He Gave Up a Suit for a Spotlight : At Fox, Jeremiah Bosgang Had It All. Except an Outlet for His Comedy

Here comes Jeremiah Bosgang, walking down the center aisle--the only aisle actually--of the 82-seat Powerhouse Theater in Santa Monica, making his way through the audience, toward the wash of lights and the lacquered wicker stool that is waiting for him, alone, on center stage.

Most of the people here know him, or at least they thought they did. This time last year, Bosgang was a rising young network television executive, fast-tracking through the ranks, his future as solid as a teakwood desk.

He had it all, with more on the way, taking lunches and meetings and jets to New York. There were agents calling him left and right, producers begging for a moment of his time. He had a six-figure salary, a Mercedes-Benz with a cellular phone, a closet filled with expensive suits and a secretary to tell people he was “not available right now.”

He was funny and charming and just unconventional enough--sometimes he’d ride a Harley to work--to leave a mark. He was, in short, a comer.

Except that he wasn’t happy. Not that he didn’t enjoy his job or the money or the perks. He did. But being a whiz-bang junior suit was not what he’d planned for himself. It had been an accident, really, the result of meeting the right guy at the right dinner party who suggested he’d be just perfect for an entry-level programming opening at NBC. Then, suddenly, there were promotions and offers and he became director of comedy development at the Fox network. A big shot.

But what Bosgang really wanted, the reason he’d come to Los Angeles in the first place, was to be on stage, writing and performing his own material, making people laugh. He’d always wanted to be Woody Allen or Albert Brooks. Becoming the next Brandon Tartikoff was not what he’d had in mind.

People said he was crazy when he quit his job last year for, of all things, a two-week tryout as a writer on “Saturday Night Live.” They said he’d made a terrible mistake. Fox Vice President Tom Nunan, Bosgang’s immediate superior, warned him there’d be no turning back. But all those meetings with writers and producers, all those hours of listening to other people’s comedy ideas, had finally gotten to be more than Bosgang could take.

“I was like an alcoholic working in a liquor store,” he says. “I was listening to these guys and thinking, ‘I’d rather be on the other side of this desk. I’d rather be them than me.’ ”

So he left last spring for New York, certain his dreams would come true.

They did not.

“After the two weeks was over, I wasn’t asked to stay,” Bosgang says. “It was one of the most embarrassing, humiliating, depressing things that’s ever happened to me.”

There was not much to do but come back to L.A. He landed a few writing jobs--even joining the staff of “In Living Color” for a while. But, he didn’t want to be a writer any more than he had wanted to be an executive. What Bosgang wanted was applause. And he knew there was just one way to get it. He would stage his own one-man show and he’d call it “Humble Pie.”

So he finds this little theater, with dirty floors and missing seats, surrounded by a chain-link fence. He makes calls. He makes T-shirts. He sends out postcards to every producer and agent and development executive he knows. He lays out $4,000 of his own money to rent the theater for a four-week run and then, last Friday night, Bosgang, 31 years old, does the scariest thing he’s ever done in his life.

He watches the people, his friends and associates, file into the theater and take their seats. He closes the door behind them and hangs a sign outside that reads “Performance in progress. Please do not enter.”

He kisses his wife Wendy in the light booth, clears his throat and walks to the stage.

He smiles, kind of nervous, making sure he doesn’t miss the stool.

“I used to live in New York City,” he begins, “I was supporting myself as a building superintendent, trying to get work as an actor and writer, and I was pretty happy because I was pursuing this dream. . . .”

Here’s how bad Bosgang wanted to be in show business: He transferred from Amherst College to the University of Chicago (where he was a philosophy major) just so he could take improvisational comedy workshops at Second City. During the summer, he got a student internship at “Late Night With David Letterman,” sharpening pencils and hanging around Chris Elliott’s desk.

He was charming and neurotic and eager to please. He housesat for Letterman and Merrill Markoe (at the time the show’s head writer and Letterman’s girlfriend).

He toured with a Second City road company for a while and then went back to New York. He found a job as a building superintendent--$200 a week and a free place to live. He fixed faucets in the mornings, took acting classes at night. He went to auditions. He did weird characters at comedy clubs: “Jerry Prince of Illusion,” a stunningly bad magician and ventriloquist, and “Seth Solomon,” a motivational speaker with a speech impediment.

He lived this way for nearly five years until, at the urging of friends, he decided to ride his motorcycle to Hollywood, ready to become a star. He had friends, but no real career prospects. To support himself, he painted houses and installed audio-visual systems in rich people’s homes. That’s how he got invited to the dinner party, Thanksgiving, 1989. “I was sort of an oddity to these people,” he said. “A Jewish guy who could fix things.”

He was introduced to Rick Ludwin, the NBC vice president in charge of specials and late night programming. “I was looking for someone with a fresh perspective,” Ludwin says now, and Bosgang certainly had that. He had a great eye for casting, and an even better one for analyzing scripts. “He knew what was funny,” Ludwin says. “And he always gave great notes.”

Bosgang talks about this in his one-man show. He tells stories about how weird it was to be courted by the same agents who had always ignored him before. “There was one guy who’d totally blown off Jeremiah Bosgang, the actor,” he says. “Now, every time I’d see him, he wanted to give me a big bear hug. All these guys who would never return my calls, now I was the one dodging their calls. It was great. I was validated. I was very seduced by it all.”

But here’s where it started to change. One of Bosgang’s best friends, Siobhan Fallon, was hired as a featured performer on “Saturday Night Live” and, happy as he was for her, he realized he was also incredibly envious.

Then a casting director, a friend of his wife, was paralyzed in a boating accident. “I remember thinking, what if that had been me? Would I look back and regret that I’d never really done what I wanted to do in life? As much as I enjoyed being an executive, I realized I’d given up on my dream. Is this what I wanted, to be another frustrated, unhappy person driving around L.A. in a Mercedes-Benz?”

“Jeremiah was under contract,” Tom Nunan says, “and his leaving put me in a very difficult position. But I told him he had to go do this. I believe in following your dreams.”

Bosgang doesn’t look much like an executive anymore. He and Wendy are living in a $550-a-month rent-controlled apartment. The Mercedes is gone, as is most of his money. He’s been working on the show for months now and he’s never been very good at saving.

He is back where he started, a struggling performer, trying to get himself seen. His only advantage over all those other struggling performers in town--the waiters and salesclerks with dreams--is that Bosgang knows who to call.

There is major heat in the audience tonight, old friends from Fox and NBC, a honcho from Castle Rock. They’ve come because they like him, but he knows that’s as far as it goes. If the show’s not funny, if he doesn’t have presence on stage, their friendship won’t help him at all.

“I’m aware of the repercussions,” he says. “I wake up some nights thinking I’m going to be the laughingstock around the water cooler, that they’ll all be talking about how awful and self-indulgent it was. But that’s the same fear that kept me from doing this for so long. I can’t let that stop me now.”

The evening does not begin well. He is telling the stories too quickly, and the crowd is not sure what to think. He rattles off the anecdote about his first day in Hollywood, how he was mistaken for a prostitute on Santa Monica Boulevard. Then there was the job interview on the Universal lot, the one where he ended up urinating on himself in the bushes and falling down a hill. They’re amusing enough stories, great stuff for cocktail parties. But these people paid $8 apiece to get in, and no one’s serving drinks. Friends or not, Bosgang can feel his audience slipping away.

There is an older couple in the front row, people Bosgang doesn’t know. They haven’t laughed at a thing he’s said. They’ve barely even smiled. Other people are clearly enjoying the show. But the two stone faces remain.

And then, halfway through, something happens. He is telling a story about how he nodded off at a pitch meeting once, just long enough to feel as if he was falling. Startled awake, he let out a scream and, to cover himself, proceeded to act if something under his desk had bitten him.

It is an endearing, self-deprecating story. And the stone-faced couple smiles. Who knows what will happen to Bosgang now. Maybe “Humble Pie” will have a long run, maybe he’ll take it someday to New York. Maybe one of those television executives--the guys whose job he used to have--will sign him for his very own show. But none of that matters on a night like this when Jeremiah Bosgang can hear the laughter, acknowledge the applause and take his bows, alone, on center stage.

The show continues at the Powerhouse Theater, 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m. through May 2. Tickets are $8. For reservations, call (213) 466-1767.