20 Questions: Jay Leno

Jay Leno is the Mort Sahl of the "Gilligan's Island" generation. Through his monthly guest appearances on NBC-TV's "Late Night with David Letterman," he has forged a reputation as Letterman's most accomplished foil. Letterman has even confessed that he borrowed Leno's wry comic stance when both were embryonic stand-ups working the California club circuit in the Seventies. In addition to having the most prominent jaw line in show business, Leno maintains a dizzying travel schedule that keeps him away from his home in Hollywood ten months a year. Appropriately enough, Bill Zehme met the comedian at O'Hare Airport, where he was stopping en route to a college gig in Dubuque, Iowa, and went along for the ride. He reports, "Jay is the kind of guy who's proud to fly coach. He travels very light and has a knack for perceiving the horrible truth. As we boarded our puny twin-engine job for the short flight, he noted that this was the kind of plane that, if it crashed, would merit coverage only on cable news."

1.

[Q] Playboy: You began your career doing stand-up comedy in strip joints. Just how big were you with the strippers?

[A] Leno: Oh, big, big. Strip joints are strange. I worked in Boston at the Teddy Bear Lounge, the Kit Kat Club and one place called Nude--just Nude. I was a stupid college kid with long hair and glasses, and I'd stand on the stage doing whiny, awful material, like, "Hey, Nixon--what a jerk! Heh-heh-heh...." In one club, right behind me, there were two naked girls taking sponge baths in giant champagne glasses. Their names were Lili Pagan and Ineeda Mann, and they were actually ladies in their 40s who talked about making their big money right after World War Two. They were very maternal. I remember being on stage when this guy in the audience started swearing at me. One of the girls climbed out of her glass, went over and punched him in the face, knocking him out. She turned to me and said, "Go ahead, deary, do your act." I said, "Thank you. Naaaaah, Nixon, what a jerk!"

2.

[Q] Playboy: On your list of gigs from hell, name a couple you'd like to forget.

[A] Leno: Well, they're funny in retrospect. I had a job at a college in Upstate New York where a sorority paid me $75 for doing three nights in Study Hall C--an actual study hall. There was a little index card on the door that said, Tonight: Jay Leno. It didn't say comedian or anything. I went in and found a bunch of kids with their heads down, studying for exams. I started doing my act, holding my mike with one hand and a speaker with the other. The kids were putting their hands over their ears, shouting, "Shut up! Why don't you just get out of here and go home? You're not even funny--You're stupid!" I finish the show anyway--the worst--and go back the next night. The same kids are still there, studying. Same thing the third night. It was terrible. They may Still be there.

Another time, I was hired by a guy who had invented a new product called Fresh'n, which he thought would revolutionize personal hygiene: moist towelettes used to combat, as the box said, "embarrassing rectal odor." They were like Wet-Naps, you know? Just the most disgusting product. He had 200,000 of them sitting in a warehouse in New Jersey, so he got together 75 Liggett Rexall representatives and had me tell them I was Bob Carlyle, his director of sales. I went out, made a little pitch, then did my act. People were going to sleep. This guy was sweating bullets. Afterward, he said, "OK, that, of course, was not my director of sales but Jay Leno--a professional comedian. Now, who wants to sign up for a free Fresh'n dispenser kit?" People began filing out of the room, and the guy was in tears, pleading, "Just take a dozen! Put 'em in your stores! No charge! Puh-leeze!"

3.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever let hecklers win?

[A] Leno: I'm not adversarial on stage. I actually like a good heckler who can keep pace and make the show funnier. But heckling isn't always that cerebral. I used to work a place in Revere Beach, Massachusetts, and the owner warned me to wear old clothes my first time there. I said, "But I want to look nice." He said, "Yeah, well, we get a lot of wise guys who like to put out their cigarettes on you as you walk up to the stage." I look at the guy and realize he's got burn marks on his jacket. So as I'm being introduced that night, I can feel these pangs up and down my sleeves, and I'm going, "Ow! Ow!" People would smoke the butts down to about a quarter of an inch and then flick them at me. So these lighted cigarettes are hitting me in the face, like little missiles. I'm watching my jacket burn right off my back and all I hear from all around is "Har-har-har." I don't know how this custom started, but it was like one of those Indian trial-by-fire things. Tough club.

4.

[Q] Playboy: Seasoned viewers of Late Night know that no guest has better rapport with David Letterman. What's your secret?

[A] Leno: I always try to be prepared. I learned a long time ago that no one cares about what you have to say on a talk show. Nobody wants to see Rodney Dangerfield come out and go, "Ah, yeah, I've been getting my life together; things have been going well." If you're a comedian, all they want you to do is be funny. Because Dave and I are friends, there is that much more pressure to really have bang-bang-bang stuff all the time. People don't realize what a good stand-up comedian David is. I remember when he first went to The Comedy Store, he had a big red beard and drove up in his pickup truck. He looked like Mr. Hoosier. But he was great from the start, with very clever material; never any cheap shots or Dolly Parton jokes. David and I essentially come from the same place, comedically, so we can have a good time. It's fun watching him squirm. While I can give Dave zingers once in a while, I could never be on The Tonight Show and go, "Hey, Johnny, nice tie!" With Carson, you're in awe.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Let's get to the bottom of this, once and for all: Do you have an evil twin?

[A] Leno: Ray Peeno is his name. He's out there functioning in day-to-day society. People, I'm sure, are completely unaware. I should explain the origins of evil twinism. Every TV show suffers from it: Commonly, the star of the show has an episode with an evil twin. This is true. I was watching Simon & Simon a couple of months ago, and not only one but both of them had evil twins who had met before. I mean, what are the mathematical odds of that happening--quadruple to one? My favorite was the Knight Rider episode where Michael Knight is forced to do battle with his evil twin. I knew it was his real twin, because this guy couldn't act, either.

6.

[Q] Playboy: Defend The Three Stooges.

[A] Leno: I like The Three Stooges. But this is preordained. The fact is, all men laugh at the Stooges and all women think they're shitheads. That's the basic difference between the sexes, (continued on page 223)Jay Leno(continued from page 159) if you ask me. Take any guy from MIT with a doctorate in astrophysics, put him in front of a TV set. When Moe hits Larry in the face with a shovel, the guy will crack up. If you ever turn the Stooges on with a group of women in the room, they get hostile and say, "Turn those asses off!" Have you ever seen that list in The People's Almanac of the ten men most admired by men? There's Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Moe. Women tend to be a little bit more cerebral in their humor. A guy getting hit in the face with a pipe isn't funny to them--I don't know why.

7.

[Q] Playboy: Why don't class clowns ever get the girl?

[A] Leno: Comics tend to get the slightly damaged girls--the ones with some emotional problems, fatherless childhoods, perhaps some open wounds somewhere that aren't necessarily visible. But that comes later. In school, you're just lookin' for attention. I was a class clown, but I never thought of becoming a comedian when I was flushing tennis balls down the toilet and locking dogs in lockers. These weren't career moves. Teachers don't say, "When you hit me with that wad of paper, I knew you should be in show business!" The same goes for girls. They appreciate a more sophisticated sense of humor, which I just didn't have in junior high school. I was the kid who would sneak into the girls' bathroom and pour water through the Kotex dispenser. I liked watching that metal machine expand and tear apart from the napkins' absorbing the water. It was very funny. It would be a good ad for Kotex.

8.

[Q] Playboy: How come women stand-ups don't get more respect?

[A] Leno: Women stand-ups have suffered from the same thing women anchor persons have: They have no real predecessors, so people assume they have no right to try. Comediennes like Elayne Boosler and Carol Leifer do material with a feminine point of view; but if, say, Elayne told me she was leaving the business tomorrow and gave me her act, I could do 90 percent of it. It's not all bras and tampons. You know, it takes five to seven years to become a good performer. So there's a whole crop of female stand-ups who started seven or eight years ago who are suddenly coming to the forefront. They're all very good and they're all making it on their own. The stereotypes are dropping real fast, if they're not gone already.

9.

[Q] Playboy: What's the most fun you can have in a Holiday Inn?

[A] Leno: See, I'm not a hang-from-the-chandelier, naked-women-runnin'-around kind of guy. I mean, I used to have an engine that I would take apart and put back together in hotel rooms on the road. The maid would come in, and there I'd be with a crankshaft in my hand and stuff all over the place. Very embarrassing. But it is strange living in hotels: the tiny soap, the tiny towels, waking up and never knowing where you are. There's an occasional tractor parked outside your window that needs a jump start at six in the morning--while you're sleeping.

I used to stay in the sleaziest, most terrible places. I remember this old, old men's hotel in Cincinnati--three dollars a night--where I stayed that had a toilet in the middle of the room. One night, I was in bed and I saw water coming in under the door. So I opened it and there was an old guy, urinating. I said, "What are you doin'?" He said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I always urinate on this door." I looked at the door and saw it's all rotten in the lower corner. It was his door, all right. An awful hotel.

10.

[Q] Playboy: How do you know when to trust a restaurant on the road?

[A] Leno: If it doesn't come in waxed paper, I usually don't eat it. I'm not a big restaurant eater. Somebody took me to one of those Japanese steakhouses--you know, where they feed you like a dog. They cut up the meat and fling it at you. The master chef came out and bounced it off two air-conditioner units. You want to cut his heart out and put his head on that grill. Just gimme my steak, you son of a bitch.

11.

[Q] Playboy: How did a well-mannered Bostonian like yourself become a West Coast motorcycle zealot?

[A] Leno: Well, the people I ride with are not stereotypical bikers. I mean, we don't go downtown and beat up homos. I was a Rolls-Royce/Mercedes-Benz mechanic in college, but you can't do anything with cars anymore. You open the hood and it's all computers. Motorcycles, on the other hand, are like watches. Every part is there for you to see. It's fun being able to take something apart, put it back together and make it work. I've got ten or 12 bikes, mostly Harleys and English antiques. What I would really like to be--but never will--is a good machinist. I like to work with my hands better than anything.

12.

[Q] Playboy: Wouldn't you really rather have a Buick?

[A] Leno: I have one of those, too. A '55 Buick Roadmaster. When I first came to California, I used to sleep on the stairs behind The Comedy Store. Eventually, I saved $300 and had to decide if I should get an apartment. I bought the Buick instead and slept there for a while. I still have it. It's a big car. It seats seven--for dinner. It doesn't have a radio; I bring in live acts. In fact, I've got Woody Herman coming through in about two weeks. It should be pretty good.

13.

[Q] Playboy: How funny is having money?

[A] Leno: Hmmm. That reminds me of one of my favorite TV commercials in which an English guy says, "Here's a priceless introduction to the classics that will enrich every home." The camera pulls back and you see his apartment: There's a grand piano, a candelabrum, a bust of Beethoven, a harp, a painting of a fruit bowl in one of those garish frames, red drapes and Victorian sconces on the wall. And all of this is crammed into a tiny square space. It occurred to me that this is like a bum's idea of how rich people live. They can't conceive of having a lot of space, so they just figure the other half lives in the same little rooms they do, with all of this rich shit stuffed inside. To me, it's the funniest commercial on TV.

The way TV treats money is so funny. I saw this stupid Fantasy Island where a guy, happily married, fantasizes about being a millionaire. So he gets his million and instantly turns into Joe Prickhead. He leaves his wife, starts running with bimbos and is about to get his divorce. Then Ricardo Montalban shows up and says, "Do you know that money is not often the key to happiness?" He takes the money, throws it into the river and, as soon as it hits the water, the guy and his wife are happy again. It's so simplistically stupid.

These things are disguised to keep poor people from really seeing how much fun rich people have. I mean, I've been broke and I've had money, and it's a lot of fun having money. Your basic nature doesn't change. I've been married for five years. Why should I be a prick now that I have a few bucks put away?

14.

[Q] Playboy: For whom are you most frequently mistaken?

[A] Leno: Believe it or not, Fred Travalena, the host of Anything for Money. This is the game show where they try to find people with severe economic problems and see if they can tell the difference between human dignity and small financial gain. It's the kind of thing the Communists like to show Russian people as an example of what life in America must be like.

You know who else I've been mistaken for? A limo driver who once picked me up at the Atlantic City airport told me that my picture was on a billboard in town. This kind of surprised me, but he said he'd show me. So we were driving along and I saw this billboard with Anthony Newley on it. He said, "There it is, sir." I said, "I'm not Anthony Newley; he's, like, 20 years older than I am! Give me a break!" Have you ever heard Newley's song about comedians, The Man Who Makes You Laugh? It's horrible. [Sings] "Look at me, I'm the fun-nee man," ... you know, crying on the inside, laughing on the outside. Shut up, you jerk! Here's a fuckin' Magnum through the head. Let's see how funny you are now!

15.

[Q] Playboy: Answer the eternal question: Does Elvis live?

[A] Leno: I've always been an Elvis fan. I've gone to Graceland. Since I'm from New England, there's nothing I enjoy more than seeing a Chippendale dresser that's been painted purple and orange. Do you mean, "Is he really still alive?" I've met some people who think he pumps gas somewhere in Idaho. You can't blame them, though. I saw a magazine not long ago that said "Elvis at Fifty," with a big picture of him on the cover. People were picking up the magazine, saying, "Jeez, he looks great for 50!" It's crazy. Elvis doesn't look great! He's dead! He's been dead for eight years!

16.

[Q] Playboy: Define hackneyed.

[A] Leno: This will piss off comics. I once tried to do a study and compiled The Little Big Book of Overdone, Hackneyed Comedy Premises. I took it onto the Letterman show and got and enormous number of angry calls. Basically, these were the most abused comedy gags. Things like, "Can you imagine if E.T. landed in my neighborhood? Boy, we'd kick the shit out of him!" Or McNuggets, as in "Where are the McNuggets on a chicken?"; "I'll grab you by the McNuggets"; "Don't touch my McNuggets."

Then, among the most-hackneyed type of performers, there's the wacky duo, which is very popular now. These are generally two white guys: One is serious; the other keeps interrupting with annoying sound effects. Then there's my favorite, the impressionist who announces he's about to become a crustacean or something, saying, "It'll go something like this...." He'll turn around for a second, then come back, and he'll look exactly the same. That's amazing to me. I'll go out on a limb, though, and predict that when we remember 1985's most hackneyed premise, it'll be the talking-car bit, inspired by those electronic-warning-voice systems: "You know, cars talk now, ladies and gentlemen. Can you imagine the Jewish car? 'Vat are you, too good to wear a seat belt, schmuck?'"

17.

[Q] Playboy: How misunderstood was Andy Kaufman?

[A] Leno: Andy was like theater of the absurd. He wasn't really a stand-up comedian. His thing was to get a reaction, and it almost didn't matter what the reaction was. I saw him at The Improv once, reading The Great Gatsby out loud for an hour and a half. People got up and left, then came back two minutes later to see if Andy had put the book down because they'd left. But he'd keep reading.

People would get mad that they weren't let in on the joke. At the end of his shows, they wanted Andy to do a Don Rickles thing--you know, "I'm not really like this--I'm a normal guy...." But he wouldn't. He kept it up his whole life. He never dropped it. And that used to drive people in Hollywood nuts, people who wanted desperately to be able to say, "I know the other side of Andy!" But they never got to. Andy and I were friends, but he was exactly what you saw. You had to take him at face value. Everything he did on stage--that was his real life.

18.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel that comedy albums are hurtling toward extinction?

[A] Leno: I hope they are. I'll never do one. Comedy albums are great if you're getting out of the business and you just want to have a big garage sale of all your material. You do the album, people buy it and you're never heard from again. I would hate to buy an album, listen to it, go see the guy perform and hear the album all over again on stage. It's not like hit music.

I mean, your average comedy-album buyer is that kind of nerdy, overweight kid with Coke-bottle glasses. He'll get up at a party, tell everybody to be quiet, and he'll put on the record. Then, somehow, vicariously or through osmosis, he takes credit for the material, you know, as if he's the comedian. It's like one of those ads on TV where people are sitting around with nothing to do. Then one guy learns to play the organ and, suddenly, everyone gathers around him and he becomes a star, just by playing this stupid, annoying instrument. I'll tell you this: If I were at a party where someone started to play an instrument, I'd be out of there. Especially one that's color keyed.

19.

[Q] Playboy: What's better, sex or laughter?

[A] Leno: Well, sex is better. Unfortunately, laughs last longer. If sex could last as long as the laughs, you know, you could get up there and do two-and-a-half-hour sets with each one being a killer. That would be good. Sex is like having two or three really good jokes. Then you're out of material, and it's like, "Thank you! Good night! You've been great! Thank you very much!"

20.

[Q] Playboy: What's your position on edible underwear?

[A] Leno: The sad thing is that after a couple years of marriage, a lot of guys are just not as romantic as they could be. So the women go out and buy this stuff, like edible underwear, which they take home and put on to make themselves look very attractive. They get into bed. The guy eats the underwear, burps and says, "Thanks, honey, that was great! What're we havin' tomorrow night?" Now, of course, they have edible underwear for men, which is interesting. In fact, right now, I'm wearing the Big Man Boxer Shorts Dinner. Can you see that extra helping of potatoes in there?

"Comics tend to get the damaged girls--the ones with some open wounds that aren't necessarily visible."