OJ Can't Get On TV, Michael Richards Can't Get Off

I met Michael Richards twice. Once at a birthday party for the late Phil Hartman and once when I did Seinfeld, the show, not the man. Focus, people.

I was introduced to him at Phil’s party and Michael was gruff, uncommunicative and withdrawn. I thought what I always thought when I met someone in Hollywood who acted like him: He’s high and if he talks, everyone will know.

I did Seinfeld less than a year later. The first person to introduce themselves was Jason Alexander. He walked right up to me and stuck his hand out, welcomed me to the show and gave his name. I’d known Jerry for over ten years since we did standup together in NYC. Julia introduced herself during the actual filming of our scene. But I had no scenes with Richards so I didn’t see him until there was a break on set. I walked over to him and reminded him of my name and that we had met at Phil Hartman’s party. He glanced at me, made some grunting noise and walked away. That would normally not be out of the ordinary given my track record with celebrities. I do make people run screaming into the night.

I didn’t go near Michael Richards for the rest of the shoot. Comedians are notoriously strange individuals with idiosyncratic behavior that can border on the insane, see Andy Dick, Andy Kaufman, Roseanne Barr, Robin Williams and of course, the beloved Donald Rumsfeld. So I passed it off as such.

Sidebar: During the shoot, I stepped on one of Julia’s lines. For those of you who have normal lives and jobs and may not know what that means, it meant I started talking before she finished her speech. The director yelled ‘cut’ and as we waited for notes from Larry David, I apologized to Julia. “What for?” she asked me. I told her I had stepped on her line and would be more careful next time. She said she hadn’t even noticed. Jerry looked at me, took a beat and said, “Your first time doing comedy, Suzy?”

The word on the street in L.A. is that Richards had taken to the comedy club stages some time ago in an effort to remain in the public eye. The word was also that he sucked and sucked big time. He was not a comic. He was a funny actor. I’ve never met a comedian who hasn’t been heckled. It’s part of our job. It’s like a dressing-down from the boss, which in our case is two hundred and fifteen drunken bosses. After years in front of a mike, you get better with the hecklers. You either have previously-used comebacks to shut them up or you ignore them. I make the heckler come on stage with me. I tell him that he is probably funnier than I am so I want to hear a joke. I hand him the mike and walk to the back of the stage. The heckler breaks into a cold sweat, can’t say anything because of the primal fear that doing standup brings out of you like measles on a seven year old, and then hears from the audience the very thing he has been telling the comic, “You suck.”

It’s a beautiful thing.

I’m upset that they cancelled the O.J. interview. The only other person who is as upset as I am is my friend Louise McLoserstene. Even though we both know he’s guilty, we wanted to Hear Him Confess. If I Did It was a confession. After years of hearing people complain and grouse about how he got off scott-free, I would have thought the public would want their pound of flesh.

Yes, we know O.J. just wanted back in the limelight (see Michael Richards' success with that); we know O.J. is a murderer. But if we had seen it, seen him cry like a little girl, the public abuse would have been worse. He would be even more vilified than he is now. Ron and Nicole aren’t coming back any time soon. All we have left is the man who murdered them and was going to tell us how he might have (really did) do it. Yes, I know it’s in the book. But folks, TV interviews are FREE. End of chat.