Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live by Tom Shales, James Andrew Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

hope George Carlin remembers me after this whole thing.” Turns out he did, and Lorne, I guess, was sort of impressed by that. Then I went for a second interview and got the job.
    DICK EBERSOL:
    We were walking through the rain one night after dinner, sort of going from awning to awning, and Chevy ran ahead. A couple hundred feet away, he goes into a pothole, does a complete ass over teakettle into this immense pothole, and comes out of this thing just soaked. And he walks back and he and Lorne look at me and say, “Now how could you say no to somebody who was crazy enough to do that?” So Chevy became a cast member. And he ended up with a magnificent loophole, since he already had a signed one-year contract as head writer. From the time the show launched, every time the performer contract was put in front of him, it never got signed.
    BERNIE BRILLSTEIN:
    I had to call Gilda Radner in Vancouver and urge her not to do the David Steinberg show, a syndicated show. It was an offer she’d been considering. I had never met Gilda. That’s how I got to know her — over the phone. I made her laugh, you know. Lorne, of course, wouldn’t make the call himself, so I had to do it. Even then, there was no direct route. Why it’s that way with him I don’t know. Fear of rejection, I guess. And clean hands — you know, it’s like, “I have nothing to do with it.”
    DICK EBERSOL:
    Late April, early May, Lorne started laying out the cast. One day he’s got this really bizarre guy with smoked glasses, Michael O’Donoghue, and I’m thinking, “Oh God, what have we gotten into here?”
    And then one day he told me, “This girl is the funniest thing and just a super human being, you’re going to be crazy about her,” because I had okay over these people. So this thin young woman shows up with a kid who says hello and excuses himself. But the woman is Gilda. And here I am talking to this young comedic actress, and I’m absolutely mesmerized by her. So she’s the first person signed to do the show after Lorne.
    DAN AYKROYD, Cast Member:
    I went through so many auditions. Live auditions, tape auditions. After the first one, I thought, “I’m not going to get hired,” and I ended up driving across country with John Candy to do Second City in Pasadena. We went from Toronto to L.A. in thirty-eight hours in a big old Mercury Cougar with me and him switching off driving. And then we got to Pasadena and I started my first week of rehearsals and Lorne called and said, “Well, come back out.” So at my own expense, I got on a fucking plane, flew back to New York, and had this other series of tape auditions. I think I did like newscaster guy, announcer guy type of thing, and if anything got me on the show it was that type of fast-rap announcer, the Ron Popeil sort of thing.
    There was one audition in the summer, a live thing, a cattle call. I came down with a friend from Toronto. We had a song prepared, but then I saw all the people lined up, waiting outside in the hall there. There were a hundred people waiting to get in, and I was at the end of the line. And I thought, “Boy, it’s three o’clock now, it’s going to be seven o’clock at night when we get on. This song ain’t going to go over too well.”
    So I just kind of cut through the line and busted into the room — because I knew Lorne from Canada — and walked up. “Hey, how are you boss, what’re you doing, nice to see you.” I said, “Well, I’m here,” and I did a sort of quick five-minute kind of fast rap and then got out of there. And I think they were impressed. After that audition, it was clear I had the job. I went home to Canada, got my motorcycle, and drove down into the city for the first season in ’75. I had just turned twenty-three.
    PAUL SHAFFER:
    Gilda and I had both worked on the National Lampoon Radio Hour here in New York, so we became friendly with John Belushi and Doug Kenney and this cast of characters associated with the Lampoon . I