Huey: A comedian’s journey from an L.A. police car to the Hollywood Walk of Fame

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This unbelievably funny guy was born in New Rochelle, New York, on April 28, 1950. James was very close to his mother Catherine who was brought here from Greenock, Scotland when she was very young. His father Angelo was an insurance salesman whose ancestors hailed from the pasta capital of the world, Italy. The couple’s youngest son was named James Douglas Muir, whom they called Jimmy.

That same Jimmy was cowering in the backseat of the squad car while a pair of the meanest looking cops he’d ever seen eyeballed him from the front seat as their radio crackled in the background. James’s mother was over a thousand miles away in New York City and didn’t know that her son was in deep trouble, but at least he hadn’t actually done anything that he would’ve done time for.

“You know kid, you can save yourself a lot of trouble,” one of the cops spoke snidely from the front seat, “If you’ll just tell us if you’re dealing drugs or picking up dames? Come on, we ain’t got all night. Come to think of it, we DO have all night, don’t we Sal?” he chuckled as he turned his head halfcocked toward their perpetrator, “So spit it out Junior. What are you doing in this rotten neighborhood so late at night? You gotta be up to no good.”

Jimmy often wandered the streets in the most crime-ridden areas of town after dark, mostly because when someone like him who’s houseless and lives in the backseat of his 1955 Buick Roadmaster, that guy is usually not eager to fall asleep.

Sunny Los Angeles had sounded so inviting back when the kid was shivering himself silly during those endless New York winters, and moving to a warmer climate seemed so permanent that he told his neighbors to watch for him on the tube. He would be there in their dreams whether they liked it or not.

Now here he sits, so far from home in the backseat of an LAPD police car trying to talk his way out of a trip to the calaboose, stating desperately, “I swear I’m not doing anything illegal. The only thing I do is tell jokes for a living, and it doesn’t pay much, not now anyway, maybe someday.”

That cop glared at the boy like he was trying to stare a hole through him, and so James continued with, “I’m a comedian, honest! At least I’m trying to become one, and I’m pretty funny when I’m prepared.”

“All right,” Sal replied, “Give us a show and prove how funny you are,” and with no hesitation whatsoever, little Jimmy began his routine, telling one-liners he remembered from high school. Some of the anecdotes he made up on the spot, and some were older than Methuselah, but some were from a comedian they’d had in the bar just a few nights ago, and some were from an old television show he’d seen years earlier.

The shy lad went on for a good 15 minutes, and had those tough cops laughing so hard one of them actually began choking on his tobacco. When he finally got it dislodged from his throat, he told Jimmy to go on home, everything’s fine. They were convinced that what he told them was true and they hoped to see him on the tube real soon.

This aspiring comic who slept in his car and did a nightly show at The Comedy Store, who wandered Hollywood Boulevard in the shadows of the bright downtown lights, was still pondering about what in the world he’d gotten himself into. At the tender age of 22, Jimmy left New York with nothing but a bus ticket, his clothes, and a little over $500 — and the bulk of THAT went toward buying the Buick.

A mere 31 years later, his star was placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was just a few feet from where he gave that command performance for those cops, or what he called “the most important gig” of his burgeoning career having occurred only a stone’s throw from where he stood right now. That comedian’s name is James Douglas Muir Leno. Yep, it was Jay Leno in the back of that squad car. Many showbiz people END their careers in the backseat of a police car. That’s where Leno’s began.