Stand Up
At the age of 19, LaMarche took his high school act to an open mic night in New York City, performing to a reaction in which, as he describes, "they just totally ignored me". This reaction was coupled with the backlash LaMarche received from fellow Canadian comedians who LaMarche describes as discouraging him from pursuing a career outside of Canada.
Three years later, at the age of 22, LaMarche moved straight to Los Angeles to further his stand up career. This move, LaMarche says, would always be something he regretted doing instead of moving to New York: "... in retrospect, I thought it was a mistake. I think that a couple of years in New York would have made me a stronger comedian."
Over the next five years, LaMarche's career would gradually progress, playing comedy clubs all over the U.S., with several appearances on Merv Griffin and "An Evening At The Improv", but in spite of such interest, LaMarche always believed that, while his impersonations and stage presence were strong, he needed to develop funnier comedy material. Despite being so critical of himself, LaMarche would be granted the opportunity of being part of the 1985 HBO production, Rodney Dangerfield Hosts the 9th Annual Young Comedians Special, on which also appeared Bob Saget, Rita Rudner, Louie Anderson, Yakov Smirnoff, and the breakout first appearance of Sam Kinison. Although he was received (and reviewed) favorably, in looking back on his own performance in that special, LaMarche believed he was "probably about five years away from going from being a good comedian to being a great comedian" and being the "only impressionist that actually comes from somewhere".
During his standup career, LaMarche opened for such acts as Rodney Dangerfield, George Carlin, Howie Mandel, David Sanborn and Donna Summer, usually in the main showrooms of Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
On March 9, 1987, LaMarche's father was murdered, shot to death by a lifelong friend in a Toronto hotel lobby, in front of dozens of witnesses. This sent LaMarche into depression and alcoholism for the next two years, effectively stalling his stand up career. After getting sober on Inauguration Day in 1989, LaMarche embarked again into the world of his first love, standup comedy, in the early part of 1990. However, just as he was regaining lost momentum, tragedy struck once more, as his 18-year-old sister was killed in a car accident in September of that year. At this point, though he remained sober, LaMarche decided he just could not do standup comedy anymore. He says, "at that point I just threw up my hands and went, 'Oh, that’s it. I don’t have any funny left in me. I’m done.'"
Read more about this topic: Maurice LaMarche
Famous quotes containing the words stand up and/or stand:
“The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made:
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view
That stand upon the threshold of the new.”
—Edmund Waller (1606–1687)
“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God,”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 19:25.
“If thou be invited of a mighty man, withdraw thyself, and so much the more will he invite thee. Press thou not upon him, lest thou be put back; stand not far off, lest thou be forgotten.”
—Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus 13:9-10.
“Mr. Alcott seems to have sat down for the winter. He has got Plato and other books to read. He is as large-featured and hospitable to traveling thoughts and thinkers as ever; but with the same Connecticut philosophy as ever, mingled with what is better. If he would only stand upright and toe the line!—though he were to put off several degrees of largeness, and put on a considerable degree of littleness. After all, I think we must call him particularly your man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)