She taught me the importance of stories and laughter. My grandmother, who I called Nana, had the biggest influence on me creatively. That, and the fact that I was overweight and very tall, all made me feel quite different when I was growing up-a bit like a musk ox at a tea party. But I had a mother with a great comic sense (she was a high school English teacher) and a grandmother who had been a funny professional storyteller, so I figured the right genes were in there somewhere, although I didn't always laugh at what my friends laughed at and they rarely giggled at my jokes. This, however, was a difficult concept to get across in first grade. While my friends made their career plans, declaring they would become doctors, nurses, and lawyers, inwardly I knew that I wanted to be involved somehow in comedy.
I thought that people who could make other people laugh were terribly fortunate.
I've always believed in comic entrances.Īs I grew up in River Forest, Illinois, in the 1950's, I seem to remember an early fascination with things that were funny. JI was born at eleven A.M., a most reasonable time, my mother often said, and when the nurse put me in my mother's arms for the first time I had both a nasty case of the hiccups and no discernible forehead (it's since grown in).
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