WestWord
Comedian Bruce Vilanch on being more than a gay caricature
By Josiah M. Hesse Thu., May 16 2013 at 8:34 AM

Comedy writing pioneer Bruce Vilanch is bursting with gayness. One of the first openly gay comedians, he’s known for his continuing role on Hollywood Squares and as a head writer for the Academy Awards show, as well as writing jokes for Bette Midler, Elizabeth Taylor, The Brady Bunch, Donnie and Marie, and Lily Tomlin. (He’s also one of the criminals responsible for the atrocious Star Wars Holiday Special, but we’ll get into that later.)

Vilanch will be featured this Friday at Tracks Gay Comedy Night with Chuck Roy and Hippie Man. In advance of that appearance, we touched base with this iconic joke machine to chat about gay history, Comedy Central roasts and, inevitably, that awful Star Wars movie that everyone has tried so hard to forget about.

Westword: Even though it often gets overlooked for places like San Francisco or New York, it seems that Denver does have a significant place in gay history. Did you ever come through here when you were on the road in the ‘70s and ‘80s?

Bruce Vilanch: I was there when I toured with Bette Midler, and every show we did was a gay pride show in one way or another. We played Red Rocks in ‘73, and Fiddler’s Green—all the outdoor venues, because it was such an outdoor act. So yeah, I’ve seen it evolve over the years. But you’re right: Everything lives in the shadow of San Francisco.

With so much of gay history being routed in the entertainment world of bars and cabarets, was there any standup comedy in there, particularly during the years you were coming up?

Not really. There was some, but not very much in the ‘70s and ‘80s. There were a lot of cabaret performers, who had a very gay style. I wrote for a lot of them; many were drag queens. Like Waylon Flowers, who had a drag queen puppet. But when the big comedy explosion happened in the ‘80s, it was such a straight thing. So many people were still in the closet, and those clubs were a bastion of heterosexuality. The jokes were about dating girls and all that, so it was hard for a gay comic to be popular. But there were a few who broke through. Jason Stuart was one of the first ones.

Looking back, there was a significant amount of homophobia in the jokes that were popular at that time, like Sam Kinison’s AIDS jokes, or even Bill Hick’s bit about lesbians. Do you think that kept a lot of gay comedians in the closet?

Yeah, they were scared it would be a hostile environment. They didn’t want to be a part of it.

You still see some of that today in places like the Comedy Central roasts.

Yes, but many young people today aren’t bigots, because they don’t see people through the same lens. They don’t see the humor in it. So it’s slowly dying away. Now that an NBA player has come out, it’s more difficult to make those kinds of jokes. There will always be jokes about “types,” jokes about ethnicities, women, men—you can’t bleach the humor out of everything in the world, and someone will always be offended by something. But one of the things that is going away is the time-honored joke about being mistaken for being gay. Because what does it matter now?

But you were an out comedian a time when that did mean something. I was just listening to an interview with David Sedaris, and he was saying that in 1960s North Carolina it was literally the worst label you could have, saying he saw someone on TV he thought might be gay, but then assumed that person wasn’t because they wouldn’t allow a gay man on television.

Well, I grew up in New York, so it wasn’t the worst thing. New York was more sophisticated and more diverse. In North Carolina it might’ve been the worst thing, because that was the Bible Belt. The last bastion of homophobia is religious bigotry. The last argument left against same-sex marriage is religion. So if you come from a place like the South, in the era where David grew up, then of course it was the worst possible thing. But I came from New York, where being a Nazi was worse. Hands down.

When you started writing for movies and doing Hollywood Squares, was there complete comfort with being an out comedian?

I inherited what I call what I call Paul Lynde’s chair. There was always a gay presence on Hollywood Squares—but it was known as “the wacky neighbor,” “the eccentric uncle,” it was always unspoken. We all knew that these guys were gay—like Richard Simmons, Rip Taylor, Charles Nelson Reilly—they all did a certain kind of gay character. But they never referred to their sexuality. I was one of the first to actually talk about it, talk about guys I was dating.

I got in a lot of trouble with that, a lot of the affiliates in places like Texas didn’t want to hear any of that. I would get feedback from the producers saying that the guy who runs a station in Waco, Texas, called saying, “He’s very funny, but why must he be so gay?” But those were usually the same people who called about Whoopi and asked, why must she be so black?

That’s part of the reason Ellen DeGeneres’s sitcom got cancelled. She’d told the network that as soon as I come out, who am I going to date on the show? I’m going to have to start dating other women. Why don’t you just take the show off the air after the coming-out episode, because you’re not going to be happy. And they said no, that the ratings were too great. Well, exactly what she prophesied came to pass—six months later they dumped the show. And it was for all the reasons she said they would.

Beyond your character, you’re known primarily for writing jokes for other comics. And while I don’t want to say there’s a specifically gay personality type, there often can be a kind of gay comedy style. Did you inject any of that flavor into the jokes you were writing for straight comics?

Probably. But it wasn’t deliberate. It was probably just the mindset I was in. Some of the things I wrote for Whoopi had a certain gay slant. We had one joke on the Oscars after she’d dressed as Queen Elizabeth, and she said, “Sorry, I had to get out of that costume. You can’t rush a queen—if you’ve ever had you’re hair done, you know you can’t rush a queen.” So it was a joke about how all gay people are hairdressers. It was a joke in quotes. I’ve done that here and there.

I certainly did that when Bette was starting. The voice that the Divine Miss M had was the voice of a gay man. Which was what made her so entertaining, among other things. You didn’t hear a woman speak like that—you heard a lot of men speak like that, if you were paying attention. One of the reasons she was attracted to that, was it was about being on the outside looking in. As a woman she was on the outside looking at all the beautiful people saying, “I’m beautiful too, you just don’t know it yet.” And that’s a very traditional gay thing, and a traditional Jewish thing: I can’t be a part of your world, so I’m going to create my own world.”

You’ve also written a lot for Robin Williams, and it seems like that gay flavor of comedy works very well for him, too. Even though he’s a straight male.

That’s true, he does have that attitude. I was going to say he’s pansexual, but that’s not quite right—he’s Peter Pan-sexual. He adopts all kinds of attitudes. And when he suddenly spews them out they’re fully formed characters. You know exactly who that guy or that woman is that he’s doing, but he’ll only give you two lines. It’s an entire character in two lines, and then he’ll move onto the next one—that’s his genius.

There’s one thing I want to touch on that has nothing to do with gay culture, it’s more for my own personal curiosity: You were involved in writing The Star Wars Holiday Special.

God yes, and proud of it!

Seriously?

Sure. I’m writing a book write now, and I’m thinking of titling it: How I Wrote the Three Worst Television Shows in History. There’s The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, which is a work of rare art. And there are so many vying for third place. They tend to be the ones I hear the most about from people. They look me up on IMDB and say, “Oh, my god, you did that? That was so awful!”

As a big Star Wars geek, one of the many failures that stands out to me about The Holiday Special is the idea—whoever was responsible for it—that a family of wookies could be entertaining in a domestic setting. I mean, the first twenty minutes of the film has no English dialogue, it’s all wookies grunting at each other. Who thought a wookies could carry a movie with lead roles?

That was George Lucas’s idea. I’ll probably tell the story on Friday night. George had about ten stories ready to go, and six of them he sold off as films, and The Holiday Special was the last one left in the pile. I don’t think even he thought it was going to be done anywhere.

He buried it forever, but then people put it on the Internet. So a whole generation of kids who had grown up watching the first three movies on their VCRs discovered there was this thing they never knew existed, that was done before many of them were probably born. And they looked at it and said, “Holy shit! What a desecration—how could he!” And they went after him for it. Chatrooms were lit aflame.

Bruce Vilanch will perform with Chuck Roy and Hippie Man at 8 p.m., Friday, May 17, at Tracks, 3500 Walnut Street. Tickets are $20: for more information visit www.tracksdenver.com

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Tracks
Six-time Emmy Award Winner Bruce Vilanch performs at the EXDO Event Center, with special guests Chuck Roy and Hippieman
May 5, 2013

BRUCE VILANCH – one of the most sought-after jokesmiths in the entertainment industry – is performing LIVE at the EXDO Event Center as Tracks presents “Gay Comedy Night with Bruce Vilanch” on Friday, May 17th at 8pm (doors open 7pm). Also performing are Denver-based comedians Chuck Roy and Hippieman.

Tickets for this comedy spectacle are only $15 presale ($20 at the door) and all presale ticket holders get to meet Bruce. All ticket purchases include free entry into the Tracks Nightclub.

ABOUT BRUCE VILANCH

Known for his eclectic eyewear and collection of unique T-shirts, Bruce Vilanch began as a child model for Lane Bryant, but soon he became an entertainment writer for the Chicago Tribune. Impressed by his review of her cabaret performance in 1970, Bette Midler hired him to punch up her act where he gave birth to Midler’s famed Sophie Tucker jokes. He later moved to Los Angeles where he wrote for variety shows like the original “Donny and Marie” and “The Brady Bunch Hour” (both ABC) and provided material for Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin and Joan Rivers. He maintained his connection with Midler through the years, working on such projects as the feature “Divine Madness” (1980) and the TV special “Bette Midler—Diva Las Vegas” (HBO, 1997), as well as writing for her short-lived but lively sitcom, “Bette!” (CBS, 2000).

Bruce Vilanch began contributing to Academy Awards telecasts in 1989, collaborating with the likes of Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg and David Letterman, graduating to head writer in 2000. He has roasted celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor and President Clinton. He has also scripted most of the Academy Awards telecasts over the last decade, two of which won Emmys, including the one featuring Billy Crystal’s Hannibal Lecter entrance. Mr. Vilanch has also written for The Tony’s, The Grammy’s, and The Emmy’s, to name few. He also participates and volunteers at almost every charity function, especially those dealing with GLBT issues.

ABOUT CHUCK ROY

Chuck Roy is “The Bear”, a comedian and host of some of the biggest shows at Comedy Works. Chuck’s TV credits include “Will & Grace,” “3rd Rock from the Sun” and “Last Comic Standing.” This year Chuck co-stars in EUGE!, a new internet radio show starring Eugene Kenny Monday nights at 6pm on tRadioV.com. Chuck joins this podcast of veteran comedians to quiz an amateur comic about upcoming gigs, joke ideas and PR strategy.

ABOUT HIPPIEMAN

John Novosad, a.k.a. “Hippieman” is a stand-up comedian based out of the Comedy Works in Denver, Colorado. John has performed in clubs, theatres and weird little coffee houses across the country for almost three decades. Yes, there were some day jobs along the way.

John grew up in Boulder, Colorado – which is a damn good place to be from if you’re Hippieman. He made his comedic debut sometime around 1980 at the Blue Note in Boulder. John has toured extensively over the years and continues to do so. He’s also a featured performer at The Comedy Works, sharing the stage with some of the biggest national acts working today.

For Tickets: Click Here

Bruce Vilanch returns to home state for comedy show
THURSDAY APRIL 25, 2013, 11:01 AM
BY VIRGINIA ROHAN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

Bruce Vilanch is coming back to his home state to do a bit of “sit-down” comedy.

“I sit on a stool. It’s not like traditional stand-up. I tell a lot of stories about my life and times and the work that I’ve done,” says Vilanch, a native Patersonian who will be performing at Ramapo College in Mahwah. “I rarely do comedy clubs, because it’s a different energy. I come from a different tradition, I guess, although that sounds so dry.”

What does not sound a bit dry, though, is a topic Vilanch promises to do a lot of gabbing about — The Oscars.

Though he’s quick to note that he had nothing to do with this year’s telecast — which Seth MacFarlane helmed — Vilanch has been head writer for many other Academy Awards shows. “Twenty-three years’ worth of being backstage. It’s like 23 Super Bowls,” the Emmy winner says. “I talk about a lot of things we came up with on the spot. I talk about things that we almost did, but fortunately, cooler heads prevailed.”

the details
WHO: Bruce Vilanch.

WHAT: Comedy.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday.

WHERE: Berrie Center for Performing and Visual Arts, Ramapo College of New Jersey, 505 Ramapo Valley Road, Mahwah; 201-684-7844 or ramapo.edu/berrie center/index.html.

HOW MUCH: $25to $35; under age 17 $20.

He adds, “This year, there were no cooler heads. … the first half-hour of the show was all about how the host was bombing. It was an unusual choice.”

Of course, Vilanch notes, “I worked with James Franco, which was almost as terrifying.”

Franco and Anne Hathaway were widely panned when they co-hosted the 2011 Oscars.

“He was out of his comfort zone and he was next to Anne Hathaway, who is a precision instrument,” Vilanch says. “So, he made her look particularly robotic and phony, because he was so invisible, so not present. He was conspicuous by his presence.”

And then there’s Johnny Depp, another actor for whom he has written Academy Awards material. “He’s not difficult so much as … he doesn’t know who he is when he’s onstage and he doesn’t have a character to play,” Vilanch says.

Vilanch also plans to talk about his stint as head writer and celebrity square on “Hollywood Squares” (“It was six glorious years and we have many stories about that”) and — because he’ll be in Mahwah — about his Jersey childhood.

“I was a child model and a child actor,” says Vilanch, who was born in Manhattan but brought to Paterson at 4 days old. “I was just never a child star, or we’d be having this conversation in rehab.”

His mother, Henne Vilanch, now 93, lives in Hackensack. “She’s incredible. She’s absolutely staggering. She plays cards every day. She’s all there. And a Record reader,” Vilanch says.

On a visit home a few months ago, he went back to Paterson. “Somebody told me that they had reopened the Fabian Theater, which is where I kind of grew up watching movies. So, I went back to see it, and of course, that building is gone. They put up [a multiplex] on the site, and they called it the Fabian, which is amazing that anybody remembers. They probably all think it was [named for] the old rock-and-roll star from my childhood and not Jacob Fabian, leader of the Jewish community, who was in the movie business like one or two other Jews,” said Vilanch, who is also Jewish.

At Oscar time this year, Vilanch was performing on a gay cruise. During the actual telecast, he says, “I was on a ship between Australia and New Zealand, and the satellite signal went down, so I didn’t really get to see it until I got home a week later, by which time everything had blown over and the only one who made a clean getaway was Shirley Bassey.”

Asked to evaluate MacFarlane’s performance as host, he says, “I think he’s a great writer, but not a terrific performer, and to me, it had no sense of occasion. … I thought it was the wrong note. But they were doing cartwheels because the ratings were up.”

Vilanch believes that the big boost in viewership came from the fact that six of the nominated films were box-office hits. “People tune in because they’ve seen the movies,” Vilanch says.

It’s too early for Vilanch to know if he’ll be working on next year’s Oscar telecast, but if he does, he knows that he’ll face the usual challenge.

“It’s like reinventing the wheel every year, and like the wheel, it always comes out looking the same. But they carry on like they’re going to do it differently,” Vilanch says, noting that both the Academy and the network have “so many hard and fast rules in play … it’s difficult to make it much different from the year before, because you’ve got the same task. As long as the Academy won’t jettison any of the awards, it’s always going to be long and always going to involve a lot of people you’ve never seen or heard of. There are only four acting awards, as opposed to the Golden Globes that give like 24 acting awards. So, it’s never going to be that kind of a party. But it is the Oscars and it’s got 86 years of tradition and meaning … so it has that going for it.”

Mahwah Patch
Academy Awards Head Writer Coming to Mahwah
April 10, 2013

Bruce Vilanch is coming to Mahwah for a one-night stand-up comedy gig, Ramapo College announced this week. The College’s Berrie Center released the following information about the event:

Multi Emmy AwardWinner Bruce Vilanch brings his hysterical standup act to the Berrie Center for Performing and Visual Arts at Ramapo College of New Jersey on Saturday, April 27, at 8 p.m.

Vilanch has been the head writer for the past 23 Academy Award ceremonies. Bruce Vilanch has also written for hosts such as David Letterman, Billy Crystal, and James Franco. Additionally, he has written for Bette Midler, Cher, Robin Williams, Diana Ross and Star Wars Jedis. Roger Ebert praised Bruce Vilanch as being  “a foil, a collaborator, a dueling partner, [and] a lateral thinker,” who helps stars and hosts move in the direction they want to go.

Audiences may recognize Bruce Vilanch for his years on television’s Hollywood Squares with Whoopi Goldberg and for his Broadway run as “Edna Turnblad” in the smash hit “Hairspray.” Vilanch has also been featured in the TV-movie “It Nearly Wasn’t Christmas” and the documentary “Get Bruce!”

Tickets for Comedy with Bruce Vilanch are $35, $32 and $25. To purchase tickets, phone the box office at (201) 684-7844 or go online.

An Intimate Evening With Bruce Vilanch
Thursday, Mar 28 7:00p
More dates & times (1)
Station 4 and the Rose Room
Dallas, TX

He’s the head writer for the Oscars. He has written for Barbra and Bette. He’s got 6 Emmy Awards, and he’s coming to the Rose Room for “An Intimate Evening with Bruce Vilanch”. Thursday, March 28 at 8p and 11p. The funniest man in Hollywood tells stories you won’t want to miss.

VIP tickets include a Meet & Greet with Bruce after the show!

To Buy Tickets: Click Here

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