Read an Excerpt
It's Not Easy Bein' Me
A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs
Chapter One
I Was A Male Hooker ...
Most kids never live up
to their baby picture
Roy and Arthur was a vaudeville comedy team. Roy was my father; Arthur was my uncle Bunk. On November 22, 1921, after their last show that night in Philadelphia, Phil Roy got a call backstage, where he was told, "It's a boy!"
My father drove that night from Philadelphia to Babylon, Long Island, to greet his new son, Jacob Cohen. Me. (My father's real name was Philip Cohen; his stage name was Phil Roy.)
I was born in an eighteen-room house owned by in mother's sister Rose and her husband. After a couple of weeks my mother took me back to her place in Jamaica, Queens where we lived with my four-year-old sister, Marion, my mother's mother, my mother's other three sisters -- Esther, Peggy, and Pearlie -- her brother Joe, and a Swedish carpenter named Mack, who Esther later married. The whole family had come to America from Hungary when my mother was four. My mother's father -- my grandfather -- was almost never referred to in that house. Rumor has it he's still in Hungary -- and still drinking. My dad wasn't around much, either. I found out much later that he was a ladies' man. Dad had no time for his kids -- he was always out trying to make new kids. I was born on my father's birthday. It didn't mean a fucking thing. His first wife was a southern girl. It was literally a shotgun wedding -- and the marriage lasted until my father went back on the road with his vaudeville act.
I was an ugly kid. When I was born, after
the doctor cut the cord, he hung himself.
My mother was my dad's second wife. She was pregnant with my older sister, Marion, so Dad did the honorable thing.
I feel awkward referring to my father as "Dad." When you hear that word, you picture a man who looks forward to spending time with his family, a man who takes his son camping or to a ball game every once in a while. My father and I did none of those things. He didn't live with us. Show business kept him on the road practically all the time -- or was it my mother?
When my father wasn't on the road, he'd stay in New York City. About every six months, I'd take the train from Kew Gardens into New York to see him. We'd walk around for an hour and talk -- not that we ever had much to say to each other -- then he'd walk me back to the subway and give me some change. I'd say, "Thank you," and then take the subway back home.
I figured out that during my entire childhood, my father saw me for two hours a year.
In my life I've been through plenty. When
I was three years old, my parents got a dog. I
was jealous of the dog, so they got rid of me.
Although I didn't realize it at the time, my childhood was rather odd. I was raised by my mother, who ran a very cold household. I never got a kiss, a hug, or a compliment. My mother wouldn't even tuck me in, and forget about kissing me good night. On my birthdays, I never got a present, a card, nothing.
I guess that's why I went into show business -- to get some love. I wanted people to tell me I was good, tell me I'm okay. Let me hear the laughs, the applause. I'll take love any way I can get it.
When I was three years old, I witnessed my first act of violence. I walked into the living room and saw my mother lying on the couch, being beaten by her four sisters. My mother was kicking and screaming.
"Get Joe!" She yelled, "Get Joe!"
I did what my mother told me. I ran up two flights of stairs and started pulling on her brother Joe to wake him up. I kept repeating, "Uncle Joe, downstairs! Downstairs!" He came down and broke it up.
What a childhood I had. Once on my
birthday my old man gave me a bat. The first
day I played with it, it flew away.
From the time I was four years old, I had to make my own entertainment. There was a parking lot next to our three-story building that was always vacant after dark. Every night I would hear voices below my window, and I knew what that meant -- there was going to be a fight. This is where the local tough guys would come to settle their beefs.
From my windowsill, I had the best seat in the house ...
It's Not Easy Bein' Me
A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs. Copyright © by Rodney Dangerfield. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
