Anthony Griffith - Behind the Laughter: A Comedians Tale of Tragedy and Hope

2019 Anthony Griffith and Brigitte Travis-Griffin

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by W Publishing Group, an imprint of Thomas Nelson.

Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Any Internet addresses, phone numbers, or company or product information printed in this book are offered as a resource and are not intended in any way to be or to imply an endorsement by Thomas Nelson, nor does Thomas Nelson vouch for the existence, content, or services of these sites, phone numbers, companies, or products beyond the life of this book.

ISBN 978-0-7852-1981-1 (eBook)

Epub Edition February 2019 9780785219811

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Griffith, Anthony, author. | Travis-Griffin, Brigitte, author. | Caro, Mark, author.

Title: Behind the laughter : a comedians tale of tragedy and hope / Anthony Griffith and Brigitte Travis-Griffin; with Mark Caro.

Description: Nashville, Tennessee: W Publishing, an imprint of Thomas Nelson, [2019] | Identifiers: LCCN 2018048771 (print) | LCCN 2018056198 (eBook) | ISBN 9780785219507 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780785219811 (eBook)

Subjects: LCSH: Griffith, Anthony. | ComediansUnited StatesBiography. | African American comediansBiography. | DaughtersUnited StatesDeath. | Fathers and daughtersUnited States.

Classification: LCC PN2287.G698 (ebook) | LCC PN2287.G698 A3 2019 (print) | DDC 792.7/6028092 [B] dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018048771

Printed in the United States of America

19 20 21 22 23 24 LSC 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Would you welcome, please...

Anthony

On the most exciting day of my career in the worst year of my life, I stood atop a star on a stage, with three big cameras thrust in my face and an audience of six hundred people stacked behind them. To my left blared Doc Severinsen and his big band. To my right, so much closer than I could have imagined, sat Johnny Carson.

When I was growing up on Chicagos South Side, these were not sights and sounds that I ever thought Id experience. The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson came from an exotic-sounding place called Burbank, California, and showed up on the big black-and-white console TV that I watched as a kid. This was where I saw the biggest stars, from Muhammad Ali to John Wayne, chatting with the man who put America to bed each night. Johnny told jokes, played with animals, and portrayed goofy characters, such as the psychic Carnac the Magnificent. I noticed that Johnny got some of his biggest laughs when his material bombed.

I didnt see any escape artists or magicians on the show, and thats what I wanted to be when I was young. That Johnny started out as a magician was something I learned later. When I began performing stand-up comedy in my college years in the early 80s, The Tonight Show became more relevant to me. For an aspiring comic, that was the show. Johnny Carson was the king of late-night television no matter who challenged him, and he launched generations of careers via the six-minute sets that he introduced.

Still, for this tall black kid who started out in the projects, The Tonight Show was something that happened on TV, not in real life. People from where I grew up never think theyre going to be on television. That world is and was so foreign and out of reach. Burbank might as well have been on the moon.

In a blue-collar family like mine, the goal was to get a good government job. The post officethat was it. That was security. That was Ooh, Ive made it. People in my family and community did that for decades. To venture off that grid to work in stand-upwell, my mom didnt understand that, though she was as supportive as she could be.

This is good, Tony, she said, and when you get it out of your system, you can get a government job. Then she prayed for me.

I had no idea how to pursue getting on The Tonight Show. There was no one to help steer my path toward Hollywood. All I knew was how to make people laugh, so thats what I tried to do everywhere I could.

And, somehow, I wound up standing on this star.

My wife, Brigitte, couldnt join me at the studio, though she had worked hard to get me to this point as well. She had to be home with our two-year-old daughter, Brittany. I thought everything would be fine. We had done all right so far. I was the optimist.

Plus, I had other things to be nervous about. I didnt want to embarrass myself in front of my family. I didnt want to embarrass myself in front of my community. And I didnt want to embarrass myself in front of the eighteen million people who would be watching me through those camera lenses.

One of the most familiar, trusted voices in America had said these words:

Heres a young man making his very first appearance on The Tonight Show.

Hes a stand-up comedian from Chicago...

Now I was on my spot.

The red light atop the camera was on.

I was living every comics dream.

With a nightmare attached.

My grandmothers eyesight has gotten bad, so she always thinks somebodys trying to break in the house.

I see a shadow.

Put the gun down.

But I see a shadow, baby.

I know you do. You got cataracts.

Anthony

While I was growing up, my house was a no-swear zone. I dont remember my mom or stepfather ever swearing. Mom was a devout Christian, a preachers daughter, so she raised us the way she grew up: no cussing allowed. When I was a senior in high school, I would say, Man, kiss my ankle, because I couldnt say, Kiss my butt. If I used that word at all, I had to spell it out, B-U-T-T. Once my brother and I were having an argument, and I did say, Man, Ill kick your butt, and my mom gave me the death look, and I knew Id never do that again.

So Id be in school, trying to act tough, saying, Kiss my ankle, Kiss my derriere, Kiss my buttocks, and people would go, What? You cray. I wasnt scaring anyone.

By the time I got into the comedy clubs, everyone was swearing. I would try to swear, but I couldnt do it. It was like someone trying to speak English for the first time. I didnt mean to become known as the Comedian Who Doesnt Swear. It was just part of my upbringing.

Born in 1962, I grew up on Chicagos South Side after starting out in the West Side projects. My little brother, Danny, and I left there with my mom to flee my biological father because of his drinking issues and his treatment of her. I was five, and Danny was three.

Our West Side apartment had green painted walls and a lot of brick, and it was pretty nice. The projects back then were relatively new and clean. They were designed for young families just starting out, and families were pretty big back then, so the apartments had four or five bedrooms. The idea was that as the residents got better jobs and made more money, they would move out of the projects, and new families would move in, though it didnt really work out that way.