第1章
From Magician to Comedy Legend: A Journey of Laughter and Pain
Steve Martin's journey from amateur magician to comedy superstar is a testament to the power of persistence and reinvention. Born Standing Up chronicles his eighteen-year stand-up career-ten learning, four refining, and four in wild success. What makes this memoir so compelling is Martin's candid admission that he wasn't naturally talented; rather, his success came from relentless work and innovation. His story resonates with countless celebrities who cite him as a major influence, from Jerry Seinfeld to Tina Fey. The book, published in 2007, was named by Time magazine as one of the top ten nonfiction books of the year and has become required reading for aspiring comedians. Martin's revolutionary approach to comedy-creating tension without release-changed the landscape of American humor forever. His evolution from magic shop employee to arena-filling superstar offers a rare glimpse into the making of a comedy legend who walked away at the height of his fame.
第2章
The Formative Years: Magic, Music, and Family Dysfunction
Steve Martin's comedy education began on family road trips between Texas and California, where radio programs featuring Bob Hope, Jack Benny, and Abbott and Costello filled the backseat of the family Nash Airflyte. These disembodied voices became vivid characters in young Steve's imagination-one of the few activities his family enjoyed together. His relationship with his father, Glenn Vernon Martin, was formal and distant, with rare moments of connection. Friends described Glenn as outgoing and funny, but these traits rarely surfaced at home. His mother, Mary Lee, once stylish and starstruck, became increasingly submissive to avoid her husband's volatile temper.
At age ten, Martin landed his first job selling guidebooks at the newly opened Disneyland for two cents commission each. The park became both playground and workplace, with two places particularly captivating him: Merlin's Magic Shop and the Golden Horseshoe Revue, where comedian Wally Boag performed. Martin absorbed Wally's timing, studied his laughs, and fantasized about filling in for him someday. At fifteen, after stints as a trick-rope demonstrator and warehouse worker, he secured his dream job at the magic shop, where he learned sleight of hand from Leo Behnke.
A dusty book with a yellow cover, Dariel Fitzkee's "Showmanship for Magicians," became Martin's bible. It encouraged originality and breaking entertainment into essential elements. He meticulously recorded audience reactions after each performance, gradually realizing they loved it most when tricks failed-planting the seed for his future comedy direction.
The magic shop brought influential mentors like Dave Steward, a former vaudevillian who became manager after Leo left. Dave showed Martin comedy magic tricks that taught him about creating laughter through absence. Through these experiences, Martin developed an interest in vaudeville history and carnival culture that would later inform his unique performance style.
Martin's childhood was marked by his father's growing anger, culminating in one terrible beating when he was nine. He resolved that only the most formal relationship would exist between them for the next thirty years. As he later reflected, "A complicated childhood can qualify one to be a comedian."
第3章
Finding His Voice at The Bird Cage Theatre
From ages eighteen to twenty-two, Martin worked at Knott's Berry Farm's Bird Cage Theatre, where he formed the primordial core of his comedy act. The theater housed genuine characters: Ronnie Morgon who impersonated Lincoln, Joe Carney who opened bathroom doors from the top to avoid germs, and mischievous John Stuart who once secretly filled Martin's top hat with talcum powder, creating an unscheduled laugh when a cloud of smoke bloomed from his head during performances.
It was here that Martin met his first love, Stormie Sherk, with whom he performed and roamed Knott's in period clothes. She introduced him to W. Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge," inspiring him to enroll at Long Beach State College as a philosophy major. When she moved to UCLA, their relationship painfully drifted apart.
Performing multiple times daily gave Martin confidence and poise. He began auditioning at local folk clubs like The Prison of Socrates and the Ice House in Pasadena, expanding his act with poetry readings to stretch it to twenty minutes. After three years, he gave notice at age twenty-one but continued attending college, taking philosophy courses in metaphysics, ethics, and logic while maintaining outside comedy jobs.
During this period, comedy albums by Nichols and May, Lenny Bruce, and Tom Lehrer showed Martin that comedy could evolve beyond traditional joke structures. Two revelations hit him: he would need to write everything in his act himself, abandoning borrowed material, and he needed to put himself at the center of his comedy rather than describing things happening to others.
Martin began experimenting with new material, from dramatic readings of the periodic table to exploring comedy in unexpected places like his logic textbook. He discovered Lewis Carroll was not just the author of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" but also a logician who wrote textbooks featuring syllogisms. This revelation inspired him to create absurd logical arguments for his comedy act, transforming traditional syllogisms into nonsensical conclusions that nonetheless followed logical structure.
第4章
Breaking Into Television: The Smothers Brothers and Beyond
At twenty-one, Martin's life took an unexpected turn when his ex-girlfriend Nina (professionally known as Nina Lawrence) suggested he send some of his quirky one-paragraph stories to The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, where she worked as a dancer and was dating head writer Mason Williams. Despite his lack of professional writing experience, Mason liked Martin's material, and he was hired as a tryout writer for the remaining weeks of the season.
Martin's professional writing career began awkwardly. As a young writer hired mainly for being under thirty, he felt intense pressure among seasoned professionals. Initially paralyzed with self-doubt, he couldn't even write a simple introduction. When Tommy Smothers directly challenged him to write an intro, Martin borrowed a joke from his roommate Gary Mule Deer: "It has been proven that more Americans watch television than any other appliance." The experienced writers complimented him, and though he felt like a fraud, this moment freed him to contribute properly to the show.
At twenty-two, Martin joined the summer replacement show starring Glen Campbell. There he worked with folk legend Pete Seeger and was paired with Bob Einstein, with whom he became inseparable friends. They spent at least eight of their fourteen daily working hours laughing hysterically at things that might or might not be usable comedy. Martin also collaborated with Rob Reiner, and together they created a ten-minute finale combining sketches with classic fifties rock songs, possibly starting a fifties music revival.
Ironically, at the height of this early success, Martin experienced his first devastating anxiety attack. While high on marijuana before seeing Mel Brooks's The Producers, he felt his mind being torn from his body, his heart racing above two hundred beats per minute, and complete terror. Though he believed he was dying, he worried more about missing work and losing his job. These panic attacks continued, triggered especially by nightfall, and plagued him for nearly two decades.
In the late sixties, comedy was changing dramatically. The old school of joke-tellers with rim shots was giving way to storytellers like Bill Cosby and innovators like Bob Newhart. The country was angry about Vietnam, and comedy reflected this division, often addressing only insiders. While some performers like Johnny Carson and Carol Burnett maintained broader appeal, silliness was generally considered inappropriate for hip culture-a circumstance that would ironically set the stage for Martin's success years later.
第5章
The Long Road: Developing a Revolutionary Comedy Style
After resigning from television writing against his agent's advice, Martin was adrift-no financial support, just a comedian trying to make it. A Denver club owner named Chet Hansen started a small agency and produced wide-ranging bookings that kept Martin on the road for years with a punishing travel schedule. Though exhausting, this anonymity provided freedom to experiment. These out-of-the-way venues became Martin's comedy education, with no mentors or guidebooks-just practice in places where no critical eyes were watching.
During this period, Martin developed a revolutionary approach to comedy based on tension without release. His goal was to make audiences laugh but leave them unable to describe what had made them laugh-creating a "you had to be there" experience like the giddiness between close friends. Critics were baffled: "This so-called 'comedian' should be told that jokes are supposed to have punch lines." For eight years, Martin would roll this theory up a hill like Sisyphus.
Martin's act became simultaneously smart and stupid. The smart part was conceptual-like his sing-along with impossible-to-sing-along-to lyrics. The stupid part included bits like: "Oh gosh! My shoelace is untied!" Then bending down, seeing it wasn't untied, and announcing, "Oh, I love playing jokes on myself!" He created deliberately incomprehensible jokes like his plumber bit about a "Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom seven-inch gangly wrench" that built to the punchline "It says sprocket, not socket!"
Around 1972, Martin sensed the Age of Aquarius was dying. Though its hairstyles, clothes, and lingo still dominated youth culture, the movement was breaking down. In response, he made a dramatic change-cutting his hair, shaving his beard, and putting on a suit. He stripped all political references from his act, which felt defiant. Overnight, instead of looking like another freak with a crazy act, he looked like a visitor from the straight world gone seriously awry.
Between 1973 and 1975, Martin's one-man vaudeville show turned fully surreal. He linked the unlinkable, blending economy with extravagance, non sequiturs with convention. His friend Rick Moranis later called Martin's act's final manifestation "anti-comedy."
第6章
The Tonight Show and Finding His Audience
The ultimate television appearance for any comedian was The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. After initial rejection by producer Freddy De Cordova, Johnny saw Martin's kinescope from Steve Allen's show and said, "Let's give him a try." Despite the myth that one Tonight Show appearance made you a star, the reality was different: nothing happened after Martin's first appearance, nothing after the second. Only by the twelfth might someone say, "Oh, I know you. You're that guy."
Martin's first Tonight Show experience was surreal-standing backstage in the darkness, hearing muffled laughter, waiting for the tap on his shoulder, thinking "I am about to do The Tonight Show," then "I am doing The Tonight Show," and finally "I have just done The Tonight Show." After several successful appearances using his best material, he ran out of quality bits and was demoted to appearing with guest hosts-a devastating blow.
Johnny Carson had comic savvy unlike daytime hosts (except Steve Allen). He was the comedian's friend-he waited, gave you timing, stepped in not to knock you out but to set you up. He struggled with you and sometimes saved you. Though commonly perceived as "cold and aloof" (as he joked in his monologue), Johnny wasn't aloof-he was polite. He didn't presume intimate relationships where none existed; he took time to build trust.
For Martin's first show back with Johnny after being relegated to guest hosts, he speed-talked a Vegas nightclub act in two minutes. When he reached the punchline and started a wild flail, a showbiz miracle occurred: the camera cut to Johnny doubling over with laughter. Suddenly, subliminally, Martin was endorsed. This sixteenth appearance was his first real smash on the show.
A breakthrough moment came at the Boarding House in San Francisco, where Martin had previously only been an opening act. After years on the road, he now had four hours of material to choose from. The younger crowd embraced what had bombed at the Playboy Clubs. Martin pushed boundaries further, creating memorable bits like his fake rage over not getting a blue spotlight and his "Well, excuuuse me!" catchphrase. John Wasserman's rave in the San Francisco Chronicle boosted attendance, and Martin walked away with forty-five hundred dollars-more cash than he'd ever seen at once.
第7章
The Explosion: From Clubs to Arenas
Martin's audience grew exponentially. From 500-seat venues to 2,000 in Dallas, then 3,000 in Milwaukee where he adopted his trademark white gabardine suit for visibility. After hosting Saturday Night Live in October 1976, his Madison show drew 6,000 people who greeted him with a deafening roar. His albums sold millions-"Let's Get Small" sold 1.5 million copies, while "A Wild and Crazy Guy" hit number two on the charts and sold 2.5 million. The Czech brothers sketch with Danny Aykroyd on SNL gave him his second catchphrase. Soon he was on the covers of Rolling Stone and Newsweek.
Martin's audience sizes became staggering-15,000 in Toronto, 22,000 in St. Louis, 45,000 at Nassau Coliseum. He had become the biggest concert comedian in show business history, starting from zero, from magic tricks in his backyard, from Disneyland. He bought houses, stopped checking prices, and joked: "I think I'm spending my money wisely.... I just bought a three-hundred-dollar pair of socks."
His fame affected his parents differently. His father remained unimpressed, writing a bad review of his SNL appearance in his realtor newsletter: "His performance did nothing to further his career." Martin simply stopped discussing his work with him. His mother, however, basked in his celebrity, though she cared more about his status than his content, once telling him, "He writes his own material, I'm always telling him he needs a new writer."
In the late seventies, Martin's touring schedule became relentless. He'd sleep on a band bus overnight, arrive at hotels at 7 A.M., collapse until 4 P.M., eat room-service fried shrimp, watch The Brady Bunch, perform, then immediately hit the road again. The pace was grueling: sixty cities in sixty-three days, seventy-two cities in eighty days, eighty-five cities in ninety days. He traveled in stealth limousines through subterranean entrances, a lightning strike of fame happening to Stephen Glenn Martin, who had started with nothing.
第8章
The Price of Success and Walking Away
Though audiences continued to grow, Martin experienced depression from exhaustion, isolation, and creative ennui. Too famous to go outdoors, his romantic life ceased. After shows, he'd take solitary rides back to hotels, escorted by security across lobbies to the blunt interior of a room. This was the loneliest period of his life. He couldn't quit because this multi-zeroed income might last only a moment. He worried about being a flash in the pan. Critics who once lauded him became targets: STEVE MARTIN, A MILD AND LAZY GUY. The backlash had begun.
His tired body rebelled. One summer night in a southern college gymnasium where temperatures reached 120, his heart began to skip beats. He panicked, walked offstage and went to a hospital. While lying on a gurney, confident he was dying, a nurse asked him to autograph the printout of his erratic heartbeat.
Being Baptist-raised, Martin honored all contracts despite mounting frustration. The act still rocked, but audience disruptions killed the timing of bits, violating his premise that every moment mattered. He had become a party host presiding over a celebratory bash rather than timing and ideas.
Fame brought instant restaurant reservations, VIP treatment, returned calls, and meetings with admired artists like James Cagney and Cary Grant. But the dark side was that regular conversations became difficult and fraught with ulterior motives. Public actions had a freakish celebrity aura. He'd get laughs at innocuous things like "What time does the movie start?" Cars would follow him recklessly with passengers shouting his catchphrases. He was expected to be his stage persona, which he stubbornly resisted.
Martin was determined to parlay his stand-up success into motion pictures while he still had clout. A movie career seemed to foster longevity, whereas being a fad comedian seemed finite. Plus, he was exhausted by travel and loved that a movie could go everywhere while he stayed home. His idea came from a line in his act: "It wasn't always easy for me; I was born a poor black child." After Paramount passed, the film moved to Universal with Carl Reiner directing.
Despite receiving mostly dismissive reviews, The Jerk made $180 million and was later voted among AFI's top comedies. At the premiere, when asked what he thought of the film, Martin's father chuckled and said, "Well, he's no Charlie Chaplin."
Though The Jerk was a hit, Martin fell into depression. In 1981, he noticed something disturbing during a show at the Riviera: empty seats in the back-something he hadn't seen in five years. In Atlantic City, after a prop failure, he exploded in rage backstage. It wasn't about the prop-he'd lost contact with what he was doing and suffered an artistic crisis. He packed away his magic act that night and never did stand-up again.
第9章
Healing Wounds: Family Reconciliation
In the early 1980s, a friend advised Martin to work out any issues with his parents while he still could. He began a fifteen-year effort to reconnect, taking them to lunch almost every weekend. His father's attitude softened in the 1990s-he loved Martin's play Picasso at the Lapin Agile and his humor began to shine through despite health issues. One afternoon, as they said goodbye, his father hugged him and said "I love you"-the first time these words were ever spoken between them.
As his father's health declined further, Martin found himself at his bedside. Alert but failing, his father said, "I'm ready now," and then, "I wish I could cry." When Martin asked what about, he answered, "For all the love I received and couldn't return." He told Martin, "You did everything I wanted to do," and Martin replied, "I did it for you," though the more complicated truth was that he did it because of him. They wept together for the lost years. His father died in 1997.
After his father's death, his mother briefly became a stylish matriarch, immediately cutting off small loans his father had made to friends. She soon fell into mental decline, alternating between lucidity and confusion. During one visit, she told Martin she thought Glenn had treated him unfairly and wished she'd intervened. She claimed she'd hugged him a lot as a child, something he didn't recall. Then after a pause, she looked at him, puzzled, and asked, "How's your mother?" She died in February 2002.
After his mother's passing, Martin felt a sentimental urge to visit the Bird Cage Theatre. Thirty-one years had passed since he'd left the place where he got his start. Walking through Knott's Berry Farm felt like passing through rings of time. Finding the back door unlocked, he entered the darkened theater and was overwhelmed by sadness. Standing on stage looking at the empty theater, he realized how much this place had meant to him-he wanted to be there again, before comedy became serious.
第10章
Legacy of Laughter: The Art of Moving Forward
Martin's stand-up career took the shape of a well-crafted performance with a beginning, middle, and end, much like the three-act structure he would later employ in his films. In a revealing conversation with painter Eric Fischl, they explored the parallel paths of psychoanalysis and artistic creation. Both disciplines delve deep into the subconscious mind, but while psychoanalysis strives to preserve and understand discoveries, art demands a different approach - the ability to create something and then release it completely. This philosophy became central to Martin's creative process, as he hadn't revisited his stand-up career until writing this memoir, having deliberately abandoned it to pursue new creative horizons.
His years on stage provided him with an invaluable gift: an almost supernatural ability to read and respond to audience reactions. This intuitive understanding would later prove instrumental in his filmmaking career, though he remained grateful for the times his instincts proved wrong. These surprises kept his creative spirit alive and prevented his work from becoming formulaic. The process of researching this book became an unexpected adventure, a detective story where each discovered photograph sparked memories long forgotten. These visual cues led him to reconnect with old friends, each conversation unveiling new layers of shared history and unearthing treasured memorabilia from his remarkable journey.
What sets Martin's story apart is not merely his unprecedented success but his courage to walk away from stand-up comedy at the absolute zenith of his powers, when he was consistently selling out 45,000-seat venues. His revolutionary approach to comedy - blending absurdism, physical comedy, and intellectual concepts - fundamentally altered American humor's landscape. His influence can be traced through multiple generations of comedians who adopted elements of his "anti-comedy" style. From those early days performing magic tricks for neighborhood kids in his Californian backyard to commanding massive arenas with his signature "happy feet" dance and arrow-through-the-head gag, Martin's career exemplifies the archetypal hero's journey, complete with its challenges, victories, and ultimate transformation.
The memoir reveals the profound complexity behind his seemingly simple "wild and crazy guy" persona. Behind the banjo-playing, arrow-through-the-head comedian was an introspective artist constantly seeking deeper connections - with his audience through innovative performance techniques, with his craft through relentless refinement, and eventually with his family through understanding and forgiveness. His evolution from a teenage magician at Disneyland's magic shop to comedy superstardom wasn't simply about achieving fame or perfecting his craft; it was a quest for authentic self-expression and inner peace. When he reflects on his grueling years in comedy with the observation that "one can have, it turns out, an affection for the war years," he demonstrates how time and perspective can transform even the most challenging experiences into valuable chapters of our personal narrative. This sentiment encapsulates Martin's ability to find meaning and growth in every phase of his remarkable career.
