Word: leno
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...purported Indian mystic called Ramogosh, who closed his act with a Sinatra- style rendition of I Did It Buddha's Way. After a parade of two dozen such neophytes, the audience of 200 was ready for some professional comedy -- and ecstatic when, at a quarter to 11, Jay Leno bounded onto the stage...
...Leno, the lantern-jawed king of the stand-up circuit, had dropped by to try out some new material. Dressed in a silk shirt, faded jeans and Western boots, he barreled through 20 minutes of jokes, some of them written only that day and jotted down on note cards. On the Iran-contra hearings: "Senator Inouye . . . now there's a strict-looking guy. He's the principal of the United States of America." On Fawn Hall, Jessica Hahn and Donna Rice: "I love the way they describe these women as part-time models. I brush my teeth every morning -- does...
Like Carlin and Klein, Leno has a sharp eye for the idiocies of everyday life. In an agitated, high-pitched voice that could pierce the din of the loudest bar, he takes off after everything from convenience stores (where "$20,000 worth of cameras protect $20 worth of Twinkies") to slasher movies ("Woman opens the refrigerator, gets hit in the face with an ax. There's a common household accident, huh?"). Leno's P.G.-rated material is witty, accessible and firmly anchored in bedrock middle America. "I'm hopelessly American," he confesses. "If something doesn't come in a Styrofoam...
...onetime auto mechanic who grew up in Andover, Mass., Leno began his comedy career playing strip clubs in Boston. Among his earliest gigs were a bordello in Dorchester, Mass., and a club called the Mineshaft, where audience members wore miner's hats with flashlights on top ("Performing there was like being interrogated by the police," he recalls). Leno eventually graduated to the big time, and in recent years has played a grueling 300 road dates a year, besides making frequent guest appearances with Letterman...
Starting in September Leno will be a once-a-week substitute host for Johnny Carson and will star in a prime-time special for NBC. He just completed a movie called Collision Course, in which he co-stars with Pat Morita. Nonetheless, Leno (who lives in the Hollywood Hills with his wife Mavis and a collection of 15 motorcycles) insists that he has no plans to abandon touring. "Some people run from 6 to 8 every morning; I go onstage every night between 9 and 10," he says. "I'd never abandon it. This...