Rejuvenated DeGeneres stands up and delivers
(Sfgate.com, Mai 2002)

Strengthened by five years of ups and downs, comic will start and end 'best-of' tour in Bay Area

In the earliest days of her career as a stand-up comedian, Ellen DeGeneres was surprised to learn something about her true self: She is deeply principled.
Two decades ago, the fledgling entertainer landed a six-night-per-week gig as the host of the only comedy club in her hometown of New Orleans. Enamored of Steve Martin's shenanigans, she developed an act consisting of silly props and other absurdities. She would drag a huge bolt of fabric onstage, for instance.
"Just wanted to try out some new material," she'd say.
That being the notorious French Quarter, club management soon asked her to spice up her act for the Saturday midnight show, an X-rated affair. DeGeneres refused.
"That was sort of the start of my standing firm," she recalled last week as she prepared to begin a national stand-up tour in the Bay Area. As much as she loves the stage, she said, she'll never compromise to keep her place on it.
That conviction took a heavy toll on DeGeneres' career five years ago, when she revealed her homosexuality through her alter ego on the hit sitcom "Ellen. " Advertisers balked. Ratings plummeted. Jerry Falwell dubbed her "Ellen Degenerate," and the show was soon canceled.
In the end, however, DeGeneres is having the last laugh. Or, if she is not quite comfortable laughing at the whole fiasco, she certainly feels stronger for having survived it.
Her recent return to prime-time TV, the unheralded "Ellen Show," almost certainly won't be back next year. But she recently announced plans for a new talk-variety series.
In November, she hosted the Emmy Awards to great acclaim, handling the show's multiple postponements in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks with aplomb. Her widely quoted line about Osama bin Laden spoke volumes about the stakes in the war on terrorism -- and her own victories.
"What would bug a guy from the Taliban more than seeing a gay woman in a suit surrounded by Jews?" she asked a global audience.
Her return to stand-up -- a tour in 2000, filmed for HBO, was her first in eight years -- has been restorative, she said. After a much-publicized romance and distressing breakup with actress Anne Heche, DeGeneres said, she needed it.
"It's how I survive," she said.
The new tour begins with three shows Monday through Wednesday at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa and ends in June at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.
"Actually," she joked, "I'm just doing those (dates) and pretending there's something in between."
She has some history with the Bay Area. In her mid-20s, DeGeneres took a friend's advice and moved here sight unseen, taking
advantage of the teeming comedy scene. It was the mid-1980s.
When she arrived, she recalled, she stepped off the plane and onto the tarmac. "I remember feeling the air and feeling like I was home. It was the most amazing feeling."
Coming from New Orleans, she said, "I assumed there was humidity everywhere -- you know, when you blow-dry your hair, you sweat at the same time."
She lived in a group home in Tiburon ("with about 40 other people"), then in an apartment on California Street, rushing nightly from the Other Cafe to Cobb's and outlying comedy clubs, crossing paths with fellow up-and-comers Dana Carvey, Paula Poundstone and many others.
Having been crowned, at age 24, the "Funniest Person in America" by Showtime, she rode a steep career arc. By 1986, she had moved to Southern California, where a celebrated appearance on "The Tonight Show" launched her in Hollywood.

HONORS FOR 'ELLEN'
Premiering in 1994, "Ellen" (originally called "These Friends of Mine") was an immediate ratings success. Three years later, the controversy over Ellen Morgan coming out was the biggest entertainment story of the year, landing DeGeneres on the cover of Time ("Yep, I'm Gay") and earning her Entertainment Weekly's "Entertainer of the Year" honor.
The decision to come out was made largely for the sake of the script, DeGeneres said. "My show needed something, and I thought that would be an excellent thing."
In her private life, she had been out to friends and family for years. Everyone working on the show had always known, too.
In hindsight, she said, she may have been naive about the public's readiness to accept a beloved entertainer as gay.
"There are people that will still fight you that Liberace wasn't gay because he never said so," she said.
When her ratings fell, DeGeneres "took it personally. It fueled my drive to educate people. I thought, 'I'm not different. How can you reject me because I'm gay?' "
Today, though, she has compelling evidence that her timing was just right. Hit programs such as "Will & Grace" and "Six Feet Under" deal with gay issues without trepidation and with little debate.
"I'd like to believe I had a part in that," DeGeneres said.
Although she is strong-willed about her principles, it took her some time to accept her role-model status. Now, however, she talks frankly about Hollywood's closet.
She can understand why certain gay civilians would choose to keep their sexuality a secret, she said. But closeted actors who haven't come out because they play opposite-sex heartthrobs have none of her sympathy.
"That's a lame excuse," she said, her voice rising. "What -- 'I'll lose my $20 million paycheck?' "
Much as the public has grown comfortable with gays and lesbians on TV, she said, enlightened audiences shouldn't have any problem with a gay or lesbian actor in a straight role.
"Just because I like girls doesn't mean I don't look at guys and think they're gorgeous, that they have a great body." Viewers of any orientation should have the same kind of appreciation, she said.
DeGeneres excuses herself to check on her cats, who are out on the balcony. "They don't go outside," she explained. "There are coyotes up where I live."

BACK TO PERFORMING
Coming out, she said, "has had a profound effect on me. It's made me learn so much more than I ever would have learned about myself had I stayed on the safe road."
Now she would just like to go back to performing, thank you very much. The new tour, she said, was conceived as a kind of "best of" Ellen DeGeneres, the comedian.
If there's a theme, she said, it's this: "We need to go back to simpler times. There's a reason that every generation says, 'You know, when I was a kid . . .' "
The progress she has made on behalf of gay and lesbian culture notwithstanding, that kind of squeaky-clean nostalgia has always been DeGeneres' overriding theme.
"There's a cynical, sarcastic, mean-spirited streak going through every show on TV," she said. "Somebody's always getting made fun of."