Dick Cavett on his career in show business, and more
You Gave Away Your Babies?
By DICK CAVETT, NYT
“Didn’t you just hate giving your jokes away and seeing someone else get the laughs?”
It’s a common question to comedy writers. I still get it. And the answer is no. At least I didn’t, and my colleagues didn’t, and I could never figure out why people assumed gag writers for famous comedians felt like Cinderellas.
Or that they lurked enviously in the dark shadows of the wings — as their boss got laughs — filled with envy and dreams of usurping the crown.
Statistically, I’d say comedy writers are perhaps the sanest category of show people. And why not? They make BIG money, and although it’s not an easy trade — particularly when you’re at your galley oar five days a week — it’s easier on the nerves and the psyche than living with the brain-squeezing pressure and cares of being the Star.
You don’t have to pay a press agent, or if you choose, not even an agent. (My great friend, the late David Lloyd, who penned the comedy bombshell episode “Chuckles Bites the Dust” for Mary Tyler Moore, saw no virtue in paying someone for years — 10 percent of your earnings — for having made perhaps one phone call. David composed his own contract. Its short opening paragraph: Mr. Lloyd will not, at any time, be either asked or required to be associated in any manner, shape, or form with “Laverne and Shirley.”
Other advantages of writer versus star: you can dress sloppy, work mostly at home, not obsess over your aging face, hair and body, not get sued or bugged by camera-wielders and tabloids and cranks who claim you stole their ideas, and not have your sex life and divorce displayed publicly in a variety of decorator colors. And you never have to risk flopping onto your butt, or face — or on bad nights, both — in front of an audience. That list of advantages could go on and on. And, surprising as it may seem, I never knew a staff comedy writer who yearned to be the Star.
(More here.)
By DICK CAVETT, NYT
“Didn’t you just hate giving your jokes away and seeing someone else get the laughs?”
It’s a common question to comedy writers. I still get it. And the answer is no. At least I didn’t, and my colleagues didn’t, and I could never figure out why people assumed gag writers for famous comedians felt like Cinderellas.
Or that they lurked enviously in the dark shadows of the wings — as their boss got laughs — filled with envy and dreams of usurping the crown.
Statistically, I’d say comedy writers are perhaps the sanest category of show people. And why not? They make BIG money, and although it’s not an easy trade — particularly when you’re at your galley oar five days a week — it’s easier on the nerves and the psyche than living with the brain-squeezing pressure and cares of being the Star.
You don’t have to pay a press agent, or if you choose, not even an agent. (My great friend, the late David Lloyd, who penned the comedy bombshell episode “Chuckles Bites the Dust” for Mary Tyler Moore, saw no virtue in paying someone for years — 10 percent of your earnings — for having made perhaps one phone call. David composed his own contract. Its short opening paragraph: Mr. Lloyd will not, at any time, be either asked or required to be associated in any manner, shape, or form with “Laverne and Shirley.”
Other advantages of writer versus star: you can dress sloppy, work mostly at home, not obsess over your aging face, hair and body, not get sued or bugged by camera-wielders and tabloids and cranks who claim you stole their ideas, and not have your sex life and divorce displayed publicly in a variety of decorator colors. And you never have to risk flopping onto your butt, or face — or on bad nights, both — in front of an audience. That list of advantages could go on and on. And, surprising as it may seem, I never knew a staff comedy writer who yearned to be the Star.
(More here.)
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