Photo by Jill Lotenberg You may not be familiar with writer Alan Zweibel, but you definitely know the comedy legends who have delivered his jokes. As a double Emmy winner for “Saturday Night Live” (1975-80), he created characters and sketches for Gilda Radner and her castmates, and went on to co-create “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” (1986-90); win a Tony Award for Billy Crystal’s Broadway hit “700 Sundays” (2005); and collaborate with Larry David, Martin Short and many others.
In funny anecdotes and bittersweet reminiscences of the late Radner and Shandling, Zweibel chronicles his experiences in the comedy business in his 11th book, a memoir titled “Laugh Lines: My Life Helping Funny People Be Funnier” (Abrams Press, April 2020). Dedicated to his late sister Franny, it has a foreword by his longtime friend Billy Crystal.
“It’s my story and how I got to be who I am now, and a history of comedy from the Catskills and ‘SNL’ through ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ to ‘Here Today,’ the new movie I just made with Billy Crystal − all the stuff I had the privilege and good fortune to do,” he told the Journal. Zweibel said he hadn’t planned on writing the memoir, but Shandling’s death in 2016 “touched a nerve. I wanted to write down everything I could remember about our relationship.”
Although it wasn’t his intent, he thinks that publishing it in the midst of a pandemic might provide respite from dire news. “With the number of cases and deaths going up every day, people are hoping for a diversion, something that has nostalgia to it that will make them laugh,” he said.
Of Polish and Russian Jewish heritage, Zweibel was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island in a Conservative, kosher home, attending Hebrew school five days a week. He grew up “steeped in Jewish humor,” idolizing Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Woody Allen, and listening to his parents’ comedy albums, Allan Sherman’s “My Son, The Folk Singer” and “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish” among them.
“Being funny helped me make friends. I wrote notes to teachers about why we shouldn’t take a test. They still failed me − but they laughed while they were doing it.” — Alan Zweibel
Somewhat of a jokester, Zweibel made classmates and teachers laugh in grade school, and stepped up his game as the new kid at Hewlett High School. “Being funny endeared me and helped me make friends,” he said. “I wrote notes to teachers about why we shouldn’t take a test. They still failed me − but they laughed while they were doing it.”
He recalls going to the Catskill Mountains with his parents, where he’d sneak into the hotel nightclubs to see Alan King, Totie Fields and Red Buttons perform standup. After college, he wrote jokes for other Catskills comedians, at a princely $7 a pop. He has his mother to thank for that. She approached comedian Morty Gunty after seeing him in a club, telling him about her son, the aspiring comedy writer, and got Gunty’s phone number. Zweibel soon was writing for Gunty and his Catskills cronies. “But they were my parents’ age. It wasn’t what I wanted to write about,” Zweibel said.
Armed with his unsold jokes, Zweibel hit the New York comedy clubs, hoping to get an agent or a manager. Two life-changing things happened. He met fellow Long Islander Billy Crystal, and they’d ride into the city together, critiquing each other’s sets on the way home and forming a friendship that continued as both moved west. They were officemates at Rob Reiner’s Castle Rock Entertainment in the 1990s and remain close. He’s “Uncle Billy” to Zweibel’s kids.
As for the second event, “Lorne Michaels saw me bomb onstage, but he liked my material and hired me to be a writer on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ ” Zweibel said. His starting salary was $325 per show. “It wasn’t without its pressures. We had to put on a live show every week,” he said. “But it was a lot of fun, and my friendship with Gilda lasted beyond the show.” So has his relationship with a production assistant named Robin Blankman. Now parents of three grown children and five grandchildren, they celebrated their 40th anniversary in November.
In a career full of highlights, some projects stand out for Zweibel, in addition to the aforementioned work. These include “Bunny Bunny” (1994), his “platonic love story” about Gilda Radner (it may get a new production); his Thurber Prize-winning novel “The Other Shulman” (2005); his children’s book “Our Tree Named Steve” (2005); his collaboration with Dave Barry and Adam Mansbach on “A Field Guide to the Jewish People” (2019); and the haggadah parody “For This We Left Egypt?” (2017).
He also has had his share of disappointments, including the “great embarrassment and defeat” that was the movie “North” (1994). But having seen his father and mentors such as Buck Henry and Herb Sargent suffer career ups and downs, “I didn’t let it paralyze me,” he said. “You just ride it out and keep going.”
Turning 70 in May and looking forward to going on a book tour once the COVID-19 crisis ends, Zweibel is “grateful that I have been given the opportunity to do what I’m doing.” He hopes that “Laugh Lines” readers come away having learned that “a nice guy who has faith in himself and good friends and a wonderful, supportive wife can have good fortune in life.”
He may have worked with a pantheon of household names, but it doesn’t bother him that he hasn’t reached that level of fame, and in fact, he did not seek it. “In order to become famous, there’s a certain degree of sacrifice that I wasn’t willing to make,” he said. “I didn’t want to get on stage every day, Pittsburgh one night and St. Louis on another. It was never my desire to do that. I like writing, the craft of writing. If the words work, that’s how I get off.”
“Laugh Lines” is available through Amazon and other retailers.
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