Born Standing Up: a comic's life

Summary of Born Standing Up

1. 1

   When Comedy Was Born from Loneliness and Magic

   

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   A young boy sits in the backseat of a Nash Airflyte, somewhere between Texas and California, listening to disembodied voices crackling through the radio-Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello. These voices become his companions, his escape, one of the few things his family shares without tension. This is where comedy begins for Steve Martin: not in laughter, but in the quiet desperation of a child seeking connection. His father, Glenn, is funny with friends but cold at home. His mother, Mary Lee, once vibrant and stylish, has learned to disappear into submission. At nine years old, after a terrible beating, young Steve makes a silent vow: only the most formal relationship will exist between him and his father for the next three decades. Years later, he would reflect that "a complicated childhood can qualify one to be a comedian." Comedy, it turns out, often grows in the cracks where love should be.

2. 2

   The Education of a Comedian: Disneyland to Philosophy

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   At ten, Martin lands his first job at Disneyland selling guidebooks. The park becomes his education-particularly Merlin's Magic Shop and the Golden Horseshoe Revue, where comedian Wally Boag performs. Martin absorbs everything, studying timing and memorizing gestures. At fifteen, working at the magic shop, he discovers Dariel Fitzkee's "Showmanship for Magicians," which teaches him to pursue originality. Recording audience reactions, he notices they laugh hardest when tricks fail-an observation that will revolutionize his comedy. At Knott's Berry Farm's Bird Cage Theatre, performing multiple shows daily from ages eighteen to twenty-two, he develops confidence and discovers genuine characters. His girlfriend, Stormie Sherk, introduces him to Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge," inspiring him to enroll as a philosophy major at Long Beach State. Studying metaphysics, ethics, and logic, he discovers Lewis Carroll was both children's author and logician. This transforms his comedy: he begins creating absurd logical arguments-syllogisms that follow perfect structure but arrive at nonsensical conclusions. Philosophy and comedy merge into something entirely new.

3. 3

   Breaking In: Television, Panic, and Finding a Voice

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   At twenty-one, Martin's ex-girlfriend suggests he send his stories to The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Despite no experience, he's hired-and immediately paralyzed with self-doubt. When Tommy Smothers challenges him to write an introduction, Martin borrows a joke from his roommate: "It has been proven that more Americans watch television than any other appliance." The experienced writers compliment him. Though he feels like a fraud, this moment frees him to contribute genuinely. Success comes quickly-too quickly. While working on Glen Campbell's summer show, Martin experiences his first devastating panic attack. High on marijuana before seeing "The Producers," he feels his mind tearing from his body. These attacks continue for nearly two decades, a secret terror accompanying his rise. Against his agent's advice, Martin quits television for stand-up. Club owner Chet Hansen books him in obscure venues-a punishing schedule that becomes Martin's real education. He develops something revolutionary: comedy based on tension without release. Critics are baffled: "This so-called 'comedian' should be told that jokes are supposed to have punch lines." For eight years, he rolls this theory uphill.

4. Chapter 4

   The Anti-Comedian: Smart, Stupid, and Surreal

   Martin's act blends brilliance with absurdity-sing-alongs with impossible lyrics, exclaiming "Oh gosh! My shoelace is untied!" then discovering it's tied and announcing "Oh, I love playing jokes on myself!" He creates deliberately incomprehensible jokes about "Findlay sprinkler heads" and "Langstrom seven-inch gangly wrenches." Nobody understands it. That's the point. Around 1972, sensing the Age of Aquarius dying, Martin transforms: cuts his hair, shaves his beard, puts on a suit. He strips all political references from his act. Instead of looking like another freak, he looks like a visitor from the straight world gone seriously awry. His friend Rick Moranis calls it "anti-comedy." The Tonight Show becomes his proving ground. After initial rejection, Johnny Carson sees his kinescope and says, "Let's give him a try." Success comes slowly-nothing happens after his first appearance, nothing after the second. Only by the twelfth appearance might someone recognize him. After exhausting his best material, he gets demoted to guest hosts-devastating. But on his sixteenth appearance, back with Johnny, Martin speed-talks a Vegas nightclub act in two minutes. When he reaches the punchline and starts a wild flail, the camera cuts to Johnny doubling over with laughter. Suddenly, subliminally, Martin is endorsed.

   Chapter 5

   The Explosion: When Comedy Became a Stadium Sport

   After hosting Saturday Night Live in October 1976, Martin's audiences exploded from 500-seat clubs to massive venues-6,000 in Madison, 15,000 in Toronto, 45,000 at Nassau Coliseum. His albums became phenomena: "Let's Get Small" sold 1.5 million copies, "A Wild and Crazy Guy" hit 2.5 million. Rolling Stone and Newsweek featured him on their covers. He became the biggest concert comedian in history, touring seventy-two cities in eighty days. The lifestyle was brutal. He traveled through subterranean entrances, collapsed in hotels until 4 P.M., ate room-service fried shrimp, watched The Brady Bunch, performed, then immediately hit the road. Too famous to venture outdoors, he was escorted across hotel lobbies to empty rooms-the loneliest period of his life. One sweltering summer night in a southern gymnasium, his heart began skipping beats. He walked offstage to a hospital. While lying on a gurney, confident he was dying, a nurse asked him to autograph the printout of his erratic heartbeat.

   Chapter 6

   Walking Away: The Courage to End at the Peak

   In 1981, Martin notices empty seats during a show-something unseen in five years. After a prop failure in Atlantic City, he explodes backstage. It isn't about the prop-he's lost contact with what he's doing and suffers an artistic crisis. He packs away his magic act that night and never does stand-up again. At the absolute zenith of his powers, selling out 45,000-seat venues, Martin walks away. He's determined to parlay his success into motion pictures. Movies offer longevity and eliminate exhausting travel-a film can go everywhere while he stays home. His idea comes from a line in his act: "It wasn't always easy for me; I was born a poor black child." Despite dismissive reviews, "The Jerk" makes $180 million and is later voted among AFI's top comedies. In the early 1980s, Martin begins reconnecting with his parents, taking them to lunch almost every weekend. His father's attitude softens in the 1990s. One afternoon, his father hugs him and says "I love you"-the first time these words are ever spoken between them. As his father's health declines, Martin finds himself at his bedside. His father says, "I wish I could cry." When Martin asks what about, he answers, "For all the love I received and couldn't return." They weep together. His father dies in 1997.

   Chapter 7

   The Gift of Letting Go: Art, Memory, and Moving Forward

   Martin's stand-up had a clear narrative structure. In conversation with painter Eric Fischl, they discussed how psychoanalysis and art both explore the subconscious, but while therapy preserves discoveries, art requires creating and releasing. Martin hadn't revisited his stand-up until writing this memoir, having deliberately abandoned it for new creative pursuits. What distinguishes Martin's story is his courage to walk away at the peak. His revolutionary approach - blending absurdism, physical comedy, and intellectual concepts - fundamentally altered American humor, influencing generations of comedians. Behind the banjo-playing, arrow-through-the-head performer was an introspective artist seeking deeper connections with audiences, craft, and family. When Martin reflects that "one can have, it turns out, an affection for the war years," he shows how time transforms challenging experiences into valuable life chapters. His journey from lonely boy listening to radio comedians to comedy superstar was a quest for authentic self-expression. Sometimes the bravest act isn't climbing higher but knowing when to step down. That's wisdom wearing a white suit, taking a final bow.

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