Living On Air (15 page)

About halfway into the show they were doing a three-minute rapid-fire team round. Three members per team, two celebs and the contestant answered as many puzzles as possible within the allotted time. When a clue was guessed correctly, the next member on the team would rush to the board. People were jumping up, running to the board, running back to the sofa, sometimes kneeling on the floor. It was fast-paced and the perfect storm for the escalating excitement of the very excitable Erik Estrada. Each clue they got right, Erik got more animated. He ran to the board shouting and screaming, Bill ran to the board, the contestant ran to the board. At one point, the contestant was at the board drawing, Bill was on the sofa, and Estrada was kneeling on the floor beneath him. Erik got the phrase correct, “Tie a yellow ribbon ’round the old oak tree,” he screamed. Alan said, “YES,” and Bill started to get up off the sofa to get to the board. Erik, who had been kneeling on the floor, was apoplectic that he got the correct answer, so he celebrated by punching his fists into the air in a Rocky Balboa move. At that exact moment Bill Maher leaned forward to get off the couch, as Estrada’s left fist met with Bill’s nose and Bill Maher dropped like a rock to the floor. He was out for the count. The audience let out an audible gasp. The bouncy “Pictionary” music continued to play…the contestant tried to pull Bill up so he could win more money before the three minutes were up, but Bill was not moving. The music kept playing. Estrada was standing next to Alan nervously laughing as he explained to Alan, who had missed the action, what just happened.

I looked over at the producer’s table and each one had a hand up to their mouth in shock. The audience had their hands up to their faces, too. The music continued to play but it seemed to slow down. I was told that really didn’t happen but it felt like it in my
head. Looking back at the shocked faces, Bill splayed out on his back, I thought everything sllowwwwed down. Then the audio engineer stopped the music completely and the room was quiet. Suddenly everyone rushed to Bill. By this time he had regained consciousness and held onto his nose. He stood up and pointed a bloody finger at Estrada and I thought I heard him whimper something about calling his agent, then he rushed off the stage.

Paramedics tended to Bill in his dressing room and I was hit in the nose with an extra half hour of keeping the audience entertained. I went through every joke I had ever used in my life. You never really understand how long a half hour is until you have to fill it. By the time they were ready to start up the show, I had nothing left to say and was thrilled to be finished with my last warm-up of the day.

Bill came out dabbing at his nose with a tissue and the cast came out dressed in various forms of boxing attire. It was pretty funny. Even Bill couldn’t keep from laughing. After the next commercial break, Bill had a Band-Aid on his nose and everyone else on stage had one on his or her nose as well. For the rest of the show, Estrada kept away from Maher and we finished up then everyone went home to crash and be back the next day for five more.

Working on “Pictionary” was a great experience. I finally got to do a game show in Studio Thirty-three at CBS Television City. It was a kick, what you might call a bucket list item. I’ve seen Alan several times since then and I doubt he even remembers who the hell I am, but he’s always been very nice to me. Mark Maxwell Smith is still funny and Studio Thirty-three is still going strong. In fact, these days when they’re not taping the “Price is Right” on that stage, believe it or not, that’s where they tape a show called “Real Time with Bill Maher.” I wonder if Bill ever made the connection?

JOE-DAVE-JIM-BOB-BOY

I’ve been called a lot of names in my lifetime, a few I don’t want to repeat. Most of them you already know. Stoney, from WKYS, calls me Joe. Another one of my best friends, John, calls me Dave. I’ve got buddies from WWCO who still call me Tommy or Collins. Uncle Johnny, from C-O and Q107, calls me Kid, our nickname for one another. Then there’s Susan Berman Moore, a vice president at FOX. I’ve known Susan for more than 25 years. She knows my real name is David but she said I will always be Joe to her. She recently told me, “You don’t look like a Dave. I could never call you that.” One of the kids from our Palisades neighborhood, Cassie Green, calls me Poppa Joe. When I was on the air at KKHR, I was Dave, but my last name was Donovan.

All of these names can be rather confusing. Not just for Ann and me but also for our friends. One of Ann’s good friends from KABC-TV in L.A. came up with an unusual solution for all of my names. That was Susan Norris, now Susan Porcaro Goings, a television reporter and anchor for Channel Seven. Susan started calling me Joe-Dave-Jim-Bob-Boy and it stuck. Most of Ann’s friends from work still call me that. Good thing I’m not a football player because I don’t think there’s enough room on a jersey to stitch all my names on the back.

It’s a silly predicament having all these different names, but I’ve gotten used to it over the years. When I first met Ann I
introduced myself as Joe and that’s what she called me until she met my family. Since my mom called me Dave, Ann decided that’s the name she would use too. When we moved to Los Angeles it was a new start in a new city. I suppose I could have picked any name I wanted, but I had gotten used to the name Joe. Once we had kids, it got more complicated.

We had been married for five years and I knew Ann was ready to start a family. One night she got me drunk and took advantage of me. The next thing I knew we were having a baby. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

It was time to move out of that tiny house in the Palisades and Ann found the perfect one just about one mile away. When she walked in to see it for the first time, it was empty. Workmen were busy putting a fresh coat of white paint everywhere. There was a radio sitting on the mantel in the living room turned up loud and one of her favorite songs was echoing through the empty house, “Time After Time,” by Cyndi Lauper. As the song ended, the disc jockey came on and it was me. One of me, anyway. The station was KKHR where I was Dave Donovan. It seemed like fate. The house sat back on a bluff, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, on a quiet street in the Palisades. Turn your head one way and you looked right down onto a sandy beach, look the other way and you could see the Santa Monica Mountains. Of course we couldn’t afford it, the loan was huge, and with interest rates at about 15 percent back then, I brown-bagged it to work for a long time. The neighborhood seemed like it was right out of one of those old fifties TV shows like “Leave It to Beaver” or “Ozzie and Harriet.” There were two streets that curved to meet at both ends, forming a loop. We thought it was the perfect place to bring up a family. Buying that house turned out to be the best use of money I didn’t have.

Our daughter Dayna was born four months after we moved in to our new home. She was three weeks early and we were still
fixing up her room when she decided to make her entrance. Like many people, I was completely unprepared for the unexpected joy our little girl would bring to our lives. She has a thousand-watt smile and a big heart to match. She will always be my baby girl. Two and a half years later, our son Alex came into the world. Determined to beat Dayna’s early appearance, he was two months premature. The whole experience scared the hell out of me and thankfully, mom and son were fine. He stayed in the hospital for a couple of weeks after Ann came home. I went to see him every day, sat by his incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit, with his tiny little hand wrapped around my pinkie. I knew he was going to be a great guy. My brother Henry was named after our dad and I thought about doing the same thing with our son, but which name would we use? Joe or Dave? I always felt I hadn’t treated my given name with enough respect and I wanted to honor what my parents chose for me, so we passed my name on to our only son as his middle name. Alex David came home to us two weeks after he was born, healthy and strong.

I can’t say enough about how much I love our kids and how grateful I am to have these two people in my life. Bringing up my own family gave me perspective on the roller-coaster world where I worked. It also introduced me to a whole new family of friends, people from our neighborhood who didn’t know anything about voice-overs. Since our street formed a loop, we called ourselves The Loop Group. John and Deborah Lloyd, Peter and Patti Black, Russ and Elisa Hunziker, George and Dana Zaloom, Tracy and Christian Williams, Peggy and Richard McLaughlin. Our kids are like cousins. We celebrate every holiday together, take vacations together, share birthdays and dinners. When we had to fill out emergency forms at our kids’ schools, we didn’t have any family near-by to put down on those documents. Our neighborhood friends’ names were the ones that went on that list. Years later, when Peter Black died suddenly, just 50 years old, I gave the
eulogy at his funeral, surrounded by our family of friends and half of Pacific Palisades. In 2013 when Peter’s oldest daughter Cassie got married, she and her fiancé, Josh Green, asked me to perform their wedding ceremony. Reverend Joe Dave Jim Bob Boy.

Our group has grown to include Lisa Plonsker, Kelly Anderson, Kathy Smith, and Susan and Drew Gitlin. Since not everyone lives on the Loop anymore, and some never did, now we say the “Loop” is a state of mind, rather than a location. To this day, every Monday a text goes out to the group and whoever is available meets at Pearl Dragon restaurant in the Palisades for dinner. It’s a special gathering of friends who all call me Dave, or Davey Cip. Except for John. He sometimes calls me Young Dave. Go figure.

John Lloyd is my closest friend, probably because we shared so many of the same experiences growing up. He was born just three weeks before me, in Leigh-on-Sea in Great Britain. He is a world-class athlete, a professional tennis player. In his day he was number one in Britain, number 21 in the world, and a star on the British Davis Cup Team. Did I say we have a lot in common? Okay, so where’s the shared experience? None of that stuff is the same but we’re getting to it now.

John knew what he was going to do with his life when he was just a kid. Like me, neither one of us went to college. We were too busy working, to take time out for school. We weren’t exactly model students, anyway. We are both self-made men who had to rely on our talent for work. His in tennis, mine in broadcasting. As a teenager, John took the train from his small hometown to get to endless practices and matches. I took the bus from Oakville to 65 Bank Street to learn about radio. We both had success early in our lives, at just 16 years old. By the time we both turned 20, John was already number one in the UK and I had made it to major-market radio. All right, it’s obvious John is much more talented than I am, but I got the good looks. Oh crap, that’s not true, either.

I’m not sure what kind of influence I’ve had on John, but he definitely inspired me to take up tennis. I absolutely love the game. I didn’t pick up a racket until I was 40 years old and now you nearly have to pry it out of my hands to get me off the court.

When I hit the big four-oh I realized I needed more balance in my life. In my twenties, it seemed life was all about my career, how far could I go and how fast could I get there. In my thirties, it was about family. Now it was time to take care of myself, get some exercise, make sure I would be in good shape to enjoy my job and my kids. What’s important about playing a good tennis game also translates into my career. You’re not likely to have any success on the court if you don’t have good form, if you don’t practice. During a game sometimes, there’s an impulse to end the point early but that can lead to a miss-hit into the net, or outside the lines. Patience. Hit your shots, wait for your opening, then go for the winner. Same thing with voice-over. Most likely, you won’t start booking gigs right off the bat. Take workshops, seminars, hone your talent. Increase your confidence. Over the years I have worked with voice coaches, including Marice Tobias, in L.A. She’s helped me several times with refining my delivery. Once when I told her I was having difficulty switching from my comedy read at FOX to a heavy drama read at NBC, she had an idea that worked perfectly for me. She told me to change my clothes according to what network I was working for at that particular time. If I started the day at FOX, that meant I was doing a comedy promo. I wore my regular jeans, or shorts, and a casual shirt. If I was booked to do a heavy drama at NBC later in the day, I changed into an all-black wardrobe, nice slacks and a button-down shirt. [
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] It was visual cue that helped me alter my mood. A smart trick from a knowledgeable friend. Working with a coach is one way to continue to learn about the business and find out where you fit into the mix. Keep moving forward, stay on the balls of your feet, ready to react in an instant.

I play tennis at least three times a week, more if I can find a game. These days I’m about a four-point-oh player which is average to pretty good. I can keep up with just about anyone, hang in long enough to make it a good game and get some decent exercise. Oh, and thank you Mark Miller for giving me a forehand. I like to win but for me, it’s more about having fun, playing well, and spending time with my friends. Did I already say I like to win?

Because of our friendship with Deb and John and their kids Aiden and Hayley, our families have gone on some fantastic trips together, often centering on tennis. We’ve been fortunate enough to go to Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and even Barbados where I was the chair umpire for a charity match between John, Aiden, John’s brother David and his son Scott. That was a blast. One of our best vacations ever.

I was chair umpire one other time, for another charity exhibition. It happened in the Palisades between John and his longtime friend, tennis great Jimmy Connors. There were actually two of those tall umpire chairs on the court, side by side. My co-umpire was another Palisadian, actor and comedian Martin Short. This was not a serious event. Every time John prepared to serve, as soon as he tossed up the ball, I asked Martin a question. That is horrible tennis etiquette. I did it to Jimmy, too.

John goes to serve. “Play much tennis in Canada, Martin?” I asked.

John is distracted and misses his serve.

“Yes, there is a window of about three hours in August when we all hit the courts,” Martin said.

During one of Connors’s tosses, Martin golf whispered into the microphone, “Look at Connors. He looks so young. His cheeks are smooth and taut.”

I hit back with, “Yes, all four of them.”

Connors about fell over.

Martin looked at me and in all honesty said, “Who are you? And why are you here?”

I said, “I have no idea. When I arrived, this was the only empty chair in the place, so I took it.”

By far, one of my favorite tennis events to attend was the Seniors Championship in London. It takes place in December, when the city is dressed up for the holidays. I went for the first time with John, in 2003. The matches are played at the Royal Albert Hall, a beautiful building filled with history. Famous entertainers and politicians have appeared at the Hall since it opened in 1871, including Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Eric Clapton, and more recently, the singer Adele. It’s the same building John Lennon sang about in his song, “A Day In The Life.”

This is a fun event because you get the likes of Jim Currier, John McEnroe, Matts Wilander, and so many others, but you also get to see many of the legends of the game compete, like Henri Leconte, Ilie Nastase, Johan Kriek, and my buddy John Lloyd. Those matches are the most fun to watch because the players are so incredibly talented they can do just about anything with the tennis ball. The games are light, and they are played for comedy and entertainment, as much as for a win. John not only played in the doubles matches but he also called the games for BBC Television.

There are two tennis sessions a day during the Albert Hall tournament and between the day and evening matches we would go out to dinner with friends and other players, then come back so John could either play in a doubles match or do the color
commentary for BBC. On this one occasion, we had gone to one of John’s favorite restaurant’s in London called Hush, then grabbed a black cab for the ride back to Albert Hall. When we walked into the players’ entrance, we saw a very dapper gentleman talking to one of the security officers. He had on a long, dark cashmere coat with a beautiful scarf draped over his shoulders. Immediately we realized it was the legendary singer Tony Bennett. Mister Bennett is a huge tennis fan and he recognized John right away.

“John, is there any way you can help me get downstairs into the locker room?” he wondered in that beautiful voice. “I want to wish John McEnroe good luck tonight before his match.”

“Of course,” John said. Then he turned to the security man and said, “I’ll take Mister Bennett downstairs.”

As we walked towards the locker room, I had a funny thought rolling around in my head. I had met Tony Bennett once before, and this chance encounter was too perfect not to bring it up. To get to that story, we need to go back in time, for a little background information.

It was February of 2000 and our little family had just moved from Pacific Palisades to a beautiful old home in Beverly Hills. We didn’t want to leave the Loop, but that perfect house on the bluff, overlooking the ocean, turned out to be a bit of bad luck. Two years earlier, there was a particularly bad rainy season in Los Angeles, the first time I ever heard the weather term “El Niño.” The overwhelming amount of rain created geological havoc and there was a landslide at the base of the canyon that threatened our home up top. What started as a tiny crack in the ground, from the corner of our house to the edge of the bluff, turned into a 30-foot drop in one month. It still hurts to talk about it. We lost a portion of the backyard and half of our big beautiful deck that looked down to the sandy beach below. Amazingly, the house remained
structurally sound. Still, we had to hire a contractor, soils experts, and a geological engineer to figure out how to stabilize the slide from further damage. In the end, after many long talks, Ann told me, whenever it rained, she would never again feel safe in our home. We made the difficult decision to move.