20 Questions: Tracey Ullman

Like Jackie Gleason before her, Tracey Ullman stomps out at the close of her comedy show each week, swaddled in a bathrobe. Unlike Gleason, she has fabulous gams, a British accent and a brain by Xerox. An incorrigible mimic, she reproduces voices and characters as fast as the neurons permit and demonstrates this remarkable feat on "The Tracey Ullman Show," a thoroughly quirky half hour that gives the Fox Broadcasting Company glimmer. She is Lily Tomlin without the fuss, Whoopi Goldberg without the funk, Sybil with a good agent. Not long ago, she took Contributing Editor Bill Zehme to afternoon tea at Trumps in West Hollywood, where she cheerfully wreaked havoc upon the pristine English custom. Zehme recalls, "We pulled up in Tracey's howitzerlike Range Rover and squared off in a cozy corner table. She wore a large black hat, ate cucumber sandwiches, pointed out every toupee and face lift in the room and suggested several methods of torturing the harpist."

1.

[Q] Playboy: Just how many voices careen around in your head at a given moment? Which is the real Tracey?

[A] Ullman: They've said my brain is like a spinning radio dial. I do voices all the time. I don't even know I'm doing them. I mean, I love voices. I don't think there are any that I can't do if I listen long enough. There's no accent that I can't do. Mabel [her two-year-old daughter] actually thinks I'm everybody. She thinks I'm Michael Jackson. She'll see him on TV and go, "Mummy." At the end of the NBC Nightly News the other night, she saw the Statue of Liberty and pointed, "Oh, Momma!"

What I like being best is a gal who laughs at herself. I maintain my British sensibility. I can't succumb to these California illnesses and moan and go to an analyst. If I think I'm sinking into that, I have to quickly go kick the dog up the ass and get some of my British pessimism back. I'm a fighter. I go to work, I laugh at myself and I don't think I'm incredibly important. I just want to get through the earthquake here.

2.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever seen a casting couch?

[A] Ullman: Oh, come on! Let's be honest. Who would want to get me on a casting couch? Someone like Justine Bateman has probably been through all that. I haven't. I've never seen that side of Hollywood. I've never been offered drugs or a casting couch or parts in glitzy soap operas. I think they could see, lookswise, it just wasn't worth considering. It wasn't even worth approaching me about having cosmetic surgery done.

3.

[Q] Playboy: Give us a Brit's guide to surviving life in L.A.

[A] Ullman: If you're British, be aware that Californians don't boil water properly for tea. It's a real nightmare. They say herb without an H--"erb"--which still pisses me off. Everyone is obsessed with being ill. [In Valleyspeak] "I had a rilly bad virus. I just felt so bad." From here on, I refuse to tell these people I don't feel well. It sends them into a panic. My agents were up in arms recently because I had the flu: "That's, like, rilly bad. Can we come round with chicken soup? You should see a rilly good nutritionist who can, like, cleanse your whole body and feed you erbs that make your poo-poo look strange." I'm convinced that they love being ill here.

What else? The news programs here are so unbelievably bad. If it doesn't happen in California, it doesn't happen. All one hears of are brush fires in Encino, when you don't give a shit. One night not long ago, there were promos showing a man rolling around in flames. You think, Oh, my God, some bloke went up in flames today! It turned out to be stock footage to illustrate news of a stuntmen's strike. So keep your subscriptions to British newspapers.

But perhaps most important of all, steer clear of other Brits. L.A. is full of boring Brits who insist upon keeping up "the old traditions." All they do is start cricket teams. Ugh.

4.

[Q] Playboy: You do a devastating impersonation of a self-possessed Beverly Hills bimbo-bitch. What lurks in the heart of that breed?

[A] Ullman: The problem is that they are heartless. They are spoiled girls who have nothing in the eyes. They are so uncaring, these horrible girls with their little prism perms and acrylic French nails. [In a low, nonchalant monotone] "I wanted to go see a movie, he didn't want to go see a movie and, uh, I hate him for that." They're so obsessed with themselves, they push in front of you in lines at the Beverly Center.

But the character I do is based on a dentist's assistant. This girl is really horrible to you when he's out of the room. She makes these odd accusations, like, "You got saliva all over the whole thing; I have to do it again now." She gets really cross, even if you say you're ever so sorry. One day, the dentist's working in my mouth and this girl's saying, "I wanna get a gun. I've been going to this range and I shoot and it helps release a lot of tension and I'm happy about that." He asks, "Would you shoot a person?" She says, "I guess so. If I could psych myself up." She's not human. These heartless girls, they have no sense of humor. If Mabel's gonna be like that, she goes into a cage and gets put down next week.

5.

[Q] Playboy: What does the success of The Cosby Show say about American TV?

[A] Ullman: That show gives me the willies. It really does. I used to think it was all right. But, let's face it, they're wearing too many designer clothes for an obstetrician's income. It just doesn't make sense. It's a strange show. The clothes worry me.

To me, the best type of American TV is stuff like Return to the Titanic, with Telly Savalas. It's just so moronic. There were men guarding the ship's safe for two hours, the duration of which I'm going, "This is just getting cruel!" Finally, the contents turn out to be primarily sea anemones, clinging to life under the hot studio lights. They were just wiggling out and dying. Meanwhile, a Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry expert was trying to put magnifying glasses over this really shitty jewelry, as it was disintegrating. And Telly Savalas was handing the stuff over to the experts, going, "Hey, why don'cha take a look at this?" You could tell he was shaking the pieces around too much, because the scientists (continued on page 163)Tracey Ullman(continued from page 113) were cringing. A bit rough with the merchandise, Telly.

6.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about your Fox boss, Rupert Murdoch. Where are the chinks in his armor?

[A] Ullman: I've never met him. I've been told he's brilliant. He was in the audience for our first show, he got jet lag and had to leave. He looked a bit bugged. He had too many kangaroo canapés on the plane or something. What do they serve on Australian first class? Wallaby wienies? He does send his Aussie friends on guided studio tours, so I'll crack Aussie jokes for their benefit. [With an Aussie twang] "How're ya, mate? Shovin' your head up a big bear's ass? Har-har-har!" I'm not sure they much like that.

But he's given me a great opportunity. I can't knock him. All his newspapers in England used to shock me, though. Page one in The Sun: "Debby is 26 and has big breasts." Page ten: "Riots in South Africa." I never gave interviews to his papers. What would I talk about? They want to hear about the night you did cocaine with Duran Duran while you were having Rod Stewart's baby. They're just the worst. They're the daily equivalent of the National Enquirer here, which Americans take with a grain of salt. But we believe The Sun. It's England's biggest newspaper. The Falklands fuss was its finest hour: "The Falklands' lovelies--girls with combat breasts on page three." It's insane.

7.

[Q] Playboy: How tempting is it for a British comedienne to become a Benny Hill girl? How close did you come?

[A] Ullman: I did Jenny Hill, a female version of Benny Hill, in a sketch on one of my British television series. In it, there were lots of men running around. I touched a lot of blokes' willies at bus stops. It was great fun.

Sometime before that, however, I was a bit desperate, because there's nothing for British women in comedy--it's either class comedies starring Sarah Ferguson before she became a member of the royal family or Benny Hill girls. I rang up Benny once and he was really strange. He said, "If you come see me, will you bring me a bottle of milk?" And I said, "Why would I bring you a bottle of milk?" He said, "Everyone who comes to see me has to bring me a bottle of milk." It's, like, a Benny Hill tradition. Weird, isn't it? I never went. I saw a rerun featuring his bimbos. I thought, "My tits aren't big enough, and, moreover, do I really want to have a bikini ripped off me?"

My friend Allison, who's really dim, but so funny, did the show for a year. We all sat around to watch her the first time she appeared. She was on screen in a leotard with a complete hole cut out for her tits--her tits were out. Then, later on, she was in a cutaway dress that came flying off. Unbelievable. We were in shock. I go red just thinking about it. She makes a lot of money in reruns. But it just wasn't worth that to me.

8.

[Q] Playboy: How do you think you look in a bikini?

[A] Ullman: I wore one on a record cover once in England. I'd just got a new Rabbit car and I was so thrilled with it, I thought I should pose on the hood in a bikini. Never again--though I'd just had a wax, so I wasn't too hairy.

I did go topless once in Europe. I remember being on a beach with just my bikini bottom on and this old drunkard who'd been going out with my sister was watching me. He looked at my tits and said, "You're not very much like your sister, are you?" So I gave him the eye and said, "Yeah, well, you hardly pack your trunks!" I loved that. It became the quote of the holiday.

But ever since then, I haven't had a lot of faith in my body. And you know what? That guy took a picture of me that day, which he sold to a newspaper years later, when I'd become famous. They printed it a week after I had met Prince Charles, with the caption: "Tracey Ullman met Prince Charles last week. Good job she didn't meet him like this!" And there I was in the picture, squinting on a beach with my little tits. I was really pissed off at that guy who hardly packed his trunks.

9.

[Q] Playboy: You met Charles and Diana? Any lingering impressions?

[A] Ullman: I did the Prince's Trust show and shook their hands in a receiving line. It's amazing. You have to be briefed and checked for guns and everything. I was wearing a bright silver suit I'd just got in New York that I thought was really cool. When Princess Diana saw me, she said, "I hope you don't melt." I did look a bit like a baked potato. Perhaps she thought I might cook myself.

She is really pretty from up close. My husband, who is possibly the biggest antiroyalist in the world, met her farther on down the line and they talked for about two hours. She told him about how she likes to play her radio loud in the palace. Everyone said, "She's after your Allan." This has gone to his head. Whenever he's asked whether he's met the royal family, he says, "Met 'em? Ha! Diana was after me, man!" It's slightly annoying, but we must humor him.

10.

[Q] Playboy: What are the royal family's love secrets?

[A] Ullman: They won't give up, will they? In England, there's a great magazine called Private Eye that really brings the royals down to our level. They call the queen and the Duke of Edinburgh Brenda and Keith. Princess Margaret is called Yvonne, and Charles and Di are called Brian and Cheryl. I really hope those two are splitting up. She's not a rocket scientist, is she? That's her problem. Fergie seems like more fun--in a pretty horsy, smelly sort of way. You could imagine rolling around on a bed, fighting with her. The royal men are hopeless; they never move their lips. Elizabeth is evidently a manic depressive and takes Thorazine or something. I don't know. And the Queen Mother, the old woman, is our equivalent of Bob Hope. They caught the BBC rehearsing her funeral. It's going to be a top ratings-getter when she goes.

I just don't get the royal family. I never got it. Why do we pay them millions of pounds to be better than us and ride around in coaches, spraying us with mud, while we go, "God bless you, Mum." It's the one thing I really don't miss about England. That's one advantage to being in America. At least there's no bloody royal family.

11.

[Q] Playboy: In one of the classic sketches on your show, you lived out every woman's nightmare, playing a character who physically turned into her mother. Any early warning signs of this actually happening to you?

[A] Ullman: I have a mom who always said, "Say vagina, it doesn't matter. The doctor wants to know what's wrong with you. You must tell him!" My sister and I would cringe, "Mommy, don't use words like that!" She'd tell people, "The girls are worried that their breasts aren't big enough." We'd go, "Mommmmm!" She was very straightforward, in such a way that everything she said was embarrassing. I'm getting like her in that way, saying horrid things like that to Mabel.

You are kind of like your mother, though. You can't help it. But that's all right. She was really good with us when we were kids. She was a good mom, very patient. With Mabel's being sick recently, I reminded myself of my mom, who always brought a scoop of scrambled eggs and magazines and let us chuck up in plastic buckets right in front of her. I don't think I'll be as unhealthy as my mom, though. I've got my California aerobics, so I'm always (continued overleaf) going to look shit-hot. My thighs are going to be like tempered steel till I'm 54.

12.

[Q] Playboy: Should Method actors be trusted?

[A] Ullman: Better yet, should any actor be trusted? I hate all that Method-acting rubbish: "Don't talk to me--I'm motivating!" I loved it when a guy on the crew during the first few weeks of our show saw me concentrating and asked, "Can I talk to you or are you in character?" It's so stupid. I laughed at all that so much when I studied drama. These stupid teachers would come in and go, "Good morning, darlings, let's all be dustbins!" I'd go, "Oh, shut up. I wanna be a banana!"

13.

[Q] Playboy: Describe the plight of a golf widow.

[A] Ullman: My husband, Allan, has gotten better about this. He is a really good golfer, but I think he's realized that Mabel is going to keep wondering what he actually does for a living. You don't do a lot of business meetings in pink shirts and yellow pants. So he's been getting his suits out and they're all covered with moth holes. It's a sure sign that he hasn't been to work in years.

Golf, for me, just means a lot of afternoons in Palm Springs, wandering around leisure shops, buying velour suits and meeting a lot of women called Barbara and Deirdre. They go [in a bored country-club whine], "This is not a good course, it's a great course." They all want their condos with mustard shag-pile carpeting overlooking the 11th hole. It's a world of tasteless frozen food and leisure suits and sprinkler systems. One of these women asked me, "Are you having a good time, honey?" I said, "No, I'm twenty-six. I should be at punk-rock concerts, screaming 'Fuck off!' and 'Kill the queen!'" They just pretended they didn't hear me.

14.

[Q] Playboy: What's your position on leg waxing?

[A] Ullman: I just had it done before I came to see you. I've got no hair at all. Look! [She extends a leg for close inspection.] I was a royal Hairy Mary until I had it done. It's a must when you're in California. But it's hell. They pour a lot of hot wax on you, and it's agonizing. I used to go to a real tough waxer, a Russian woman called Yanna. A lot of pain here. If you have any ingrown hairs, she goes [grunts], "Yanna fix." She puts a big needle in and picks out the hairs. "Stay still, darlink!" she'd tell me. "I make you look very, very sexy for men." Like yourself, Yanna? Try waxing your nose, Yanna. That'll make you look sexy. "You'll have good sex when you come to Yanna! I do for you good!"

15.

[Q] Playboy: After four years, how do you rekindle the romance in your marriage?

[A] Ullman: The romance is tough when you've got Mabel with gastroenteritis and the dog shitting all over, while I'm totally exhausted and trying to learn dialog, and Allan's practicing golf swings in the garden, hitting the dog on the head with golf balls. It's really hard, because our house is just a wooden hut, and it's becoming hell. Nothing's big enough once you have a baby.

We did go away together recently. We spent the whole time talking about the baby. We also talk about when Al was thin; he's a bit of a mess now. But I'm happy with Al.

16.

[Q] Playboy: You can speak from experience: What's the best way to fluster David Letterman?

[A] Ullman: Talk about him sexually. He's such an asexual guy on his show. I once said to him, "You've got a gap between your teeth, David, and my mother always said that men with gaps in their teeth are oversexed." He pruned right up. But he'll also turn on me like a German shepherd.

I spoke to him on the phone once. I'd phoned up his girlfriend, Merrill Markoe, and she wasn't there. He answered. I said, "Will you tell her that Tracey Ullman called?" He said, "Yeah, sure." I said, "Is that you, David?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Why didn't you say so? You know it's me!" He said, "Yes, I know." It's like he's a horrible little boy answering the phone at home. But we ended up talking about loads of things, like how he thinks Robert Redford looks Chinese, for instance. I said, "I won't say we should have dinner sometime, because it would be just a ridiculous idea--the thought of my husband and me going out with you and your girlfriend. It's, like, a horrible idea."

You don't ever attempt any sort of congeniality with the man. You just treat him like what he is--an oversexed schoolboy. He's like the guy in the dorm who'd always say, "Let's phone New Zealand and mess up the phone system." Or, "Let's blow up the soccer posts!" He's such a genius. I love David Letterman.

17.

[Q] Playboy: What's the sexiest thing you do?

[A] Ullman: Winding down the electric window in my car and giving some driver the finger in the sexiest way possible. That and that little twist I do at the end of my show. That's me at my sexiest, swinging my hips.

18.

[Q] Playboy: What mortally offends you?

[A] Ullman: Leather ties. People who wear braces on their teeth after the age of 12. Obviously, they're women trying to get guys, so why do they make themselves incredibly ugly during their prime pulling years? What else? These bloody Iranian minimalls with your one-hour photo, your Yum-Yum Donut, your French pâtissière with nothing remotely Frenchlike in it. Red-rimmed eyeglasses and the record pluggers who wear them. Also, I get hysterical over toupees. They're the most disgusting things. And gray gums are, like, the biggest turn-off. And if they happen to belong to an agent, that's, like, total devastation.

19.

[Q] Playboy: You're alarmingly wise for your 28 years. How old do you feel?

[A] Ullman: About 40. I'm just so cynical. And having a kid has made me feel even older. Jim Brooks [who produces her show] calls me an old soul. But I was like this when I was 12. I stayed up until 11 o'clock and was allowed to take puffs on cigars and sip wine. Even when I was five, a clown would come up to me and say, "Hullo, I'm Captain Billy's Banana!" And I'd go, "Don't be so bloody stupid! Don't patronize me! I'm six next week!" I would stay up all night, spelling swear words for my mum's and sister's boyfriends. I'd go, "Fuck! F-U-C-K." And they'd go, "Oh, she's so funny!"

It's really sad, in a way. I didn't have any sort of childhood. To get a bit serious, I never had a dad--he died when I was very small. I was never pampered or spoiled. My mum wouldn't let us have any sugar or watch cartoons, anything childish. I looked after myself. It was understood that I'd leave school as soon as possible and get a job. That happened when I was 16. I worked in Berlin for four months as a dancer, which really made me grow up fast. I lived there with 20 homosexual dancers in pink platform boots. So I've been working solidly for 11 years now. I mean, you Americans don't leave school till you're, like, 22. There're always these daffy girls going, "Oh, I'm rilly scared. I'm only 23!"

20.

[Q] Playboy: What do you know for sure?

[A] Ullman: That the wrong people are in charge. Especially in America. That the people you thought knew what they were doing--doctors, scientists, politicians, lawyers, pilots--don't. That they're as stupid as you and I are, which is frightening. That educated people aren't necessarily clever. That there are no more rain forests nor ozone layer. That we're all going to die. That there are no bargains anywhere. That the Pinewood condos in Palm Springs are no match for the south of France. That you're never going to get a decent perm if you do it at home. And that the best thing to do in life is laugh.

the face that launched a thousand skits waxes eloquent about body hair, breasts and how princess di tried to steal her husband

"I did Jenny Hill, a female version of Benny Hill. I touched a lot of blokes' willies at bus stops."