The big break. What is it? How does it happen? Lana Turner got hers while sipping a soda in an L.A. drugstore. Vivian Leigh got hers after a worldwide search for the perfect Scarlett O’Hara. Conan O’Brien got his when he was plucked from obscurity to take over David Letterman’s old job.
Each year, waves of celebrity wannabes wash over L.A. hoping to be “discovered.” They answer casting calls, flock to auditions and grab any opportunity to get noticed.
“That still happens in show business; you still can get discovered,” says standup-cum-actor Richard Belzer, who describes himself as “a 25-year overnight success.”
“But don’t expect it (success) to happen right away,” advises Belzer who plays detective John Munch on NBC’s hit series “Homicide: Life on the Street.”
Belzer, who took a break from his Munch persona to perform at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival last month in Aspen, Colo., crossed over from standup to drama after filmmaker Barry Levinson heard him on a radio interview with Howard Stern.
“He (Levinson) called me in to read for the part,” Belzer says. “We hit it off and he liked my work and he hired me. It was amazing. Munch was the last character cast on the show.”
Belzer has spent most of his career being funny. He’s even written a satirical “manual,” “How to Be a Stand-up Comic,” that includes tips for success gleaned from his experience.
He strongly cautions those who want to be comics to be prepared to fail frequently when first starting out, but they also have to keep getting up on stage to get experience.
“It is the hardest thing to do in show business, to be up there and make strangers laugh,” he says. “There’s no one else up there with you. It’s not a play or a band.”
Belzer says young performers are drawn to festivals like the comedy fest because “they know there’s opportunity here. There are a lot of heavy hitters here who could say, `C’mon kid,’ and they could get a development deal.”
But such instant success for comedians is rare, Belzer says. Comics on the way up often face a tougher challenge than actors. Their dues are paid on the job–sometimes it takes years of looking out into inebriated audiences on open mike nights and endless weeks living on the road in pursuit of one-night stands before a comic moves up to headline status or gives up and drops out.
Standup comic Geoff Brown says he knows what it’s like to drive from small town to smaller town for one-time bookings. He’s slept in his car, delivered jokes to the ashtrays at 2 a.m. and been counseled by skeptics to keep his day job. But now, after nine years, he thinks his 15 minutes of fame are at hand.
“This is my first invite (to the comedy festival), and it’s about time. Everybody who is anybody is here or a great many of them are represented,” Brown said in the festival’s hospitality suite, where entertainment types were picking at an elaborate buffet or waiting for their turn to visit the masseuse who had set up shop in a back bedroom.
The 30-year-old Chicago native looks at ease as he glances around the sun-drenched room, which is milling with dealmakers and performers.
“This is kind of the Winter Olympics of standup,” says Brown, a former Marine. “The most important thing is being seen by these people. They look for new talent and new ideas and they set up the blocks (for deals).
“Then they go back to town and say, `This is what we found. Can we put a whole show around this person or incorporate this person into something we have already?’ It’s a great opportunity.”
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Bernie Brillstein and his company (Brillstein-Grey) have made a fortune grooming young stars and unknowns for that opportunity. He was involved with “Saturday Night Live.”
“I love people who do comedy,” he says. “They’re very tender people; they’re very sensitive people.
“Anyone who can get up on the stage in front of 2,000 people–they’re very strong people.”
Admiration aside, Brillstein says he nominates young comedians he represents to perform in the festival using “instinct, pure instinct. You’re either born with it (comedic talent) or you’re not. To make 2,000 or 5,000 or 100,000 people laugh, that’s some ability.”
Brillstein says he attends the festival to see new talent, but mostly he’s there to schmooze with old friends. “It’s like a reunion,” he says. But he admits there’s serious business going on too. He has seen lots of people get specials out of coming to the comedy festival and connecting with the right people.
Wendi Goldstein is one of the “right” people who can make open doors for Brown and the other 40 or so promising new artists performing at the festival.
As the director of comedy development for CBS, Goldstein makes it a point to attend the U.S. festival and the international comedy festival in Montreal each summer because “it’s good to see what’s out there.”
“As a network, we can’t ignore the success of Brett Butler or Tim Allen or Roseanne,” she says. “We’re always looking for who that next person is going to be. This is a really good place to do that.”
Part of Goldstein’s job is finding new actors for CBS sitcoms, but she says 80 percent of her effort goes into spotting writing talent. She then becomes a sort of sitcom matchmaker, pairing compatible writers with comics for CBS projects.
“Getting the right performer with the right writer is a huge part of the job. You know, getting the package to come together.”
Goldstein, who has been involved in “The Nanny,” “Almost Perfect” and “Good Company,” says any show’s success is akin to the alignment of a planetary conjunction. “It’s a combination of the writers and the acting and the timing. If it’s a great script and the casting is wrong, that’s it.
“All the people in `Friends’ were in other shows before; all the people in `ER’ were in other shows before too. It just has to be sort of magic to be a hit show.”
A month after showing his stuff at the festival, Geoff Brown says he’s “looking at four different things that came from there. I’m reading for (one of them) now.”
So far, there’s nothing definite, but Brown remains optimistic. “Look at comics in the limelight now. (Jim) Carrey has been in the business 15 years; (Jay) Leno, 20.
“It’s not like a beanstalk thing where you plant a seed and a tree comes out of it in one night.”