By Brian M. Rafferty
Born in Greenwich Village, like her father, life could have been very different for Fran Capo if she wanted it to be.
Her father, a tough-talking Italian son of an immigrant spending his time in shady hangouts in lower Manhattan, was known to bend the law a couple of times, though not really break it. He ran with a tough crowd, and witnessed some events that seem straight out of “The Sopranos” or “Goodfellas.”
Life in Capo’s world was a bit different. She lived in Manhattan until she was 4, when her family moved to Jamaica Hills. That has been her home base throughout a career that has taken her through stand-up comedy, a radio show, getting into the Guinness Book of World Records, touring with LL Cool J, finding a career in voiceover work, becoming a published author, and then taking a emotional, yet always comical, step this year in making good on a promise she made to her father when they spent his last few months together.
Growing up in Queens with her parents, Capo went to PS 131 and eventually to Jamaica High School. Always with what she refers to as a “way of telling stories that makes people laugh,” by the time she got to college, her friends were encouraging her to try her hand at stand-up comedy.
“I was going to be an accountant or a lawyer,” Capo said. “I had a very businesslike side, but then I also had a creative side that wanted to express itself. So I told people that I wanted to be an attorney,”
“Besides, at that time there were very few stand-up comics.”
Capo realized that the only way she could choose to try stand-up was if she tricked herself into it. She decided to await a sign from God. A handwriting analyst told her she was has just the right personality to do stand-up comedy.
Still waiting for the sign.
“I was standing in line at a movie, talking with my friends, and some guy on the line said he thought I was funny and that I should do stand-up.
Still waiting for the sign.
Fran decided she needed more help in seeing the sign. “If you could make it really convenient, then that’s when I’ll know,” she prayed.
Not soon after she was heading into a building on the campus at Queens College on a Monday in 1981 when, because of construction, she was forced to walk through the side entrance. “There was a sign there that said, ‘Stand-up comedy auditions today.’ at this Irish pub near my house,” Capo said.
She did her minute of material, left, and then waited to hear back. A week went by and Capo decided to give the auditioner a call.
“They were so happy to hear from me,” she said. “They told me that I had passed the audition and that I forgot to give them my phone number. They needed me to do an act that weekend.”
Over the span of that week, the length of the act rose from 10 minutes of material to 30. Her first night on stage was a huge success in front of friends and family. “The second night, I bombed,” Capo said.
She got over it, and so did her new manger, Rick Mussina, who later went on to manage Tim Allen. With Mussina’s help she started working the comedy circuit and tried to seek out other ways of getting known. “I was driving to DC to try out for ‘Star Search,’ I started a petition to get Mayor Koch to declare a ‘Comedy Day’ in New York, I helped put together a 24-hour comedy marathon that featured Jackie Mason and Pat Cooper.”
She was starting to go places. And Dec. 24. 1984, did end up named Comedy Day in New York.
After being given a week to put together some comic bits for a morning show on WBLS radio, Capo came back the next day with 20 bits written in one night. She quickly became a regular on the radio doing weather and traffic as June East, a play on Mae West.
When featured in a local daily newspaper, Capo was hard-pressed to answer a question about what she planned to do next in life. “I didn’t know, but I know that I wanted to tell them something. So I said I was going to set a Guinness record.” She just didn’t know which it would be.
At the last minute before the story went to press, Capo called the reporter and declared that she would set the record for as the world’s fastest talking woman.
“Well, the story came out the next day, and Larry King’s show called and said they wanted to have me on to break the record on national television. I didn’t know who he was, but I said ‘Yes.’”
The record had been 552 words per minute, and Capo read off 585 on Larry King.
Capo’s audience grew, and so did the audiences she visited. “Because of June East, I got offered to be on a rap record as Rappin’ Mae, a follow-up to ‘Rappin’ Duke,’” a John Wayne rap tribute.
The record landed Capo on tour with LL Cool J and the Fat Boys. She was getting offers from different realms of show biz, but found voiceover work the most rewarding. Starting small, she worked her way up to doing voices for the animated children’s show “Care Bears” and then commercials for 1-800 Flowers.
Capo was still doing stand-up, and got asked to start teaching at the Learning Annex.
After learning the serious end of standing up in front of a crowd, Capo was offered the opportunity to get into the lecture circuit, giving talks on humor in business speaking.
“I was going to have to deliver a 50-minute keynote address in two weeks, and I didn’t have anything to base it on. ‘Don’t you have a book?’ they asked me. I didn’t, so I wrote one.”
Her first venture into creative writing, Capo wrote a book so she would know what to say at her lecture. That was followed by books on how to do publicity without a publicist, how to break into voiceovers and a series of “It Happened In…” books, including “It Happened in Utah.”
“What about New York?” Capo asked them. She wrote “What Happened in New York” and it became the series bestseller, Capo said.
While she was writing another book for that publisher, Capo’s father turned ill.
Capo credits her father’s storytelling for some of her comedic timing, and knew that her old man could always be counted on to tell a great story from his delinquent past. She decided to sit with him and write his life story, listening to every piece of wisdom and every sordid tale he could tell.
“I was almost a wise guy,” he told her. “If you write a book, that’s what you need to call it.”
Capo promised, and now, a few years after his death, she has released “Almost a Wise Guy.”
“The book has only been out for three weeks, and it’s selling out wherever I go,” Capo said of a string of book signings she has held. On Aug. 24 she held a book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Bay Terrace.
On Tuesday she appeared on MTV’s “Total Request Live” and has an upcoming appearance on “The Weakest Link” and a television pilot on which she is working. She also said there is interest in her book from movie and television studios.
All this interest in her new material doesn’t mean that Capo is finally sitting still. Her internet radio show, the Estrogen Files (www.theestrogenfiles.com), is a critical success, she is working on a compilation book with “top writers from around the country,” and is generally a happy person.
“As long as I love what I do, that’s the important thing. Right now things are going good,” Capo said.
With a life far different from that of her father, Capo said her apples do not fall as far from the tree. Her 13-year-old son Spencer has joined the ranks of stand-up comedy, being the world’s youngest stand-up. He has performed with his mother at the Tropicana in Las Vegas, and is working on material of his own.
To learn more about Fran Capo, or to buy her new book, go to www.francapo.com, or call her publisher, 1stbooks, at 888-280-7715.
