A story’s teller is as important as her words

This weekend at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, a more lasting imprint was burned into my skin than the mere rays of the sun. Julie Andrews, queen of the world, spoke to a large crowd at Royce Hall and her every word still resonates.

Though of course, it wasn’t that what she said was so out of the ordinary, it was just that it came out of her mouth. Being in the front row to hear her talk about her memoir was what an out-of-body experience must feel like. My hands were clasped together in a pseudo-prayer style and my posture was perfect the whole time without being conscious of it.

During this golden hour, the interviewer prompted her to tell stories about her early years on the vaudeville stage in England and her transition to Hollywood, via Broadway. She told us about how when she was 10 years old her parents didn’t tell her she’d be singing for the queen until she was backstage, in order to keep her from getting too nervous. She told us about an early role in which she spoke in a laughable Tennessee accent. But perhaps most hysterically, she told us a story that was essentially a fart joke, though of course she never said the f-word. I wouldn’t presume such a word is even in her vernacular.

The story was about a time Rex Harrision, her Broadway costar in “My Fair Lady” and a “windy” gentleman, let go “a machine-gun volley” during the final scene. Andrews described how shocked she, the orchestra and the first three rows were, and also how impossible it was to keep a straight face during her song.

I was rolling on the floor just at the retelling of this incident. The idea of anyone tooting in the presence of Andrews was too much. But after I wiped the tears of joy from my eyes, I started to think about why this story was so hysterical.

I wondered how funny was the story itself and how funny was it because Julie Andrews told it. I retold the tale to friends and got only closed-mouth grins.

I realized that in comedy and in art, like in journalism, one must consider the source. Would that urinal be art if Marcel Duchamp, already a known artist, hadn’t found it? Had an ordinary guy tried to put it in a museum, he’d have never started a movement, he’d have been a lunatic.

I realize that celebrities are real people too, that their feet must hurt after a party as much as the next person. But Andrews, as a persona, as a demigod up on stage, definitely never deals with gas. And comedy can often come from the unexpected.

The relationship between the artist and the audience, the joke-teller and the listener, can often determine success. A New York Times article from last March pointed out a teaching assistant who used to tell that awful talking-muffin joke to his students on the first day of class to get them comfortable. Whenever he told it, his students would crack up like nothing else. But when that graduate student told the same joke to a group of professors at a conference, trying to get them to loosen up, the room was silent.

The Andrews joke worked in much the same way: We were all her underlings and whatever she said was coming from an authority. I took everything she said to heart, even on topics that she has no relevance to in my life, like career and personal goals. She said that ambition was necessary to propel one toward an eventual goal, even if that goal is hazy. This one speech did what career fairs never could. And for a brief hour, I was going to change the world with ambition alone.

Selling books, selling art, selling an idea, one needs this aura of authority to make it seem worthwhile. Certainly in terms of commercial value, a known name can lead to immediate success. Andrews’ memoir is already a number-one New York Times Best Seller and who even cares if she can write. I bought that memoir because of the cover.

If you would read anything Crocker wrote simply because she wrote it, e-mail her at [email protected].