Lady Parts (23 page)

If I were to guess what might have been the most forgettable moments for you during our years doing
SCTV,
I would have to
say it was the table reads—those afternoons or, God forbid, those mornings when the writers and cast members would sit around a board table in a room with no windows and read the newly written scripts that were vying for placement in the next upcoming show. The reason the table reads were probably forgettable for you had nothing to do with how good or bad the scripts were or how good or bad the performance levels were, but pretty much had to do solely with the fact that every single writer and every single cast member smoked except for you. Come to think of it, I’m wrong. One of our writers, Dick Blasucci, also didn’t smoke. But Dick’s writing partner was Paul Flaherty, of the chain-smoking Flahertys, and Dick had spent so much time in a windowless office with Paul that he actually considered himself a smoker.

As each table read began, everyone would automatically reach for their deck of smokes and light up. By the time we got to the second script, the room was filled with the sweet Canadian scent of Rothmans, du Maurier, and Player’s. At that point, you would reposition yourself to a chair in front of the open doorway. Fifteen people around the table and thirteen cigarettes lit—fifteen lit when you consider the Flahertys would oft times have two going at once. Your first ask to possibly not smoke during the process was always extremely polite, too polite for people to actually listen. Your second ask to put the cigs away was usually more forceful, as in
Hey, I’m really not kidding.
The response from your friends around the table? “Andrea, shut up!” By the time we were at the halfway point and you couldn’t see people’s faces through the
clouds, you were a woman on a mission, citing health warnings, defining the meaning of “fairness,” and protesting the God-given rights of the smoker. At that point, we would listen to your words, take a reflective moment or two, no wait, not two only one, one reflective moment, and give you the same response we would give you at the same point during every single table read:
You might be more comfortable in another room!

Well, what can one say? It was the ’70s. It was the ’80s. It was a different time. Smoking was still cool. And non-smokers had no rights. Especially you. Looking back, it’s a wonder you even showed up to those table reads. But maybe, just maybe, putting up with the ignorance and the arrogance was a small price to pay for the joy you must have felt hearing the laughs cascading through the smoke every time you got to read Edith Prickley! Maybe.

The first time I saw Marty Short was at the audition for the Canadian company of
Godspell.
He walked up on stage, at the old Masonic Temple in Toronto, and everyone fell in love with him. Entirely relaxed and uninhibited, he sang “My Funny Valentine” and sounded exactly like Frank Sinatra. He was adorable, with charm and charisma, and unlike anyone I had ever seen. The year was 1972. It was the beginning of all our careers. Marty met his future wife, Nancy Dolman, in
Godspell,
and they in turn introduced me to Nancy’s brother, Bob, my future husband. We got married within two days of each other, honeymooned together, and have been in each other’s lives for more than forty years.

Marty and me, many moons ago

I don’t think it’s possible to be objective about Marty. I worship the little fella. He is fearless and self-assured, and has taught me invaluable lessons in my life. His mantra about show business has always been
It’s a business, take nothing personally.
Mine has been
It’s a business, take everything personally.
He walks the talk. I have never met anyone, and especially in the business, less neurotic.

Here’s an example of how he’s been the voice of reason in my long career: during
every
rehearsal period, for
every
play I’ve ever been in, I will at one point call him and say, “Marty, in all seriousness, this time I’ve made a big mistake. I shouldn’t have said yes to this part. I can’t do it. How am I going to get out of it?” His response? “Very good. You’ve been saying the exact same thing since 1972. Look at your history. Have you ever failed? Goodbye.”

We have worked so many times together only he would
be able to accurately recall the places and dates. He has an annoyingly precise memory. From
Godspell
in 1972 to Chrysler industrial shows, Second City, benefits for Second City, Marty’s various television and animated TV shows,
SCTV,
commercials, Broadway readings, charity events, sitcoms, films, and skits in living rooms with friends and family across North America, we have developed a comedy shorthand that allows us to communicate and perform together, spontaneously and at the drop of a hat.

SCTV
Fiftieth Anniversary Benefit, 2011

He and Nancy were second parents to Bob’s and my sons, Jack and Joe. Their devotion and generosity to them over the years were limitless. And their beautiful children, Katherine, Oliver, and Henry, I love like my own. Marty is a great friend, and he’s family. After all the years of hearing the same material, of watching and acting out the same stupid repetitive bits, I still laugh harder with Marty than I do with anyone else.

I’m hesitant to tell this next story because it makes me seem like a horrible person, but it’s a great example of Marty’s ability to be pragmatic and cut to the chase.

I was at a taping of a live TV reality show. I thought the host was mediocre. You know what? It’s my book. She sucked. I was badmouthing her to the friends I was with throughout the show: “How the hell did she get this job? They don’t make them less charismatic or less sincere.” And I was saying this loudly. This was punctuated by me doing full-on impersonations of her blandness. My group laughed and laughed. When I got home that night, the producer of the reality show emailed me. He told me that the mother of the host was in the audience that night—in fact, sitting directly in front of me. She didn’t turn around and ask me to stop. Instead, throughout the show, she texted her daughter
every word
that came out of my mouth. Not since the court-appointed stenographer in
Twelve Angry Men
has anyone transcribed that many words so quickly and accurately. The host herself wasn’t a shy woman. She didn’t receive the litany of insults and hide, as I would have. Instead, the producer informed me, she had waited in the parking lot to confront me. Thankfully, I had left before she made an appearance in Level Three, Section Bluebird. The producer wrote that he had given me free tickets and how dare I be so insensitive?

I was mortified and felt like a despicable human being. I called Marty immediately and told him the story.

First he laughed. Then he said, “So you got caught. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.” And we moved on.

About the time that
SCTV
was ending, Dave Thomas said something to me that I never forgot: we might all have different experiences in our lives and go in different directions, and maybe not see each other often, but we would stay friends, and we’d be at each other’s weddings—and at each other’s funerals.

“Do you remember saying that, Dave?” I asked when I spoke to him on the phone. He was at home, in Los Angeles.

“Yes,” said Dave. “Sure I remember. Because we had a pretty strong bond from the work. And those bonds were evident when somebody would come from the outside and interfere with the group. And then it was like arms were locked, and the strengths of each person became the strengths the person from the outside would have to deal with.”

There was no outside world during
SCTV.
When we were filming, we spent seventeen hours a day in the studio. To add to the isolation, the studio itself was in the heart of Edmonton, a mere 2,160 miles from our homes in Toronto. We uprooted our families and lived in rented condos, which we basically never saw. Nor did we see any natural light, since the floor we worked on at ITV was completely underground. Nothing has been so dark and windowless since Dorothy Gale’s storm shelter in
The Wizard of Oz.
When I say we
worked seventeen hours a day, it wasn’t just filming our own sketches. We were in each other’s scenes, playing supporting parts or even working as extras, and when we weren’t in the scenes, we would be on the set watching our fellow castmates in
their
scenes and giving notes, or laughing off camera, or telling them the best take, or suggesting another line. We had no audience at all. We and our crew were the audience. The only way we knew whether a sketch worked was if we made each other laugh. Thankfully, we weren’t as critical as Dave Thomas’s scathingly pithy theatre reporter, Bill Needle, who once reviewed Libby Wolfson’s “I’m Taking My Own Head, Screwing It on Right, and No Guy’s Gonna Tell Me That It Ain’t” by summing it up with: “Libby Wolfson hit a new low by giving an unconvincing performance as herself.”

Dave also came up with the sketch “Tex and Edna Boil’s Organ Emporium” and selflessly backed up Edna on the organ as she relentlessly pitched the latest bargains and offerings.

EDNA: Come on down to Tex and Edna Boil’s Organ Emporium, where me and my husband love you to visit us. All this week we got rhythm aces for $199.95, yes, we got rhythm aces and four and a half miles of organs and pianos. So bring the kids, bring the whole family. Right, Tex?

TEX: That’s right, Edna.

EDNA: This week Tex will be cooking fresh farm sausages, but keep those fingers off the merchandise, the little piggies are greasy. So come on down. It’s Tex and Edna Boil’s Organ Emporium. That right, Tex?

TEX: That’s right, Edna.

My angel, Catherine, Caterina, you darling girl. You gorgeous and talented writer, you brilliant performer, you kind and giving soul. How I loved acting with Catherine, even though we were so different as people, and so different in our approach to the work. I would be waking up when she was going to sleep. She loved improvising, and I loved a script in my hand. She could go off by herself and come back with the brilliant group scene “Night School High Q.” (Who can forget Margaret Meehan’s plaintive “The Beatles?”) I, however, needed to stand and pace and perform and hope that the writers were taking every word down; the thought of being alone and putting pen to paper was terrifying to me. Catherine created some of my favourite sketches, including
“Way to Go, Woman!,” which featured me as Mother Teresa and her as Lola Heatherton.