STRAIGHT FACE FOR AN ANGRY ACT : Margaret Smith Says Her Fans ‘Come From Craziness Too’

“The whole family’s mental,” deadpan comedian Margaret Smith observes on stage in her trademark slow delivery. “My father was no prize. He was an alcoholic and a gambler. He was also very vain. So one day he gave up his vices to save enough money for a hair transplant. Then after the transplant was complete, he got drunk and on a $20 bet he shaved his head. . . .

“So,” she drawls, “I guess I owe him 20 bucks.”

Growing up in a “dysfunctional” family of eight in a blue-collar suburb of Chicago apparently wasn’t easy for Smith, 37: “I wrote this poem when I was 15,” she says in her act, “and it goes like this: ‘I am the sea. You are the river. You run to me. I take you in. I hate my parents.”

Smith says she’s figured out what life is: “Eighteen years at home with these people, and the rest of the time working it out.”

The dark-humored comic, who has said everything in her act is “based on something true, but I might color it a little,” has been working it out on stage for more than a decade.

Her credits include “Late Night With David Letterman,” “An Evening at the Improv,” “Comic Strip Live” and “Good Morning America,” where she unnerved host Joan Lunden during an interview because she didn’t answer Lunden’s questions quickly enough.

Smith’s downbeat humor--”Did you ever think you were about to burp and you puked instead?”--apparently is what kept her off “The Tonight Show” until her old buddy Jay Leno took over from Johnny Carson last year. Smith used to be Leno’s opening act, and they became “instant buddies” when Leno discovered she also rides a motorcycle.

“I think the word back then (under the Carson regime) was that I wasn’t right for the show, but I didn’t care--I was getting ‘Letterman’ and I was at home there,” said Smith, who who once responded to Letterman’s invitation to sit down with him after finishing her stand-up spot by drawling, “No thanks, I’ve been sitting all day.”

Speaking by phone from her home in Los Angeles last week, Smith said Leno is open to more types of comedians than Carson.

“I think Jay is a feminist, and I think that he’s just more allowing. He goes for a different demographic than Johnny went for.”

On her successful “Tonight Show” debut last summer, Smith wasted no time cluing the audience in to the essence of her cynically dry humor:

“I’ve been listening to you people back there, and it sounds like you’re in a pretty good mood and, uh, that’s what sets us apart. . . . Yeah, saw my mom today. It’s all right; I mean, she didn’t see me or anything. . . . She’s one of these moms who has to constantly make sure I’ve done my daughterly duties. You know, ‘Did you send your father a Father’s Day card?’ I hate this occasion because I can never find the right card because they’re all too nice. So I usually end up getting the blank with the tree on it. Then I just draw a little picture of myself hanging there.”

Smith says her poker face is no put-on. “I just call it being a Smith; it’s a genetic thing.”

As for what is usually described as her “angry” attitude on stage, she said, “Let’s just put it this way: I don’t act like everything’s OK. But, you know, I think I also engage people mentally. I don’t spoon-feed them.”

Smith, who has been in therapy for five years--”I have my Master’s in Me”--believes audiences “relate to the fact that I’m not saying everything’s perfect.

“They relate to the fact that they come from craziness too. Our parents never tried to make sense out of things. My generation, I think, tries to figure everything out. It’s the psychobabble generation. So I think people that are trying to make sense of it are the ones that come to the show and come up to me afterward.”

Those who do approach her often say she could be talking about their own families.

“It’s just because they don’t expect to go to a comedy club and hear about that,” she said. “After all, that’s where you go to forget your troubles--not to have them put on the overhead projector and laughed at.”

As testament that Smith is striking a common chord, she has been nominated for an American Comedy Award as best female stand-up comic. The awards, which will be presented in late February, are based on votes from comedy club patrons across the country.

Smith was nominated for the award a few years ago but didn’t attend the ceremony. This time, she plans to be there.

“But I only know what I’m going to do if I don’t win: I’m going to rub my lipstick off with the back of my hand and drink from a flask. . . . That’s if I don’t win. If I win, I’m going to be very happy.”

But even if she does win the honor, Smith is not sure what it will mean to her.

“Well, I guess the question is, ‘Do I respect the award?’ I’m not sure I respect the award as much as I respect my work. And if that’s a little symbol of it--it’s like a wedding ring: I’m not sure I like big diamonds, you know, but if I loved someone I’d like the ring.”