00:00: Charlie Rose: An hour with Steve Martin, next. Steve Martin joins me this evening. For more than 30 years, he has done every kind of performance you can imagine. In the 1970s, he was the first rock star comedian.
00:40: Steve Martin: It's kind of fun for me to see the people in the audience with the amateur model arrow through the head. This, of course, is the professional model. Oh, no, I'm getting happy feet! Whoa! I am an experienced professional. Don't you try this at home. And one more thing -- if you buy my album and you came down here expecting me to do a lot of routines from the record and I didn't do them -- well, excuse me!
01:30: Charlie Rose: Through the 1980s and 1990s, his career shifted to appearances on television shows and in film.
01:41: Steve Martin: That was really something tonight. It was no difficult to see many swinging Americans enjoying each other a great deal. And here is a thing I will tell you -- the two most swinging foxes had the hots on for us and are coming here tonight to let us hold on to their big American breasts!
02:05: Unidentified Male: Why not? There's nothing preventing them. After all, there's no other Parof (ph) Czech brothers who cruise and swing so successfully in tight slacks.
02:23: Steve Martin: We are two wild and crazy guys! I'd like to talk seriously just for a moment. One of the great art exhibits ever to tour the United States is the treasures of Tutankhamon, or King Tut. But I think it's a national disgrace the way we have commercialized it with trinkets and toys, t-shirts and posters. And about three months ago, I was up in the woods and I wrote a song. I tried to use the ancient modalities and melodies. I'd like to do it for you right now. Maybe we can all learn something from this. (singing): Now when he was a young man, he never thought he'd see people stand in line to see the boy king. King Tut, how'd you get so funky? Did you do the funky? Why did you kiss my ear?
03:28: Unidentified Male: Why are you holding my hand?
03:32: Steve Martin: Where's your other hand?
03:37: Unidentified Male: Between two pillows.
03:41: Steve Martin: Those aren't pillows! I remember how her little hand used to fit inside mine, how she used to love to sit on my lap and lean her head against my chest. She said I was her hero. Then the day comes when she wants to get her ears pierced and wants you to drop her off a block before the movie theater. The next thing you know, she's wearing eye shadow and high heels. From that moment on, you're in a constant state of panic. You worry about her going out with the wrong kind of guys, the kind of guys who only want one thing, and you know exactly what that one thing is because it's the same thing you wanted when you were their age. Let me start with the obvious. Excuse me, is that your nose or did a bus park on your face? Meteorological -- everybody take cover, she's going to blow! Fashionable. You know, you could de-emphasize your nose if you wore something larger, like Wyoming. (singing): When I was younger, just barely a kid, my momma noticed funny things I did. Like shooting puppies with a bb gun. I poisoned guppies when I was done. I'd find a pussy cat, bash its head. That's when my momma said -- what did she say? She said, my boy, I think some day you'll find a way to make your tendencies pay. You'll be a dentist! You have a talent for causing pain. Look, I know you can't be seen chatting up customers, so why don't you just meet me Friday for dinner at L'Arrande (ph), that little place in Beverly Hills, at 8:00. You don't even have to give me your phone number. You can just show up. And if you don't, I'll just eat alone. What was the name of the restaurant?
05:40: Unidentified Female: L'Arrande.
05:42: Steve Martin: What time?
05:45: Unidentified Female: 8:00. I would like to buy the hamburger.
05:48: Steve Martin: I would like to buy the hamburger.
05:50: Unidentified Female: Hamburger.
05:52: Steve Martin: I would like to buy a hamburger.
05:54: Unidentified Female: Maybe w should stop.
05:55: Steve Martin: We don't quit! We do not quit! Again, again!
06:01: Unidentified Female: I would like to buy a hamburger.
06:03: Steve Martin: I would like to buy a hamburger!
06:04: Unidentified Female: I would like to buy a hamburger.
06:06: Steve Martin: I would like to buy the burger.
06:08: Unidentified Female: I would like to buy a hamburger.
06:11: Steve Martin: I would like to buy a hamburger.
06:13: Unidentified Female: I would like to buy a hamburger.
06:15: Steve Martin: I would like to buy a hamburger.
06:17: Charlie Rose: Steve Martin has just written a new book, "Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life." It is a memoir of how he got into show business and his career as a stand-up comedian. He has recently stepped back onto several stages. First, he was a Kennedy Center honoree. On that night, he was celebrated by his friends and peers. And secondly, at the 92nd Street Y here in New York. Fans came out to see a candid conversation and meet one of their favorite artists. Here are some of the highlights.
06:41: Steve Martin: I was in Georgia in a club -- no, in a college -- and I was -- sorry, yes -- Vanderbilt University. And I was playing --
06:49: Charlie Rose: Tennessee. Nashville, Tennessee.
06:52: Steve Martin: It is?
06:53: Charlie Rose: Yes.
06:55: Steve Martin: They moved it? I did my show, and I finished. I said, OK, thank you, and good night. And all my props are over there and my banjo case. And so I start packing this up, but it's all in front of everybody. And they're still sitting there like this. And I'm packing and putting this away. And I said, thank you, and the show's over, so thank you very much. Thank you. And then I'd stand there. And they just sat there. So I thought, hmmm, and so I just started talking to the audience. I don't remember what I said, but I just started talking, you know, "well, I guess the show is over." Something like that. And I walked out into the audience, "and I'm leaving now." I said, "I'm going to leave." And they just sort of hung with me, and we went out into the hallway, and they kind of hung with me, and I said, "yes, we're going to" -- we went outside, and there was a drained swimming pool there. And so I asked them to get into the swimming pool. And they all got into the swimming pool. And then I said, "and now I'm going to swim across you." And so I did that. And they did this. This would have been about 1971.
08:06: Charlie Rose: Yes.
08:09: Steve Martin: And I went home that night, and I thought, something just happened that was different than anything I had been doing. And I started to think in that vein, that things could go a little, as we say, wilder and crazier. I was 21 years old. I was -- you know, studying theater, and I fell in love with a girl, who made me read Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge." And "The Razor's Edge" is about a man questing truth, in the sort of '60s sense -- I mean, the book was written before that -- but the guru on the mountain and knowing. And this just completely appealed to me. So I changed my major and I studied philosophy. And I -- I -- and it taught me that, oh, these guys are questioning everything. So I turned it on my act, you know. Instead of, does God exist? It was, hey, how can I get some better laughs here with this act? In logic class, I opened my textbook. The last place I was expecting to find comic inspiration, and was startled to find that Lewis Carroll, the supremely witty author of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," was also a logician. He wrote logic textbooks and included argument forms based on a syllogism, normally presented in logic books this way: 'All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal.' But Carroll's were more convoluted, and they struck me funny in a new way. One: Babies are illogical. Two: Nobody's despised who can manage a crocodile. Three: Illogical persons are despised. Therefore, babies cannot manage crocodiles."
09:59: Charlie Rose: You have had this evolution from early to stand-up to movies, and you've been successful at all of these things. I mean, where have you failed?
10:13: Steve Martin: Ask my wife.
10:17: Charlie Rose: You like being considered a man of letters.
10:19: Steve Martin: You say I like it?
10:21: Charlie Rose: Yes.
10:23: Steve Martin: Yes.
10:24: Charlie Rose: You like it. I mean, you like the fact that you're applauded for doing these things that are not easy.
10:30: Steve Martin: Yes, because -- yes. Because it could be also silly. You know, when a -- I'm using the word celebrity, I hope you don't find it insulting. It's just a fact, I guess. And -- but recently, I've found, yes, getting a little more -- get respect as a writer, so I feel good about that. The best compliment I ever got is I wrote this story about my father in the "New Yorker," and I got a letter from a woman, and she said, "you know, I read the article, and I gave it to my husband. And he read it. And then he said" -- sorry. I hate that I'm on television. He said, 'what's our son's phone number?
11:24: Charlie Rose: Wow. Steve Martin also sat with me at this table to talk about his book and his life, and here is that conversation. "Born Standing Up" is a part of your life that's closed, and you say it's as much a biography as it is anything else because you're writing about --
11:45: Steve Martin: Someone I used to know.
11:48: Charlie Rose: Somebody you used to know.
11:50: Steve Martin: The book starts really at birth. I mean, it doesn't deal with just with the 18 years of my doing stand-up. It starts when I was a child and goes through really through the decades, through the death of my parents. But it focuses on stand-up.
12:04: Charlie Rose: We learn a lot about your parents, though. Was it hard to write? They're both deceased.
12:13: Steve Martin: They're both deceased. It was hard, one, emotionally to write about one's parents. It can be very affecting at times. I had written about my father before, so it wasn't new to me. But you -- I guess the question is would I have written the same thing if they were alive? And --
12:34: Charlie Rose: Someone asked you that. I read your response.
12:38: Steve Martin: Yes, and I probably would have negotiated a little bit, but I think it would be basically the same. Because the story has a happy ending, so.
12:45: Charlie Rose: In fact, you describe your relationship with your father as almost like a bell curve.
12:49: Steve Martin: Yes, exactly.
12:51: Charlie Rose: Meaning --?
12:53: Steve Martin: That when you are born, you are infinitely close. And then as I got older, we grew apart. And then at the end of his life, we grew back together again to be infinitely close.
13:04: Charlie Rose: Tell me about growing up.
13:08: Steve Martin: Well, I was born in Texas, in Waco, Texas, and I lived there until I was 4. And we left for California when I was about 5, and we moved to Englewood -- Hollywood, actually. My father was interested in acting, and my mother hated the heat in Texas. And she was very excited to move to California, where there were movie stars and a different life for her, I think.
13:34: Charlie Rose: Your dad ended up in real estate.
13:37: Steve Martin: He ended up selling real estate. Yes. The opportunities then -- it's funny that I didn't really realize he wanted to be an actor until much later in my life, because the only time I ever saw him act -- well, there was two times. One I was about 5, I guess, and I went to a play. I had no idea what a play was, and we waited. My mother and I sat there, and then my -- my -- the second act or something, my father brought out a teacup and served somebody and walked off. But then the -- I didn't put this in the book, and I -- I'm sorry I didn't. I actually forgot about it. When he was -- for the church, our Baptist church, our local Garden Grove Baptist Church -- remember, this would have been about 1955 -- he wanted to put on a show. I think probably for the same reason I did when I was in high school, that I organized a vaudeville show so I could do my act, but I had to put on a whole show in order for me to have five minutes. My father organized a minstrel show, which you could actually buy from Samuel French, and it had all the -- which now would be considered highly racist, although it was really affectionate at the time. And I was employed. I was probably 8, and I wore blackface with white lips and sat on the side of the stage eating a watermelon.
15:03: Charlie Rose: That was it?
15:05: Steve Martin: That was my role. It's so embarrassing. I'm so glad there are no photos.
15:13: Charlie Rose: You think he -- he never got over never becoming an actor?
15:18: Steve Martin: Well, it's hard to say, because we never talked about it. Well, toward the end of the book -- I won't go into that, because it's quite emotional, but I -- I can only think, who wouldn't rather be in show business? You know, than -- selling real estate is fine -- as -- but I think his heart would have certainly preferred that. But I always thought that he must have felt the pressure to put food on the table, and an actor -- unless you're, you know -- it's hard.
15:52: Charlie Rose: A pressure you didn't have.
15:54: Steve Martin: No. What, as a --
15:58: Charlie Rose: To put food on the table, so to speak. I mean, in other words, you didn't have the same kind of economic demands that he might have had with a wife and child.
16:06: Steve Martin: In fact, I wonder if that's why I wasn't married until I was 38 or something, because I knew it would put stress on my hopes and dreams.
16:13: Charlie Rose: You wanted show business early.
16:15: Steve Martin: I did. Yes, show business. That's what I'd call it.
16:22: Charlie Rose: I'm taking it out of this, yes.
16:24: Steve Martin: Yes, I really wanted to be up in front of people. And I was so inspired by comedians I saw on television -- Red Skelton and Jerry Lewis and --
16:33: Charlie Rose: Jack Benny.
16:37: Steve Martin: Jack Benny I loved. And I just loved trying to do what they did.
16:43: Charlie Rose: What's amazing about the book, it is that -- Jerry Seinfeld on this show -- I don't know if you know this -- said it may be the best book ever written. Here it is right now. Take a look at this. Jerry Seinfeld.
16:56: Jerry Seinfeld: All good comedy, I think, is intellectual. You know, even somebody like Steve Martin, who's written this fantastic -- I think the best book ever written about comedy that's coming out I think in a couple of months, called "A Comic's Life."
17:09: Charlie Rose: Which is his memoir, is it?
17:12: Jerry Seinfeld: It's his memoir of his life as a comedian. Now, there's a guy I think a lot of people would think, well, he was just silly, you know, he was silly. No, he was incredibly intellectual. And when you put intellectualism with an arrow through the head, that makes you laugh. Just an arrow through the head does not make you laugh. So it's the head behind the joke that makes the audience laugh.
17:33: Steve Martin: That was very nice.
17:35: Charlie Rose: But he's right, too, isn't he?
17:37: Steve Martin: Well, I guess.
17:39: Charlie Rose: About the arrow between your ears.
17:41: Steve Martin: Well, I think that was part of my approach, too, is that it was multi-layered -- I hate to be pretentious about it -- but my little mind at the time felt that funny and -- smart and stupid at the same time.
17:51: Charlie Rose: It seems in reading this that your job --
17:53: Steve Martin: And I'd like to say about Jerry Seinfeld that he is the best reader of this book that we've ever had.
17:59: Charlie Rose: Well, no, I resent that! All right, Disneyland was a great place for you to work.
18:06: Steve Martin: Yes. I was 10 years old. We had just moved to Garden Grove, California. And I didn't really know much about Disneyland. It was just opening. It was 1955, the summer of 1955. And a friend of mine -- his name is Mo Collins (ph), I found out since -- told me, they're hiring kids. And I said, what, what? He said, they're hiring kids to sell guidebooks. And I got on my bike and I went down there and somehow just landed this job. And it was --- you walk up to Disneyland, you're 10 years old and you park your bike and you look up, and there is a train coming in and there's Mickey Mouse and there's trams and rockets to the moon -- a rocket to the moon. And I was hired, and that was really the beginning of my show business career, I always felt.
18:52: Charlie Rose: In what way?
18:55: Steve Martin: Well, I was out in front of people. And even now they refer to people who work there as actors, and you're backstage when you're not out in front of people. And you know, I was at first -- it was the first time I could be vocal, really, in front of people, and I sort of migrated through Disneyland, first selling trick ropes at the frontier land, doing actual cowboy tricks with the rope, and I got a job at Merlin's Magic Shop, and that was my big break.
19:25: Charlie Rose: But what's interesting about it, those are two of the aspects of what later became your act, magic and --
19:32: Steve Martin: Yes. I didn't do trick roping in my act, but I did -- everything I learned there, I used. Juggling. Well, I didn't learn banjo playing there.
19:44: Charlie Rose: Here's what's funny about it -- you say you had to resort to those kinds of things because you did not have --
19:49: Steve Martin: Talent.
19:51: Charlie Rose: -- natural talent.
19:53: Steve Martin: Well, it's true. You know, I knew people in high school who could sing so beautifully, and people could dance. I couldn't do --
20:00: Charlie Rose: You couldn't do either.
20:02: Steve Martin: -- any of that. Or play an instrument even in high school. I couldn't play an instrument. And I really had no gift in that direction. My mother played piano well and my father sang, but I inherited neither. I guess I sang like my mother and played piano like my father.
20:17: Charlie Rose: Not so good.
20:20: Steve Martin: But in the world of vaudeville and doing stuff, of doing tricks -- you know, you could just go buy a trick and you rehearse it, and put two or three of them together, and you are in show business to anybody who will watch. And I also watched a comedian, too, in Disneyland, named Wally Boge (ph), who worked at the Golden Horseshoe Revue. And he was fantastically funny. He's still around, he's a great guy.
20:45: Charlie Rose: But you began to learn what about performing?
20:49: Steve Martin: Well, I think from Wally Boge, I learned a secret lesson that I -- I am just remembering that I learned from him, which was "be likable." He was so likable. And I thought, how is he doing that? I guess you could be likable. But I didn't know how to do that. So I kind of imitated him.
21:11: Charlie Rose: And you don't know how you became likable, you just knew --
21:15: Steve Martin: I don't even know that I am. I'm just saying that's what I attempted to do. There was a kind of friendliness about him and there was a very devil may care.
21:23: Charlie Rose: Don't you think your character on stage had that?
21:27: Steve Martin: I don't know. I always thought that he was likable because he was so unlikable. But I hesitate to talk about my character in the third person, because it sounds weird. But --
21:38: Charlie Rose: Well, was it that way?
21:41: Steve Martin: That character on stage was a very selfish, egocentric person, who is angry all the time.
21:47: Charlie Rose: How did -- how did you learn the banjo?
21:50: Steve Martin: I got interested because I heard recordings of Earl Scruggs playing the banjo. I had a friend in high school named John McEuen, who played the banjo. He is now in the Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band, plays a lot on his own now too. He's a great banjo player. But mainly I slowed records down, which I found out was the standard way that most people learned the banjo in those days. There were only two ways -- you take a lesson, and I didn't even know what a lesson was or how to get one. There was a book that Pete Seeger did called "How to Play the Five-String Banjo," which we all got. And the other method was to take 33 rpm records and slow them down to 16, down to the banjo so you're in tune with it, and pick it out note by note, literally. Ding-dong-dong --.
22:32: Charlie Rose: Why the banjo?
22:35: Steve Martin: I just fell in love with it. I don't know why. It just struck me somehow. And the banjo is actually -- I don't even know what the public -- there are two kinds of banjos -- a quick little history. There's the four-string, which is that sort of Dixieland, and then there's the five-string, which is more bluegrass, hard-driving, but also it's a very melancholy instrument, believe it or not. You can play hard and fast, or you can play soft and quiet. It has many, many tones of music. I love it.
23:06: Charlie Rose: What was it that you won the Grammy for, you and Earl together?
23:11: Steve Martin: Well, I -- that's what I call one of those right places at the right time, you know. Earl Scruggs asked me to play on his 75th anniversary album to accompany him with many players. I would play five-string banjo along with him. And it won a Grammy. And I have a Grammy that says, "Steve Martin, best country instrumentalist." Which is just hilarious, because I know so many people who are maybe a thousand times better than I am that don't have these.
23:38: Charlie Rose: But you must take great pride, if you didn't feel like you had any talent, to learn to play a musical instrument.
23:46: Steve Martin: Yes. Well, I knew at the time -- I remember first getting the banjo and reading the book, and saying here is how you make a C chord, and I'd put my fingers down to play the C chord, and I couldn't tell the difference between the G chord and the C chord. But I just stayed with it. And I kept saying to myself, well, if I just stay with it, one day I will have played for 40 years.
24:06: Charlie Rose: So the goal is to just keep playing.
24:08: Steve Martin: The goal is just to keep playing. One day you'll be playing 40 years and you'll be able to play somehow. Because anybody who sticks with something for 40 years will be able to play it.
24:19: Charlie Rose: Why did you put it in your act?
24:20: Steve Martin: Oh, just to fill time.
24:22: Charlie Rose: No.
24:24: Steve Martin: Seriously. When I first went on stage, I -- all I needed was material. I had to do 10 minutes. I had a little magic act, I had my banjo, I had poetry that I learned in college --
24:34: Charlie Rose: E.E. Cummings specifically.
24:37: Steve Martin: E.E. Cummings and T.S. Elliot and all kinds of people.
24:42: Charlie Rose: All to fill time?
24:44: Steve Martin: To fill up enough time to actually be on stage. And then I had a few jokes, you know, too.
24:49: Charlie Rose: Where do you learn timing?
24:52: Steve Martin: Well, I think if you're in front of an audience, you learn it so quickly. Because you don't want to, one, step on your laughs, and you don't want to, like, wait too long for the next one. They lose interest. It's just a matter of instinct. But basically, I think I learned timing from watching other comedians.
25:12: Charlie Rose: Well, you also did this -- I mean, you began to examine your performances. You really were almost like somebody who takes a notebook and knew exactly what laughs -- what got laughs, what didn't, and began to understand the nature of the audience.
25:25: Steve Martin: Well, first of all, it's vital that you remember what got a laugh and what didn't. So that's not such a miracle.
25:31: Charlie Rose: But you did it with a more studious aspect. And --
25:36: Steve Martin: I think in the book, it comes off that way, because I was actually doing what I was told in a book that I read about being a magician. So I said, OK, the book said to write down every trick in order, and then note how it goes. But when I was doing comedy, I didn't necessarily do that. I had a sheet of paper and if I went off -- and sometimes I would be in the bed and I would go, oh, I remember that thing got a laugh, and write it down. And that's really how material was developed, was just out there, and it's very Darwinian because a mistake can lead to a success. So if something goes wrong, it's actually an avenue to something going right later.
26:19: Charlie Rose: Tell me how you developed your sort of philosophy about what you wanted to do on stage.
26:23: Steve Martin: Well --
26:25: Charlie Rose: Because there's a lot in here -- it's the most -- I think Jerry Seinfeld is exactly right. Of all the comedians -- it's more interestingly expressed in this book than anywhere else I have ever seen.
26:36: Steve Martin: Well, thank you. I, first of all, just wanted to make people laugh. And then as you -- when I started to get older, say like 20, 21, I'm in college at this point, and I'm being introduced to new artists, new writers, philosophers -- a whole other level of sophistication, I'll say. I started to examine my act or comedy. And at the time, comedy was, with some great exceptions -- like Bob Newhart -- was basically set-up and punchline. And they were told by people -- there was sort of a cliche of the nightclub comedian, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat --
27:19: Charlie Rose: Bob Hope was great at that.
27:21: Steve Martin: Bob Hope was great. But he was genuinely funny, too. But you could also be a comedian and not be funny. You could just tell the jokes and still get laughs, but not really be funny. And I had grown up with some close high school friends, and we laughed all the time. The kind of laughter that, you know, I think a lot of people grow up, when you're young, holding your sides and you're wishing you could stop laughing because you're almost sick. And I thought, gee, that's -- where's that kind of laugh? Where are the comedians who get that kind of laugh, and what creates that kind of laugh? I know it's not -- we weren't telling each other jokes. And I thought, I think what creates that kind of laugh is inexplicable. In other words, you had to be there. If you're laughing, crying, dying on the floor with your high school friends and then you go and try to tell someone what happened, and they go, uh-huh.
28:25: Charlie Rose: And you say, you should have been there.
28:27: Steve Martin: Yeah, you had to be there. So I thought, what if I could have an act where you had to say, "you had to be there?"
28:36: Charlie Rose: To appreciate and understand it.
28:39: Steve Martin: Yes, that it would be so kind of personal, at that moment, that -- that it's almost inexplicable to someone else. And that's what I started to go for. And so I took out the sort of standard jokes of set-up and the punchline, and tried to come around it from behind.
28:57: Charlie Rose: Tell me what that means, though, when you try to come at it in a way that --
29:03: Steve Martin: Well, I thought -- it was a combination of thoughts. It gets a little smartie pants, collegiate thinking. I thought, what if I never delivered a punchline?
29:11: Charlie Rose: Exactly!
29:13: Steve Martin: Yes.
29:15: Charlie Rose: Right. Would it work?
29:20: Steve Martin: So now they're sitting there waiting for me to do something that would indicate to them that it was time to laugh. Because I had watched comedians, and I'd think, OK, when they do the punchline, then everybody knows they're supposed to laugh at that point, and they kind of do like you applaud at the end of a song. So I started taking out the punchlines and doing things that seemed like they were going somewhere and kind of never did. And pretty soon, eventually, people were left kind of hanging.
29:48: Charlie Rose: But laughing at the process?
29:51: Steve Martin: Not quite. I found that they would laugh when you went on to something else, and they were kind of stuck there in the last bit, going, "what was that? Oh, it's over. Oh, it's over." And there was a kind of peculiarity.
30:04: Charlie Rose: A kind of delayed laugh.
30:06: Steve Martin: Not the way -- it's not like -- it could be a delayed laugh. It could be a laugh that night, when they're home. It could be never. But I just started playing around. It wasn't one thing, either. It sounds like there was one idea, but there were a lot of little different ideas, and there I was.
30:27: Charlie Rose: As you began to create this character and you began not to have punchlines, you know, was the banjo or magic punctuation, still filling time? Or were you becoming more of a comedian than a -- whatever you might have been doing to fill time?
30:45: Steve Martin: The magic act enabled me to express that kind of silliness, but with actual stuff to do. And the banjo, I just loved having it, one -- maybe as a prop. But I worked up some bits with it, too, like sing-alongs that no one could sing along with. You're expecting to see a professional show, so let's not waste any more time. Here we go, professional show business! Let's go, hey! I would do lengthy tuning. Tuning things, then finally get in tune, and walk into the mike.
31:19: Charlie Rose: Were yo surprised by how the audience would react? I mean, would they at some point, once you had fine-tuned this thing, did they all do what you expected them to do, or did they differ from night to night to night?
31:34: Steve Martin: Well, there was a -- yes. Every show is different. I always say that when you do six shows a week, there's two that are great, there is two that are nice, there is two that are fair, and one that is lousy.
31:48: Charlie Rose: And what's the difference in those that are really good and those that are really lousy? The audience?
31:56: Steve Martin: Well, it could be that. It's just that the ignition wasn't there. It could be -- I read an article about Jerry Lewis one time, and he said, he said, "I was standing backstage in Las Vegas, about to go on, and I listened to the audience, and I knew I was dead." And I think all comedians have felt that. There's just a kind of innervation --
32:18: Charlie Rose: You can feel it.
32:21: Steve Martin: You can feel it -- oh, it's going to be quiet. But the hard thing to learn is, because they're not laughing, it doesn't mean you're not going over.
32:29: Charlie Rose: Come back to this, to read this and to like it so much, you get the idea that you have been very, very curious about the craft of putting together an act. And that you've thought about it and you've read about it, you know, that book called "Showmanship for Magicians," which taught you something about being on stage, entertaining people, making them laugh.
32:48: Steve Martin: Well, it might sound that way, but still I was desperate. My act never -- it didn't start to cohere until, you know, for 10 years.
32:57: Charlie Rose: So what was that 10 years like? Well, it's -- you're still doing a show. It sounds like it was all silence, and then it was giant laughter. But, obviously, I had enough happening that I'd get rehired and keep going. You know, but -- just -- sometimes those very quiet night, and that desperation to sort of get them in some way leads you into an experiment. What was the breakthrough for you?
33:27: Steve Martin: I think it was probably when I was touring in the early '70s, touring colleges, things are starting to come together, playing every dump and every nice place and every kind of situation, and you're just so experienced at this point. And you go,
33:53: Ok: The commercial breakthrough for you was where, when?
33:56: Steve Martin: Well, I would say -- that's a tough one. I'd say I have to give it, like, three elements. One would be "The Tonight Show."
34:04: Charlie Rose: Right.
34:07: Steve Martin: The second would be my first record. And the third would be "Saturday Night Live."
34:11: Charlie Rose: Let's talk about --
34:13: Steve Martin: These were escalating --
34:15: Charlie Rose: Yes. Remembering "Saturday Night Live," the first record. The first record, was it your manager or somebody who said, why don't we start recording these? And it became like a huge success as a comedy album, one of the best selling ever.
34:28: Steve Martin: Yes, well, not quite that easily, but we did. We started recording the act, yes. And my manager, Bill McEwan (ph), would sit there with (inaudible) and with tape, and you could hear him laughing all the time in the background on the records.
34:39: Charlie Rose: But it sold really well.
34:41: Steve Martin: Yes. It sold really well.
34:44: Charlie Rose: Famous comedy albums.
34:46: Steve Martin: They are both double platinum albums.
34:48: Charlie Rose: Double platinum, what does that mean?
34:50: Steve Martin: It means they sold over 2 million copies.
34:51: Charlie Rose: The -- Carson.
34:53: Steve Martin: Yes.
34:55: Charlie Rose: In the beginning, you only were there when there were guest hosts.
34:58: Steve Martin: Yes, I went on a couple of times with Carson, and I did all right. It was like early 1972, I think. And I didn't have that much material, and so you go on with your best stuff, and you do well, and then you don't have anymore best stuff. You know? And the second time you go on, it's a little bit less. And then Johnny felt -- he said, "put him on with guest hosts for a while." So I went on with guest hosts --
35:23: Charlie Rose: Oh, is that what he said?
35:25: Steve Martin: Yes, and I went on with guest hosts and did well, and then I -- he said, "yes, bring him back on."
35:30: Charlie Rose: You have the record for the number of guest hosting of "Saturday Night Live."
35:34: Steve Martin: Yes, I mean -- it's not a big prize for it or anything --
35:38: Charlie Rose: Well, it's a big deal, though, isn't it? I mean, you know.
35:41: Steve Martin: Yes, but I've been there since the beginning, you know. I haven't --
35:46: Charlie Rose: How did that happen?
35:48: Steve Martin: I was just starting to break as "Saturday Night Live" was starting to break. And so I think George Carlin hosted the first show -- I wasn't on until the second year, really.
35:55: Charlie Rose: Lorne was a friend or not?
35:57: Steve Martin: No, I didn't know him.
35:58: Charlie Rose: Didn't know him.
36:00: Steve Martin: No, no. He became a very close friend. In fact, I'll mention his name, Lorne Michaels.
36:09: Charlie Rose: Yes.
36:11: Steve Martin: And it was strictly agent to agent, but I had enough stuff going on that I was the young comedian who could host the show.
36:21: Charlie Rose: You may have told me this, or someone else may have told me this -- you're one of those people who prepare really hard, knowing, you know, that if you do this well, it's great for you. Some people just sort of take it lighter than others do. I'm told -- and maybe you told me this -- you really concentrate on that week that you're going to host on Saturday Night Live.
36:43: Steve Martin: I do. I find it very stressful.
36:49: Charlie Rose: Stressful?
36:51: Steve Martin: Because I want it to go well. So, you know, I do like to work hard on it, or at least feel comfortable. But I do -- I prepare for the Letterman show. And -- let's put it this way, I prepare -- but everybody prepares for those shows. You're interviewed ahead of time, it's like we're going to talk about this and we can talk about this, and we do a little bit of that, and I might have an idea -- hey, what if? We do this. And it's being a professional. You don't want to walk in there with nothing.
37:19: Charlie Rose: That's exactly what it is, being a professional.
37:22: Steve Martin: Yes.
37:24: Charlie Rose: Carson. Tell me about him, what you thought of him, what he meant to you. Because you wrote this famous piece when he died in "The New York Times."
37:34: Steve Martin: I'll tell you, here's what I think about him as a performer. When I was first on the show -- I think it was 1972 or something -- my manager and I had one of the first video recorders, reel to reel, and so he taped my performance off the air. And so now we're all excited. We're going to watch it. And so we're watching it -- I'm watching myself, remember, I'm watching myself -- and then we start watching Carson. And I realize, we ended up watching Carson. And then we slowed it down and played it back, look at this take, look at this take. He goes like this, he comes back, he gets the laugh. He looks at me because I said something oblique. He comes back again. It was just masterful. And he was just the simplest kind of artist. No art, you know. He was -- I just -- he always helped you out, too. You could tell his love of comedians, his love of, you know, little old ladies, you know, who came on and sewed log cabin quilts. And there was a real generosity there. I always felt, especially -- he loved comedy, and you could see him -- you always remember him just falling over laughing at Rickles or whoever.
38:49: Charlie Rose: And he wanted to help you out.
38:51: Steve Martin: Yes, he always -- he always -- you know, he always knew not to step on your joke.
38:58: Charlie Rose: When did you do your last stand-up?
39:00: Steve Martin: It would have been 1981.
39:03: Charlie Rose: This is three years after the tape we saw.
39:05: Steve Martin: Yes. And I was -- I was working in -- I think somewhere in Atlantic City or somewhere, a different kind of venue. Sort of one of those, you know, supper club-type situations. And I just -- I hadn't taken any bookings. I had just finished "The Jerk." And I hadn't -- and it had come out and it had been a hit. And I really didn't know if I was still a stand-up comedian or not, but the fact that I wasn't taking any bookings was telling me I was probably quitting.
39:34: Charlie Rose: You didn't enjoy it anymore or it had become routine?
39:38: Steve Martin: It became routine and I -- I guess, you know, you don't enjoy it anyway, because, you know, you're --
39:44: Charlie Rose: Because it's hard.
39:45: Steve Martin: It's hard, and you're thinking about it all the time. You're working. It's a real -- it's an artistic job, and it's -- like a ballet. I mean, I wonder if -- I don't know if a ballet dancer, you know, does a giant leap and is actually free in their mind or they're thinking, whew!
40:02: Charlie Rose: Was it satisfying for you to write this book and look back?
40:08: Steve Martin: Very satisfying. And by the way, just to say, I did enjoy doing it. There were times it was just magic out there. And --
40:16: Charlie Rose: Magic like you've never felt before in any other kind of performance?
40:21: Steve Martin: Well, performing was fun. It was all the other stuff that was age-related. As you get older, you don't want to go to a different town every night. And when I made my first film, I thought, oh, I stay home and the movie goes to their town.
40:36: Charlie Rose: Oh, this is good!
40:38: Steve Martin: Yes.
40:40: Charlie Rose: But you had never -- David Geffen said you should go back.
40:45: Steve Martin: Oh, in the '80s. In the '80s, he called me, and he said, you know what you should do? I said, "what?" He said, "go back on the road." And I said, "David, I don't have anything to say."
40:56: Charlie Rose: I have nothing I want to say.
40:58: Steve Martin: Yes. I mean, there's no reason to go out there just to do comedy. I mean, with that act, I actually had -- I think that was one reason I quit. The act I felt I actually had something to say -- and I don't mean truth, life and beauty -- just something artistically to say --
41:13: Charlie Rose: You had created something --
41:15: Steve Martin: -- and I said it.
41:16: Charlie Rose: -- that you wanted to share.
41:18: Steve Martin: Yes, or try, or experiment, see if it worked. And it worked. And then it was done. You keep moving. You know, I think at the end of the book, I make the point that I was having a discussion with a friend of mine, Eric Fischl, the painter, and he was saying that -- we were discussing the similarities between therapy and making art, that you're both exploring your subconscious. And he said, "but there's a difference." He said, "in therapy, you try to retain your discoveries. In art, you abandon them."
41:49: Charlie Rose: Have you ever done a performance and thought, this is as good as I'll ever be?
41:55: Steve Martin: You know, probably.
41:58: Charlie Rose: When was it?
42:01: Steve Martin: It would have been somewhere around 1975. I mean, it wasn't downhill from there, but looking back now, I go that's when I was really funny. And I think the reason I was really funny is the act was unknown to people. It had not been exposed like it became exposed. Like by 1978, the act you saw, everybody is way ahead of it.
42:21: Charlie Rose: You argue here in this book that, in fact, our failures are more interesting than our successes.
42:26: Steve Martin: Yes.
42:28: Charlie Rose: Getting there is more interesting than being there.
42:34: Steve Martin: Yes. I wrote the book -- when I first started writing a memoir, I really didn't know where to stop -- I hadn't even started writing, I was just thinking about it. I thought, well, I don't want to write about the '80s. It's just a movie and then I did another movie, and then I did another movie, and another movie, and then I made another movie. But there was something about the genesis of something that is, I think, worth writing about. One, for people who are starting their own careers or own genesis in something. But it's before you make it. Because I read show business autobiographies or autobiographies in general, and say, but you left out this one part here. How did you get that audition for that thing?
43:18: Charlie Rose: Exactly.
43:20: Steve Martin: Suddenly you're work at the Copa. Wait, how did that happen? And I think that's the really interesting part. That's the part I think that people -- people with aspirations in show business -- really want to know about.
43:31: Charlie Rose: You've had people, interesting people in your life like Mitzi, who made a difference.
43:35: Steve Martin: Mitzi Trumbo.
43:36: Charlie Rose: Daughter of Dalton Trumbo.
43:39: Steve Martin: Right, right.
43:41: Charlie Rose: What difference did she make?
43:43: Steve Martin: Well, she was -- I was 20 and remember, I am from Orange County, California. I was not -- I was in college, but I wasn't really -- well, by that point I was avid, but I met her, and we dated, and then she took me home to meet her parents. And her father was Dalton Trumbo, the blacklisted notorious screenwriter, and he was an intellectual, and the whole family was intellectual. And I didn't know that existed, and I didn't know you could have a dinner where people would go, "I'm not telling you" -- you know, and they are arguing about politics and this and you know -- and it was just a free-thinking household. And they had paintings and they had nice, you know, taste. And, you know, food came from behind closed doors and was served. And it was just --
44:34: Charlie Rose: A new experience. Opened your eyes.
44:38: Steve Martin: Writers, writers talking.
44:41: Charlie Rose: As an act, where do you put stand-up as a performing art?
44:46: Steve Martin: OK, here's Van Gogh, here's stand-up. No, I'm kidding. It's a performing art, you know, it's a performing art -- wherever those things stand. I don't think it's -- it's very hard to judge because --
44:59: Charlie Rose: Some people say it's the hardest thing you could possibly do, to make people laugh. It's much easier to be an actor, much easier, they say.
45:05: Steve Martin: Well, that's -- I think it's hard to answer because I always think of the best metaphor in the world, which is the briar patch. Which is I have no idea. It's what I did all the time. I don't know how hard it is. People say, "is it harder to play the banjo or guitar?" I don't know. I only play the banjo. I don't know. I don't know.
45:23: Charlie Rose: You have loved art for a long time.
45:25: Steve Martin: Yes, painting.
45:27: Charlie Rose: You said for example, "If there's something I could pretend to have learned from modern art, it's that you can't make something beautiful by trying to make something beautiful. It becomes beautiful in the process of being something else."
45:38: Steve Martin: I said that?
45:39: Charlie Rose: You did. You said that in "New Yorker" magazine, I think.
45:43: Steve Martin: Wow.
45:44: Charlie Rose: That's pretty good, though.
45:46: Steve Martin: It is pretty good.
45:47: Charlie Rose: But it's true --
45:51: Steve Martin: -- believe it, I mean --
45:53: Charlie Rose: You could almost say life is like that.
45:54: Steve Martin: Yes, yes, if you were trying to make a perfect life, you probably couldn't do it. If you are just trying to live life from day to day, you'd probably end up having --
46:01: Charlie Rose: What was it John Lennon said, I mean, life happens when you're --
46:04: Steve Martin: When you're doing something else, looking the other way.
46:07: Charlie Rose: Something like that, yes, right.
46:09: Steve Martin: Yes.
46:11: Charlie Rose: What happened to the relationship with your father as you're becoming more and more successful?
46:17: Steve Martin: Well, we -- it was complicated, because I began to notice something, that he was not complimentary -- this is toward my career -- not complimentary at all. And I think it came from that he actually didn't like what I was doing, you know.
46:31: Charlie Rose: He wrote a review for the "Real Estate Journal" or something --
46:37: Steve Martin: Yes, he gave me a bad review once, which was, you know, and he told me later he was ashamed about it. He had written this bad review of my first appearance on "Saturday Night Live," and he said -- I think he was kind of confessing that he had done the wrong thing. And he said, his best friend came in to him with the newspaper in his hand, and he put it on my father's desk and he went.
46:59: Charlie Rose: But then he got to see the movies.
47:01: Steve Martin: Yes. The movies he was not particularly pleased with. He only started being pleased when I started writing.
47:09: Charlie Rose: He liked the books.
47:11: Steve Martin: But like I say, my material and my stand-up act, it was a young person's act. It was generational. Like the parents would go, "what do you like that stuff for?" And the kids would be going, "what are you talking about? It's fantastic." You know, and he was an older generation, so he couldn't really appreciate it.
47:30: Charlie Rose: If people said you're silly, you would love it.
47:32: Steve Martin: Pardon me? Oh, yes. Right.
47:36: Charlie Rose: If they described you as silly, you'd say, you get the point. That's what I am, silly.
47:41: Steve Martin: Exactly. But also, my father got -- he started to help me in certain ways. He was in real estate, so he knew how to handle property. He handled my fan club for a while, when I had a fan club. And so -- and he would handle autographed pictures and things -- sign this, sign this, sign this, you know. I would sign them, he would present them to me.
48:02: Charlie Rose: And so how did you come back together, so that in the bell curve --
48:06: Steve Martin: Well, I started taking them to lunch every Sunday.
48:10: Charlie Rose: First together?
48:12: Steve Martin: First together. I said, I want to find out about our past, first of all. And so I would take them out to lunch and I would probe them and ask them questions. And then I realized that every time my mother would say something, or vice versa, or my father would say something, the spouse would say, "well, that's not what happened." And they would get into a fight. So I started taking them out one at a time, and I would get all the stories that way. And, you know, that makes you closer to someone when you're seeing them every weekend.
48:45: Charlie Rose: How was it when he was near death?
48:48: Steve Martin: He started to change. He always was a task master. He always -- very opinionated. Let's put it that way. But he did start to soften, especially nearer the end. He became -- it was very strange. He could become very emotional just sitting in a chair, just start crying. Especially he would cry with joy. If he started laughing, he would start to cry. He was a very emotional man, but I think it was -- he was raised in a time when it was not very cool to be emotional.
49:22: Charlie Rose: How old was he when he died?
49:24: Steve Martin: 83.
49:26: Charlie Rose: You've made movies now. You never wanted to direct. You don't want to direct.
49:31: Steve Martin: It's too hard.
49:33: Charlie Rose: Well, you know what it is, it's like you love your life too much. Isn't it?
49:38: Steve Martin: Uh-huh.
49:39: Charlie Rose: You love your art and you love your writing and you love all this other stuff, and that takes -- it's like being a general.
49:46: Steve Martin: Yes, I have a fantasy, maybe, that -- if I had the right thing or something. But, you know, as soon as you -- as you do that, you say goodbye to friends and family. And I've seen other people manage it, but I don't think I could. I like the actual -- with directing, there's a lot of superfluous decisions. I won't call them superfluous, because every decision matters, but it's a big -- it is a general's job. And I really like -- if I could direct the actors in a movie, that would be great.
50:18: Charlie Rose: What is it you want to do?
50:22: Steve Martin: Well, that's a good question. That's really open right now, because here I am, I've written this book, I'm getting the Kennedy Center honor next week, and I do think what should I be doing? I've sort of -- if I wanted to think about it as a closed circle, I could. I could say, OK, I did it. But I know I'm not going to do that, because I do have ideas that keep coming. So I don't know quite what they are.
50:55: Charlie Rose: You're most of all a writer?
50:59: Steve Martin: Well, no. I deeply enjoy writing, but I would say I'm a comedian. And I probably will always be a comedian as a label and probably inside my head, but I know -- most of my books are serious.
51:11: Charlie Rose: And wel received.
51:13: Steve Martin: Well received, yes. It's nice.
51:18: Charlie Rose: Do you think you are more prodigious than you are smart? You know, that you really -- it's your work ethic and your powers of focus --
51:31: Steve Martin: Yes.
51:33: Charlie Rose: -- and your ability to leave no stone unturned that makes you --
51:37: Steve Martin: Absolutely. I mean, I have friends that I think are supremely intellectual, and I sit and just listen and I think I'm an idiot.
51:45: Charlie Rose: I do too.
51:49: Steve Martin: But I do think diligence had a lot to do with it, but it wasn't diligence. It wasn't -- it was just kind of this weird -- it was like shutting out other things rather than being focused on one thing. It was like by eliminating peripheral interests, somehow I was able to stay focused on my comedy act or banjo playing.
52:12: Charlie Rose: Someone stood up in an audience somewhere and said to you, "how do you be successful?" And you said "you have to be undeniably good at something."
52:24: Steve Martin: Well, it really is this -- when people ask me, say, "how do you make it in show business?" Or whatever, and what I always tell them -- I've said it many years and nobody ever takes note of it, because it's not the answer they wanted to hear. What they want to hear is, here's how you get an agent. Here's how you write a script. Here's how you do this. But I always say, "be so good they can't ignore you." And I just think that if somebody is thinking, how can I be really good, people are going to come to you. It's much easier than -- doing it that way than going to cocktail parties, you know.
53:04: Charlie Rose: "Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life," by Steve Martin. This is a terrific understanding of one person's life, and I thank you for coming.
53:25: Steve Martin: Thank you.
53:37: Charlie Rose: Thank you for joining us.