Billy Gardell

The quickest way to defuse fear or insecurity or anger is usually humor. I think comics figure that out quickly, and, once you figure it out, you think, 'Hey, if I can do this and get paid, that would be kind of cool.'

I remember watching the Blu-ray, and also when they first released it on DVD in the collection of all three movies of 'The Godfather,' and seeing all of those scenes that they cut out, and there wasn't a single one of them that I wished they had kept it, but they were the most exciting thing to watch anyway.

From 1961 to 1964, I was fortunate enough to work at a think tank in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago. As a writer and editor, I reported in a publication about the thinkers. Our offices were in a former mansion; I worked in what had been the ballroom. As I sat typing my copy, I imagined the dancers waltzing.