On this particular Friday,
little Gilda has plopped herself
on a pink shag rug; stuffed toys
and dollhouses at her fingertips.
She is playing with her Looking
For Mr. Goodbar Sleepytime
Playset, and an impish grin of
delight crosses her face as she
dances her Diane Keaton doll
around an imaginary singles
bar with a plastic businessman.
But little Gilda misses the
point of this game. Rather than
have her dollies boogie the
night away, Gilda is told that
the object is for Dian Keaton to
pick up as many strange men as
possible before being killed.
So
after
a
few
Tequila
Sunrises, Gilda guides Diane
Keaton
and
the
plastic
businessman to Diane’s singles
apartment. There, pony-tailed
Gilda has a real neato night in
store for her friends. They’ll
make cookies and toast and
have lots and lots of fun.
Little
Gilda,
however,
is
informed
that
the
night’s
agenda is much too mild to
merit Judith Rossner’s raunchy
novel. So with a momentary
glimmer in her eye, Gilda picks
up her plastic businessman and
wrecks havoc on the defenseless
body of Diane Keaton.
“I’m big and I’m strong and
I’m gonna kiss you all over
with my big fat slimy slips.”
Then, with an angelic look, she
inquires, “Did I win yet?”
No, Gilda is told, you did not
win. You don’t win ‘til Diane
Keaton loses.
“Now take Diane back to the
singles bar and pick up your
psychotic blonde homosexual.”
Gilda obliges and grasps her
psychotic blonde homosexual.
But once again, a confused look
clouds her face and, ever so
innocently, she asks: “What’s a
psychotic blonde homosexual?”
This is a rehearsal on the
set of NBC’s “Saturday Night
Live,” and little Gilda is Gilda
Radner
—
a
once
obscure
weathergirl for Ann Arbor’s
WCBN who is now a somewhat
obscure TV crack-up. Unless
you watch “Saturday Night
Live,” you probably haven’t the
foggiest idea who Gilda Radner
is. If that’s the case, then
you’ve probably never heard of
Emily Letella, Rhonda Weiss,
Roseanne Rosannadana, Lisa
Leubner and Baba Wawa. Gilda
Radner is all those people.
But, more than anything else,
Gilda Radner is your little sister,
or the nerdy girl down the aisle
in Hebrew School or the funny
kid with the big mouth.
She’s
well
past
her
adolescence but, like a child
waiting impatiently for her
next birthday, she measures her
age in fractions — “thirty-one-
and-a-half.”
“I
never
grew
up,”
she
explains.
If that’s true, then you can
reckon Gilda Radner is the first
person to ever make her career
by not growing up.
***
It’s a madhouse this Friday
on the eighth floor of New
York’s towering NBC Building.
Performers
and
stagehands
and producers are running
around with props and scripts
and directions in preparation
for the next day’s show. Inside
the studio, its stage and sets
bathed in light, workmen are
hammering away at makeshift
wooden scenery and performers
are practicing their skits with
help from big white cue cards.
Somewhere
in
the
his
mélange is Gilda Radner, and
a lot of people want to know
where she is. A small, frail-
looking woman with a smooth,
porcelain
complexion
and
brown hair tied back in a pony
tail, she looks more like a
Campfire Girl than a member
of the Not Ready for Prime
Time Players, the troupe of
young comics without whom
there’d be no “Saturday Night
Live.” She has just returned
from London, where she taped
a guest spot on the “Muppets
Show,” and she looks worn and
jet-lagged. Be brief, we’re told,
and concise. Gilda’s busy and
tired.
Inside the small, Spartan
dressing room that she shares
with
fellow
Prime
Timers
Jane
Curtin
and
Laraine
Newman, Radner curls up on
a sofa and reaches for a tray
of cheese and crackers. She
lights up a Virginia Slim. She
offers her guests Tabs. And she
commences to tell how a pudgy
Detroit girl — a University of
Michigan drop-out, no less
— has managed to establish
herself as a cult heroine among
late-night TV addicts.
Much of what she does,
Radner says, is drawn from her
youth.
“What I do in comedy I call
bedroom comedy,” she says.
“It’s like the stuff you did
in your bedroom with your
girlfriends during a slumber
party. I also used to shut myself
in the brother’s room and
pantomime to records and do
stuff in the mirror.”
By her own accounts, Radner
has an exceptional childhood.
Born
in
1946
for
a
Rita
Hayworth movie that year, she
lived in the Palmer Park section
of Detroit. A plump, ungainly
girl, Radner recalls spending
many an hour glued to the TV
set, delighting to the antics of
Lucille Ball, Steve Allen, Pinky
Lee and the folks on “Your
Show of Shows.”
“I’m a child of television,”
she says. “I ate all my meals
in front of the television. As a
kid I’d pack a lunch in a brown
paper bag from the kitchen and
go eat it in front of the TV.”
That probably didn’t help her
weight problem any, but Radner
says
those
early
television
shows influenced the course of
her comedy.
***
When she wasn’t watching
television, Radner spent her
time tagging along
with Mrs. Gillies,
a
nursemaid
who
carved
for
Gilda
during most of her
childhood.
“I grew up with
her,
spent
every
minute
with
her.
It
was
me
and
somebody fifty years
older, and we had
tea parties together
and I’d go with her
on her day off and
visit
her
spinster
cousins.”
“And that was my
whole growing up,”
she
adds.
“More
than having friends
my own age, she was
my best friend.”
In
fact,
Mrs.
Gillies,
now
84,
eventually
became
Emily Letella, the
misconstrued dodo
who rebuts editorials and has
become one of Radner’s most
popular characters.
Radner
broadened
her
horizons
after
coming
to
the University. Spurned by
Northwestern because of low
board scores, she majored in
theater, landed her first job as
WCBN’s weathergirl and moved
into an Alice Lloyd triple with
Alice and Barbara. (“I hated
it.”) She was even picked up
for disorderly conduct one day
for singing and dancing on the
bank of the Huron River.
One
of
her
greatest
disappointments, she recalled,
was not being cast for a
production
of
Troilus
and
Cressida
in
Mendelssohn
Theater.
Realizing that her destiny
did
not
encompass
the
Shakespearean stage, Radner
veered
off
into
children’s
theater.
“I used to have the loudest
voice, so I was always the witch
in the play,” she says.
She was busy with other
productions, too — plays like
“Camelot,”
“Lysistrata”
and
“She Stoops to Conquer.”
“I mention it a lot because
I value that experience,” she
says. “Coming to where I am
now, I’ve sat in a costume
room… and sewed a rolled hem
on a chiffon skirt. You know,
the most boring thing… Which
means I can now remember to
appreciate the people who are
doing it for me.
“It’s those years that make
me feel like I kind of paid my
dues.”
Radner was so busy with
children’s theater, in fact, that
she missed out on many of
the campus activities which
epitomized the ‘60s.
***
“Most of my friends were
in journalism and political
science,” she says, pausing to
sip from her can of Tab. “And
when I’d be going off to do a
children’s show, they’d be going
off to protest at some radical
political meeting. I was always
feeling guilty about not going
their way.”
But that guilt has disappeared
now that Radner is on a show
which, through parodies and
satire, is politically vocal. “I
find it interesting now,” she
says. “But as guilty as I felt
then about not being politically
active when so many of my
friends were… I’m able to reach
more people now than was ever
done back in college.”
Radner didn’t stick out her
stay at the University. (She
never finished Hebrew school,
either.) With one semester to
go, she left for Canada because,
she says with a dreamy smile, “I
fell in love.”
There, she landed a part
in
the
Toronto
Company’s
production of Godspell, and
tried to earn her diploma —
first through a correspondence
course with the University
of Wisconsin, and then night
classes at the University of
Toronto. Michigan, however,
didn’t accept her credits. “I
have all the education,” she
beams, “but no diploma.”
Meantime, Radner did some
National Lampoon shows and
latched up with a Chicago-
based improvisational group
called Second City, where many
of the Prime Time Players
honed their comedy skills. The
producer of “Saturday Night
Live,” who knew her work,
asked her to join the show. She
never auditioned.
***
So
here’s
Gilda
today,
sitting in her
dressing room
with her Tab,
her
crackers
and
a
well-
deserved
respite
from
the
insanity
which reigns
outside
the
door.
Thursdays,
Fridays
and
Saturdays are
ridiculous
on the set of
“Saturday
Night Live” —
people
work
late into the
evening — and
performers
like
Radner
must
savior
those
moments
when
they
can
cloister
themselves
from
stage
directions, script changes and
cue cards.
In this sense, it’s just a job
as far as Radner’s concerned —
analogous, she says, to working
in a deli. Sure she gets sick of
it, Radner says, but just like the
guy who slices pastrami, she’s
got a job to do: she’s a working
actress on a top rated and that’s
that.
***
It’s
late
afternoon
and
Radner is called back into the
studio to rehearse the Looking
For Mr. Goodbar skit. Under the
glare of lights and the scrutiny
of about a dozen people, she
sheds her 31 years and becomes
the little girl with the confused,
angelic grin. For more than 30
minutes, she rehearses her
lines, switches props, suggests
changes in the script, is told to
move over, or repeat something,
or cut such and such from her
monologue.
Afterwards,
she
departs to fetch a tray of food
from the NBC cafeteria. Gilda’s
going to eat dinner and rest
now, we’re told. She’ll see you
again later. Just be patient.
Everything
Radner
does during the week is in
preparation for the 90 minute
show broadcast live Saturday
nights at 11:30. “I think of it
as an opening night,” she says
of the actual show, one of the
only live programs left on
network TV. “Each show is like
the opening night of an under-
rehearsed Off-Broadway show…
and we’re never getting to do it
again.”
She
credits
her
stage
experience
with
preparing
her for the rigors of “Saturday
Night Live.” And she credits
“Saturday Night Live” with
preparing her for what lies
ahead in her performing future.
“Before I did this show I
never performed alone, I always
performed in groups,” she says.
“Now I have monologues and
character that work alone. I
cannot believe it, but I have
enough material now that I do
by myself that I can now go
(somewhere else) and do it.”
What will you be doing at
age 41, Gilda? Stage? Perhaps.
Movies? Maybe.
Like a preoccupied child, she
has no idea where she’ll be ten
years from now
But, she says, she’ll always
be in show business. “I have no
fears of being unemployed,” she
says confidently.
Even back in her college days,
Radner thought she’d enter the
business — either as atheater
teacher or at the civic theater
level.
Her
mom,
however,
had
charted Radner a different
course.
“She wanted three things
out of me — to get my teaching
certificate, to get married and
to give her grandchildren.”
Did you do any of that, Gilda?
***
“I didn’t do ANYTHING!”
But Mom is learning to accept
her daughter’s career.
“She just last week gave
me
some
credibility,”
says
Radner. “She sent me a letter
telling me a bunch of friends
were requesting autographed
pictures, and she wrote, ‘Well I
guess you’ve reached stardom.’”
Though Radner says she
dared never fantasize about
stardom, she admits having
fleeting
premonitions
of
celebrity.
“I never thought this would
happen,”
she
says.
“Yet
I
remember coming down the
stairs of my house one day and
saying to my boyfriend at the
time ‘Someday I’ll know kinds
and princesses.’ I didn’t know
why I said it.”
And kings and princesses she
has known. Despite the sweat,
Gilda enjoys a good measure
of glamor. TV guest shots.
Rubbing elbows with a different
“Saturday Night Live” guest
host each week. An occasional
evening at Studio 54.
“I even met a Beatle,” she
chirps with all the enthusiasm
of a teenager crashing the
backstage of a concert. “It was
George — and he knew who I
was!”
Undoubtedly. Gilda’s gotten
a lot of press recently — in
good places like New York
Times and People (cover story),
and not-so-good places like
the National Enquirer. Such
exposure
is
threatening
to
blow her cover as a well-kept
secret. Because of the show’s
appeal
to
a
predominantly
young viewership, Radner is
a little-known entity among
the older set and the early-to-
bed generation. That means
she can roam her adopted New
York
unmolested,
but
such
splashy magazine coverage —
people called her the “Darling
of ‘Saturday Night Live’” —
worries her.
For one thing, Radner says
she’s been unfairly compared
with
Chevy
Chase.
Chevy
Chase, you might remember,
is the comedian who struck
professional gold on “Saturday
Night Live,” enjoyed media
hype and, eventually, left the
show.
“The media divided him from
us, called him a star and made
him leave too soon,” she says.
“People use that comparison,
but the thing is, I refuse to
believe it or live by it or let
(the press) divide me from the
group.”
Radner says she worked with
her fellow Prime Timers too
long to let the media single her
out.
“I can never feel like a star
around here.”
***
Gilda Radner has a theory
about her acting technique:
She hasn’t any. “The best thing
I do,” she says, “is pretend,
and that’s what acting is to
me — pretending. Like we
did the Video Vixens, a punk
rock group, so I was really
pretending that I was Patti
Smith and I was pretending that
I could sing and that I’m hot
and dirty and a rock star. And
then I see the tapeback, and it’s
me! … But if people like what I
do, it may be because they know
they’re seeing me pretend.”
So today, Gilda Radner is
going to do a little impromptu
pretending for her guests from
Ann Arbor. But it’s hard to
believe that everything she
does is strictly pretend.
Take her popular juvenile
roles for instance. How much
does Radner have to pretend
when she herself frequently
talks like a kid and putters
around NBC with black and
white Oxfords and a little green
piece of yarn keeping her pony
tail in place?
“I find them (juvenile roles)
closer now to the child in me
than anytime else in my life,”
she says. “I think there’s a time
when you can get back to it …
and have no inhibitions about
it.
***
“I don’t know whether it has
something to do with the work
ethic or about being secure of
myself as a woman, but I can
take a child role. Maybe since
I’m having a career and making
a success it’s all right for me to
be a kid. I don’t know. I love it. I
can sit … and play all day.”
Her Roseanne Rosannadana
can’t be strictly pretend, either.
Roseanne (the name is a take-
off on a New York newswoman)
is a raucous, befuddled, frizzy-
haired consumer reporter who
appears on the show’s Weekend
Update spoof and does gross
things like pick imaginary food
particles from her teeth and
talks about everything except
consumer
affairs.
Just
like
Roseanne, Radner claims she
“has her filthy side.” She proved
it by attributing her low college
board scored to her ill-timed
menstrual cramps — a funny
tidbit, but gross nonetheless.
Radner’s
most
recent
character is Lisa Luebner, who,
like her creator in earlier days,
is a nerd. Unlike her creator,
Lisa
suffers
from
chronic
asthmas and other respiratory
disorders.
“I’m a little bit like her
today,” says Radner, muffling
her voice, looking off into space
and snorting back imaginary
mucus, “Cranky.”
“You know when you have
a cold, your world gets so
insulated?”
Radner/Leubner
asks, sounding sick. “Well, she
always has a cold and asthma,
and
she
says
things
like,
‘Salutations from the United
Nations.’”
Lisa
Leubner
recently
appeared on an interview show
spoof to discuss her new book,
“The Class of ’77,” an account of
what her high school classmates
did during summer vacation.
Then there’s Rhonda Weiss,
the JAP.
Despite
Radner’s
Jewish
upbringing,
she
says
she
avoided becoming the typical
Jewish
American
Princess,
probably because she attended
a non-Jewish high school in
Detroit.
But Radner becomes a pretty
believable Princess when she
lays on her Borscht-Belt brogue.
Using hand motions and
sounding catty, “New Yawkish,”
and
nasal,
Gilda
gives
a
sampling of Rhonda:
“You’re talking cramps? I
get them two weeks before, one
week during and three days
after. We’re talking an entire
month of cramps.”
***
Her character set aside, the
woman who says, “I am that
girl who was funny in school”
has got to leave now and be
funny at rehearsals. The next
day, she’ll have to be funny
before a studio audience and
several million others watching
at home. Being genuinely funny
under those conditions sounds
like the tallest of orders, but
for Gilda Radner it’s a snap.
That’s because Gilda Radner
— loud, obnocious, childish,
gross, nerdy Gilda Radner — is
all the people we’ve known and
laughed at over the years. She’s
us in sillier times.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Thursday, September 14, 2017 — 5B
JAY LEVIN
Daily Arts Writer, 1978
BICENTENNIAL
A hometown girl named
Gilda finds time’s prime
to make people laugh
Originally published in March 26th, 1978, the Daily revisits a candid
interview with late comedian and Michigan alum Gilda Radner
NBC
Gilda Radner, a brief University of Michigan student and original member of SNL
So here’s Gilda
today, sitting
in her dressing
room with
her Tab, her
crackers and a
well-deserved
respite from the
insanity which
reigns outside
the door