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| Steven Wright will perform at the Rococo Theatre on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. |
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Standup credits Carson for his career
By JEFF KORBELIK / Lincoln Journal Star
Friday, Mar 24, 2006 - 12:01:29 am CST
Steven Wright nearly turned down Johnny Carson.
Not the first time, but the second.
Wright was intrigued when he learned the late Carson called Nebraska his home state and had a lot to say about the talk-show host during a phone interview to promote his concert Sunday at the Rococo Theatre — his first in Lincoln since October 2003.
Carson regularly gave young standups their first big break on his late-night talk show.
Wright was no different. As a teenager, he watched the likes of Robert Kline, Freddie Prinze, Rodney Dangerfield and Richard Pryor tell jokes and make people laugh on “The Tonight Show.”
“I wanted to be one of those guys, to get on there,” Wright said. “It became my fantasy, my goal, but I didn’t think it would happen. You know how a kid wants to be a baseball player? This is what I wanted to do.”
Wright was 26 when Carson called him up to the “big leagues,” an experience the 50-year-old still calls “totally surreal.”
He remembers Carson visiting him backstage before the show, telling him not to be nervous and to have a good time out there.
It was a Friday night — Aug. 6, 1982, to be exact — and Wright hit it out of the park. He played it, he said, like he would a nightclub, firing off one joke after another with his deadpan delivery that has now become famous.
“I heard him laughing,” Wright said of Carson. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, Johnny is laughing at something I said.’ I couldn’t believe it.”
Nor could he believe what happened next.
Carson’s people called to say they wanted Wright back — the following Thursday.
“At first I didn’t hear them right,” he said. “I thought they were telling me something about the one I did. I didn’t understand they wanted me to go on again.”
Once the message was clear, Wright hesitated.
The 15 minutes he performed for Carson was half his material, which had taken him three-plus years to craft. The next 15 minutes would clean out his cupboard.
Carson’s people reminded him this was an opportunity of lifetime.
“I thought about it and realized I was crazy,” he said. “Of course, I have to do this.”
Wright’s back-to-back appearances kick-started his career into high gear. Today, he’s considered one of the nation’s best comics, staying away from sex and politics and focusing on the little things around him.
“For some reason I notice the tiny things — signs, brake lights on a car or lint,” he said. “Those things and giant things — the speed of light and expansion of the universe — they interest me.
“I don’t talk about things in the middle like something the president did or pop culture things. A lot of people talk about that stuff. Why should I talk about it?”
Wright has expanded his career beyond the stage. In 1989, he won an Academy Award for best short film for “The Appointments of Dennis Jennings,” which he starred in and co-wrote.
He recently has been in Jim Jarmusch’s “Coffee and Cigarettes” and the “The Aristocrats.”
Wright said he wouldn’t be where he’s at today if it wasn’t for Carson.
“He changed my life,” he said.
Like many, Wright laments Carson’s passing.
“I wish there was a channel, so I could see those shows again,” he said. “I wish it was every night. I wish they would replay them. I would tune to that.”
Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.
If you go
What: Steven Wright
Where: Rococo Theatre, 13th and P streets
When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday
Tickets: $31; 476-4467
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