Playboy Interview: Andrea Marcovicci

Andrea Marcovicci describes torch singing as "I torture myself for your benefit." After years of acting on TV ("Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing," "Baretta," "Medical Center," "Magnum, P.I.") and in movies ("The Front" and, most recently, her boyfriend Henry Jaglom's "Someone to Love," the video of which is a Valentine's Day release), she is concentrating her energies on filling the Hotel Algonquin's Oak Room, Los Angeles' Gardenia club and Carnegie Hall with a growing following, which includes Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson. Articles Editor John Rezek caught her in Chicago at The Gold Star Sardine Bar and hasn't been the same since. They met later, appropriately enough, in the lobby of the Algonquin. Rezek reports: "On stage, Andrea is charming, witty, beautiful and rivetingly intelligent. Face to face, she's exactly the same, only more casually dressed."

1.

[Q] Playboy: Describe the start of a perfect Valentine's Day.

[A] Marcovicci: Don't let me sound like Jane Seymour. I want to be able to talk about romance without anybody's thinking that I'm having a faint or anything. Waking up to a valentine left under the door would be very nice.

2.

[Q] Playboy: How can a feminist get her heart broken?

[A] Marcovicci: It takes a little more effort, but not much. A lot of us lost sight of our hearts--and of some of the things that make life truly bearable. I know women around my age who have found themselves incapable of creating relationships that will give them security and warmth and safety, because they have no roles to play that they can understand. Many women have waited for the great romantic love of their life to come along and he has never come. And they have never had children. It's a rather chilly time for so many women. One older friend said when she had her child, "That's the romance I was waiting for, the real love of my life. Who knew that the prince I'd waited for was going to be my child?"

3.

[Q] Playboy: What are the early events of a woman's life that inform the way she later approaches men?

[A] Marcovicci: All women carry their relationships with their fathers throughout their lives in one way or another and usually end up looking for someone like their fathers in the men they choose--or someone opposite. My father was sixty-three when I was born. He was much older than my mother. I grew up worried about his dying. And in a weird, perverse way--the way in which psychology works--I avoided picking somebody who would be continuous. I chose very difficult men who were not at all marriageable.

Getting my period was really disturbing, an enormous event that I thought was handled brilliantly by my father. He told me he was going to take me dancing and got me all dressed up. It was his way of saying, "You'll make a wonderful girl. You'll be fine, and there are beautiful aspects of womanhood that you'll enjoy." And what could a man do that could be more beautiful than that?

As for the other moments of a girl's life, I bet all women remember their father's coming home at the end of the day, the sound of his keys in the door. When Daddy comes through the door, he's a god. That is one of the reasons fathers like to be fathers. And I still feel special when I hear keys outside the door, and I've had that in relationships with men.

First boyfriends are a very difficult situation. I fell in love when I was about thirteen, and I got the boy to give me his I.D. bracelet. My father was furious. "Get that slave bracelet off your wrist." He was so angry that I would have the mark of this other man. Later, I realized that he was also furious because when turned over, it had written on it: I am a Diabetic. My father was a doctor and was angry because what if I were in an accident or something? He was being very sensible.

4.

[Q] Playboy: Give us a brief history of the major events in an adult romance.

[A] Marcovicci: Eyes start the whole thing off. When you see someone across a room, or you're introduced to him at a party, or you work with him, there is a moment that has to do with really looking into his eyes and seeing what you see there. Good conversation is next. Laughter and how fast it happens and how easily it happens are next. Then there's the first kiss. Vital. Now there's a first kiss practically immediately. Being comfortable at a movie together is a big part of every romance. Also, whether people want to admit it or not, that moment when you finally are comfortable not going out and you stay home and watch television. Sunday afternoons are the next milestone. People are very complicated on Sunday afternoons. They have old sadnesses that come up on Sunday afternoon, and dealing with them together is a good idea. Then comes the decision and the celebration of making love, and, with luck, you get over that and then try it again. Then there's living together and/or marriage. And day-to-day life. And seeing whether you're lucky enough to have fallen in love with somebody who's trustworthy.

5.

[Q] Playboy: What behavior of women should immediately be forgiven?

[A] Marcovicci: All premenstrual behavior short of murder.

6.

[Q] Playboy: What immediately disqualifies a man?

[A] Marcovicci: If he doesn't know who Cole Porter was. That's it: You, out of here. You're disqualified if you're not at least a self-educated person. A woman of culture can certainly spend and enjoy time with somebody without a formal education. A man who is interested in the arts and in the world around him will more than qualify. If his only subscription is to Field & Stream or Guns and Ammo, I think we've got a problem.

7.

[Q] Playboy: Name three things a gentleman never does.

[A] Marcovicci: A gentleman doesn't insist. He has the sensitivity to see when something has gone too far. A gentleman never gets into an argument with your parents. He can have a heated discussion with them, perhaps, but he should always back off at the right moment when he's talking with your mother. [Laughs] Third, a gentleman doesn't keep a woman (continued on page 160) Andrea marcovicci waiting. And I don't mean that in a small way, the five minutes or the half hour. But a gentleman doesn't worry a woman. It's so easy to make sure that you allow a girl you're with to feel secure. It's so easy to say, "Yes, I'll be there," or "Yes, I'll call."

8.

[Q] Playboy: Under what circumstances is it permissible for a woman to swear, and how does she learn how to make it natural and poignant?

[A] Marcovicci: [Laughs] With the phone company, for instance, swearing is absolutely necessary. If you don't learn to say "fuck" to the phone company, there's no hope. Learning when a little swearing is judicious is of great value, as is the ability to raise your voice at certain times. That, however, shouldn't become a habit. There's something so ugly when swear words are used in anger. But a swear word used in fun is Ok. There's a section in my show I call "Songs from Movies That Fucked Us Up." There's no other way to say it. If you're discussing ideas and being reasonably eloquent, a swear word now and again is part of it. Let's be honest here: I swear in a black-velvet dress, so it's a totally different story.

9.

[Q] Playboy: What should a guy do when his girlfriend cries?

[A] Marcovicci: Hold her, hold her, hold her--that is, if she wants to be held. And I can tell you what not to do, but this is personal only to me. Don't say "shhhhh...." [Laughs]

10.

[Q] Playboy: Are you fond of weddings?

[A] Marcovicci: I cry at weddings. Badly. I weep uncontrollably. I don't even have to know the people. I hear the wedding march, I cry. I see the white dress, I cry. But I don't get invited to a lot of weddings. What do they want a torch singer there for? I'm the harbinger of things to come.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Describe the man who inspires torch singers.

[A] Marcovicci: A withholder. A bad boy. The kind of strong, silent type who can't commit, who brings fire to a relationship but has no foundation upon which to build anything of any lasting strength. That's the classic profile of the man about whom a torch singer sings. I do some of that in my shows now. But I also have a new category. For "Girls' Night Out," I sing torch from the standpoint of my being the one who was wrong: having met the right man, not recognizing him as such and having let him go. It's probably the most painful torch of all.

12.

[Q] Playboy: Distinguish between a cad, a bounder, a dweeb and just a plain jerk.

[A] Marcovicci: [Laughs] A cad is a man who knows he's hurting you, who knows he's misbehaving and does it anyway. A bounder can't help himself. [Laughs] And a jerk doesn't even know what he's doing, doesn't have a clue. As for dweebs, they're probably just skinnier. A woman will sit around and complain about her cads, jerks and bounders, but she won't take responsibility for the fact that she saw all the signs long in advance. Once, I fell in love with a man who, when I first saw him, made me say to myself, That man is a cad. For thirty seconds, I knew he was insane. And for six months, after those first thirty seconds, I had to have it proved to me. Finally, I came around to see his face one more time, at the very end, exactly as I had seen it at the beginning. And I kick myself to this day.

13.

[Q] Playboy: Give men an education about jewelry.

[A] Marcovicci: First of all, buy it. [Laughs] Don't think of it as meaning something important; it doesn't have to. You're not engaged the moment you give somebody a piece of jewelry Take a look at what your girlfriend wears. Go window shopping with her. Notice what she points to. I'm more moved by antique jewelry and small stones. Something sweet from the past. You can't ever go wrong with giving a person jewelry.

14.

[Q] Playboy: What don't love songs tell us about love?

[A] Marcovicci: We get enormous illusions about love from love songs, and I'm contributing to that. I sang Some Enchanted Evening for the first time not long ago, and I asked myself why it didn't go something like: "You will go to a party you don't really want to go to, and you'll meet your cousin's best friend, and you won't like his suit, but yo'u will like his eyes. And he won't be able to dance at all well, but he'll say something sweet, and you'll realize he likes his mother, and therefore, maybe he'll like yours." Why don't they write that in a song? They'll never do it, and I probably wouldn't sing it if they did. We've been damaged by our love songs and by our movies, and yet they're such an essential part of that yearning that love seems to be about, that I absolutely must sing them. But I usually end my show with something more realistic, about finding love where it may have been all along: under your nose. Romantic fantasy love is what I call anxiety love. It makes you sick. And it's not really love, it's narcissism. What you love is how you feel about yourself. You're floating on a feeling that is basically all your own. And it feels like being in love, because we're used to that kind of tension as being in love. Romantic movies are all about tension, but we don't see it played out. We don't see what happens after the words THE END. So what we get is--

15.

[Q] Playboy: Emotional chase scenes?

[A] Marcovicci: Exactly. And that's what we respond to and in some ways what I sing about, too-that fabulous, emotional chasing. And I'm particularly moved by those scenes when I see them in the movies, and that's why I sing. You're not supposed to be worried all the time when you're in love. Of course, you lose your appetite a little and that's fine. We all love that. We want to lose weight when we fall in love. If you don't lose a pound or two, that isn't love.

16.

[Q] Playboy: What's the most preposterous song you sing?

[A] Marcovicci: Stay Well--a song I love in spite of myself. I almost have to issue a disclaimer before I sing it, because it is the most torchy of torch. The song says [singing], "If I tell truth to you/my love, my own,/Grief is your gift to me,/grief alone./Wild passion at midnight,/Wild anger at dawn,/Yet when you're absent,/I weep you gone." It's the craziest, sickest of all the torch songs I do. I get little girls coming to hear me sing. And I tell their mothers to put cotton in their ears for this song. But it's the most beautiful song I've ever heard. And I must sing it. Love is a remarkable feeling. And I've had times in my life when I was able to let somebody go, knowing he was bad for me but loving him anyway. A man who treated me terribly came to hear me sing, and I always thought that if I ever saw him at the club again, I'd just throw him out bodily. I should just spit on him. I should say to the audience, "He's the one." And it was so silly. When the show was over, I went over to him, shook his hand and said, "I wish you well in whatever you choose to do." So go figure. For me, it's more important to be able to feel those feelings. But I didn't make a date with him. I'm not stupid.

17.

[Q] Playboy: Who understood women better, Cole Porter or Ira Gershwin?

[A] Marcovicci: Ira Gershwin. Most people believe Cole Porter's lyrics are a little more brittle and clever and a little distant. And, in truth, most of them are. They're more cocktail-party love, more sophisticated. But there are Porter songs that are so different from that. Like, "After you, who/ Could supply my sky of blue?/After you, who/Could I love? /After you, why/ Should I take the time to try,/ For who else could qualify/After you, who?" It's intense, pure and direct, and not quite so clever as many of his other songs were. Ira Gershwin understood more and was more emotional, more female. As Michael Fein-stein reminds us of the old joke, "George and his lovely wife, Ira."

18.

[Q] Playboy: In The Front, you kiss Woody Allen for the first time with your hands folded neatly on your lap. What was going through your head?

[A] Marcovicci: Right before we shot that scene, Woody said to me, "I'm going to give you only one lip when we kiss. Because if I give you two, you'll never live through it." So I was laughing, because we were a little nervous. Those kisses were very sweet, as I recall.

19.

[Q] Playboy: When men go to hear you sing, do they become overwrought with emotion and throw themselves at you?

[A] Marcovicci: Throw themselves at me! [Laughs] They don't throw themselves at me at all. Though I'd be ready to catch. I intimidate, mostly. Men are quite romantic with me and will write me lovely notes or send flowers. What I do on stage is a very romantic vision, and it reminds people of another time and of another time's manners and romances. I've had a couple of men show up in white tie and tails, because of my crush on Fred Astaire. My audience seems to think I have a lot of emotional knowledge. I appear to be somebody who knows so much about romance that I bring out a rather tender awkwardness in some men. They're very courtly with me.

20.

[Q] Playboy: Under what circumstances do you sing in the shower?

[A] Marcovicci: Under all circumstances. I sing arias and things like that. And I warm up and do all my vocalizing in the shower. I get into the shower to sing.

"If you're discussing ideas and being reasonably eloquent, a swear word now and again is part of it."