Breaking Out of Show Business: What I've Discovered by Not Being Discovered

A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

ISBN: 978-1-61868-921-4

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-922-1

BREAKING OUT OF SHOW BUSINESS

What I’ve Discovered by Not Being Discovered

© 2014 by Michael Paul Ziegfeld

PUBLISHED AT SMASHWORDS

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press

109 International Drive, Suite 300

Franklin, TN 37067

http://posthillpress.com

Special thanks to:

Nick Buzzell at NBTV for thinking enough of me to approach and ask me to write this.

Post Hill Press for partnering in this walk down memory lane, minus all the libel shit I would have loved to have put in.

My new friend, Steve Bruner, for helping me balance writing the way I speak without crucifying English grammar to the point of being deported. You are as intelligent as you are funny.

Jake Strasser, friends and family, and all those during this huge, lifelong education with whom I have crossed paths.

I would now like to cross paths with a Sugar Momma or Daddy because I’m tired and would like to stop working.

… Just putting it out there.

Just a heads up …

I use the F word in the book.

For those of you a little squeamish about blasphemy,

I spoke to God and he told me to tell you,

it was okay.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

The City Of Brotherly Love: KYW-TV, Dancin’ On Air & Miles Davis

I Should’ve Stolen the Grammy

First Night In New York Comedy & Rodney Dangerfield

The Winona Ryder Experience

Don Rickles: If You Like Me, Insult Me

The Day Ben Affleck Almost Kicked My Ass

The Road: Seinfeld, Romano, Wolfberg, Foxworthy & A Little Regret

The Condo Circuit a.k.a. God’s Waiting Room

The Queen Of England Is Chatty. Will & Kate Are Nice

Blackmailing Trump’s Entertainment Director

A Favor For The Mob Boss

Michael J. Fox Screwed Me

Mother Nature

Joan Rivers & Mink; Frank Gorshin & Drink

I Started Out In Black

Japan Didn’t Have Mac & Cheese

Literally Breaking Into Show Business (and The Offices Of Don Buchwald, Rosie O’Donnell, And Lorne Michaels)

Jim Henson & The Workshop

My First Movie: David Wain & The Ten

One Offs

The Jerry Lewis Telethon

Phyllis Diller And Reno Throat

Actor & New York Tour Guide, Ron Silver

I've Got You Under My Skin

Sundance: Redford, Hopkins & Matis Yahu

Playing Las Vegas

The Famed Beverly Hilton Hotel

The Pointer Sisters Make Fun Of My Virginity

My Worst Night & The Millionaire That Went To Prison

Howdy Doody Ruined My Life

James Brown Takes Us To The Movies

How A Magician’s Lion Helps You Win A Car

On ... Off … Well, Next To Broadway

Jackson, Culkin & 9/11

Stalker #1 And Stalker #2

The Siegfried & Roy Deal

The King and I

Mr. Know-It-All & The Network Show

Two Days Turn Into A Week With Kevin Spacey

SNL’s Saturday TV Funhouse = Disney Stops Calling

Bill Clinton Was Second On My List

27 Dresses: Heigl & Marsden

The Party’s Over

A Few Published Comedic Editorials

Critics And Clients

About the Author

Preface

I write this book on the eve of my retirement.

You have probably never heard of me. There may be a very slight possibility you recognize my name or maybe my face. But I have no delusions. Way before Kathy Griffin’s My Life On the D-List I always teased, I’ve sky-rocketed to the middle. (It birthed my script, The Biggest Mistake of My Life.)

When I was around eighteen, I sent my first comedy demo to a local, stereotypical, old, Jewish, cigar-chomping, talent booker named, Moe Shames. When I called, following up to see if he reviewed my tape, he replied, Yeah, I saw it. And frankly, you have no talent.

He could have easily told me I wasn’t ready yet, or I was too blue, or I wasn’t the type of act he booked. But instead he decided to crush a young man’s spirit … if only for a day or two.

Years later whenever I was headlining on the east coast, Moe would regularly send his business card backstage and try to contact me.

It’s a very small percentage of those who become famous. But I never really wanted that. I just wanted to do good work and hopefully follow the path to where I might eventually flourish and ultimately belong. Finding that place is also helpful if someone appreciates your work and opens a door or two for you.

I’ve worked in over forty countries, comedy-toured with some names, done some television, a few movies, voiceovers, TV/film puppeteering, off-off-take-a-left-turn-off Broadway, producing, directing, writing, coaching, and I only did restaurant and temp work in my late teens.

But to this day I’m not sure I’ve discovered my true calling or complete expression. Although my ridiculously eclectic life experience through that search now serves me well when I get the very fulfilling opportunities to write, direct or show doctor a project.

Many say show business is ungrateful. But what business isn’t? Stay for as long as it feeds you and try to make sure you have some money saved for when you can no longer wipe your own ass. And in my experience, try to make enough of a personal life and establish roots for yourself to stay healthy. I rarely see that.

For years I’ve been told to write a book, but for whom? Who’s gonna read, let alone buy another book about show business from someone you don’t even know? My mother can’t buy them all.

I could’ve gone on and on in this book about the development of the characters, or writing or the craft, but let’s face it. Pages of pontification aren’t what you’re interested in.

I haven’t gotten as far as some, and I’ve gotten farther than others who have tried to live a show business life. This is a little taste of my attempts to move up the ladder.

I never wanted to be the sad performer that sits around telling war stories of when he played Waiter #2 in the third season of Law and Order and refers to show creator, Dick Wolf, as Dick.

If he ever actually met or tried to converse with Mr. Wolf, I’m sure it went something like this.

GUY

Hi, Dick.

DICK

Hello ... Waiter #2.

(As a point of reference, I am the one person in New York City that has never been on an episode of Law and Order.)

This is the same kind of guy who will tell anyone who will listen, Oh — I’m on set today. Okay, ummm — no one asked. What forced pretention! I want to reply, Oh you’re on set? I’m on couch. Go fuck yourself.

When writing this, it was extremely difficult not to blur the line between telling juicy stories that aren’t always flattering to others or going negative, verbally (or the printed equivalent) bitch-slapping those who have wronged me.

I, like most, have been stolen from, bumped out, cheated, and screwed a multitude of times. That book would have been the size of the Old Testament.

This is just a bunch of weird, unrelated craziness tied together. And to be sure, these are nowhere near all of the stories.

I hope you like it. These are the highlights of my life … so far.

The City Of Brotherly Love:

KYW-TV, Dancin’ On Air & Miles Davis

When I was around fifteen years old, a neighbor who worked at WPHL-TV, Channel seventeen in Philadelphia gave me passes to dance on the TV show Dancin’ On Air, a sort of American Bandstand rip off for the ’80s trailer trash of the tri-state area.

I wasn’t a dancer but that wasn’t the point: I’d be on television. That, and I had passes to invite the prettiest girls in my class to score points since I had no wooing qualities.

One girl in particular who always had right of first refusal was Jennifer Genaro. OMG, I was in love with her from kindergarten through sixth grade. Then I was in love with Paul Scarfone from seventh to twelfth. Both had the qualities I fell for: Italian, smooth, olive skin. I’d sit behind Jennifer in class. The shampoo in her hair smelled so good. Petite, beautiful smile, big brown eyes … you get the picture.

The dance tickets were a waste on Jennifer because her mother would never let her date me. I was Jewish. I’m not sure how true of a reason that is, but Jen is now married and her mother is dead so, you know … my recollection is fact.

Meanwhile, my mother noticed that the TV show’s producer, Mike Nise, a middle aged, disheveled, schlub of a guy would ogle her with overly demonstrative, octopus-like contact whenever she was in his presence. So like any good mother who wanted to help her son, she led him on until he gave me an internship.

Every day after school my mother would pick me up and drive thirty minutes to the station to work on Dancin’ on Air and the national sister show Dance Party USA on the USA network. The only difference between the shows were the switched out hanging neon signs. That’s about it, aside from the changing of clothes. NKOTB, Jack Wagner, a few of the Jacksons … they all came through Wynnfield, PA. to WPHL-TV.

Years later after I’d moved on to bigger things, I stayed in touch with Mike Nise. He was very nice to me but as I grew up, I realized he was full of shit.

He’d say to me, "Michael hang on. I got The Tonight Show on the other line." I’m sure Mike was on with The Tonight Show … for tickets. But he was a nice man who stepped in something good. I figured maybe he’d do it again.

As a sophomore in high school, I skipped morning class to be in the studio audience of a local morning talk show called People Are Talking, a franchise format being used in multiple markets.

It was hosted by people like Extra’s Jerry Penacoli (I still have footage of my high school interview he was kind enough to give), Comedy Tonight’s Bill Boggs, The Wil Shriner Show’s Wil Shriner, and the original trash TV host, Richard Bey.

Richard was my favorite character. Sport coat, black tee shirt, jeans, cowboy boots, blue contacts, and make up so dark he could be either very tan or Pakistani. He’d wear the make up the rest of the day. Maybe it was for the attention, maybe a skin condition. I recall his very bulbous nose that bent to the right. He liked himself very much but hey, so did his viewing audience.

I was mesmerized by the set. A fake home made up of a living room and kitchen. So real! I couldn’t keep my eyes off the big lumbering cameras, the prompters, especially the earpieces: listening to direction from some unknown person somewhere else.

It was then I heard the two words that hooked me: STAND BY, and the red light went on. My heart pumped fast and hard. I didn’t watch the show. I was too busy watching the floor manager. I was worried for her. Would she get Richard’s attention to tell him to wrap it up or go to break? What if he was too engrossed? Her sign language was subtle and nonchalant. Fascinating.

When the audience was being led out to the lobby, I took a right and stepped into an elevator. I couldn’t leave just yet. I was behind the big metal doors of KYW-TV3 where the magic happened for shows like Evening Magazine, Check It Out, Eyewitness News, and the late night horror show Saturday Night Dead starring Elvira rip off, Stella the man-eater from Manayunk. I was stopped once and asked if they could help me. I somehow pulled a name from the rolling credits I had just seen while seated in the studio audience, and without a blink, said I was waiting on Rob Daniels. Then I gave myself a tour of the station.

My father was chairperson of a telethon produced and broadcasted at the station. So that gravitas street cred and emboldening lineage, combined with my little infiltration, introduced me to on-air personality Nancy Glass, who later hosted and anchored several national programs. She was tall, blond haired, blue eyed and very funny on the air. A little crush had developed. (Me for her, of course… I mean, she didn’t know me yet…) She introduced me to the director of programming, Lisa Nee. Local stations rarely have this position anymore since the mid ’90s when budgets dried up for local shows with the exception of news, parades, and the black or Hispanic community outreach shows required by the broadcast regulators.

For some reason Lisa agreed to hire me as an intern. I was seventeen and the youngest intern ever hired at an NBC affiliate. She also offered to pay for my bus pass to and from the suburbs to the station in Center City, in addition to paying my parking on the one or two taping days I’d have to stay late. I don’t know why or how this happened but up till then, it was the most exciting time of my life.

I had to convince my high school officials to allow me to be eligible for the work/study program, usually a curriculum for seniors going to Vo-Tech. They agreed, figuring I wasn’t doing my homework anymore, so why make me go to the pointless electives? I would do the state required courses in the morning, and then go to work at the station: first KYW and later when my contract was up, I jumped to WCAU - CBS Radio, which I got after being the only applicant to drudge out into the worst blizzard of the decade for the interview.

KYW-TV had a groundbreaking history. It was the first nationally broadcasted station, home to The Mike Douglas Show and a springboard for many network personalities. It was also the last wave of what local television was.

During my time at KYW, the network and Westinghouse Broadcasting would bring their test shows there before going national. So many stars came