‘SATURDAY NIGHT’S’ MAN OF 1,000 VOICES

Mention Phil Hartman’s name even to diehard fans of “Saturday Night Live” and you’ll likely get the response, “Now, which one is he?”

He doesn’t do “Church Lady” like Dana Carvey or “The Liar” like Jon Lovitz. But the versatile Hartman can do almost anybody -- President Reagan, Phil Donahue, Liberace, even Peter Graves in a spoof of the science show “Discovery.”

“I like what I do. I like the idea of writers coming to me and saying, ‘Can you do Ted Kennedy?’ And I go, ‘Uh, yes, uh, I cahn.’ I have this notion of myself as the man of a thousand faces, or a thousand voices,” said Hartman in an interview at NBC just before SNL wrapped up for the season.

He has one of those generic-handsome faces that he likens to that of a 1950s B-movie hero.

But he also likes the 1940s and does a great Humphrey Bogart, lapsing at one point in the interview into a bullet-fast, Phillip Marlowe takeoff: “Come on, Johnny! I read you like a book! Sure, some of the pages are stuck together, but let’s go through the table of contents--Chapter 1!”

A favorite character of his own making is Chick Hazard, a Bogey-like, hard-boiled private eye. Hartman has written a movie script around Chick that would co-star his friend, Lovitz, as gangster Eddie Spumozo.

In his favorite sketch of last season Hartman played a washed-up 1940s movie star, and Lovitz was the studio boss trying to fire him. That was one Hartman wrote. He has dual writing-performing credit on SNL.

Hartman was born in Ontario, Canada. After college, he moved to the West Coast and opened his own graphic design shop where he created album covers and logos for rock groups like Poco, America and Crosby, Stills and Nash.

But it didn’t give him an outlet for his “class clown” tendencies, so he joined The Groundlings, a Los Angeles improvisational group that also included Paul Reubens, now Pee-wee Herman, and Lovitz.

Hartman’s big break came when he wrote the script for the feature film “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” for Reubens. Director Blake Edwards admired the film and cast Hartman as Bruce Willis’ brother in the movie “Blind Date.”

Hartman has continued the association with Reubens, playing Captain Carl last season in “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” an innovative Saturday morning kids’ show on CBS. Hartman also did voices for an animated “Dennis the Menace” show.

Hartman, 38, says previous SNL cast members who joined up at a younger age saw the show primarily as a springboard to a movie career. For Hartman, the show is “the pinnacle.”

“This is it,” he said, “This is Rockefeller Center, New York City, live comedy television. There’s nothing like it.”

Hartman’s affection for the show sits well with his friend, SNL producer Lorne Michaels. Michaels compares Hartman to Dan Aykroyd, a founding cast member whose versatility was similarly overlooked by the public back when Chevy Chase, John Belushi and Gilda Radner were the big stars.

“I know the things that are more accessible or have a little more sugar in them are taken up by the public, and real brilliant work doesn’t necessarily get appreciated until years later,” Michaels said.

“That kind of ability to do five or six parts in a show where you’re playing support or you’re doing remarkable character work is different than doing the ‘Samurai’ all the time or well-known or more popular characters.

“Phil Hartman, I think, is the least appreciated, except here. He’s very similar to Danny in that regard.”

Hartman displays a remarkable objectivity about himself as performer. He says he predicted to Michaels that Carvey, whom he greatly admires, would be the star of the new cast.

“Moreover, I don’t think I’m that kind of talent,” Hartman said. “I don’t think I’m the guy that everybody just wants to fall in love with and cuddle up and take into their homes. There’s something a little forbidding about me, a little unusual.

“I suppose in my heart of hearts, sure, I’d like to become something unique in the overall scheme of things. But right now, I’m very proud of what I’ve done.”