Vanessa Hollingshead
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Vanessa Hollingshead

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"Vanessa Hollingshead: Unconditionally funny"

From: Puncline Magazine
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Vanessa Hollingshead: Unconditionally funny
Through her darkest and most triumphant times, veteran stand-up comedian Vanessa Hollingshead could always find stability in comedy
By Daniel Petrino

If you watch comedian Vanessa Hollingshead perform, you’ll quickly discover her off-color comedy comes, in part, from two things: her wacky personal experiences and coping with the obstacles of life.

On a personal level her husband, Lucien Hold, the former general manager and talent coordinator at Manhattan’s Comic Strip Live, passed away in 2004. And on a professional level, it took her years to accept the fact she turned down a $260,000 deal with The Drew Carey Show. Through these things and everything in between, Hollingshead embraced the one constant in her life: the ability to make people laugh.
She’s not afraid to say what’s on her mind, to be a little offensive or even turn The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” into a modern day hip-hop extravaganza.

With the release of her new DVD An American Anglomanic (filmed at Gotham Comedy Club in New York City) and a ton of tour dates that have her crisscrossing the continent – Reno, Anchorage, Montreal to name a few towns – Hollingshead had plenty to talk about when Punchline Magazine recently caught up with her.

When you see someone walking on the street and they fall, is your first reaction to laugh, help them up or ignore them?
Help them up. Seriously.
Really?
Yeah.

Does that make me a horrible person that I’d laugh and then be like, ‘Oh, do you need help?’

No, that makes you a guy. I used to make a joke about the Germans. They have a very odd sense of humor. Germans would be like, [in a German accent] 'You know I was playing with my friend and then what I did is I kicked him down a flight of stairs and all his leg was broken. It was good fun. Haha. Just to watch all his falling and the bones jutting out. It was so funny to see his legs all mangled like that. Ya ya.'

Everyone’s got different types of humor. English humor is very dry; Italian is usually very warm; German is very cold.

I watched your comedy special and the “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” rap is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

Everyone loves that.
So do you have a favorite piece of your own comedy?
When I get news jokes funny those usually becomes my favorite. But I like the harder jokes— the jokes that are a little bit more edgy, that once the audience loves you, you can get away with. There was one joke I used to do when I was trying to get pregnant and it went something like, ‘If I knew it was this hard to get pregnant, I never would’ve had all those abortions.’ I’ve never had an abortion, but you know, I was never able to get pregnant, but I used to love doing that joke ‘cause that just came out of left field.

There’s one where I talk about Dr. Phil. I say, ‘Dr. Phil has got to get down to the Middle East and help these couples out. None of them get along with each other!' Can you imagine him down there? He’d be like, [in a Dr. Phil voice] ‘Now listen Haamil, I think it’s commendable that you want to bring your wife to a full and complete orgasm, but it’s gonna be next to impossible when she’s missing her clitoris.’ Those are the jokes I find funny.

Do you almost see comedy as therapy?
Almost? No. I would most definitely say it is. Four days after my husband died, I was on stage doing comedy. The audience couldn’t see my eyes were completely bloodshot from crying. We were both troopers. He was really a trooper. I knew he wouldn’t want me to be single for too long, which I’ve been, and I know he’d want me to be up on that stage performing. He’d be saying, ‘The show must go on, honey. You’re gonna have to keep going.’

So at that very dark period of my life, which I wouldn’t even wish on Hitler, the audience was literally loving me back and keeping me alive and they didn’t even know it. I had to work moment to moment so for that hour I had to forget that Lucien was dead. It was very therapeutic. If I was in a lot of pain, I was always able to make it funny.

When did you realize you wanted to do stand-up comedy full time?
I was always funny. I was always like Lucy— crazy things have happened to me my whole life. The first time I did comedy I talked about how I lost my hair because I used hair straightener that was made for black people. I was like, ‘Wow. This stuff stings.’ And I had just started a new job. I walk in the office with like, a turban and I needed money to get a wig so I went to my boss and said, ‘Please Mr. Groomberg, can you lend me money to get a wig?’

‘Well, put it on my credit card, honey,’ he said. ‘Just don’t tell my wife. She’ll never understand.’ Those are the things that have happened to me my whole life. And I talked about that on stage just for a few minutes. I was very nervous but I managed to get a little chuckle. I just felt like I was at home. And I’ve always used laug - Punchline Magazine


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Bio

Vanessa Hollingshead just came back from a nine country tour of the Middle East where she performed for 15,000 men, then ... she did her comedy.

Vanessa was voted one of the most outrageous comedians for her “Half Hour Special, Comedy Central Presents.” She was featured on “50 Funniest Women Alive” for Oxygen TV. She performed at “The World Comedy Tour” in Australia. She was featured on “Tough Crowd” with Colin Quinn, and “Dateline”. She was the guest host on NBC’s “Later,” as well as the critically acclaimed film “Ghost Dog”, directed by Jim Jarmusch.
Vanessa is a national headliner and touring all over the United States and in Europe. And she can always be seen a little closer to home at “Gotham Comedy Club,” “The Comic Strip,” “Caroline’s”, “The Broadway,” “The Laugh Factory,” “Stand Up New York, “New York Comedy Club, “Laugh Lounge”, “Dangerfield’s”, & the “Comedy Cellar.”

As a child, Vanessa spent a year at Millbrook Mansion with her father, Michael Hollingshead, who introduced LSD to Timothy Leary and Paul McCartney. At five years old Vanessa took LSD by accident. Then came her comedy.

Her second DVD “An American Anglomaniac,” was just released and will be available at the club. And her third DVD, “DRUNK” is set for release in 2009!