22

GOOD AT DINNER

It was a strange thing to emigrate at fifty, but America truly is the land of opportunity. It took me a while to learn you don’t need to take all of the opportunities. At first I was confused about what I should do, and a friend told me I was depressed and recommended therapy. That was a smart suggestion and I have benefited from it ever since. There is nothing finer than paying someone to listen to you moan every week, and it helped me enormously. It still does to this day. I know the Brits think therapy is some kind of moral weakness, but we don’t come with a manual and it’s good to find out what makes you tick.

This time I wanted to stay home for Lily and not be an absentee father, which I was a lot of the time for Carey. By this age I was less obsessed with career and self, and I had more time to be a father, a role I had to learn anyway since I had no model and didn’t do a great job first time round. Carey has forgiven me now, I’m happy to say, and I tried very hard to get it right on my second stint at fatherhood. Life in America was different. The school system was different. The kids were told to respect each other’s feelings. Feelings? Not a word you’d hear in British schools in the Fifties. I’d come a long way from Wolverhampton.

The nicest thing about living in Hollywood was that it was no big deal being in showbiz. At my daughter’s school, seventy percent of the parents were in some way connected to the entertainment industry. It’s like living in an auto town: that’s just what people do. I am what they call in LA a hyphenate. I write, act, sing, perform, direct, produce, and generally show off in all sorts of desperate ways. I have always been a little puzzled as to my true métier, and I once asked my wife what I did best.

“Well,” she said, after a moment’s thought, “you’re very good at dinner.”

Soon after moving, I got a great role in Casper, a big-budget studio movie, which was encouraging, but I’m not really cut out for acting, as I get bored easily, so I began to work as a screenwriter. I made quite a good living writing scripts, and for many years Hollywood paid me handsomely, providing me with an enormous income developing things that never got made. In the end frustration got the better of me, and I quit. I was tired of being lied to at lunch. I will say, however, that while I am not a very good writer, I am a good rewriter, and I learned that particular skill in Hollywood.

After the earthquake, first thing I did was buy myself a very expensive guitar. It was a handmade Musser and had fallen off the wall at NORMS. No point in dying with a cheap guitar. It’s still a beauty. Now we had dinners where people came over and played music.

I knew I finally lived in America when I got a dog. I didn’t mean to. Lily and I went out to buy a balloon and we came back holding an exquisite beagle puppy. The minute I put him on my shoulder there was no way I could put him back in that cage. We drove home with Lily holding this tiny soft thing in her hands. Tania was reasonably pissed off because she wasn’t consulted, and stormed off for an hour, because she’d always wanted another German shepherd, but she soon came back and of course she fell in love with Bagel the beagle. Tania eventually got her shepherd. Shadow was wonderful. Powerful, protective, and very thoughtful. One day Mike Nichols was leaving our house and looked closely at him.

“You know, your dog Shadow really reminds me of Julia Roberts,” he said.

We both looked at him. What??

“You can see exactly what he is thinking.”

Bagel’s birthday.

I taught little Bagel to sing. Being a beagle, he howled like a hound, and one day I picked up my guitar and encouraged him to howl along with me. A few treats later and I had a singing dog. From then on, he sang at every party. Toward the end of the evening, after dinner, he would make his way next to me, looking at me expectantly. He was ready. I would pick up my guitar and begin to play his song:

Bagel, Bagel, Bagel, Bagel, Bagel,

Bagel, oo, Bagel, oo

He would put his head back and howl. It never failed to kill. He sang to Beatles, he sang to Stones, to Eagles, and of course, to many comedians. That dog sang to the uncrowned heads of Europe. He even sang for Lily at a school concert, the only dog ever allowed in.

The great thing about California is you are close to the sea, to the mountains, to the desert, and of course to Las Vegas. Carrie Fisher took us to Vegas for the first time, to attend her mother’s latest venture. Debbie Reynolds was opening a small hotel just off the Strip. We were startled when we got there at eleven in the morning to find her all dolled up and singing “Tammy” to a small party of Japanese tourists. She had her pianist Rip Taylor with her and was performing her whole cabaret in the tiny lobby. It was very odd. The hotel opening was a disaster. The fire department came to check on safety equipment and the sprinklers went off in every room. Oops. Still, we got to visit the Liberace Museum and gaze at his rhinestone Rolls-Royce, and we went to see Siegfried & Roy and their amazing white lions and tigers. A few years later I met them on Regis, a breakfast TV show in New York, and I was relieved to find that Siegfried was absolutely terrified of their cats and wouldn’t go near them. Shortly after, Roy was almost killed by one of his animals. Mercifully, he recovered, and came to the Spamalot opening in Vegas.

Still, there is no escape from show business. There is no exit. You can only get out feet-first. Vegas reassured me that as long as I could stand up, I would have somewhere to perform. And what was it but a glorified Blackpool? I thought I would prefer to end my days in the fake glamour of the desert rather than the fake splendor of pantomime in Eastbourne—it’s a better class of glitter. Panto was in any case spoiled for me in Wolverhampton when they took us to the Grand Theatre and the female chorus spent the entire matinee in tears. It was puzzling and very odd. On the way back to school, we learned the reason. One of the chorus girls had been murdered…

I got to play Las Vegas a few times, once with Kevin Nealon joining Clint Black at a Country convention, once with Steve Martin and Tom Hanks as the “Too Warm Trio” singing “The Galaxy Song” for a global warming convention, and once for Penn & Teller’s Sin City Spectacular singing “Bright Side,” chained upside down in a straitjacket suspended over a vat of boiling oil. I always loved visiting Penn & Teller. Apart from the genius of their magic show, I knew that afterwards you would always have a great discussion for hours in their dressing room about the Universe.

Another time in Vegas, Steve Martin had an exhibition of his own private art collection at the Bellagio Hotel. His paintings ranged from Picasso to Hopper. Steve is a polymath, which is not a parrot good at algebra. His intellectual range is astonishing. He writes plays and novels and screenplays and funny pieces for The New Yorker, and hosts the Oscars and knows everything about art. Of course, he is a banjo player, but then no one is perfect. Actually, he is even perfect at that and has won at least three Grammys for his banjo playing. We began to play together, at his house in Montecito, and, both being a little shy, we encouraged each other. He always wanted me to sing “The Galaxy Song,” and we did it first at Marty Short’s Christmas party, and then publicly. Actually, after Marty Short’s Christmas party, everything is easy. I saw even Marty nervously smoking a cigarette outside his own party, before he went on. But he is always funny. That’s because he tries very hard. We shared a dressing room at the Public Theater for a charity performance of The Pirates of Penzance, and we both agreed that the best moment in showbiz is when it is over. It’s somewhat like sex in that regard…

Once, Steve was being honored by the Kennedy Center in Washington, and there was a gala dinner at the Smithsonian, in a huge art gallery hung entirely with American masters. Carl Reiner, who introduced Steve, said he was so knowledgeable about American masters that he could probably go around the hall and name every single artist on the wall.

“Well,” said Steve, modestly, “I’m not sure I can…well…Let’s see…Homer?”

“Yes,” said the curator.

“Wyeth.”

“Yes.”

“Copley.”

“Yes.”

“Durand?”

“Yes.”

“Stuart.”

“Yes.”

He went around the walls of the entire room correctly naming every single artist. Unbelievable. But then, he is a magician. We spent some very good times together. He had an amazing house in Montecito where we would go for long weekends. Often Ricky Jay would come for these holiday weekends and we would be perplexed as he produced constant aces, or, using cards as weapons, propelled them across the room into watermelons. Steve was once prevailed upon to do a magic trick at a party at our house, which he did with great aplomb. A few days later one of Lily’s young friends said, “Hey, I saw your magician on TV.”

I’d hardly been in LA a year when we went scurrying back to London to make a movie. Terry Jones was filming Wind in the Willows and asked me to play Ratty, a big step up from Second Field Mouse, where I started my career. I even got to sing “Messing About on the River,” an English hit from the Sixties. Terry had written the script and was directing and, best of all, he was playing Toad, a role he was born to play. The hilarious, multitalented Steve Coogan played a very sweet Mole, and between takes he taught me to do Michael Caine impersonations: “I don’t fucking well believe it. No no Eric, I don’t fucking well believe it…” What bystanders thought of Ratty and Mole doing loud Michael Caine impersonations as we passed by, I have no idea.

Steve Coogan as Mole, Terry Jones as Toad, and me as Ratty. Wind in the Willows, 1996.

Tania and I were fortunate to be on Carrie Fisher’s guest list, which meant we were invited by Paul Allen, the Microsoft billionaire, on several amazing trips. The first was a pirate-themed party on Cap d’Antibes, where the Louisianan luthier Danny Ferrington pulled out handmade guitars and we all jammed Beatles songs for hours. Paul is a very shy man, but stick a guitar in his hands and he is happy. We played together on several occasions. Once he took us all on a cruise down the Middle Passage of Alaska, where at lifeboat drill Tania and I were lined up next to Bill Gates. I thought, Wow, this increases our chances of survival. Until, arriving late, along came James Cameron, the director of Titanic.

“Oh no,” I said, “not on our boat.”

He went and found another. You can’t be too careful at sea.

On another occasion, Paul took us to an unforgettable masked ball in Venice. We floated down the Grand Canal in gondolas at sunset, in glittering eighteenth-century costumes. It was like being in a different century, except for the desperate cries from the paparazzi, who of course couldn’t recognize anyone because of their masks. “Robin?” they would yell hopefully. He and I took to calling out fake names to confuse them. “Stephen?” “Tom?” “Betty?” “Your Holiness.”

Perhaps the most extraordinary Paul Allen trip was a visit to St. Petersburg. We set off overnight from Helsinki on a large cruise ship, and steamed into the city the next morning. I had no idea it would be so beautiful. Peppermint and pistachio palaces, bridges, art galleries, and canals. It was even more fabulous than Venice. This dream city was created by Peter the Great, who wanted a port for his new fleet and moved all the nobles out of Moscow to this swamp and made them build palaces and houses. After a two-year siege by the Nazis in World War II the city was a ruin, and only Communists could have spent what they did to restore it. Even the tapestries had been painstakingly re-created in France at their original eighteenth-century ateliers. Not a ruble had been spared. It was an extraordinary restoration job and we lucky few enjoyed it. St. Petersburg was indeed mind-blowing. One day we were getting on a ferry to ride to another palace and this very sweet little old lady boarded the boat. I was already seated, and she very politely came up and asked me if she could sit next to me.

“Well, alright,” I said, “but you keep your hands to yourself.”

Michael Kamen nearly fell overboard laughing.

The opening event was a cocktail party in a gilt-and-glass salon built by the Empress Catherine the Great. Tania and I were admiring this mirrored salon, as guests quietly assembled, when I became aware of Deepak Chopra, the prominent New Age guru, bearing down on me. I recognized him from Dave Stewart’s wedding a few months before, when he had married Dave and Anoushka Fisz on the beach at Juan-les-Pins. We had also attended the opening of Dave’s unlikely sex shop, Coco de Mer, on Melrose Avenue in LA. Dave had a whole new line of expensive vibrators and strange toys, and he had invited Deepak along to say a little prayer and bless the sex shop. As you do.

“O Lord, please bless these thy unguents and vaginal jellies, that together we may see Heaven.”

Well, of course Deepak didn’t say that, but he did make Tania and me giggle that day, as he was wearing rhinestone sunglasses and looked uncomfortably like Peter Sellers in The Party. So, I was well aware of who he was. George had even warned me: “Watch out for Deepak. He only really loves money.” Not the greatest character reference. Now he was bearing down on me, smiling. He had mistaken me for Dr. Watson. Not Sherlock Holmes’s Dr. Watson, but Francis Crick’s. He thought I was James Watson, one of the pair of molecular biologists who had discovered the structure of DNA in 1953 at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.

“Oh, Dr. Watson,” he gushed directly to me. “This is such an honor. I am so thrilled to meet you. You are the reason I became a doctor, I have always been inspired by your work. That’s why I started medicine in the first place. This is truly a great moment for me in my life.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Tania was looking at me. I could see the mischief in her eyes as she enjoyed this moment. How was I going to respond?

“Well, Deepak,” I said. “For a start, I’m not him. Secondly, he is at least fifteen years older than I am, and thirdly, he is standing right there.”

Deepak did a double take, turned on his heels, and raced over to continue his gush. So much for cosmic consciousness.

Professor Brian Cox and I have always enjoyed teasing Deepak. We call his chatter “The Quantum of Bollocks,” for he manages to mix cosmology and bullshit.

“There are no extra pieces in the Universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.”

So much for physics. Brian is kinder than me, but Deepak’s form of quasi-scientific religiosity gets to him too.

Tania and I loved Jim Watson when we met him, a charming and funny man, and we shared a couple of meals with him on that trip. It was nice to remember how I would pass the Cavendish Laboratory every morning in Cambridge on my way to lunch at the Footlights, or go for a drink at the Eagle, the famous old pub where Watson and Crick first burst in, excitedly saying they had found the meaning of life.

“We should never forget that DNA backwards is AND.”

Sorry, Deepak, I’m just not good at this bollocks.

I got a great job on a 4-D interactive movie called Honey, I Shrunk the Audience!, working with Rick Moranis again. Marcia Strassman, the eponymous Honey, got me the job at the last minute when Raul Julia fell ill. They were making a twenty-minute “ride” of the movie for Disneyland. It was shot on a huge 70mm camera in long takes, as most of the gags were special effects added later. Huge snakes slithered off the screen in 3-D. Lifelike rats ran out of the picture, down through the audience and into the seats. Little weedwhackers flicked their ankles, so the screams started at the front and proceeded through the auditorium. These gags were very effective, and we went with Lily to Disney World for the opening. They even took us to Paris when it opened there, and of course for a kid, the whole VIP tour thing is magic. There is no waiting in line, and you can go on a ride again and again. Paradise.

A year later, Anheuser-Busch approached me with an offer to write one of these 4-D things. They wanted a pirate film for their Busch Gardens theme park in Williamsburg, Virginia. I was intrigued by the technology so I wrote one. In mine, when seagulls flew overhead, water would drop like bird poop on the audience. I wrote the lead for Leslie Nielsen and he said he would do it only if I would be in it too. You mean filming in the West Indies on a pirate ship with Leslie Nielsen? Well, alright then. So off we went to Puerto Rico, eventually ending up filming on a boat in Caneel Bay off St. John, where I had stayed so happily with George and Liv. At the end of each day’s filming I would dive overboard and swim back to my hotel.

I loved every second with Leslie. He was extremely funny. He would play with his own fame and had found a clever way of coming to terms with it. He had a fart machine. He kept it hidden in his hand. He used it to perfection on a crowded elevator in our tourist hotel.

People would enter the elevator and suddenly notice that there was Leslie Nielsen, deep in thought, staring into the middle distance. You would see them recognize him and nudge each other. He would gaze placidly ahead, completely unconcerned, not noticing. They would be trying to make up their minds to say something, but his benign concentration held them back. The doors would close. A moment of silence and then suddenly there would be a loud fart. Louder than socially polite. Impossible to ignore. But who was it? Leslie would continue to stare straight ahead. His face would not move a muscle. There would be another loud fart. The passengers would begin to look uncomfortable. Was that…Leslie Nielsen…farting??

Now it was awkward. They could hardly burst into “Aren’t you Leslie Nielsen, we loved Airplane, can I have an autograph?” while he clearly had this epic bowel problem. Another couple of floors of silent descent and there would be another extremely loud fart. This time there was no mistaking the source. Leslie would give away nothing. Not a glimmer. Not a twinkle. The tourists’ eyes would meet. They would clearly just have to pretend it wasn’t happening. They would give this poor farting star the anonymity his unfortunate entrails deserved. Mercilessly, as the ground floor approached, Leslie increased the tempo. He would play a whole range of farts, little ones, big ones, short ones, long ones, melodic ones, Handelian ones, starbursts, frog farts, his repertoire was lengthy and relentless, his face a study of intense concentration as this terrible barrage unfurled. Deeply embarrassed for him, the other passengers in the elevator looked studiously at the floor, avoiding each other’s eyes and this terrible secret. Finally, the doors opened and the passengers burst out, leaving Leslie saying nothing, revealing nothing. It was the most brilliant controlled display of deadpan acting I ever saw.

Another time, Jack Black asked me to sing at Festival Supreme on Santa Monica Pier, a whole-day concert he was organizing for comedians who played instruments. My pal Jeff Davis did the set with me with the assistance of my hilarious assistant Alana Gospodnetich. I had a gag I wanted to try. To introduce us, Jack Black came on and gave me the biggest showbiz intro ever. “You know him from this, you know him from that, one of the original Montys, will you all please welcome Eric Idle!”

Thunderous applause, and on came Billy Idol.

The crowd did a double take. What? And then laughed themselves silly. Billy played up the moment perfectly, strutting around the stage, pouting, pumping his fists, singing “I’m a lumberjack…”

After a few minutes I came on, looking daggers at Billy.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m doing the show.”

“It says Eric Idle.”

“No, it doesn’t. It says Billy Idol.”

“Not on the poster.”

“Yeah, on the poster.”

We argued. We pushed. We shoved. We fought until Jeff brought out the poster and showed him.

“Oh. Alright then.”

Reluctantly, he left the stage to an enormous ovation. We continued our set without him, but he came on at the end and sang “Bright Side” with us. It was one of my favorite gags ever. A visual pun. Billy was such a pro, he came to my house three times to rehearse the bit.

Idol and Idle.

I eventually repurposed almost everything I ever wrote for Hollywood: The Road to Mars became a novel, The Rutland Isles became a CD, and The Remains of the Piano turned into a concert film of a radio play called What About Dick?, which we filmed with the incredible cast of Eddie Izzard, Billy Connolly, Tim Curry, Tracey Ullman, Russell Brand, Jane Leeves, Jim Piddock, Sophie Winkleman, and me, live before a howling audience for three nights at a sold-out Orpheum Theatre in LA. As Dick Vosburgh, my early mentor, would always say as he filed away rejected gags, “Nothing’s wasted.”

But no matter how comfortable and at home I felt, always there would be the inevitable question:

“When are you Python guys getting back together again?”