A roastmaster’s joys and sorrows

Go to Jeff Ross’s new Broadway show, “Take a Banana for the Ride,” and you will laugh your kishkas off. I say that without fear of contradiction or, frankly, any idea what kishkas are.

However, I add a caveat: if you are a sensitive type, you might want to bring a tissue along. The show is also poignant, moving, and haughty, as it tells the story of how the Jewish kid from Newark became — wait for it — the Roastmaster General.

It is a title he began to earn while still in school. An older bully regularly picked on him and other students. Ross, who says he was one of the youngest people ever to earn a black belt in judo, refrained from using the technique to fight back.

“I was always told it was for emergencies, self-defense,” he said. “Yes, this was physical, but fighting didn’t seem to be the right way. I didn’t want to fight every day. I wanted to neutralize him.”

Another factor: “He was a full year ahead of me, and a full foot taller.”

Instead, Ross chose a savage riposte. So, knocked to the ground and with classmates observing, “I made fun of the size of his hairy knuckles and the size of his forehead.”

That may not sound like much, but keep in mind, at the time, Ross was not yet the roastmaster. And also, it worked. “I don’t think he bothered me after that. I don’t think he bothered anyone after that.”

Ross’s journey to roasting greatness began around 1995. Two years earlier, actor Ted Danson appeared in blackface at a Friars Club roast of his then-girlfriend, Whoopi Goldberg. That created a storm of controversy and an atmosphere that made it difficult for the Friars to attract talent to future events.

Ross had been on the comedy circuit for a while and had appeared at a charity event in New Jersey along with several Friars. Though largely unknown, he was invited to a 1995 roast of Steven Seagal.

“It was 1,500 people or so at the Hilton on Sixth Avenue,” he said. “I was the new guy, so I walked out and took my time with it. I said, ‘A lot of you don’t know me, but I feel uniquely qualified to be here today, because I, too, am a shitty actor.’” Seagal’s reaction? “I never spoke to him that day, and I’ve never seen him since. But I became friends with all the old-time comics, so it was a good day.”

A very good day, as it turned out. It was followed by many more good days as he roasted Alec Baldwin, Bruce Willis, Donald Trump, Pamela Anderson, and literally dozens of others.

Ross, who was born Jeffrey Ross Lifschultz, grew up in Union and Springfield. He credits his Jersey upbringing for his talent at insult comedy. “Everybody in the family was good at roasting,” he told the Atlanta Constitution some years ago. The Lifschultzes were a largely observant family. They celebrated the holidays and attended Temple Israel of Union (now merged with Temple Beth Ahm Yisrael in Springfield).

The family ran the kosher Clinton Manor Catering Hall, which was founded by Jeff’s great-grandmother, Rose; eventually it also moved from Union to Springfield. In an interesting juxtaposition, “the weekend they were putting up the set here at the Nederlander, they demolished the old Clinton Manor building.”

The set, as might be expected, is banana yellow and filled with a dozen screens that show happy moments, such as bar mitzvahs and family gatherings. But life is not just peaches and cream, as Mr. Ross learned.

Ross’s mother died of leukemia when he was 14. His father died of drug use when he was 19. As a result, his grandfather Jack moved in with Jeff. Jack was a grand old guy, as Jeff Ross tells it during the interview and in the play. Young Jeff encouraged old Jack to go to a senior center and build a life for himself. But he was a bit surprised to see him return with three ladies in his car. Grandpa’s secret: “I’m the only one who can drive at night.”

In return, Grandpa supported his grandson’s comedic ambitions, giving him a few dollars to cover tolls when he drove into Manhattan for open mic nights. And he’d always tell him, “Take a banana for the trip.”

Ross had no Plan B career in mind. “I guess I would have gone into the catering business, which was more of a plan ‘L’ or ‘M,’” he said. “But I did not want to do that.

“I decided that comedy was my life after my grandfather died. The booking agent at the comedy club I was working at gave me a pep talk. He said, ‘Now’s your time, Jeff. You don’t have to take care of anybody for the first time in a long time. Now it’s your turn to thrive and worry about yourself for once.’ So that’s when I felt it went from a hobby or a dream to like a job.”

But remember about peaches and cream? Eleven years ago and by now an established star, Ross came down with alopecia, the same disease Jada Pinkett Smith has. He lost all his hair. “It was very tough. At first I lied about it and covered it up. It was very demoralizing when it first happened because I had so many jokes about my big Jewfro, and for a while no one recognized me.”

Oh, and there’s more. He participated in “Dancing with the Stars.” During rehearsal, his partner poked him in the eye, scratching his cornea. And to add insult to injury, the couple was eliminated in the first round.

But his latest drama began shortly after the Tom Brady roast. Ross took time off for a tune-up that included — at a friend’s suggestion — his first colonoscopy. The diagnosis was stage three colon cancer.

It seems, I tell him, as though he has no mazel at all. “It was my own fault for waiting 10 years past the time you’re supposed to get a colonoscopy,” he said. “I waited too long. So, no mazel, but I blame myself.”

The surgeon’s assessment of Ross’s prospects was generally positive, so “I didn’t lose hope. But in the beginning, when you first get diagnosed, it took weeks to get the biopsy correctly, so there’s a lot of time there where you don’t know what’s going on.”

A couple of hours after the surgery, the surgeon told Ross he had bad news and good news for him. The bad news was the surgery was a success, but he was going to have to go through a course of chemotherapy. The good news was that he had already lost his hair.

“The fact that the doctor was trying so hard to be funny, that cracked me up.”

All this came just after Ross had gone through another period of mourning. Three close friends — Bob Saget, Gilbert Gottfried, and Norm MacDonald — had died in an eight-month span. MacDonald’s death from leukemia was particularly painful to Ross because MacDonald kept it a secret, depriving his friends from being with him.

“Who wants to know that their friend is going through that without the proper support system?” As a result, he let friends and family know what he was going through. “It’s not about the fight,” he likes to say. “It’s about the army.”

When Ross came home from the hospital, he found John Stamos and his family waiting for him. “My sister was at my house making our great-grandma Rosie’s matzah ball soup. Cousins and sisters. I really had the Third Cavalry of aunts and sisters, friends, and nephews watching over me.”

Earlier in our conversation, he called the setbacks “happy accidents, because they always lead to something else.”

In this case, it led to Broadway. He actually began writing the play 30 years ago. “I found some scripts from 1995,” Ross said. “It started as short stories performed live at alternative comedy rooms. The idea of storytelling was becoming very popular in New York. I would tell four- or five-minute stories about my grandfather. I would imitate him and talk about him. He’d already been gone four or five years, and I wanted to keep his memory alive.

“So I started piecing these stories together, and eventually I had a half-hour I performed at a comedy festival. And then I did an hour, and it was mostly about losing my parents.”

He also discovered letters his parents had sent him in a storage locker, letters of love and support they’d written their son that he reads to the audience. [Cue the tissues.]

“But ‘why now?’ is a good question. There are a few reasons. But the number one reason is that when those three guys passed within eight months of each other, I had similar emotions to when my grandfather died. But I had more wisdom.

“The last time I performed the show, I didn’t have the emotional strength to talk about my parents and my grandfather every night. Now I’m older, stronger, and have been through more and can phrase things in a way that can help others. So it felt like a mitzvah and a tribute to people I care about.”

But you can’t keep a good Roastmaster mushy. He ends the show in the audience handing out bananas for their trip home and asking anyone who wants to be toasted to stand up. Be prepared. And hungry.