What was it like hosting SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE around that time in the early 80s?
EA: I promised Terry Southern that I would host it. It was utter madness. I knew Terry and he wanted me to do it so I promised him that he would. He and Bill Donahue were two of the head writers there. I think it was Eddie Murphy’s second season. PC: What was Eddie Murphy like back then? EA: He was just astonishing. Astonishing. PC: I bet! He was so young. EA: It’s just madness, though. A week of utter madness. PC: Tell me about how the producers fired Lee Remick and put you in the show on the road before AGNES OF GOD came to New York. EA:I had come back from somewhere in the deep Caribbean and while I was in New York I got the telephone call that nobody ever admits gets made! PC: Uh oh! EA: It comes at like two o’clock in the morning. It’s usually a producer or a Broadway press person or somebody and they say, “This call never happened, but….” PC: So that’s how it happened! Or, I guess, didn’t! EA: Yeah, I think Lee just didn’t like the play. God knows, she was a marvelous actress.
