One of the things I love about my job is that I have gotten to meet — and interview — a little more than my fair share of famous people — from sports celebrities like Pete Sampras, Wade Boggs and the late, great Lee Roy Selmon to entertainers like Tom Petty and actress Kathy Bates to public figures like former Vice-President Mike Pence, General Norman Schwartzkopf and yes, Saddebrook Resort founder Tom Dempsey.
But, I was surprised — and a little starstruck — to receive a phone call a few months ago from Marc Price, the actor, writer and stand-up comic who played Irwin “Skippy” Handelman on the hit NBC-TV show “Family Ties” from 1982-89. And, while Marc may not be the most famous person I’ve interviewed, his character — the best friend of star Michael J. Fox’s Alex P. Keaton — is someone with whom I felt a kindred spirit. I also was a little nerdy in high school, wore glasses until I finally got contact lenses at age 14 and my closest friends were always smarter and more adept at “getting the girl” than I was.
Our first conversation was very brief, but Marc told me then that he was coming to perform at Sidesplitters at The Grove in Wesley Chapel and would call me again to try to help promote his one-night-only show — which is scheduled for Friday, September 27, at 7 p.m.
And, he was true to his word. Marc called me a few days before we went to press with this issue and we had a great conversation, which was a stroll down memory lane for both of us — as I realized that, when compared with him, I’ve really hardly met anyone.
“My father and mother were both in show business,” Marc told me. “My dad was a ‘Borscht Belt’ comedian in the resorts of the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York from the 1930s through the early ‘80s. He performed under the name ‘Al Bernie’ and he did his stand-up routines frequently on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.’ ‘The Mike Douglas Show’ and ‘Merv Griffin.’ My mom was a night club singer and recording artist who went by the stage name ‘Joy Mann.’”
He adds, “My dad loved show business. My mom hated show business…and she hated my dad.”
His parents split up when Marc was going through his formative years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and he says he had to make a choice: either stay in New York and live with his mom, “who wanted me to go to Cornell, have a family and follow in the footsteps of my doctor stepfather, that sort of thing. Or, I could move to Hollywood with my dad, hang out at The Comedy Store and try to be in showbiz. So really…my mom’s plan never stood a chance.”
When they moved to California, Marc says, “My dad’s goal was to make it on a sitcom — and that wouldn’t have been absurd ten years before that because they were using people his age in the ‘60s and ‘70s. One of my dad’s best friends was Phil Foster, who played Laverne’s grumpy dad (Frank DeFazio) on ‘Laverne & Shirley.’ So, it wasn’t a crazy idea that my dad could get a part on a sitcom.”
But, he adds, “By the time I moved out there with him, there was a shift on TV sitcoms to only young people who would become big stars. ‘Family Ties’ was a great example of that — it was about a family but it was really focused on the kids. And, it was very clear early in the show that he (Fox) was the breakout superstar of the show. And I think we all appreciated it.”
Marc credits Foster for helping him land the part of Skippy.
“Uncle Phil brought me to Paramount Studios one day and asked me, “Do you want to watch how we make ‘Laverne & Shirley’ and ‘Happy Days?’ And I was watching them figuring out how to make that physical comedy work and it just blew my mind.”
He says he, “always knew I wanted to be a stand-up comedian, but here was this whole new world — acting — and he could see it in my eyes and said, ‘Hey, you wanna come back and watch this all week?’ If any of the security people gives you a hard time, you just tell them that you’re Phil Foster’s nephew.’”
But then, Marc says, “I started wandering around the studio and was on the set of ‘Bosom Buddies’ and Tom Hanks came over to juggle and do his shtick for me. And, it was only a few years later when he was on ‘Family Ties’ (as “Uncle Ned”) on the same set as me. Same thing with ‘Mork & Mindy’ and ‘Taxi.’ I got to watch them all getting made, watched the process.”
Because of that experience, he says, “I’d like to think that a couple of years later, when I was auditioning for ‘Family Ties,’ I was a lot more comfortable on set than the average 13- or 14-year-old. Sure, I was nervous, but it wasn’t like a complete freak-out. It kind of felt like home.”
Marc says that one of the best things about being on the show was watching Fox just explode as a mega-star. “Michael was always super-cool to me and to this day, he remains an inspiration,” he says. “So, we raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation at every stop on our tour because I believe that I might not even be on tour if it wasn’t for him. People can go to TeamFox.org if they want to make a donation for a really great cause — Parkinson’s disease research.”
About His Stand-Up Show
Marc says his comedy “follows in the footsteps of my dad. I would hang out backstage at his shows when we lived in New York and I met so many famous comics and actors — including George Burns, Joey Bishop, you know, the old-school greats, I even pitched Milton Berle a joke before I was 12 that he used in his stand-up act.”
But then, when he and his dad moved to L.A., “There was a Comedy Store near where we lived. This wasn’t the famous Comedy Store on Sunset Blvd., because it was hard for a kid under age 14 to get into, but the one in Westwood, near UCLA, which was for those college kids, so they didn’t serve hard alcohol, just wine, beer and food, and you could get in at any age, like a restaurant.”
He also remembered that when “Family Ties” was on the air, “none of the stand-up guys who went on to become the biggest sitcom and TV stars in history even had a TV show yet — Jerry Seinfeld, Drew Carey, Jay Leno, Paul Reiser and the list goes on. Yes, Seinfeld and Leno were the best-known stand-up comics in the country. And yes, they were famous, but Jay didn’t host ‘The Tonight Show’ yet and Jerry didn’t have a sitcom. And I was working doing stand-up with these guys and they wanted to know about sitcoms, about my (other) world. They gravitated towards me.”
He adds, “And I got to meet and hang out with all of the comics on the circuit at that time — Andrew Dice Clay, Sam Kinison, Tim Allen, Jim Carrey. Jim was a few years older than me but he was the youngest guy working regularly at the Comedy Store. The host the first night I met Jim, my friend Freddy Asparagus, introduced us and said, “Marc, I want you to meet Jim. He’s young, too, but we expect big things from him. So, I guess he was right.”
He says that because his influences in comedy were so varied — from Milton Berle to Sam Kinison — “I don’t think you can say I’m ‘like’ any other stand-up, maybe to my own detriment. I’m not a very specific comedian, I’m kind of all over the place. There are parts of my show that I like to think are smart and parts that I think are silly. And there are parts that are crazy, wacky, jokey, and there are parts where I deal with my true life and things that are very real to me. It’s like what some people say about the weather — if you don’t like something, wait a few minutes and it’ll change.”
Marc did just a little of his act for me. “I love Florida because I live in L.A., where when you’re in your 50s, you’re a dinosaur. But then, I go to Florida and I hear, ‘Oh…spring chicken.’”
He admits he also enjoys a lot of today’s young comics, “Even though none of them know who I am.” When I mentioned that I just saw Taylor Tomlinson in Vegas, he said, “I’ve been trying to get on that show she does — ‘After Midnight’ — because they mix it up. They actually have folks from my world on it, too.”
In fact, he says, “I was actually on CBS in that exact time slot — 12:30 weeknights — but for only one week. It was when Pat Sajak was an epic failure as the big competition for Johnny Carson. So then, they tried something different called ‘The Midnight Hour,’ where they had a different host each week for eleven weeks as a summer replacement. One of those hosts was Bill Maher, and CBS should have picked him up, but they missed on him. And then, I got the eleventh — and final — week, at about age 19. When those shows aired, we were up against David Letterman. At the end of my week, the network executives asked me, ‘What do you think of this David Letterman?’ And I said, ‘Are you kidding? He’s amazing!’ So, I like to think that I got him that job.”
For tickets to see Marc Price at Sidesplitters at The Grove (6333 Wesley Grove Blvd., in the B&B Theaters, Theater #7), visit SideSplittersComedy.com or call (813) 723-2170. For more info about Marc Price, visit IJoke.com.