Jonathan’s First Standup Routines

Jonathan’s first standup routines were built around a combination of impressions (famous people) and sound effects he’d make with his voice (storms, hurricanes, machine guns, sirens, rain, engines, babies, etc.)   Audience loved what he was doing, but a famous comedian told him that if he just did impressions that’s all he’d be, an impressionist.   Jonathan took that as good advice, and shifted to creating and doing original characters.   The world of characters he created, characters like Maude Frickert and Elmer Suggins, form a 20th century human comedy, not unlike the human comedy created by Balzac in the 19th century, with characters interacting and moving from one adventure to another.    Casting a new Jonathan Winters film would eliminate the problem of actor availability.   Jonathan could play all the parts, which is the same as all the parts playing Jonathan.

Funny Virtue

In the world of comedy, Jonathan Winters is a financial rarity.    At one time or another most comics have had money difficulties, as an entertainer’s career is usually an economic roller coaster.  In fact, at breakfast one morning, another comedian and Jonathan fan, pulled out a huge roll of $20s and proclaimed it an essential tool of a comedian.  He went on to explain that every comedian’s fear is being booed off the stage and then run out of town.  The roll of cash insures a safe cab ride to the airport and a flight back home when the establishment won’t pay for the performance.

Not so for Jonathan.  While filming CERTIFIABLY JONATHAN, he told us that he has never been in debt, never owed anyone a cent, and that he prefers to buy everything with cash.  (His financial conservatism may be derived from his grandfather, who he adored and who founded the first bank in Dayton, Ohio.)  The Secretary of the Treasury could maybe learn a thing or two from Jonathan as can the rest of us!

On a Deck with Winters

 

Nora Dunn and brother Kevin Dunn with Jonathan

Jim Pasternak and Richard Marshall’s film, Certifiably Jonathan is a funny, dark, and mad fantasy.  Winter’s himself comes at you as if fired from a sling-shot.  He is a prolific painter, a sharp as a whip comic mind, a paranoid icon, a bitter son, a tender husband, a kindly grandpa.   Not necessarily in that order, and sometimes all at once.  I feared meeting him, and feared improvising with him even more, but instead of being intimidated, I found him as vulnerably needy as all truly great performers are.  And at seventy-nine, he was as nimble as ever.

Saturday Night Live handed me the opportunity to work with many of the greats in comedy, including Robin Williams and Mary Tyler Moore.  But the illusive Jonathan Winters not only was never booked, he was never mentioned.  It wasn’t until years later and I got a fax from my manger that Jim Pasternak and Richard Marshall were making a film about him and were asking me to be a part of it, that I was finally offered the chance that I never thought I’d get.  I certainly did not merit it.  He was my hero.  And so it was that I spent a summer’s day with Winters on a deck overlooking the sea in Montecito, California.  It was a place more suited for hummingbirds and bougainvillea then a sharp-tongued master of one-liners, a serene garden where you would ordinarily speak in hushed tones.   He didn’t seem to belong.  But Jonathan, with a malady that makes it impossible for his imagination to rest, probably never fit in anywhere. 

Winters is the genius who spun character driven improvisational vignettes out of thin air, and became the reigning wizard of improvisational comedy back in the 60’s, went on to have his own show, and to steal the show in It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World.  Eventually, he aptly played Robin Williams’ father on Mork and Mindy.  Pasternak and Marshall created an alternate, bi-polar world in their documentary-style film, centered on the premise that Jonathan, holed up in his fortress of a home in Montecito, forty or so miles north of Los Angeles and light years away from his infamous appearances on The Jack Paar Show, believes he has lost his sense of humor.  Hardly.  Jonathan Winters, as this movie chronicles, is his sense of humor, and as we started our scene and a bird chirped wildly, he picked up a stone.  He looked at me with the goofy expression of a six-year-old boy and said, “One less stone, one less bird.”  I cracked up, and never stopped laughing.

Nora Dunn

LOL

When Jonathan Winters first started performing comedy in New York City, his act was built around the extraordinary sound effects he could make with his mouth.  He could do the sounds of trains, airplanes, dripping water, crashes, explosions, etc.  The audiences loved it.  One day an experienced performer came to him and warned him that he would only be known for his sound effects unless he changed his act.  This advice had a profound effect on Jonathan.  He changed his act so that it was built around a funny gallery of characters he created.  In doing so he made comedy history.  During the filming of CERTIFIABLY JONATHAN, he would launch into a new character, one we had never seen before, and do a five or ten minute riff totally off the top of his head.  The biggest challenge for us was not laughing out loud while the cameras were rolling.  We discovered why Jack Parr had such a hard time keeping his composure when Jonathan was a guest on his show.  It was much more difficult than you’d think.

JP/RM

“Take My Wife…”

March 2009, was a sad month for Jonathan Winters.   Eileen Winters, Jonathan’s beloved wife, passed away after a long struggle with cancer.  They were married for over 60 years.  Many comedians have built jokes and comedy routines around their wives (think Henny Youngman, Chris Rock, Lewis CK, Ron White).  Jonathan is no exception.  Some of his funniest material has to do with separate bedrooms.  But he also credits Eileen with giving him his best professional advice.  It was Eileen who bravely urged him to go to New York to seek his fortune, despite an infant son and little money at home.  It was Eileen who resuscitated Jonathan’s flagging career by insisting he accept Stanley Kramer’s invitation to appear in IT’S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD.  It was Eileen Winters who, while ill in bed, generously supported the filming of CERTIFIABLY JONATHAN in her house.  Thank you Eileen.

JP

Certifiably Jonathan Winters

 

Five years ago I received a phone call from my long-time friend, Jim Pasternak, a Hollywood writing and directing coach.  As he sat in an outdoor cafe in Montecito, just south of Santa Barbara, he ranted about a terrible meeting he’d just endured with “the worst writer I’ve ever worked with.”  Just as he was contemplating slitting his wrists (or the writer’s throat), a miracle happened.  Jonathan Winters walked by with several paintings under his arm for his first art show in 20 years.  As Jim tells it, he called out to Jonathan, “Thank you, thank you, thank you for your brilliance as we laughed ourselves silly in front of the television so many years ago.”  Jonathan replied in his Maudie Frickert voice, “You’re welcome, you’re welcome, you’re welcome” then came over and sat down at the table.  He proceeded to talk Jim’s ear off.  After an hour, Jim was convinced there was a documentary waiting to be shot about Jonathan and his passion for painting. 

Jim called me on his way back to Los Angeles and pitched me on working on the project.  I was in the midst of shooting another documentary about Paul Conrad, the political cartoonist, but immediately jumped at the chance to partner with Jim.  I remembered Jonathan as the quintessential comedy genius of my childhood.  My mother, in particular, would gather us in front of the television to watch Jonathan perform his improvisational hat routines on The Andy Williams Show or the on-the-spot improves with a audience member provided personal article on The Jonathan Winters Show.  It’s one of the things I remember most about my childhood television experiences.

Jim saw Jonathan one more time and convinced him to sign a two-page agreement to let us tag along with him at his art show at the Andrew Weiss Gallery in Beverly Hills.  We secured a few dollars for tape and some lunch money were on our way.  We had NO idea what we were in for.

Nearly four years later, we’ve finished CERTIFIABLY JONATHAN.  Our film, a documentary /mockumentary /fictional hybrid, (we sometimes called it a Dadamentary), has garnered festival awards, good reviews, and adoring audiences, and is now available on DVD. It will also be downloadable soon.

The film is now on its own journey, possibly to become the quintessential media document about the great Jonathan Winters, now 83 years old, but still as vital, funny, smart and wonderfully crazy as ever.  Our hundreds of hours spent with Jonathan were an amazing adventure.  Many other comedians, actors, and performers also participated including Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Sarah Silverman, Howie Mandel, Nora Dunn, Tim Conway, Ryan Stiles, Rob Reiner, Mickey Rooney, Robert Klein, Kevin Dunn, the entire Arquette family – all because of the love and admiration they have for Jonathan’s amazing talent.  

The intent of Wintersville blog is to recount the stories of our five years with Jonathan Winters, and include on-going stories and anecdotes about Jonathan. We’d like to, hopefully, get Jonathan himself to participate (however he doesn’t own a computer), and invite our CERTIFIABLY JONATHAN cast and crew as well as other comedians to write about Jonathan and his influence on them and comedy in general.

We’ll be posting new clips (from our 250 hours of footage) that we weren’t able to include in the 80-minute film and we also invite Jonathan’s fans to send posts, comments, and fond memories of Jonathan induced laughter.  We’ll feature more of his wonderful art and try to keep up with him. (Trying to keep up with an 83-year-old funny-man who’s also bipolar is nearly impossible.) Unfortunately, Jonathan’s wife, Eileen, of 60+ years recently passed away, and he is still recovering, so like our film, it won’t all be funny.  So here we go.

RM