Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Martin's Memoir of his Stand-Up Comedy Days
When Steve Martin walked away from fame in 1981, he knew exactly what he was doing.
In the late 1970s, Steve Martin was a top act, performing his brand of non-traditional stand-up comedy in huge stadiums and halls. However, he was no longer happy with his performances and was tired of being unable to lead a normal life.
He writes: In a public situation, I was expected to be the figure I was onstage, which I stubbornly resisted. People were waiting for a show, but my show was only that, a show. It was precise and particular and not reproducible in a living room; in fact, to me my act was serious.
In 1981, frustrated by the requirements of fame, he walked away and never looked back—until now, in Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life.
Steve Martin's Early Influences: Disneyland and Magic
Martin began by selling guidebooks at the newly opened Disneyland not far from his home, and then worked at Merlin’s Magic Shop where he practiced card tricks for hours and learned the basics of magic. “I had fantasies of levitation and awesome power and, with no Harry Potter to be compared to, my store-bought tricks could go a long way toward making me feel special.”
In his logic classes at Long Beach State College he discovered Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll’s word-games inspired Martin to develop a sillier style of comedy. In time, he was able to get a job as a staff contributor for The Smothers Brothers Show, which helped him hone his skills alongside other fine comedy writers of the era. After several successful daytime talk show and Tonight Show appearances, he became a very hot comedy ticket, too hot for his own peace of mind.
When he repeated favorite routines in order to please his audiences, some critics called him "lazy." But they were wrong. Laziness had never been Martin’s problem. He worked as hard, if not harder, than other performers. The problem was his natural shyness. He felt dishonest, he said, when he had to greet strangers “with the familiarity of old friends.” He was “ill suited for fame’s destruction of privacy.”
Famous Just Right
When he quit stand-up, Martin had other interests he wanted to pursue more intensely, such as acting in films, writing screenplays and novels, and collecting contemporary art. (He has won three Grammys and an Emmy for his television writing, and in 2007 became a Kennedy Center Honoree.) After being “not famous enough” and then “too famous”, he says he is now “famous just right.”
While this book has humorous bits described it it, Martin’s tone is often serious, especially when he reflects on his troubled relationship with his father, who did not think what he was doing in comedy was worthwhile. While the two of them did manage to reconcile somewhat toward the end of his father’s life, Martin never got the genuine support he wanted from him. (When his father admits on his deathbed that his son has done everything he wanted to do, it is a revelatory and heartbreaking moment.)
Steve Martin is a multi-talented man, and this admirably written book is a testimony to his ability to look back over one important stage of his life with honesty and equanimity, while continuing to move forward in new and original ways, as only the best artists can.
Simon & Schuster/Scribner 2007, ISBN 978-1-4165-5364-9
