I’d sit on the phone with her for hours, while she’d say [in a whiny voice], “Why doesn’t he like me and ask me to go out?” And then another time, as I was throwing my compass point into my lab table one day, she’d say [haughtily], “I just abhor mindless vandalism.” [Laughs.] Then she’d tell me, “I’m going to read for The Madwoman of Chaillot. You should come along. There are a lot of small parts.” She was unbelievable! But every year or two I’d get really depressed and I’d take a handful of Seconals. I’d call her and say, “Melanie, Melanie. You’ve got to help me. I don’t know what’s come over me but I’ve taken 20 Seconals. I need some help and I’m just about to . . . ”

“I’m very busy,” she’d say. “I’ll call you later.” [Laughs.] I’m exaggerating a little bit but not totally. And after the first time [I talked about her onstage], she came to me and said, “Don’t ever do me in your act again!”

Do you still talk to her?

Oh, I haven’t seen her in years. But be careful with this [motions to the voice recorder]. She reads Vanity Fair for sure. . . . We used to be best friends! She’s blonde, and I have very dark hair. We just thought we were queens striding around in black tights and heels and big purses, very Bohemian, you know? All of this big hair tossed around. Both of us [were] kind of theatrical; she was an actress, too. And so I said, “We were best friends! Why don’t we get together and have a drink? I haven’t seen you in years.” And she said, “Well, I’m fat now.” [Laughs.] I said, “Well, how fat are you?” And I haven’t seen her since. She won’t have anything to do with me. I’ve given up on that. That was 30 years ago almost or something.

Do you feel like your sense of humor and what you consider funny have changed over time?

I find what I think is acceptable [is changing]. Women used to never use [profane] language onstage, or if they did, they were Vegas comics maybe. But even Joanie, Joan Rivers, who’s a good friend of mine—she’s always been hilarious and very outspoken. But in the last 10 years, she’s gotten raunchier and raunchier. She’s been using more language, talking about things more bluntly, and stuff like that. And that’s O.K.—she’s a grown woman. And if it’s hilarious, it’s hilarious, within a certain confine of sensibility. After a while . . . hold on, what can I say that is a truth about my feelings on this?

I used to do a 50s teenager. And I had been a 50s teenager. One of my earliest monologues was a girl at a dance, and her boyfriend comes in and asks another girl to dance. And she rejects him. It’s a whole little drama with her sidekick Margot. So Toni’s talking to Margot about her boyfriend, and she says, “We were slow-dancing and Frankie sprang a boner.” See, this was back in ’70 or ’71. Well, the guy who was running the [Pasadena comedy club] Ice House, he went crazy! Now, I’m not saying every club would have done that. But they didn’t expect females to say things like “boner”—even though “boner” is kind of tender. Toni’s just talking. He said, “Don’t ever say anything like that onstage again.”

You can get a laugh off of saying any four-letter word. People are still sensitized enough where they are shocked and excited by it.