The Wit and Wisdom of Corky St. Clair.

"I got off that boat with nothing but my dancers belt and a tube of CHAPSTICK." 
– Corky St. Clair.

Foreward
Back in 1977, I worked with a theatre director who was nothing like anyone I’d ever worked with before. He was more flamboyant than talented, possessed a heart of gold and a style that was uniquely his own. Ten years later, I was performing stand-up comedy in a Holiday Inn near where I first met this extraordinary man. After the show, an audience member discretely informed me that years before, the director had been found dead in the mountains with his throat slashed. But, hey, that’s a story for a different time. 
 
I only drudge up this story because Christopher Guest’s portrayal of Corky St. Clair in Waiting for Guffman channels this small-town impresario eerily. From tip of the beard, to top of toupee, to the total enthusiasm for all things theatre, Guest embodies my director, Cecil O. Johnson.  So, of in honor of Cecil, I present the wit and wisdom of Corky St. Clair.

​History:
 
“My first show was Barefoot in the Park, which was an absolute smash, but my production on the stage of Backdraft was what really got them excited. This whole idea of 'In Your Face' theatre really affected them. The conceptualization, the whole abstraction, the obtuseness of this production to me was what was interesting. I wanted the audience to feel the heat from the fire—the fear—because people don't like fire, poked, poked in their noses. You know, when you get a cinder from a barbeque right on the end of your nose, and you kind of make that face, you know? That's not a good thing. And I wanted them to have the sense memory of that. So during the show I had someone burn newspapers and send it through the vents in the theatre. And well, they freaked out, and 'course the fire marshall came over, and they shut us down for a couple of days.”
 
On budgeting and finance:
 
“So what I'm understanding here - correct me, if I'm wrong - is that you're not givin' me any money. So now I'm left basically with nothin'. I'm left with zero, in which, in which, what can I do with zero, you know? What can I - I can't do anythin' with it! I need to, this is my life here we're talking about! We're not just talkin' about, you know, somethin' else. We're talking about mylife, you know? And it's forcing me to do somethin' I don't wanna do. To leave. To, to go out and just leave and go home and say, make a clean cut here and say: 'No way, Corky, you're not puttin' up with these people!' And I'll tell you why I can't put up with you people - because you're bastard people! That's what you are! You're just bastard people! And I'm goin' home and I'm gonna, I'm gonna bite my pillow, is what I'm gonna do!”

On life, karma and his “wife” Bonnie:

I think that the elements, as Dr. Watson said to Sherlock, "are coming together, sir." I was shopping for my wife, Bonnie (I buy most of her clothes). And Mrs. Pearl was in the same shop, and it just was an accident. Y'know, we started talking... about pantyhose. She was saying—w-whatever, that's not the point of the story, but what the point is was that through this accidental meeting—it's like, y'know, it's like a Hitchcock movie, where, you know, you're thrown into a rubber bag and put in the trunk of a car. You find people; you find them. Something... It—is it karma? Maybe. But we found him; that's the important thing—and I got Bonnie a wonderful pantsuit.

"Who wants more drinkies?”
​Cecil Johnson