Monday, February 6, 2012

VINTAGE SANDY: Bernhard's Laurie Stone message that aired on Letterman


The Holy Grail of live-comedy albums is "Without You I'm Nothing" (1987),  Sandra Bernhard's Off-Broadway taping at the Orpheum Theater.
In the monologue that precedes her rendition of "Time of the Season," she mentions the NYC critics who've blasted the show — including Laurie Stone, who described Bernhard as "petty and bilious" in her Village Voice review.
Bernhard responded by humiliating Stone in the show for six months. When Stone got word of the attack, she called and left a cloying, back-pedaling message on Bernhard's answering machine. Bernhard responded by playing the message onstage every night (and on Letterman). Stone eventually called a lawyer.
The live album is interrupted by Bernhard's voice-over explaining she couldn't include Stone's call on the recording.
I never knew the Letterman appearance was an earlier segment from the same night Bernhard dragged Madonna onto Dave's set.
Here's the clip, above, that includes Stone's answering-machine message. This clip's also the closest thing I've seen to any footage of Bernhard's Off-Broadway smash (which is drastically different than the feature-film version of "Without You.")

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