When Navin Johnson, Steve Martin’s character in the movie The Jerk, announces he is leaving his wife and doesn’t need her or any of their extravagant possessions – then abruptly concedes he needs the ashtray, and well, the paddle game, and maybe the remote control – ardent Martin fans recognized the bit as one from his early standup comedy days. They still do. But the reference is foreign to people 25 years old and younger. Soon after “The Jerk’s” release, Martin began making more films and performing less standup, turning away from a medium in which he won two comedy Grammies and routinely sold out 10,000-plus seat arenas.
Fans who wanted their Martin standup fix had to settle for his couch appearances on Carson or Letterman – he still comes prepared with bits – or watch his movies (see the rope tricks in Three Amigos; the nose monologue in Roxanne). Offstage Martin spoke little about standup days and remained protective of his privacy, telling Time magazine in 1987, “ I don’t want the way I live to get out to the world. Once private things get into print, everybody knows who you are, and it make you dull.”
Fortunately, Martin has softened over time. In Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life due out this month, Martin, 61, offers a semiautobiographical look at his stand up career from beginning to end. Most notable is the candor and humility found as early the book’s introduction with Martin admitting it took him 14 years to learn standup and refine his act, and that he initially sought “comic originality, and fame fell on (him) as a by-product.” Martin is also refreshingly forthcoming about his stage failures, the development of his act, and the origin of some of his bits including the catch phrases, “Well excuse me” and “I’m a wild and crazy guy.”
Humor takes a backseat at the outset with Martin recalling his Disneyland years, but it returns shortly thereafter and continues throughout the book, most commonly in asides involving other celebrities like Elvis Presley, Lindsey Buckingham, and blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Fans who thought they knew Martin will discover they didn’t. Today’s stand-ups will find solace.
Martin also writes about his father, a cold man who openly ridiculed his son’s work and distanced himself from it. Martin has touched upon their relationship in previous interviews, and wrote extensively about it an essay for The New Yorker a few years ago so one could forgive him if kid-gloved or even omitted it from the book. To his credit Martin doesn’t shy away, although it would have been interesting to hear him discuss the similarities between his personal life and the movie Parenthood in which his character’s father is much like his own.
Omitting such reflection is the lone, yet small disappointment in Born. Martin is so candid and personable that you wish he’d discuss his films, plays and novels, but to include that information in the book is to misunderstand the author’s purpose for penning it. Critics may suggest that after film flops like The Pink Panther and Bringing Down the House, Martin’s book is an attempt to regain comedy royalty. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Done right, stand-up is an art form.
Twenty-six years after he last performed standup, or to use his own words “abandoned it,” Martin is only now appreciating what he accomplished and understanding how it has benefited his career. And he’s comfortable discussing it for his is a comfort level artists only find when they’re ultimately proud of their work.
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