Chapter 6: Love finds Ross Bennett
or it is better to have loved a short girl than to never have loved a tall
The night before my audition for Mitzi, I literally turned around and found the love of my life. I was standing in the Improv, not knowing what to do after Budd sang me his praises and given me some spots while many of the other hopeful comics looked on enviously, and I turned around and looked down and I saw the cutest girl in the world. Her face just beamed with an intense smile. Her name was Jan Goder. I have always said that we met one night and I moved in the next day, but it might have been a few days later before I moved off of Al Alan Peterson’s couch and into Jan’s bed.
In an odd way Jan and I probably met because of Robin (Williams) and his then wife Valerie. Jan had read an article about Valerie in some women’s magazine right before the time I was moving to LA. In the article Valerie talked about seeing Robin perform at the HOLY CITY ZOO in SF and she knew he was special, and when they got involved she helped him catalogue many of his Improvs and encouraged him to repeat them and make them part of his act. She also spoke about generally trying to support and help him get where he needed to go in his career.
Jan told me about this after we were together, that when she saw me perform she thought she could do for me what Valerie had done for Robin. I had never had a real girlfriend like this before, someone who was crazy about me. We were both 23 and living in the middle of Hollywood, the comedy scene was just starting to take off, and we were loving every minute of it.
THE COMEDY STORE was out of my life, so I would spend every night hanging out at the IMPROV, trying to get whatever spots I could and figuring out what to do next.
I got picked to do a pilot for a TV show. It was a very early contest kind of show that never went anywhere. Joey Bishop hosted it, and they were going to have people compete in the categories of Comedy, music, and poetry. That’s right, POETRY.
I was actually hired as sort of a stand-by in case someone couldn't make it, and they were going to use me in the audience as a shill if nothing else.
All I remember is somehow I was suppose to say a line from the audience when Joey Bishop came up to me during the dress rehearsal. Somehow I flubbed it and Joey wasn’t real pleased with the new kid.
But it got me into AFTRA!!!!
Some of the other acts that were at the Improv at this time were Greg Travis , Byron Allen , Ron Maranian “the Armenian comedian”, Rick Podell , Mark Anderson (who went on to own all of the IMPROV’s around the country), David Wood , and Bruce Mahler . And I would occasionally see Robin Williams, David Letterman, Ed Bluestone , and Bob Shaw.
Kevin Nealon was a bartender, who was still doing audition nights. He wore a tie with a paper clip for a tie clip. And he was then as now one of the nicest guys in town.
One night in the spring of 1979, I was the MC, working to a small crowd, and smoke started to come through the door at the back of the building. We evacuated the building and soon flames were shooting up threw the roof. The showroom was in flames, the fire department arrived about the same time that Budd did. And when it was all over we went in. The entire back showroom was gutted, you could see through to the sky. Bob Shaw came in and said, “It looks like Dresden”. So we all went to the front of the club, which was mostly untouched, and Budd broke out the Champagne. The bartender brought out one bottle, and Budd said, “No not tonight, bring out the good stuff”. I was devastated by this situation; I didn’t know what I was going to do to perform. But Budd quickly created a makeshift stage in the front section that probably seated a hundred. And as the back room was rebuilt we did shows in the front.
The one comic I remember the most during my first few months at the IMPROV was Michael Richards . Over the course of a few months Michael became a significant presence on the scene. He actually auditioned the same week I did and did not pass. He appeared insane; he went on stage with a shrub he had pulled up out of someone’s yard. The movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers had just come out, and he would hold the shrub up and look around the edge making a high-shrilled sound like a giant bird. Then he would become a housewife complaining to her husband, “George, there is something outside looking in the window from behind the bushes” Then he was her husband, and he had no time for her babbling. He did about 5 minutes of this. But he kept coming back and I think the next time when Budd saw him do it again, he realized that it was the beginnings of something very special. Over the next few months that 5 minutes grew into over a half an hour of magic.
By the time Michael was doing 30 plus minutes of magic it was on the makeshift stage in the front. He would pound on the front window as people walked by and scream, “HELP, WE ARE ALL TRAPPED IN HERE AND WE ARE GOING TO DIE!!” Then he would run up stairs to Budd’s office and scream down through an opening as if he was part of a team of rescuers who had just come upon a cavern of trapped miners. It was mesmerizing, he created all of this in a few months, largely through improvisation. Robin Williams came in one night and made the comment “ah kamikaze comedy.” That’s what Michael was; he was throwing himself into these bits with no way to escape safely if anything went wrong. And then one night I saw him sitting down at a table with one of the big guns from Rollins and Joffe. He was going to be represented by the premier Managers in our industry, and a few months later he was signed to be on FRIDAYS (along with Bruce Mahler). It all really could happen that fast.
Unfortunately it wasn’t happening that fast for me. During this time my stock had gone down a little, my inexperience was catching up with me. I performed regularly at the Improv, late and early, but it was obvious to everyone (except me) that I was going to need quite a bit of seasoning. I MC’d quite a bit.
Budd also started to hire me to do some work around the club. I was on the crew that rebuilt the backroom, and I was also on the crew that did some work up at his house, and I also worked the front door some. Jack Graimon told me once that he knew when Budd no longer thought of him as a significant comic when he started to work for Budd and Budd eventually started calling him “JACKIE” instead of “JACK”. If Budd ever started calling me ROSSIE I knew I was going to be in trouble.
At this time no comics got paid for their sets. We were all doing it for free, for the exposure, for the experience. But there was much grumbling, particularly by the comics up at THE COMEDY STORE. The club was packing them in, and a lot of comics were having trouble making rent money. So there was a strike, Budd quickly made a deal but Mitzi was not willing to. Months later when it was all over the comics were getting a little cash for there sets, one comic ( Steve Lubetkin ) had committed suicide jumping off the roof of the Continental Hyatt House next door to THE COMEDY STORE, and there were wounds and bitterness that for some would never heal.
In an odd way Jan and I probably met because of Robin (Williams) and his then wife Valerie. Jan had read an article about Valerie in some women’s magazine right before the time I was moving to LA. In the article Valerie talked about seeing Robin perform at the HOLY CITY ZOO in SF and she knew he was special, and when they got involved she helped him catalogue many of his Improvs and encouraged him to repeat them and make them part of his act. She also spoke about generally trying to support and help him get where he needed to go in his career.
Jan told me about this after we were together, that when she saw me perform she thought she could do for me what Valerie had done for Robin. I had never had a real girlfriend like this before, someone who was crazy about me. We were both 23 and living in the middle of Hollywood, the comedy scene was just starting to take off, and we were loving every minute of it.
THE COMEDY STORE was out of my life, so I would spend every night hanging out at the IMPROV, trying to get whatever spots I could and figuring out what to do next.
I got picked to do a pilot for a TV show. It was a very early contest kind of show that never went anywhere. Joey Bishop hosted it, and they were going to have people compete in the categories of Comedy, music, and poetry. That’s right, POETRY.
I was actually hired as sort of a stand-by in case someone couldn't make it, and they were going to use me in the audience as a shill if nothing else.
All I remember is somehow I was suppose to say a line from the audience when Joey Bishop came up to me during the dress rehearsal. Somehow I flubbed it and Joey wasn’t real pleased with the new kid.
But it got me into AFTRA!!!!
Some of the other acts that were at the Improv at this time were Greg Travis , Byron Allen , Ron Maranian “the Armenian comedian”, Rick Podell , Mark Anderson (who went on to own all of the IMPROV’s around the country), David Wood , and Bruce Mahler . And I would occasionally see Robin Williams, David Letterman, Ed Bluestone , and Bob Shaw.
Kevin Nealon was a bartender, who was still doing audition nights. He wore a tie with a paper clip for a tie clip. And he was then as now one of the nicest guys in town.
One night in the spring of 1979, I was the MC, working to a small crowd, and smoke started to come through the door at the back of the building. We evacuated the building and soon flames were shooting up threw the roof. The showroom was in flames, the fire department arrived about the same time that Budd did. And when it was all over we went in. The entire back showroom was gutted, you could see through to the sky. Bob Shaw came in and said, “It looks like Dresden”. So we all went to the front of the club, which was mostly untouched, and Budd broke out the Champagne. The bartender brought out one bottle, and Budd said, “No not tonight, bring out the good stuff”. I was devastated by this situation; I didn’t know what I was going to do to perform. But Budd quickly created a makeshift stage in the front section that probably seated a hundred. And as the back room was rebuilt we did shows in the front.
The one comic I remember the most during my first few months at the IMPROV was Michael Richards . Over the course of a few months Michael became a significant presence on the scene. He actually auditioned the same week I did and did not pass. He appeared insane; he went on stage with a shrub he had pulled up out of someone’s yard. The movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers had just come out, and he would hold the shrub up and look around the edge making a high-shrilled sound like a giant bird. Then he would become a housewife complaining to her husband, “George, there is something outside looking in the window from behind the bushes” Then he was her husband, and he had no time for her babbling. He did about 5 minutes of this. But he kept coming back and I think the next time when Budd saw him do it again, he realized that it was the beginnings of something very special. Over the next few months that 5 minutes grew into over a half an hour of magic.
By the time Michael was doing 30 plus minutes of magic it was on the makeshift stage in the front. He would pound on the front window as people walked by and scream, “HELP, WE ARE ALL TRAPPED IN HERE AND WE ARE GOING TO DIE!!” Then he would run up stairs to Budd’s office and scream down through an opening as if he was part of a team of rescuers who had just come upon a cavern of trapped miners. It was mesmerizing, he created all of this in a few months, largely through improvisation. Robin Williams came in one night and made the comment “ah kamikaze comedy.” That’s what Michael was; he was throwing himself into these bits with no way to escape safely if anything went wrong. And then one night I saw him sitting down at a table with one of the big guns from Rollins and Joffe. He was going to be represented by the premier Managers in our industry, and a few months later he was signed to be on FRIDAYS (along with Bruce Mahler). It all really could happen that fast.
Unfortunately it wasn’t happening that fast for me. During this time my stock had gone down a little, my inexperience was catching up with me. I performed regularly at the Improv, late and early, but it was obvious to everyone (except me) that I was going to need quite a bit of seasoning. I MC’d quite a bit.
Budd also started to hire me to do some work around the club. I was on the crew that rebuilt the backroom, and I was also on the crew that did some work up at his house, and I also worked the front door some. Jack Graimon told me once that he knew when Budd no longer thought of him as a significant comic when he started to work for Budd and Budd eventually started calling him “JACKIE” instead of “JACK”. If Budd ever started calling me ROSSIE I knew I was going to be in trouble.
At this time no comics got paid for their sets. We were all doing it for free, for the exposure, for the experience. But there was much grumbling, particularly by the comics up at THE COMEDY STORE. The club was packing them in, and a lot of comics were having trouble making rent money. So there was a strike, Budd quickly made a deal but Mitzi was not willing to. Months later when it was all over the comics were getting a little cash for there sets, one comic ( Steve Lubetkin ) had committed suicide jumping off the roof of the Continental Hyatt House next door to THE COMEDY STORE, and there were wounds and bitterness that for some would never heal.