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Her initiation to comedy came as a youngster when
Kathy learned to mimic the people she came in contact with. Like her Italian
family:
"Some people think my hearing impairment is a handicap. Not me - - whenever
I’m with the Italian side of my family I have found it to be a total blessing.
Do you know what it’s like to be with a bunch of Italians who’s mouths are going
80 m.p.h.?"
 Asked how she got into comedy, Buckley cracks, "I musta' been
on drugs."
Then she turns serious. "When I was a massage exercise therapist I found that
laughter was my best medicine and healing. And in doing that I met my friend
[actress] Geri Jewell. She has cerebral palsy. There was a contest called
'Stand-up Comics Take a Stand' to raise money for United Cerebral Palsy and I thought,
'That’d be a nice thing to do, just to help out.’"
"So I did this contest thinking it was
amateur night, And here there were comics who’d been in the business three to
10 years and this was my first time onstage. And I won. I make it to the
finals and ended up placing fourth. And I’ve been doing it ever since."
Kathy remembers the first time she heard an
audience laugh at one of her jokes. It wasn’t the first time the comedian
performed on stage- she made her comedy debut in May of 1988 during a competition
sponsored by United Cerebral Palsy. She didn’t hear the laughter then.
She could only feel the vibrations through the stage floor.
Kathy typifies the possibilities inherent in this
charitable, but highly competitive, comedy competition. In her first
standup appearance, the hearing-impaired novice comic won over judges and audience alike
with observational humor both universal and particular, "I haven’t had a date in
two and a half years, but maybe that’s because I haven’t heard the phone
ring."
It wasn't until the summer, when Buckley performed at the
Hollywood Comedy Room in West Hollywood, the she finally understood the power of her
humor. For the first time in her brief career as a comedian, her hearing aids were
properly adjusted; she could hear the audience without the painful feedback from on-stage
speakers. When she stepped
off stage, she cried.
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