Oh well, that’s a long story. So, I was in retailing, I went to city college and I went to FIT and I
was in retailing for a while. And I was working for a company called Gimbles in New York City
and they were going to close shop. They sold the real state here right here in 33rd and Broadway
and I was out of the job. So I said oh you know what I’ve always been working since like I’m 16
years old and I said I was married at the time and I was able to take some time off. So I took
some time off and some friends of mine said to me lets open a cabaret. Then I said oh that might
be fun. So we open this cabaret on 8th avenue, in 26 street and they named it Caroline’s. When
once my name was on the door then I had little more than invested interest in it. So I said this
might be fun, you know helping run this club. So we started with lots of cabaret acts and when
that quite, it really didn’t hit me I mean it was contemporary enough for me at that time. Then we
started to booked comedians like Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld and Gary Shanling and Billy
Crystal and Peewee Herman and that was the start of Caroline’s as a comedy club.
Oh, watching The David Letterman show that was on it you know 12:30 at night Jay Leno was
kind of a regular on that show so I kind of said oh let me tie it into when, if we can get him on
the show when he said Caroline’s and said he can mention that he’s there and then people come
out to see him. It was a way of saving with advertising but getting the word out, I guess it was
marketing at that time. So kind of we did it that way and that kind of built our reputation.
He was a working comedian, he worked around the country, he has this small following at that
time but they came out to him and were kind of my contemporary at that time. Jay and I, you
know like the same age and his clientele was the same ages that time. And he came out to see
him followed by people that were on the rise like Jerry Seinfeld and Gary Shanling, Sandra
Burnhart, Rita Rudner. I mean its everybody that’s kind of made it came to the club.
I think I’m, I think I’m struggling to an agent at that time at APA and Jerry was there and he
said, well you know agents are always trying to sell you, sell talent any ways so he suggest that
we book Jerry and we did and Jerry worked to the club for a number of years. And I remember
him doing a few New Year’s Eve there so it was kind of fun years ago.
I think a lot of people came through our system, you know a lot of people where we had the
mess, we put them as opening acts. I mean Chris Rock was young kid when he started to work at
the club and when he last appeared at the club we had a young comedian called Wanda Sykes,
and Wanda we put Wanda as an opening act and introduced her to Chris. And after that you
know she kind of agrees was made and she worked a lot with Chris Rock.
Maybe I take it for granted the people have come through there, I mean lots of producers Larry
David, Michael Patrick King, John Stewart. John Stewart was a writer on a TV show that I had
for ANA for 6 years, so it was also him and Michael Patrick King. I mean when I look back at
some of the fun things that we did, you know when the early 90’s you can see where this guys
were headed to after that.
We start a lot of people out, there’s a young woman Lisa Lampanelli, we let her come in and let
her perform there and builder following and she want to do not to be very funny lady so things
like that.
I think how I watch comedians, I watched them grow. Sunday night I was watching the Oscars
and I watched John Stewart and I was thinking last night I wanted to send him a note, you know
I remember him as a 27 year old kid standing with me at a bar at the club that I had at the sea
port you know talking about his mother to me. And you know just to go back in to see how he’s
grown over the years, it’s just quite amazing. That’s almost 20’s, 20 years ago when I met John,
you know I did a kiddie show with John at the sea port on a Saturday morning, I wish I had the
tapes of that right now.
He’s grown, he’s you know he has his own voice, he grew into himself, he’s just a real, real big,
big, talent.