[classical guitar music playing]
[Steve Martin]
Do we have enough Happy Eggs?
Yes!
[sighs]
Timing is very, very important.
Usually, I have two slices.
There you go.
I can cook one thing.
No, I can cook two things,
two poached eggs.
The secret... olive oil.
[exclaims]
Now, this is the chef part.
Ah! Oh, I put way too much in.
[Morgan Neville] All the years you were...
kind of living by yourself?
I ate every meal out, including breakfast.
[chuckles]
[Morgan] So if I was to look in your
fridge in those days, what would I find?
Nothing. [laughs]
[Steve] Marty and I,
he loves poached eggs on toast too.
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
So we're often staying in hotels.
So, if I get a particularly
good looking poached eggs,
I'll e-mail Marty the photo...
[laughing] and he's never done it back.
[laughter]
[Steve] Now... yes.
I like a lot of pepper.
Ahh!
Oh, Steve. Will you marry me?
Mmm.
Glad you're not filming this
'cause it'd be so embarrassing.
[Morgan] So, why did you agree
to make this documentary?
[Steve] It's a hard thing to answer. Um...
You ever think you'd be so bored? Hmm?
[Steve] I'd see it as a... antidote
to the sort of anodyne interviews,
generic things I've talked about
a million times.
And look back at what an odd life.
[no audible dialogue]
My whole life is backwards.
How did I go from riddled
with anxiety in my 30s
to 75 and really happy?
How did this happen?
My wife, if she looked at this video,
she would say,
"What were you doing just then?"
And I'd say, "Putting things away."
She goes, "Oh, is that what that was?"
[laughing] Well...
So this... I'll move this.
This tape is 45 years old.
If I calculate.
And... I used to tape the show
to play back to hear...
I didn't do that often,
but occasionally I'd play it back.
So, I'm a little afraid to listen to this.
Let's just press play.
[Steve on tape] You know, I read something
in Time magazine, really disturbed me.
It said at any time the sun could expand
and engulf the Earth
and completely destroy it.
I said, "That's it.
I'm getting a smoke detector."
[audience laughter]
Bigger laugh than it deserved.
[recording continues, indistinct]
[Steve] This stand-up thing
was huge to me, it was gigantic.
Now it almost feels like a blip.
[on tape] You know, we're really lucky
the way the human body turned out.
You know, like a simple thing.
Instead of having two arms,
we just had one arm
right in the center of our body.
That, I'd do like that.
And that would totally
put an end to show business,
because how would people clap?
[audience laughter]
Pretty good.
Okay, I'm starting...
You know, I've had enough.
I mean, we should listen to the end,
see where it went,
but I just can't bear it, you know.
I have a whole new life now.
[cell phone ringing]
It's Marty.
- [Martin Short] Hello?
- Hi. They need you in ten minutes.
- Hello?
- [phone beeps]
Hung up on me.
[Morgan] So, I know you like
making cartoons.
How would you feel
about writing some cartoons
about how you feel
about making this documentary?
Hmm.
[yawning]
- [Morgan] Yeah, like the... like that.
- [Steve] Okay.
What's going on? That was a false start.
[Eric Fischl] Being able to witness
an artist reinvent himself
{\an8}is really quite extraordinary.
{\an8}There are very few artists that do that.
[no audio]
For an artist to walk away from that
to find another way
of being creative and connecting.
They're aiming for the art of their life.
You know, bravery is the word
that comes to mind.
You have to be driven by something
outside of what the thing is.
[audience cheering]
[Steve] There was a big premiere
of The Jerk.
{\an8}Marie! Where are you, Marie?
Marie!
[Steve] And four of us go out for dinner
with a friend of mine and my father.
And my father said nothing
about the movie. Nothing.
And finally, my friend says... "Glenn,
what did you think of Steve in the movie?"
And he said,
"Well, he's no Charlie Chaplin."
{\an8}[man scatting dance rhythm]
[man] Okay, now do it again.
Leave the tape rolling. Do it again.
Back up, Steve, so you're
a little further away from the camera.
And this time, don't turn so much
in the beginning,
but turn more in the turn,
you know what I mean?
Like you showed me.
[man] Okay, go ahead.
God I... sorry.
[Steve] On my next film,
Pennies From Heaven,
I had to learn to tap dance
because I didn't know anything.
So, I tap danced for six months.
I wanted to do it, so badly.
[applause]
Well, Gregory, I...
I just finished my first MGM musical.
It's called Pennies From Heaven.
Yeah, I heard it's very good.
I think it's the best thing
I've ever done.
- It's my first dramatic role.
- Dramatic role?
- That's right.
- No wild and crazy guy, huh?
Yeah, it's a totally
different thing for me.
- But I do sing and dance a little.
- Dance?
It was... made me cry.
I just thought it was great.
[lively big band music playing]
And the movie has this great concept.
Lip syncing old songs.
[voice of C. Boswell] ♪ If I should wake
And find your arms around me... ♪
{\an8}Steve, when the conversation's
like this
{\an8}he cuts in like that.
That's... He comes from an angle
from outer space,
and it comes from his innocence.
It doesn't come from anything calculated.
It's just who he is.
[Steve] I loved it and I thought,
"Oh, this is a huge hit."
- [crowd cheering]
- [Steve] Yes, absolutely.
I'm gonna say, "Yes, absolutely,"
to everything you ask me. So...
[reporter] How's the reaction?
Yes, absolutely.
"Yes, absolutely."
Is Steve Martin a pompous a*s?
"Yes, absolutely."
[Steve] And it flopped.
The winner for this year's Oscar
for Best Performance in a Motion Picture,
Pennies From Heaven...
...Mr. Steve Martin.
[applause, cheering]
- [woman] Did it embarrass you?
- [Steve] Oh, horribly.
I'm ashamed to say how I...
[chuckles] felt.
I felt like a... you know, a big failure.
- [audience laughter]
- I did it all myself.
I don't have anybody to thank.
Not Mom and Dad
or the people behind the camera.
It was just me!
[Steve] I was exhausted.
And nothing was working.
- Want a nice time, honey?
- No, I like feeling miserable.
[Steve] I thought I'm gonna take a break.
Go to London by myself.
And it was eerie because
I could walk down the street
and no one would look at me.
And I was very lonely.
And I went to see the movie Flashdance.
And so I'm sitting there,
just depressed and lonely.
And the movie comes on, and there's
some little scene where a kid,
they're all feeling their oats
and he says,
"I want to be like Steve Martin."
[laughing] I recognize the irony
of just sitting there, like,
"No, you don't want to be me right now,
I'm telling you."
- [Steve] Just quickly...
- [Johnny Carson] Yeah.
- With all these reviews...
- Right.
And it is such an interesting,
strange movie
and the really powerful people in the
industry have given it great reviews,
and of course, there has been
negative reviews too.
And I've found something
that the people who like it
are, like, wise and intelligent people...
- Yeah.
- And the people who don't like it...
- Real dummies.
- ...are ignorant scum.
- Right.
- And so that's what I'm...
- That can happen.
- [audience laughing]
Yeah. You liked it, didn't you?
- Yes. Sure. Wise, wise, wise.
- Yeah. Well see...
[Jerry Seinfeld] I kind of decided, Steve,
I don't want to say anything negative
about colleagues anymore
- 'cause it's hard enough...
- Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you like your, uh... glasses
right side up or upside down?
- I like the water over the outside.
- Okay.
'Cause you just got
a little amount in there.
[both laughing]
I think we're done.
But I always had a policy.
You don't criticize other artists.
- Any artist?
- It's...
When you look at a painting,
I'm sure you're critical.
Well, you know, personally
I might like it or dislike it,
I'm not gonna announce it.
- Right.
- Because we have critics, you know,
- who wanna k*ll us.
- Right.
That's not what I do.
I'm on the artistic side of it, I think.
Or trying to be, anyway.
I think it's weird,
when I went to the ballet one time
- and they applauded certain things.
- Mm-hm.
As if they know
what the difficult things are to do.
These 80-year-old people going...
"That's hard."
When I learned tap dancing
from Danny Daniels, that... for a movie,
I learned it for a movie
and then forgot it.
- Mm-hm.
- But he said, "Look, Steve.
There are easy steps that look hard
and there are hard steps that look easy,"
so you just don't know
what anybody is applauding.
What movie was that?
Pennies From Heaven,
I'm sure you know it.
- I do.
- Let's watch it. I'm kidding.
Yeah.
- [dogs panting]
- Hey, buddies.
[Steve] I came across a word in Hungarian.
"Pihentagyú."
This is literally meaning
"with a relaxed brain."
I thought, "That's what I have now."
My brain is relaxed.
I'm not under the pressure
that I put myself under then.
You know, I'm not out to prove anything,
and better stuff comes.
I wish something would happen.
You need a line here?
How about, "blah-blah"?
Oh, we need a joke?
What if I said this...?
Oh, we need a title for our show?
What about this?
I love our new poster.
I want to show you our new poster.
Let me see if I can find it first.
Um...
[chuckles] I think it's funny, anyway.
- [door opens]
- Hi, I'm being interviewed.
Hello.
So, what were you talking about?
Me. [chuckles]
We were just k*lling time
until the money got here.
Thank you. Speaking of which,
where is my per diem?
[Steve] What's happening right now is,
for the last year and a half,
we've just been collecting jokes
for shows coming up next month,
so we want to be prepared.
I like the little background noise
because it makes people realize
- I don't live by myself.
- [background chatter]
Yeah, except you're
destroying the documentary.
[computer chimes]
[Steve] Basically, look at the new jokes
and see if they belong
or where they can go, or, I mean,
if they're funny, I take them.
If they're not funny,
I give them to Marty.
The thing about a joke that doesn't work
is the audience doesn't know.
You're expecting a laugh,
but then there's no laugh,
but they just think,
"Oh, he's just talking now."
[both chuckling]
"I love a comedian's opening line
because it sets the tone
for the entire stupid show."
- [both laughing]
- I think that's funny.
"You know, we haven't performed
in a year and a half,
which will become obvious
as the show goes on"?
I like, "I'm not nervous,
I'm just unprepared."
It's the same idea.
"How many of you applauded
because you thought I was dead?"
[groans]
"Ever have one of those moments
when you walk into a room
and forget why you're there?"
Well, it's funny...
Okay, "I know what you're thinking.
These hearing A*DS
make my a*s look amazing."
Right away,
it's the premise of you're old.
Maybe you can follow up
with a line about your prostate.
"Every night I make sure
I give a good night kiss
to the three little ones that
mean more to me than life itself.
My two Emmys and my Tony."
I could hear that coming out of you.
Because it's not very good.
[both laughing]
"It's a protest song called,
'Let's Tax the Top One Percent
Even Less.'"
[Martin laughing] I like that.
"I'm old school.
I've been treating women with respect
before they even deserved it."
- You're gonna get "ugh."
- Yeah, I know.
"Isn't that crazy a celebrity
as a president", but I...
Yeah, right away it's a Trump thing.
And also, we don't want
to get that political, it's just...
Well, we have to get a little political.
- Trump.
- That's right, you're trying to retire.
No, I'm just not fraught with fear.
"When I told Steve
that social distancing meant
staying six feet
away from people, he said,
'Can you make it 60?'"
- [Martin chuckles]
- Cut.
I don't get this at all.
"'Steve, you look fantastic.
What's your secret?'
I tell them, '20 years ago,
I k*lled a hobo.'"
What does that mean?
[Martin laughing]
[Morgan] Knowing Steve as well as you do,
how do you see him as a private person?
I feel like...
I feel like, I still
wouldn't be able to say, like,
"Well, the real Steve," you know?
You know, I... [sighs]
{\an8}[Morgan] Did you have any sense
of who he was?
No.
Not really. Mm-mm. No.
{\an8}Steve was always kind of...
...a solitary figure in a way.
But he was very, very, very,
very, very, very shy.
But there's another trope also
where he was always closed off
and wouldn't talk to people. Uh...
And understandably, I... you know,
when you're a star of that magnitude
and that talent,
everybody wants a piece of you.
Well, I will say this and I say it
with certain, um... not caution exactly,
a certain delicacy because
I wouldn't want to invade Steve's privacy,
but presumably by...
you are in the middle of doing that.
Steve has changed more than
any other person I know.
{\an8}- [applause, cheering]
- Hey, let's take time out right now
{\an8}and kinda get to know each other.
{\an8}Let's take questions from the audience.
If anybody has any question at all
they'd like to ask me,
please raise your hand, feel free,
I'll be happy to answer anything,
anybody at all.
Uh, yes, this lady right here.
Uh... [clears throat] Steve, uh,
how do you relax after the show?
Well, what business is that of yours?
- [laughter]
- Any other questions? Just raise 'em up.
Uh, yes, you, sir.
Uh, Steve, do you enjoy
working in television?
This is the kind of thing
that disgusts me, right here.
When someone stands up and brings
a question like that out to me in front...
Get this guy out of here!
It makes me sick!
Sick to my stomach! Now get him out!
[applause]
Any other questions at all
from the audience, please?
No more questions.
Okay, let's go on with the show!
[applause fades]
"Who is Steve Martin's best friend?"
"Does Steve Martin own a Picasso?"
"How rich is Steve Martin?"
"When did Steve Martin's hair turn white?"
These are the top, I guess,
the top inquiries about me.
[laughs]
"Why did Steve Martin retire from acting?"
I didn't... I didn't know I did, actually.
[chuckles]
[Morgan] How much money are you worth?
[mouse clicking]
[Steve] Yeah, let's just look.
Well... it's nice.
Not accurate in any way, but...
If you use this, you better tell 'em
I was asked to Google myself.
[laughter]
Wait a minute.
"How much is Ben Stiller worth?"
[indistinct chatter]
- Yes?
- Hi. Do you have a table for dinner?
Certainly, sir. How many in your party?
- I'm alone.
- Alone?
[conversation stops]
[Gopnik] When I first knew Steve...
[nervous chuckle]
...he was very difficult to connect with
at a... at an intimate level.
And there would often be long silences.
You felt the intensity of his aloneness.
First-time lonely guy?
What's a lonely guy?
I'm not sure what made me
want to be alone at that time.
Uh... Don't know.
You ever think of getting a dog?
- A dog?
- Dogs are great.
They leap all over you.
They lick your face.
They don't even have to like you.
It's their instinct.
Hitler had a dog.
[camera shutter clicks]
[McEuen] Spent a lot of time on his own.
In the early days, he'd make enough money
to go to France and buy some paintings.
And then he'd come back and sell
two of the paintings and pay for the trip.
[Steve, in aristocratic voice]
What you're looking at is a picture
painted by Lucien Margottet last week.
Uh, as you know, the Impressionist period
was a very, very important period
in American painting.
I think the love of art came
because art is beautiful.
Art is good to look at.
And he can love something
and he can buy it.
It's his Rosebud.
Frank Duveneck.
These are all 19th century Americans.
Here's a photo of a... a room I had.
I turned the garage into a little room
that I could look at paintings.
- [Morgan] Really?
- Yeah. Here's a picture. I'd line them up.
You know, look at them.
Kinda like a private little room,
like an art room.
I'd get lost,
and I'd just stare into space.
I used to love to do that.
It was hypnotic.
{\an8}[man] Do you remember
the first piece you bought?
Um...
This is an area of my life
that I try to keep private.
And I think it should be kept that way.
I mean, the first painting I ever bought
was a ship at sea in the moonlight.
{\an8}All lonely. You know, leaning.
Let me show you this one.
So, this is a drawing of his mother.
{\an8}[Morgan] You have lots of paintings of,
kind of, solitary figures.
Yeah, Adam Gopnik said that once.
"Steve, are you aware that
everything you collect has in common,
whatever period it's from,
a quality of plaintive isolation?"
People looking off... [laughing]
into the distance like this.
[Anne Stringfield] Hopper was
a big touchstone for him for a long time.
They're lonely pictures.
{\an8}It's lots of isolated figures,
lots of lighthouses.
Do you have a melancholy inside you?
- Quite often, yeah.
- Yeah, me too.
But that's dissipated.
I had more melancholy younger.
- Oh, really?
- Yeah.
Do you ever get sad because you're
not as happy as you think you should be?
[both laughing]
[Steve] I must say, I look around,
I tell my wife, Anne this, I go,
"How did this happen?"
- Right.
- You know, this is fantastic, you know?
{\an8}- Are we really gonna go this slowly?
- You're leading.
[Martin] Why don't I interview you
as we're driving?
[Steve] It's called biking, but sure.
[Martin] Hey, so, like, did you always
want to be in comedy?
[Steve] Oh, boy.
Gonna turn right here, Marty.
There's a little horse ranch up here,
actually, that John Cleese used to own.
And this one horse likes me,
but only if I have food.
[Martin whinnying]
[Steve] Fresh cut.
Here you go.
[grunts loudly]
Get your dirt-covered apple.
All right, no interest.
- Yeah. It was a triumph.
- Hmm.
[horse snorting]
Yeah. Oh, here he comes.
He's gonna think about it.
- No.
- No.
[Steve] He's seen my films.
- [Steve, as Navin] He hates these cans!
- [horse snorting]
[Steve, as Navin]
Stay away from the cans!
[Martin] Boy. We might have to
loop this section.
[Steve laughing] Yeah, that's the most fun
we're having today.
Tell you one thing I like about being 75,
- and being on a bicycle.
- Yeah?
There's no way you can look good.
[both laughing]
[Martin] See what he needs is us
to collide and fall.
[Steve, laughing] Yeah. Yeah.
[Martin] Just keep moving. Keep moving.
- Why are you slowing down for me?
- 'Cause there's a car.
- [Martin] Oh, sh*t!
- [bicycle crashing]
[cartoon boing]
[choral music]
[Steve] When I was 15,
I started working at Disneyland
at Merlin's Magic Shop.
This was the sign that was handmade
by the owner.
You can see it in old photographs,
it's hanging out in front of the shop.
And then, years later, it was on eBay.
And I... I bought it immediately,
out of nostalgia,
and then hung it here.
I can't believe it.
This was the Fantasyland Magic shop,
which is not there anymore.
This is what I used to sell at Disneyland.
You know, I had a fascination
with cowboys.
I know, right.
Here's Victoria.
Victoria had this incredible style.
[camera shutter clicks]
One of my oldest friends.
[Dailey] Well, it's such Americana.
That was, you know, a recreation
of a certain kind of Americana.
And then, you know,
you became Americana. [laughs]
[high-pitched] Haa-hiya-h*!
Oh.
Here's something.
I don't know why I have this.
It's my tooth on a string.
There's a real boy somewhere
inside that never left.
I bought this off eBay years ago because
I, you know, had affection for it,
but it's kind of a mess.
But it reminds me of, you know,
how I got started.
[Dailey] The belief in something
good and pure and American.
[Morgan] It sure seems like you've
saved a lot over the years.
{\an8}I saved all the wrong things.
I saved, like, magazine covers.
You know, and you really should have been
photographing your apartment.
So it means something
when you remembered it.
And... you know, I don't really
go back and look at things,
but here we are doing this documentary.
This is my set list,
and the reason they're in this state
is because I would get so sweaty
from performing,
and jumping around, jumping around,
I'd come off drenched.
[audience laughing]
[Steve] Here we go.
[Lorne Michaels]
Steve would be going on Letterman.
I could get a call about,
"What do you think of this?"
{\an8}And he'd do it. And I'd go,
"I think it's funny. I think it'll work..."
And I'd say, "When are you doing it?"
He'd say, "In five weeks."
And it's that thing that
every time you have to win.
This is my Flydini.
[applause, laughter]
I was always impressed as a kid,
there was a standard magic act
where a magician would come out
with a top hat
and then produce a million things,
and I thought,
"What if I did it from my fly?"
[piano playing gentle melody]
[laughter]
[laughter intensifies]
[applause]
[Steve] I had done it for charities,
and it was Johnny's last week
and he asked me, "Would you do Flydini,"
and I knew I had made it...
[chuckling] ...in Johnny's mind.
[piano playing gentle melody]
[scattered wolf whistles]
[laughter, applause]
The, uh... Three Amigos.
I don't want to try it on though.
[groaning] We'll do it this way.
[grunts]
This is like out of Father of the Bride.
[Morgan laughing]
- There.
- [Morgan] Not bad.
It's not supposed to button.
[both laughing]
Okay.
The humiliation is complete.
[sound of p*stol c*ck]
[mariachi-style guitar music playing]
[Steve] Three Amigos
taught me a lot of things.
For example, I like working with partners.
- [Martin] Why are we here?
- [Steve] We're gonna look at this miracle.
[Martin] Oh, I see.
Now, this is the Paradise Café.
- Used to be the Paradise Café.
- Uh-huh.
I came here every day in the '80s.
And I found this mural very charming.
Just looks like so much fun.
- This inspired you!
- It did inspire me.
It's such a great image.
It makes you feel happy.
Anyway, and so I would come here and watch
and I just thought, "Three Amigos."
And when did my name
come into the mix?
- Never. [laughs]
- Ah.
[Martin] I remember going
to Lorne's apartment.
[Steve laughing]
He talked to me
about Three Amigos.
And then the next day,
I flew back to LA
and went to his house
and picked up a script.
And I was just stunned
at the works of art.
There was a Hopper.
There was, you know, Picasso.
So, I said to Steve,
"How did you get this rich?
Because I've seen your work."
- And you really laughed.
- Mm-hm.
It was an equal back and forth.
No. Well, not really equal.
[Martin] You know, it was my first movie.
We were just getting to know each other.
Ned, what are you doing?
[Martin] But I had to play someone
who was their close friend
and an equal on every level.
So I had to do an impersonation
of myself really relaxed.
- I'm Lucky Day.
- I'm Ned Nederlander.
And I'm Dusty Bottoms,
and together, we're...
The Three Amigos!
[all grunt]
[Steve] So, what have you learned?
- I have learned...
- Yeah?
That you were in... very influenced
- by a broken down painting.
- Yeah.
I've learned that you had
a lot of time on your hands.
- [dog barking]
- [Steve laughs]
- Hello.
- Hey, buddy.
- Why do you like me so much?
- [woman laughs]
Aw, you're cute. I worked with one once.
Oh. You guys have a good day.
- Thank you.
- Bye-bye.
- Bye, buddy.
- [woman] Come on, boy.
[Steve] Okay, that's our exit shot,
all right.
[acoustic guitar music playing]
[cat growling]
If you really, really knew
how to be funny,
- you wouldn't need so many jokes.
- That's what I said.
I said, "What's a comedy genius?"
Is that a person who goes out
and never misses?
There's no such thing.
- Right.
- There's no comedy genius.
No.
I saw Chris Rock the other night, he said,
"Are you still writing every day?"
I go, "Yeah, every day."
- You are still writing every day?
- Every day.
- I write cartoons.
- Really?
Yeah. That's what I've been doing.
Do you do the drawings?
No, no, no.
I have a fantastic guy, Harry Bliss.
- Harry Bliss, really?
- Yeah.
- He's great.
- He is great.
I'm doing a memoir
of the movies but in all comic strip...
- Wow.
- ...form.
And we're doing some cartoons in there.
[Harry Bliss] I can't draw young Steve
so much anymore,
but the side view of Steve
kind of comes down.
{\an8}I have to mess with his chin sometimes
because he's got a very specific...
His ear is not huge,
doesn't have huge ears, so I have to...
And the jaw line, too, is tricky
because it kind of comes around.
He's got a decent Adam's apple there.
He's a good dresser, so I always give him,
like a suit or something like that.
[acoustic guitar music playing]
I am one of the few actors
to play a sadistic dentist twice.
Do you have Bill Murray and me
in the dentist chair?
[yelling happily]
- [drill whining]
- [Murray moaning]
[Steve] There's a lot of people say,
"Steve Martin made me afraid
to go to the dentist."
[Steve] My stand-up career
has a real story.
Beginning, middle and end.
But movies, it's just anecdotes.
So, I started thinking,
"What's wrong with anecdotes
in cartoon form?"
It's perfect.
The anecdote becomes worth a page,
but it's not worth a chapter.
[laughs] You know?
And that's the way I think of my career.
I have this thing I say about this book.
It says, "Come for the jokes,
stay for the drawing."
[laughs] I just think it has to
stick with the theme
- that it's a memory of the movies.
- You're right.
{\an8}Okay, this is All of Me.
Oh, jeez. I can't move my right leg.
I'm paralyzed.
[Lily Tomlin, as Edwina] Here, let me try.
[yelling]
And that's an important movie
in my oeuvre.
I think there are
at least five anecdotes...
- [Futter] That we have to put back.
- ...that should be in the book,
that I've done nothing with.
Don't take the cork off the fork.
Why is the cork on the fork?
To prevent him hurting himself,
and others.
[groans]
This is all good.
See, you look like Tommy Lee Jones here.
I look like I'm grinning at Michael Caine.
I think I can fix that.
- Oh, Parenthood, I think is relevant.
- Definitely.
- Oh... f*ck. I forgot that.
- You forgot that one, yeah.
[Bliss] It's hilarious,
because I'll wake up,
and I will get an e-mail
from him at 4:00 a.m.
that'll have a cartoon idea,
and I'll think,
"Oh, that works perfect."
And by the way,
I think we need some more strips.
We need, like, two or three more.
If I have the time.
- I'll get you time.
- It's the time, that's all I need.
- What is it? What is the time?
- We'll make it work.
Well, we're midway through September.
I can knock out another strip.
You just knock out another strip.
[laughter]
[Steve] Okay, I'm looking at Roxanne.
I think there's more on Roxanne,
isn't there?
- [Bliss] There is.
- The writing of it?
- [Futter] Yeah.
- [Bliss] Yes, yes, yes.
[Steve] You know, I'd co-written The Jerk.
Co-written Man With Two Brains
and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.
But co-writing is different,
it's pitching.
{\an8}And so, when I got to Roxanne,
I thought...
{\an8}"Gee, I wonder if I could do that?"
But what's the point of me
doing another Cyrano de Bergerac?
It's already really good.
[British accent] "Ah, hello, darling.
Haven't seen you in a while."
I realized what I was responding to
was the longing.
I was just wondering if
what I wrote to you touched you?
It did.
I am in orbit around you.
I'm suspended weightless over you.
Like, like the blue man in the Chagall.
Just hovering,
hanging over you in a delirious kiss.
[Morgan] Longing is actually a theme I see
in a lot of your writing.
[Steve] Um, I don't know how
to describe it.
It's kind of always been
a part of my life.
Even with The Jerk,
or Pennies From Heaven.
But I wanna live in a world
where the songs come true.
There must be some place
where them songs are for real.
I mean, even Bowfinger has longing.
It's a guy trying to make it in the world.
His ultimate satisfaction at the end
is he gets a FedEx package.
[Fey] There's a melancholy.
It's a bittersweet chocolate bar.
It's, um... [laughs]
It's Hershey's Special Dark,
it's not milk.
There is a longing at the center of...
...pretty much everybody he shows us.
And the only person who can fix it
is Martin Short. [laughs]
[Steve] I'm gonna take you on a little,
beautiful, mini-tour of Santa Barbara.
- This is the old Magic Cabaret.
- Wow.
- You know what the Magic Castle is?
- Yeah.
Well, this was a version of it
by the original creators.
And I used to love to go there,
and then COVID closed it.
- [Martin] Hmm. It's a good story.
- Yeah. [laughs]
- It needs a middle and an end.
- Yeah.
And then I would have a really good story.
[both laughing]
[Martin] You've really mapped out a day.
We're gonna pick up your laundry.
- [Steve] No, drop it off.
- Drop it off.
[Steve] Which is just...
[Martin] Red light, red light.
[Steve] I can turn right on a red light.
It's California.
[Martin] Don't you have a score
of servants to take your laundry over?
- No.
- So you're really of the people?
- Yes.
- Wow.
[Steve] Actually,
I'm just doing this for camera.
- It's the first time in 27 years.
- [Martin laughing]
- [woman] Here you go. Thank you.
- Thank you. Bye-bye.
[door chiming]
You consider yourself a good driver?
- Yes.
- A safe one?
[Steve] You know, as you get older,
you either become your worst self
or your best self.
- That is absolutely true.
- Is that a parking space?
And I've become a better driver.
I've become nicer. Kinder.
More open.
[Martin] Yeah, because
for about 50 years there,
- you were a real prick.
- I know, yeah. [laughing]
[water splashing]
[Steve] I got Roger about,
almost five years ago,
and I was dating a woman who had a Lab.
You wanna get it? Sit.
And then the girl and I broke up,
and I ended up with Roger.
Go get the toy. Go on. Yes!
Go get it! Go! Good.
Well, I wouldn't compare it
to a human relationship,
but it's certainly a beautiful
one-way relationship.
Back then, I wasn't mean with people,
I was removed.
I was always somewhere else in my head.
[Steve] "A personal letter
from Steve Martin.
- Dear..."
- [male voice] "Jerry."
"What a pleasure it was
to receive a letter from you.
Although my schedule is very busy,
I decided to take time out
to write you a personal reply.
Too often, performers lose contact
with their audience
and begin to take them for granted,
but I don't think that will ever
happen to me, will it..."
"Jerry"?
"I don't know when I'll be
appearing close to you,
but keep that extra bunk made up
in case I get to..."
"Flint."
"Sincerely, Steve Martin.
P.S. I'll always cherish that afternoon
we spent together in Rio,
walking along the beach, looking at..."
"rocks."
[laughs]
Okay, if you type in,
"Steve hasn't missed a step,
because at his age he only uses ramps."
We're on page 37 out of 117.
Look, we can do it any way you want.
Obviously, to me, it seems like
you go through the raw stuff.
You put it in the script,
and then we go through the...
Yeah, but there's so much.
Are we gonna go through another 100 pages?
"Only thing that keeps Marty
out of the Oscar In Memoriam...
...is no good films."
"There was not one person
who was surprised at Marty's success.
- There were millions."
- No.
"Thanks to good diet and exercise,
Marty outlived his career by 30 years."
That's not bad. Let me put that in blue.
[Steve] "Steve and I are a great team.
We go together like
Ben Affleck and looking sad."
[laughing] I know, I like that one.
"Steve's just a few years away
from being fed like a baby bird."
[Martin laughing]
That's funny. Put that in red, anyway.
"Steve writes, plays the banjo
and writes cartoon strips.
He's already the biggest entertainer...
That makes him
the biggest entertainer of 1945."
Um...
I never thought that was that strong.
- Really?
- Does it get a laugh?
Yeah.
- Well, then it's strong.
- [Steve laughs]
These are terrible. I mean, but great.
"He has the sex appeal of a hot dog burp
trapped in a face mask."
[both laughing deeply]
"A hot dog burp."
[Steve] Tell you what I did last night.
I drove down Sunset Boulevard.
- [Dailey] Mm-hm.
- To get to Silver Lake.
And I realized
I was traveling through my entire life.
Hollywood Boulevard,
where I went when I was 16.
{\an8}Movie theaters that I went to,
the magic shops.
There's me, oh, my gosh.
I went through my movie life,
I went through locations for The Jerk.
There's where we shot The Jerk, there,
that house.
[Steve, as Navin] Well, Mom, remember
my dream of owning a big house on a hill?
Well, I got that too.
[Steve] But the whole drive
was so nostalgic.
But that's the thing about LA
that's so interesting.
I mean, it reflects your personal history,
but just taking a drive,
almost anywhere through LA,
it's like an archaeological dig here,
and even though it's not very old.
Yeah, I always kinda made fun of it,
because nothing matched.
- Right.
- You know?
That's what we love about LA.
- It's just so sweet.
- [both laugh]
Architecture.
{\an8}Some of these buildings
are over 20 years old.
This house over here is Greek Revival.
And they have to revive the Greek
every morning who lives in it.
And here's a Tudor mansion, and...
...a four-door mansion.
You know, you're really nobody in LA
unless you live in a house
with a really big door.
[woman laughs]
Three, two, one...
Action, dolly.
Sheila has been studying
the art of conversation.
You're taking a course
in conversation?
Yes.
[Morgan] So, how did LA Story come out of
what you were thinking about at the time?
[Steve] Well, I think of it
as artistic thread.
I combined my experience
with art and life.
[Steve] Martin Mull told me once, he said,
"People think artists talk about
theory and ideas,"
and he said, "But really we just talk
about where to get paints."
- Yeah.
- [all laughing]
I mean, each character has his own story.
I mean, puppy is a bit too much,
but you have to overlook things like that
in these kind of paintings.
[Steve] And then I, you know,
threw everything at that.
My experience with love and romance.
And it just all came together
in the movie.
Ordinarily, I don't like to be around
interesting people
because it means
I have to be interesting too.
You saying I'm interesting?
All I'm saying is that
when I'm around you,
I find myself showing off.
Which is the idiot's version
of being interesting.
[David Letterman] You're recently married.
Can you tell us where you went?
{\an8}Oh, well, we were in Rome.
And, together, that made it so wonderful.
[audience laughing]
[Steve] LA Story was almost a vehicle
for whimsy.
I found it very romantic,
the idea of the city lights
communicating to help
the lovers get together.
But that was where my head was.
[slow electric guitar melody playing]
I met my wife, you know,
she just brought something into my life.
And when you meet someone right,
everything seems calm.
And that's essentially
what the story is about.
I read an article in The Times
on induction and my brothers found out
that you can generate electrical currents
in rabbits if you...
[interviewer] Are you saying romance
can change your life?
You know, this is a hugely important part
of your life.
I think I'm saying that this
may not be the way things are.
But isn't it nice for an hour and a half
to imagine that they were this way?
I think I should go.
[music becomes dissonant]
Do you two have any plans
for the future for starting a family?
[Donahue] Yeah, that's what
I want to know, too.
[audience laughter]
- Oh, I have to answer!
- [laughter]
The way it works is they ask a question
and then you answer.
This is going to look great
on the transcript of our program.
"A shrug."
[Steve] When I married Victoria Tennant,
I liked her a lot.
She was really funny,
very amusing and very smart,
you know, and English.
It was a relationship that just
kind of defaulted into a romance.
- We're best friends.
- Best friends?
- Since when is Roland your best friend?
- He and I are very close.
And also a part of it was,
"I guess I should get married."
Which is not a good reason.
There's just no way to force it.
I do.
Going away and living in a hotel
for three months,
it's just almost like a bachelor life.
You can't really conduct a marriage
in a hotel room.
I always felt like
with romantic relationships,
something was just about to go wrong.
[chuckling] You know?
Where do I find that?
"Anecdotes."
This is a story I was writing about...
what it's like making movies.
"A wonderful script called
Leap of Faith landed on my desk.
I was excited.
My character was a revivalist preacher
and heartless con man.
My mind held visions of Burt Lancaster's
award-winning performance as Elmer Gantry.
I prepared with great diligence,
I learned Irish stepdancing
so my character
could dance across the stage
filled with the spirit.
I dyed my grey hair brown
so I would not be Steve Martin.
I leapt across the screen spouting
page after page of fiery sermons
and great actors populated the movie.
I started to see visions
of awards and honors.
But instead, the movie opened,
the first line of the first review said,
'Watch out when Steve Martin goes
for the hair dye.'"
{\an8}[Letterman] You've become, like,
you're a big deal movie star now,
{\an8}from the days when you did stand-up.
You've made one really nice picture
after another and you have a new one.
You've made another movie now.
Uh, yeah.
[audience laughing]
- What do you mean, "Yeah"?
- Well, here's what it is. You know, I...
It's not the making of the movies
that I enjoy,
it's actually the promotion that I enjoy.
- You know, coming on the show.
- Yeah.
And showing a clip.
If we could just make the clips,
you know, that would be...
that would be a great job.
So what you're saying is,
you're not so much interested
in the actual work of making the film,
- it's promoting it that you really enjoy.
- I only do it
so I can do interviews
and morning talk shows.
[Steve] So, these are my actual scripts.
When I started making movies,
I thought, "Okay.
I have to make 40 movies
in order to get five good ones."
That's the way I thought because a movie
is such a circus with so much input.
I mean, you just can't know ahead of time.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
I never did introduce myself.
Del Griffith, American Light and Fixture,
Director of Sales,
Shower Curtain Ring Division.
[Steve] John Candy was very sensitive
and very complex,
and we really loved each other.
Uh, he had a beautiful scene...
Look, I'm not gonna read this speech,
but it's that long.
We're at a train station and he gives
the entire explanation of his life,
and I was opposite him.
I was like weeping...
...as he was performing it.
And it was all cut.
And so I don't know why it was cut
except for tempo,
and maybe you're at the end and
you don't want to hear a long speech.
It was cut down to a line or two.
I don't have a home.
Marie's been dead for eight years.
[Steve] Uh, there was I line I loved.
He says, "I sort of attach myself
to people from time to time
like with you,
especially around the holidays.
I can take it in March, July, October.
But it gets hard."
And then he said...
"This time I couldn't let go."
It got so frustrating.
I wanted to stop because,
you know, you pour your heart
into these movies.
You know, you're thinking about,
you're working hard, you're doing it.
Then two years later, it's just another
title on the video shelf, you know?
Mixed Nuts. I knew it was a flop.
We had... The tests said it was not good.
I remember driving down
Ventura Boulevard in California
{\an8}and the poster is my face
with a Santa hat on.
And I thought, "This is gonna be
a hard Christmas." [laughs]
[Gene Siskel] How bad could it be?
Mixed Nuts is how bad. Very bad.
- It's bad. It's bad.
- Wow.
- Whew, is it bad. It's really, really bad.
- I mean, I don't know...
Steve, can I just
ask you a question quickly?
- I don't really wanna talk.
- Well, it's just a question.
You must have been asked.
{\an8}- Please, one question.
- You're like... you're not commercial.
{\an8}- How come...
- What's the question?
{\an8}- The question is...
- You don't even have a question.
How come you're not funny anymore?
- Okay.
- [man] Steve!
[Steve] I felt lost at that time.
I can't go down the road with Victoria,
but when we did get divorced,
I said, "This is not her fault."
At most, both our faults,
and at least my fault.
[dry chuckle]
The marriage breakup was the beginning
of opening of a bottomless pit.
[Morgan] I was thinking maybe
you could think about a caption.
[chuckles] Well, actually, it's, uh...
...perfect the way it is.
I mean, it doesn't need a caption.
[Steve] It was a...
kind of a mid-life crisis.
[Steve, on tape]
Like a period where you're...
You keep... keep going, you know, like,
to show yourself and others that you're
not a flash in the pan, you know.
And then you show that
I'm gonna write this thing.
And then show something else.
You're just constantly
showing and showing and showing.
And I used to get great, great
satisfaction from my work
and it gave me my reason
to respect myself.
{\an8}And I realized that
unless I was continually working,
{\an8}I felt like people wouldn't like me.
And there's a kind of emptiness left,
and it's traumatic.
{\an8}[Steve] I think that was a period
when I was reading the self-help books.
{\an8}I thought you're supposed to
talk about everything.
I would meet strangers on planes
and sit with them and tell them
my deepest inner thoughts. [chuckles]
'Cause I thought that's what
you were supposed to do.
[Fischl] How to close the void.
I think that's the nature of the...
{\an8}...drive in art, is to...
It comes from that deep awareness
of the void.
[Steve] When I started thinking
in terms of the theater...
...my mind expanded.
We should glance through
a play I wrote called WASP.
[Steve] I found myself writing things
I would never, ever write in a movie.
And it's, I'd say it's
on the poignant side.
[Barry Edelstein] WASP is about
a nuclear American family
{\an8}and the deep emotional dysfunction
that's just below the surface.
And the famous exchange
that Steve writes about
when his father came to see
the premiere of The Jerk,
that's literally in WASP.
The boy has to make
an architectural model for school.
He shows it to his dad,
"What do you think?"
Well, you're no Frank Lloyd Wright.
[Edelstein] So there's this pebble
in the shoe of this family
that would appear to be perfectly lovely,
that is about the deep emotional distance
and the sort of chill
that's blowing through.
My family, we were living
in Texas and I was five
and my mother was desperate to move here.
She wanted my father to go into movies.
Then we moved to Orange County
and bought a house for 16,000 dollars.
[Morgan] So he went into real estate?
[Melinda Dobbs] That was
the booming area to be.
In those days,
he couldn't support a family
on what he could make in the theater.
I don't remember hugs.
I don't remember affection.
[Steve] I take so much joy in my kid,
I wondered what was going on
with my father that he didn't.
[Edelstein] There's these sections in WASP
where the family sits down to eat.
A silence at the dinner table.
The disinterest of the dad.
I think one of the best things
[chuckles] I wrote, is the father.
You know, his son wants
to buy a bicycle and he says,
"Well, you have to work for it.
You have to pay for it."
He said, the son,
"Well, I was kind of hoping that maybe..."
"You see, son, a bicycle is a luxury item.
You know what a luxury item is?"
"No."
[father] A luxury item is a thing you have
that annoys other people that you have it,
like our very green lawn,
that's a luxury item.
It could be less green, I suppose,
but that's not what it's about.
I work on that lawn.
Maybe more than I should.
Pour a little bit of money into it.
But it's a luxury item for me,
out there, to annoy the others.
[Steve] I remember my father
got very mad at me
because I bought a pair of shorts
that cost four dollars.
And he was through the roof.
That was a gigantic sum.
But I earned it all myself.
Uh... But...
But from then on, I didn't take
any money from my parents, after age ten.
"What I'm getting at is that you
have to work for a luxury item.
So, if you want that bicycle,
you're gonna have to work for it. Now..."
...I have a little lot downtown
that we've owned for several years,
and if you wanted to go down there
after school on weekends,
and say, put up a building on it,
I think we could get you that bicycle.
- Gosh!
- Yes, I know you're pretty excited.
It's not easy putting up a building, son,
but these are the ancient
traditions handed down
from the peoples of Gondwanaland
who lived in the plains of Golgotha,
based upon the precepts of Hammurabi,
written in Cuneiform
on the gates of Babylon...
"...deduced from the cryptograms
of the questioner of the Sphinx,
and gleaned
from the incunabula of Ratdolt.
Delivered unto me by the fleet-footed
Mercury when the reprobate..."
[Edelstein] Most people
have a pebble in their shoe,
they take their shoe off
and knock the pebble out.
But artists keep the pebble there
and make art out of it.
You know?
Until, finally,
it stops hurting your foot so much.
[father] The lyrics of What a Swell Party
appeared on my living room wall in blood,
writ there by God himself and incised
in the Holy Trowel of the Masons.
Son, we don't get to talk that much.
In fact, as far as I can remember,
we've never talked.
But I was wondering, several years ago,
and unfortunately never got around
to asking you until now,
but I was wondering...
...what you plan to do with your life?
[Steve, Dailey chuckling]
I don't know if that's any good or not.
[Dailey] That is so great.
It is just perfect.
{\an8}I don't know a lot about my father.
{\an8}But I don't think he was a good man.
And it has haunted me my whole life.
[Steve] I wrote this...
let's see, what year? '96.
So, that's way before my autobiography.
And I think, in a way, it's a rehearsal
for sections of the autobiography,
for writing about my father and home life.
Dear "Dad."
I put the "Dad" in quotes
because when I was little,
I was told not to call you Dad, but Glenn.
So, I grew up without a dad.
I grew up with a Glenn.
Yeah, this letter starts off...
very accusatory.
And it ends with understanding.
Yeah, it talks about how my work
was really trying
to get approval from him.
[Steve] My friend, Terry,
he said this at one point,
and it kind of changed my attitude
toward my parents.
And he said, "If you have anything
to say to your parents, say it now,
because one day, they'll be gone."
That's when I started methodically
going to visit them, talking to them.
I'd take them out to lunch.
You know, you realize what he...
what he went through.
You know, it's a life of hopes and dreams.
And he was under incredible stress
to support the family.
It must have been unbelievable,
the pressure.
My mother wanted to go to work.
I remember my father saying to my mother,
"No wife of mine is gonna work."
Just right out of a movie.
I have great sympathy for my father
not having the means to fulfill his dream.
[Morgan] How do you feel about him today?
I, uh... I like him.
You know, he had
a really good sense of humor.
[chuckling] I had no idea.
And... yeah, I kind of wish
I could talk to him again, you know?
[Steve] Best compliment I ever got,
is I wrote this story
about my father in The New Yorker.
{\an8}And I got a letter from a woman
and she said, um,
{\an8}"You know, I read the article and
I gave it to my husband, and he read it.
And then he said..."
[breath shaking]
[whispers] Sorry.
[Charlie Rose] Take your time.
Have some water.
I hate that I'm on television.
- [emotional laugh]
- [audience laughing]
No, "He said,
'What's our son's phone number?'"
[Rose] Wow.
- Aren't we kind of winding down?
- No, we are, we're going right now.
[audience laughing]
If we go on, I'm gonna k*ll myself.
[Rose laughing]
[Steve] Should I tell you my dream?
I dreamed a woman took me to an open
grassy field to show me my own grave.
And the grave was open and there was
a skeleton laying there, my skeleton.
And the skeleton had
a big smile on its face.
And I turned to the woman and I said,
"Does this mean
it's possible to die happy?"
And she said, "Yes, it is."
And I said, "What do I need
in order to die happy?"
And she said, "Adventure."
{\an8}And then I said, "You mean, like,
seeing waterfalls and touring the world?"
{\an8}And she said, "No, people."
[Steve] So let's practice this
'cause we gotta play this in a week.
[playing intricate,
up-tempo tune on banjo]
[playing continues]
When I started playing the banjo again,
after the divorce,
I thought, "Oh, there's
gonna be, you know, criticism."
There just is, you know?
COVID out of practice.
"Comedian becomes a musician,"
you can't think of anything worse.
[chuckles]
[groans]
- [Morgan] Sounds good to me.
- It's been a year and a half.
I know, but there's
little fluffs in there.
I don't want Béla Fleck to hear this.
[Steve] And there wasn't.
{\an8}[two banjos playing bluegrass]
[Gopnik] If there's a thread
running through
all of the things that Steve values,
it's the thread of the difficulty
of accomplishment.
The kind of personality that just
takes delight in mastering something,
going deep into its mechanics until you
really understand how the thing works
and then discarding it, very often,
because you've mastered it.
[Martin] You know, when I hear you
play the banjo...
...I now regret that I didn't keep up
with my first love
- of a musical instrument...
- What was that?
...because we could have really teamed.
- What was it?
- The jug.
[both laughing]
[engine revving]
[woman] Bachelor number two.
Complete this sentence.
"This may sound a little weird, but..."
[chuckles] "I'm naked right now."
- That's... [laughing]
- [laughter, applause]
{\an8}We used to always vacation
in St. Barts with him.
And it was just like me
and Eric and Steve going down there.
Single Steve didn't
want to be single Steve.
I mean, that's for sure.
You know, he'd meet some woman,
and if she was reading a book,
he'd think, "Maybe we should go out."
Hi. [chuckles, sighs]
I was just noticing that book
you're reading, Mayor of Casterbridge.
That's really a coincidence,
because I did my final term paper
on Thomas Hardy my senior...
How long have you been a lonely guy?
[slurping]
I wanna meet someone I can talk to,
just get to know.
Cheers.
I can't help but be nervous out here.
Why? You're not doing anything wrong.
Do you like walks in the park?
- In the rain!
- Oh, God!
You know what, I want you
to see The Music Man.
- Because...
- I've seen that, I love The Music Man!
[Steve] I remember one date
I had with a woman.
[both chattering faintly]
And we went to dinner and she sat
next to Steven Spielberg.
And they seemed to hit it off well.
And this woman liked to always,
to kind of, be in an argument.
[continuing, indistinct]
Which is not my personality.
[man yells]
[Steve] And so we're driving home,
she said,
"Why can't you be
more like Steven Spielberg?"
Smile, you son of a...
[Steve chuckling]
I just thought,
"Okay, so that's the end of that."
[Steve chuckling]
[man laughing triumphantly]
- [Steve] That's a... that's a good thing.
- Everyone underbid.
I'm just gonna...
Things will happen.
[Anne groans]
[Steve tapping cards]
Hmm. [groans]
- [sharp grunt]
- Ah. Oh.
[chuckles]
[Steve] I play mad.
[Anne] Just getting mean over there.
I got... I never would have
said three in my life.
[Martin] Two.
- [Steve] One under?
- One under.
With the exception of Anne,
this is truly...
...elderly people playing cards.
[cranky voice]
Can't take your time, come on.
Yeah, but who's doing
all the elderly talking?
I'm like a... a young, kind of...
improvisational whip.
And you're the one who,
[cranky voice] "That's not
the way you count! You go..."
-"You go one..."
- It's The Odd Couple.
- I know.
- Yeah.
I'll tell you one thing I've learned...
from this.
I do not want to be
a documentary filmmaker.
- [chuckles]
- The idea of having to sit here
and find one tiny something
that's worthwhile in the middle...
[Morgan] So, how did you meet Anne?
[Steve] It's so funny because
at first you're filling in the blanks,
- 'cause I only met her on the...
- Telephone. Yeah.
I was... I was working as a fact checker
at The New Yorker.
The first thing I checked
by him was a story
where somebody gets a parking ticket
that spirals completely out of control.
You know, I called him up and I said,
"Okay, I know that this is comedy.
I know it's not meant to be realistic,
but if you want
to make it completely accurate,
here's what we could do." And he said,
"Absolutely. Let's make it
completely accurate and also ridiculous."
And then I, kind of,
became his regular person.
He wrote something about his family,
which was, you know, really personal.
I talked to his sister, Melinda.
I talked to all these people about this,
and we got to be very friendly
on the telephone.
[Steve] I remember telling my shrink
that there's this woman
that sticks in my head.
[Gornik] We were in St. Barts
and he spent that whole vacation going,
"Anne Stringfield, Anne Stringfield.
Don't you just love that name?"
[Anne] A few months after that,
he invited me
to a group lunch he was having.
We both arrived early,
and I'd brought the New York Times
crossword puzzle with me,
thinking I'll be the first person there
and I'll sit and do my puzzle.
He was already there doing
the New York Times crossword puzzle.
[chuckles]
There's probably a short list
of people who think,
"Magic tricks, banjo.
That's the guy for me."
But I'm... [laughing]
I'm on that list.
He's got one that's a two-card trick.
[Steve] The backs and the fronts,
two cards.
[Anne] I think it's one of the most
beautiful things I've ever seen,
and I still don't completely
understand how it's done.
[Steve] What I'm gonna do
is take this card...
...fold it in half like this
so the face is on the outside.
And I'll take this card...
...and fold it in half...
...so the face is on the outside.
Slide that in like that.
Little clumsy, I haven't done it in years.
Now we have the back on the outside
and the face on the inside.
Now, here's the amazing part.
If you take the card
and you push it through...
...you see the card turns over.
There's the back on the inside,
and it's the whole card.
Entire card, I should say. Turn this over.
Do it again. Push through.
Card turns over.
And again, the entire card.
The amazing part of this...
The only part that turns over
is the part that has passed through.
So...
Here's the part that has passed through,
and here's the part that hasn't.
[Morgan chuckles]
[Steve] You know, you can...
There you go.
Somebody taught me that in Florida.
I was at a club.
He showed me that and I was boggled.
And he said,
"I'll show you how to do it."
And then he showed me how to do it,
and I still didn't understand
how it was done.
[faint car horns honking]
[Letterman] Later this month in New York,
there's a show of Steve's at the Met.
These are Ming...
No, I'm sorry, Chinese ceramics.
Chinese ceramics.
Ming is a part of that.
Yeah. And, is it safe or fair
to ask you what these things...
the price of them?
Well, I usually don't like to talk
about the value of things
because people start looking at something
and they're only looking
at what it's worth, you know?
Like a great painting, it's worth
four million dollars or something.
So, I just like to...
I just say they start around 300,000
- and go to a million, or even two.
- [audience laughter]
Two million dollars? That's unbelievable.
Yeah. Yeah they're going by...
For example, this piece back...
Oh, Christ.
[laughter, applause]
[Anne] He's got a great eye.
Do you know about the thing at the...
...maybe Mark Twain Prize?
It was something in Washington, DC.
And we were all at...
You know, there was a dinner... at the...
See this is why I'm not the person
to tell you this story,
but somebody else will tell you this story
and it will be better.
So, there's a dinner
at the National Gallery, all right?
{\an8}The evening before, he's awarded
the Kennedy Honors and about 200 people,
there's a big dinner,
and the paintings are all around the wall.
And a lady stands up and says,
"Thing about Steve, you'll never notice,
I bet you he could name
every single painter on the wall here."
And Steve stood up.
And he started to go around the wall.
"Hopkins, Watkinson, Wilkins, July."
And he went round and he named
every single painter on the wall,
all the way round the National...
the gallery.
It was an extraordinary feat.
[Morgan] What place in your life
does art occupy today?
It's definitely, I'd say, third.
Wife and family, and there's performance.
Writing, our thing.
You know, artistic life.
And this is a good...
...hobby that is very diverting, you know?
[Morgan] Where was it before?
First.
[crowd murmuring]
{\an8}[woman] You like to sit down and look
at these and now you're sharing them.
{\an8}What about that? Talk to us about that.
[Steve] You know, it's very personal,
it's very private and, uh...
except maybe... up till now.
What changed is I met my wife.
My private self was able
to go somewhere else.
This art thing could then be free
to not be my salvation.
[Jiminy Glick]
You are absolutely wonderful.
You do all this art,
and that's just to impress people,
to show people
- that you're not just a comic?
- Yes, that's right.
I've always wanted to ask you that.
People said ask him that
and I think,
"Why? We all know the answer."
Who's de Kooning?
De Kooning is
an important American...
Did you see the movie, Pollock?
Did you see the movie,
The Agony and the Ecstasy,
about Michelangelo?
I saw Madame X with Lana Turner.
And in the background,
there was a wonderful abstract painting
that everyone pretended to care about.
And I think that that was a de Kooning.
[Steve] "I lost interest in movies
at exactly the same time
the movies lost interest in me.
After four decades,
I had finally exhausted my movie intrigue,
that deep belief that
justified the investment of time,
that buffered
the periodic stinging reviews,
that protected me against the judgment
of the box office.
And eventually you run out of gas.
Goodbye, movies, we had a great time."
I love that one. I love that last line.
It could just be written
with little marginalia.
- Gotta have it.
- Waving goodbye.
Gotta have it in there.
We still haven't landed on a title.
- I thought we had.
- Have we landed a hundred percent?
"Memories of the Movies
and Other Diversions."
What happened
to "Number One is Walking" or...
- That was an option.
- Yeah.
Number One is Walking.
I still like the idea of you in the...
the rubbery pose.
[Bliss] Yeah, I do too and, uh...
It's a book about your movie career.
That's what people think, you know,
it's gonna be a big identifying...
Now I'm learning what people think of me.
[laughter]
[Bliss] Exactly.
- That's exactly right. Yeah.
- You know...
[Futter] It is. Take a picture.
[Bliss] That's it. That's literally...
- Can he take a picture?
- All right.
[Futter laughing]
[Bliss chuckles]
[Steve] Usually, you get married,
you have a child, you work,
and then your child is grown,
and then you're 60 or 70
and the children are out of the house.
My life is completely backwards.
I worked very hard early on
and then I have a happy marriage
and a fantastic child at this end.
And, um... I love it.
Those are the done ones.
I'm signing...
...six thousand of these.
- [Morgan] No, really?
- Yeah.
But I set up an iPad
and I just do this
and sometimes I... during lunch.
[Morgan] You don't outsource it?
No, that would be... that would be wrong.
[Morgan] So, we counted it up
and you had 27 kids in movies.
[Steve laughs wryly]
[Steve] Did I talk about this before?
About how movie fatherhood
paved the way for actual fatherhood?
You're a kid like I was.
You have a lot of worries, that's all.
I started doing movies with children.
And I liked them, but I thought,
"Well, this is actually perfect.
I get them at their best."
- [children yelling]
- [Steve] Three hours a day,
and then the parents have to go home
and deal with everything else,
which I knew was trouble.
[boy, crying] I'm okay, Daddy!
No, get up there now, you're not going
out our gate. You're grounded.
[Steve] And then Diane Keaton
had children.
And I remember sitting there,
her daughter was playing in the yard,
and I thought, "I could see a kid
out there playing in the backyard."
It was really a joy
and he seemed interested,
and very warm
about Duke, the little nutcase.
[laughing] He was so great.
For me, it was just kind of like,
wow, he was just kind.
[man] You can imagine yourself
as a father.
Yeah. Mm-hm.
[man laughs]
- [girl laughing]
- You think that's hilarious?
Well, you're naughty, naughty, naughty!
When I first started realizing that he was
somebody I might want be with,
I thought, "Well, you know,
he hasn't had a kid at this point."
Um...
If I wanted to be with him,
that probably would not be in the cards.
It was something that I had had
in the back of my mind thinking,
either I will have to
let this relationship go
or I will have to let this idea go.
[sighs]
[Dobbs] I don't think he ever thought
he was gonna have a child either.
It never occurred to him.
Probably because his childhood
wasn't something that was so ideal
he'd want to pass on. Um...
He didn't see any need
to have to have one.
- George?
- Nina?
Honey, I need to know how
you feel about all this.
- [man] They don't have hot dogs!
- [boy crying]
God. Don't...! Son!
[boy shrieking]
No! No! No!
I feel super about it.
I'm totally up for it.
You are?
Definitely.
[Dailey] He called me, he said,
"Are you sitting down?"
I go, "Yeah."
He says, "Okay, good.
I have some big news."
"What?"
You're gonna have a baby.
"Anne is pregnant."
I said, "Who's the father?"
Things like this do not happen
to men my age.
Come on, Picasso had children
well into his 70s.
Well, you know, Picasso. I mean, Picasso.
I mean, he's the one guy in history
who had kids into his 70s.
But you know, he's an artist,
he can do anything he wants.
I'm just... You know,
I'm just a... a regular Joe.
[faint siren wailing]
[Michaels] I think I've
saved the voicemail
that he called from the hospital.
For him to be that emotional
and that comfortable with being emotional,
that's just as good as it can possibly be.
- [man] Push. Here comes the baby.
- [woman] There you go.
- [woman straining]
- Good. Here it is.
It's a girl! Good.
- Congratulations, Mom.
- [crying]
[Steve] I mean, the first time I saw
true love in my life
was after the baby was born.
It's a girl.
I love girls.
I looked over at Anne
and she's holding the baby
and she's looking into her face,
and there was no one else on the planet.
[baby crying twice]
[applause]
{\an8}I am so proud
to be here in Washington, DC
{\an8}which I have just recently learned
is the nation's capital.
[laughter]
And to receive this coveted
Mark Twain Award,
which is the only significant
American award for comedy,
except for money.
[laughter]
That was interesting to me
because Steve is different.
His course is entirely different.
He certainly walked away from stand-up.
But not really.
{\an8}You know, it is said that the art and
craft of filmmaking is collaborative
{\an8}so to be singled out
and rewarded tonight means...
that that is not true.
[laughter]
[Idle] He loves doing it.
He's just so funny.
He's still hilarious.
Huh.
b*stard.
And I...
[applause]
{\an8}...accept this award humbly.
{\an8}And the only thing that could have
possibly made it better
was if there had been other nominees...
[laughter swelling]
...so I could have the feeling
that I beat someone.
Thank you very much.
- [Steve] Hello. How do you do?
- Hi, Steve. I'm Brandy O'Toole.
- Nice to meet you.
- [Steve] How do you do? Nice to meet you.
[O'Toole] I'm just gonna give you
a little rundown
- of what we're doing today.
- [Steve] Okay.
[O'Toole] Obviously, we'll start with
the Emmy interview, which is ten minutes.
- [Steve] Right.
- [O'Toole] Follow me in here.
[O'Toole] So, we'll have that,
the Emmy elevator set.
We'll be there for a bit, and we'll do
group shots and just singles.
- Okay.
- We'll do a changeover from there.
- Okay.
- [O'Toole] It'll all move very quickly.
Everything is...
[Seinfeld] Is there a point that you don't
want to be on a camera anymore?
I'm watching out for that,
but I'm in a television show right now.
- I know.
- Where I get to play somebody else.
[Steve] Okay, now what? Wardrobe?
- [Selena Gomez] Hi, Steve.
- Oh, hi, Selena.
You know what,
I think I would look good in that.
- I think we have to change out...
- You could look cool in this.
Yeah, yeah. Are you...
Hi. What's your name?
Yes. Amber.
[Steve] I wasn't even gonna act in it,
and then they said, "Would you act in it?"
I said, "Well, I would
if it could be done in New York,
I can't leave my child.
I can't go do the regular sh**ting
in Atlanta for three months."
But I thought, "Well, as the writer
I'm gonna be there everyday anyway."
- Marty.
- Yeah?
The documentary just needs a two-hour
interview with you and a number.
♪ Why did I do it?
I had a dream ♪
I think we're gonna not do that.
But thank you.
[chuckling]
[laughter]
- [woman] Cute.
- [Steve cackling]
[woman] We love the laughs.
Yes. So good.
[woman] Oh, young man?
[Selena laughing]
It's almost impossible. I'm 76.
- [Seinfeld] Yeah.
- And you got a hit television show.
- Yeah.
- There's not... That doesn't happen.
- No, it does. It does.
- Yeah.
- It does happen?
- Sure.
Who's 76 and has a hit television show?
Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.
Now that's true. Absolutely.
- I think I made that point.
- I think you did.
- I think you won and I'd just like to...
- I really won that one.
- ...say it's been great.
- I loved that.
[both laughing]
He's encouraging me
to have a child, this is '96.
So, that's, uh... many years away.
[father] If in your 60s you have
a three-year-old daughter,
you will not be involved in a divorce.
Your relationships have all been
too constant and responsible
to point in that direction.
If you think Roger
is important in your life,
just wait until you have a child.
You not only learn from your own mistakes.
I know you will have
learned much from mine
because you are a great student
of human nature.
Hi, it's Daddy.
{\an8}- It's March 18th, 2020.
- It's Stevie!
{\an8}- And we are here in Santa Barbara...
- Stevie saying hello to ya!
I just realized,
I've never told you I loved you, right?
I never did? I can't believe that.
Anyway, I do, and you...
I love you and Mama,
I just want to let you know.
I have no idea if I'm a good dad or bad.
I don't think I'm a bad dad.
I don't know what a good dad is.
But, uh... I'm a kind dad.
You know, he does magic tricks
for her birthday party.
But... it seems to go, uh... unobserved.
You know, I remember my rule.
Never perform for children under eight.
- [Morgan, laughing] Exactly.
- Yeah.
[Anne] He's teaching her
how to play banjo.
If she's upset about something,
he can fix that.
He can just...
He can fix it by making her laugh.
It's kind of amazing.
[stern voice] When I get back,
things are gonna start changin'.
Oh, absolutely, no more fun,
no more games,
only hard, hard work.
He lets her style his hair a lot,
and then he'll say,
"I look good, right?
Because I want to look good for Mama,"
and she'll say, "You look so good."
[Dobbs] He can be the things
that he wanted from our dad.
This child will never not know love.
How do you feel about your daughter
being in the film?
I hate it.
There's too much joy in the family life
to compromise it in any way.
I think people understand you don't
want to show your kids on camera.
But I realize it's a part of the story,
so let's just use a stick figure
to represent... a child.
{\an8}[usher] Okay, have your tickets ready,
right here.
[Steve] The show is still
an hour fifty-five.
And I feel the ideal length is,
like, an hour forty-eight.
Well, I mean, I guess you could
cut back on the banjo.
[both laughing]
[Steve] But I have a partner, now.
That makes everything so much easier.
And, you know, if we try something new
and it just is zero...
Yeah.
I have a partner that I can look
at and we go... "Huh."
What if Marty dies?
Why am I laughing?
What will you do then?
Uh, I would probably stop. I'm serious.
- Really?
- Yeah. Yeah.
What am I gonna do? It's like...
I don't know, I don't see my career as...
"I'm back!"
- [Seinfeld laughs]
- I don't know.
It's so amazing, really.
You were a single stand-up,
and then found that you
liked working as a team.
One, two, three, can you hear me, Steve?
- Yeah.
- [Martin laughs]
- You don't have to have an attitude...
- You're right there.
You'd said you couldn't
hear me last night.
You guys should get out of the sun.
[piano chord]
[sitting man] It's actually not that hot.
[Martin] ♪ We're so glad... ♪
This is why I don't wear this.
[Martin] Huh, huh, huh!
The only Canadian dumb enough
to turn down Schitt's Creek...
"to say no to Schitt's Creek"? to...
- [Martin] "Turn down"?
- Yeah, well, that's what I said.
♪ I'll check the car is in your garage ♪
♪ And I would like an a*s massage ♪
- Is that better?
- [Martin] No.
- [woman] Five minutes to go.
- No. Check the car... What else is it?
You know what, rather than get to...
You just put your arm around me and I'll...
Yeah, that's fine, yeah, I like that.
♪ We would like an indoor cinema ♪
♪ And he needs coffee for his enema ♪
- Whoo!
- [Martin cracks up]
[Steve] Then we're
making it longer, though.
- I know.
- So, we've done nothing.
Should I just say, "f*ck your cat,"
and move on? [laughs]
♪ In our sexy... ♪
- ♪ Underpants ♪
- ♪ Underwear ♪
- What is it called? What is it?
- Pants. Underpants.
[Martin] Underpants.
How does it work?
So, they film a lot on you, right?
- Right.
- And then they cut out the parts
where you're being dull
and kind of self-absorbed.
What are... What are you going for?
Well, I'm just saying,
this is gonna be a very brief...
- Yeah.
- It's gonna be, like, 12 minutes.
No. It comes out best after I die.
That's what they're hoping for.
I think you're gonna live...
for a long, long, long, long time.
I don't think the last couple of years
will be pretty.
I think that there will be
a lot of staring off...
- Yeah.
- ...and I'll be brushing your hair.
Your hair will have grown very long.
And you'll be going,
"Oh, what's this plug?"
[laughing]
[Steve] I don't get nervous,
I get kind of antsy.
[door opens]
Once Marty and I were riding...
driving to a...
you know, an award show
or something together.
And I said, "I could stop."
And he said, "Why?"
"I just don't want
to feel nervous anymore."
[chuckling] You know?
[Steve] And it's not that...
it's not that we're nervous, it's excited.
You know?
But there is a... adrenaline factor.
Gee, this is awfully intimate.
All right. [clears throat]
[faint banjo playing]
[crowd murmuring]
[emcee] Ladies and gentlemen,
without further ado,
put your hands together for Steve Martin.
[audience cheering]
[Steve] Yeah! Thank you.
[cheering intensifies]
And now, ladies and gentlemen,
I am proud to introduce a man I think of
as one of the great overactors
of all time.
[laughter]
One of the hardest working men
in show business
because it just doesn't
come natural to him.
A man who has appeared
in countless of two hit movies.
- [clears throat]
- [laughter]
And the only Canadian dumb enough
to turn down Schitt's Creek.
Here he is, Martin Short.
[audience cheering]
- Oh, my God. It's so...
- Oh, I love this, I'm the best!
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen!
Marty and I call this show,
"If we'd saved, we wouldn't be here."
- That's right.
- [laughter]
- And may I say to you, young Steven...
- Sure.
You look fantastic.
- Thank you.
- You do, you really do.
And I guess that's the benefit
of looking 70 since you were 30.
[laughter]
And it is such an honor
for me to be standing next to a man
who's a novelist, a playwright,
a musician,
a composer, and a legendary comedian.
- And let me say...
- [crowd cheering]
Let me say what an honor it is for me
to be standing next to the man
who is standing next to that man.
[laughter]
[cheering, laughter fade]
That was amazing because it was...
We had more material and it was
a shorter show than last night.
It was a shorter show than last night,
right, like, ten minutes?
Last night was shorter than tonight.
[Anne] Moments of self-congratulation
are few and far between. [laughs]
When he gets off the stage,
when he's had a stage show,
there's, you know, a whole assessment.
And he'll say, "Okay, we put
this new joke in at this moment,
- and audience was with them.
- [faint conversation]
That was the one
where they really nailed it."
First show, we kind of got it.
- [Martin] Yeah.
- Second show, we got it.
- Yeah.
- Third show, we kind of got it.
[Martin] Mm-hm.
I one hundred percent agree.
First of all, it's second night blues.
You can't be perfect every night.
Having that piece of work that you're just
trying to get right keeps you alive.
And I think the secret to not aging
is just the feeling of being useful.
[Steve] By the way,
I really enjoyed you on stage tonight.
- [Martin] Oh, thank you.
- You're welcome.
Hey, you know what I'd love to do?
Work with you some day.
[Morgan] You guys are flirting.
[Steve] I took this 30-year break
from stand-up.
And now I'm back in it,
but I'm back as a grown-up,
so it's, like, the grown-up version.
It's, like, more straightforward,
actually.
[Gopnik] All right,
I have a deep question for you.
So, I turned 65 last week,
if you can imagine, and the kids,
of course, gave me my Medicare card.
{\an8}Which I now have to have
and all of that too.
It was disconcerting because it was
as though you were living your life
on two tracks, right?
You're actual experience of the world,
which is totally unaltered,
and your knowledge of the passage of time,
which has suddenly made you,
mysteriously, older than you sort of
ever expected to be.
[Steve] So, on one hand,
it's exactly what you said,
because you're living one way,
but there is this number in your head
that has meaning,
- and it has had meaning your whole life.
- Right.
Means you're old.
But also, there's the thing where you go,
"I might only live for another...
[both laughing]
Do you feel any differently inside
than you did,
say when you were 40 or 50,
or at any other point?
At 40, I thought about death.
Neurotically.
A false sense of doom.
And now I have a real sense of doom.
But, you know, the false
and the real are...
Actually, the real sense of doom
is much more tolerable
than the false sense of doom.
So, you're...
[faint chatter nearby]
[Gopnik] Oh, hello there.
[Anne] Sorry.
Can we say a quick hi and bye?
- Hey, come here.
- [Anne] Yeah. Sorry, sorry, we're...
- Are you going somewhere?
- [Gopnik] That's fine.
- [Gopnik] Hey there. Hello there.
- [Steve] Oh, you are?
- [Gopnik] How are you?
- [Anne] Good, good.
I'm sorry that we... Sorry to interrupt.
- [Gopnik] Don't be silly, we could use it.
- Can you remind me of...
[Anne] It wasn't an unimportant goodbye.
Can you remind me
of your name again, please?
Okay. Can I see your face?
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.
[clearing throat]
Tell me what else is on your mind.
[Steve] Hmm.
[Steve] Captain Upton's House was painted,
it was 1928.
This is a painting by Edward Hopper
that I was able to buy about 30 years ago.
The first impression of it is
that it's a lonely house on a hillside,
and it represents isolated loneliness.
This house is absent of life.
But a strange thing about this...
Through the years,
I've really been able to look at it,
and my opinion about it has changed.
The more I looked at,
I thought this house is very alive.
These windows are open
and there's a breeze going through
and the curtains are blowing.
And here you get a sun porch,
and you can see right through the windows
and you can almost feel
the rattan furniture, you know, in there.
So, to me, this is a very lively painting.
Something's going on in there
and it feels joyful.
It doesn't feel troubled at all.
People are in that house.
[Gopnik] Having kids, for all of us,
I think is the biggest door
you ever walk through in life.
You know, you go from being a ship
out on the seas of the world,
to suddenly being
a harbor and a port for someone else.
You sort of know your role.
[Steve] It's just, uh... home.
[laughs]
[banjo playing plaintive tune]
[up-tempo music playing]
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