One generation’s smartest talk show host meets another’s to discuss the rules of comedy, and how to break them.
“Wait,
am I wearing a mic?” Dick Cavett pats his blue button-down searching
for an imaginary wire that turns out to be a pair of glasses. Realizing
his error, the talk show legend looks over at the “Late Night” host and
“Saturday Night Live” alum Seth Meyers and says, smiling, “Well, there
it is. That’s when you know it’s all over.” Cavett should be forgiven
for assuming he’s always on: For six consecutive decades, starting in
the ’60s, he has been a TV mainstay, interviewing the reigning greats of
the time, from Lucille Ball to Truman Capote to David Bowie. The
affable Meyers, with his dry wit and politically inflected comedy, is,
in many ways, this generation’s Cavett: Both cut their teeth in show
business as actors, both have hosted the Emmys and both have inspired
the wrath of dubious politicians (although only one of them was
name-checked more than two dozen times on the Nixon White House tapes).
With genuine affection, Cavett says to Meyers, whom he’s only just met,
“I feel like your dad in a way.” But the moment is fleeting and an
impish smile stretches across his face. “You know,” he says jokingly,
“I’m the one who told them to use you in the first place.”
Seth Meyers: How long did it take for you to walk out onstage and not feel like an actor without lines?
Dick Cavett:
The first time you’re in charge of an hour and a half of television,
you might as well be looking at Mount Everest. It took a few weeks to
relax into it, and then it was fun, but those first shows I’d realize
the guest’s lips had stopped moving and I had no idea what they’d been
talking about. A tip for a young guy like you from an old hand: Have
something ready that you can always say that can apply to everybody.
Something like, “Do you pee in the shower?”
Meyers:
I’m so jealous of how much time you had with people. Every now and then
I have a seven-minute guest who feels like 90 minutes, but more often
than not I’m just getting going right about the time I’m wrapping it up.
Cavett:
That’s another problem. I used to laugh at Dave Letterman when he’d get
an actress on, who probably was not a Rhodes scholar and whose favorite
word was inevitably “exciting”: “Oh, it was such an exciting movie to
work on. The director, he was exciting.” As if the world owes you
exciting. We need to expunge that word.
Meyers: I’m going to take this as a personal note, because I can hear myself saying, “That must have been exciting.”
Cavett: Try instead saying, “That must have been dreary and made you feel soporific.” See how that helps.
Meyers:
I don’t know if it was the era, or the guests, but you would have
people on who didn’t necessarily seem like they wanted to be there.
‘As much as we
shouldn’t let the risk
of offending guide
the material, I do
want to be on the
right side of history
with certain things.’
shouldn’t let the risk
of offending guide
the material, I do
want to be on the
right side of history
with certain things.’
Cavett:
That often was the case, at least at first. When I had George Harrison
on, people said, “You’re going to try to do 90 minutes with George? Lots
of luck.” And I saw what they meant for the first few minutes, but then
he got interesting. Then he got more interesting, until he turned out
to be one of the best guests. And I love every second of that Brando
show. People say it felt like pulling teeth, but no, it wasn’t. To get
him was the victory. He wasn’t sure if he was going to come on. Then the
phone rang, and I heard those wonderful words, “Dick, it’s Marlon
Brando.” I thought, Don’t let this be someone imitating Marlon Brando.
Don’t let this be Alec Baldwin, who sounds more like Brando than Brando.
The sun was only halfway down when the call started, and the moon was
up in the dark sky by the time I convinced him to do the show. My wife’s
favorite Brando moment was when I said, “Were you happy with the way
‘The Godfather’ came out?” And he said, “I’d rather not talk about
movies.” And to my credit, I said, “O.K., what about the book ‘The
Godfather’?”
Meyers: You
had some really thoughtful interviews with people, where, because of
the nature of them, the audience wasn’t laughing much. Did you feel
pressure to come up with a line like that to make everyone laugh?
Perfect Strangers | Dick Cavett & Seth Meyers
The TV legend and late-night comedian talk fashion, Snapchat and Pokémon Go.
By MARCELO KRASILCIC on Publish Date September 5, 2016.
Photo by Marcelo Krasilcic.
Watch in Times Video »
Cavett:
Sure, but it’s not necessarily something you should go for if the guest
is talking about Buchenwald. Have you ever found yourself not listening
to a guest? That used to happen to me all the time; I was too wedded to
my notes: “So, Dick, we uncovered the old trunk and pulled it out. My
fellow scientists and I lifted the lid, and you’ll never guess what was
inside.” And I’d hear myself say, “Do you have any hobbies?” [Laughter.]
Meyers: The difference then and now is that talk shows have become a bit of an industry.
Cavett: There’s no honor now to have a talk show.
Meyers: Back
in the day, you stood on a mountain with very few. And for the
interviews that endure, you don’t get the sense that, say, Katharine
Hepburn did another talk show the next night. And then the next night
she did another one. So many guests now are on a promotional tour.
‘Have something
ready that you can
always say that
can apply to
everybody. Something
like, “Do you pee
in the shower?” ’
ready that you can
always say that
can apply to
everybody. Something
like, “Do you pee
in the shower?” ’
Cavett:
There’s not much worse than a “plug-ola guest” who is so tired that he
tells the same story he just told the segment before, with one eyelid
drooping down to here. The best at repeating himself was Gore Vidal,
because his delivery was so delicious you didn’t mind hearing something a
second time. The great moment for me on the Hepburn show was when I
decided to poke her a bit. I said, “Do you remember me as an actor?” And
she just stopped and said, “I’ve been told I should.” I said, “We were
in a play together. Stratford, Connecticut, ‘The Merchant of Venice.’ I
had one line: ‘Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires
to speak with you both.’ ” She looked at me and said, “Is that the way
you said it?” It was one of the longest laughs I didn’t get.
Meyers:
That’s when I’m happiest, when it feels like a conversation. But for
the guest, I think there’s an added pressure now because they’re aware
that whatever they say will live forever online. In your era, people
were a little looser.
Cavett: Sometimes
I wondered, Do they think this isn’t going beyond this room? Do you
have any irritating memories where you wish you hadn’t said something?
Meyers:
Not exactly, but one of my claims to fame is that I might have made the
last Bin Laden joke that Bin Laden could have physically heard, when I
hosted the White House Correspondents Dinner the night before he was
killed.
Cavett: I
was actually persona grata at the White House for a brief time. I went
to an evening of Shakespeare there, and Nixon was in the receiving line.
I never knew in that moment that some time later a guy out in
California would find tapes of Nixon and his lickspittle H.R. Haldeman,
where Nixon says, “Cavett — there must be some way we can screw him.”
Continue reading the main story
Meyers: The specter of a Trump presidency is that he actively dislikes me.
Cavett:
It’s the most interesting thing that this vile, no-class, ignorant man
who brags that he doesn’t read and does great imitations of people with
disabilities — and hates women and a few other things — is considered a
presidential candidate. I was going to give Mrs. Clinton a line: “What
if a great international crisis blew up in the Middle East? Don’t you
want a president who knows Shiite from Shinola?”
Meyers:
He’s built for late-night shows to talk about. More generally, it feels
like we’re in a cycle of tragedies, and if you talk about the news
every night, it can feel like you’re ignoring something if you don’t
talk about it — like Dallas. But you can’t talk about it every time
something happens, otherwise it stops being a comedy show.
Cavett:
What about the subject of offending? I had John Lennon and Yoko Ono on
the show, whose first appearance gave us some of our biggest ratings,
and when they came back on, I was told that ABC was going to cut their
performance of a song.
Meyers: What song was it?
Cavett: “Woman Is the Nigger of the World.”
Meyers: Well, yeah, there you go.
Cavett: ABC
agreed to air it as long as I said something cautionary about it before
they came on. It played, and there were about 420 complaints — none of
them about the song, but about, as one woman said, “that mealy-mouthed
speech you made Dick do, treating us like idiots.”
Meyers: Now, thanks to social media, we live in a world where no one can hide from hate mail.
Cavett: You’ve got to pay a little price.
Meyers:
And it’s usually a price worth paying. But as much as we shouldn’t let
the risk of offending guide the material, I do want to be on the right
side of history with certain things.
‘Hosting a talk show
is a great job — if
you’ve never had a
nervous breakdown
and you want to
know what that feels
like.’ — Dick Cavett
is a great job — if
you’ve never had a
nervous breakdown
and you want to
know what that feels
like.’ — Dick Cavett
Cavett:
Among the standard topics of gag-writing back in my day were:
mothers-in-law, parking problems, headaches, fags. One of the categories
was fag jokes. I’d done them, but it never occurred to me that what we
were doing was wrong. One day at a grocery store in Montauk, a deep
voice standing next to me said right into my ear, “Really, Cavett? Fag
jokes?” I turned directly into the face of the great Edward Albee and I
realized, My god, yes, that time has passed. Speaking of passing, have
you made up your mind what to do when a guest dies?
Meyers: Well, that’s the beauty of having done 400 shows. Some guests don’t care if they die. Some desperately want a life preserver.
Cavett:
Let me put it to you again: What do you do when a guest croaks? My
guess is that I’m the only person who’s ever had a guest drop dead. And
who would the gods choose to die on a talk show? J. I. Rodale, a health
expert. He was a lovely old gent who looked like Trotsky. I made a
mental note to have him back, and then in the next segment, he joined
the silent majority right there on the stage. He had made a snoring
sound, and suddenly slid down in his chair.
Meyers: What did you do?
Cavett: I
went over and took his wrist and realized I didn’t know what a wrist is
supposed to feel like. I wanted to run and hide. Some say I said to
him, “Are we boring you?”
Meyers: Well, Dick, that’s all the proof I need. I always did say you were a groundbreaking host.
Photographs by Marcelo
Krasilcic. Grooming by Kristen Serafino using Chanel Les Beiges. This
interview has been condensed and edited.
A version of this article appears in print on September 11, 2016, on page M2107 of T Magazine with the headline: Dick Cavett & Seth Meyers.
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