my first guest tonight boy we're very excited that she is here she was uh the very first performer
chosen for the cast of saturday night live and since leaving that show
she's gone on to success on the stage and screen of course her latest project is this book
which she has co-authored with alan zweibel roseanne rosanna dennis hey
get back to workbook ladies and gentlemen it's a pleasure now to welcome gilda radner
nice to see you it's nice to see you too thanks for being here now you uh
i saw you earlier and you were worried that we had actually seen one another before the
show well i was worried i thought we should just see each other for the first time now
i want you know this is the first time i've ever um been on an interview show where the
the guy was behind the desk it really is the first time i swear
usually like you'd be sitting here two seats like now my neck hurts i'm talking to you well is there
would you would you be more comfortable in some other configuration no this will be fun
i see i think they're making making up their own jokes out there
as long as they're laughing it's okay yeah well now but is there some sort this is not an old uh
kind of uh superstition is there about seeing each other before the show uh no i just i no
actually not but i thought we shouldn't talk you know we might say something we were going to say
yeah you know it wouldn't be like fresh yeah because we would or would talk and get sick
of each other right in the in the makeup room oh so apparently you've seen the show before
uh now let's talk about the book i was uh reading this book it seems to me that the preface of
this publication is what about 101 it is 101 pages long the actual book is 10 or 11 pages
now why what what's the reason for that well the uh the uh book company hired roseanne to uh
write a self-help book on uh dealing with the unemployment problem and having confidence and
getting your job back if you lost your job and she chose instead to tell her whole life story where
she was born and do a complete autobiographical study of herself and then the editor keeps
coming in and reminding her to get on with the self-help part and uh but he gets fired eventually
and uh when she finally gets to the how-to part of the book there's only enough room
to make it 11 or 12 pages or the book would be more expensive well sure well as long as there's
a good reason for that right are there are there valuable uh finding job tips to be had in here
absolutely all based on on confidence and getting a good attitude there's also little things to do
like connect the dots while you're waiting to get a job um advice on uh television shows you
could watch to lift your spirits for sure right yeah and many many other things right so it's
a it's a practical book as well as a spiritually enriching project absolutely oh good right uh we
have a commercial here we're going to do and then we'll come back and we'll talk about uh
roseanne and other things okay you all right okay good we'll be back gilda radner is here later on
tonight you'll see michael caine here tomorrow on this program jay leno and riptorn will be
joining us guild i was looking through this book and we have pictures of hernando rosanna dando
and someone called the rhyming bum oh yes people that roseanne met during her rise to fame
and uh david brinkley i i should explain that uh david brinkley is in the book because um
he was very helpful in getting roseanne her job at nbc she was looking for a job at the time and
uh walking um along 57th street and she saw david he was covered with mud all over his pants and his
suit and [ __ ] from the street and he was i don't mind saying swearing like a dock worker out there
and roseanne it just so happened roseanne's uh family was in the dry cleaning business
so uh uh she took uh mr brinkley down to her father's dry cleaning establishment the very
dry dry cleaners and um there's a picture in here of that uh yeah there's a picture of the
storefront and uh and so her father bert rosanna danner rose i can't say it anymore
junior he cleaned david brinkley's pants uh but he couldn't get some of the heavy [ __ ] out of it
and uh roseanne came up with the idea that when you do the news you really don't have to wear
pants right because no one sees your legs and um and brinkley was so happy he gave her a job at nbc
well that's an exciting time many other stories like that what what what what did david look like
in his uh did she actually get to see him in his yes he wears a bikini underwear that says
home of the whopper on them see you never know that's i would uncharacteristic for the man
um you know there was a uh another a friend of yours or a character that you uh made quite
popular on your show emily litella that's correct now there's an interesting story behind the origin
of of that person isn't there right well i was actually um raised by a woman who is 90 now and
lives in canada her name is mrs gillies and i call her dibby and it's it was her voice you know uh
it's actually her voice and her difficulty with hearing a little bit that uh made the
character get developed do a little of the character well uh what's all this fuss i
keep hearing about david ritterman you know something like that i can still do the voice
so but this was an actual person actually talks this way that's right that's right and she uh
she raised me she i didn't say she's 90. yeah she is 90. when when the people were writing
the show would they talk to her what we do is um uh like uh alan's white bell who wrote the book
with the roseanne book we also wrote a lot of the emily lately together and we'd call her up to get
her voice intonation and to see what she'd have to say about it before we would write the emily
latella and and other writers who wrote uh for the character they'd call her up too okay and that's
what we're to do here we're going to give her a call and see if she see if she actually sounds
like emily latilla okay now remember she's 90. okay well you're going to talk to her now what
what part of the world are we calling here we're calling canada outside of hamilton okay did i get
the right number oh it just makes me terribly nervous i've been doing this for 21 years
here i hope that's i hope that's uh mrs gillies i find it difficult to believe that she sounds
just like you will you all hear her yeah i think we should unless yeah we should
give her another chance i may have screwed that up all right let me do you want me to dial for it
you're tired after dialing off one more chance
okay geez i hope that's what would she be doing this time of day oh talking on the phone
wow it's kind of a star wars dealer
okay this will be
hello dave it's me it's me gilda i can't hear you it's me
it's me gilda i'm interesting miles away well i am damn i'm in new york can you hear me now
yeah okay it's me gilda how are you deb i'm just fine sweetheart
oh what are you doing now i'm having my supper oh did we interrupt your dinner huh did we judge
what did you say i said i had a piece of chicken that tastes good yeah and what else
yeah what else oh no i've got potatoes and tried to eat our ripe tomatoes yeah yeah and some green
onions oh deb i know they all want to hear you say never mind can you say that never mind
that's terrific gilda thank you very much
good luck with the book gilda radner mrs dibby gillies thank you very much she sounds terrific
thank you so much we'll be back to see how the telekinetic favorite tv show has been cancelled
you