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I won the first contest I ever entered, when I was 6.

When it was announced I had won the Tony Award, I was in Bangkok doing a movie with Judi Dench. I remember coming back from the location to the Oriental Hotel and hearing someone yelling across the reception area, 'You've won the Tony!' It was wonderful and strange to be halfway around the world.

One day in '61, I was looking in the Santa Monica phone book for a number, and there it was: Stan Laurel, Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. I went over there and spent the afternoon with them. And pumped him with questions. I must have driven him crazy. I spent a lot of happy hours at Stan's house on Sundays just talking about comedy.

I did comedy and parody television in the '70s. I was a liberal Democrat, and it was a very heady year.

I was the teenage kid growing up in New Jersey watching the Tony Awards and thinking, 'Oh, maybe if I'm lucky I'll make it to Broadway by the time I'm 40!'

I eventually became an actor, starting with doing stand-up comedy in New York and then theater wherever they would let me. Finally, I moved out here to Los Angeles and got on a show.