The Mouth that Roared<\/span> Hunter Abrams + Sam Lee<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n “Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links.”<\/i><\/p>\n It\u2019s early December and Sandra Bernhard is fresh from a session with her trainer, wearing a gray sweatshirt and not a stitch of makeup. She looks great, but at the moment there\u2019s something about the lanky star that seems strangely bulky: Underneath the sweatshirt she\u2019s wearing a weighted vest. But make no mistake: Bernhard is no fitness fad follower. \u201cIt\u2019s supposed to help with bone density,\u201d she explains. \u201cBut I\u2019ve been working out forever. I\u2019m ahead of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n For Bernhard that has always been the case. She has been a comedy pioneer, movie star, fashion muse, radio personality, sitcom regular, cultural critic, author, and perhaps TV\u2019s greatest talk show guest\u2014and at 70 she is still working her worked-out ass off. She recently showed up in Marty Supreme to lend a certain eau de New York. \u201cWhen it came time to cast Judy, Marty\u2019s mother\u2019s co-conspirator and downstairs neighbor, it took very little time to land on the ultimate yenta punk: Sandra Bernhard,\u201d says the film\u2019s director, Josh Safdie. Like everyone in Hollywood, Safdie knows that Bernhard is incomparable, so if you want a \u201cSandra Bernhard type,\u201d why not just get the real thing? (Bernhard was also recently cast in the upcoming fourth season of The White Lotus. \u201cI\u2019ve known and admired Mike White for a long time,\u201d she says of the series creator. \u201cThis is an incredible opportunity to be part of a show that has transformed the zeitgeist. It\u2019s come at the perfect time for me.\u201d)<\/p>\n Bernhard has an endless IMDB page, and at this point her cultural imprint is almost biblical. Her blending of song and comedy begat stars like Cole Escola and Jinkx Monsoon; her fearless style and unapologetic sexuality begat Sarah Sherman and Megan Stalter. She has walked for Chanel, modeled for J. Crew, been the face of Marc Jacobs, hosted the CFDA Awards, and canoodled with supermodels. Decades before everyone was asking us to get ready with them, Bernhard was using fashion to her advantage. And way before our attention spans fractured into bits, her appearances on talk shows were unforgettable\u2014like the 1992 appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman (one of 30 times she was on that show) when she rhapsodized a mile a minute about Isaac Mizrahi and Oribe. Bernhard swaggered, flirted, dominated, and simultaneously terrified and titillated Letterman without ever looking rehearsed or forced. Those appearances are now sliced up into memes, so she begat the viral guest spot, too.<\/p>\n But Bernhard isn\u2019t interested in being a lioness in winter. \u201cI appreciate it, but I don\u2019t want to be seen as, like, iconic,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat I want from people is for them to come to my shows and know that I\u2019m still loving it and writing and creating. Sometimes the work just gets more compelling as the person goes along.\u201d<\/p>\n When Bernhard first moved to L.A. from Scottsdale, Arizona, in the 1970s, she lived with her aunt and uncle in Westwood and went to beauty school to learn to become a manicurist. In 1974 she moved into an apartment she shared with a hairdresser and worked in Beverly Hills at CIA Salon on North Canon Drive, the go-to for the celebrities of the day. Dyan Cannon, Victoria Principal, and Altovise Davis all came to see her. \u201cI met a lot of wonderful women who were very groovy and supportive,\u201d she says. \u201cI might have done Jaclyn Smith\u2019s nails.\u201d<\/p>\n She got her start on the L.A. comedy circuit performing at Ye Little Club\u2014a spot where Joan Rivers tested material\u2014and at open mics at places like Rusty\u2019s Bagels on La Brea. \u201cIt was owned by a guy named Rusty Blitz,\u201d she says. \u201cHe played a grave digger in Young Frankenstein. He opened a little storefront, and if you wanted to perform you had to buy a bagel with a shmear in order to get on.\u201d<\/p>\n She was discovered doing standup by Paul Mooney and Lotus Weinstock, two comedian\u2019s comedians who guided her through the scene. \u201cI put together my little remedial show. I did my Mary Tyler Moore impression. I said kooky, funny, weird things. I used to read from the pages of Women\u2019s Wear Daily,\u201d she says, satirizing the kind of blond, straight, squash racket\u2013holding woman that she, a Jewish girl from the suburbs, was not.<\/p>\n Bernhard appeared on Richard Pryor\u2019s short-lived comedy show in 1977 (along with another newbie, Robin Williams), but her big break, in Martin Scorsese\u2019s 1983 movie The King of Comedy, happened when a friend\u2014not her agent\u2014recommended she go up for the role. \u201cSo I called and set up my own meeting for the casting director, Cis Corman,\u201d Bernhard recalls. \u201cI came in and blew her away.\u201d Rewatching her today as the unhinged stalker Masha interacting with late-night legend Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis, who appears genuinely terrified of her), you can\u2019t imagine anyone else in the role, for which Bernhard won a National Society of Film Critics award. \u201cI was so that person at that time. I wanted to be loved. I wanted attention. So it was a no-brainer for me to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n More than four decades later Scorsese remains in awe of his star. \u201cTo label Sandra as anything\u2014a comedian, an actress, a performance artist\u2014is to do her a disservice,\u201d he tells T&C. \u201cA true artist is more like it, and a true artist who has more or less invented her own art form. When she performs, she starts in comedy and immediately goes past it. She pushes past a boundary, goes right to the edge, then almost goes over the edge, and then pulls it back. And then she does it again, taking it further and further. There\u2019s really no one else like her.\u201d<\/p>\n After The King of Comedy, Bernhard appeared in a few films, but she focused on sharpening her stage act. In 1988 her Off-Broadway solo show Without You I\u2019m Nothing became a huge downtown hit and later a movie and a Grammy-nominated double album. Since then there isn\u2019t a year she hasn\u2019t been busy. Name a touchstone TV show and she was probably on it: Ally McBeal, The L Word, Will & Grace, Roseanne, on which she played Nancy Bartlett\u2014perhaps sitcom TV\u2019s first openly bisexual character. She told Howard Stern that she was offered the role of Miranda in Sex and the City but turned it down because the script \u201cjust wasn\u2019t any good.\u201d<\/p>\n Bernhard is hungry. There\u2019s a nonstop downpour of cold rain in Manhattan, and we\u2019re sitting at Rosemary\u2019s, an Italian restaurant in the West Village. We order kale salads, and when the waiter asks if we want bread, she tells him in no uncertain terms, \u201cNo, darling, no bread! No bread!\u201d<\/p>\n After he leaves, she explains: \u201cI\u2019m on a bread-free diet. I\u2019ve got to because the show\u2019s coming up.\u201d The show in question is her 19th annual holiday residency at Joe\u2019s Pub, the stalwart downtown nightclub, which culminates on New Year\u2019s Eve. \u201cIt\u2019s all written,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I leave lots of room for improvisation, because I don\u2019t know what will inspire me night to night.\u201d She\u2019ll use the material\u2014a mix of comedy, commentary, and cabaret\u2014for subsequent gigs in Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n In addition to Marty Supreme, she\u2019s on the new season of the \u00adDisney+ streaming hit Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and she appeared on the Emmy-nominated series Severance. \u201cI\u2019ve known Sandra since I was a kid, when my parents took us to see her perform at the Improv,\u201d says Ben Stiller, an executive producer of the Apple TV+ show. \u201cFor Severance, her incredible intensity in combination with her sense of humor fit perfectly. I remember thinking, We need an insane Sandra Bernhard moment in the show\u2026 She has a commitment level to being who she is that is just beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n Next up? Who knows? \u201cPeople always ask, \u2018Do you have a five-year plan,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018How can you have a five-year plan in show business?\u2019 You can get hired on a TV series, and six months later it\u2019s canceled. It\u2019s sort of out of my hands.\u201d She stabs her fork into her greens. \u201cThe only plan I have\u2014and it\u2019s endless\u2014is writing material, doing my shows, staying relevant, keeping myself strong.\u201d<\/p>\n The future may be a mystery, but the trails Bernhard has already blazed are deep. She was doing queer comedy long before it was called that, and she has been open about her sexual fluidity since before it was called that, too. She wrote humorous memoirs before Chelsea Handler, Tina Fey, or Lena Dunham, and she hosted a satellite radio show, Sandradio, years before the podcast boom. (These days she\u2019s got her Sandyland show on SiriusXM.)<\/p>\n Throughout her life, a mix of ballsy confidence and fabulous providence seems to be the driving force. She met her partner of 26 years, Sara Switzer, in 1999, after Switzer, an editor at Harper\u2019s Bazaar at the time, assigned her to write an essay about Y2K. They had never met in person, but one morning Bernhard was putting her musical director, Mitch Kaplan, into a car after a gig out of town, when a woman walked by. \u201cShe kind of smiled at me, walked past me, and then stopped and came back. She goes, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m your editor.\u2019 I went, \u2018Oh my god, I haven\u2019t started writing the piece, but I\u2019m going to.\u2019 And she laughed.\u201d<\/p>\n They made plans to have a drink. Bernhard was doing a performance at the Beacon Theatre and invited Switzer to attend. In the middle of a song-and-dance number, Bernhard\u2019s top popped off. \u201cI was standing onstage naked, basically, and normally I would have been like, Whatever, but because Sara was there, I didn\u2019t want her to see me,\u201d she says. She found a way to cover herself and eventually brought Switzer to an afterparty. They made it back to Bernhard\u2019s apartment, \u201cand the rest is history,\u201d she says. \u201cIf neither one of us had been on the street at eight o\u2019clock in the morning, I never would have connected with her.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s how it happens for Bernhard. She runs into people. She got her part in the Emmy-nominated series Pose because she ran into Judith Light on a flight from LAX to JFK. When they landed, Light introduced her to Our Lady J and Steven Canals, two of the show\u2019s creators, who were also on the flight. \u201cWe were on all those escalators to baggage claim, and I said to them, \u2018If there\u2019s ever anything on Pose for me, I\u2019d love to work with you,\u2019 \u201d she says. \u201cThey went into work the next day and talked to Ryan Murphy and asked, \u2018What about Sandra Bernhard?\u2019 Even though Ryan is a fan, I don\u2019t think he ever would have thought of me.\u201d<\/p>\n It was that role, as Judy Kubrak, an overwhelmed New York nurse deep in the devastation of the 1980s AIDS crisis, that brought Bernhard renewed attention as a versatile, serious actress.<\/p>\n Bernhard, who says she only ever went to a couple of acting classes, learned her craft by doing. But at this point, as accomplished as she is, she knows her limits. \u201cI\u2019ve never been the girl next door,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Daring stars like Bernhard are hard to mint these days. And now that celebrity is such a saturated market, poking fun at the famous and fashionable the way she used to isn\u2019t so easy. \u201cIt\u2019s harder\u2014much harder,\u201d she says. \u201cEverybody thinks they\u2019re a star, and the people who really are talented, they\u2019ve fallen by the wayside.\u201d<\/p>\n Though less well known, her 1992 HBO special Sandra After Dark is the epitome of her work blurring fame and comedy\u2014jam-packed with a potpourri of boldfaced names of the time: Janice Dickinson and Kristen McMenamy, Timothy Leary, Debi Mazar, a young Sofia Coppola, and Tom Jones, to name a few. \u201cThere\u2019s no way that would happen today,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019d make you use people who have no discernible talent whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the years, digs at celebrity culture became harder for Bernhard, too. Making fun of fame while dwelling within it is a dance, and the closer you get, the more complicated it becomes. Take her storied friendship with Madonna. They showed up on Letterman in 1988 dressed the same, insinuating intimacy, and then had an unamicable split\u2014something Bernhard doesn\u2019t discuss. With her improv chops, Bernhard\u2019s shows remain topical (and fiercely political), but the world of the rich and famous doesn\u2019t need any help making fun of itself these days. Even the New York Times has noted that she seems to aim her weapons a bit more carefully these days: \u201cThe claws have been retracted, but the attitude remains the same.\u201d<\/p>\n What hasn\u2019t changed is that Bernhard isn\u2019t afraid to get personal in her act, often bringing up childhood memories. \u201cMy friends and I used to go to the Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix on a Saturday night when there was nothing to do,\u201d she says. \u201cWe would watch planes take off, and I\u2019d fantasize about the day I was going to get on a plane and go someplace and never come back.\u201d<\/p>\n Decades later she is certainly a long way from Scottsdale. Bernhard sold her home in L.A. years ago, and today she and Switzer\u2014and George, a 16-year-old rescue dog\u2014are empty-nesters in Manhattan. (Cicely, their daughter, 27, lives downtown.) But in some ways, that longing at the airport never really went away. \u201cIt\u2019s ironic that I\u2019m going to be on the cover of Town & Country,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause, of course, I would look at the magazine and think wistfully, I\u2019ll never be that kind of woman.\u201d<\/p>\n When our waiter sets down a complimentary dessert\u2014olive oil cake with whipped cream, his favorite\u2014Bernhard says, almost to herself, \u201cOkay, one bite!\u201d It\u2019s a dreary day during undeniably dark times, but she\u2019s pleased about the recent outcome of New York\u2019s mayoral election, and the sugar seems to sweeten her outlook. \u201cI really feel optimistic,\u201d she says, digging into the cake, \u201cand like things are about to shift again. I like to make people happy and to bring people together.\u201d<\/p>\n Then Bernhard looks down at the table and realizes what she has done. \u201cNever put this olive oil cake in front of us,\u201d she yells to no one in particular. \u201cWe said one bite and now it\u2019s decimated!\u201d<\/p>\n Photographs by Hunter Abrams<\/a> + Sam Lee<\/a> Hair by Brent Lawler<\/a> at Lowe & Co. Makeup by Romero Jennings<\/a> for Mac Cosmetics. Nails by Kayo Higuchi<\/a> for Dior Vernis at Bryan Bantry Agency. Tailoring by Susan Balcunas<\/a> at Lars Nord. Set design by Reece Koetter<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the top image: Sandra Bernhard has stayed ready for her close-up. Recently she starred in <\/strong>Marty Supreme<\/strong> and <\/strong>Percy Jackson and the Olympians<\/strong>. Next up? A world tour.<\/strong> Balenciaga<\/a> peacoat. Gianvito Rossi<\/a> shoes. Cartier High Jewelry<\/a> earrings, necklace, bracelet, and ring.<\/p>\n This story appears in the March 2026 issue of<\/strong> Town & Country. <\/strong>SUBSCRIBE NOW<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n You Might Also Like<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Styled by Ryan Young<\/a><\/p>\n\n