Read Online The Unruly Life of Woody Allen by Marion Meade - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Marion Meade
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Performing Arts, Individual Director
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sick what he was putting me through." On the recommendation of a friend from Tamiment, Woody then hooked up with two agents who did not require him to sign a contract. Unlike Meltzer, Jack Rollins and Charles Joffe took only a flat 15 percent commission.
The other thorn in his side, not as easy to remove as Meltzer, was Harlene. Now twenty-one, adopting a beatnik uniform of black skirts, leotards, pierced ears, and no makeup, she was a junior at Hunter, where she studied philosophy and German. By this time she held show business in low regard. It pained her to see her husband, a man obviously capable of serious work, wasting his talent on the lowest form of writing. Every so often her disdain reached the point where she would entice Woody into high-flown intellectual debates, which only infuriated him. However, it was probably her browbeating that shamed him into filling the gigantic craters in his education. To build his vocabulary, he began keeping lists of new words, and he also followed her courses, either by reading along with her or engaging a tutor from Columbia University to help him delve into the great works of philosophy and literature he had once considered impenetrable. Even so, it must have been grueling for a man whose best reading experiences had been comic books. "There have been very few things I can say in my life that were fun to read," he was to admit. "Even a great book like Crime and Punishment was not a joy to read." More enjoyable were magazines such as The New Yorker, which published the prose of S. J. Perelman, an "unremittingly hilarious" humorist in his opinion.
There was no question that their marriage was a mistake, but he could not bring himself to break free. Bitterly angry at being trapped in a situation he could not resolve, he took out his frustration by constantly diminishing his wifes talents and achievements, belittling and rebuking in much the same way his mother had treated him. Harlene, depressed, redoubled her efforts to please him.
All day he had been unable to eat, and now it was a little before ten and his heart was pounding. He felt as if he would pass out from stage fright. Waiting backstage at the Blue Angel, one of New York's most sophisticated supper clubs (the cover was $3.50), he listened while Shelley Berman introduced him as a funny young television writer who wanted to try out some of his own material. Neatly dressed in a suit and tie, he trudged out to the microphone and shot a sad-eyed glance at the audience through his thick Harold Lloyd spectacles, looking as startled as a fawn caught in headlights. Customers, drinking Scotch and smoking at the little pink-and-black tables and the banquettes along the quilted walls, stared back and smiled. Standing stiff and frightened under the draped velvet curtains, he began to robotically recite the thirty-minute audition monologue that he had spent months writing and polishing, tightening and rehearsing and timing. Once he got going, he plunged ahead fast and furious, as if he were reciting "The Charge of the
Light Brigade"—monotonous, mechanical, looking neither left nor right, what one of his managers would later describe as the equivalent of "a child doing show-and-tell." After a while, the blasts of laughter were coming less frequently until finally the crowd fell eerily quiet, eyes at half mast. At 10:30, fingers still pecking at his jacket, he walked offstage, feeling completely deflated. On that Sunday evening he learned an important lesson: There was a big difference between being funny and creating a comedy act. Killer material meant nothing without personality.
In His Own Words:
"It was unspeakably agonizing. All day long I would shake and tremble, thinking about standing up that night before people and trying to be funny."
— W OODY A LLEN, 1966
In 1960 the narrow streets of the West Village, Bleecker, MacDougal, and Sullivan, were a neon blur of clubs and coffeehouses offering all kinds of entertainment
The other thorn in his side, not as easy to remove as Meltzer, was Harlene. Now twenty-one, adopting a beatnik uniform of black skirts, leotards, pierced ears, and no makeup, she was a junior at Hunter, where she studied philosophy and German. By this time she held show business in low regard. It pained her to see her husband, a man obviously capable of serious work, wasting his talent on the lowest form of writing. Every so often her disdain reached the point where she would entice Woody into high-flown intellectual debates, which only infuriated him. However, it was probably her browbeating that shamed him into filling the gigantic craters in his education. To build his vocabulary, he began keeping lists of new words, and he also followed her courses, either by reading along with her or engaging a tutor from Columbia University to help him delve into the great works of philosophy and literature he had once considered impenetrable. Even so, it must have been grueling for a man whose best reading experiences had been comic books. "There have been very few things I can say in my life that were fun to read," he was to admit. "Even a great book like Crime and Punishment was not a joy to read." More enjoyable were magazines such as The New Yorker, which published the prose of S. J. Perelman, an "unremittingly hilarious" humorist in his opinion.
There was no question that their marriage was a mistake, but he could not bring himself to break free. Bitterly angry at being trapped in a situation he could not resolve, he took out his frustration by constantly diminishing his wifes talents and achievements, belittling and rebuking in much the same way his mother had treated him. Harlene, depressed, redoubled her efforts to please him.
All day he had been unable to eat, and now it was a little before ten and his heart was pounding. He felt as if he would pass out from stage fright. Waiting backstage at the Blue Angel, one of New York's most sophisticated supper clubs (the cover was $3.50), he listened while Shelley Berman introduced him as a funny young television writer who wanted to try out some of his own material. Neatly dressed in a suit and tie, he trudged out to the microphone and shot a sad-eyed glance at the audience through his thick Harold Lloyd spectacles, looking as startled as a fawn caught in headlights. Customers, drinking Scotch and smoking at the little pink-and-black tables and the banquettes along the quilted walls, stared back and smiled. Standing stiff and frightened under the draped velvet curtains, he began to robotically recite the thirty-minute audition monologue that he had spent months writing and polishing, tightening and rehearsing and timing. Once he got going, he plunged ahead fast and furious, as if he were reciting "The Charge of the
Light Brigade"—monotonous, mechanical, looking neither left nor right, what one of his managers would later describe as the equivalent of "a child doing show-and-tell." After a while, the blasts of laughter were coming less frequently until finally the crowd fell eerily quiet, eyes at half mast. At 10:30, fingers still pecking at his jacket, he walked offstage, feeling completely deflated. On that Sunday evening he learned an important lesson: There was a big difference between being funny and creating a comedy act. Killer material meant nothing without personality.
In His Own Words:
"It was unspeakably agonizing. All day long I would shake and tremble, thinking about standing up that night before people and trying to be funny."
— W OODY A LLEN, 1966
In 1960 the narrow streets of the West Village, Bleecker, MacDougal, and Sullivan, were a neon blur of clubs and coffeehouses offering all kinds of entertainment
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