On August 17, Joy Behar was in a state of recovery.“I just had a whole long weekend of relatives here,” she explained, kicking back at her home in East Hampton. The visit had involved lots of cooking, playing poker with her family and, most important, visiting with her grandson, Luca—who apparently takes after her.
During another recent stay, the 4-year-old boy was downloading apps on his grandmother’s iPad when a notification popped up, demanding a 99-cent charge.
“And he goes, ‘These f---king people always want money!’” Ms. Behar, perhaps, over-shared in January during an appearance on ABC’s “The View”—a remark that grabbed the media’s attention and fueled headlines such as The Wrap’s “Joy Behar Returns Bearing F-Bombs.”
But at the very least, the story served Ms. Behar’s image well: as a ballsy, loudmouth talk show host.
Her candid appearance on “The View” this past winter came a year and a half after she had left, following a 16-year run. When Barbara Walters launched the program in 1997, it was a risky venture indeed. Women discussing serious subjects, among them politics, with humor and intelligence hadn’t been well-received.
By 2010, with Ms. Walters and Ms. Behar as co-hosts, the team—which also included Star Jones, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and a rotating cast of personalities—had become the crown jewel of daytime television, boasting 6.6 million viewers.
Disinclined to comment on the show since her departure—its diminished ratings, as well as on- and off-air shenanigans—Ms. Behar claimed that she doesn’t watch it anymore. In fact, she openly sloughed off a recent inquiry about a possible return.
So when the August 25 reports from ABC confirmed her return to The View," it came as a tidal shock to the East End.
"[I'm] looking forward to going to my old home," she wrote in an email on Tuesday. "It's a political year and 'The View' is a great platform for me. There's more fun to be had."
In her down time, she wrote a solo piece, “Me, My Mouth & I,” in which she also stars, that premiered off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre last November with a mixed to positive reception. Even one of her biggest fans, blogger Perez Hilton, thought it needed work but felt it had the makings for a successful Broadway run.
Playwriting appealed to Ms. Behar, who describes herself as a “verbal artist,” and she will stage an updated version of her show this weekend at Guild Hall in East Hampton, with more energy, youth and fearlessness than one can imagine of any septuagenarian, let alone those half her age.
“See my show and you’ll see the journey [that] I took, which is, like, very much antithetical to what you’re describing in me,” she said, explaining her trajectory from schoolteacher to receptionist to stand-up comedian. “I had to work very hard at confidence in myself.”
That might be hard to believe, she said, considering that her childhood was unusually loving and supportive. She grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in a blue-collar Italian family. Her parents, aunts, uncles—practically everyone she knew—recognized her gift for comedy and nurtured it, she said.
“When I was kid, I was told to do whatever I want, say whatever I want,” she said. “Nobody ever told me to shut up. So it’s a little shocking to me when they did.”
Ms. Behar’s notoriety stems from her openness, her ability to speak from the heart and in a fashion that is easily relatable. Once, she called Bill O’Reilly a “pinhead” and walked off “The View” in protest.
“You have to appreciate people who speak out and do it in a funny way and, as they say, take no prisoners. I totally appreciate people like that,” she explained, citing Bill Maher among the contemporaries she most admires. “I think people see me as a member of their family or somebody that they know. People tell me I say things that everyone’s thinking.”
There is an honest charm to Ms. Behar, sitting in her tranquil East Hampton home, a sense of freshness and innocence. “I’ve never perpetrated an evil on someone that I know of, so I am an innocent. Aren’t you?” she remarked.
“I am an innocent” she repeated. “I’m always in awe of what people are doing. And I worry about the world. I worry about everything. I worry about climate change. I worry that my grandson, after I’m dead, will be recruited into one of these hideous wars of theirs.”
Those who have watched her on “The View” know politics engage her, and she still strives to remain informed of current events—if for no other reason than to riff on them. “Politicians, as far as I’m concerned, are open season,” she said. “So, I say whatever I want about them because they work for me.”
On the subject of politics—hers run distinctly left of center—she is not willing to edit herself. Having heard that food pantries on the East End are running out of food, she decried, “I mean, we’re in the Hamptons. Something has to be done about these things. Who’s running this place? Who’s running the Hamptons?”
Joy Behar will perform her one-woman show, “Me, My Mouth & I,” on Saturday, August 29, and Sunday, August 30, at 8 p.m., both nights, at Guild Hall in East Hampton. Tickets start at $50. For more information, call (631) 324-0806, or visit guildhall.org.
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on Aug 25, 2015