WEBVTT - Rosie O'Donnell 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:10.799 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.400 My chance to talk with artists, policymakers, and performers, to 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:19.600 hear their stories. What inspired their creations, what decisions change 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:24.520 their careers, what relationships influence their work. I never had 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:26.360 a fallback on purpose, and my dad used to say 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:27.880 that all the time, you need a fallback, but I 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:30.080 knew that this career was so difficult to succeed in 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:31.880 that if you had a fallback, you would fall back. 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:34.680 So I didn't have one. It's so great to be 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:38.159 back here in Boston, where I went to college, where 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.279 I started the one stand up comedy. Rosie O'Donnell has 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.920 been a stand up comic, an actress, a star search contestant, 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:49.360 a talk show host, an activist, a philanthropist, a magazine editor, 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:53.960 a Broadway and television producer, and a mom. Rosie has 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:59.000 five kids. You have to manage your time and make 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.760 each one of them feel spe doing it all was 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.240 a pattern Rosie established early in high school. She was 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:11.440 voted homecoming queen, prom queen, senior class president, and class clown. 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:16.760 Rosie o'donald has never shied away from a controversial subject. 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:21.119 Her combination of confidence and conviction has led to very 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.080 public disagreements with celebrities such as Tom Selleck, Donald Trump, 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.280 and Elizabeth Hasselbeck. From the view, you just said our 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.960 enemies in Iraq? Did Iraq attack us? No, I'm saying 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.320 al kada? Okay, did Iraq attack us? Elizabeth, Iraq did 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.360 not attack us. We've been there before. I'm saying our 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.520 enemies al Qaeda? Are you hearing that? But that same 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.640 combination led to her hugely successful talk show, The Rosie 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.920 o'donald Show, in which she talked with celebrities and non 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.600 celebrities alike. Rosie talked about what mattered to them and 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.240 to her. She earned herself the nickname the Queen of Nice. 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:59.080 Where are you from? A Toronto? And he came down 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:00.760 here just for the show, just for the show. My 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:03.000 husband drove on me and my friends ten hours. So 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.160 I'm very afraid to fly. He didn't have tickets because 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.760 where I don't know. He's wandering outside thirty robbers, probably 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:14.640 watching the show, freaking out that I'm here because I 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:16.480 said I would be here. If he's still in Toronto, 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:18.079 you don't know he's here? Is in New York? Where 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.079 in New York at a her hotel. Again, what I'll 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:24.680 tell you the Belvedere right on fifty second eight. Hey, 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:28.920 what's his name? Eddie? Eddie, get you butt down, Rosie 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:34.000 o'donald is nice. I'm grateful from what she has. She 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.040 might say that has something to do with her childhood 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.000 when she suffered the hardest blow imaginable. You know, my 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:46.760 mother died. There were two younger siblings and two older siblings. 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.399 That's right, So that was really hard everything, yes, and 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.160 and it's sort of close to her, not really. I 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:54.720 mean I think that she was very irish and reserved 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:56.280 like my father. There was no I love us in 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.520 the house. There was no hugging, you know. It was 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:00.440 more like like I went to Jackie South all the time. 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:02.560 My best friend still lived across the street when I 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.799 was a kid, and her mother would say I love 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.880 you to them, and I remember being struck like cold 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.200 from that, like you would say that to each other, 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.560 Like no one said that to each other and my 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.120 family ever until we were really older adults, and even 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:20.560 then it was difficult. So I remember when I had 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.519 my first child, when Parker, who was now eighteen, the 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.720 I love yous were frequent and fluid. And you know, 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:28.800 even now, I dropped my boy off at school this 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.040 morning and he's thirteen. You know, I'm like, by Blake, 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:34.080 I love He's like love you to mom, like casual nothing, 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.480 don't even And that was so foreign to me as 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.760 a child, and I craved it. I craved it. And 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.200 when a mother dies in a family like that, things 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.840 turned to disarray because the washing machine, the you know, 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:48.000 things that my dad just had no clue about, Like 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.800 he mashed the potatoes in the water. He was trying 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:53.280 to make mashed potatoes. After she ducked, It's like all 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.040 of the domesticity went out of the house and it 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.040 was so kind of stark and cold and and run down. 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.840 And you know, the things that a mother's touch generally 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.520 bring to your life, we're missing. And that's all the 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:06.440 all the softness and the and the kind of safety 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:10.400 and security to prepare the family for a life without her. 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.640 Rosie's mother taught each of her five children a different 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.240 meal to cook. Rosie learned how to make London broil, 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:19.640 which she says she still won't eat because of the 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:24.080 memories it conjures. Up in her hometown of Komack, Long Island, 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.839 not far from where I grew up. Rosie began to 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.839 plot out her future and a life in show business. 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.039 You know, I never wanted to be a talk show host. 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:34.280 That was never my goal. I wanted to be on Broadway. So, 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.080 you know, I wanted to be a Bette Midler backup singer, 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.080 one of the Harletts. So when I was, you know, 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:42.200 in in Comac High School South and nine, and I 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:44.800 would take the train in and see a matinee every 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.760 Wednesday and cut out of school and do standing room. 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:49.839 And so my goal was Broadway. And I saw a 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:51.560 bet on Broadway and Clams and a Half Shell one 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:53.760 of my first shows ever. That was my goal. It 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:56.279 was in streisand it was never to be. You know, 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.040 I didn't grow up listening to Johnny Carson like every 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.680 comic tells you. I, you know, admired to be like 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:05.080 my mother. You don't want to, No, I never thought 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:06.920 of it. My mother didn't like Joan Rivers. My mother 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.359 thought she was mean. And I remember my mother telling 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:11.919 me Tody Fields was a real comedian, Phillis Diller was 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.560 a real comedian, but that Joan Rivers is not nice. 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.400 And she said, you never go for in exactly and 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:20.560 Joan was made fun of Elizabeth Taylor, which I think 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.440 to my mother was sacrasych you know, so I never 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:25.920 like thought of it. So when I was in high school, 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.320 I would do the play for the seniors, right, everybody 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:30.840 makes fun of the teachers and like a Saturday and 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.240 night life type thing the senior year, and I was 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:34.880 a freshman and they knew that I was sort of 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.560 into comedy, and they said, would you write the skits? 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:39.719 So I did so I was the only sort of 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.559 freshman allowed to be and for every year sophomore junior, 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.520 I was writing these skits. So the last years, my 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:48.719 senior year, this guy comes in and and says, hey, 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:50.240 did you write all this stuff? And I said yeah. 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:51.760 He goes wanting to be a stand up. I'm like, God, 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:53.000 I don't know how to do stand up because, well, 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.640 I own a club, east Side comedy club in Huntington's 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:57.880 near you. Why don't you come and do stand up? 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:04.359 What year is that? That is nineteen seventy eight? What 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:09.040 is a stand up comedy club like in Huntington's night Well, 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.080 I was sixteen years old. I just got my license, 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.080 but I wasn't really old enough to get into clubs. 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.960 So I took my neighbor Dory Norton's license. Remember when 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:18.159 they were paper and you could take a little pin 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.480 and scrape. So I had fake ID to get A 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:22.839 whole career is built on a crime, actually without a death. 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.960 I was impersonating um. So I went in and you know, 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.160 when you're sixteen years old, you're fearless, right. Also, everybody 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:32.080 I knew from my high school showed up that night 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:34.320 because it was a Saturday night or something, and he 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:36.479 let me go on and do a few minutes, and 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.600 I killed because everybody I knew was in the room, right, 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:41.719 So I'd make jokes like Maryland's going out with Mitchell 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.039 and Mike doesn't know, and all my friends would be 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.760 like I made fun of the teachers, like common things that. 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:49.080 So the owner said, well, that was really good, why 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.680 don't you come back tomorrow? So I went back the 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:53.880 next night. I didn't know anyone. It was a school night. 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.200 I bombed like you have never oh my god, like 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.200 a horrible death. And I went home and I thought, 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:01.760 I don't want to do that anymore. So I'm watching 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:05.279 um merv. Griffin and I see Jerry Seinfeld and I 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:07.240 see him doing is that. It's all going like last 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:09.000 and I remembered is that, you know there were no 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:11.880 VCRs then, but I remembered, like you know, my car 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.600 stopped and I opened up the hut and I'm thinking 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.400 what am I looking for? And on off, switch, on off, 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:22.520 and I'm thinking hi, And so I remembered it right. 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:24.760 The club owner called me again, Richie and said, come back. 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:26.600 Why don't you come back? You were good that first night. 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:28.720 And so I come back and I do Signfelds act 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.280 almost verbade him, and I get off stage and Ritchie 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.040 and you know, a bunch of other comics are standing around, said, 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.080 wod you get that material? I said, this guy named 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.560 Jerry who was on MERV Griffin yesterday. They go, You're 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.040 not allowed to do that. I'm like, why not? They 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:42.760 you have to write your own jokes and like, wait 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.640 a minute, Strician doesn't write her own song. Did you 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.520 do well? Did the audience like? And they didn't you 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.760 hear those? Because they were laughing jokes a joke. I 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.480 have to write the jokes and nuts. Harold Arlen wrote 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.440 that song that stuff, and so you know that. Then 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:01.119 I they say, well, why don't you just hang around 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.080 here and uh, you can watch. So I started watching, right, 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.360 I started going there almost every night watching comics. The 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.160 crowd like, well, back then he was sort of the 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.720 Heyday was starting with the Heyday, like Eddie Murphy had 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:15.720 just gotten on Saturday Night Live. So somebody from our 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.520 little club broke out to the big time. And comedy 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:21.000 clubs were kind of hot in the eighties, you know, 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.080 I sort of yeah, I hate the wave at the 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.440 exactly the right time. One Michael said that to me once. 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.800 He said that when Saturday Night Live started back then 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.680 in the mid seventies. He said, they were like six 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:35.160 comedy clubs in the United States exactly, and you knew 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:37.280 every stand up working. There was a time when I 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.839 started where I knew every female comics working working in 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.200 the country, right, And everybody knew each other, and everybody 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:43.920 would help each other out. Hey, there's a club Tickles 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:45.800 and War in Ohio. I can talk to the guy 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.640 for you. You wouldn't have to audition because you knew 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:51.559 somebody who went there. And a lot of times I'd 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:52.920 go to the clubs and they pick you up in 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:54.600 the car at the airport and they'd have a sign 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:56.560 and they'd be driving you back to the comedy condo 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:58.079 and the guy go, you know, you know the fourth 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:00.360 girl I had, the last three sucked if you went 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:02.200 good him the nether book and a girl again. I 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.680 was like, no pressure, you know, just my entire gender 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.520 is writing on this. So um, you know. The kite 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:09.400 comic called me and said come back, and then I did. 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:11.520 I was hanging out there and then I would do 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.680 open Mic Night. So Shirley Hempill, do you remember what's happening? 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.480 Big heavy Black Lady should play? Okay, she was the headliner. 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:20.880 Now that was a big deal in nineteen eighty. Right, 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.480 she's the headliner and she's they are a day early 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:26.880 watching open Mic Night. I come off the stage. She 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:28.520 comes over to me. She goes, little one, little one, 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.080 come here. I said, yeah, Now, I'm an eighteen year 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:34.000 old kid, alec, but I look about fourteen, right, and 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.640 she says, um, you're funny. Come with me. She takes 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.079 me in through the kitchen to Richie's office and says 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:41.240 I want her to open for me this weekend and 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:42.880 he goes, no way, she's too new, she doesn't have 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.040 any act. She says, I wanted to m C. I 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:46.880 wanted to open and do every show, and I want 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:49.280 you to pay her twenty five bucks a night. There 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:52.560 was a hundred dollars. I was eighteen and in high school. 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.920 I thought my head was gonna exactly, my head was 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.240 gonna explode. And so she really helped my career. I 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.560 started doing on and then I never stopped. And you 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:05.719 did that until Star Search was two, when you were 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:10.079 on right now, obviously this idea of the Talent Search show, 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.480 this goes back to Leonard Sillman on Broadway years. I mean, 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.520 this has been forever. And then then of course there's 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:18.800 a renaissance of this now with the voice and this 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:20.480 in the hand and the foot and the tongue and 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:22.600 every of the show. What was that like back then 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.920 for you? Well, it was unbelievable because unlike huge and 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:29.720 unlike today where there are so many media platforms and 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.640 there are so many shows like it, we had four channels, 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.760 five maybe, and I remember my nana whenever somebody was on, 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.280 like Tody Fields was on MERV Griffin or the Don 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:40.320 Ho Show which was on twelve and the f I'd 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:42.960 have my nana press play and record on the cassette player, 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.280 so I could listen to Tody Fields on the shows 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:47.959 that I would miss at school. And I think back 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:50.240 about that now and it's kind of trippy. The TV 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:54.040 was the fireplace. Oh my god, totally. So what happened 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.240 was Star Search was so popular and I was on 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.720 the second season. Comics had two minutes a hundred and 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.559 twenty seconds to do materials. You have a clean routine, 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.400 Always have a clean routine. Oh no, not in clubs necessarily. 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.760 But I hadn't, you know, enough stuff. The problem was 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.240 I kept winning, So I had enough clean material for 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:15.640 like five weeks, and then I kept winning. So I 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:17.400 called up comics who are my friends, and said, can 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:19.319 I use that bit? About this? Can I use that? 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:21.000 And they a lot of them said yes, you know, 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:24.079 Jeanette Barber, let me use a lot of bits, Carol Henry, 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:26.280 let me use bits. And you know, I had people 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:28.559 trying to help me. And so then I lost, and 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.160 I eventually, but I won like god like. It was 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:35.240 like twelve thousand dollars or like fourteen thousand dollars, and 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:39.040 I remember thinking I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.559 I went for the final a hundred thousand dollar thing, 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:45.200 and I lost, and I remember never being so nervous 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:48.079 in my life. You know, TV was so different back then. 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.040 In they put you up at the Sunset Strip, right, 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.560 it was at Sunset and Vine where they filmed it. 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:55.480 And I didn't have any money, right, they'd give you 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.359 per diem, but I didn't know to get per diem. 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:00.160 So I had all that I had in my talk. 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:02.160 It was like, you know, forty dollars. So I'd walk 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:04.199 every day to Carney's. You know that hot dogs cheer 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.040 on Sunset and for a dollar forty you could get fries, 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.360 a small coat, and a hot dog. And that's all 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:13.040 I had. That's welcome her back. Here's Rosie oh Donald. 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:15.800 So it's so funny. You watch it. You watch me 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:19.199 losing weight every single week because I didn't. I didn't really, 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.199 you know, But I ended up winning all this money 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:23.560 and I went from being an opening act to being 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:28.000 a headliner from Star Start Overnight. But it really did 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:29.839 help my career doing Star Starch. After I did the show, 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:32.040 I was up for partner movie. I said, you can 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:33.640 have the part. Can you drop the New York accent? 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:38.200 I said sure, But the only way I can drop 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:40.320 the New York accent is if I opened my eyes 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:45.200 really wide and actually think about everything I'm saying. The 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:49.160 only problem is I can't act this way. The only 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.160 thing I could be is a contestant in the Miss 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:56.440 America paget and then you get into the movie business. 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.079 Then I become a VJ. I do star Search, and 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.280 then I do give me a break. What happened was 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:07.120 I was at a comedy club and Lauren Michaels was there, 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.200 was Share and Brandon Tarnikoff, and it's called Bigby's Comedy 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:14.439 Clubs okay, and Dana Carvey was was auditioning to get 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.319 on SNL and I was the next comic up and 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:19.240 the waitress is one of my friends. And they said, 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:23.600 we're not dropping the check until after your set. So well, Brandon, 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:25.560 and they wanted the check because they had seen Dana 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.040 I was on and I killed right now. It's I 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.319 had a decade under my belt of doing stand up right, 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.640 so um. They came up to me after the show, 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.400 Brandon Tarnikoff, and said, Hi, I want you to call 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.880 this number at NBC tomorrow. We have a job for you. 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:42.360 And I called My sister was like three in the 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.120 morning New York time, I said, I got on SNL. Oh, 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:48.200 my god, Brandon Tarnikoff was here with Lauren Michael's and 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.360 I'm gonna be on SNL. And I walk in the 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:52.079 next day to NBC and they said, we're gonna put 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.480 you on Give Me a Break, and I was like, now, 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.080 I was still thrilled to be on TV, and so 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.040 that was the show. I did about ten episodes of 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.840 that in the last season with a very unhappy nel Carter, 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:05.800 which was a very shocking thing to me because I 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.600 had this image that everybody on TV was friendly and 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.400 happy and it was utopia, and I had seen her 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.560 in Broadway and Bubbling Ground and Bubbling Brown Shot as 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:16.520 well up Town. But that was my first thing I 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.680 did Give Me a Break. After that, that was eighty six, 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:21.880 and then eighty eight. They were auditioning VJs for v 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.760 H one and at the improv with Budd Freedman, and 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:26.520 I went there and I did my set and the 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:27.920 guy came out and he said, you're really good, but 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:30.520 you don't really look like MTV, and I said, I 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:32.120 know when he goes, but we have another station, v 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.480 H one, And at that time it was reda Coolidge, 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.240 I don't know if you remember. And so he said, 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.040 you wanted an audition for that, you'd have to fly 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:40.640 yourself to New York. I said, all right, So I 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:46.440 flew my wedding nine times a day, exactly right. And 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.120 they said, you know you can audition. So I went 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.400 on camera and I auditioned and went home to l A. 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.760 And then I wrote him a thank you note, Steve Leeds, 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:55.840 I said, thanks for the shot. I really appreciate it. 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:57.560 And he was so moved that somebody wrote him a 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.600 thank you note that he sent the tape over to 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:01.920 the v A one people. The guy who was hiring 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.920 is named Ed Harrington, very Irish guy. He saw Rosie 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.520 O'Donnell and they hired me. So it was a thank 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.880 you note that got me told I did that for 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.360 about two years that it was because it seems like 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.360 for the person who wanted to the clams on the 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:20.680 hashell career, you meander and you here and here where 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:22.000 it takes you. What was it like for you to 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:24.160 be doing that? Well? Everyone everyone said not to do it. 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.680 People who were quote unquote advising my career, like Bud 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:28.400 Freeman or you know, I didn't even have an agent. 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:31.160 Really that because I knew it was in twenty three 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.640 million homes, and I thought that it would teach me 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:37.600 how to be conversational versus presentational. Presentational is what you 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:39.400 do with stand up. You've already prepared it. It's a 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.960 wrapped package. They undo the bow, they undo the thing, Bloom, 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.800 there's the joke, right, But this is more conversational. Can 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:49.600 you carry on a conversation with a camera and treat 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:51.320 it like a person? And I thought it was a 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.720 skill that would really help me. And I also thought 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:56.200 that many millions of people seeing you, you can't say 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.480 no if you've never seen Elton John and concert, I 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:00.240 am urging you to do with both at in a 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:02.120 lot and I love it. I'm going to see him 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.040 Thursday night and my sisters going to see him tonight. 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:06.840 Was it also about money? It was a hundred thousand 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:08.640 dollars because I don't want to assume, but are you 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:10.720 like me where a lot of the decisions I made 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:12.560 was about money? Yeah, at that time, I was like, 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:14.960 you know, twenty one maybe and to get a hundred 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.120 grand because I remember saying to them, I'm giving up 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:18.280 a lot of money to not go on the road 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:20.160 because I was making good money in the road and 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:22.320 you would have to definitely cover that, and so they 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:24.160 came up with a hundred grand. So what I would 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:25.880 do is it was eight hours a day, but you 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.240 could film that in about two hours. It was four 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.160 breaks an hour at two minutes a break. So they 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.080 would give you the pictures that you had to do, like, 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:35.240 you know, this is Rosie O'donnald coming at you on 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:37.880 v H one Video Hits one. The other music television 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.520 that was Whitney Houston, her seven single offer debut album, 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:42.880 Whitney Houston is doing VH one to Go Go our 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.800 dance show only here on v H one Saturday nights 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:47.800 eight to eleven. You do have a good memory, but 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:51.960 that was about fourteen seconds. Now I had a minute 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.960 and a half left to fill and there's nobody but 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.720 me and two cameramen. So my goal was to get 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:01.160 the cameraman to laugh so that the camera would jiggle, right, 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:03.320 So that was that was my goal. I want to 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:04.399 go back and see tape to see if I can 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:06.160 find that jiggling camera. I bet you can't. I bet 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:08.080 I can't. Yeah, And so I did that for about 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:10.159 two years and that's how Penny Marshall saw me. She 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.679 saw you on v H one. I had just gotten 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:14.480 an agent and I sit next to this woman on 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.240 a plane and coach and she's very bitchy to the 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:19.840 stewardess and she's saying, I ordered a salad, and I 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:21.760 start making her laugh. I'm like, here, take my salad, 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:23.680 give me a dessert. You're such a and I put 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:25.760 her her luggage and I was just making her laugh, right, 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:27.480 And so it turns out she's an agent. She's a 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:31.719 new agent at William Moore. She's Julie Roberts, agent's assistant. Okay, 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.159 so I'm like, wow, that's pretty big for me. So 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:35.760 I start talking to her and she's like, what are 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:37.399 you doing. I'm like, I'm going out to audition for 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.040 a game show. And she's like, oh and good luck. 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:41.479 So I don't see her, you know, I dropped her 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.000 a no to something. And then six months later I 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.000 sit next to her again on another plane. Is that 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.159 the weirdest story? And I she said, what are you doing? 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:50.760 I said, I got offered wind Lose a drawer for 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.280 kids on Disney. They're gonna pay me fifty thousand dollars. 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:55.680 A year, five year contract and I'm gonna host that show, 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.000 and she said, you're not. And I'm now your agent, 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:00.480 and we're too close to God for me not to intervene. 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:02.280 And it's too weird to sit next to you twice. 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.679 What's her name, Reesa Shapiro, of course? And does she 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:09.000 remain your agent for how long? She did? For probably 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.080 twenty years and then um, she sort of what happened 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:14.959 to you know, William Morris? And they all integrated, right, 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:17.040 and they fired all the women. People say to me, 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:19.840