Chicks Just Aren’t Funny
Anne Beatts, a writer and comedian, died in April of this year. She was not only brilliantly funny, a writer in the great early days of Saturday Night Live, but she was also generous and a trailblazer for women’s humor. I am grateful I had the opportunity to meet her. She extended a helping hand to me, which I was too inexperienced and insecure to take.
In the mid-seventies, I self-published a book of women’s humor, Confessions of a Late Bloomer or Wear Enough Eye Makeup, and No One Will Notice Your Hips. A friend who took on the job of being my editor thought I had talent. (We haven’t spoken in thirty years, so that writing partnership did not end well, but that’s another story.) Kathy promoted the book every chance she got, including to the host of a morning show in New York City. As I was about to go on air, the host said, “Remember, you are talking to a housewife in Queens,” decidedly NOT my target demographic.
But somehow, she’d also gotten the book into the hands of Anne Beatts, who was a writer on Saturday Night Live. Anne invited us to come to New York and go backstage. For those too young to know, the late seventies are considered by many to be the Golden Age of SNL. This was when Bill Murray, Gilda Radnor, Dan Ackroyd, and John Belushi became household names. Being invited to go backstage was…
