I first saw Rita Rudner in the early 1980s in NYC on the David Letterman Show. She was very funny, and about my age, so I took a liking to her. My wife and I laughed at times out loud! My favourite line from her then was, "I don't have any children... that I know of." She was dry, subtle, clever, clean, and in a time when filth was growing in popularity, hers was refreshing on many levels.
Where did she go? She made it as a successful author, Las Vegas entertainer, and didn't have to continue in the work she had studied and aimed for a career: song and dance on Broadway. Like my daughter, she had studied ballet from the time she was four. And her career worked to land on the stage in NYC. But she evaluated her life as 'less', and she wanted something that would sustain her, and she had always made people laugh, and found that pleasurable. So she gave it a go, and voila, it worked.
I found an interview of her wiih a Detroit newsperson from two months ago and watched with smiles and internal laughter at her continued self-effacing and personal unpacking of difficulties in navigating the world of today. I'm sure those lines were part of her shtick but they came off as off-the-cuff. Timing. It's a key to her comedy.
If I could speak to her, I would ask about the line, "I"m trying to learn new things in my life." Of course, that would include things like computer skills and cooking classes, perhaps, but I wonder if religion, and reading the Bible, not only Torah, but also the New Testament, also written by Jews, might be of interest to this Miami-born Jewish woman?" I'd like to discuss new things.
If I could speak to her, I'd ask about suffering. She was quoted in a San Francisco newspaper a decade ago about Jews and humour and said, "Humor comes from being oppressed — there’s nothing funny about everything going right; things have to go wrong to be funny, and Jews are no longer the only ones who have something to complain about." She was indicating why Jews aren't the mainstay in comedy any longer, but I'd ask her what sufferings she endured that helped frame her exceptional observational comedy and humour.
If I could speak to Rita, I'd ask about the Christmas tree/ Gentile in the house thing. Her non-Jewish stepmother brought in the tree, and when Rita was a teenager, she moved away from Florida to NYC and said, "You can keep the Christmas tree." And yet, Rita married a British man who is not Jewish. So, does she still disregard the combo holidays in December? Does she miss any spinning dreidels or fattening latkes? Maybe we would speak about the miracles of Christmas and the miracle of Hanukkah, and if she even believes in miracles.
Those are some of my current thoughts and who knows, one day she'll be playing the Ryman in Nashville when I'm there, or a playhouse in Sydney or... you never know, but you can be sure, I will smile a lot if I would speak with her. She's that funny; she's worth going to see her. Before Nate Bargatze, whose observations on life are epic, there was Rita Rudner.
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