Laugh Lines: Conversations With Comedians (46 page)

The first time I really realized what I was getting myself into was when we went shopping for shoes, Del Shores and I. You gotta have big shoes. Right around the corner of the theatre is Fredericks of Hollywood with the bra museum. It has Jayne Mansfield’s bra from ‘The Outlaws.’ Next door is where the hookers get all their stuff. It’s Frederick’s knock-offs real cheap. We were walking down the street and saw those red shoes in the window and screamed like two girls—just screamed. We went running in there and bought them, and he said, ‘You’re gonna have to practice.’ I slipped ’em on, and said, ‘I sort of fell out of the womb and landed in my mother’s high heels.’ There was no coming-out process here. You have to be in to come out. I slipped those red shoes on, and we just hollered.

There was Brother Boy. That’s all it took, and I had the character in full—fully fleshed out. Usually you start rehearsal and add little quirks and business, and I put on those red shoes, and there he was. We had him right there. It was so funny.

Corey: Except you had to shave your back?

Leslie: Oh God, it’s awful. I’ve got a pelt. I’m very furry. I’ve got the gay cardinal sin; my back is covered with hair. I’m sitting here right now trying to figure it out. I’ve tried different things. One time in Palm Springs, I hired these two rent boys to come over and shave me, to try and make it fun. That was sort of disastrous and expensive. They were Marines from Pendleton. I got so involved in their stories. There was no sex. One was married with two children. ‘You’re straight?’ ‘Yeah, but well, do whatever you want.’ ‘To each other?’ ‘Whatever you want.’ And I was so nervous. They clipped me and I paid them and they went on their way. I have to shave this weekend.

Corey: What do you think happens to Brother Boy and Wardell after ‘Sordid Lives’?

Leslie: I know one thing that happens because we shot it, and it never made the movie. They have to stop overnight in the motel. It shows them cuddle, sleeping together. That’s Brother Boy’s dream. It cuts to reality. Wardell’s on the floor; Brother Boy’s on the bed. Wardell won’t even get in bed with him. Newell Alexander (who plays Wardell), is Del Shores’ father-in-law. And Dr. Eve is his mother-in-law. He was married to their daughter. It is so incestuous. The story behind ‘Sordid Lives’ is more interesting practically than the movie. Del came out. He was more worried about telling them than telling his wife. He had such a wonderful relationship with them and his two children.

Corey: What are the challenges for you now that you’re sober?

Leslie: I got sober right after we did the play version of ‘Sordid Lives.’ Brother Boy had a little crystal problem. I’d do little bumps of crystal meth just to liven things up. I went to jail for a DUI. I went to jail five times during the run of ‘Sordid Lives.’ Beth Grant, who’s been sober many years—20-30 years—she’s very active in the recovery programs. Del called her and said, ‘He’s in jail again; what do we do?’ She said, ‘Leave him.’ He said, ‘But we have a show tomorrow. What do we do?’ ‘Get his understudy. Leave him. He’s got to be responsible.’

I wouldn’t speak with her for a long time. I said, ‘You gotta to come get me.’ He said, ‘I’m not going to, Leslie.’ I got sober, and I started telling Del all my stories about my sordid past. There was a bar I would go to called The Spotlight Lounge, and The Spotlight Lounge was filled with young men who were 30 days out of Soledad Prison. They have chipped teeth, tattoos, dirty fingernails and a little rock cocaine problem. They’re about willing to do anything for $40, and there I sit with a drink and a checkbook. So, I would tell him all these stories about me and all these boys.

I talk about Travelin’ Ray and Italian Joe and Boo-yah and all these boys. These were real boys I knew. I told Del about these stories. He called me up and said, ‘I’ve written this play, and I wrote this part for you, and we’re going to do a reading in my living room just to see what I’ve got.’ I was just horrified. ‘You have told every secret I have ever told you.’ You gotta watch; Del Shores will steal. Of course, I steal from him, too. You tell him any story about your family—anything—it will end up in a play. I said, ‘Del, I don’t want to relive all that. I don’t want to play a drunk on a barstool.’ It didn’t have, at that time, the ending. There’s a wonderful ending where I get to tell one of the young men, ‘Don’t become me; don’t become this drunk on a barstool.’ And so I said to him, ‘I don’t want to play that unless you can give it some sort of redemptive value. Maybe he could tell one of those kids, ‘Don’t become me” or something.’ Del wrote that wonderful thing.

The night we opened ‘Southern Baptist Sissies,’ I was onstage and I tasted vodka, and I really freaked out. I was about three years sober. ‘Listen, you didn’t rinse out a vodka bottle and not rinse it out real good, because I taste vodka and I’m a recovering alcoholic.’ He said, ‘Leslie, it’s tap water.’ ‘I don’t mean to be a diva, but can I mix my own drink? Will you have bottled water on a little table and ice and maybe some brewed tea I can pour in and make it look like bourbon or something?’ He said, ‘Whatever.’

What I realized, the sense memory was so long, when I would sit there and pretend to smoke cigarettes and tell stories, pretend to drink, it was almost real. A real big part of the recovery meetings is sharing. You tell your story to help other alcoholics. I felt like I was telling my story every night. And I would walk out of that theatre, and I still do, like a free man. It’s almost like all my demons have set me free. In the recovery community, we say, ‘You’re only as sick as your secrets.’ I tell my secrets. Nobody knows those are really my secrets.

That was a big part of my recovery that I love rent boys, and I still do. I still do. I do that in sobriety. I’m not ashamed of that.

Corey: We’re mutual friends of Craig Taggart. He and I acted together in high school.

Leslie: I adore him; he’s so sweet. He’s got kind of a bad perm. We told him about it because who else is gonna tell him?

Corey: When did you start being able to tell stories?

Leslie: From day one. My mother said it reached the point–I had such a vivid imagination–‘At what point do you say, “Son, that’s a lie. That didn’t happen like that, OK?”’ I really realized I had a gift. My first one-man show was called ‘Hysterical Blindness and Other Southern Tragedies.’ The director said to me, ‘I think your stories are more interesting when you put them on their feet.’ We added an all-Baptist choir. People would jump in and become the characters. We had the cat-swinging story. My friends would say that story is so much funnier when you tell it.

That was 1992. I had a lot of music, had 55 stage cues. It was Lily Tomlin who came to see ‘My Trip Down the Pink Carpet,’ which was my third one. I said, ‘Lily, I can’t make any money.’ She said, ‘You’ve got pink carpets, pink sconces. Honey, will you trust me when I tell you that you don’t need any of that? When you land somewhere, that’s when you add the bells and whistles. I carry my lavaliere and a turtleneck.’

I said, ‘I’ll leave the turtleneck to the lesbians.’

I started ‘Full of Gin and Regret,’ which is loosely three stories. Audiences are just as satisfied. It’s more storytelling now. I’ve really come into my own the last two or three years. Naturally when I tell a story, I get off track.

Corey: Kathy Griffin always gets off track with her stories.

Leslie: Kathy Griffin. She’s making $70,000 a show. What has she done that I haven’t done?

Corey: She’s got the hit reality show.

Leslie: I’ve got this reality show. Over in England is the tallest boy in the world. Never seen anything like it. He wants to come to Hollywood to be an actor. ‘What, you want me because I’m little?’ ‘No, we want you because you came to Hollywood with a lot going against you. You were gay when it wasn’t the right time to be gay. You’re short. You’ve got a Southern accent. You turned it into a marketable act and kept the ship floating for almost 30 years.’

He envisions himself as the bad guy in the James Bond movies. The day I found out about it, I auditioned for—I don’t think I’ll get it—Robert Zemekis. He’s doing ‘Yellow Submarine.’ There’s Big Chief Meanie, all these characters. It’s the sort of thing they put the electrodes on your face. I was on ‘Star Trek’; I was a Ferengi. Maybe if we could talk to Robert Zemekis, we could do a whole season, whether he gets it or not. I’m kind of excited about that. Maybe that’s what I need for that next step.

Corey: Have you thought about doing your life as a TV show?

Leslie: I’ve done that with my live shows. It doesn’t excite me. My life now is sort of boring. I’m sober. They could have followed me years ago; it would have been a train wreck. Most of my stories are 10 years ago. The last 10 years my life—I was trying to explain this to a sponsee—all this drama in your life is self-created, and you won’t realize this until you get out of it.

When the drama starts, I don’t go there. I’m in bed every night at like 9 o’clock. I’ll go up to my hotel room right now, happy as a little pig. I don’t go out.

Corey: Does the joy come from being onstage?

Leslie: That’s it. It’s really hard for friends of mine. I am living so present right now. When I drank a lot, I could lose myself so easily. I would go to the movies a lot. I could go see three movies back to back. I don’t even want to stay for two hours. I don’t watch much scripted television. I’m very present. I’m 54 years old, and I am closer to my authentic self than I’ve ever been. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. People say, ‘Don’t you want a boyfriend?’ I say, ‘No, I’ve got a beautiful, straight boy at home right now.’ Some people have poodles and dogs at home; I’ve got a beautiful, straight boy that I keep—just gorgeous.

Corey: Do you want to get married?

Leslie: Never.

Many of us early Kathy Griffin fans can smile now that she’s one of the biggest names in the comedy world. Girl knows how to shill, too! She’s quick to remind everyone of her Emmys, her Grammy noms and her vajazzeled nether region.

While her “reality” show has become less so now that she is so A-list, she still holds her “gays” in high regard, speaking out about Prop. 8 in California, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and the rash of gay teen suicides in the fall of 2010.

But we love her best for her trash talkin’! Here are my playful interviews with Miss Griffin, the first following her media war with E!, Dakota Fanning and Steven Spielberg after Kathy jokingly wished Dakota well during her stay in rehab.

Corey: Have you gotten a Thank You card from the charity that E! contributed to because of the Dakota Fanning fracas?

Kathy Griffin: Isn’t that whole thing a riot? Here’s the thing, No. 1, that E! apologized in the first place is ridiculous, because you’d have to be an idiot to not know I was kidding. She’s 9 years old. But, No. 2, Team Fanning was furious. And I just want to say that I love it that there’s a Team Fanning. I called her new movie with Robert DeNiro ‘A Fanning/DeNiro joint.’ But anyway, then I love that they gave to the tsunami relief fund. Wait, because Dakota devoted a lot of her time to tsunami relief. She’s 9! What did she do, give them a juice box? So anyway, I said to E!, ‘Don’t act like you should get a prize for this. You should have donated to the tsunami relief anyway as a network.’

Corey: Are things OK with you and E! Are you going to any more red carpet stuff with them?

Kathy: I might do the Grammys. But I think they’re not going to have me do the SAG awards or the Oscars because they’re afraid of me. I’m happy not to be anywhere near Star Jones for two occasions, so that’s fine with me.

Corey: She was trying to distance herself from you, which I can’t understand because she’s such a train wreck.