 Fame & Fortune: Rita Rudner
Comedian-writer lives in her money |
With her soft-spoken, lilting and polite vocal manner,
Rita Rudner is one of our more charming comedians -- which is appropriate,
since her career can best be described as charmed.
Starting out as a dancer, Rudner hoofed it in six
Broadway shows during her 20s before deciding she prefers talking
into the microphone rather than dancing behind it. She scored as
a stand-up, becoming a regular guest on all the late night shows
and even ventured into screenwriting. Rudner, along with her husband
Martin Bergman, wrote several scripts, including the screenplay
of the film "Peter's Friends," which starred Kenneth Branagh, Emma
Thompson and Rudner.
But in the past few years, she's risen to even greater
heights. Her latest novel, "Turning the Tables," is her fourth book,
and her stand-up show had been so successful in Las Vegas that the
New York-New York Hotel and Casino built a theater just for her.
She performed there for five years. These days Rudner can be found
performing her stand-up act at Harrah's Las Vegas.
Bankrate
spoke to Rudner about her many areas of success. Bankrate:
How did you go from being a stand-up comic to being a novelist? Rita
Rudner: First, I was fortunate enough to be asked to write my first
book of essays, which was "Naked Beneath my Clothes," and that did rather well.
Then I did "Rita Rudner's Guide to Men," and that did well, and I thought I can
either write another book of essays or I can try something that's next to impossible.
I chose impossible, and said, I'm going to try to write a novel. My first one
was "Tickled Pink," which was really challenging, because when I write a joke,
I try to avoid anything I've heard before. So when I write a novel, I try to avoid
anything I've read before. So it takes a long time to come up with something original.
Bankrate: "Turning the Tables"
takes place in the world of Las Vegas casinos. How much of this book are things
you've seen, and how much is complete fiction?
Rita Rudner: A lot of
it is things I've seen, but exaggerated. Las Vegas is such a silly
town, so I tried to satirize it in a way that wasn't derogatory,
but loving. The casino I wrote in the book is called Heaven, and
I just thought, what would be the next step -- what would happen
in a casino called Heaven?
Bankrate:
What is it about the novel form you find satisfying? Rita
Rudner: It's so difficult to do. It's like having exercise times
a billion. When you actually see it in the bookstores, with a cover and a title,
it's something tangible, I love it. I love having done it. Bankrate:
How long did it take you to write this book? Rita
Rudner: It took around five years, but it's not every day. My husband
and I adopted a child in the middle of the five-year process, and that added another
two years, because when you adopt a child, they have needs and wants. You have
to cater to them when they're very little. You've got to feed them, you've got
to change them -- you have to do a lot of stuff for them. Bankrate:
Did you do like Madonna did and just go to Africa and grab one? Rita
Rudner: No, I did it the traditional way. I hired a very nice lawyer.
It was nine months from the day we contacted the lawyer to the day we got our
baby, so I say it was a biological adoption. Now, she's four years and four
months old. Her name is Molly. | 
