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, and Handey jokes about their intertwining paths: "So now he can never die because then I would die, too.

"Our minds kind of work a lot in the same way," Handey says. "It's sort of jerk humor, where the character is sort of a jerk."

In "Martians," the characteristics of that character - a kind of alter ego of Handey's that shares his name - are evident in the essays. He often likes to do his "funny cowboy dance" and refers repeatedly to his "friend Don." But above all, he is oblivious to just how disturbing his assumptions are.

"That character is a psychotic person who thinks he's normal and tries to explain away his psychoses as normal," says Handey. "He's sort of a dangerous person who has this facade of normality."

With wavy gray hair, dark-framed glasses and toothy grin, Handey appears to be normal, but by all accounts it's not a facade. His friends call him unpretentious, sweet and bearing no obvious bloodlust for Martians.

His more bizarre pieces include shot-by-shot instructions for a nature documentary (including having a monkey ride atop a giraffe), a pseudo history of a friendship between Al Capone and Albert Einstein (Capone: "With your brains and my muscle, we'll be unstoppable") and the essay "This Is No Game," a list of warnings that includes: "It's as real as a mummy who still thinks he's inside a pyramid, but he's actually in a museum in Ohio."

His jokes often begin with a cliche before diverting in an unpredictable, often demented direction. For example, he writes, "Eventually, I believe, everything evens out. Long ago an asteroid hit our planet and killed our dinosaurs. But in the future, maybe we'll go to another planet and kill their dinosaurs."

Susan Morrison, editor of the "Shouts & Murmurs" section in The New Yorker, says his writing is a feat of control and sustained tone.

"In each of these pieces, he conjures this perfect, seamless world, almost in the way that a really expert fiction writer does," she says. "There's not a false note. Within the first sentence, you're in Jack Handey world."

The brevity is no doubt a result of years of writing "Deep Thoughts."

"Why write a line of exposition when you can write a joke?" Handey says. "Writing 'Deep Thoughts,' it almost reaches a point of, 'How few words can I write to get a laugh?'"

Handey is currently on hiatus from "Deep Thoughts" but believes he'll return to composing his signature material for another book, the title of which he's already chosen: "Please Stop the Deep Thoughts."

He also has a screenplay ("Harv the Barbarian") that's been floating around for years with occasional interest. He counts Monty Python as a major influence, but says that other than his readings on "SNL," he was never tempted to perform.

"I've always enjoyed print more than anything," Handey says. "It doesn't pay a whole lot but you control it and your name's on it."
- posted by sookeyjane 4/15/2008 03:09:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve's new piece in the LA Times


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/la-oe-martin15apr15,0,6136342.story?track=rss

From the Los Angeles Times
Bad-neighbor schedule
By Steve Martin
April 15, 2008

6:30 a.m.: Let Tuffy out for barking session.

7:30 a.m.: Test car alarm.

7:55 a.m.: Bring in Tuffy.

8 a.m.: Clean entire backyard, front porch and driveway with leaf blower.

9 a.m.: One-hour aerobics dance workout.

10:30 a.m.: Rev car engine for one hour.

12 p.m.: Tree trimming!

1 p.m.: Park car in front of neighbor's front path.

2:30 p.m.: Start hammering on metal pipe.

3:30 p.m.: Rev car engine one more time.

4 p.m.: Tuffy needs to go out to communicate with other neighborhood dogs!

4:45 p.m.: Billy's bagpipe lesson.

5 p.m.: Bring in Tuffy.

5:15 p.m.: Host VFW motorcycle club tea.

6 p.m.: Vespers.

6:05 p.m.: Work out bugs in the new buzz saw.

7 p.m.: Whoo hoo! Celebrate Chinese New Year!

9 p.m.: Poor Tuffy needs to pee.

11 p.m.: Madison's grad party with live backyard band.

3:30 a.m.: What's that sound? Oops, forgot to bring Tuffy in!

Steve Martin is the author, most recently, of "Born Standing Up."
- posted by sookeyjane 4/15/2008 02:25:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve article in the Smithsonian


It doesn't say if this is an excerpt from "Born Standing Up." I suspect it is.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/funny-martin-200802.html?c=y&page=1

smithsonian.com
Being Funny
How the pathbreaking comedian got his act together

By Steve Martin
Smithsonian magazine, February 2008

In the late 1960s, comedy was in transition. The older school told jokes and stories, punctuated with the drummer's rimshot. Of the new school, Bill Cosby—one of the first to tell stories you actually believed were true—and Bob Newhart—who startled everyone with innovative, low-key delivery and original material—had achieved icon status. Mort Sahl tweaked both sides of the political fence with his college-prof delivery. George Carlin and Richard Pryor, though very funny, were still a few years away from their final artistic breakthroughs. Lenny Bruce had died several years earlier, fighting both the system and drugs, and his work was already in revival because of his caustic brilliance that made authority nervous. Vietnam, the first televised war, split the country, and one's left or right bent could be recognized by haircuts and clothes. The country was angry, and so was comedy, which was addressed to insiders. Cheech and Chong spoke to the expanding underground by rolling the world's largest doobie on film. There were exceptions: Don Rickles seemed to glide over the generation gap with killer appearances on "The Tonight Show," and Johnny Carson remained a gentle satirist while maintaining a nice glossary of naughty-boy breast jokes. Tim Conway and Harvey Korman, two great comic sketch actors working for the affable genius Carol Burnett, were deeply funny. The television free-for-all called "Laugh-In" kept its sense of joy, thanks in part to Goldie Hawn's unabashed goofiness and producer George Schlatter's perceptive use of her screw-ups, but even that show had high political content. In general, however, a comedian in shackles for indecent language, or a singer's arrest for obscene gestures, thrilled the growing underground audience. Silliness was just not appropriate for hip culture. It was this circumstance that set the stage for my success eight years later.

In a college psychology class, I had read a treatise on comedy explaining that a laugh was formed when the storyteller created tension, then, with the punch line, released it. I didn't quite get this concept, nor do I still, but it stayed with me and eventually sparked my second wave of insights. With conventional joke telling, there's a moment when the comedian delivers the punch line, and the audience knows it's the punch line, and their response ranges from polite to uproarious. What bothered me about this formula was the nature of the laugh it inspired, a vocal acknowledgment that a joke had been told, like automatic applause at the end of a song.

A skillful comedian could coax a laugh with tiny indicators such as a vocal tic (Bob Hope's "But I wanna tell ya") or even a slight body shift. Jack E. Leonard used to punctuate jokes by slapping his stomach with his hand. One night, watching him on "The Tonight Show," I noticed that several of his punch lines had been unintelligible, and the audience had actually laughed at nothing but the cue of his hand slap.

These notions stayed with me until they formed an idea that revolutionized my comic direction: What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told exactly when to laugh.

To test my idea, I went onstage and began: "I'd like to open up with sort of a 'funny comedy bit.' This has really been a big one for me...it's the one that put me where I am today. I'm sure most of you will recognize the title when I mention it; it's the "Nose on Microphone" routine [pause for imagined applause]. And it's always funny, no matter how many times you see it."

I leaned in and placed my nose on the mike for a few long seconds. Then I stopped and took several bows, saying, "Thank you very much." "That's it?" they thought. Yes, that was it. The laugh came not then, but only after they realized I had already moved on to the next bit.

Now that I had assigned myself to an act without jokes, I gave myself a rule. Never let them know I was bombing: this is funny, you just haven't gotten it yet. If I wasn't offering punch lines, I'd never be standing there with egg on my face. It was essential that I never show doubt about what I was doing. I would move through my act without pausing for the laugh, as though everything were an aside. Eventually, I thought, the laughs would be playing catch-up to what I was doing. Everything would be either delivered in passing, or the opposite, an elaborate presentation that climaxed in pointlessness. Another rule was to make the audience believe that I thought I was fantastic, that my confidence could not be shattered. They had to believe that I didn't care if they laughed at all and that this act was going on with or without them.

I was having trouble ending my show. I thought, "Why not make a virtue of it?" I started closing with extended bowing, as though I heard heavy applause. I kept insisting that I needed to "beg off." No, nothing, not even this ovation I am imagining, can make me stay. My goal was to make the audience laugh but leave them unable to describe what it was that had made them laugh. In other words, like the helpless state of giddiness experienced by close friends tuned in to each other's sense of humor, you had to be there.

At least that was the theory. And for the next eight years, I rolled it up a hill like Sisyphus.

My first reviews came in. One said, "This so-called 'comedian' should be told that jokes are supposed to have punch lines." Another said I represented "the most serious booking error in the history of Los Angeles music."

"Wait," I thought, "let me explain my theory!"

Page 2

In Los Angeles, there were an exploding number of afternoon television talk shows: "The Della Reese Show," "The Merv Griffin Show," "The Virginia Graham Show," "The Dinah Shore Show," "The Mike Douglas Show" and my favorite, "The Steve Allen Show." Steve Allen had a vibrant comedy spirit, and you might catch him playing Ping-Pong while suspended from a crane a hundred feet in the air, or becoming a human tea bag by dropping himself in a tank of water filled with lemons. In his standard studio audience warm-up, when he was asked, "Do they get this show in Omaha?" Steve would answer, "They see it, but they don't get it."

On May 6, 1969, I wangled an audition for Steve Allen's two producers, Elias Davis and David Pollock. They accepted me with more ease than I expected, and for my first appearance on "The Steve Allen Show"—which was also my first appearance on television as a stand-up—I wore black pants and a bright blue marching-band coat I had picked up in a San Francisco thrift shop. Steve's introduction of me was ad-libbed perfectly. "This next young man is a comedian, and..." he stammered, "...at first you might not get it"—he stammered again—"but then you think about it for a while, and you still don't get it"—stammer, stammer—"then, you might want to come up onstage and talk to him about it."

The "Steve Allen" appearance went well—he loved the offbeat, and his cackle was enough to make any comedian feel confident. Seated on the sofa, though, I was hammered by another guest, Morey Amsterdam of "The Dick Van Dyke Show," for being unconventional. But I bore no grudge; I was so naive I didn't even know I had been insulted. The "Steve Allen" credit opened a few doors, and I bounced around all of the afternoon shows, juggling material, trying not to repeat myself.

I recently viewed a musty video of an appearance on "The Virginia Graham Show," circa 1970. I looked grotesque. I had a hairdo like a helmet, which I blow-dried to a puffy bouffant, for reasons I no longer understand. I wore a frock coat and a silk shirt, and my delivery was mannered, slow and self-aware. I had absolutely no authority. After reviewing the show, I was depressed for a week. But later, searching my mind for at least one redeeming quality in the performance, I became aware that not one joke was normal, that even though I was the one who said the lines, I did not know what was coming next. The audience might have thought what I am thinking now: "Was that terrible? Or was it good?"

From these television appearances, I got a welcome job in 1971 with Ann-Margret, five weeks opening the show for her at the International Hilton in Vegas, a huge, unfunny barn with sculptured pink cherubs hanging from the corners of the proscenium. Laughter in these poorly designed places rose a few feet into the air and dissipated like steam, always giving me the feeling I was bombing. One night, from my dressing room, I saw a vision in white gliding down the hall—a tall, striking woman, moving like an apparition along the backstage corridor. It turned out to be Priscilla Presley, coming to visit Ann-Margret backstage after having seen the show. When she turned the corner, she revealed an even more indelible presence walking behind her. Elvis. Dressed in white. Jet-black hair. A diamond-studded buckle.

When Priscilla revealed Elvis to me, I was also revealed to Elvis. I'm sure he noticed that this 25-year-old stick figure was frozen firmly to the ground. About to pass me by, Elvis stopped, looked at me and said in his beautiful Mississippi drawl: "Son, you have an ob-leek sense of humor." Later, after his visit with Ann-Margret, he stopped by my dressing room and told me that he, too, had an oblique sense of humor—which he did—but that his audience didn't get it. Then he said, "Do you want to see my guns?" After emptying the bullets into his palm, he showed me two pistols and a derringer.

The plum television appearance during the '60s and '70s was "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." Bob Shayne, who in the late '60s booked "The Steve Allen Show," had moved over to "The Tonight Show" and mentioned me to its producer, Freddy De Cordova. Bob showed Freddy a kinescope of my appearance on "The Steve Allen Show," and Fred replied, "I don't think he's for us." But Bob persisted, and Johnny saw the kinescope and said, "Let's give him a try." I was booked on the show in October 1972.

There was a belief that one appearance on "The Tonight Show" made you a star. But here are the facts. The first time you do the show, nothing. The second time you do the show, nothing. The sixth time you do the show, someone might come up to you and say, "Hi, I think we met at Harry's Christmas party." The tenth time you do the show, you could conceivably be remembered as being seen somewhere on television. The 12th time you do the show, you might hear, "Oh, I know you. You're that guy."

But I didn't know that. Before the show, as I stood in the backstage darkness behind the curtain of "The Tonight Show," hearing the muffled laughter while Johnny spoke and waiting for the tap on the shoulder that would tell me I was on, an italicized sentence ticker-taped through my head: "I am about to do 'The Tonight Show.'" Then I walked out onstage, started my act and thought, "I am doing 'The Tonight Show.'" I finished my act and thought, "I have just done 'The Tonight Show.'" What happened while I was out there was very similar to an alien abduction: I remember very little of it, though I'm convinced it occurred.

I did the show successfully several times. I was doing material from my act, best stuff first, and after two or three appearances, I realized how little best stuff I had. After I'd gone through my stage material, I started doing some nice but oddball bits such as "Comedy Act for Dogs" (first done on "Steve Allen"), in which I said, "A lot of dogs watch TV, but there's really nothing on for them, so call your dog over and let him watch because I think you're going to see him crack up for the first time." Then I brought out four dogs "that I can perform to so I can get the timing down." While I did terrible canine-related jokes, the dogs would walk off one at a time, with the last dog lifting his leg on me. The studio audience saw several trainers out of camera range, making drastic hand signals, but the home TV audience saw only the dogs doing their canine best.

Another time I claimed that I could read from the phone book and make it funny. I opened the book and droned the names to the predictable silence, then I pretended to grow more and more desperate and began to do retro shtick such as cracking eggs on my head. I got word that Johnny was not thrilled, and I was demoted to appearing with guest hosts, which I tried not to admit to myself was a devastating blow.

For the next few years, I was on the road with an itinerary designed by the Marquis de Sade. But there was a sexy anonymity about the travel; I was living the folkie myth of having no ties to anyone, working small clubs and colleges in improvised folk rooms that were usually subterranean. In this netherworld, I was free to experiment. There were no mentors to tell me what to do; there were no guidebooks for doing stand-up. Everything was learned in practice, and the lonely road, with no critical eyes watching, was the place to dig up my boldest, or dumbest, ideas and put them onstage. After a show, preoccupied by its success or failure, I would return to my motel room and glumly watch the three TV channels sign off the air at 11:30, knowing I had at least two more hours to stare at the ceiling before the adrenaline eased off and I could fall asleep.

Page 3

When necessary, I could still manage to have a personality, and sometimes I was rescued by a local girl who actually liked me. Occasionally the result was an erotic tryst enhanced by loneliness. Perhaps the women saw it as I did, an encounter free from obligation: the next day I would be gone. I had also refined my pickup technique. If I knew I would be returning to a club, I tweaked my hard-learned rule, "Never hit on a waitress the first night," to "Never hit on a waitress for six months." I came off as coolly reserved, as I would harmlessly flirt on my first visit; by my next visit, everything was in place. Soon the six months caught up with me, and I always had someone I could latch onto as I rolled from town to town.

In Los Angeles one week, I opened the show for Linda Ronstadt at the Troubadour club; she sang barefoot on a raised stage and wore a silver lamé dress that stopped a millimeter below her panties, causing the floor of the club to be slick with drool. Linda and I saw each other for a while, but I was so intimidated by her talent and street smarts that, after the ninth date, she said, "Steve, do you often date girls and not try to sleep with them?" We parted chaste.

At the end of my closing-night show at the Troubadour, I stood onstage and took out five bananas. I peeled them, put one on my head, one in each pocket and squeezed one in each hand. Then I read the last line of my latest bad review: "Sharing the bill with Poco this week is comedian Steve Martin...his 25-minute routine failed to establish any comic identity that would make the audience remember him or the material." Then I walked off the stage.

The consistent work enhanced my act. I learned a lesson: it was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the circumstances. Performing in so many varied situations made every predicament manageable, from Toronto, where I performed next to an active salad bar, to the well-paying but soul-killing Playboy Clubs, where I was almost but not quite able to go over. But as I continued to work, my material grew; I came up with odd little gags such as "How many people have never raised their hands before?"

Because I was generally unknown, I was free to gamble with material, and there were a few evenings when crucial mutations affected my developing act. At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, I played for approximately 100 students in a classroom with a stage at one end. The show went fine. However, when it was over, something odd happened. The audience didn't leave. The stage had no wings, no place for me to go, but I still had to pack up my props. I indicated that the show had ended, but they just sat there, even after I said flatly, "It's over." They thought this was all part of the act, and I couldn't convince them otherwise. Then I realized there were no exits from the stage and that the only way out was to go through the audience. So I kept talking. I passed among them, ad-libbing comments along the way. I walked out into the hallway, but they followed me there too. A reluctant pied piper, I went outside onto the campus, and they stayed right behind me. I came across a drained swimming pool. I asked the audience to get into it—"Everybody into the pool!"—and they did. Then I said I was going to swim across the top of them, and the crowd knew exactly what to do: I was passed hand over hand as I did the crawl. That night I went to bed feeling I had entered new comic territory. My show was becoming something else, something free and unpredictable, and the doing of it thrilled me, because each new performance brought my view of comedy into sharper focus.

The act tightened. It became more physical. It was true I couldn't sing or dance, but singing funny and dancing funny were another matter. All I had to do was free my mind and start. I would abruptly stop the show and sing loudly, in my best lounge-singer voice, "Grampa bought a rubber." Walking up to the mike, I would say, "Here's something you don't often see," and I'd spread my mouth wide with my fingers and leap into the air while screaming. Or, invoking a remembered phrase from my days working in a magic shop, I would shout, "Uh-oh, I'm getting happy feet!" and then dance uncontrollably across the stage, my feet moving like Balla's painting of a Futurist dog, while my face told the audience that I wanted to stop but couldn't. Closing the show, I'd say, "I'd like to thank each and every one of you for coming here tonight." Then I would walk into the audience and, in fast motion, thank everyone individually.

The new physicality brought an unexpected element into the act: precision. My routines wove the verbal with the physical, and I found pleasure trying to bring them in line. Each spoken idea had to be physically expressed as well. My teenage attempt at a magician's grace was being transformed into an awkward comic grace. I felt as though every part of me was working. Some nights it seemed that it wasn't the line that got the laugh, but the tip of my finger. I tried to make voice and posture as crucial as jokes and gags. Silence, too, brought forth laughs. Sometimes I would stop and, saying nothing, stare at the audience with a look of mock disdain, and on a good night, it struck us all as funny, as if we were in on the joke even though there was no actual joke we could point to. Finally, I understood an E. E. Cummings quote I had puzzled over in college: "Like the burlesque comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement." Precision was moving the plot forward, was filling every moment with content, was keeping the audience engaged.

The act was becoming simultaneously smart and stupid. My version of smart was to imbue a hint of conceptualism into the whole affair: my singalong had some funny lyrics, but it was also impossible to sing along with. My version of stupid: "Oh, gosh! My sh
oelace is untied!" I would bend down, see that my shoelace was not untied, stand up and say, "Oh, I love playing jokes on myself!"

I had the plumber joke, which was impossible to understand even for plumbers: "OK, I don't like to gear my material to the audience, but I'd like to make an exception, because I was told that there is a convention of plumbers in town this week—I understand about 30 of them came down to the show tonight—so before I came out, I worked up a joke especially for the plumbers. Those of you who aren't plumbers probably won't get this and won't think it's funny, but I think those of you who are plumbers will really enjoy this. This lawn supervisor was out on a sprinkler maintenance job, and he started working on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom seven-inch gangly wrench. Just then this little apprentice leaned over and said, 'You can't work on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom seven-inch wrench.' Well, this infuriated the supervisor, so he went and got Volume 14 of the Kinsley manual, and he reads to him and says, 'The Langstrom seven-inch wrench can be used with the Findlay sprocket.' Just then the little apprentice leaned over and says, 'It says sprocket, not socket!' [Worried pause.] "Were these plumbers supposed to be here this show?"

Around this time I smelled a rat. The rat was the Age of Aquarius. Though the era's hairstyles, clothes and lingo still dominated youth culture, by 1972 the movement was tired and breaking down. Drugs had killed people, and so had Charles Manson. The war in Vietnam was near its official end, but its devastating losses had embittered and divided America. The political scene was exhausting, and many people, including me, were alienated from government. Murders and beatings at campus protests weren't going to be resolved by sticking a daisy into the pointy end of a rifle. Flower Power was waning, but no one wanted to believe it yet, because we had all invested so much of ourselves in its message. Change was imminent.

I cut my hair, shaved my beard and put on a suit. I stripped my act of all political references. To politics I was saying, "I'll get along without you very well. It's time to be funny." Overnight, I was no longer at the tail end of an old movement but at the front end of a new one. Instead of looking like another freak with a crazy act, I now looked like a visitor from the straight world who had gone seriously awry. The act's unbridled nonsense was taking the audience—and me—on a wild ride, and my growing professionalism, founded on thousands of shows, created a subliminal sense of authority that made members of the audience feel they weren't being had.

Between 1973 and 1975, my one-man vaudeville show turned fully toward the surreal. I was linking the unlinkable, blending economy and extravagance, non sequiturs with the conventional. I was all over the place, sluicing the gold from the dirt, honing the edge that confidence brings. I cannot say I was fearless, because I was acutely aware of any audience drift, and if I sensed trouble, I would swerve around it. I believed it was important to be funny now, while the audience was watching, but it was also important to be funny later, when the audience was home and thinking about it. I didn't worry if a bit got no response, as long as I believed it had enough strangeness to linger. My friend Rick Moranis (whose imitation of Woody Allen was so precise that it made Woody seem like a faker) called my act's final manifestation "anti-comedy."

Page 4

In Florida one night, I was ready to put my experience at Vanderbilt into effect. The night was balmy and I was able to take the audience outside into the street and roam around in front of the club, making wisecracks. I didn't quite know how to end the show. First I started hitchhiking; a few cars passed me by. Then a taxi came by. I hailed it and got in. I went around the block, returned and waved at the audience—still standing there—then drove off and never came back. The next morning I received one of the most crucial reviews of my life. John Huddy, the respected entertainment critic for the Miami Herald, devoted his entire column to my act. Without qualification, he raved in paragraph after paragraph, starting with HE PARADES HIS HILARITY RIGHT OUT INTO THE STREET, and concluded with: "Steve Martin is the brightest, cleverest, wackiest new comedian around." Oh, and the next night the club owner made sure all tabs had been paid before I took the audience outside.

Roger Smith had told me that when he came to Hollywood from El Paso to be an actor, he had given himself six months to get work. The time elapsed, and he packed up his car, which was parked on Sunset Boulevard, where his final audition would be. Informed that he was not right for the job, he went out and started up his car. He was about to pull away, away to El Paso, when there was a knock on his windshield. "We saw you in the hall. Would you like to read for us?" the voice said. He was then cast as the star of the hit television show "77 Sunset Strip." My review from John Huddy was the knock on the window just as I was about to get in my car and drive to a metaphorical El Paso, and it gave me a psychological boost that allowed me to nix my arbitrarily chosen 30-year-old deadline to reenter the conventional world. The next night and the rest of the week the club was full, all 90 seats.

I continued to appear on "The Tonight Show," always with a guest host, doing material I was developing on the road. Then I got a surprise note from Bob Shayne: "We had a meeting with Johnny yesterday, told him you'd been a smash twice with guest hosts, and he agrees you should be back on with him. So I think that hurdle is over." In September 1974, I was booked on the show with Johnny.

This was welcome news. Johnny had comic savvy. The daytime television hosts, with the exception of Steve Allen, did not come from comedy. I had a small routine that went like this: "I just bought a new car. It's a prestige car. A '65 Greyhound bus. You know you can get up to 30 tons of luggage in one of those babies? I put a lot of money into it....I put a new dog on the side. And if I said to a girl, 'Do you want to get in the back seat?' I had, like, 40 chances." Etc. Not great, but at the time it was working. It did, however, require all the pauses and nuance that I could muster. On "The Merv Griffin Show," I decided to use it for panel, meaning I would sit with Merv and pretend it was just chat. I began: "I just bought a new car. A '65 Greyhound bus." Merv, friendly as ever, interrupted and said, "Now, why on earth would you buy a Greyhound bus?" I had no prepared answer; I just stared at him. I thought, "Oh my God, because it's a comedy routine." And the bit was dead. Johnny, on the other hand, was the comedian's friend. He waited; he gave you your timing. He lay back and stepped in like Ali, not to knock you out but to set you up. He struggled with you too and sometimes saved you.

I was able to maintain a personal relationship with Johnny over the next 30 years, at least as personal as he or I could make it, and I was flattered that he came to respect my comedy. On one of my appearances, after he had done a solid impression of Goofy the cartoon dog, he leaned over to me during a commercial and whispered prophetically, "You'll use everything you ever knew." He was right; 20 years later I did my teenage rope tricks in the movie ¡Three Amigos!

Johnny once joked in his monologue: "I announced that I was going to write my autobiography, and 19 publishers went out and copyrighted the title Cold and Aloof." This was the common perception of him. But Johnny was not aloof; he was polite. He did not presume intimate relationships where there were none; he took time, and with time grew trust. He preserved his dignity by maintaining the personality that was appropriate for him.

Johnny enjoyed the delights of split-second timing, of watching a comedian squirm and then rescue himself, of the surprises that can arise in the seconds of desperation when the comedian senses that his joke might fall to silence. For my first show back, I chose to do a bit I had developed years earlier. I speed-talked a Vegas nightclub act in two minutes. Appearing on the show was Sammy Davis Jr., who, while still performing energetically, had also become a historic showbiz figure. I was whizzing along, singing a four-second version of "Ebb Tide," then saying at lightning speed, "Frank Sinatra personal friend of mine Sammy Davis Jr. personal friend of mine Steve Martin I'm a personal friend of mine too and now a little dancin'!" I started a wild flail, which I must say was pretty funny, when a showbiz miracle occurred. The camera cut away to a dimly lit Johnny, just as he whirled up from his chair, doubling over with laughter. Suddenly, subliminally, I was endorsed. At the end of the act, Sammy came over and hugged me. I felt like I hadn't been hugged since I was born.

This was my 16th appearance on the show, and the first one I could really call a smash. The next day, elated by my success, I walked into an antiques store on La Brea. The woman behind the counter looked at me.

"Are you that boy who was on "The Tonight Show" last night?"

"Yes," I said.

"Yuck!" she blurted out.
- posted by sookeyjane 4/15/2008 02:24:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 

Steve takes a lickin


Okay, this is a bit old, but I just found it. To see the pic of Leelee, go to the url listed at the top.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedishrag/2007/02/breast-in-show-.html
The Dish Rag by Elizabeth Snead
4 Feb 2007
Breast in Show at the DGA Awards

And the breast-dressed DGA award goes to ....
It's a dead heat between the tiny award-winning actress America Ferrara ("Ugly Betty") and the statuesque LeeLee Sobieski ("Eyes Wide Shut"). Both presenters displayed their truly remarkable cleavage at the Saturday night awards. America had help from the boosting bodice on her Monique Lhuillier black lace off-the-shoulder, nipped-waist dress. She also wore cute peep toe red satin pumps, but few noticed. LeeLee's impressive bosom earned FX bonus points for displaying no visible means of support. And it definitely captured Steve Martin's vote.

Onstage to present an award to Carl Reiner, the show's host of 20-years, Martin told the audience, "I've been backstage trying to convince LeeLee Sobieski that the best way to remove double stick tape is with saliva."
- posted by sookeyjane 4/09/2008 02:40:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS