by curt schleier
correspondent
David Steinberg, whose comedy series begins a second season later this month, was one of the most successful and respected comedians of his generation. His politically tinged humor earned him 130 appearances on the “Tonight Show With Johnny Carson,” dozens of guest host spots on the show as well as visits from President Nixon’s fabled dirty tricks squad.
In the mid-1980s, with young children at home, Steinberg, 64, grew tired of life on the road and took up a new career as a director. He soon became equally famous for his work behind the camera, directing some top comedy shows, including “Friends,” “Mad About You” and, most recently, “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” His work has garnered him numerous DGA and Emmy awards and nominations.
He proved equally adept at directing commercials — he’s done over 300 of them — and has won two Clio awards and the prestigious Silver Lion at the Cannes Film Festival.
He’s also written a funny memoir, “The Story of David’’ (“It starts with Abraham and Isaac and ends with me and Frankie Valli at the Aladdin”), which will be published in June.
And he’s moved in front of the camera again as “Sit Down Comedy With David Steinberg’’ airs again on TV Land starting at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 21. The show is made up of lengthy (and invariably hilarious) conversations between Steinberg and his comedian guest about whatever topic comes up.
As Steinberg tells it, “Sit Down’’ is almost a direct outgrowth of a request he made to Carson that was denied — at first. “The formula for talk shows is that you meet with a talent coordinator in the afternoon to discuss what you want to talk about,” Steinberg explained in a telephone interview. “Based on that meeting the talent coordinator gives the host questions to ask you. I never liked that.
“I remember when I was a guest host — and I had guests in those days like Louis Armstrong and Cassius Clay at the time — I’d listen to the beginning, look to my notes to see where the [guest was] going to end so that I knew when to get them to the next topic.”
Steinberg felt that approach lacked spontaneity and asked Carson if on his next guest appearance they could skip the canned talk. “You’re so secure,” Steinberg told him, “I’m not going to give you specific questions. I’ll just give you topics — Lakers, marriage, kids. Interrupt me any time you want, even if it’s the end of my story. I will find my way out.
“Carson said no, that won’t work. That’s not the way we do it. Some time later he needed me to fill in at the last moment, because someone had dropped out. That always surprised me. This was the biggest show around and still people would drop out. What better thing did they have to do? Anyway, I said I’ll fill in but I’m going to do it my way.
“He was funny in my segment, funnier than I was, because he didn’t have to look at his notes and could respond anyway he wanted to. When I started to do [‘Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg’], I wanted to get back to all that spontaneity that is much more compelling for an audience. I don’t know anything at all [about the guests]. I’m the anti-James Lipton.
“Given that I’m the Zelig of the comedy world, I know everyone. But I don’t know where they’re from or anything like that, and that [the spontaneity] is what seems to be working with the audience.”
Guests this season include Jon Stewart, Garry Shandling, Ray Romano and Robin Williams (post-rehab). If the advanced tapes sent to critics are any indication, Steinberg is clearly right. Spontaneity works.
All in all, it’s not bad for a rabbi’s son from Winnipeg. Steinberg’s father was a rabbi and grocer; his mother a rebbetzin. “Growing up Jewish in Canada is very different than growing up Jewish in the States. Here, you’re obsessed with the melting pot. There’s no melting pot in Canada. Ethnicity is encouraged and you can be what you are much more comfortably than you can in the States.
“I don’t know the percentage of Jews in Winnipeg, but we had two weekly Yiddish papers.” There was a small shul on every block — or so it seemed. But that, Steinberg says, “was all gone by the ’60s.”
He spent his formative years attending Talmud Torah in Winnipeg, and then a yeshiva in Chicago. When he was 18, the B’nai Akeeva Zionist organization sent him to Israel to study at Hebrew University. He came back and attended the University of Chicago. By that time it was clear he wasn’t going to follow in his father’s footsteps. “I realized that the guys I was with [at yeshiva] were incredibly brilliant scholarly types; I wasn’t as good at the Talmud as they were.
While in Chicago he attended a performance of the Second City comedy troup. “I said, oh my God, I can do this.” He and a buddy auditioned, were accepted and the rest, as they say, is comedy history.
Even though this was the early ’60s, Steinberg was urged to change his name. He was told it would look like Frankie Valli was playing a date with his accountant. But Steinberg refused.
In fact, he says, “I got laughs by being militantly Jewish.” He’d say, for example, that, “my father never lived to fulfill his dream — a Yiddish-speaking Canada.”
As for his experiences with the Nixon Dirty Tricks campaign:
“I wear that as a badge of honor. Remember, this was before Saturday Night Live and a lot of people were doing political humor. I was out there and I talked about Nixon selling his tapes just like the K-tel commercials. I had no idea they [the Nixon people] were watching.
“I was doing a series of college concerts, and it is really a myth that comedians get heckled regularly. But every time I’d talk about Nixon or Watergate, I’d start to get heckled. A writer friend of mine who was with me said it was the same guy in every concert everywhere we go.
“Once I was at the Plaza when I guy came to the door who claimed he was from the FBI and said they’d received a threat through the switchboard that someone said he’d shoot me if I did my Nixon material.”
Meanwhile the show whetted his appetite for a return to performing. “I didn’t realize how much I missed being in front of an audience. If the book creates any momentum, I might just consider it. But you gotta remember that by 10 o’clock at night I like to be in my jammies. So it would be better if I could work in the afternoon.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California