Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny by Marlo Thomas
Authors: Marlo Thomas
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so proud, he took my report card onto The Tonight Show with him, and boasted to Johnny Carson, “This is my kid—3.8! I have to talk to her through an interpreter.” Dad was a frequent guest of Johnny’s, and spoke to him like he was sitting next door with a friend. It was there that he made the announcement to Johnny (and America) that I had gotten my first bra, the audience howling at his vivid description of it. I didn’t leave the house for a week.
But most of all he was a storyteller, and he found an audience to tell his stories to wherever he happened to be. I was on a plane once, going from Los Angeles to New York, and the flight attendant told me that she’d recently had my father on a flight, and what a delight he was. She said she saw him get up to stretch, then walk around and talk to a few people in their seats. Before long, he was enrapturing all of First Class with his tales, and they were howling. He had turned an American Airlines flight into his own personal dinner show. Most celebrities board a plane and try to hide themselves for a little privacy. Not my dad. Where else can you find a captive audience . . . for five hours?! He was in heaven.
And sometimes he couldn’t let go of my boyfriends, even after I had. In college, I was pinned to a boy named Jimmy Pugh, a basketball player on a scholarship who was going into dental school. My father adored Jimmy and respected him for trying to make a better life for himself. I know in his heart, Dad had hoped I would marry Jimmy, but I was restless to get to New York and start studying acting. So that was the end of Jimmy and me. What I didn’t know was that it wasn’t the end of Jimmy and Dad.
After I had already moved east, Jimmy would still come to our house and have beers with Dad, and they’d talk for hours. After one of these visits, Dad walked Jimmy to his car—but it wasn’t out front. Somewhat sheepishly, Jimmy explained that his car was such a “heap” that he’d parked it near the alley, rather than having it sit in front of our house. When Dad took one look at that awful jalopy, he exploded.
“You’re going to be a dentist!” he said. “You can’t let anything happen to your hands. You’ll break every bone in your body in this wreck!”
Dad had just been sent a brand-new pickup truck from a company that he’d done a favor for, so he opened the garage and said to Jimmy, “Here, take this. I’ll never drive it.” I wouldn’t learn about this until years later, after my father died, when Jimmy wrote me a condolence letter telling me the whole story.
“I was overwhelmed and reluctant to accept it,” he wrote, “but your father got furious with me and made me drive it away on the spot.”
I read the letter in awe, amazed that Dad had never mentioned this to me. But how typical of him—Jimmy may have lost the girl but he gained a V-8 engine with an automatic transmission.
WHEN I WAS AT Marymount High School, my best friend, Moya, and I were always up to some kind of mischief. We had to do something with all those unexpressed hormones. Not only was the school girls-only, but all of the teachers were nuns. There was hardly a male presence, except for the gardener—and the prettiest nun ran off with him. And there was the daily visit from FATHER from the nearby parish to say the Mass for us. The nuns were very respectful, adoring—and terrified—of FATHER.
“Oh yes, FATHER. Oh no, FATHER. Oh, thank you, FATHER.”
In a regular church Mass, the priest is assisted by altar boys, who bring him the chalice of wine and place the bells. Back then, females were not permitted behind the altar rail. No female—not even a nun. So when Father came to say Mass at Marymount, he had to do it all on his own. God forbid any female should be let past that rail.
This really irked Moya and me. So one day, just before Mass, we decided to remove the altar bells. These bells are used at a very important part of the Mass. They are rung three
But most of all he was a storyteller, and he found an audience to tell his stories to wherever he happened to be. I was on a plane once, going from Los Angeles to New York, and the flight attendant told me that she’d recently had my father on a flight, and what a delight he was. She said she saw him get up to stretch, then walk around and talk to a few people in their seats. Before long, he was enrapturing all of First Class with his tales, and they were howling. He had turned an American Airlines flight into his own personal dinner show. Most celebrities board a plane and try to hide themselves for a little privacy. Not my dad. Where else can you find a captive audience . . . for five hours?! He was in heaven.
And sometimes he couldn’t let go of my boyfriends, even after I had. In college, I was pinned to a boy named Jimmy Pugh, a basketball player on a scholarship who was going into dental school. My father adored Jimmy and respected him for trying to make a better life for himself. I know in his heart, Dad had hoped I would marry Jimmy, but I was restless to get to New York and start studying acting. So that was the end of Jimmy and me. What I didn’t know was that it wasn’t the end of Jimmy and Dad.
After I had already moved east, Jimmy would still come to our house and have beers with Dad, and they’d talk for hours. After one of these visits, Dad walked Jimmy to his car—but it wasn’t out front. Somewhat sheepishly, Jimmy explained that his car was such a “heap” that he’d parked it near the alley, rather than having it sit in front of our house. When Dad took one look at that awful jalopy, he exploded.
“You’re going to be a dentist!” he said. “You can’t let anything happen to your hands. You’ll break every bone in your body in this wreck!”
Dad had just been sent a brand-new pickup truck from a company that he’d done a favor for, so he opened the garage and said to Jimmy, “Here, take this. I’ll never drive it.” I wouldn’t learn about this until years later, after my father died, when Jimmy wrote me a condolence letter telling me the whole story.
“I was overwhelmed and reluctant to accept it,” he wrote, “but your father got furious with me and made me drive it away on the spot.”
I read the letter in awe, amazed that Dad had never mentioned this to me. But how typical of him—Jimmy may have lost the girl but he gained a V-8 engine with an automatic transmission.
WHEN I WAS AT Marymount High School, my best friend, Moya, and I were always up to some kind of mischief. We had to do something with all those unexpressed hormones. Not only was the school girls-only, but all of the teachers were nuns. There was hardly a male presence, except for the gardener—and the prettiest nun ran off with him. And there was the daily visit from FATHER from the nearby parish to say the Mass for us. The nuns were very respectful, adoring—and terrified—of FATHER.
“Oh yes, FATHER. Oh no, FATHER. Oh, thank you, FATHER.”
In a regular church Mass, the priest is assisted by altar boys, who bring him the chalice of wine and place the bells. Back then, females were not permitted behind the altar rail. No female—not even a nun. So when Father came to say Mass at Marymount, he had to do it all on his own. God forbid any female should be let past that rail.
This really irked Moya and me. So one day, just before Mass, we decided to remove the altar bells. These bells are used at a very important part of the Mass. They are rung three
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