‘SNL’ Original Laraine Newman on Introducing the Country to the Valley Girl, the Infamous Milton Berle Episode and Why Everyone Was Nervous About Steve Martin Hosting

Before Laraine Newman brought it to Saturday Night Live, the valley girl accent was relatively obscure, really only known to Southern Californians as the way surfers spoke. As an L.A. native, though, Newman was very familiar with it, and so, she used it for inspiration for a character she developed named Sherry, a rambling, airheaded blonde who loved to talk about her “bitchin’ bod.” 

She originally performed the character at The Groundlings, but she took Sherry — and the valley girl dialect — national when she became an original “Not Ready for Prime Time Player” in 1975 (in a sketch about group therapy that also included Don Corleone). In turn, Sherry became one of Newman’s best-known SNL characters. But because Newman never wanted to repeat herself, she only did Sherry for about a year, a decision which, 50 years later, she’s still unsure about. 

Along with that, I recently spoke with Newman about her favorite and least favorite hosts during her SNL run, what it was like being just 23 when she first joined the show and how these days it’s her voice that she’s best known for. 

You basically created the valley girl. Where did that character come from?

In the 1960s, when I was in high school, my twin brother was, and still is, a surfer. So I was around that a little bit, and I noticed that surfers from the Valley spoke differently than we did on the West Side. So, I just started to listen to it. Then I had this one close friend in high school who had the same dialect, so I just picked it up. 

I also noticed a sweet mentality that went along with it. I hate to say it’s like the Dunning-Kruger effect, because that’s kind of harsh, but it’s in-between. So in the monologue I wrote for her, when she says, “Norman Mailer was right, you can’t go home,” obviously that was a Tom Wolfe quote, but the idea that she would get that wrong with such certainty was the kind of thing that I liked for the character. Those were the attributes that I picked up on.

You started doing that character at The Groundlings, right?

Yes. I never really performed it until I was in The Groundlings, so the monologue you hear in The Godfather group therapy sketch was my Groundlings character. I didn’t write the sketch, but I know that the writers wanted to include that character because they thought it would be interesting to have that juxtaposition of someone like Sherry and someone like Don Corleone. 

When you got to SNL, did you know that you wanted to bring in that character?

My whole thing was characters, and that was a perfect fit for a show like SNL. Groundlings is such a character-forward company — you can always tell a Groundling that’s come to the cast because their characters are so well-formed. Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Ana Gasteyer, Cheri Oteri, Will Forte, Will Ferrell — the list goes on and on — all these people were Groundlings, and their character work is incredible.

You don’t like to repeat characters. Why not?

God help me from being the captain of my own ship. That was a dubious role that I played in my life. Lorne (Michaels) was the one who encouraged me to repeat characters, but in my simple mind, I equated that with something like Laugh-In. I thought it was hacky. Even though, when I think about the characters people did repeat, it wasn’t hacky on our show because the content was so alternative. If I’d really had a big-picture perspective, which I’m still not capable of today, I’d have realized that it would’ve benefited me because I did so many different things that it made me less memorable. 

You did Sherry a few times during Season One, then just once in Season Two, correct? I tried watching all of them on Peacock, but those episodes are often incomplete. 

That sounds right. The DVD releases of the first five seasons had more complete shows, with the exception of the Milton Berle episode, which Lorne will not let be seen — it’s like Voldemort. He was a pill, that guy. Such a pill.

Is it fair to say Milton Berle was the worst host during your time on SNL?

What constitutes “worst” is so many things. If someone is a drunk and isn’t dependable, or if they lock themselves in their dressing room before the show and have to be coaxed to come out and is high during the whole show. There are so many things that constitute a bad host that I’m hard-pressed to name the worst. 

Did you have any run-ins with Berle though?

Jane (Curtin), Gilda (Radner) and I were standing with him during blocking, and he said, “Give me a little two-step,” which is a tap-dancing move that none of us knew. He said, “You don’t know a two-step? Where’s your talent?” It was so crushing because I grew up with him on TV, and I loved Uncle Milty. That was really wounding at the time.

Who was the best host?

The best people were often those who surprised you. For example, the first time we heard Steve Martin was going to host, everybody was grumbling because he was a stand-up. We come from a discipline that’s so different than that — it’s so much more cooperative — so we were concerned that he might not blend well. Of course, how wrong we were. Steve was always such a great host. The extent of his talent is so vast. There is so much that he could do and the writers could do with him. 

How old were you when you joined SNL?

I was 23. Not the youngest cast member. I just found out recently that Anthony Michael Hall was 17 when he did SNL. But Dan Aykroyd and I were the youngest in the first season.

Were there any notable ways in which you felt that at the time?

Oh God yes. I was a very young 23. Danny is just a couple of months younger than I am, but he was so much farther along in his professional development. I wasn’t as experienced as Danny was, and he had a lot more confidence than I did, and confidence is so essential on that show. 

Did you feel it more on the show, or the social life after the show?

The social life was great. Nobody ever believes this, but nobody ever ganged up on anybody. These were all very nice people — except for Chevy — but really, improv is such a cooperative art form that we all were genuinely supportive of one another, so the social thing was fine. It was the professional thing, having the savvy to, for instance, repeat characters, or to align yourself with a writer who gets you.

Jumping back to Sherry, you got a chance to bring back the character for the 40th anniversary show. What was that like?

That was so great! I remember watching “The Californians” and thinking, “God I want to be in that sketch!” I thought Sherry would be so perfect for it. So, when I found out we were doing the 40th, I called Lorne and said, “Look, I don’t even know if you’re doing sketches, but ‘The Californians’ is ostensibly a soap opera and soap operas always have a matriarch and it might be really funny if Sherry is the matriarch.”

Some time later, Fred Armisen called me, and we got together and we wrote a lot. None of which was used, but it was really fun. That’s how she got to be in the sketch. I’m so grateful to Lorne that he did that. It was so nice of him.

After SNL, did you know where you wanted to go in show business?

I grew up in Los Angeles, and you see movie stars and TV stars everywhere you go. I remember very clearly seeing that look on the actors’ faces, the ones that had been working a lot and then weren’t. I remember shuddering at that and hoping that I’d never have that look — and I did! I did experience that off and on.

But when I look back and I look at my IMDb, I never really stopped working. The only years I didn’t work were when my children were born in 1991 and 1995. Other than that, I worked all the time, and once I got into voiceover, I worked far more frequently. That was such a joy.

The only drawback about it is that people think I haven’t been working when, my God, I really have been. You can be perceived that way, and it’s unpleasant. Especially since I was involved in something like Saturday Night Live, which continuously gets attention from people that don’t know what I’ve been doing. That said, it’s so fun, and I love it so much.