His success is more than Shearer luck
Harry Shearer had spent most of his week in the jury pool of the Los Angeles court system, but he knew he’d never end up serving in a trial.
It’s not because the actor/writer/radio host has been such a prominent show-biz figure. Shearer figures the average lawyer would get rid of him for a much less glamorous reason: He’s too smart.
“I’ve had post-graduate education and they don’t want that in the jury,” he says cheerfully. “People with too much education think ahead of the lawyers. They can’t have that.”
Shearer’s assessment of his own intelligence would be grating, except that he’s obviously right.
A fixture in American entertainment for nearly 30 years, he did two stints as a writer/performer on “Saturday Night Live,” co-wrote and starred in “This Is Spinal Tap” (as bassist Derek Smalls) and voices dozens of characters on “The Simpsons.”
He also writes and hosts a weekly political satire show on public radio (“Le Show”), wrote a well-reviewed novel (“Not Enough Indians”) and produces a vast array of song parodies, satirical videos and straight-up reportage for a new Web site called mydamnchannel.com.
At 63, Shearer may be at the height of his powers. But in a career defined by anger – at the world and its leaders, but also at his own industry and sometimes his co-workers – success does little to ease his frustration.
“Comedy comes from anger, so it’s fine,” he says. “God knows there’s a lot to be angry about these days; one doesn’t need to work too hard to find it.”
Despite his long and varied career, Shearer has felt less than nourished by his chosen industry.
A child star with credits on “The Jack Benny Show” and “Abbott and Costello Go to Mars,” he also played Eddie Haskell on the original pilot of “Leave It to Beaver” before his parents edged him back toward school.
He studied political science at UCLA, then did a year of post-grad work at Harvard before returning to writing and performing comedy.
Back in Los Angeles, Shearer worked in radio and comedy groups for most of the ‘70s, then joined the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 1979.
His yearlong hitch was notoriously bumpy, but Shearer’s role in 1984’s “Spinal Tap” was a triumph, and he returned to “SNL” as part of the all-star cast that took over the show for a year in the mid-‘80s.
But Shearer speaks of Hollywood as an outsider, and a remarkably hostile one, at that.
“They delight in making it clear that you’re not working for a benevolent organization that loves talent,” he says.
“You would think in an economy that deifies success that someone in another TV operation would say, ‘Hey, creative freedom worked well for “The Simpsons,” we ought to try it!’
“But to the contrary, they’d rather die failing then have less of a hand on the windpipe of the creative process.”
The birthday bunch
Comedian Jonathan Winters is 82. Singer-pianist Mose Allison is 80. Actor Stanley Tucci is 47. Actress Demi Moore is 45. Actress Calista Flockhart is 43. TV personality Carson Kressley (“Queer Eye For The Straight Guy”) is 38. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio is 33.