All of Me

Author Essay

Back from Europe, I was watching the Tonight Show one night and discovered a new talent: a young comedian named Jerry Seinfeld. In those days he was still largely unknown and playing the comedy-club circuit. His act had me in stitches, so much so that the very next day I called my agent, Fred Lawrence, and said, “Find me that guy. I gotta have him.” So that fall Jerry opened for me at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe — his first stand-up gig outside of a comedy club and the only one that resulted from his Tonight Show appearance. Over the next four years he opened for me once more in Tahoe, at least three times in Vegas and at several one-nighters on the road.

Jerry was a class act, as real offstage as he was on. Pat Riccio said that Jerry was so normal he was almost too good to be true. His material, like mine, was clean, and you never had to worry about him turning off an audience or establishing a sour mood in the room. Quite the contrary. Having laughed until their sides ached, most audiences were content to settle down and listen to some good music. And he and I were temperamentally alike as well: always calm and in control, even when disasters struck.

Except for the fact that he didn’t play an instrument, Jerry might well have been another member of my band. He hung out with all the guys. My bassist, Peter Cardinali, recalls doing his laundry with Jerry at a local laundromat; he maintains that it was one of those laundry trips that inspired what may be Jerry’s most famous bit: the missing-sock routine.