Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good Page 9

  Ratings went up (helped by a lead-in from The Sopranos), showing audience appreciation, and award nominations went up too, showing industry recognition. Larry David’s peers saw the ground he was breaking in the sitcom form and bestowed ten Emmy nominations on the show, up from two the previous year (and none in its first season). Larry David and Cheryl Hines were nominated for acting, four directors got the nod, and the series as a whole was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series. Larry David phoned up Cheryl Hines to congratulate her, saying in his wry fashion, “I’m really happy for you because I know you like this sort of thing.” And didn’t Larry like it too? she wanted to know. “Well, it’s pretty much a huge inconvenience, don’t you think?” he asked.

  Robert B. Weide won for directing the “Krazee-Eyez Killa” episode. At the Golden Globes Larry was nominated again as was the show for Best Television Series — Musical or Comedy, which it won. “It’s a sad day for the Golden Globes,” Larry said, happily accepting the award. “I’d like to thank my parents, who always taught me that when you have the opportunity to annoy someone, you should do so. Little did they know that one day I’d be doing it on such a massive scale.”

  Not all the people closest to Larry were happy, at least not all the time. His real father found the season upsetting. The fictional Larry’s mother died at a time when his real mother was in a fragile and declining state of health. As for wife Laurie, she found the kissing scenes with Cheryl hard to watch and the constant subject of sex and its humiliations uncomfortable. She suggested that he was going too far, but Larry didn’t listen to her. Of course, he didn’t have to go to school to pick up the kids and hear other parents clearing their throats, as if they too had a stuck pubic hair.

  CHAPTER 11

  Larry David, Auteur:

  Seasons Four and Five

  After the third season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David took a hiatus, skipping an entire year. Such breaks were known, if not common, on HBO dramas such as The Sopranos, but were unheard of on the supposedly less demanding sitcoms. But for Larry it was never a matter of cranking out shows or worrying about losing an audience that had just started to grow. Every year he would think hard about whether he had another good season in him. And this time he needed some time off. For the 2004 season, starting in January, he had found a story arc that was far more unlikely, surprising, and ambitious than any he had written yet.

  Visiting New York, Larry went to see the Broadway musical The Producers. Based on his own 1968 movie, Mel Brooks had created a musical version of the comedy about a corrupt Broadway impresario and his mousey accountant protégé. Originally starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, it was a smash hit, winning twelve Tony Awards and breaking box office records. Touring productions brought it to other major American cities and there were productions in the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries.

  Mel Brooks was one of Larry’s heroes. While he watched, he inwardly mused about the fictional Larry being asked by Mel Brooks to take on the role of Max Bialystock on Broadway. Unlikely though it was with no singing or dancing experience, Larry would agree, only to have to actually learn the part. He would need someone in the other leading role, Leo Bloom, to rehearse with — which presented an interesting guest actor possibility. The final episode would take Larry back to New York, where he had shot the Martin Scorsese scene in season three. The whole idea was ripe with comic opportunities.

  Larry sat down and wrote the first three outlines. Only then did he approach Mel Brooks to see if he would agree to be on the show and to let Larry take to the stage of the St. James Theater along with the real cast to film the final episode. Brooks liked the idea but it wasn’t all up to him. He had to get the theater unions to go along with it. Fortunately, everyone came onboard, including two guest stars — Ben Stiller and David Schwimmer.

  And then Larry went to see the show again, a touring production in Portland. He watched the actor singing and dancing up a storm, the big production numbers, and he thought: What have I gotten myself into? The shooting began. The show’s assistant choreographer, James Hadley, came to Larry’s house and coached him in the basement. Not surprisingly, Larry didn’t pick up the steps easily. He thought about writing himself out of the ending but couldn’t think of a way. He’d created the challenge and would have to go through with it.

  What is never mentioned about this season is that it has, in fact, two story arcs, a technique that Larry would continue in seasons after. The second arc involves the Davids’ tenth anniversary and Cheryl’s engagement promise that if they made it to their tenth Larry would have permission to have sex with another woman one time. Larry trying to make good on the promise by bedding a series of women — a dental hygienist, a sexy Hasidic dry cleaner, an oral sex teacher, an actress in the show — provides several of the best subplots of the season.

  Of course each episode also has to stand on its own. Some of the early episodes revolve around Ben Stiller who, the story goes, has been cast to perform in The Producers opposite Larry, as the milquetoast accountant Leopold Bloom who blossoms under Max’s influence. (Stiller’s father, of course, had memorably played George’s father on Seinfeld.) When Stiller finally quits The Producers, he is replaced by David Schwimmer (Friends) who does not get along with Larry any better. There is also some further boundary-stretching in the territory of political incorrectness; it seems like Larry wants to deliberately challenge viewers and critics both. In episode three, “The Blind Date,” he not only brings back Michael, a blind character from the previous season, but breaks up his relationship by telling him that his girlfriend really isn’t beautiful. An episode later, he fixes Michael up with a Muslim woman. Perhaps even riskier is staging a confrontation between an elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor and a young man who had been on the Survivor television show, each believing that his ordeal was worse (season four, episode nine).

  The season is also notable for introducing a new semi-regular character, Marty Funkhouser. Although his part in any episode isn’t large, Bob Einstein — best known for his Super Dave character, who had his own show and was a frequent guest on Late Night with David Letterman — plays Marty Funkhouser in his trademark dour and deadpan style so that his presence alone is funny in a way that is very difficult to describe.

  One scene illustrates how Larry would rethink during the shooting process. In season four episode seven, Richard Lewis worries that he will not be well endowed enough to please the black woman he is going out with. In one scene he and Larry talked about it, giving some needed exposition, but there was nothing funny in it. So Larry decided to reshoot it in a hotel washroom with the two men at urinals. And he added retired NBA star Muggsy Bogues, the shortest player ever in the league (but, it turns out, still with a large penis). Running about a minute and a half, the scene took five hours to shoot.

  Near the end of the season’s shoot Cheryl Hines found out that she was pregnant. Struggling with nausea, she decided to keep the news to herself since she was only in the first trimester. Feeling ill one day during the last episode’s shoot, she went into the show’s single trailer to lie down. Already inside were Jerry Seinfeld (who was making a brief, nonspeaking appearance in the audience during opening night of The Producers), Mel Brooks, Larry David, and Jeff Garlin. Instead of resting she happily listened to Brooks talk about how he met his wife Anne Bancroft. David Schwimmer came in and then Anne Bancroft herself. Hines thought she had gone to heaven. (Bancroft, who would look frail in her brief appearance in the season’s final episode, was making her last onscreen performance in a great career. She would succumb to uterine cancer in June 2006. On a happier note, Hines’s daughter was born in March 2004.)

  That last episode, in which Larry actually had to sing and dance with the chorus of the show, in full costume and on the stage of the Broadway Theater, was the most challenging shoot he’d ever known. It also turned out to be the most memorable for him. In the finished episode he shows surprising confidence and although he doesn’t have th
e talent of a real Broadway star, it is delightful to see the character that the audience knows so well actually pull it off.

  This was the first season to add a new opening credit. Previously there had been no writing credit at all. Now Story by Larry David appeared on the screen. It was an attempt at modesty more than anything else. Larry made the outlines, but it was the actors who “wrote” their own lines. The credit made clear all that Larry felt he could take credit for.

  Meanwhile, the other actors’ careers continued to thrive with the help of the attention from the show. Cheryl Hines did a guest spot on an improv TV show that parodied cop dramas, Reno 911!, and was asked to provide the voice for the character of Kate in a DreamWorks animated series about a family of white lions called Father of the Pride. She also landed roles alongside Woody Harrelson and David Cross in The Grand (2007), and Luke Wilson in Henry Poole Is Here (2008). Jeff Garlin got to co-star in an Eddie Murphy film, Daddy Day Care (2003). The critics didn’t like it, but it performed well at the box office. Even Larry did a little moonlighting. He made a guest appearance in the first season of HBO’s Entourage where he got to be angry at Jeremy Piven.

  Larry David has said, “I don’t consciously try to make people squirm. I’m never aware of making people uncomfortable, honest-to-God. I had no idea that I could have that effect on people.”

  But he did. People were either devoted fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm and believed it was the only truly funny comedy on television, or else they found it unwatchable. The latter type found the embarrassing social situations, the references to the problems of male and female genitalia, along with the casual treatment of death, the Holocaust, the mentally handicapped unbearable to watch — all of it made them flee from their televisions. Exactly what the fans loved.

  Following another eighteen months off, Larry came back with a fifth season. After the previous season’s ambitious story, he returned to a more traditional series of episodes that were largely independent. Yes, there were two story arcs, but they were touched on less frequently.

  The first is Richard Lewis’s need for a kidney transplant and, more to the point, a donor to provide one. Larry and Jeff both turn out to be matches but Susie forbids Jeff from risking his life, which leaves a reluctant Larry. After scheming to acquire a kidney from Richard’s cousin Louis Lewis and then from the donor list, Larry finally gives in and donates his own to Richard. But not until he finds his Christian spirit. For in the other arc, Larry comes to believe that he is adopted. He hires a private investigator, tracks down the Cones in Arizona, and becomes liberated from the burden of his Jewishness and the legacy of the Davids. Turning himself into a good, fanny-pack-and-sun-hat-wearing, beer-swigging, car-fixing Christian, he realizes that he has to do the right thing by his friend Richard.

  Larry David does like a big season closer. The last episode has Larry going under the knife and dying from the subsequent complications. Whereas in previous seasons the ending had Larry opening a restaurant and Larry on Broadway, this one has Larry in Heaven — with Dustin Hoffman and Sacha Baron Cohen as his angelic guides. It’s the culmination of a season that allows Larry David, somewhat in the manner of Woody Allen, to play with existential questions of identity and meaning, life and death, but always for the purpose of a laugh.

  Individual episodes have some exciting, highly irreverent stories. “The Christ Nail” (season five, episode three) has Larry using a nail from Mel Gibson’s movie Passion of the Christ to hang a mezuzah on the door of his house before his father’s arrival. In “The Seder” (season five, episode seven) Larry invites a convicted sex offender, who is Jewish, to the family seder. Both, of course, playfully and irreverently deal with the themes of identity, faith, and practice. And like the question of adoption, they are spurred by the presence of Nat David.

  “I’ve seen a lot of comedians who, when the camera isn’t rolling, sit in the corner and sulk,” Cheryl Hines said about the shooting. “But Larry is not that person. We sit around and talk and have a great time. Larry is a bit of a perfectionist and puts a lot of pressure on himself. Now that the show’s been airing and has been critically acclaimed, he does feel a great pressure to keep doing outstanding shows.”

  And acclaimed it was. In fact, a number of critics — The Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly, Slate — felt that the previous season’s Broadway story had been a mistake, taking Larry too far out of his home territory. They showered praise on this season. It received more award nominations too, including eight for the Emmys (although it didn’t win any).

  Larry took the 2006–2007 season off, and while HBO couldn’t have been pleased by another stride-breaking hiatus, they didn’t believe in bullying their artists. For one cast member, at least, it was a valuable time off: Jeff Garlin was busy with two different projects. The first was his long-in-the-making indie film, the quirkily named I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With. After spending several years writing the script, he’d taken it around town, only to find it nearly impossible to raise the money. His projected budget was half a million dollars, tiny by Hollywood standards. Even the smaller studios who financed independent films took a pass. Garlin believed that the low budget was what made them wary — that and he being the only name behind it. “They’re not going to tell me they don’t believe in me as a lead actor,” Garlin said. Most of the time the studios never actually said no; they just didn’t answer. That was how Hollywood worked. Nobody wanted to make an enemy.

  Twice he managed to get financing and twice the money vanished. But Garlin didn’t give up. “I have a sense of resiliency. They knock me down, I just get back up. I don’t get emotional.” When it came through a third time, he began shooting. Writing, acting, directing — at last he was making his own film like his hero, Woody Allen. Garlin had a stand-up star (if not a movie star) to play opposite him, the foul-mouthed comic Sarah Silverman, making herself adorable. Some of the other actors had been in Curb, including the woman who played his mother, Mina Kolb, as well as the former SNL player Tim Kazurinsky and the director of Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Paul Mazursky. Also in Garlin’s movie was Dan Castellaneta, an actor of small parts in film but whose voice is known to millions as Homer Simpson. Because Garlin kept running out of funds he had to spread his meager eighteen days of shooting time over two years.

  The film premiered in April 2006 at the Tribeca Film Festival. Garlin got there late, wearing sunglasses, as if — wrote the New York Times — he was going to his own execution. But the three showings sold out and a fourth was added. Afterward he was actually happy. “It’s an unusual feeling,” he said. He should have been, for I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With is a charming, funny, sweet little movie. That it is very personal to Garlin (his character has an eating problem) is clear. Its rambling nature (some scenes were semi-improvised), the way characters talk about small things, and even the lively accordion music is a little Larry David–like but it’s more a result of shared sensibility than borrowing. When the movie was released the following year the reviewers liked it. “Beautiful in its own way,” declared the Boston Globe. “A big-time minor movie,” pronounced Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. “May be one of the wisest studies of urban loneliness since Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty” praised the Village Voice. Other reviewers thought it too slight or shambling, but Garlin’s warmth as a person translated to the screen.

  While Garlin was very happy to have his Curb gig, which had raised his profile immeasurably, he wanted to create his own material. Along with finishing and releasing the movie he was busy creating a pilot television show. HBO had passed on his pitch, but TBS had given him the green light. He would play the star of a variety show who was always getting into fixes in his real life — a show that sounds a little like Garry Shandling’s The Larry Sanders Show or the episodes of Seinfeld where Jerry and George were creating a show based on themselves. The pilot co-starred Phil Rosenthal from Everybody Loves Raymond and also made use of Bob Einstein (Marty Funkhouser in Curb
), Jeff’s wife Marla Garlin (who was a casting director and only rarely worked as an actress), and the comedian Robert Baxt. Later Garlin would say that the pilot suffered from too much rewriting and rethinking, and from the conflict between his own looser style of comedy and the tighter, more controlled style of Rosenthal. TBS took a pass on making it into a series.

  Even so, Garlin was doing very well indeed. He was getting more film roles (the director Brett Ratner asked him to do anything he wanted in a scene for his Pierce Brosnan vehicle, After the Sunset, to make it funnier), guest starred in seven episodes of Arrested Development (an innovative and smart show that shared other actors with Curb), and was a voice in the animated hit WALL.E.

  CHAPTER 12

  Television Is Funny, Life Is Not

  Seasons Six and Seven

  It was Woody Allen, one of Larry David’s heroes, who said that you try to get your art perfect because it’s impossible to do in life. Never would this be more true for Larry than in the sixth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which he would somehow spin comic gold out of the rags of his own real experience. For Larry and Laurie David’s marriage was breaking up. And so, therefore, would Larry and Cheryl’s.