The lights are up, the cameras are rolling, and the King of All Media is...crying.
Howard Stern and his costar Mary McCormack are seated in an obstetrician's office on the set of Private Parts, the new comedy that, in all likelihood, is going to make Stern a much bigger star than anyone imagined he could be. Stern plays himself; McCormack plays his wife, Alison. It's a mournful scene: Alison has just suffered a miscarriage. As Howard hugs her in tender consolation, the camera zooms in on his face. He looks gentle, sad, kind. Could that be moisture around the eyes?
Between takes, Stern, 43, goes behind a curtain and engages in a secret ritual with his director, Betty Thomas, a tall, imposing woman with a dignified arched nose, auburn hair done up in a neo-Victorian bun, and a combat-ready green-mesh vest that says: I'm the general here. Stern, at 6'5'', is even taller, and as they whisper conspiratorially, like towering lovers, he places a hand on her shoulder. Is he getting advice? Encouragement? Finally I notice the touchstone of their ritual; she's slipping a little something into his hands. Later Stern fesses up to the secret of his sensitive acting: onions.
''Yes, I was emoting!'' he says gleefully. ''I said, 'You know, I really just want to cry in this scene.' So I stuck the onions in my eye, and the water started flowing. But I didn't tell Mary I used onions. I said, 'No offense, I know you trained a lot of years and stuff, but I can just turn it on like that!'''
The teary moment, by the way, is a setup for one of the most famously scandalous incidents in Stern's famously scandalous career. As Private Parts dramatizes, Howard, days later, went on the radio and talked about Alison's miscarriage. He joked about going into the bathroom, taking a Polaroid of it, and sending it to her parents so they'd have pictures of their grandchildren. This, of course, is the sort of thing that inspires many people to hate Howard Stern. It makes them think he's a heartless jerk.
Private Parts, which opens nationwide on March 7, is going to surprise a lot of those people. ''When I was first approached to do the movie,'' recalls Thomas, ''I said, 'Come on, man.' I thought Howard Stern was funny sometimes, and then he would get sexist, or weird, or repetitive, and I didn't like it. But Private Parts makes clear Howard's sense of humor -- that he's doing an act. There's a brain behind there, choosing what to do next, and it's a very smart, always-turned-on brain. I think a lot of people will be able to identify with this rebel, this little nerd guy, fighting the big bureaucratic world.''
Howard Stern -- satirical Antichrist; scourge of the FCC; Lenny Bruce of the information age; man who made America safe for butt bongo, small penises, and Fartman; comic genius -- may now be on the verge of winning that fight. Private Parts, a rudely hilarious adaptation of his best-selling 1993 autobiography, stays true to what Stern's fans have always loved about him. The movie takes off on the Duality of Howard. We see the nice Jewish kid who grows up on suburban Long Island, stumbles through college looking like a graduate of the ''Weird Al'' Yankovic School of Better Grooming, and faithfully sticks by Alison, his devoted wife of nearly 19 years. The heart of the movie, though, is the development of Stern's radio career, an anarchic parallel universe in which the Nice Guy wreaks his vengeance upon the world. Blasting away at all comers, including, in the film's inspired centerpiece, his bosses at New York's WNBC Radio, he becomes the renegade triumphant, a kamikaze hipster who uses his words like weapons.
You Might Also Like
- Book Review PRIVATE PARTS | Owen Gleiberman
- Pop Culture News HOWARD HUGE
- Movie News Howard Stern's ''Private Parts'' | Owen Gleiberman
- Pop Culture News HAIL, MARY | Bruce Fretts
