“Oh, it’s insane,” admitted Billy
Van Zandt, a Monmouth County
native who lives in California.
“The fact that we did this for 46
years baffled Jane and it baffled
me. I will say we were very young
when we met. That probably had
a lot to do with why we sort of
got along later because we finally
grew up and realized we were
better off as friends. But it took a
long time to get there and it was
a painful switch. The weird part
is 46 years together we didn’t
miss one single day of work even
through breaking up, despising
each other, getting back together
as friends, and then becoming
best friends. You learn to compartmentalize
very well. And then,
after a while, it almost feels like
she forgot I was a guy and I forgot
she was a girl. We were just a
family doing our thing.”
Four decades of work in Hollywood
leads to tons of stories
and Van Zandt shares many in his
book, Get In The Car, Jane! which
was released in June. The book
is based on journals Van Zandt
kept over the years and includes
first hand observations of artists
like Lucille Ball, Don Rickles, Bob
Newhart, Martin Lawrence, Penny
Marshall, Richard Lewis, Brooke
Shields and many more. It is a
quick read and extremely funny,
including notes on shows that
ON THE COVER
The cover was illustrated by Tom Chesek who went to the same
high school as Billy. “He used to do all these caricatures of everybody
in school and did them of me all of the time. So I asked him if
he’d do it for the cover of the book. He said, ‘No, I don’t do that any
more.’ I said come on, get out of retirement and do the book!
NJ STAGE - ISSUE 73
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