Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny (21 page)

Chapter 37
One-Girl Show—Lily Tomlin

Over the years, we have all had the pleasure of meeting the many outrageous characters that live inside the head of Lily Tomlin—a snorting telephone operator, a precocious little girl, a homeless bag lady. And though each one is an offbeat creation, plucked from the playground of Lily’s boundless imagination, we believe we know them all, and have as much compassion for them as we have fun watching them. That’s because Lily never judges them. She simply loves—and lives—them. You can’t help but wonder where all these characters came from, and when I asked Lily, I was swept up in a colorful story, brimming with a cast of exquisite eccentrics, and starring the little Lily herself.

—M.T.

“I always wanted to be somebody, but I see, now,
I should’ve been more specific.”
*

L
ily:
When I was a little girl growing up in Detroit, my father used to take me with him to bars and bookie joints. And as any kid does with their dad, I entertained. He’d set me on the bar and I’d sing a little song.

My father was kind of a street guy, but always dependable in his work. He worked more than thirty years in a noisy factory. While my mom was light-hearted, sweet and witty—right up until the day she died—my dad was more morose. He was also a big drinker and gambler. That wasn’t a great thing for him, obviously, but, as a teen, I never felt that I was affected by his drinking. I’d come home with friends, and he’d be passed out on the couch. So I’d just push his legs aside, and sit down.

“We’re so good at it, the ability to delude ourselves
must be an important survival tool.”

I’m not sure how other kids develop a sense of humor, but for me, it began when I started imitating the people in the old apartment house where I grew up. Later when we got a TV I’d see women doing comedy on
The Ed Sullivan Show
—comediennes like Beatrice Lillie and Jean Carroll. I was like a performance artist in that way. I’d wear my mother’s slip, throw pearls around my neck and do their jokes. I especially loved Jean. She was very attractive, always dressed glamorously and had a real breezy style about her, like:

“I’ll never forget the first time I saw my husband, standing on a hill, his hair blowing in the breeze, and he too proud to run after it . . .”

I thought that was a scream. It still makes me laugh.

But most of my material came from that apartment house I grew up in on the west side of Detroit. It was a three-story building called the D’Elce
—
it was pronounced
Delsie
—and every single apartment was different, each with its own idiosyncrasies. All of the people in the building were different, too. I think my sense of curiosity and compassion was developed by seeing these people at their highest and lowest.

I instinctively recognized how funny everybody was, and so from the time I was six or seven years old, I’d put on shows and imitate the neighbors. I’d create a stage on the back porch of the building—I always wanted a stage—and use my mother’s sheets as the curtain.

“If all the world’s a stage, how come
so many people have to pay to get in?”

I used to love to hang out with Mrs. Rupert. She was my favorite, mostly because she was an eccentric. She wore a hat and fox furs to empty the garbage, and she’d often propagandize to me about the evils of progressive people. On her desk was a sign that said “Don’t go away mad. Just go away.” I thought that was great—it somehow appealed to me.

Another neighbor, Mrs. Clancy, taught French at a very exclusive girls’ school. She was really out there, and pretentious, too. And then there was Jean Creek, who used to make me laugh just by the way she’d stand there with one baby up on her hip, while stirring a big old pot of oatmeal with her free hand. I’d go to Jean’s apartment, play Rook, drink Pepsi and dance The Chicken.

I’d also go by Betty’s apartment. She was the only woman in the complex who was divorced, and whose boyfriend, Frank, slept over. Back then that was really scandalous. Frank was a Jew and a communist who gave me all kinds of communist literature. He owned a chicken store, and every time I went down there, I’d beg him, “Please, don’t kill the chickens! Please don’t kill them!”

“The worst thing about dying must be that part
where your whole life flashes before you.”

And, of course, there was Mrs. Spear, who worked at one of the department stores and always wore a chignon. About three times a week Mrs. Spear would ring our doorbell and say to my mom, “Oh, Mrs. Tomlin, I’m sorry, I forgot my key.” Mother would be fixing supper, and Mrs. Spear would say, “Oh, something smells good!” So my mother, who was an incredibly generous woman, would say, “Well, why don’t you come and have supper with us?”

After she’d leave, my father would always say the same thing.

“Goddamn it, if old lady Spear rings that goddamn doorbell one more time to get a free dinner, I’m going to give her a piece of my mind.”

I somehow took that as my marching orders. The next night when the doorbell rang, I beat my mother to the door, and told Mrs. Spear, “If you ring our doorbell one more time my father’s going to give you a piece of his mind.” Mother was mortified. Dad got a kick out of it.

“Maybe the reason we have a left brain and a right brain is
so we can keep secrets from ourselves.”

Another one of my early things was making sock puppets. When I’d go to visit family in Kentucky during the summer, I’d get socks and buttons from my aunt, and I could spend days and days making these puppets. And because people seemed to enjoy them so much, I learned to improvise little shows. I’d take my puppets and go across the field to where, say, some elderly woman was bedridden. I’d kneel down on the floor at the foot of the bed, then hold the puppets up, facing her, as if they were on a little stage. Then I’d entertain her. I’d sing “Shoo-Fly Pie” or something funny. I loved getting a laugh. I always did.

My brother was the same way. He’s genuinely funny—naturally comedic—and we were always up to something. Because we lived in such a tough neighborhood, getting home from school without being beaten up was a good day. So when he was about seven and I was ten, we’d run home from school, take my mother’s vacuum cleaner hose, drop it out our second-story window and taunt the tough kids who were out on the street.

“Hey you!” we’d yell through the hose. “Yeah, you in the blue jacket! I’m gonna kick your ass!” Then we’d duck down behind the window. The kids would be looking up and around, not knowing where the voice was coming from. My brother and I would be rolling on the floor, laughing.

But that was mild compared to some of my brother’s other pranks. He once actually sawed our mother’s couch into three pieces. With a hand saw. He thought it would look more glamorous as a sectional. My poor mother didn’t. She wanted it up against the wall. In one piece.

“Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.”

Then I became an entrepreneur. I learned very early on that there were lots of ways a kid could earn money.

It all started when I ordered a bunch of junk from the back of an old Red Ryder comic book, stuff like fake flies in plastic ice cubes and dog vomit; joy buzzers and soap that turned your hands black—all this crazy stuff that’s designed to give a kid power. In the ad, they said, “Send no cash”—they’d send the package COD, which was great because I didn’t have any cash and I didn’t know what COD meant. I thought I was the only kid in the world who had figured this out. You get all this stuff for free!

So I sent in my order, and it came to about eleven dollars—which was a lot of money back then. I came home from school one day and my mother was standing there, looking at all of it.

“Did you order this junk from a comic book?” she asked.

“Yes!” I screamed, so excited I was practically levitating.

“Well, you can have it when you pay me back,” Mom said flatly.

“Remember, we’re all in this alone.”

That stands in my mind as the greatest singular life lesson she ever gave me.

“How’s a kid supposed to get any money?” I wailed. And that’s when my mother gave me the idea of starting a little business, which is exactly what I did. I’d perform services around town. I’d walk your dog. I’d take out your garbage. I’d go to the corner store for you. Whatever you wanted me to do. It took a lot of dimes to get to eleven dollars, but I did it. I was very industrious.

One of my later jobs was to babysit, and I’d often ask my friend Susie to help me. After we put the kids to bed, we’d go through the parents’ drawers together and see their private stuff. We’d find Trojans and sex manuals. But I’d been attracted to sex manuals for a long time before that.

“I wonder if evolution is like a scientific experiment
that ran out of grant money.”

Of all the characters at the D’Elce, Mrs. Rupert was definitely the most mysterious. She was a botanist and the only person in the building who had venetian blinds, so you could never see inside her apartment. She’d only use her front entrance, the story being that someone had once walked in on her. So she kept her refrigerator pushed up against the back door. We never quite knew the details. To all the kids, she was just “the crazy lady.”

One day, when I was about eight, Mrs. Rupert convinced my mother to let me come over to her apartment to walk her dog. I went over that first night and made a friendship that would last for the next four years.

After I gained entrance to her inner sanctum, we had a whole ritual. I’d go over after supper, walk her dogs for fifteen cents, then spend the evening with her. We’d listen to the radio and read the
New York Times
. She always made me look up the words I didn’t understand. After we finished the
Times,
we would have tea and little petit fours.

Mrs. Rupert was like a girlfriend, but definitely an unusual one. She told me all sorts of wild stories. She said one of her plants was the same kind the pharaohs had used to silence their servants in Egypt.

“They’d put a piece of the leaf on the tongue, and it would paralyze the vocal chords,” she said ominously. She once caught me trying to snap off one of the leaves. I guess I wanted to try it myself, or on my kid brother.

Mrs. Rupert’s and my big weekly ritual was to go shopping together every Saturday. We’d go to Hudson’s, and I’d have to wear a hat and gloves and carry a little girl’s purse. She was teaching me to be a lady because she’d somehow decided I was the kid in the building who had the most potential to rise above my station.

We’d take the Hamilton bus downtown, and along the way she’d give me all these little pointers:

A lady never carries parcels if she can help it; and if she does have to carry a parcel, she uses only one arm so that the other arm is free.

A lady never crosses her legs, except at the ankles, and never sits with her back against the chair—which could encourage slumping.

And a real lady is able to open her handbag and reach inside and get anything she needs—without looking.

She even taught me how to blow my nose. We’d go to a little tearoom to have cocoa, and when it was cold outside, our noses would be running. So we’d slip up a side street, go into an empty doorway and blow our noses. Then, self-assured, we’d go into the tearoom and, sure enough, we’d see some poor, sniffling woman at the counter, struggling with the paper napkin holder. And, of course, Mrs. Rupert would give me a little elbow to make sure I noticed that the woman was not
composed
.

I just adored her. She was so wonderful and pixilated.

“Sometimes I feel like a figment of my own imagination.”

By the time I was twelve, I was very big on magic. After I paid off the debt to my mother, I’d go down to Abbott’s Magic Shop and buy tricks—like the rope that you cut into two, then magically restore. Or the trick where you raise an egg under a silk. I wasn’t very good at sleight of hand, but it was fun.

Until now, I’d kept my showbiz life totally separate from my friendship with Mrs. Rupert. But one night I couldn’t resist inviting her to see my magic act.

She flew off the handle.

“Magic act!” she gasped. “Don’t tell me you’ve been spending your time and money on magic tricks! Don’t you realize that it’s all just an illusion?”

Then she said something that sounds apocryphal, and I’ve never forgotten it:

“If you’re not careful, you’re going to end up in show business!”

I was incensed. I felt like my dignity was eroded. “I’m not coming back!” I shouted. And I left.

Mrs. Rupert tried to win me back after that. One day, my brother and I were out in the backyard, and she peeped through one of her windows and said, “If you come tonight, I’ll show you something very interesting.” I was still pissed off, but I was curious.

So my brother and I went to her apartment later that evening. She took us into her dining room, which was tiny and had a table draped in a laced tablecloth, and a chandelier that was dark and gloomy, with a big silk hanging over it. She brought out a great big chest wrapped in chamois. After removing the fabric, she opened the box to reveal another box inside. Then she took out the smaller box.