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OurWindsor, Canada
Sept 20 2014
Laugh till it hurts
Andrea Martin's Lady Parts, Harper Avenue, 352 pages, $29.99
The timing of this book is unintentionally, disturbingly excellent.
With Robin Williams's death still fresh in our memories, here comes a
first-person memoir by another hugely talented comedian/actor whose
manic onstage antics have masked a deeply troubled personal life.
In Andrea Martin's "Lady Parts" we learn that Martin -- brilliant SCTV
alumna, two-time Tony-winning Broadway star and beloved Aunt Voula
from the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" ("You don't eat no meat?
That's OK, I make lamb!") -- has suffered from crippling depression,
out-of-control panic attacks, neurotic insecurities and a 15-year
battle with bulimia.
All this from our country's favourite funny woman? First off, she
isn't really ours. Born in Portland, Maine, she moved to Toronto at
23, then moved back to the United States 16 years later. She has had a
home in Toronto's High Park since 2009. But she's so sweet and
apologetic about being American that she might as well be Canadian.
Of Armenian descent (many mistakenly think she's Jewish), Martin, 67,
had an enviable youth: she was voted most popular girl in high school,
dated the captain of the baseball team and was Homecoming Queen. Two
weeks after graduating with a college degree in speech and theatre she
joined a touring company, meeting up with fellow unknowns Gilda
Radner, Martin Short and Eugene Levy in the legendary Toronto
production of Godspell.
That led to the Second City stage show and the collaboration of
comedians that became SCTV, the gloriously satirical series that ran
for seven seasons, ending in 1984.
By this point Martin's marriage to Canadian screenwriter Bob Dolman,
with whom she had two sons, was starting to fray, and her body-image
insecurities became obsessions. Raised by a loving but controlling
father and narcissistic mother, she never felt adequate, either
personally or professionally.
Even after she won her first Tony in 1992, her father asked, "Now do
you think you'll get a break?" In fact, what followed was a nervous
breakdown and a long and shaky climb back up.
Andrea Martin's "Lady Parts" isn't a traditional memoir but a
free-flowing collection of seemingly spontaneous musings that jump all
over the place. She includes a year of charming diary entries from her
11-year-old self: "May 23. I found out the other reason that Stanley
and Steven hate me. It is because I bounce (from) one boy to another.
So I am going to try to be a lady even though I can't be."
Her out-of-order chapters include why she flies to Atlanta every six
weeks to get her hair done, how her red Mustang was stolen at
gunpoint; her trip to Armenia, and her year-long affair with a man so
much younger that a store clerk asked her: "Would your son like to try
on the khaki pants?"
The sections on bulimia are brutally honest: "I didn't care if I stole
half-eaten food off someone's room service tray that lay in the hotel
hallway ..." A conversation with her father is painfully intimate. She
saves her SCTV reminiscences till the end and some of the lines will
make you laugh out loud. She doesn't mention her latest sitcom, which
is, perhaps, just as well, as critics declare that "Working the
Engels" isn't working at all.
Martin admits writing the book was like pulling teeth. When she's
told: "Just write, even if it sucks," she obliges: one chapter is a
long, tedious list of things she'd rather do than write ("chat with
telemarketers ... pluck my chin hairs ... fluff pillows ..."). There's a
squirmingly personal account of her visit to the gynecologist, where
she's prescribed testosterone for her low sex drive. (Really? For a
67-year-old who isn't dating?)
But her disarming frankness and continuing struggles will make most
readers embrace Andrea Martin's "Lady Parts." Chances are we'll pay
extra-close attention if we go to see "Night at the Museum: Secret of
the Tomb," to be released in December. The comedy features Andrea
Martin and Robin Williams.
Toronto Star
http://www.ourwindsor.ca/whatson-story/4869441-laugh-till-it-hurts/
Sept 20 2014
Laugh till it hurts
Andrea Martin's Lady Parts, Harper Avenue, 352 pages, $29.99
The timing of this book is unintentionally, disturbingly excellent.
With Robin Williams's death still fresh in our memories, here comes a
first-person memoir by another hugely talented comedian/actor whose
manic onstage antics have masked a deeply troubled personal life.
In Andrea Martin's "Lady Parts" we learn that Martin -- brilliant SCTV
alumna, two-time Tony-winning Broadway star and beloved Aunt Voula
from the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" ("You don't eat no meat?
That's OK, I make lamb!") -- has suffered from crippling depression,
out-of-control panic attacks, neurotic insecurities and a 15-year
battle with bulimia.
All this from our country's favourite funny woman? First off, she
isn't really ours. Born in Portland, Maine, she moved to Toronto at
23, then moved back to the United States 16 years later. She has had a
home in Toronto's High Park since 2009. But she's so sweet and
apologetic about being American that she might as well be Canadian.
Of Armenian descent (many mistakenly think she's Jewish), Martin, 67,
had an enviable youth: she was voted most popular girl in high school,
dated the captain of the baseball team and was Homecoming Queen. Two
weeks after graduating with a college degree in speech and theatre she
joined a touring company, meeting up with fellow unknowns Gilda
Radner, Martin Short and Eugene Levy in the legendary Toronto
production of Godspell.
That led to the Second City stage show and the collaboration of
comedians that became SCTV, the gloriously satirical series that ran
for seven seasons, ending in 1984.
By this point Martin's marriage to Canadian screenwriter Bob Dolman,
with whom she had two sons, was starting to fray, and her body-image
insecurities became obsessions. Raised by a loving but controlling
father and narcissistic mother, she never felt adequate, either
personally or professionally.
Even after she won her first Tony in 1992, her father asked, "Now do
you think you'll get a break?" In fact, what followed was a nervous
breakdown and a long and shaky climb back up.
Andrea Martin's "Lady Parts" isn't a traditional memoir but a
free-flowing collection of seemingly spontaneous musings that jump all
over the place. She includes a year of charming diary entries from her
11-year-old self: "May 23. I found out the other reason that Stanley
and Steven hate me. It is because I bounce (from) one boy to another.
So I am going to try to be a lady even though I can't be."
Her out-of-order chapters include why she flies to Atlanta every six
weeks to get her hair done, how her red Mustang was stolen at
gunpoint; her trip to Armenia, and her year-long affair with a man so
much younger that a store clerk asked her: "Would your son like to try
on the khaki pants?"
The sections on bulimia are brutally honest: "I didn't care if I stole
half-eaten food off someone's room service tray that lay in the hotel
hallway ..." A conversation with her father is painfully intimate. She
saves her SCTV reminiscences till the end and some of the lines will
make you laugh out loud. She doesn't mention her latest sitcom, which
is, perhaps, just as well, as critics declare that "Working the
Engels" isn't working at all.
Martin admits writing the book was like pulling teeth. When she's
told: "Just write, even if it sucks," she obliges: one chapter is a
long, tedious list of things she'd rather do than write ("chat with
telemarketers ... pluck my chin hairs ... fluff pillows ..."). There's a
squirmingly personal account of her visit to the gynecologist, where
she's prescribed testosterone for her low sex drive. (Really? For a
67-year-old who isn't dating?)
But her disarming frankness and continuing struggles will make most
readers embrace Andrea Martin's "Lady Parts." Chances are we'll pay
extra-close attention if we go to see "Night at the Museum: Secret of
the Tomb," to be released in December. The comedy features Andrea
Martin and Robin Williams.
Toronto Star
http://www.ourwindsor.ca/whatson-story/4869441-laugh-till-it-hurts/