Mira set up her camera. She didn’t ask about Buddy’s affairs or the network backstabbing. She asked about the cake.
Then he said, “You know what the problem is with the entertainment industry?” -GirlsDoPorn- 18 Years Old -Episode 359- SD --N...
“They put me in the cake,” Corky said, offering Mira a warm can of soda. “Buddy would tell a joke about his mother-in-law, the band would hit a sting, and I’d pop out. The audience laughed. Not at the joke. At the surprise of me. Like a jack-in-the-box with freckles.” Mira set up her camera
Mira said no.
That last shot—sixty-seven-year-old Corky Lane, rhinestone glove catching the fluorescent light, finally laughing—became the closing frame of The Last Laugh . Then he said, “You know what the problem
The living legends refused. “Too soon,” said one geriatric producer who hadn’t had a credit since 1998. “I’ve already sold my memoir,” said another. So Mira went deeper. She chased the footnote. The sound guy. The cue card holder. The third assistant to the bandleader’s tailor.
She drove back to Vegas and gave Corky a hard drive with the final cut. He watched it on his laptop in the back of the storage locker, surrounded by the guts of a 1950s Wurlitzer. When the credits rolled, he didn’t speak for a long time.