It was an hour-and-a-half drive to Atlantic City, and Lou didn"t say a word the entire way, he just seethed. We arrived at the Sands Hotel and headed for the VIP check-in area. There was a line, so we waited. The check-in area was in the lobby attached to the casino, so people were beginning to notice the man in the dress. Lou was pacing, and a firestorm was brewing.
Then came the straw that broke the camel"s back. A bus pulled up and a group of seventy-five middle-aged ladies from central Jersey got out, laughing and kibitzing among themselves. Most of them were wearing dresses that looked very similar to Lou"s. The cackling bunch descended in a group on the casino, and soon Lou was stuck in the middle of the gaggle of ladies all wearing dresses similar to his.
Lou snapped. He broke through the crowd, past the waiting VIPs, to the front of the check-in line and confronted this poor young girl working at the desk. In the loudest, most primally desperate voice I"ve ever heard, he raged, "Give me my f.u.c.king room now!"
He was so loud that the place fell silent. The action in the casino just off the lobby came to a halt. The dice stopped. Cards went down. Everybody looked up from their gambling.
This small voice from behind the desk asked, "What"s your name?"
"I"m with Howie Mandel, give me my key right now," he ordered.
It was like a bank robbery. She handed him a key, and he walked over to the elevator.
During this entire time, the place was in a state of suspended animation-all these women wearing dresses like his, the gamblers, the VIPs. He pressed the b.u.t.ton. You could hear the ding. The door opened. He got in. The door closed, and then we resumed life as we knew it.
A few minutes later, I reached the VIP counter. I explained to the girl at the desk that we were playing a joke and that Lou"s outburst was my fault. She looked down at her paperwork and informed me that she had given Lou the wrong room. Not knowing what would happen next, I told her to call him.
When she reached him and explained that she was nervous and had given him the wrong room, Lou let loose. The girl held the phone away from her ear, and I could hear him screaming at her. I could hear horrible obscenities coming from the other end of the phone.
I don"t know this for a fact, but I think he was so distraught that he went up to his room, slammed the door, ripped off the dress, and threw it in the trash. In his rage, he picked up a lamp, smashed it, and then turned over the desk. So he was sitting there naked, a destroyed man in a destroyed room, being told that he needed to move.
She hung up the phone. "I don"t think he wants to move," she said meekly.
"That"s fine," I said. "I think I"ve gone too far."
In fact, I had. Lou didn"t speak to me for a few days. He came to work, did his act, and went back to his room. I called my wife and apologized to her, though I didn"t fill her in on all the details of the plane ride. I also apologized profusely to Lou. You would think I"d learned my lesson, but it didn"t stop there.
I never could resist my impulses. I managed to almost get him evicted from his apartment. It happened when a friend of mine-Mark Blutman, a comic from Canada-had a nephew on a summer teen tour. The tour was visiting Los Angeles, so he checked the kid out for a day. Here"s what we did.
We dirtied this little boy"s clothes and gave him a battered suitcase and a note that I had written. I called Lou at around two a.m. Lou lived alone, so I knew he would be able to chat. I didn"t know until later that he was lying in bed in his underwear. In the background, I heard the doorbell.
Lou expressed dismay over someone ringing his doorbell in the middle of the night. He put down the phone and looked through the peephole to see who it was. He came back and told me that there was a kid at the door.
"Bulls.h.i.t, there"s no kid there," I said.
"Yeah, there is," he said.
"Open the door and see what he wants," I encouraged.
Lou went back to the door and opened it. Standing in front of him was this disheveled kid clutching a suitcase. He handed Lou the note that I had written.
Lou and I had played clubs for years, so at this point I knew most of what had gone on. The note read: "Dear Lou. By the time you read this note I will no longer exist as you know me. A few years ago you played a club. You may not remember me, but I was a waitress there. We had what I believe was a great time that night. I never wanted to burden you with the responsibility. Standing in front of you is the seed of that night"s experience. Two years ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I thought it was in remission, but apparently it wasn"t. I never wanted to do this to you, but if you are reading this note, I have pa.s.sed. Please take care of our son. Love, Wendy."
I know this makes me sound terrible, but this was what I wrote and gave to the kid to give to Lou.
Lou came back to the phone. I could hear the torture in his voice. "Howie," he said, his voice cracking, "you"re not going to believe who"s here."
"Who?" I asked.
He was on the verge of tears. "My son."
"What?"
"My son ..." His voice trailed off, and then he mumbled something very spiritual and philosophical about how your life can change in one moment. "I have a son."
"You"re lying to me," I said with mock incredulity. "Put the kid on the phone."
He put the kid on the phone. I told the kid to go sit on the bed, count to fifteen, scream as loud as he could, "n.o.body loves me, n.o.body cares about me!" and then run as fast as he could out the door and down to the blue car, where his uncle was waiting for him. He said okay.
Lou came back on the phone. "I don"t know what to do," he said. "This is such a huge responsibility."
In the background, I heard the kid scream, "n.o.body loves me, n.o.body cares about me!" The next thing I heard was the receiver drop. And then I heard Lou"s voice wailing, "I love you! I love you! I just want to care for you!"
This is at two in the morning. Lou lived on the second floor of an apartment building where all the units were connected by a breezeway. His neighbors were watching him running past their windows in his underpants, chasing after and screaming to a little boy that he loved him and wanted to care for him-not a very wholesome image.
The next day, I had to explain to his landlord that it had been a practical joke, because the man was ready to call the police and evict Lou from his apartment. Lou called his girlfriend, who later became his wife. She thought that it was so cruel that he should not be my friend anymore.
Do you, the reader, think less of me now? I admit there"s no excuse for that kind of behavior, and I was 100 percent wrong for doing it. Now, this is not an excuse, but people have said to me, "It was so weird and far-fetched that he had to know something was fishy." The thing is that there is n.o.body more trusting than Lou Dinos, and the fact that he never suspected anything was wrong was too big a draw for me.
Lou is the most loyal friend anyone could ever have. I really made a big mistake because I ended up losing him as a close friend. Today, we talk to each other every so often, but he"s not as close as he was. I did go too far and I"m the loser here. I learned my lesson.
I felt devastated afterward that I had made him that upset. Lou never had any sense of jealousy or compet.i.tion, which makes what I did even more horrible. In fact, he called me the day after I wrote this chapter to tell me about his promotion at the insurance company where he now makes his living. I told him I was writing a book and including some of the old stories. Without missing a beat, he said, "You should tell the one about the time I wore the dress on the plane. That was really funny."
The seed of all comedy comes from dark, negative places. It"s amazing that the day I was writing this story in the book, Lou called me and remembered. But the day that those things happened, I promise, was torture for him. Ultimately, however, as Lou points out, it is funny. If you can find the humor in these pranks, you have a sense of humor, which Lou clearly does. I don"t condone this kind of behavior. I recognize the wrong and the funny at the same time, which is part of the dichotomy that is my life.
It was now the mid-1980s, and I was incredibly content both personally and professionally. I was a regular on a network TV series, I was also touring the country doing stand-up, and my wife was pregnant with our first child. What else was there?
Warner Brothers called me-when I say Warner Brothers, I don"t mean the actual brothers Jack and Sam, I mean executives in the company"s music division-and offered me the opportunity to do an alb.u.m. I was now to add recording artist to my repertoire. The concept was that they were going to send a crew to my various stand-up dates, record and edit them together, and voila, I would have my first alb.u.m. The tour was called the North American Watusi Tour. I know, it makes no sense, but that was the point.
I decided that this wasn"t quite enough. I felt that if I was to be considered a legitimate recording artist, I had to have music on my alb.u.m. A musician friend, Greg Chapman, and I wrote a silly little song ent.i.tled "I Do the Watusi." Warner Brothers loved the idea and funded a recording studio and a music video.
As far as comedy was from the path where I believed I would go in life, now I was sitting in a Hollywood recording studio with musicians playing my ridiculous song. To make this even more surreal, Warner Brothers hired Jellybean Benitez to help me produce this track. (Apparently, that"s what they call it in music terminology.) I had no idea why they were so excited to have Jellybean working with me until I found out that he produced for Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Madonna.
As excited as I was, I can only imagine the excitement Jellybean must have felt in being able to extend his list to include Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Madonna, and Howie Mandel-all of us music icons of the 1980s. I was also given some money to shoot a video, which premiered on MTV in 1984. It was not one of my proudest moments, but in my mind I was now a legitimate recording artist.
How many other monikers could I possibly add to this ill.u.s.trious career? One more was to be added. I received a call from the Comedy Store. They"d had an inquiry as to the possibility of my performing fifteen minutes of stand-up at a house party for a huge fee. I thought, Wait a minute. I"m doing television, concerts, and cable specials, and now becoming a recording artist. My response was "No, I will not play at someone"s house, but thank him for asking."
Shortly afterward, the phone rang again. It was the guy from the Comedy Store. "Is there any amount of money that you would take to do fifteen minutes at this house party?" he asked.
Without any thought and again on impulse, I blurted out, "Twenty-five thousand dollars," and hung up.
Minutes pa.s.sed, and the guy was back on the line. "It"s all set," he said. "You"re on for fifteen minutes on Sat.u.r.day night at his house in Benedict Canyon."
I began to worry. I was going to be paid twenty-five grand for fifteen minutes at somebody"s house. This sounded like a scam. "I have to have the cash before I show up," I informed him, and once again hung up.
The guy called back. "You can pick up the cash in an hour," he said.
I got in my car and drove to the Comedy Store. Waiting for me was a giant wad of cash. This was too easy. I didn"t have to pack a bag or get on a plane. All I had to do was drive my car to some guy"s house and spend fifteen minutes entertaining him. For this I would be paid $25,000. There had to be more to it.
I asked my wife to join me. She declined, which turned out to be a wise decision on her part.
On Sat.u.r.day night, I drove up Benedict Canyon, a long, winding, dark road in the Hills of Beverly. The more I thought about this gig, the more concerned I became. I was having flashes of the Manson family luring me into a trap. I began to get scared. I had no idea what I was heading into.
Near the top of Benedict, a young woman appeared out of the darkness and flagged me down. She looked into my window. "You"re Howie Mandel," she said. "Leave your car right here. This is the party."
I pulled over and parked. I didn"t seem to be in front of any particular address. She walked me through a giant wall of hedges onto the grounds of an estate. I could hear what sounded like a party going on inside. She took me around the back past the pool into a small, dark s.p.a.ce. She told me to wait in this room until I was introduced, because I was a surprise.
As she closed the door, I realized I was in a powder room, sandwiched between a toilet and a pedestal sink. There was one door leading outside and one apparently leading into the house. There was barely enough room to vote, let alone take care of business. I could hear the party on the other side of the door.
At this point in my career, my stand-up involved a large array of props, such as a handbag in the shape of a hand, lots of hats, and a plastic nose. I couldn"t bring myself to put any of these down on a bathroom floor. I jostled the props to get them in some kind of order so I would be ready to take the stage.
In the middle of my preparation, the door from the house opened and a very intoxicated male partygoer entered. He didn"t even flinch at the sight of a guy wearing a crazy hat and a fake nose standing by the toilet. He closed the door behind him, lowered his fly, and began to urinate. His shoulder was touching my back. My face was pressed against the wall. He didn"t say anything. I couldn"t breathe. My heart was palpitating. I was now thinking this gig wasn"t worth $50,000. A strange man was p.i.s.sing within inches of me. He finished and walked out-without washing his hands, I might add.
My OCD had been triggered. I was panic-stricken. I un-spooled twenty-five feet of toilet paper, which I wrapped around my hand. This would be the tool I would use to pull the latch on the door and make my escape.
I waited in there for what seemed a long time. I can"t tell you exactly how long. Finally I heard it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Howie Mandel." I banged my protected hand on the latch, the door swung open, and with a wad of toilet paper and a dozen props in hand and on head I was onstage.
What I saw was the most surreal vision I have had to date. First of all, I just want to say that this room was spectacular. It looked like one of those palatial rooms from Architectural Digest. Architectural Digest. From the looks of the decor, I had grossly underpriced myself at $25,000 for fifteen minutes. From the looks of the decor, I had grossly underpriced myself at $25,000 for fifteen minutes.
Here was the scene. There were maybe five guys, one of whom was the drunk guy who"d just p.i.s.sed, and (as best as I could see) six women. For the most part, the women were not wearing anything. For that matter, neither were most of the guys. Some of the guys were in the midst of getting pleasured orally. Others were ... well, let me just say that every possible orifice was in use. It looked like Fellini directing a film for Larry Flynt. Then, from the side of the room, a gentleman wearing no pants, leaning over in ecstasy with a woman attached to his member, said, "Please, oh, please, Howie, start your act."
My first thought was, Are you fing serious? But I had already taken the $25,000 and I didn"t want any trouble, so I began. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. How is everyone tonight?"
I have to say, had this evening been recorded you might think I was doing well, but the screams and guttural cries of pleasure had nothing to do with my material. A few minutes into my act, a woman-who was under the couch with her ankles pulled up above her head, and with two men exploring her somewhat aggressively-had the presence of mind to ask me, "Could you do the Bobby voice?" Why not? I began to sing, "It"s my potty and I"ll cry if I want to." Over to my right, one of the gentlemen was pleasuring one of the females orally. I grabbed a small dish of guacamole and tapped him on the shoulder. As he looked up, I asked if he would like some dip with that. Before I knew it, my fifteen minutes were up and I was off into the night.
I came to realize-no pun intended-that the guy who"d asked me to begin happened to be the CEO of a hugely successful corporation that still exists today. It was his bachelor party.
A week later, I was walking through the Galleria, a mall in the San Fernando Valley. A lady came up to me and said that she loved my comedy. She added that her husband was at a bachelor party a week ago and he had told her that I was the entertainment. Before I could answer, I noticed a man twenty feet behind her signaling frantically at me.
Click. It dawned on me that this guy happened to be one of the partygoers. I realized that I had been hired as a decoy so all these guys could go home and honestly say to their wives, "You"re not going to believe it, but So-and-so hired Howie Mandel to do a private performance for us in his living room." Up until now, I had been a comedian, actor, and recording artist whose sole purpose was to entertain. But now I had also become a decoy whose mission it was to save marriages. I learned one more lesson that night ... well, not so much a lesson as two more positions.
My new role of marriage decoy was important to me. I held the inst.i.tution of marriage in very high esteem. As I didn"t yet have children, my marriage was the most important thing in my life, and Terry was the most important person in my life. G.o.d bless her with what she has had to put up with, not only with my personal mental craziness but also with the craziness in the world of show business. Therein lies a story.
As much as I enjoy my notoriety, Terry, unlike me, has absolutely no desire for attention. She cherishes her anonymity so much that I had to convince her to be photographed for our wedding alb.u.m. That being said, my recognition has really affected Terry"s life. This was never more apparent than during the birth of our first child, Jackie.
The hours leading up to the actual birth were a potpourri of emotions-excitement, terror, exhaustion, and, most of all for Terry, humiliation. Jackie was to be born December 14, 1984, right in the middle of the St. Elsewhere St. Elsewhere run. Not unlike most other parents, we decided to give birth in a hospital. run. Not unlike most other parents, we decided to give birth in a hospital. St. Elsewhere St. Elsewhere was a medical show that takes place in a hospital setting, so it obviously attracted a large following in medical circles. What was a medical show that takes place in a hospital setting, so it obviously attracted a large following in medical circles. What s.e.x and the City s.e.x and the City later meant to women, later meant to women, St. Elsewhere St. Elsewhere meant to doctors. meant to doctors.
Word spread quickly that Dr. Fiscus-the name of my character-was in the house. As much as I appreciated the fact that people in the medical community admired the show, and as much as I personally craved the attention, my poor wife once again was about to become the victim. There had been times when an anxious fan physically shoved her out of the way to share a moment with me. There had been times when women publicly propositioned me right in front of her, as if she didn"t exist. She has faced her share of disrespect as a result of my notoriety. But this next transgression tops them all.
Terry was in the midst of labor, contracting every eleven minutes. This did not seem to deter the doctors who all paraded in to share some face time. These doctors were aware of the personal nature of the situation, so each decided to give his visit a veiled purpose to discount any possible discomfort.
The door would open. A doctor would say h.e.l.lo, introduce himself, and ask how things were going-all the while pulling on a latex glove. He would then insert a finger into my wife and tell me which episode or scene from the show was his favorite. Once the conversation was finished, he would remove the finger and inform us that my wife had dilated to four centimeters.
After about the fifth doctor, Terry put her foot down, which made it much harder for the doctors to insert their fingers into her v.a.g.i.n.a.
When it comes to dilating, I think one doctor is enough. You don"t need a consensus, but apparently for those few hours, my wife"s v.a.g.i.n.a took over the t.i.tle of decoy for the actual purpose of this party.
Once again, I"m using this book to apologize to the love of my life, Terry. That particular story was not going to be in the book until Terry herself reminded me of it while laughing hysterically. In fact, she said, "I still have the fingerprints on my l.a.b.i.a." Terry can find the humor in everything. This is the key to the success of our marriage. But I won"t lie and tell you we don"t have b.u.mps in the road. Humor always seems to rescue us from the precipice.
There is one particular example when Terry told me: "That"s it, I"m out!" She ran to the door, turned to me very dramatically, and declared, "I will send for my things!"
I waited a beat and then asked, "What did you just say?"
She repeated, "I will send for my things."
First of all, I had never heard that statement outside of a movie. So I asked, "Who will you send and what specific things will you be sending them for?"
After a long, dramatic, painstaking pause, a smile appeared on Terry"s face. And then slowly she began to laugh. So did I. There are very few women who would find the humor in this otherwise serious situation. As we both laughed together at the absurdity of her statement, we embraced. The fight was over.
As I write this, we are still going strong after thirty-six years together. I cannot tell you how much I love and respect her and how lucky I am to have found this girl.
So all of her things remain to this day. No one was ever sent to take them away. And life went on.
Here"s where I was. I was a father, a headlining comedian, one of the stars of a network television show, a recording artist, and a decoy, yet I felt there was still something missing, the one goal I set for myself. Regardless of all these accomplishments, the one badge of honor one needed to be considered a successful comedian was an appearance on The Tonight Show The Tonight Show, commonly referred to as the Johnny Carson show.
I never really understood that thinking. When I told people I was a comedian, without hesitation they would inevitably ask, "Have you ever been on the Johnny Carson show?"-as if to say, without this credit, you"re not a comedian. Well, what am I?
I remember being devastated the night that Jim McCawley, who was the show"s chief booker, came to see me do a set at the Comedy Store. It didn"t matter how well you did, it was all about delivering something they believed Johnny would like. Those doing the show were mostly monologists, like David Brenner and George Carlin, who would hold up mirrors to the minutiae of our lives. That"s so not what I did. In fact, I was the opposite of what was being booked. I used rubber gloves, props, and funny sounds. After my set, Jim told me: "Not only am I not going to book you on The Tonight Show The Tonight Show, you will never be on The Tonight Show." The Tonight Show."
Mike Douglas loved me. Merv Griffin loved me-I did Merv Merv fourteen times. I had performed on HBO. But it looked as if I would be forever telling people that I hadn"t done Carson. fourteen times. I had performed on HBO. But it looked as if I would be forever telling people that I hadn"t done Carson.
At that time, Joan Rivers was Johnny"s favorite guest host. Her ratings were through the roof. She was a superstar in comedy. I had heard that Joan was coming out to Los Angeles for a week to fill in for Johnny. I knew that she worked out her material at the Comedy Store.
So when I called for spots, I had them book one immediately before Joan"s appearance. They always ran behind, so I figured that when she arrived for her set, she would inevitably see me.
As luck would have it, I woke up the morning of my showcase aching all over. It turned out I had a temperature of 103. I had the flu. I thought I was going to die. I will clarify that by saying I don"t think there is a day when I don"t think I am going to die. But this time I had a really high fever and I was nauseated. This was one of the few times when my mind and my body were in sync.
I don"t know how, but I pulled myself together. I knew this was my only chance to ever be on The Tonight Show. The Tonight Show. I got in my little yellow Honda with the black racing stripes and headed for the Comedy Store. I was so dizzy as I made my way through the snakelike Laurel Canyon that I was sure I was going to crash. I got in my little yellow Honda with the black racing stripes and headed for the Comedy Store. I was so dizzy as I made my way through the snakelike Laurel Canyon that I was sure I was going to crash.
I arrived a sweaty mess. I went backstage, guzzled water, and sat with my head in my hands. Just before I went on, Joan Rivers walked into the room. I thought, I have just made the biggest mistake of my life. I"m going to be seen by Joan Rivers. I"ve already been told by Jim McCawley that not only will I not be on The Tonight Show The Tonight Show with Johnny, I will never be on. Now I feel that if Joan sees me in this condition, I"ll never be on any show she does. So I"m about to create a wider swath of places I"m not welcome. with Johnny, I will never be on. Now I feel that if Joan sees me in this condition, I"ll never be on any show she does. So I"m about to create a wider swath of places I"m not welcome.
As I"m questioning myself, I hear the announcer say, "Our next guest is Howie Mandel." I know that Joan Rivers is in the room. I take the stage sweating and dizzy, and for the life of me, I can"t tell you what I did. But what I said first got a big, hard laugh.
That always happens to me. When I go out on the road and don"t feel well, whether I"m having heart palpitations or I"m just sick, as soon as I get that first laugh, it"s like a warm blanket covering me. Nothing else exists in the world except for that laughter. My physical issues fall by the wayside, my mind goes blank, and I"m in another world.
That night, I was in that other world, and this warm blanket of laughter was splashing over me. It was one of the best sets I had done. I really enjoyed me. The audience enjoyed me, too. After seven minutes, I said good night, and the audience roared.
As I walked toward the back of the room, Joan Rivers pa.s.sed me on her way to the stage and said, "Very funny."
That was it? That"s all? What had I just accomplished? I rose from my sickbed to perform, but after the laughter died down, I felt sicker. It"s like having the flu and opening the door to get some fresh winter air. It might be relieving for a minute, but you end up with pneumonia. I thought, I"ll wait. Maybe she has more to say to me than "Very funny."
I walked down the stairs onto Sunset Boulevard and sat down. I could hear roars of laughter and excitement as Joan did her act. I was fading.