Michelle Kaplan

Just Your Average Work’n Joe

Going through airport security Joe Piscopo, known best for being a Saturday Night Live alum, is talking on his cell phone, arranging interviews and signing autographs to fans who obviously feel comfortable enough to walk up and ask. Security checks his bag, as he says with a laugh into the phone, “I’m just going through security…I think they’re going to take my toothpaste.” Across two time zones and three states, in one afternoon, he manages to take some time out to catch us up on what he’s been doing.

Piscopo, 55, is going through a divorce. Although he can’t talk about it much, his wife, Kimberly and he have been together for 19 years, married for 9 of them. They have three young children, two daughters Alexandra, 7 and Olivia, 2 and a 4-year old son, Michael. Piscopo has another son, Joey 27, from a previous marriage.

“In my business pain is good, being on stage is cathartic and therapeutic…at this point particularly…Personal turmoil aside,” Piscopo reports, “the kids are doing good.”

Piscopo said that performing and the fans in general have made the process easier. While most people check their emotions at the office door, for an actor it enhances the experience.

“Pouring your heart out onstage makes it a better show.”

Piscopo is on the road crisscrossing the country with not one but two shows. One is a Saturday Night Live show, where he performs with former co-cast member Victoria Jackson and Don Novello, a SNL writer and who played, Father Guido Sarducci a reoccurring character.

“I’ll do some shtick, I’ll do my characters, it’s great…it’s a fun show.”

The other show has evolved; Piscopo describes it as jazz music, mixed with comedy.

As funny as he is, whether doing impersonations or his own homespun characters, comedy was not why he got into show business.

“I did commercials…I was a working actor…all I wanted to do in this business is be a working actor.”

Piscopo’s agent sent him to audition for SNL. By May of 1980, the last of the show’s dwindling cast of Not Ready for Prime Time Players said their final farewell, but due to its popularity, NBC wasn’t ready to say goodbye to SNL. A new set of actors were cast to continue the show. As Piscopo notes, talk about a hard act to follow.

“You can’t follow this cast, Belushi, Ackroyd, Gilda, c’mon.”

He remembers, “It took us almost a year to turn it around…I took a pay cut to go on Saturday Night Live. In retrospect, I’m proud to be part of such a legendary endeavor.”

Later, when Dick Ebersol took over as executive producer, he fired the entire replacement cast retaining only two, Eddie Murphy and Piscopo who dominated the show from 1981-1984. The two held up SNL during those years with Piscopo’s impressions a main ingredient, he brought the celebrities, politicians and newsmakers of the day with him on stage including Andy Rooney, Barbra Streisand, Dan Rather, David Letterman, Dean Martin, Ed McMahon, Geraldo Rivera, Jerry Lewis, Jesse Jackson, Jimmy Carter, Joan Rivers, John F. Kennedy, John McEnroe, Karl Malden, Leonard Nimoy, Marvin Hamlisch, Pat Cooper, Paul Harvey, Phil Donahue, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Lawrence, Ted, Tom Carvel, Tom Snyder and Winston Churchill…just to name a few.

He also had his own beloved characters such as The Sports Guy, Doug Whiner, from the constantly complaining, cranky couple Doug and Wendy Whiner, Paulie Herman, a squeaky voiced kid from New Jersey, whose signature line: “You from Joisey? I’m from Joisey, yeah, what exit,” was a SNL classic, Mr. Blunt and Blair, a gay hair stylist.

However, it was his dead on impression of Frank Sinatra that not only left an impression on fans it also impressed Sinatra himself.

One of Piscopo’s most cherished memories, with the birth of his children and Christmas mornings with his mom and dad aside, is when he finally got to meet his hero along with Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin at the Friars Club.

“That was wild, I was so scared to meet him, we’re from the same neck of the woods, the old man, as we in the neighborhood affectionately referred to Sinatra…he was always so nice to me.”

He said that many performers who imitated Sinatra were all sent letters to cease and desist the impersonations.

“Everyone except me.”

Piscopo did write Sinatra asking his permission to do the impersonations, where he was told that along with his blessing also came the title that Sinatra bestowed on him, Vice Chairman of the Board.

“He was a funny guy.”

The night he met Sinatra he remembers being anxious.

I was as nervous and as excited as I have ever been in my life… I did an impression right in front of him.”

Piscopo begins singing; “I don’t stand a ghost of a chance with you…”

Continuing with the story, he describes Sinatra’s reaction.

“He nodded the way he did, with the eyebrows…After, I asked him, “Can I call you Frank?”

Without missing a beat, Sinatra deadpans, “No.”

“The whole room broke out…he was a funny guy.”

He brings that love of the old man to his musical performance in his jazz, comedy show. He also plays drums, guitar, piano and flute, and claims no formal training, just a knack for it.

He says that he’s impressed that the younger generations that come to see him perform know Sinatra’s music.

“I emulate him and try to be true to the music…you can never be the old man… he was the greatest of all time.”

His love of Sinatra is as obvious as his love for their shared home state of New Jersey. He is active in a charity to help local kids called the Positive Impact Foundation.

As for kids, he loves being a dad, and would love to have more.

“It’s the greatest thing in the world. I was born to be a dad. I take it so seriously… I live for it…my goal is to be the Anthony Quinn of New Jersey…to have a child at every exit,” he laughs.

One thing his fans may not know about him, but keeping in mind how political SNL could be is that he is very interested in politics, and community.

In 2004 when New Jersey Governor, James McGreevey revealed that he was gay and resigned, Piscopo had serious thoughts of running.

Although he counts himself a Democrat he is very conservative and thinks in very non-partisan terms, not being afraid to say that he would back some republican candidates that he likes, such as Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani.

“We have to be independent… there’s no one individual, one party, that really speaks for the masses.”

Piscopo talked about the importance of taking part, of giving back to the communities of which we come from, to make them stronger.

He also is also going to film a new movie written by Norman Steinberg, whose writing credits include My Favorite Year, Blazing Saddles, and two that Piscopo was in; Wise Guys and Johnny Dangerously, captures this thought of giving. Piscopo teases it.

“The movie, Joey Benefit, is about a guy who can’t say no to a charity…if you got a charity, I got a tuxedo.”

Piscopo says that he’s getting around to doing projects that he should have done years ago, although he sounds like any other working Joe, crazy, busy, trying to balance career and family and make it all work. But a working Joe that loves what he does and still thinks about what’s left to do.

“I have fun and entertain… if you make people happy, make people laugh that’s a pretty darn good job.”

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