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At a Slight Remove
When Reader's Digest sat down with Martin in his New York apartment, he talked about Carson's quickness and his timing and the confidence that allowed him to let the guest get the laugh. But he also mentioned another quality: Carson's dignity.Johnny Carson always kept himself at a slight remove from show business. That may be one reason he lasted for 30 years as the host of "The Tonight Show." Martin maintains a similar remove, partly by being involved in worlds far from the movies. It's tempting to think that a novelist and essayist has the tools to see how important it is not to let celebrity change who you are, even if you became who you are more or less by accident.
RD: You started out like a lot of comedians, including Carson, doing magic and bits of stand-up. Were you serious about magic at some point?
Martin: Serious-ish. We both liked sleight of hand.
RD: I know you're not a boaster so I don't want to ask you if you're the funniest guy to come out of Waco, but what if your family hadn't moved to a place where entertainment was more or less the local industry?
Martin: I think that would have been a real problem. I have no idea what I would have done. I worked at the magic shop at Disneyland when I was 15. We sold novelties and magic tricks and I demonstrated them. Down the road was Knott's Berry Farm, and I auditioned there with my little act and started when I was 18.
RD: All in bicycle range of your house.
Martin: Exactly. I bicycled to Disneyland every day. And I loved comedy as a kid.
RD: Let's talk about comedy in this country. Woody Allen once said that it was hard to be taken seriously as a humorist -- that humorists were always seated at the children's table ...
Martin: I don't think the children's table is right. It's just another table. Here's a story: I have a friend, a comedian, and he did this serious role in a movie. He got a lot of honors. People kept saying, "You were so great. You were so fabulous." I said, "You're getting so much praise for this serious role." He said, "Steve, comedy is so much harder. I'm getting attention because I stared at someone and didn't blink. And it was because I was thinking about where I was going to have dinner."
RD: You were a frequent guest of Johnny's on "The Tonight Show." What's your recollection of him? I always found him amazing.
Martin: The first thing was his elegance. It was more of an elegant era. That's kind of gone from TV now. It was also a naughtier era. It was much easier to be naughty by doing very, very little. Today, you have to go a long way in order to be naughty. He really had a perfect tone of boyish naughtiness. He was never salacious. He was stoic in the face of naughtiness.
RD: Whatever he said seemed to have an implied question mark, so the guest had something to respond to.
Martin: He was the master of setting you up. He had a wonderful generosity -- he didn't feel like he had to get the last laugh. I have a memory of him laughing so hard at something someone else said.
RD: Carson did his show for 30 years and didn't get eaten up by it. After the taping, a couple of producers would get his reaction to that night's show while he changed his clothes for the drive home. He didn't take everyone out to dinner every night. I think that was part of why he had a reputation of being sort of standoffish.
Martin: Well, I think what they called aloofness was really courtesy. He was proper.
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