The Greatest Showbiz Story Ever Told

When I was 8 years old, I used to listen to my parents’ comedy albums. Whatever they had. Arnold Stang, Vaughn Meader’s, “The First Family.” My favorite one was “Nichols and May Examine Doctors.”

Now this was pretty sophisticated stuff for an 8-year old. In fact, I know a lot of people who are in the twenties, thirties, forties and older who would miss the gorgeous gems in this album. I got it. I was innately drawn to it, for whatever reason, and it would begin to etch in me what would eventually become my life’s work and my love for comedy.

Every track on the album had to do with something about doctors - doctors and patients, house calls, a relationship between a doctor and his nurse, Dr. Schweitzer, etc. I listened to this album I would say religiously if the word religiously didn’t have such pejorative connotations for me. So, I will say that I listened to this album regularly and passionately. I memorized the entire album - all of the dialogue, the accents, the timing. Everything. I knew it like it was a part of me.

Every night, when I would go to bed, my mother would come into my room and tuck me in, sit on the side of my bed, listen to me say my prayers (something about dying before I go to sleep, I remember), and then I would do a selection off the album for her.

I don’t recall her reaction. I don’t think she laughed or applauded or commended me for the thoroughness of my work. I think she just sat there, blankly, saying something like, “That’s nice.” (I can’t imagine not being thrilled if my daughter did anything like that, but that’s just me.)

Anyway, the years went by, and “Nichols and May Examine Doctors” stuck in my head. When I met Jerry Seinfeld, when he and I were just kids, 16 and 15, on a teen tour to Israel, and we would talk about becoming comedians, I used to do one of the tracks for him: It was the one about Doris Finch, the wife of the dentist, Ed Finch, who, after having wandered off the tour, dropped in on Dr. Albert Schweitzer in his private quarters in Africa. At the end of that piece, Doris is trying to get Dr. Schweitzer to take a picture of her and Ed standing in front of Schweitzer’s organ (the musical instrument, that is), and then get Schweitzer to autograph for them. You hear Doris running off to get her husband, and, as she exits, she screams, “ED!” in a way that sounds like two syllables - “EH-YED!” Jerry always hated when I did that. I think the sound of it made him cringe. I’m pretty sure that was the intended effect, that this woman could irritate even the world’s greatest philanthropist.

Anyway, I am digressing, because that is not the Great Showbiz Story.

Fast-forward to many years hence, when I have become a comedian, and I am getting ready to do my first “Tonight Show” appearance. Whenever I was getting ready to do a show, I would put on my make-up and listen to music. So, this time, I wondered what music did I want to listen to as I prepared to do my maiden “Tonight Show.”

And then it hit me: I would listen to Nichols and May Examine Doctors. I had a turntable - it was 1989 - and it seemed to me the perfect circle: Listening to the thing that first inspired me to become what I became as I was about to go do what was considered one of the apexes of my field. It was a beautiful moment.

A few years later, when I was asked to write a sidebar blurb for a book called, “Comedians,” for the Museum of Television and Radio (now the Museum of Broadcasting), I wrote about that moment.

More years go by, and it’s time for The American Comedy Awards annual event. That year, Mike Nichols was being honored. When I heard that, I decided that I would bring my Nichols and May Examine Doctors album to the awards ceremony, and I would ask Mike Nichols to autograph for me. (Just like Doris Finch asked Schweitzer.) I did, and he did. His wife, Diane Sawyer, seemed pretty thrilled to look at the album cover with her husband pictured there, so young and handsome, along with the beautiful Elaine May. Mike was very nice, and I was so excited. The material that was my life was weaving together so poetically.

A few years later, I get a call from my agent. I have an audition for a part in a Mike Nichols film, “What Planet Are You From?,” written by and starring Garry Shandling. Man, I was so excited. I auditioned for the casting director, the wonderful Ellen Lewis, and it seemed to go pretty well. The next day I got a phone call from my agent: I had a callback. And I would be auditioning for Mike Nichols. I was elated.

After considering for a moment whether I wanted to go in there and appear cool and professional and just do my job and audition or go all out and be a huge Mike Nichols fan, I chose that latter. I figured, what the hell, here was my chance to do my work in front of Mike Nichols and show him how much he had meant to me over the years. I didn’t care if he thought I was an idiot. I didn’t think I was an idiot. (Not that day, anyway.)

So, I made a photocopy of the blurb I had written in the “Comedians” book, and I put it in an envelope, and I brought along the album that he’d autographed for me a few years before that. He seemed pretty amused by it all. And the audition went well. And then I didn’t hear anything. So, I assumed that I didn’t get the part. Oh, well.

About a month goes by, and I get a call from my agent. I got the job. Wow. Wow! I was going to work with Mike Nichols. I could not have been happier. It was one day of work, but what a day!

So, I showed up on the set, which was a house in the Antelope Valley. I got into my wardrobe and make-up and did the usual waiting around that is so inherent in acting in movies.

At one point, the crew and everyone were outside on the patio of this house, and I happened to be standing next to Mike Nichols. He was setting up a shot with his director of photography, and Mike and I were standing shoulder to shoulder. Just random placement.

And I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t think about it, or consider it, it just happened. I started to do a track from the album.

I said, “Gauze.”

Mike said, “Gauze.”

I said, “Gauze.”

Mike said, “More gauze.”

I said, “More gauze.”

Mike said, “More gauze.”

I said, “That’s all the gauze, I don’t know what happened, we had a small roll of gauze --”

And it went on a little like this until I got confused as to whose part I was doing - see, on the album, Mike had the opening line, but I had opened here, so I didn’t know where I was in the scene.

And I said to him, “Do you know what it’s like to be doing this with Mike Nichols?”

And he said, “Do you know what it’s like to BE Mike Nichols?”

And I laughed and ran off to tell my husband and stepdaughter who were visiting me on the set.

I will never forget that day, when my childhood dream not only became a reality but came to life, fully, full-circle. No matter what happens to me in my life, in my career, I will always have this.