The SNL role went to Danitra Vance, a talented actress who lasted through only one season. Frustrated by the stereotypical parts given her on the show, Danitra left SNL in 1986.
Although auditioning was getting me nowhere, my cabaret shows were still in great demand and provided me with a creative outlet that kept me from completely losing my mind. In the audience one July evening at Don’t Tell Mama was Bob Wachs, the founder of the Comic Strip in New York City. Wachs (pronounced “Wax”) had discovered Eddie Murphy, and Bob’s other clients—Arsenio Hall and Chris Rock—were bursting onto the entertainment scene. Bob loved my show, believed in my talent, and felt that as my manager, he could take my career to new heights. Finally, my knight in shining armor had arrived!
I was now where I had hoped to be. In addition to Bob Wachs, heavy hitters including the Zippels were fighting for me. But as months of auditions rolled by without success, it still was not clear where my niche was. I did not fit on Wachs’s roster like the others. He knew what to do for them, but my offering was too broad and uniquely individual.
Mark Brown heard me say I was “going crazy” waiting for my big break. He had started seeing a therapist and knew I could benefit from therapy, too. But rather than doing that, we devised a new show, Jenifer Lewis on the Couch, in which I spoke to an unseen shrink and “analyzed” why I wasn’t a star yet. David Zippel and Joanne Zippel were the producers. Backed by a full band and two muscle-bound singers named Keith McDaniel and Craig Frawley, I opened Jenifer Lewis on the Couch at the Roundabout Theatre in April. This was big; the Roundabout was a “real” theater, not a cabaret. The show was a hit with critics and audiences, and even won me a spot on The Today Show, where I was interviewed by Jane Pauley, who was very pregnant at the time. I wore a beautiful white suit and added some dangly gold earrings my mother had given me the Christmas before.
JANE PAULEY
[smugly]
So Jenifer, are you ever going to be a star? When do you think it will happen?
JENIFER
Um, I don’t know. I guess when I’m calmer.
JANE PAULEY
Well, maybe it will happen when the earrings are real.
Excuse me? I know this woman did not just insult me on national television! I was stunned by her rudeness. Later, I thought she must have had morning sickness or something. But, fuck that! Now that I have the opportunity, let me say this: “Ms. Pauley, that was rude. I did become a star. And trust me, the earrings are fucking real!”
At the urging of Bob Wachs, my new manager, I decided to move to LA. I’d been in three Broadway shows and made a name for myself as a solo performer; now it was time for Hollywood—for movies, TV, Oscars, and Grammys. Bob bought me a used Mazda 323 and I had saved $6,000 from my Billie to Lena tour to cover me during what I thought would be a brief period before I achieved stardom. I moved in with Roxanne Reese, who had remained a friend after our concert in Cologne, at her small bungalow apartment on Troost Avenue, deep in the San Fernando Valley. Rox was working steadily in TV and as Richard Pryor’s opening act.
Bob put me in the hands of his assistant, Tess Haley. Right off the bat, Tess commissioned a highly respected writer named Deborah Dean Davis to create a movie script for me which Bob could shop to the studios. Although the script got no mileage, Deborah and I became bosom buddies.
Bob was a powerful player whose client roster easily opened Hollywood’s gates. He got me meetings with every major studio in town. Opportunity seemed to be banging on my door when Bob arranged a showcase for me at the Comedy Store and filled the audience with Hollywood bigwigs. One of these was George Schlatter, the legendary producer who had transformed American television comedy in the late 1960s with Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. Schlatter loved me, but once again, he found me unmarketable. He told me, “If this was twenty years ago, you would become a star overnight.” To this day, I believe this is true. Unlike the bygone ’50s and ’60s when multitalented performers like Flip Wilson, Carol Burnett, and Jackie Gleason reigned, show business in the ’80s was designed to market artists who fit in a simple box—comic or singer or actor or sexy starlet—and I was all of those.
Yet, I persisted. I cast my net wider, auditioning for the movie Beetlejuice, to be a vee-jay on VH1, for a Fritos commercial, and for a CBS series called Sirens. I was rejected over and over.
Bob set up meetings with Paramount, Columbia Pictures, and Lorimar, the highly successful company that produced Dallas, Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest. After the meeting at Paramount, I was driving off the studio lot when I saw Chris Rock walking in the blazing California sun. I pulled up, and like back home in the Midwest, leaned out the car window and asked, “Want a ride, Negro?” We acted a fool in my little white Mazda until I dropped him off at his hotel.
I auditioned for the lead in Clara’s Heart, but Whoopi got the role. I auditioned for a role in the movie Scrooge, and all I got for that was felt up by crazy-ass Bill Murray. All in good fun, but I got the hell out of there! I also met several times with Ralph Bakshi, whose film Fritz the Cat had been the first animation to receive an X rating. Bakshi gave me a super-funny script, but nothing ever materialized. I think he might have wanted to get in my pants (which did not happen).
Paramount had made zillions from the Eddie Murphy movies. When Beverly Hills Cop II opened with a record-breaking $26.4 million box office, Bob Wachs threw a huge celebration for Eddie at his house in Beverly Hills. It was my first big Hollywood party, an all-day barbecue featuring all-day drinking. I felt a bit out of place and did not socialize much. However, I managed to down two margaritas when I arrived, drank a couple of glasses of red wine with dinner, and when they brought out the giant cake, enjoyed a few goblets of champagne.