How Arsenio Hall Dreamed Up His Life
When I spoke to Arsenio Hall—whose cool, raucous late-night show, “The Arsenio Hall Show,” I watched at my mother’s hip all through its six-season run, fantasizing about joining him as a guest on its famous couch—he’d just returned to Los Angeles after a gig. About thirty years after the end of “Arsenio” ’s prime, Hall, now energetically seventy, is still a diligent stand-up comic, doing dates alongside an early show-biz buddy, Jay Leno. The guys hit a Foxwoods, get some laughs, and skip back home. Sounds like fun.
The whole groundbreaking point of “The Arsenio Hall Show” was that it marked the emergence of a younger, less white crowd in the provinces of late night. Hall’s musical guests trended hip-hop—Tupac Shakur, the Wu-Tang Clan, and LL Cool J all garnered important exposure on the show. It was a stark difference from the vibe on the set of, say, “Johnny Carson.” But, in reality, Hall was always an old-school performer whose like is, these days, quickly vanishing from the scene. Carson happened to be the great hero of his childhood. Hall was raised in large part by a single mother—who, perhaps prophesying her son’s eventual vocation in Hollywood, was named Annie Hall. His father, much older than his mom, was a preacher who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. Instead, Hall put on late-night shows in the basement of his home and became a popular child magician, earning money by doing his routine at ritzy parties and travelling to magic conventions.
In his new memoir, “Arsenio”—reviewed in this magazine by my colleague Jennifer Wilson—Hall shares a life-changing moment. At one of those conventions, an older practitioner named Hank Moorehouse pulled him to the side and shared an observation: the teen-age Hall was a great magician, but the best part of his routine was the jokes. Between tricks, he issued a barrage of sly asides at the audience:
Later, a fire at Hall’s grandmother’s house would destroy most of his magic act. But Moorehouse proved prescient: Hall followed his advice all the way to Hollywood. “Arsenio” tells that story—with “The Arsenio Hall Show” as its dizzying, occasionally harrowing zenith—with Hall’s characteristic good cheer. Whether he’s starting up a friendship with his hero Richard Pryor or making an eventual classic movie—“Coming to America”—with his pal Eddie Murphy, Hall is always stopping to notice and marvel at his blessed luck.
He did the same when we talked. Wearing a baseball cap and a permanent smile, Hall reminisced about Pryor, Murphy, the temptations of show biz, his unique and sometimes lonely role as a Black celebrity, and what it’s like to be a “laughter addict.” Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Where are you getting off the plane from?
Me and Leno, on weekends, would pop out and do this thing called “Kings of Late Night.” We did a year of it, and there were still more dates that C.A.A. kept coming to us with—so me and Jay just kept going out, and this weekend it was Foxwoods and Niagara Falls. We go in there, and I come out and I offend people, and then Jay comes out and makes them feel better.
That sounds like the general rhythm of a friendship.
Me and Conan O’Brien were joking about it. I said, “You know, we all have fought with Jay. Me and Jay—I’m like a little brother. We’re like Cain and Abel without the killing.”
What made you decide it was time to write a book?
I’ve always wanted to do a book. But I remember doing “Harlem Nights,” and I walked on the set, and I said to Eddie [Murphy], “How is it?” Because this is an actor who’s directing, and he’s never directed before. And he turned to me and he said, “This is adult work.” He said, “This is the adult part of filmmaking, dog—all the decisions, all the actors. I got Redd Foxx in that trailer, and Richard Pryor in that trailer, and I’m waiting for the sun to get right for the scene, and I’m here earlier than anyone.” And I was proud of him, and laughing at him at the same time.
Well, that’s what the book is like next to standup and golf. There is nothing harder than writing a book. There were days that when I was writing the book I wished I was directing Redd Foxx. First of all, I had to talk to my mother more than I like to—you know, some of your secrets . . . “Mom, what’s that dude’s name that used to sell weed when we lived above McKinney’s Superette?” You know?
You’ve been in show business your whole life, starting as a young magician. Do you sometimes feel that you spent your whole life onstage?
I’m kind of a Walmart Michael Jackson. It’s like nothing of that level and grandeur. But, as a child, when I was hearing about this Black band from Indiana, and they were on the Miss Black America pageant—at that time, I’m doing bar mitzvahs as a magician and winning talent contests in Cleveland and working downtown at a magic shop and at Cedar Point Amusement Park, in Sandusky. And then my house burns down. But I remember, while that was going on, I’m in show business, too, in my mind.
I’m at school, in my junior year, sitting after you play ball—you know, sitting on the floor, with your back against the bleachers—and I’m talking to Steve Harvey, who was one of my guys at Kent State, up until our junior year, and I tell him about the fire, like, “I thought I was gonna be a magician, man. But that’s God telling me no, you know?” And Steve is, like, “Yo, I thought we was gonna do comedy, dog?” We knew that’s what we wanted to do. Until the fire, I was, like, Well, I’m gonna be a funny magician. Steve had some personal issues and dropped out, and I lost track of him. And years later he resurfaces on “Showtime at the Apollo,” and I’m, like, Oh, that’s my guy from Cleveland.
With my life, sometimes it can seem like I’m making it up. Sometimes it sounds crazy, but I think it’s because I’m where I’m supposed to be. It shows you, one, that dreams do come true, and, two, that you can dream and talk your way into where you need to be. I think we all know who we are from early ages and people talk it out of us. But I’ve been in this frame of mind to be who I am for a long, long time.
You talk about watching your father preach, being a magician, turning to comedy. What did you learn in those young years?
Well, a moment ago you heard me have an exchange with Ms. Sloan, who’s a publicist. When you’re in the ghetto of Cleveland, you don’t even know what that means—I never heard the word “publicist.” But, at the same time, I made these flyers: “Arsenio, the magician who makes the impossible possible—bar mitzvahs, weddings, birthday parties.” And I sent these flyers to flower shops and Gingiss tux rentals. I was my own publicist. I was my own manager, even though I didn’t know what those words meant. I’m a kid who discovered the business through the need for things versus an education in Hollywood.
I was making money from my paper route and doing magic, and then I took my mother on her birthday to see Al Green. And Al Green has a comedian opening for him. As a magician, I had big boxes and doves—live doves. But this dude walked onstage before Al Green with a glass of juice, and he had a towel on the stool. And I’m, like, post-fire, That’s my calling. Because I love the sound of laughter. And when I watch my dad in the early parts of a sermon on a Sunday morning make people laugh about the events of the day and what’s in the news—you know, it’s a quick moment, but you say, “That’s what I’m going to do next. I don’t have to carry a lot of stuff. All I need is a towel and a glass of juice.”
As a kid, you’re kind of a little entrepreneur. And yet you also talk in the book about how you’re—not a recluse, and not an introvert, but an on-your-own kind of dude.
“Recluse” always sounds like the crazy guy, right? Probably has a lot of cats? I don’t want to sound crazy to people, but I’m an only child who used to do impressions and sing in the mirror holding my mother’s perfume bottle to simulate a microphone. I did a talk show in my basement. What Black child in the 44105 of Ohio has kids from the neighborhood gather, put out folding chairs, put a needle on a record to play, walk out and do a magic trick and a joke, and then interview Junior from down the street? And I’m doing it all alone. I have no brothers and sisters.
And I still am a guy who’s very comfortable being alone. I love people, but, when I drop that mike, I kind of go back to Arsenio from Cleveland, who goes out the back door—go home and stream “Yellowstone” with my woman. I met a woman twenty years ago and we became friends first, and she’s so much like me it’s not healthy. The two of us together, we could end up nailing the door shut from the inside and just have Grubhub passed through a slot. We love each other’s company.
What did you learn, early in your career, from opening for music acts? Dionne Warwick, the Temptations, Patti LaBelle?
Those guys taught me the road and taught me show business.
You tell this great story about one night going out to play blackjack with Patti LaBelle, and she gives you her wad of cash and says, “Look, I’m only spending the amount I have. Don’t give me this money back.” Then she tries to get the money from you. And it’s a funny story about you guys becoming friends, but it also struck me as a story about the drawbacks of the road, or the vices that can slip in, and how you have to learn how to protect yourself. Because there’s loneliness, and all kinds of temptation and distraction. Was there ever anything that made you say, “I don’t want to do that?”
I wasn’t perfect. I remember, I’m on the road with Lou Rawls, and some girl says, “Have you ever tried coke?” And you realize that you haven’t, but if you do it’s a shortcut to having a strong rap.
I don’t want to fast-forward us too much, but you had phases of when you kind of turn into the partier a little bit. How did you learn to temper that, especially as somebody who’s growing in fame and influence and exposure?
Everything that I am and that I’ve grown to be has been because of God’s blessings and protection. And sometimes that can come in the form of God sending you friends at the right time. I tell the story about having a hangover after a crazy party. And Marla Kell Brown—everybody has a producer. I happen to have a producer who was also a friend, who would say, “Jackie Collins is on today, and you haven’t read her book. And I’m going to give you the pertinent parts of it.” And I’m lying on Joan Rivers’s bed in the dressing room, which she used to have for her dog, Spike. So when she left the “Late Show,” I inherited that dressing room and that bed, and I’m lying on that bed with a blistering headache, and Marla’s telling me about Jackie Collins’s book. And then after the show that night we have a talk, and she’s, like, “If you want to win, there is no audible that you can call at the line for a hangover.” I said, “You know, I get it, because I was playing hard and if you want to win hard sometimes you can’t play hard.” So I had to change.
Marla was my friend, along with being my producer, and she’s, like, “If you want to take you to another level, you’re going to have to find that balance.” I’m a cold-turkey kind of dude. As a matter of fact, I even started being the ambassador for DARE and going to classrooms, and that kept me right, because I know you can’t mess up, because now these kids have their eye on you. I became the national ambassador for DARE, working day and night on my career in a very serious, disciplined way. I flipped the switch.
I love this part of the book where, after you’ve done your bit filling in after Joan Rivers’s show gets cancelled, you go away to make “Coming to America,” and you’ve got enough money, finally, to buy a condo—but you don’t have enough money to put anything in it. And you invite over to your place somebody who you’re becoming friends with, Richard Pryor. He says, “I remember when I bought my first place. A lot like this. That’s back when I was happy. Life was simple. Then everything changed.”
I hope, if anyone young touches my book, I hope I can just get that across to him. Because Richard told me that problem, and it didn’t sink in—I still had to go through it, and on the other side say, “Yeah, that’s what Richard was talking about.” I still had to be in a place overlooking the ocean, with two guest houses and fifty acres—about forty-eight more than I needed. It was nice during the pandemic. But I kind of forgot what Richard told me, because it’s very impressive to bring a lady to a compound. But at a certain point, when you turn fifty, you’re, like, “Hey, why am I doing all this work? Why do I have all these people? I have a staff, right?” And you just want to simplify your life, and you remember Richard’s voice.
Very few of us know what it feels like to go out on a stage, as you said, with a stool and maybe a water or whatever, and make people laugh. All through this book, what’s pulsing is your love of this thing. What has it always felt like to you?
You are either a laughter addict or you’re not. We both have friends who you could give them some Ecstasy, and they could say, O.K., I get it, and never touch it again, no matter how good it is. But then there are other people who are, like, Yo, can you give me more of that Molly stuff? And that’s what laughter was for me.
I just came home the other night from Foxwoods, and my woman says to me, “There are a lot of March Madness games on. We should stay home and just watch games.” And I pause, and she looks at me. She says, “You don’t have to go to a comedy club.” I didn’t even say nothing. But she knew you just came home from Foxwoods and you need to pop in to fucking Flappers to do ten minutes, because I’m an addict to that laughter. Well, let’s go get a pizza, and I can make the man who sells us the pizza laugh, but I gotta hear a laugh today.
A lot of times, much of a Hollywood memoir is someone saying this person screwed me over, this bad thing happened, and so on. But so much of the book is not like that. A lot of it is, “And then I met Joan Rivers, and then all these wonderful things happened.” How did it feel to be the guy with the hot hand?
I said to Richard once, “I can’t believe so many incredible things are happening to me. I can’t believe this is my life.” And Richard would say, “You know, thank the powers, but stop worrying about it. You’re gonna spend your time wondering why? Enjoy that shit!”
It seemed like one long blessing, and every time I hit a wall God installed a window. When I would spend that last bit of money that my dad left me, I would get a call that Quincy Jones had snuck into the Roxy and watched me and wanted to talk to me. “Can you call him at the studio? Here’s the number.” Quincy don’t know that I’m one rent check away from having to go back to Cleveland. And he gets me a gig as a voice-over guy.
When you and Eddie made “Coming to America,” what was the feeling on set? Did you know that you had a hit?
Oh, no. As a matter of fact, I remember looking at Eddie’s mom one day and thinking, She doesn’t look like she likes this, you know? We’re winging ad-libs on certain takes. “His mama name him Clay, Imma call him Clay.” There is no Black person that I can say that to, and they won’t know what I’m talking about, right? And I’m talking a thirty-year-old Black person, who will say to you, “My parents made us watch ‘Coming to America’ as a family once a year.” But you don’t know it in that moment.
Your emergence tracks with the emergence of a whole new group of young Black entertainers—a moment that changed the face of the entertainment world, even to today. Obviously, your show is a great expression of this. But did it feel like something was changing across Hollywood at the time?
I felt that, but I didn’t see it as us. I felt we were the beginning of this wave that happened from us idolizing the people before us. When I’m young, I’m looking at “Soul Train,” and there’s no A.I., there’s no search. You’re just looking at credits on a Saturday morning saying, “So Don Cornelius is the creator and producer, he owns his shit.” And I think we’re building dreams on the back of these people. Richard Pryor puts his standup not in an HBO special but in the movie theatre, and what you’re seeing is the business model changing, like we see the streamer changing things now.
We were watching, learning, and dreaming. I remember Eddie calling me and saying, “I went to lunch with Marlon Brando,” and I was, like, “I went to lunch and listened to some tracks with Quincy.” And these were our heroes, and we were learning from them. “Here, can we ask a question we’re going to ask you?” Me and Eddie went to [Sammy Davis, Jr.,’s] house together one night, and after a movie we asked him question after question after question, because that was our A.I.
It was Quincy Jones who told you that you needed to write your own theme song?
He sent me a Casio keyboard with a little drum machine in it. I made a lot of money from that Casio.
We talk now a lot about artists owning their own work, and that was something you were thinking about in 1990. Are there opportunities that you wish you’d been able to grab, along those lines, that you see people taking advantage of now?
I wish I had said no more. Because I’m watching musicians not own their masters and end up broke, and I watched Redd Foxx have to sell things when times got hard. Like [Sylvester] Stallone—the story in Hollywood is that Stallone wrote the first “Rocky” and he was, like, If you want it, I gotta be Rocky. Sometimes you gotta know when to fight and when to pass and roll over.
I’m going to take this deal from Paramount for the talk show, because nothing from nothing leaves nothing. I’d rather bet on my numbers and an escalating scale—my business manager, Mark Landesman, designed this escalating scale where my numbers go up, my dollars go up. The show was good, and I won, because I bet on myself.
Let’s talk about that time. You’ve had some, as we call them, reps, finishing off the Joan Rivers show after it ended. Of course, you had been preparing for this since you were a child, in your basement. But the portrait in the book is of somebody who really knows what he wants, from the beginning. Is that right? It’s 1989 when it starts, the first season of the show. Was it more anxiety than confidence? Was it fear?
There’s this bittersweet reality when you realize that Johnny [Carson] likes me because I’m not trying to be him. I don’t even want his guests, right? I heard that from Ed McMahon at a dinner. “Johnny loves that you’re doing your thing.” I want to do a show that’s the show that didn’t exist when I was coming up. I want to do a show—we didn’t have the term then, but I want to do a show for the culture. I want the huddled masses to have a show.
At the same time, the reason Johnny likes me is also the reason I can never achieve the numbers that Johnny achieves. I know booking Q-Tip is not gonna move the needle the way a Johnny guest could move the needle—a Jane Fonda. But I know who I am and why I’m doing this show and what I dreamed up in the basement.
I remember calling Paramount, saying, “I just talked to a friend of mine, Michael Bivins. He’s in this group called New Edition, and Mike is starting to produce young groups, and he found these four dudes in Philly called Boyz II Men. And they don’t have an album yet, but I heard a tape, and they’re really good, and they idolize the Temptations, as I do. So I want to bring the Temptations on, and I want them to do numbers with this new group.” And on the stage is a Paramount executive’s nightmare—it’s, like, three hundred Black people doing choreography.
Dancing and singing and carrying on.
And that show is not gonna make me the sweetheart of American late night. And sometimes I was so stubborn, because they would tell me to balance it more, but that’s the show that didn’t exist when I was coming up. I came up and you’d have to wait a month, and they’d say, “I think Ray Charles might be on the ‘Tonight Show’ this week.” I brought an audience. It’s not a big enough audience to become Johnny, but I brought the audience to the TV that didn’t watch, and that’s what ended up being my saving grace and my glory.
And it does seem like there were conversations that happened on your show that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else. You tell the story of Magic Johnson, your friend calling you to tell you not only that he’s contracted H.I.V. but that he wants to talk about it on your show.
Or Tupac saying, “Hey, they saying I did something to some girl.” We didn’t have Twitter, but I was Black Twitter. If Tupac were alive now, he might lay on his back like Mike Epps, talking to his phone about his problem. Back then, you called me, and I’ll put you on TV and you can tell your side of the story. I used Tupac’s name because twice Tupac called. Another time, he called me and said, “I’m about to do this movie ‘Poetic Justice,’ and they want me to take an AIDS test. And if me and Janet [Jackson] gonna really get it on I’ll take an AIDS test. But just for the fucking movie?”
“What am I doing this for?”
Yeah. And so I was Black Twitter. And with Magic I was, like, “Yo, dude, don’t you want to go do this on ‘Larry King’ or something?” I’m not a journalist. I’m an infotainment comic, you know? And he was, like, “No, God, I gotta go where I’m comfortable, and I gotta reach the people I need to reach.” Not to mention, he had just told me. I was brokenhearted and afraid—well, that, I can’t do it justice. But he was, like, “I don’t need a journalist. I need a friend.”
You knew how to get a laugh—you’d known how to do that your whole life. How did you learn how to interview people?
I just mentioned Larry King. I did a lunch with Larry King, and he didn’t turn out to be the man I thought every white dude was. I’m expecting him to say, Well, I have a journalism degree from Brown or Yale, right? And he said something to me. He says, “I’m just curious.” So I tried to be a comic who’s curious, which means I’m always going to try to ask, instead of traditional questions that late-night hosts have always asked their guests. I would try to look at fan mail. Or anybody who engaged me in a mall—sometimes they’d say, “Have you ever wondered why?” And I wanted to ask the questions my fans wanted me to ask, and just be curious, and break up the normal fare.
There must have been moments when that felt especially heavy, though. I mean, O.K., you’re not a classically trained journalist, but here you have a guy, Bill Clinton, who wants to be the President of the United States, and, yeah, he’s gonna play the saxophone, but also are you feeling a lot of pressure in that moment? Having a part to play in a national election?
It’s weird, for starters. I mean, watching television, I always thought you have to try to balance the conversation. If you invite a Democrat, you’re supposed to invite a Republican. I thought that’s what I was supposed to do, give equal time. As a result of that mentality, I remember inviting [George H. W.] Bush, who, you know, in pretty harsh terms, said, no.
“No, thanks, Arsenio. I don’t have a saxophone to play.”
Yeah, they didn’t like the show. I think Bill was around [George] Stephanopoulos and Hillary, and they thought it was a great idea. They even did MTV after they did me, because they were, like, I think we’re on to something. Let’s go after this young demo that’s out there looking for something.
I always felt like we have journalists. We have everybody from Bryant Gumbel in the morning to people like Oprah. My job was a little different. It was to be a little closer to the fan watching. What do they want to know? Because, in my heart, in my mind, I know Oprah don’t listen to hip-hop, so I am closer to the fan than the journalist is. I want to know stuff that the fan wants to know.
When you deal with Clinton, or with [Louis] Farrakhan—I remember looking at fan mail and talking to people. What do people want to know in the Black community? We want to know something different than Mike Wallace wants to know. And people whisper. It’s, like, Did he have something to do with the death of Malcolm? People didn’t even want to say it out loud. And I’m, like, Let me ask the questions the culture wants to know. And that’s how I did every show—closer to a dude named Tyrone in Detroit than Johnny in Hollywood.
I know it did create all kinds of stresses and pressures—you talk about them in the book. Nobody else would have had Farrakhan even asking to be on the show. And, on the other hand, you have the N.A.A.C.P. saying you don’t hire enough Black writers, etc. You talk about Spike Lee calling you an Uncle Tom. I was in bed reading and I literally gasped, because I didn’t know that, and I was thinking, There’s nothing that a Black man could say to me worse than calling me a Tom. It’s the worst thing. And so to be put in a position where you’re not Black enough over here, you’re too Black over here—it just sounds lonely.
Man, oh, yeah. That’s why people like Sammy and Don Cornelius were so important to me, because there was almost no one you could go to for advice. I remember Jay Leno saying to me, “No, I never had the Italian or Irish community come to me and say, ‘You’re not doing enough.’ ” They had no idea what I was going through. I know it’s not politically correct to talk about Bill Cosby these days, but this is a guy that would sit with a cigar for four hours in a dressing room after a show and talk to young comics. I knew a dude opening for Bill Cosby, and when he got off, and I got off, I would run over there, and I could just get over there in time before Bill walked on, hoping that Bill has some time so I can say hello. And not only does he have time but it’s, “How are you, young man?” And take you in this dressing room and talk business and show business for four hours. And there is no school like sitting with Sammy or Bill.
One of the most touching parts of the book is an older Sammy Davis, Jr., who, you know, he’s had his troubles—his infamous hug with Nixon got him kind of shunned in the Black community. And he comes to you and does a song, even though he’s old and sick, and he says, “I don’t want it to seem like I didn’t do something for you that I would have done for Johnny Carson.”
Sammy and Cosby, they always got it, because, on some level, they had experienced it. Torn between money and fame, and that other side of what the Black community expects of you and wants you to do, and how to walk that tightrope of “Pull up your pants and don’t sag” but yet not be called an Uncle Tom. It’s a tough balance being Black and famous, dog, and it’s some other shit. I joke about Johnny Witherspoon. You’re looking for some advice about show business? Johnny Witherspoon’s advice was “Stay away from the white women.” You can’t help who you love. One of the greatest gifts in my life is walking in any room with my woman of twenty years, who is melanated, because that’s one battle you don’t have to fight.
It seems like a minefield, and yet you love the job. And you tell the six-year arc of the show like almost a symmetrical thing, where it’s going up for three, and then there’s a way down for three. At the top of that roller-coaster ride, were you imagining that you would be doing some version of that show forever?
Oh, I knew it wasn’t. It’s so hard when you’re succeeding to let off the gas, but I also knew I’m not the guy. I didn’t come to Hollywood to do one thing, and the one thing I love about my life is the diversity of it. Because I’m talking to you as an author, which is a word I had to learn how to say so I wouldn’t sound like I’m talking about this dude, my neighbor, named Arthur. So I’ve learned even to say the word, and I’ve become it. I’ve done standup at Carnegie Hall. I’ve won a reality show with a guy who later became President. I knew I wasn’t supposed to come to Hollywood to do one thing, but I knew what my launching pad was supposed to be, because I had practiced since the basement in Cleveland. I knew this life had been built on dreams, and my dream was not to do this one thing—especially after the “Coming to America” experience. I sat in the back of a theatre and listened to people laugh at me. And when you hear people laugh at you, you’re, like, I’m going to do different things, but they’re all going to be to entertain.
There’s a part of the book where you’re kind of facing the music—your initial executive on the show has left, and you’re getting all these notes of, you know, “It’s too Black.” And in the midst of that period an activist stands up in the middle of one of your tapings and asks, “Why don’t you have enough gay representation on the show?” And, in your mind, you’re, like, Well, a lot of my friends who you know—Rosie O’Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres—are gay, and you wouldn’t know that they are, because they’re not out. And the funny line in the book is “What do you expect me to say? Put your hands together for that well-known balladeer and homosexual, Luther Vandross?” I wonder if you ever look back and wish there were more things that you could have talked about. If the show were today, you could have maybe talked to Luther about his life in a way that he wasn’t able to talk about it then.
You don’t have to hide it as much these days. And I wish he had lived in this world a little bit, so he could be himself and still sing. It’s so hard to be in a trap of that nature. And so many people back then were in a trap. It’s, like, if Rosie came on and did jokes about her love life, they weren’t going to be honest jokes. And there’s nothing funnier than real shit, right? There’s nothing funnier than being honest. So many key people in this book were gay people in the closet, and so many people back then were doing bits based on what people wanted to hear, not who they really were.
What is the thing that you feel like you haven’t done that you want to do?
I don’t know specifically, but I know there’ll be laughter involved. I watch the business, how it morphs and evolves. One day, you see Jeffrey Katzenberg come up with something for the phone, and you say, Oh, that might be the future. And then that doesn’t work. But you see what Ted Sarandos does that works. It’s almost like when you watch little Black girls as a kid do double Dutch, two girls with the rope at each end, and you see somebody standing, getting their timing right, and then they jump in at the right time to get in between the ropes. That’s what show business is. I watch show-business ropes, and look for a place, realistically, for a seventy-year-old to jump in. I don’t jump like I used to. But the bottom line is I love to act, and I love to make people laugh. And I’m looking for that father role. I’m looking for that next thing that I can be a part of in this ever-changing world of streamers. I saw a kid watching “Coming to America” on his phone, and it almost made me faint, because you give your greatest performance, and now people are watching on the phone, and nobody’s going to the theatres. So what you have to do as an O.G. is accept all the changes and figure out a way to work within the new parameters and watch somebody watch your art on a phone. ♦