Rita Rudner The Funny Thing Is...
Rita Rudner is an extraordinarily funny comedian who's been well-received by the likes of David Letterman, Johnny Carson, Bill Maher, Jay Leno, Bob Hope, George Burns, Martin Short, Oprah Winfrey, Dennis Miller and Conan O'Brien. She's starred in HBO specials, has written three books, launched her own television show, "Ask Rita," and helped write the Oscar's with former hosts Steve Martin and Whoopi Goldberg. What many don't know is that before comedy, Rita was a successful dancer. The common denominator in her careers? Dedication...110%.
Rita said her single-mindedness started early. "I was a shy child because I was an only child. I didn't talk for a long time." But she took to dance like fish to water. "When you're good at something, you get encouraged and that's all I wanted to do. So from the age of four, all I could talk about was dancing."
Nevertheless, she said, "I could jump, I could turn, I had great extensions but I didn't have arches in my feet. And I tried everything. I would sleep with my feet underneath bars and I would roll my feet over Coke bottles while I was doing my homework. I mean I was a nutty kid."
She turned her focus elsewhere. "I just realized that I should start going towards Broadway rather than ballet. I was always very practical. You can dream but you have to have the dreams based in reality...I started studying tap and then I started to do acrobatics. I was pretty good at acrobatics and jazz. Then I started singing. I had a good singing voice but it was totally unexceptional. I mean it was just serviceable...My father subsidized me. Instead of college, I went to dancing school in New York. I graduated from high school when I was fifteen and I moved to New York that summer...He was nuts. My mother had died. He had married a new wife. The new wife didn't like me very much. They wanted to start a new life. So it was kind of convenient. I moved out and they were able to do their thing and I did my thing."
"I was pretty versatile in what I was doing but I studied all the time. I mean every day I would take ballet and tap and jazz and then go to a vocal coach. It wasn't an accident." After only three months in New York, she was cast in "Zorba" and went on to a ten-year Broadway career that included "Mack and Mabel," "They're Playing Our Song," "Follies," "So Long 174th Street," "The Magic Show," "Promises, Promises" and "Annie."
After ten years, though, Rita had had enough. "I'd done it since I was four and I did it for ten years on Broadway from 15 to 25. And I noticed, again being practical, that even though I was getting parts on Broadway - I wasn't in the chorus any more; I was getting parts - that the competition was unbearable, where there would be one part for every 7,000 girls. I mean it was just stupid. So I'm not going to base my life on these odds. And I noticed that there weren't many female comedians so I said, 'Those are much better odds.'"
Rita performed every night in "Annie" then headed to the nightclubs to work on her comedy routine. "I'd get home around two a.m., three a.m." And once again, she was successful. "Well, because I had such good dance training and I was so disciplined, it took me a lot less time than it takes most comedians...I always say that it doesn't matter when you call a comedian, you wake them up because they're so lazy. They're funny people but they're not disciplined. They're unstructured."
"You have to have a love of what you're doing and you have to have some sort of talent for what you're doing, but talent, although it's important, isn't the most important thing. It's dedication, I think, because I know people who are more talented, more naturally talented, but they don't work at it. So I try to work at it all the time."
"I feel that in life, if you have a passion for something - it doesn't matter what it is, and I don't care what it is - then you have a reason to be. You can like poker; I don't care what you like. You can like decorating. You can like astronomy, anything." What matters is the dedication and not, she adds, necessarily a college education. "I think that's a big decision that a dancer has to make - whether you're going to be a dancer or whether you're going to go to college, because when you're young is when you're the best dancer."
"I don't think Maria Sharapova should give it up and go to college. I think she should play tennis...I think college is good for somebody who wants to be something college-related. If they want to be a doctor, go to college. But if you want to be a gymnast, I think you should be a gymnast. If you want to be a singer, I think you should be a singer."
Just be practical. "One of my very, very best friends is still doing what she did and is having a hard time. Show business is focused on the young. It's what's young, what's new, what's hot. So you have to look at it practically. Time moves on. What are you going to do next to find something else? Even if it's photography, flower arranging, poker - it doesn't matter. You can find something else you like to do that will fulfill you, maybe in a different way. But you can't be a snob about it and say, 'I only want to dance.'"
"I just noticed," she said, "that George Burns was still working and Gene Kelly hadn't had a gig. As a dancer, you have to do it when you're young." So Rita turned her razor-sharp, practical mind toward comedy and dedicated herself toward success. See, the funny thing is that success, even if it's comedy, is serious business. Quite obviously, Rita Rudner has the routine down pat.