My father when walked into a room, you could tell that everybody loved him. They really did. He was quite a man. My mother was more into the show biz atmosphere than he was.
When I got out of high school, I wanted to be an actor but was getting a lot of rejections. I was getting rejected by life. My mother, God rest her soul, told me not to quit.
I always say that comedians and actors were all kind of shy when they were young. I was very, believe it or not, kind of embarrassed as a child. But my mother was a very strong lady and she was the one that kept it going when I thought it would be over for me as a performer. She was always my inspiration and she was a big influence on me.
I've never been able to tell jokes. In the beginning of my career I did impressions and jokes like any other comedian, but I was never very successful because I did it poorly. So I started to talk to the audience and started talking about the atmosphere around me and started to become angry, not in a mean-spirited way, but in a fun way - and my attitude developed from there.