In the PinkBy Fred SchruersReader's Digest Steve Martin on Inspector Clouseau, Carson, and how he got so funny. Steve Martin seems to have put off the big career decision. Sometimes, he's still a comedian. Sometimes, he's an actor. Sometimes, he's a novelist or a screenwriter or a playwright or a writer of comic essays for The New Yorker. Since Hollywood has no shortage of people who see versatility as a complication rather than a gift, it's easy to imagine a scene in which some manager or agent explains to Martin why it would make sense to settle on one thing, presumably the most lucrative of the many things he's able to do. The advisor arrives with charts and spreadsheets and a sad story or two about someone who was getting steady work as a leading man until he took it into his head that he wanted to direct. It's also easy to imagine Martin smiling--the smiles he uses in movies to indicate that a pretty conventional guy has again found himself in a goofy situation--and telling the advisor that everything seems to be working out alright as it is. The credits of his latest project--The Pink Panther, a movie based on the characters of the legendary Peter Sellers series--list Steve Martin in the starring role of the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, but they also list Steve Martin as the co-screenwriter. In manner, Martin, who makes do without entourage or schtick, seems more like a novelist than an actor or a comedian. Although he put in years of hard time in coffeehouses and folksinging bars pursuing a stand-up career, he tends to speak of himself as someone who became who he is more or less by accident. After his family moved to Southern California from Waco, Texas, when he was 10, he just happened to move near Disneyland, where he started out in high school demonstrating magic tricks in the gift shop. A girlfriend at California State College at Long Beach, where he was a philosophy major, knew that "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" was looking for a writer, and that eventually led to an Emmy. Because of another college friend who opened his eyes to art, he eventually became a serious collector. So, if his family had remained in Waco, would he now be the veteran professor in the Baylor philosophy department whose wittiness makes him the obvious choice to emcee retirement parties? No, he says: He only got interested in philosophy because of a friend he happened to meet well after the move to California. Martin, who has been fascinated with comedians since childhood, was a particular admirer of Johnny Carson, another high school magician. Unlike a lot of people who have worked as comics, both of them were given the regular features associated with straight actors rather than comedians, and both turned that to their advantage. They used the comic persona of a respectable-looking person who was willing to do some things that were, well, wild and crazy. If you close your eyes and try to envision either one of them, the person who comes into your mind is likely to be wearing a coat and tie. A man who has just had a baboon from the San Diego Zoo jump into his arms, or a man who is doing a magic act in which he pulls items out of the fly of his pants is, as it happens, funnier if he's a respectable-looking person wearing a coat and tie. Martin, who hadn't done his Great Flydini magic act for years, did it on one of Carson's final "Tonight" shows. When Readers Digest sat down with Martin in his New York apartment, he talked about Carson's quickness and his timing and the confidence that allowed him to let the guest get the laugh. But he also mentioned another quality: Carson's dignity. Johnny Carson always kept himself at a slight remove from show business. That may be one reason he lasted for 30 years as the host of "The Tonight Show." Martin maintains a similar remove, partly by being involved in worlds far from the movies. It's tempting to think that a novelist and essayist has the tools to see how important it is not to let celebrity change who you are, even if you became who you are more or less by accident. You started out like a lot of comedians, including Carson, doing magic and bits of stand-up. Were you serious about magic at some point? Serious-ish. We both liked sleight of hand. I know you're not a boaster so I don't want to ask you if you're the funniest guy to come out of Waco, but what if your family hadn't moved to a place where entertainment was more or less the local industry? I think that would have been a real problem. I have no idea what I would have done. I worked at the magic shop at Disneyland when I was 15. We sold novelties and magic tricks and I demonstrated them. Down the road was Knott's Berry Farm, and I auditioned there with my little act and started when I was 18. All in bicycle range of your house. Exactly. I bicycled to Disneyland every day. And I loved comedy as a kid. Let's talk about comedy in this country. Woody Allen once said that it was hard to be taken seriously as a humorist--that humorists were always seated at the children's table... I don't think the children's table is right. It's just another table. Here's a story: I have a friend, a comedian, and he did this serious role in a movie. He got a lot of honors. People kept saying, "You were so great. You were so fabulous." I said, "You're getting so much praise for this serious role." He said, "Steve, comedy is so much harder. I'm getting attention cause I stared at someone and didn't blink. And it was because I was thinking about where I was going to have dinner." You were a frequent guest of Johnny's on "The Tonight Show." What's your recollection of him? I always found him amazing. The first thing was his elegance. It was more of an elegant era. That's kind of gone from TV now. It was also a naughtier era. It was much easier to be naughty by doing very, very little. Today, you have to go a long way in order to be naughty. He really had a perfect tone of boyish naughtiness. He was never salacious. He was stoic in the face of naughtiness. Whatever he said seemed to have an implied question mark, so the guest had something to respond to. He was the master of setting you up. He had a wonderful generosity--he didn't feel like he had to get the last laugh. I have a memory of him laughing so hard at something someone else said. Carson did his show for thirty years and didn't get eaten up by it. After the taping, a couple of producers would get his reaction to that night's show while he changed his clothes for the drive home. He didn't take everyone out to dinner every night. I think that was part of why he had a reputation of being sort of standoffish. Well, I think what they called aloofness was really courtesy. He was proper. Some comedians believed that you could tell if he really liked a stand-up routine, because if he did he would invite the comic over to the sofa. That's a bit of a myth. I think maybe once or twice he did it spontaneously because somebody scored big, but it was not a premise of the show. You mean it really had to do with how much time was left in the show? Whenever I went on they'd say, "...then you'll do the sofa." Because you don't want to be invited over to the sofa if you're not prepared. You had to have funny bits for the sofa too. You've written that the Carson show actually had an effect on the mood of the country. In what way? You knew that every night, no matter what was going on, there was this common place to go that was kind of safe, kind of fun and kind of smart. Now tell us about your new film, The Pink Panther. I'm already mortified by the question: How is it to go up against Peter Sellers? Am I correct in thinking that it's a new story using the characters from the old series? The studio calls it a "reimagining." It uses the original characters, but it's a new story. It was my great respect for Peter Sellers that led me to even consider the movie because he made Clouseau so interesting. I knew I had to find my own version, because an imitation would be horrible. I'm a bad imitator. Do you use a French accent for Clouseau? My biggest fear was the accent. I sat with a really good vocal coach, so I got secure. And then I really started to have fun. So at that point it stopped being work? When I found what I call the fun spot, it ceased to be work. The original movies define the spirit. Once you have the spirit and the characters, and it's a comedy, then you're on your way. But that doesn't make it easy. |
