Name: How Shelley Duvall Was Discovered By Robert Altman | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-07-11T16:26:08.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'How Shelley Duvall Was Discovered By Robert Altman | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-07-11. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'How Shelley Duvall Was Discovered By Robert Altman | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-07-11. Transcript available.

Now, you know this woman, don't you?
Yes, we work together.
Yeah, and I think I know her, but I don't think I ever met her.
But we'll find out.
I guess you almost have to meet somebody to know them, don't you?
I would say, yeah, but we'll find out.
I have a feeling we'll find out.
We'll clear that up.
Aside from being a talented actress who has appeared in such films as Nashville,
The Shining, Annie Hall, and Popeye, my next guest is also, this is very
impressive,
the executive producer and creator of a fine television series on Showtime
called Fairytale Theater.
Please welcome Shelley Duvall.
Hi, Shelley.
Nice to see you.
How are you?
Everything I've seen you in, every film, I've always enjoyed your work.
I think you bring a really nice, I don't know the term,
but you always add a really interesting dimension to the part.
Oh, thanks.
Well, no, I think you deserve that.
Now, have we ever met?
Well, I thought we met with Lorne Michaels one time.
Well, I've never met him, so it's unlikely that, uh...
Well, that's true.
Well, hopefully...
We weren't on another show together?
I don't know.
I don't think so.
Hmm.
Do you know of one?
Not offhand.
Not...
I was thinking that maybe that's where we met, but I guess we don't know one
another.
So, I guess...
Well, hi, David.
Nice to meet you.
Thanks for being here.
Nice to meet you.
Uh, boy, your hands are freezing.
Yeah, I just had a Coca-Cola.
And they do that to your hands?
They ought to take that stuff off the market.
You know what I'm...
No, no, no.
It's just...
It's just a joke.
They ought to put more of it on the market.
We need more.
We need more Coca-Cola on the market, don't you think?
Yeah.
Now, is...
You...
You never took acting lessons, never studied acting.
You just one day started acting, right?
Well, it was a fluke.
Mm-hmm.
I gave a party at my house in Houston, Texas, and three men walked in that I
didn't know.
Yay, Houston.
And, uh...
Now, how is it that you're having a party and three guys show up you don't know?
Well, someone else at the party called up the movie people and said,
If you want some fun in Houston, come to this address.
What were the movie people doing in Houston?
Robert Altman was about to shoot Brewster McCloud, which wound up being my
first movie
and first acting job ever.
I was going to be a scientist, a la Miss Einstein.
Really?
How far along had you gotten in your studies?
You're in college at this point, in high school?
Two years in junior college.
Junior college.
Yeah, I couldn't go right straight to college.
My last year, I discovered, you know, fun in the 12th grade.
And what kind of scientist did you have visions of being?
Well, research of some sort.
I knew it couldn't be with animals because I couldn't stand vivisection,
and I knew it couldn't be with anything that could talk back.
What is vivisection, by the way?
Vivisection is actually like dissecting things on...
Yes, and I hated it.
Okay.
So I decided against that right away and went on to microbes.
What are microbes?
What do you do with those?
Little tiny things that you can only see through a microscope,
and they don't scream or anything.
And you were going to be in the area of medical research, probably?
Oh, no.
Never medical, no.
Not medical.
Maybe food, nutrition and diatherapy, how we work.
Yeah.
And do you still do any of this?
Do you know anything about this now?
Have you forgotten it all?
No, I subscribe to just about every scientific publication there is.
When I have time to read it, I read it.
Name a scientific publication.
Scientific American.
Name another one.
Science Digest.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, what was the last thing that caused you, as you're leafing through this,
to say, gee, that's pretty impressive?
Well, I guess recombinant DNA.
That's what I was going to say.
Now, that's success.
That really got my attention.
Is there any way you can explain that so I'll understand it briefly?
Well, recombinant DNA enables you to clone things,
and I think it's probably the most exciting discovery of our times.
Yeah.
Because it makes cloning possible.
You could possibly take, say, one cell of a heart
and maybe make a new heart for somebody
instead of having to borrow one from someone who's just died.
Yeah.
And how far along has this come practically?
I think it's helped diabetics with making insulin.
Yeah.
But we're not actually cloning things now,
like a guy's not making his own rabbits or something like that.
Maybe in some backyard somewhere.
Who knows?
A little backyard science with recombinant DNA.
Well, that's how computers started, you know, in a garage.
So why not a backyard?
Really?
They started in a garage?
I think so.
At least I read that in Newsweek or something a couple of years back.
Yeah.
See somebody just fooling around in his garage?
Tuning up the mower one afternoon?
Yeah.
Well, that's very impressive.
And there's probably no chance at this point in your life
that you'll ever assume a more active role in that area, is there?
Oh, I don't think so.
Maybe I can play Madame Curie or something eventually.
All right.
Okay.
We have to do a commercial, and it'll probably be for Coca-Cola.
A fine product.
So we'll be back with Shelley Duvall.
All right.
Okay.
So you're in Houston.
You're having a party.
And three movie guys showed up from Brewster McLeod,
and so we got sidetracked.
How, then, did you get into films from that point?
Well, my boyfriend was an artist, and...
Is he still an artist?
Yes, he's still an artist, but we're not boyfriend and girlfriend anymore.
Is he married now?
No.
What's his name?
Oh, golly.
Bernard Sampson.
Yeah.
Do you still stay in touch with him?
Occasionally.
Yeah.
Well, that's nice.
I think that's important.
Yeah, I think so, too.
We never had an argument.
Oh, that's good.
That's good.
Okay, so he invites, or these are friends of Bernard's.
Well, not exactly.
Okay.
So anyway, some people came, and they showed up,
and I was showing Bernard's paintings,
and I was saying, you know, what the artist was thinking.
And one of the three men said,
we have some patrons of the arts for friends.
How would you like to bring the paintings up,
say, Wednesday at 1 o'clock, to the offices?
And I said, sure.
And I did.
Wednesday at 1 o'clock, 35 paintings.
I'm there, and sure enough,
there's some patronly-looking gentlemen sitting around,
one of whom was Robert Altman.
And instead of buying any of the paintings,
after I showed them to them,
they said, how would you like to be in a movie?
Quote, unquote.
And I said, uh-oh, porno.
No thanks.
And I'm packing up, and they, no, wait a minute.
It's MGM.
It's Robert Altman.
Have you seen MASH?
And no.
And here's 10 free tickets.
And I went.
I came.
And I saw, and I enjoyed it, and I said, okay.
That is, that's an amazing story.
That's one of those typical, not typical,
but it's one of those great Hollywood stories,
although it happened in Houston.
I don't know.
I don't know what the hell's the matter.
Well, that's, that was a strange movie, wasn't it?
Yes, it was.
Now, you were, if I remember correctly,
were you the girlfriend who would come over
while he was working out, getting ready to fly, Brewster?
Was that, was that you?
No, I'm the one with the Venus flytrap eyelashes.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And so your boyfriend didn't sell any paintings?
Was he steamed about that?
No, because we later sold them all, so.
Oh, great.
Well, that's good.
Everything turned out all right in the end.
Yeah.
I mentioned earlier that I think this is very impressive,
that you not only are the producer
and executive producer of this series,
but you created Fairytale Theater.
How did you, how did that happen?
Well, it was longer than eight days.
Seven days, that's right.
But I just had the idea.
I was reading Fairytales.
I'd collected antique illustrated books for quite some time.
And I was reading The Frog Prince one day
after I'd just done Popeye with Robin Williams.
And I thought, gosh, wouldn't Robin make a great frog?
So I called him up and I said,
how would you like to play a frog in The Frog Prince?
And my friend Eric Idle had said,
okay, I'll write and direct it.
And they loved each other and they said yes
and thus the first Fairytale was born.
How many years has it been in production now?
Two, a little over two years.
We've done 23 shows.
That's terrific.
And the secret, in addition to the writing and so forth,
is the really interesting casting, isn't it?
Well, yes.
The writing.
But the writing is, it's difficult to develop a fairytale
from just a quarter of a page,
which is what most fairytales are in the books.
Really?
A quarter of a page to five pages long.
So the writers have to really be inventive.
We have some, a few minutes from one of them
and I'm not sure which one this is.
Do you know, Cheryl?
Ah, it's from The Frog Prince,
the one I was just speaking about with Robin Williams and Terry Garr.
All right.
This will be you and Robin and Terry Garr.
Not me.
You're not in this one.
Oh, no.
Okay, The Frog Prince with Terry Garr and Robin Williams
from Fairytale Theater.
You cruel, heartless little princess.
That's not true.
I'm going to teach you a lesson you won't forget.
Guards turn your backs.
I'm going to thrash some respect into you,
you vain, selfish, spoiled, frog-murdering little princess.
No!
Who said that?
I did.
Were you not going to believe me?
Now, now, now, now, now, now, as bad as it looks.
You never got to believe this, Father.
Who is that?
He is The Frog.
Pull the other one.
How long has this been going on?
But you don't understand.
What's your name?
Prince Robin.
Yeah, Prince Robin.
There is no such prince.
Do you know what the penalty is for being caught in a princess's bed?
No, no, no, no, no, please.
I know this doesn't look very good.
Oh, no, no, no.
I didn't do anything. Guards, throw him into the deepest dungeon you can find.
No, no, no, please. No, no, you can't. I'm naked.
Very nice. Quite an embarrassing situation.
So, this continues and I hope it is as big a success in the future as it has
been so far. It's fascinating stuff.
Yeah, we got them all over the world now on CBS, Fox, Home Videotapes, and they're
on Showtime cable TV.
So, anybody anywhere can see them anytime.
Absolutely.
Well, that's what entertainment is all about.
Shelley, it was nice to meet you finally.
Nice to meet you.
Thank you very much for being here.
We have to go away for station identification, but we'll be right back.