The Star-Ledger
The Ticket
Friday October 8, 1999

Kathy Buckley, who’ll admit to being 6 feet tall, but won’t tell her age, is a four-time American Comedy Award nominee as best stand-up female comedienne.  Buckley, who has a hearing impairment, is now in previews at the Lamb’s Theatre in New York, prior to an Oct. 12 opening, with her show, “Now Hear This.”  But none of this came easily to her, as she expressed in the following chat.

Q.  How did this show come about?

A.  It’s been coming about my whole life, ever since I was put into a school for retarded kids.  It wasn’t until later that I found out the problem was I couldn’t hear well.

Q.  How much later?

A.  When I was 30.  I cried when the audiologist told me.  Then I knew why, when I worked as a warehouse manager, I ordered 15,000 items when they had actually wanted only 15.   Boy, did they fire me quick.

Q.  Did hearing aids correct the problem?

A.  No, but they help.  Without them, I can’t hear high-pitched sounds, or any consonants, so I can’t tell between singulars and plurals.  I still remember what it was like the first time I heard birds, crickets, wind – and hearing myself pee.

Q.  Are there any times when you’re glad you can’t hear well?

A.  Sure, like first thing in the morning when I’m looking for peace and quiet.   Or when my mother’s around.  “Sorry, Ma, battery’s dead.”

Q.  What was the worst experience you could have averted had you been able to hear?

A.  Well, there was that time when I was sunbathing on the beach, and I didn’t hear the lifeguard driving the Jeep that ran over me.

Q.  What?!  Were you buried in the sand with just your head showing?

A.  No – I was just lying there, wearing a red, white and blue bathing suit.   Maybe the lifeguard was Russian.  I was paralyzed, and laid up for about five years.  The pain was so severe that my brain shut it off because it couldn’t deal with it.  But I got over it.

Q.  And the worst was over.

A.  Unless you count what happened six years later, when I was diagnosed with cervical cancer.  But it’s okay.   I’ve been in remission for about 14 years now.

Q.  And I’d heard that your show was a comedy show.

A.  It is.  I started doing stand-up on a dare from a friend, who thought I was funny.  The first time I went on stage was the scariest night of my life.

Q.  And you’ve had some scary nights.

A.  Yes, but nothing like being in front of hearing people, who’d made fun of me all my life.  I was really scared until I felt the vibrations of them laughing.  I didn’t hear them as much as I felt them.  Then about five months later, they came out with a new improved hearing aid, and when I could hear them laugh, I started crying.  I thought, what a gift God has given me that I can take people away from their troubles for a little while.   Now people are my passion.

Q.  Are you married?

A.  No.  I may be deaf, but I’m not dumb.

Q.  You’re smiling when you say that.  You smile quite a bit.  But how can you after all you’ve been through?

A.  How can I not when I’ve conquered it all?

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