The razor-edged king of late-night comedy.
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On that bulletin board, four days before the firstS.N.L.
show of the new season, Ebersol has blocked out the program by segments.
Each segment is marked by an index card Opening montage and Talent entrance and so on.
Only one card bears just a first name.
It reads, Eddie.
That card, says Ebersol, means that he does whatever he wants to in that spot.
Just 21, he came out of Roosevelt, Long Island, only a few years ago.
Its not so surprising that Eddie Murphy is doing well.
Whatissurprising is that he is now being touted as Americas major new comedian.
The sky is the limit for Eddie Murphy, says producer Ebersol.
No Black comic actor has come on the scene as fast since Bill Cosby 20 years ago.
three weeks out of the box last season.
And thats why hes been noticed so quickly.
More remarkably, Murphy appeals to white audiences while doing routines that border on anti-white harangues.
During the same act, he can play with hated Black stereotypes and keep a Black following.
It ends with the line I hate white people because they is white.
Then he spells out the word white: w-i-t-e. Laughter.
Then theres Little Richard Simmons, one of Murphys more inventive creations.
Comedian Franklin Ajaye, for one, thought it a bit demeaning to Blacks.
So hes just rapping to somebody.Andthe whole Black-and-white thing works because of hiseyes.
He never loses the charm in his eyes.
In his eyes he never stops smiling.
His eyes tell the audience hes laughing.
The only other person onS.N.L.like this was Chevy in the beginning.
Eddies eyes are the eraser for any misunderstanding.
Those who have seen rushes of48 Hrs.say that Murphy is a very good film actor as well.
Murphy portrayals a convict named Reggie Hammond.
Neighborhood youngsters cruise by the house to see if Eddie is home.
Three years ago, Murphy was earning about $30 a week in Long Island clubs.
This year, he should make a million.
But he still goes home to Long Island and is still very much its product.
He does Yiddish jokes better than some of the Jewish comedians from whom he learned them.
Its about 9 p.m., and shes waiting for Vernon to come home from the afternoon shift at Breyers.
She bustles about her lime-green-carpeted living room wearing a flattering olive-and-white sweater and olive-colored trousers.
There are framed photographs of her three sons on the coffee table.
Eddie Murphys success has come too fast for the family to fall into the show-business syndrome.
Lillian serves me coffee in the white-brick dining room.
Like Richard Pryor and Jimmie Walker and many others, Murphydidrely heavily on profanity.
Lillian did not like to hear all that from her teenage son.
Vernon, however, behaved as a normal suburban father.He kicked ass.
While I am having coffee with Lillian, Vernon comes home from work.
Hes a wiry, no-nonsense man who speaks his mind.
Vernon remains a good fighter.
I could still whip Eddie, he says calmly as we sip coffee.
Eddie respects his parents.
I used to be a professional fighter.
And I believed inme;I believednobodycould whip me.
Eddiealwayshad that; he always believed in himself, even from a little kid.
I will still take Charles or Eddie downstairs and put on the gloves with them.
Toughen them up a little bit, show them how tough they can be.
If Eddie wanted to be, I think hed be a dynamite middleweight boxer.
But he said, Pop, no good.
Dont want to fight nobody.
Part of Murphys club act is a bit he calls Drinking Fathers.
That wasme, Vernon says, admitting that he used to take the occasional drink.
True, true,true.
Id come in here, three oclock in the morning, get him up.
I dont think I was as bad as he makes out.
But I rolled him out: Getup, get these dishes washed, get with it.
And I always kept two pairs of boxing gloves around.
And Eddie doesnt like no kind of violence.
All I had to do was tell him, Lets go, just you and me, downstairs.
I was thinking about that today.
You ever noticed how often he washes his hands?
He would never take out the garbage; he didnt want his hands to touch the garbage.
Vernon and Lillian reflect for a while on Eddies childhood.
On how he would watch TV and mimic cartoon characters.
About how he was always pretty quiet and private.
He was an average student who made himself popular through his sharp tongue.
He was performing as a comedian on Long Island before he could drive.
You spanked me because you love me.
Cause if you didnt care you wouldnt spank me.
They dont manage anyone else and they have no plans to manage anyone else.
They manage Eddie Murphy because he asked them to.
But Wachs is remembering his first meeting with Murphy.
Two and a half years ago.
I get to know a guy name of Bob Nelson, first-rate stand-up comedian.
At the Comic Strip, were kind of a family situation.
I say, Who are you?
Im ready to go on.
I say, Wait a minute.
We have systems around here, procedures.
You dont just walk in and say, Im here and Im going on.
Get the hell out.
So I threw him out of the club.
Wachs laughs and drinks his wine.
So Eddie comes back a week or two later no problems.
Make a long story short, Eddie started doing very nicely taking a late-night bit for us.
Now, this is the beginning of the Jean Doumaninan era atSaturday Night Live.
Long story short, he gets a job as featured player, not as a regular.
So they get Eddie to go out and do his stand-up club routine.
Much of his stand-up is peppered with four-letter words.
Eddie did simultaneous editing.
He edited his routine as he did it live, and it was brilliant.
Murphy, In fact, was the brightest spot in a dismalS.N.L.year.
That Eddie Murphy is a star is indisputable.
That hes neither a household word nor a face the paparazzi love to chase is also indisputable.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, he arrived in Atlanta only a few hours after wrapping48 Hrs.in Los Angeles.
The crowd is disco singer Richard Dimples Fields, who wants a picture with Murphy.
S, says Murphy.
Maybe Ill do my Stevie Wonder routine tonight.
I wonder what Stevie thinks about it.
I could alwayoutboxhim, if I had to.
He says that with a wink.
In Room 3004, Murphy eats a room-service dinner, watchesRagtime,and mimics Coalhouse Walker Jr. perfectly.
Remind me sometime, he says, to do a Meineke-muffler commercial like Coalhouse.
Murphys eyes flare, and his voice booms menacingly: I wants my car fixed.Now!He laughs.
But if anybody put s inmyBenz, Id do the same thing.
He puts on black leathers for the show.
I dont knowwhatIm gonna do tonight, he says as he carefully studies himself in the mirror.
Itshardto make the brothers laugh.
Your mutha got a wooden leg with a kickstand.
White people go to clubs.
Blacks go to movies and to discos.
I meet Black people whove never been to comedy clubs.
They didnt know such places existed.
Blacks are just a harder audience.
Whites just sit down and expect a good time.
Blacks say, Lets see if this is funny.
I know that I can go out in front of a white crowd and say Do you smell s?
and theylllaugh, but that would take five minutes with a Black crowd.
Murphy heads downstairs to do his first stand-up routine in months.
The audience is mostly Black.
Murphy aggressively thanks CBS for signing him to do an album just when things are all fed up.
Cheap humor, but the crowd loves it.
They have never met before.
But hes laughing and so is Murphy.
Its 11:30 at night and Murphy begs off several party invitations.
He doesnt laugh at all.
When the segment is over, he sits up and says, Thatsgood.
Thats my favorite piece.
Im sorry I didnt write that.
The rest of the show is abysmal, and Murphy says so.
There is no bigger Eddie Murphy fan than Joe Piscopo, the fellow survivor.
They needed a Black guy, and Eddie was up for it.
I hadnt heard of Eddie.
He had worked the Long Island clubs, and I worked the Manhattan clubs.
We sat down and talked, and I immediately saw thevulnerabilityof this guy.
That and hisconfidence.I read with him for his audition.
We did the Chevy ChaseRichard Pryor word-association piece, and Eddie tookchargeof that.
So I said, This guy isgreat.
The first thing on TV I did with Eddie Ill never forget, Piscopo says.
It was the first laugh anyone got on the show.
Eddie hadnt been on-camera yet, but he came out to explain the difference between Blacks and whites.
Hes a step above everyone else.
I get tears in my eyes.
What, I wonder, strikes Piscopo as the reason Murphy has stood out so much?
Piscopo thinks about it for a while, swiveling in his chair.
Its a Dont f with meattitude, he finally says.
I would love to be like that, but Im not.
But you know why he gets away with it?
Its because he hasenormousvulnerability.
When he smiles, you want this kid to be yourson.
Hes wearing white leather and gold jewelry.
Clothing and cars, he says, are his vices.
No drugs, alcohol, or tobacco.
Imnotastounded by myself; Imnotastounded by my talents.
Its like I have a warped sense of humor.
Every couple of years this countrys sense of humor changes.
Hipper people are intocomedy,not into silly things.
OnS.N.L.in the old days, you could come out and sayLets have sexand get a big laugh with it.
If I did that, theyd cancel that show.
He adds that the Coneheads were funny then, but comedy demands something beyond that now.
And what does he think that is?
Well, our bit with Sinatra and Stevie Wonder is a perfect example.
Another perfect example is the two old men that Joe Piscopo and I do.
Joes character is the guy that puts up with his bull.
When I looked at it, my eyes swelled up with water Thats beautiful!
Murphy becomes silent for a while.
The planes pilot comes out to apologize to me for the fact that my seat has no serving tray.
The pilot thinks that Im Eddie Murphy, a famous person on this plane.
Murphy likes that.I have ameansense of humor, he says.
Lovely person, but I like to see stuff likeKung Fu Classroom kicking little girls through walls.
But you cant beat children on TV.
He laughs, a little shamefaced.
Who can you beat up?, I ask.
Murphy replies with glee, Oldpeople.
If you beat up regular people, our age, its not funny.
Cant beat up cripples.
But if you beat up old people, like 90, people go into hysterics.
Im writing a sketch where Mr. T meets E.T.
[There follows a fairly explicit description of what would happen if Ralph and Ed got married.
Murphy says he fully intends to carry it as far as the NBC censors will allow.]
I saw a guy get stabbed in my hometown a couple of years ago, lying on the ground.
Like watchingStarsky and Hutch.
My children or my grandchildren will destroy us.
Society is getting more and more …
He looks off into space.
People are getting warped senses of humor now.
Ill tell you, in 100 years this is gonna be a messed-up place.
I dont care, cause Ill be dead and gone.
My experience is what I share with the audiences, he continues.
I dont look at them and say, Boy, arent you funny.
Im looking at them, saying, My, arent we all messed up.
Like when I do a sketch like Buckwheat, Im laughing at how ridiculous it was.
Buckwheat was so absurd, it had to be parodied.
All that about the good old days and the cities and all that stuff Happy Days,bull!
Murphys getting ever more serious.
Black people, we didnt have no malt shops like Fonz.
Ill tell you, I was so serious onstage last night [in Atlanta] about the reckless-eyeball charge.
Hes the only hero we have.
And they killed him.
We aint been having no happy days.
At La Guardia, Eddie Murphy is mobbed by three beautiful teenagers who recognize him.
Comedy, he says, has its ups.
