-saturdaynightlive: Margulies describes a time...

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Margulies describes a time she was booked on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno during the first season of ER. “I’m not a comedienne,” she recalls thinking. “I don’t have a funny story.” So she turned to Clooney for source material—he supplied a story he said had happened to his mother.

The anecdote involved going to a doctor’s office, nudity—and the punch line was “I’m not a gynecologist, I’m a podiatrist.” And so the tale was told to millions. But it wasn’t the first time Clooney had suggested the yarn: Years before, he had given it to then live-in girlfriend Kelly Preston, and she had used it on her Leno appearance. And then he waited.

Cut to another night some eight years later, when Margulies and Clooney were each set to appear on The Tonight Show for separate projects. “I hadn’t seen George for a long time,” Margulies recalls. “I was so excited to see him again. I ran to his dressing room and gave him a big hug and kiss.”

But Clooney had plans for that broadcast. He had seen to it beforehand that Margulies’ and Preston’s earlier recountings of the same story were edited together, with each woman finishing the other’s sentences. It would have been a scream, but we’ll never know. When he saw Margulies, he realized how crushed she would be and pulled the plug at the 11th hour.

‘Merry Prankster’, LA Times Magazine

(Source: amyohconnor)