Albert Brooks spares you the platitudes about how his Oscar nomination for ”Broadcast News” exceeds his wildest fantasies. At the moment, the antic comedian is tranquil-uncharacteristically so-about his chances of winning as best supporting actor during Monday night`s Academy Awards.
”The Oscars are the Kentucky Derby for humans. Already the bookies are running numbers,” he says. ”Sean Connery is even money. My odds are 7-5. The only sure thing about all of this is that getting nominated makes your mom feel good.”
Should one measure Brooks` success by his two decades in show biz? Or by the clocklike regularity with which some oracle pronounces him the funniest man in America?
As a standup comedian (”A Star Is Bought”), actor (”Unfaithfully Yours,” ”Broadcast News”), actor-director (”Real Life,” ”Modern Romance,” ”Lost in America”) and cult cut-up, he has happily worked in the eddies rather than the mainstream. Always on the brink of fame, the 40-year-old Brooks is ambivalent about possibly achieving it. Still, he might reach mass popularity if he wins for his whiny, winning portrait of Aaron Altman in ”Broadcast News.”
In 1964, when Johnny Carson was the new host of ”The Tonight Show,” he asked Carl Reiner to name the funniest people he knew. Reiner mentioned a high school kid, Albert, youngest of the three sons of comic Harry Einstein
(Parkyakarkus on Eddie Cantor`s radio show) and actress-singer Thelma Leeds. It wasn`t long before Albert changed his surname to Brooks to avoid the cheap jokes. But his father, bound to a wheelchair by a spinal disease, remained an important influence.
”Dad had a great show-biz death,” Brooks remembers, fidgeting. ”I must have been, oh, 11. The Friars Club was roasting Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball-she was the first woman admitted to the Friars-and Dad gave the funniest show, he got great laughs, then wheeled himself back from the podium to his seat on the dais. Moments later, he quietly had a heart attack and died.
”After high school, I knew I wanted to be an actor,” Brooks continues.
”But there were very few parts for people like myself-and Richie Dreyfuss was getting them all. You know, the part of the guy who the heroine likes but was too embarrassed to tell her friends?”
So he enrolled at L.A. City College and won notoriety as a campus radio host. Then he switched to Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh, but after two years there, a professor told Brooks he already knew more than his teachers.
”In 1968 I came back to L.A., changed my last name and picked up a ventriloquist`s dummy,” he remembers. Brooks` riffs as a hapless
ventriloquist-who tries to throw his voice while sipping a glass of water and ends up with a gurgling dummy-earned him spots on Steve Allen`s syndicated radio show and TV`s ”The Hollywood Palace.” ”I`m the only person I know who did his act first on live TV before he did it at the Improv,” Brooks says.
In 1969, at 22, he got his network break as guest host of ”The Dean Martin Summer Special”-broadcast the night of the moon landing. Soon after, he opened for Neil Diamond on his national tour-and pretended that the hisses and catcalls from the musician`s impatient devotees were applause.
He recorded loopy albums such as ”Comedy Minus One”-a do-it-yourself affair where the listener supplies the set-up and Brooks the punchline-and his 1975 disc ”A Star is Bought.” Time called him ”the smartest, most audacious talent since Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen.” Even so, he was a household name only in his own household, which he then shared with Linda Ronstadt.
Brooks is serious about professional independence. He seeks autonomy, not celebrity. Brooks declined a TV series as well as Lorne Michaels` request to be permanent host of ”Saturday Night Live.” Instead, Brooks offered to direct comic film shorts for the new program.
Making movies combined his two passions, technology and acting. ”I knew I could pour my heart out on camera and capture the moment,” he says. At
”SNL,” ”it was like being a juggler and keeping all the plates up.”
His movie debut was ”Taxi Driver” (1976). Director Martin Scorsese so admired Brooks` improvisation as the grating campaign aide unsuccessfully courting Cybill Shepherd, he gave him three extra scenes.
” `Taxi Driver` was my first flirtation with the role of the guy who gets rejected by the girl,” says Brooks. ”In `Private Benjamin,` I got the girl but died trying to, um, consummate our troth, so I didn`t really get the girl. `Twilight Zone` was my first experience of getting rejected by a man-and getting my head bitten off. Let`s see, in `Terms of Endearment,` I play the voice of Shirley MacLaine`s husband, who dies. In `Unfaithfully Yours,` I was conductor Dudley Moore`s impresario and didn`t die, but I got cuckolded.
”And in `Broadcast News` I guess I played the guy who was qualified in the way you should be qualified, but unqualified in one way America likes you to be qualified-i.e., I wasn`t telegenic-and I didn`t get the girl.
”Do you see a pattern here?”
But in real life, he often does get the girl. His past paramours include Candice Bergen, ”Modern Romance” co-star Kathryn Harrold and ”Lost in America” co-star Julie Hagerty. ”Who else do you meet?” he asks. ”That`s why `Broadcast News` hit home to so many people. It`s about real life, about love of work and love of co-worker.”
Brooks is uncomfortable talking about his personal life. But as he considers ”Modern Romance,” he allows that, ”Unfortunately in real life I experienced some of my character`s problems.”
After Brooks made ”Modern Romance” (1981), Playboy magazine hailed him as ”the funniest white man in America,” while noting that many in the theater left hating his character. In comedy, however, Brooks isn`t afraid to be seriously unsympathetic.
As to the Academy Awards, Brooks makes a somewhat tongue-in-cheek vow.
”If I don`t (suddenly) die and I win the Oscar,” he swears, ”I promise to be the first supporting actor to work on the deficit!”
