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- [00:00]
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- [00:17]
Terry Gross
This is FRESH air. I'm Terry Gross. If you're a fan of celebrity roasts, you probably know my guest, Jeff Ross. As the roast master general. He loves to make people laugh by insulting the guest of honor as as well as the roasters. But his new Netflix comedy special is very personal and autobiographical. It hits lots of emotional notes and reveals a more vulnerable side of him beneath the tough skin that's gotten him through tough times. He talks about his family. His great grandmother founded the popular New Jersey catering hall Clinton Manor, which Ross's father eventually took over. It was known for its weddings and bar mitzvah and for the food. One of the people who aspired to have a wedding there was the main character in Judy Blume's 1978 novel Wifey. While Jeff Ross's friends were out having fun, he was cutting brisket for the next catered affair. It was a tight knit family, but that kind of ended when Jeff was young. His mother was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 12 and died when he was 15. Five years later, his father died of an aneurysm, leaving Jeff and his younger sister. Orphaned in his early 20s, he lived with his grandfather and became his caregiver until he died. If you know what Jeff looks like, you know he's bald. It's not a fashion statement. It's a result of alopecia, a condition in which you lose your hair, including eyebrows and eyelashes. Shortly before he started preparing his one man Broadway show in which he talks about all of these things, he was given a far worse diagnosis that he added to the show, and that was stage three colon cancer. It required surgery and several months of chemo. His new Netflix comedy special is a filmed version of that show, which is called Take a Banana for the Ride. The special begins with clips of him from a couple of roasts, including the now Famous or infamous 2024 Roast of Tom Brady, which Ross produced and co hosted. Here's Jeff Ross.
- [02:17]
Jeff Ross
Snoop, love you, man, so much. The only person that's inhaled more smoke than Snoop is Pete Davidson's dad inside the World Trade Center. Thanks, Pete. Tom, I really wanted you to be our first goat to be roasted because you're an example to future generations that if you work hard, eat right, film the other team's practices, deflate the balls and have the NFL make new rules just for you, then you too can be the third most famous guy in a Dunkin Donuts commercial.
- [02:57]
Terry Gross
Jeff Ross, it's great to have you back on the show. And that stuff is so funny.
- [03:02]
Jeff Ross
Terry, thank you. I so enjoyed hearing you ramp this up. I can't even tell you what a full circle moment for me. This is my record breaking third time on. I don't know how many comics have had this privilege, so I'm thrilled.
- [03:18]
Terry Gross
Well, it's great to have you. So to the extent that you're comfortable talking about it, how is your health now?
- [03:23]
Jeff Ross
My health is 100%, thank you for asking.
- [03:26]
Terry Gross
Oh, that's such great news.
- [03:28]
Jeff Ross
I just had my chemo port removed.
- [03:31]
Terry Gross
Oh, great. Cause you still had it on when you were filming the show, the Broadway show.
- [03:35]
Jeff Ross
So it's really important for people to know that I'm doing okay. I'm doing better than okay and don't worry about me. At least right now I feel very fortunate. And to the people listening who are going through chemo, it's you can do it, you can do it.
- [03:54]
Terry Gross
I want to talk now about how you became you.
- [03:57]
Jeff Ross
Yeah.
- [03:58]
Terry Gross
So let's start with the catering business. My parents were such veterans of catered affairs, weddings and bar mitches at various catering halls around like Queens and Brooklyn. And so let's start with your grandmother. She founded this successful catering hall in Newark, New Jersey. And then you moved like the business and your family moved to which part of New Jersey after that?
- [04:25]
Jeff Ross
Newark was on Clinton Avenue, was Clinton Manor, and eventually moved to Route 22 in Union, New Jersey where I worked there as a boy and a young man.
- [04:37]
Terry Gross
I want you to describe what the typical bar mitzvah was like when you were working in the kitchen.
- [04:44]
Jeff Ross
You know, I would ride my moped on the, you know, turning lane of this highway, you know, 12 months a year to go to my family owned catering hall where these lavish affairs would happen. So I saw human nature, people at their most nervous. Brides, grooms, mother of the bride, father of the groom. You saw people at their most intense. I would watch the bands from a window in the kitchen. You know, I would like peek out as a 13, 14, 15 year old working weekends and summers making fruit cup and salads. And you know, I played high school football, but I had red fingernails from the cherries that I put on the fruit cups.
- [05:33]
Terry Gross
Oh, maraschino cherries.
- [05:35]
Jeff Ross
Everyone thought I was wearing nail polish. And since I was the center, the punt center, they all stared at my Hands. So there were a lot of funny crossovers. I worked parking cars there. My grandfather and I ran the parking lot. Sometimes I worked in the hat check, like taking people's coats. As a boy, as a little boy, I rolled meatballs. I would just sit on a big barrel of salt, metal canister and I would roll meatballs for hours. Or in my teens I would feed the workers. I would make matzo braai for 80 people on a Sunday morning. The servers were all Scottish and Irish. There were Haitian people, there were Hungarian people there, French people who work there. So I got a real mix of ethnic humor and different senses of humor. It was a very enriching time for me.
- [06:33]
Terry Gross
I just have to briefly ask you about the food. Like, my parents grew up during the depression and their parents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. So there wasn't a lot of food early in their lives or in their parents lives. So when they'd go to like a catered wedding or bar mitzvah, they would just like eat and eat. And there's so many stages of food. Like at the catered affairs they'd go to, there'd be a smorgasbord which would have like sculptures of chopped liver and like charmaine was the Chinese dish. There were Swedish meatballs and duchess potatoes. Yes. And some kind of like chicken and other side dishes and salad. Then you first sat down to the meal. And on the really lavish ones, like if you're going to somebody's catered affair who had more money. Then after that there'd be what was called the Viennese table, which was breakfast. So it was like three meals in one event. And then everybody would have like a very sore stomach afterwards.
- [07:45]
Jeff Ross
But everyone felt like a king when they left. You know, the Viennese table was dessert. Wasn't the Viennese table dessert? Halava and ice cream and cake and.
- [07:55]
Terry Gross
Oh, maybe, maybe it was just. But then after that, I remember once there was a breakfast. I mean, and I thought, this is insane.
- [08:04]
Jeff Ross
You know, I think we might be finding a direct connection from the kosher catering business to me getting colon cancer. I think we just figured it out.
- [08:21]
Terry Gross
And then the band. Sometimes the bands were so bad because the parents would hire a band that suited their taste. And so the band would play like lots and lots of cha chas and just like songs that the actual bar mitzvah age people were totally uninterested in. But they would play like one or two songs that they thought would, like, this is for the kids. And they would do like terrible Covers of it. Did you see some really awful bands?
- [08:46]
Jeff Ross
I saw the house bands are the ones I remember, and they were always great. Dave Aaron. Before that, my grandfather's band, the Herb Larson Orchestra, who. I played their music in the credits of the Netflix special. It was fun, actually, like, finding my grandfather's old jazz albums. And I would play it as people were coming into the Broadway house. So the Nederlander was filled with my pop, Herb's jazz band from the 1950s. Another connection, Terry, is the catering hall. The building where the Clinton Manor was for all those years was torn down recently. And the weekend they tore it down was the weekend that we built the set into the Nederlander.
- [09:31]
Terry Gross
Wow.
- [09:32]
Jeff Ross
Yeah. Beowulf Burrit's beautiful set went up the same weekend that the old building came down. And my family got a real chill from that. But also, you know, it's like a real sign that life goes on. And we've kind of rebuilt the Clinton Manor into a Broadway show. You know, we had a real, like, family, pinch me moment of the Clinton Manor. My great grandma Rosie, this great leader of our family, maybe the only person on earth I've ever been jealous of because she worked upstairs. She was a real, like, pioneer in her field. She had this kosher catering hall before women, really owned a lot of big businesses in Newark, New Jersey, and her three sons, my two uncles, and my grandfather was the band leader. My uncle Murray ran the kitchen. My uncle Alby worked there for a while. We say he cooked the books. That's the joke that I do in the show, how family businesses work. And she was like the boss of the family. She really kept the family together. She kept everybody fed and employed and happy.
- [10:38]
Terry Gross
Were you brought up religiously or culturally Jewish?
- [10:42]
Jeff Ross
Culturally. Bar mitzvahs, all that stuff. I did it, but it was a struggle.
- [10:46]
Terry Gross
What was your bar mitzvah like? Was it lavish?
- [10:49]
Jeff Ross
My bar mitzvah was like something between a Super bowl halftime show and like, something, you know, Saddam Hussein would throw for one of his kids. Like, every favor in New Jersey was called in. You know, the best band, the best florist, the best, you know, of everything. It was like, my dad, my mom, they really went all out for my bar mitzvah. It's a core memory for me. And, you know, talk about a Viennese table. People are still talking about it. The desserts, the cheesecake, the babka. It was, you know, it was a beautiful bar mitzvah. I remember the first three words of my Haftorah. So religion was not the focus for us. It was always cultural, like Jewish pride, Jewish strength, Jewish food, Jewish music, Jewish laughter. That was sort of my upbringing.
- [11:46]
Terry Gross
You became the second youngest black belt in America when you were 10. You were bullied at school, and your mother suggested that you should take. Was it karate? Taekwondo?
- [12:01]
Jeff Ross
It was taekwondo. She dragged me. I did not want to go.
- [12:04]
Terry Gross
Okay, that's Korean karate.
- [12:06]
Jeff Ross
Yeah.
- [12:07]
Terry Gross
So once you got there, though, did you like it? You must have stuck with it to become a black belt.
- [12:12]
Jeff Ross
I immediately loved it. I was terrible. I was punching with my fists upside down. I wasn't coordinated. I was six years old when I started. But quickly I learned that it was more than just self defense. It was community, it was role models. I was taught by these Newark detectives. And, you know, I would hear the way they talked about life, you know, their wives, their kids. I just learned life through my karate teachers. And I learned discipline and I, you know, I learned to protect myself. I think that gave me confidence to talk smack for a living later in life. It was cool.
- [12:59]
Terry Gross
Did you ever use your taekwondo skills to fight bullies in school?
- [13:03]
Jeff Ross
I did. I did. It was more like not fight bullies, but defend others against bullies. I didn't like when people got picked on, so sometimes I would step into those kind of messy situations.
- [13:18]
Terry Gross
So you said that learning taekwondo, Korean karate, helped you talk smack without being worried about getting beaten up for it.
- [13:29]
Jeff Ross
I mean, on some level, I am in a dangerous occupation. I'm, you know, telling notorious figures. You know, roasting is sometimes dangerous.
- [13:42]
Terry Gross
So when you were 12, your mother was diagnosed with leukemia. She died when you were 15. Were you very close?
- [13:50]
Jeff Ross
We were. We were.
- [13:52]
Terry Gross
What was it like watching her suffer when you were so young and you probably hadn't seen someone suffer like that before? Uh,
- [14:03]
Jeff Ross
it was. It was hard. It was hard. It was hard to see somebody so tough and was so full of laughter, such a positive person suffer. And it made me realize that life is very unpredictable. And we were responsible for. All of us are responsible for our own happiness.
- [14:31]
Terry Gross
What caregiving responsibilities fell to you? Your father was really busy with the catering business.
- [14:39]
Jeff Ross
Besides the having to take care of yourself for her, you know, she wanted to make sure while she was in the hospital that I was my sister and I, you know, I was playing football, I was washing my uniform every night and making my own dinner and just being a good boy. We couldn't visit her very often because the hospital was in New York and we lived in New Jersey. So I would write her letters, and that was a big Part of my response, my mission to cheer her up. I'd write her funny letters, and I found a bunch of them recently. I couldn't find what I wrote to her, but I found the one she wrote back to me. And she's like, all the nurses had a good laugh, and she's like, you know, had some funny Nazi name that I must have used. I think I wrote my mom a letter as a Nazi general at the hospital. And I remember going to visit her one weekend, and she was losing her hair from the chemo, and she was very upset about emotional telling my sister and I that she'd be losing her hair. And I remember hugging her and making Kojak references. And, you know, we'll be the only kids at school whose mom looks like Kojak. And we had just seen the King and I, my sister and I and my dad. My dad would take us to Broadway shows to cheer us up after the hospital visits. And the King and I, Yul Brenner, you know, so I made a joke about that, you know, that she would look like Yul Brenner. It was awesome.
- [16:14]
Terry Gross
And bald.
- [16:15]
Jeff Ross
And bald. So I take some satisfaction in knowing that I made her laugh, because I found the evidence, the letters. You know how time works, Terry. It's like, you know, you start to go, did this happen? Did I dream this? Did I exaggerate this 20 years ago? And then when you find, you know, I kept digging, and I found a letter that my dad wrote to me when I graduated high school. It was the only letter he ever wrote to me. And I read that in the show, and there was some debate in my head whether it belonged in the show or not, because we'd kind of moved on from my dad after he kind of dies in my. In my life story, he dies from cocaine, from having too much fun. And so I read the letter, and you really get to. It gives a chance for redemption from my dad for some of the stuff he missed. He apologizes to me if he was out partying too much or if he wasn't, if. We didn't talk about my mom much after she died. And I want to inspire dads to be communicative with their kids. And there were a lot of dads with their kids there at the Broadway show this summer. So I'm glad I. I'm glad I'm reading these letters. There's a part of me that goes, should I be talking about my parents like this when they're not around to. To laugh along with it? But I do think the greater mission is to inspire people and give people hope about their whatever's going on in their life.
- [17:52]
Terry Gross
This is something I think about a lot. Like, I don't believe in an afterlife or anything, but there's part of me that really thinks the people I've lost in my family are somehow hearing what I say. And if there's something that they really want kept private and I tell somebody, they know it, you know, like the people who have died, like, they know it. And I know that they, that they're not alive. I don't believe that they're in the room with me, but there's a part of me that really believes they're hearing it. And I wonder if you feel that way when you're on stage.
- [18:29]
Jeff Ross
Not in my family. There's no getting offended. I have a bunch of wackos in my family. Like, I remember. Oh, God, I don't know how to tell this. My Aunt Don and Uncle Joe lived in Iran and Japan in the 70s. They were teachers. And eventually there was an overthrow in Iran and they moved back to America with their baby daughter, my cousin Melinda. I remember the whole family meeting the new baby and it was such a big deal. They'd flown across the world and they have this new baby that was born over there. And now here it is in this house in New Jersey and we're all just admiring, admiring, you know, the beautiful Melinda. And the baby's naked. And my dad goes, you know, to his sister, he goes, donna, she has your blank. And remember my Aunt Donna, you know, here I am, a little boy hearing my Aunt Donna holding this beautiful baby, shrieking, laughing. You know, I saw the sense of humor of my funny family early on and that almost nothing was off limits. We never want to hurt each other. It's all like in good fun. It's all to snap out of sad times or awkward times. So, like, humor is so healing, you know. It really is.
- [19:55]
Terry Gross
Well, we need to take another short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jeff Ross, who's known as the Roastmaster general, having hosted, produced many celebrity roasts and dished out many insults on those roasts. His new Netflix comedy special is a filmed version of his autobiographical one man Broadway show. It's called Take a Banana for the Ride. We'll be back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.
- [20:22]
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- [20:37]
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- [21:28]
Terry Gross
When your parents both died, you lived with your sister and then when she left and I think this was when you were still in high school or after college, you moved in with your grandfather and you became his caregiver until he died. What was it like for you to be taking care of him? I know you liked him very much. You were close.
- [21:54]
Jeff Ross
Well, that was my I felt experienced. I understood, you know, a lot had changed. My family was all spread out. My sister was in college and here I was, a recent college graduate living with my 79 year old roommate who happened to be my best friend for my whole life. As hard as it was, it was also kind of great. I loved him. Like we had fun. We ate every meal together. I all my friends became his friends. We were both single. I was 23 and he was 79 and he would meet women at the senior center. I'm the only one that can drive at night, he would say. And that was his big, you know, that's how he would meet these women. And he would just talk about his girlfriends and dates and encounters and I would talk about mine. And you know, we were like almost like brothers. My pop, Jack, like he was a retired construction worker from the Bronx. Like a real blue collar Jewish tough guy, patriotic but cynical. And I was like loved living with him. It didn't feel like a burden until sometimes it just was. You know, he got sicker and sicker. He'd hallucinate and I would take him to his doctor appointments every day and then at night I would try to go into New York. I would take the bus or drive into New York and try to get on stage and he would always give me a few dollars for the bus and a banana. Take a banana for the Ride. That's where the title, the inspiration for the show comes to him. It was like a tough guy's way of saying, I love you. I can't go with you, but I'm on this journey with you no matter what.
- [23:43]
Terry Gross
Having had three deaths, your parents and your grandfather. When you were young and being raised culturally but not religiously Jewish, did you sit Shiva? Shiva is the Jewish tradition. For seven days, not doing anything, you sit on a hard bench. If you're seriously observing, you cover all the mirrors because it's no time for vanity. And you just talk with people and cry and laugh about the person who you're grieving. Did you do that?
- [24:13]
Jeff Ross
Yes. My mom died slowly, and my dad died suddenly. And the one I remember is my dad's. Shiva was. It was so absurd that this guy was dead. He was such, like, a big shot. Everyone loved him. He ran this very popular catering hall. He would go down to Atlantic City and gamble. And everywhere we went, people knew him because they'd shared their parties with him. And, you know, Ronnie. Ronnie Lifschultz, he had a Cadillac. And when he was just suddenly gone, like, my sister and I, who's, you know, 16 months younger than me, it was just like. It was almost funny. Like, how could this be? His estate was a complete mess. He had a sort of two wills. I burned one. My sister, because we didn't want our Uncle Jerry as our executor because we knew he was not up to it. And so I hired my own accountant, and that was a total mess. We never collected my dad's life insurance because it was contested by the life insurance company over his smoking, his cigarette smoking. There was no recourse for two teenagers back then. There was no gofundmes. You know, you put in whatever fight you could, but we were just, like, victims of circumstance. And I just didn't want to be a victim. I wanted to be a winner in life. I wanted to have a positive outlook. I wanted to make the most of my life because, as I saw, it could end any second.
- [25:58]
Terry Gross
Right. I'm seeing you in such a different light. You know, I'm so glad that you did the show and are showing us this side of yourself. It's, like, so kind of complex and deep. Knowing all that you experienced when you went to college, which was in Boston, after having lived your life in New Jersey. Did you use that as an opportunity to rethink who you were and remake yourself into the person who you wanted to be or thought that you were?
- [26:34]
Jeff Ross
You know, College is like a reboot for everybody, right? So some people change their name, they change their look, you know. For me it was a chance to really be with other creative people. I immediately started working at the college radio station. Eventually became the music director. I was playing in punk rock bands. I had this creative liberation.
- [27:00]
Terry Gross
Were you the guitarist or what?
- [27:02]
Jeff Ross
I was a very bad guitarist. I still am. And I was writing, you know, I didn't really understand comedy yet. It really wasn't until after college, a couple of years that I understood that comedy was what I should be doing.
- [27:18]
Terry Gross
How'd you figure that out?
- [27:21]
Jeff Ross
I didn't. Someone did it for me. My friend Mark, who I name check in the, in the Netflix show. He was taking a stand up comedy class taught here in New York by a guy named Lee Frank, who was a comic. And he said, I think you'd be good at it, Jeff. You should try it. And I tried it and I loved it right away. Not since karate had I felt like a connection to something. I was obsessed where I could do it all day, every day and that was it. I was trying to get on stage three, four times a night if I could. I just wanted to get my hours in my 5 minute increments of just expressing myself, talking about whatever I wanted. It was so cool. Like it was all like mind boggling to me. It was punk rock, it was free speech. It was like shout it out loud. I didn't understand that I could be a comedian. I understood that I loved comedians. Like as a kid, it was like Steve Martin, the Blues Brothers, Eddie Murphy, these rock star comedians, you know, Eddie Murphy in a red leather suit, that was a comedian. I didn't know it was a comedian. The Blues Brothers were playing music, but they were comedians. Cheech and Chong were playing music and doing sketches. But at the heart of it, they were comedians. I didn't know that word, comedians. I thought comedians were, you know, on Johnny Carson. My parents generation, you know, and I got a lot from that too. There was like, I remember just, you know, listening. I would never watch cause it was late, but I remember hearing Buddy Hackett and Don Rickles on the Tonight show with Johnny Carson. I would sit at the top of the stairs where my parents couldn't see me and I would listen. I could hear them laughing at comedians on tv. So I think it rubbed off on me.
- [29:15]
Terry Gross
You knew some of those old school comics. You knew Buddy Hackett and you knew Don Rickles. You joined the Friars Club when you were Harold.
- [29:24]
Jeff Ross
Oh boy. I was probably in my early 30s and that was the coolest. I would play poker there with Greg Fitzsimmons and Elon Gold. And they had a poker room, the George Burns Poker Room where we could order lunch and play poker. And then they had a billiards room. And then they had a steam room and a gym. And then they had a dining room where you might see Milton Berle or Buddy Hackett sitting under their own portrait.
- [29:50]
Terry Gross
I need to reintroduce you again here and take a short break.
- [29:53]
Jeff Ross
I love it every time.
- [29:54]
Terry Gross
If you're just joining us, my guest is Jeff Ross. His new Netflix comedy special is a filmed version of his one man Broadway show, an autobiographical show called Take a Banana for the Ride. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
- [30:08]
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- [31:17]
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- [31:46]
Terry Gross
so the first time you were on TV, it was the Letterman show?
- [31:50]
Jeff Ross
That was my network television debut.
- [31:54]
Terry Gross
No. Was that when he was on at 12:30 or 11:30?
- [31:57]
Jeff Ross
He had just gone to 11:35. I guess that would have been April 13, 1995. Something like that. You know, I don't Remember many dates. But getting the call to be on Letterman when he had just gone and number one at that prime time slot was a big, big deal in my business.
- [32:19]
Terry Gross
How nervous were you?
- [32:21]
Jeff Ross
Couldn't have been more nervous. Here I was, this sort of like young, fragile performer. I couldn't get booked as a stand up on any of the cable shows. It just wasn't clicking. And I auditioned. I was at this festival and I heard the comedian in the next room, Marc Maron, get a phone call. You could hear the phones ring back then from room to room. He didn't get it. He auditioned right before me. And then my phone rang a few minutes later. So we were all getting calls from our agents and managers at the same time. And maybe the Letterman producer, Daniel Kellison was calling me and I got it and they said, you're gonna do it in a couple months, you're gonna be on Letterman. And it was just like a life changing phone call. So I started getting my act together and I'm in la and boom, somebody canceled. Letterman show's calling. You gotta catch the red eye from la. You're coming back to New York, the Ed Sullivan theater tomorrow. So I flew all night. I landed in New York and there I was in the makeup chair next to Bob Costas and Penn and Teller. And it was so cool. I just barely had time to call my aunt Donna and my sister and tell them I was gonna be on Letterman tonight. And Paul Schaeffer and the band played a Rock and Roll All Night and Party Every Day by Kiss, which was. And I ran out to my mark in my one good suit that I had just bought for a friend's wedding. Luckily, I came out all cylinders, firing away my five minutes. I did my seven or eight best jokes and it was just like, is this for real? They're laughing at everything. It's washing over me. And it just worked like the audience just was rooting for me and I was just sort of on what they call a flow state.
- [34:11]
Terry Gross
So we have a clip of you on the Letterman show.
- [34:15]
Jeff Ross
Oh, great.
- [34:15]
Terry Gross
Yeah. So why don't we listen to that? And this was recorded in April of 1995.
- [34:22]
Jeff Ross
I was right. Our next guest is a very funny young comedian making his network television debut. Ladies and gentlemen, a nice welcome for Jeffrey Ross. Jeff. Yeah. Oh, man. This is one that my dad woke from my mom. It's called Enough with the Bread Already. Your smile blooms like a bright summer flower. Your hair flows down like a soft rain shower. Your eyes are like open seas blue from coast to coast. So how come your looks like a truck? Enough with the bread already.
- [35:06]
Terry Gross
That was a real letter, right?
- [35:08]
Jeff Ross
It was a love poem that my, you know, it was all, no, no, no. They were long gone. And this is sort of my way of taking that PA something funny. And then.
- [35:16]
Terry Gross
Wait, did you write that or did your father write it?
- [35:18]
Jeff Ross
No, I wrote that.
- [35:19]
Terry Gross
Oh, you wrote that.
- [35:20]
Jeff Ross
I wrote that because I know your
- [35:22]
Terry Gross
mother was very self conscious about her weight. You talk about that in the show. And I think your father really told her to cut down on the bread.
- [35:30]
Jeff Ross
Oh, that for sure happened.
- [35:32]
Terry Gross
Okay.
- [35:33]
Jeff Ross
And I think my parents would have laughed at that joke because the next one that I told, I say this is a love poem in rebuttal that my mom wrote back to my dad. It's called Put a shirt on, you're scaring the children. And it goes from there. I remember running to the Comedy Cellar to watch it with all the comics on the TV there. And back then it was all answering machine messages. So suddenly, 80, 100 answering machine messages coming through. When I get home, it was like, oh, my gosh, all that struggle. I think I just got my black belt, or at least my gold belt, my next level of comedy. Like, suddenly I felt like I might not have made the wrong choice.
- [36:24]
Terry Gross
What was the first roast you ever did? And I assume that was at the Friars Club.
- [36:28]
Jeff Ross
It was. It was a roast of Steven Seagal, who had just made Under Siege two. And Milton Berle was the host. And it was life changing. I found my Yankee Stadium, Terry. It was the greatest.
- [36:44]
Terry Gross
What did you say?
- [36:46]
Jeff Ross
I walked out and there was no YouTube. I had to like, I had to go to the Museum of Broadcasting and research what a roast even was. And I wrote a bunch of jokes, probably too many, And I walked out at the podium, Milton Berle gave me a terrible dismissive intro. I looked at Steven Seagal. I said, a lot of you don't know me, but I feel uniquely qualified to be here today because I'm also a actor. And Steven Seagal is looking at me like he doesn't quite understand. Get it? It's just like you see Milton Berle and Buddy Hackett cracking up. And I just kind of went, if
- [37:25]
Terry Gross
you're just joining us, my guest is Jeff Ross. His new Netflix comedy special is a filmed version of his one man Broadway autobiographical show, Take a Banana for the Ride. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
- [37:38]
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- [38:28]
Jeff Ross
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- [39:16]
Terry Gross
to ask you about the alopecia, which you talk about in your Netflix special. So people who know you know that you're bald and that's because was it how many years ago was it that
- [39:25]
Jeff Ross
you got was probably about a dozen years ago now that it all happened.
- [39:31]
Terry Gross
Mm. Alopecia is a condition as a lot of people know, where your hair falls out. How did you if you at all did explained it on stage to people who were already fans and knew you had a head of hair and suddenly you didn't. Did they think it was like a stylish decision?
- [39:52]
Jeff Ross
You know, it's a great question. It's something I have barely come to terms with. I had this big bushy fro. I was making jokes about it every night and then all within a few weeks everything fell out. And then if that wasn't weird enough, my eyelashes and my eyebrows so I just looked so differently. Whatever celebrity, if I was going to get noticed, it was all gone. So it was very rattling emotionally. And I was trying to put like makeup on my eyebrows. I was wearing hats and sunglasses and I was saying I was doing it for a role. It took a while to accept it and, as I say, kind of channel my inner rock star, in my case, Pitbull, I guess, and be okay with how I look and understand that looks aren't everything and it's how you own it and carry yourself. And going bald is one thing, but people thinking that I was sick or weak for some reason, that really bothered me. That went against my grain. Like, it's hard to go out and be the funny guy everybody thinks you're.
- [41:09]
Terry Gross
Or the confident guy.
- [41:11]
Jeff Ross
Yeah.
- [41:11]
Terry Gross
Like, if you're not confident in yourself, it's hard to project the confidence on stage. Unless your act is about your own neuroses and not being confident.
- [41:22]
Jeff Ross
Right. And it wasn't. And it was making fun of people. And now suddenly I looked kind of off.
- [41:28]
Terry Gross
So how did you break the news that it was really like a condition?
- [41:33]
Jeff Ross
I never outwardly said it until a couple of years later when Chris Rock got hit at the Oscars.
- [41:44]
Terry Gross
Oh, yeah. What was your take on that? Because you had alopecia. And that's what Jada Pinkett Smith has. And, you know, Chris Rock made a joke that was a reference to her being bald. And then Will Smith went on stage and socked Chris Rock.
- [42:02]
Jeff Ross
You know, it devastated me. And I wasn't the one getting hit. I was the one watching from a hotel room in Atlanta, and my girlfriend was like, oh, are they doing a bit? And I shook my head and I started, like, almost tearing up. I knew it wasn't a bit. I knew Chris wouldn't do a bit like that. I'd worked with Chris for years. I understood that Will Smith snapped right away and hit Chris Rock, who handled it like a man, like a grown up. He went on with the show and, like, everything about it hurt me. Will Smith was slapping comedy, and Chris was taking that hit. For all the outspoken, funny truth tellers,
- [42:50]
Terry Gross
you see, but that's the thing that, first of all, the Oscars have become a roast. If you're going, especially if you're nominated, you should expect that there's going to be a dig someplace. In this case, it was his wife and not himself. For Will Smith. But it's also saying that saying that your wife is bald and referring to the fact that she has alopecia is an incredible insult. And you had that condition yourself. So were you insulted by that joke or were you more insulted by Will Smith for punching back after that joke?
- [43:27]
Jeff Ross
I was upset. For everyone who has alopecia. The Smiths, if they had laughed about it, they would have normalized the condition for kids. They would have seen this most beautiful person on the Oscars with a bald head, laughing, normalizing it, taking the stigma away.
- [43:47]
Terry Gross
So that's the first time you talked about a public.
- [43:50]
Jeff Ross
Yeah. After hiding it for years, it just suddenly it burst out of me that I wanted all the kids with alopecia. And I know losing your hair for a woman is like, I can't put myself in those shoes. But I also was sort of thrown off and traumatized by losing all my hair in a few days. So I get it. I get why someone would be sensitive. But I also go, well, you're gonna be a star, then you gotta act like a star and you gotta laugh it off.
- [44:23]
Terry Gross
So many of your friends are comedians, and three of them died within, like, eight months of each other.
- [44:29]
Jeff Ross
Yeah.
- [44:30]
Terry Gross
Gilbert Gottfried, Norm MacDonald, Bob Saget. You were close to all of them, so you had to deal with a lot of grief at the same time. And grief just seems to be a recurring theme in this interview, in spite of how funny you can be. So here's something. I don't know if you did eulogies for them, but I imagine if you did do eulogies, you'd want them to be funny in honor of their ability to be funny. But that means that you have to write a set while you're grieving. So how did you handle that?
- [45:06]
Jeff Ross
Well, in Bob's case, Bob died suddenly, So I was angry. My eulogy was angry. And I was sticking up for his wife Kelly, who really got a raw deal by losing him after only a year or two of marriage. They really love each other, and I was angry at that one. So to answer your question, I wasn't particularly funny with the sudden death of Bob Saget. I spoke from the heart, as they say. But I can't say I was trying to be funny. There was John Stamos and Dave Coulier and Dave Chappelle and all the funny people. There was definitely some laughs when we lost Bob, but I wasn't there yet with Gilbert. Gilbert had been suffering. And so when someone's suffering, there's always, you know, you kind of get a heads up. And when they finally do die, chances are there's some little relief there. And that's where comedy grows in the relief of tension. So when Dara asked me to speak at the funeral, I was guns ablazing. I was so ready to give Gilbert the kind of send off that he deserved, which was tasteless, you know, in Gilbert's crazy, bawdy, over the top, Friars Club, no holds barred, bordering on illegal comedy.
- [46:46]
Terry Gross
So we have to wrap up soon, I regret to say, but I have a request.
- [46:50]
Jeff Ross
Anything?
- [46:51]
Terry Gross
Okay. You might be sorry that you said yes. Here's what I'd like you to do. I want you now to roast me and go hard. You've listened to the show, so you know something about the show and about me. And then I in turn will let you know how it made me feel.
- [47:09]
Jeff Ross
Oh, wow.
- [47:10]
Terry Gross
On a scale from really grateful for the hilarity to I will be self conscious for the rest of my life. And if I really hate it, I can insist that we edit it out.
- [47:24]
Jeff Ross
Terry Gross. Terry Gross has been around so long she interviewed Ed Sullivan.
- [47:34]
Terry Gross
I wish I did.
- [47:37]
Jeff Ross
Terry Gross, a barely living legend.
- [47:44]
Terry Gross
That's great. Well, it's been a pleasure to talk with you again, really.
- [47:53]
Jeff Ross
Always, always enjoy this. You always find something in me that I didn't know was there.
- [47:59]
Terry Gross
Jeff Ross new comedy special Take a Banana for the Ride is streaming on Netflix. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram. NPR Fresh air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Boldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly Sivinesper. Roberto Shorrock directs the show. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
- [48:58]
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- [49:46]
Up First Announcer
this week on Up first with the President threatening to target Iran's civilian infrastructure such as power plants and bridges, even as gas prices in the US Continue to climb, what are the chances of an end to the war in Iran? Listen for updates every morning on the latest overnight news on Up First. Find us on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.