Why Stand-up Legend George Wallace Can’t Get Off the Stage After 49 Years in Comedy: “I’m Living My Dream”
Comedy legend George Wallace has been in the business for 49 years and apparently has no plans to leave the stand-up stage.
So much so that Wallace, 73, says he may do stand-up until his dying breath because he measures success not by the wealth he has but by how much he enjoys life and makes audiences happy.
“I’m living my dream. I’m the most successful person you’ve ever met. It’s not how much money you have, it’s how you enjoy your life while you’re living and that’s what I do,” Wallace told The Hollywood Reporter on Saturday while attending the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal.
That dream of wanting to become a comic began at age 6. Wallace watched Red Skelton, Red Foxx, Richard Pryor and others growing up. And in 1976 he got into the comedy business at the ground floor with a young Jerry Seinfeld, with whom he remains best friends today.
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Did he and Seinfeld know as roommates and as they performed in 1970s New York City comedy clubs that they’d eventually enjoy a moonshot to Hollywood fame? “We knew day one. We’ve always known it since we got into it. It’s a thing that’s in you. You gotta have it in you,” Wallace explained.
Wallace added that It factor is “something that you love, you honor, your essence, that shows people you love what you do. And there’s nothing else you would do or can do.” That love has led Wallace over his long career to become a regular on late night comedy show couches, to appear on a slew of Hollywood series and movies, most recently Prime Video’s Clean Slate, and to perform in Las Vegas Strip hotels over the decades.
And Wallace was also at the Just For Laughs comedy festival to receive a lifetime achievement award on Friday. When offering advice, he tells young people to follow their passions, rather than chase money. “If you enjoy your life, the money will come. No matter what you do, it’ll come and you just need to make enough,” Wallace insists.
His job these days, besides working the comedy stage (this coming week in Dubai) is bringing happiness to his audiences. “When you walk off stage and people say, ‘Well, I don’t know how to say this, but my husband died three years ago, and I haven’t laughed in three years.’ ‘I just had brain surgery, I just want to thank you for making me laugh.’ That’s way more than money,” Wallace says.
The Just For Laughs comedy festival continues through Sunday.
