“Let’s just say that if I lived my life by the rules every time I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am today” -George Wallace (page 11 of Laff It Off)
A steadily-working comic for the past four decades, George Wallace is both one of the most successful stand-ups of all-time and one of the most respected. He and long-time best friend Jerry Seinfeld began doing stand-up together in New York City in 1976. Two decades later, in 1995, he was awarded Best Male Standup Comedian at the American Comedy Awards. George then reinvented himself as The New Mr. Vegas in 2004, spending 10 years there as a top full-time headliner. Since walking away from Vegas, George has been featured in projects such as IFC’s Gigi Does It, Disney’s K.C. Undercover, Comedy Central’s Drunk History and TV Land’s The Soul Man.
I had the pleasure of interviewing George at his Central Park West home, a part-time residence for him. When doing Q&A with George, you may not always get the answer to the question you asked, but you always get an entertaining answer. As there is a professor-like demeanor to him, you’re best served to listen and take in the wisdom. Beyond comedy, this is a person who also thrived as a radio host and as a real estate investor. For his Vegas tenure, George was not only the headlining entertainer, yet also the person in charge of marketing and promoting his performances.
While George does not have any upcoming New York City area gigs to promote at time of press, you may be lucky enough to find him doing a surprise walk-on set at Stand Up NY, Caroline’s On Broadway or The Comedy Cellar. In the meantime, he can be followed on Twitter via the handle @mrgeorgewallace.
I’ve heard you refer to yourself as the most successful comic because you’re the happiest comic…
George Wallace: I’ve been successful in what I do. I’m not working for money anymore, I’ve certainly made a lot of money…I never wanted to be a TV star or anything like that. My ultimate goal when I started was to work Las Vegas. Seinfeld and I used to say all the time, being a smart-ass when you’re a kid, “When are these guys gonna get out of Vegas? When are they gonna kick the bucket?” Shecky Greene, all of those older comedians…Now, you look on the marquee one day and Jerry’s at Caesar’s Palace right across the street, and I’m at The Flamingo on the other side of the street. I had to re-think, “I’ve achieved my goal, what do I do now?” Especially in being there 10 years.
I did not work for the hotel like most people, I “four-walled.” I was responsible for all four walls — marketing, advertising, producing the show, directing the lights, tickets, everything I was responsible for. So we achieved that goal, and after 10 years, Seinfeld came onstage one night and said, “Okay, we’ve been here 10 years, and America needs to see you back out on the road, so we’re through.” We tend to manage each other. I said, “Yeah, you’re right, it’s time to get out of here.” Plus, of course now I work for The Pentagon entertaining the troops all around the world. I do what I want to do when I want to do it, and I still work out at the comedy clubs, too.
Did anyone ever try to get you to change the way you do comedy?
G: Nobody ever told me what to do because I was George Wallace and I always did what I wanted to do and it didn’t matter. When I’m onstage right now, I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but sometimes I’m thinking, “Let’s stretch this out, let’s go a bit further.” I just write.
Before you did stand-up, I’ve read that you sold advertising in New York City…
G: Everything you’re looking at in Times Square right now, all of the billboards, all of the transit advertising in the five boroughs of New York City, I sold that at a young age, so I made money before I even started [stand-up].
You grew up in Atlanta, which is a big city, so what brought you to New York City?
G: What happened was that I’d gone to Atlanta, had gotten out of school…some of the older comics back in the day, they were struggling and they said sometimes they didn’t know where the next meal was gonna come from…I wanted to go college anyways, my first degree was in transportation. A lot of people still don’t know what the hell that is today. It’s the process of procurement and getting goods and services to people. It’s still the number one industry in the world, people just don’t realize that the shirt on your back and the shoes on your feet, anything that you see had to get to you through some form of transportation. You have five modes of transportation, you have air, you have rail, you’ve got truck, you’ve got water, and pipeline. I remembered that!
In watching some of your stand-up from the 1970s on YouTube, maybe the material has changed, but I think the rhythm of your stand-up is the same.
G: What I always tried to do was what I learned from Richard Pryor, was try to do evergreen material. Even though it was funny in ’76 and the ’80s, it could still be funny now. That’s what I always tried to do and that’s what I try to do now, even though it’s topical stuff. The way I do that evergreen topical [material] is just switch the names…All of these things can come back on any night…People tell me a joke every day that I forget.
One of my favorite routines of yours is where you explain how “maybe” and “maybe not” mean the same thing…
G: I love that, sometimes I don’t think I do it right. I did it last week in New York and it worked better than ever. Maybe it’s the timing, maybe it’s the audience…The smartest people in the world are here in New York. In Las Vegas, maybe that was different because they have people from everywhere. Why do people say “maybe, maybe not?” So what I do in New York, that I don’t do in other places, is stretch it out.
Do you feel pressure to constantly write new material?
G: When I see the young kids onstage, I’m competing against them, they don’t know it. I see them up there and they have a new style of humor, but I go up there and compete with them. I don’t have an ego, but I can stick with them or do better because of the experience I have. I can go up and have fun without jokes. I can riff for 10 minutes with “where you from, what do you do.”
In terms of writing material, you’re also known for using a yellow legal pad on-stage.
G: I’ve been doing this so long that another kid did it and someone accused me of stealing my own shit. (laughs)
You’re primarily known as a stand-up, but were you ever in pursuit of development deals or having your own sit-com?
G: What do I know about acting?
Well, you were in The Wash [with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg]…
G: They just called me up to do that, but had I known anything about acting, I probably would’ve been J.J. Walker on Good Times. I didn’t know anything about acting, I just wanted to be in show business. One day I went to Broadway and auditioned for a Broadway show called No Place To Be Somebody. I didn’t have an agent, I just walked in. You look in the back of Showbiz Magazine and it says “Audition.” I walked in and they said, “Thank you very much.”
About six months later I was back at college in Akron, Ohio and the road show came through. I went to see the play and I went backstage and the producer said, “Where the fuck have you been? We’ve been looking for you. You have the role of such-and-such.” I didn’t have an agent, I didn’t know anything. All I just want to do is tell jokes.
I’ve heard you say in interviews that you own 17 homes including rental properties. How did you know to invest money in real estate?
G: I don’t know how to answer that question. I’ve always known since day one, even in grade school, that I was going to have money. Never even thought about it. It goes back, hand in hand, with when my mom died, leaving the house when I was 16. She says, “Baby, I’m going to the hospital and I’m not coming back. But you don’t have to worry about a thing in life. Life has already been measured and taken care of for you.” She said that, and I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I am one of the most blessed persons you’ve ever met for what I’ve gone through.
I mean, college, dude, I may have paid $4,000 for college for a degree in transportation, marketing, and advertising. Being a dorm advisor — floor advisor, we called it at the time – after one quarter, as opposed to being a junior. Got a new family in Ohio…If I die tomorrow, life owes me nothing…I had money and I travel all over the world. I love traveling, that’s my first love, I just hop on a plane. I came here [to New York] for three days, I’ve been here for a month. I was supposed to go to Spain tomorrow, I do things like that, do whatever I want to do.
As far as buying properties, I don’t know. My first property was in Los Angeles, which has tripled in value. I bought my parents’ property in Georgia and some properties in Florida.
But you didn’t get that advice from a business manager or another comic?
G: In my head, you can’t make any more dirt. Seinfeld is responsible for me buying this place…He was over here…so I was looking for a place real close…I came here and this real estate lady said, “Let me show this place.” We got on the elevator, she hit “31” and the first thing I said to myself was, “What the fuck is she going up there for? There’s no ’31’ on Central Park West.” All our lives, you go down Central Park West and 5th Avenue and go, “Who the fuck are these people?”
Everybody does that, right? Who. Are. These. People. Some of us don’t live here, 30 percent of us don’t live here, we’re all over the place. But I came up here 15 years ago, saw the view and it kills me, 19 windows and it goes all the way back to my shithouse in the back, you can look at the George Washington Bridge. I said [to myself] I never could afford this, but I did the bullshit thing, “Well, maybe I’ll think about this.”
(laughs) I know what you mean…
G: I said [to myself] I’d bring Jerry back and let him take a look at it, because of the view and all that. He has a nice view at his place, but not 320 degrees like I have. So he looks at it [with me] and he won’t say one word. He got out of the elevator and he says to me, “You’ve got to buy that place.” I said, “Are you fucking crazy? Do you know how expensive that place is?” He said, “You’ve got to buy that place, we have the money.” We? He was just letting me know as a friend, the money was there…
But he taught me sometime you need to move up another step. Because when you move up another level, this is a co-op, right? I was able to pay cash for it, but the maintenance here is a bitch. Coming from Georgia, the first time I’m hearing the word “maintenance,” it’s high as hell. Is that the payment on the house? [It’s] in addition to the payment on the house. I said, “I’ll clean that whole goddamn building myself for $5,000 a month.” So he taught me sometimes, you have to spend to move up to another level.
As a headliner in Las Vegas, did you feel trapped by being there seven days a week and not being able to travel?
G: I only worked five days a week. I’d get onstage at 10 o’clock at night, because I owned the show, and at 11:30, I’d be off the stage and I’d be on a Delta jet at midnight or 1 o’clock at the morning coming here or going somewhere. So I’d be here all day Sunday, all day Monday, and I’d leave here Tuesday at 6 p.m., get there at 9 p.m. and be on-stage at 10. I’d have eight days a week…
Do you have any plans to start another show in Vegas?
G: Hell no! You know how much work that was? That was more pressure on me than I’d thought. When you’re worrying about ticket sales, you’re talking to brokers, and that doesn’t matter who you are. I’ve seen everybody come to Las Vegas, from Bette Midler…some of them very successful, 80 percent are not. Ticket sales go down after a while, you have to get out of there…
It doesn’t matter what your name is, it doesn’t sell tickets in Las Vegas. You’ve got to be hooked up with timeshare people, you’ve got to be hooked up with brokers sending people to your show. There are shows in Las Vegas that are sold out every night, but what the producer does, he has a $70 ticket, you’ll give the broker $50 of the $70 ticket. He owns the drinks, so he owns the bar. That show is packed out every night. My show is $75, $100, his show is the same price, I’d only give them 10 percent of whatever the broker’s fee was, so whose show do you think’s show is gonna sell out first? Vegas.com is going to sell out of what they make the most money on.
That’s quite a racket…
G: Nobody knows about that, the advertising. I was the smartest person, I had more advertising than anybody in Vegas because I had the experience. People going, “George Wallace, how do you have five trucks back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back going down Las Vegas Boulevard? It’s so stupid, why would you do it?” I’d say, “You asked me about it, didn’t you?” That’s the point, making it happen. You acknowledge that it’s happening, thank you.
So finally, George, any last words for the kids?
G: Yes I do, and it’s all in my book. I wrote a book called Laff It Off. My subject to colleges and students is “always enjoy your life.” If you have a degree in marketing, when you get out of school, it doesn’t mean that you have to do statistical analysis for the rest of your life. You might enjoy arranging flowers, painting refrigerators, or fixing cars. When you honor your essence, get out and show people what you do. The money will come. When you honor your essence, you don’t care about money. Try something new, don’t be afraid, make sure you enjoy your life. There’s no reason why you should be living and struggling and not having fun at what you do.
-by Darren Paltrowitz
