Issue date: May 5, 2000

Pre-fame Carey
Drew as Geppetto

A younger, hipper Geppetto

Strong opinions
Sunday, Drew Carey plays father to the most famous liar of all time. No wonder he's pumped to pummel today's real-life Pinocchios.

By Jeffrey Zaslow

The truth is, we live in a lie-loving society. At least that's how TV Everyman Drew Carey sees it. Want an example? "Parents tell their kids, 'Be good and Santa will bring you presents, blah, blah, blah.' It's all a lie. If I had kids, I'd say, 'He's a character. He's a guy in a fake beard who has a winter job.' "

Carey finds dishonesty everywhere. Some of it amuses him. He rolls his eyes over athletes' post-game TV interviews in the losing locker room. "They have these pat answers. I want just one guy to say, 'Win or lose, it doesn't matter to me. I got paid.' "

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Out in Hollywood, Carey lives among liars. He's sick of celebrities who show up at charity benefits and pretend to care. "I have no patience for it. People are only there to schmooze, be seen and have their pictures taken. They say, 'We're here to stand up tonight for fill-in-the-blank.' I'm thinking, 'I'm sure you lose a lot of sleep over this issue. Just write a [expletive] check and shut up.' That's what I do."

Carey has always had a low tolerance for liars, fakes and phonies. They're often the targets on his regular-guy sitcom, The Drew Carey Show, and on his improv show, Whose Line Is It Anyway? This Sunday, on ABC's The Wonderful World of Disney (7 p.m. ET), he reveals his formidable dancing and singing skills in Geppetto, an ambitious new musical focusing on the father of literature's longest-nosed liar, Pinocchio.

You can't talk about Pinocchio without discussing dishonesty, and Carey, 41, is happy to rant on the subject. He's annoyed that "when you're a celebrity, it's hard to find people who are honest with you. Nobody wants to tell you your fly is down or you have a booger hanging out." He's irritated that the media exaggerates the significance of fame. "When JFK Jr. died, I didn't understand the big fuss. It drove me nuts. He was a Kennedy and he was good-looking. That was it. I'm sorry he died, but we kept hearing, 'America has lost its prince.' No, we haven't. A family lost its cousin. We don't have a prince in this country."

Carey is a news junkie. And he has a blunt take on certain greater truths. Is the Confederate flag a racist symbol? "Depends on who's flying it. If a Klansman is carrying it, it represents racial hatred. If a college kid from 'Bama has it on his truck, it means the kid likes being from the South." And if the flag hangs from a state capitol? "It's a sign of a sore loser." He grins. He's not finished yet. "If you really want a flag that represents slavery and oppression, fly the U.S. flag. We've killed Indians with that flag. This country has done all kinds of things wrong and hidden behind that flag. No one says a thing."

Well, he's sure saying some things.

Carey has come to New York to make a few TV appearances, and he's been given a room in one of the city's most upscale, cutting-edge hotels. The bellhops wear space-age headsets. The hotel restaurant has a high-tech waterfall and charges $11 for a bowl of soup. For the unpretentious, sneaker-wearing Carey, it's all annoyingly phony. "The hotel's theme seems to be 'Nothing will be normal.'" he says. "They have grass growing out of the bench by the elevator, so you can't sit on it. They've got inspirational sayings on the bedsheets: 'Run with strength.' Meanwhile, nothing works. A lightbulb is missing on my lamp. I couldn't figure out where to plug in the TV. The toilet-paper roll keeps falling off. The balcony door won't close. That's the whole hotel: looks nice, can't use it."

Carey prefers the more genuine parts of America, like the blue-collar neighborhoods in his hometown of Cleveland. He speaks lovingly of bowling alleys, chain restaurants and the $1.50 soup he gets in diners. Middle America returns his affection. When he did location shooting in Cleveland, where his sitcom is set, "it was insane," says Kathy Kinney, who plays his garish nemesis, Mimi. "There were mobs of people who just wanted to touch him."

Pre-fame, Carey moved from Cleveland to Las Vegas, where he was a waiter at Denny's. "Vegas is the most honest town. They're very upfront about what they do. And if you lose [at casinos], they don't accept your blues, man. I like that."

Carey's blues have been well-documented: When he was 8, his dad died of a brain tumor. A year later, Drew was sexually molested by someone he has never identified. He hit his teens suffering from depression and twice tried to commit suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. Self-help books and stand-up comedy became his salvation. He talks of the positive byproducts that came from the worst moments of his life. The suicide attempts left him unafraid of what anyone thinks of him. He says that has allowed him great freedom to be true to himself.

Having told no one about the molestation, he was relieved and proud of himself when he revealed his secret in 1997. "It's not something to be ashamed of. It shouldn't be talked about in hushed tones or behind closed doors. The way to take the shame away is to talk openly and not make a big deal about it. That's what I try to do, and people tell me they're glad. They say I'm taking some of the stigma away."

He has some awful memories of his dad's illness -- his father had an eye removed because of the tumor -- but Carey prefers to remember the funnier, "sad sack" stories. He tells about the time his father got drunk with buddies, threw up out of a car and lost his false teeth. His dad tried to place a newspaper lost-and-found ad, but the phone clerk couldn't understand him when he said, "I lost my teef."

He recalls one year when his dad was out of work and sold Christmas trees at a gas station. Every night, he came home and told his wife sales were terrible. "Turned out sales were great. He'd give her enough for rent and food, and he was pocketing the rest for beer." Carey proudly chuckles over his father's chicanery, but he knows there's a more serious subtext.

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Mike Karz, an executive producer of Geppetto, says Carey was drawn to the TV movie because "there are issues Drew connects with. Losing his father is part of it. Pinocchio lost his father." Geppetto, a toymaker, created a child out of wood to ease his loneliness. "Drew identified with the idea of a man who works hard all day making toys and providing tremendous joy to others," says Karz. "Yet at the end of the day, everybody's gone. Drew is a guy who works extremely hard, millions watch and laugh, but at the end of the day, the set is empty."

Carey says he's in no hurry to marry and have children. But he hopes Geppetto turns out to be a Disney classic that will last for generations. While filming, he told colleagues he'd like to think his children and grandchildren will one day watch it. "He's a very committed person," says Jim Pentecost, the movie's other executive producer. "He'd be a very good father. He's got a real heart."

Calling him "real" may be the greatest compliment you can give Drew Carey.

Jeffrey Zaslow is a Chicago Sun-Times columnist.
Photograph by Deborah Feingold for USA WEEKEND
Styling by Randi Packard/Tiffany Whittford

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A younger, hipper Geppetto

A single dad learns how to love his little wooden boy. That's the story of Geppetto (Sunday, 7 p.m. ET, ABC), and while Drew Carey was filming the TV movie, he figured the heart-touching story would appeal to at least one demographic niche: "The whole time, I was thinking, 'Oh, a lot of single mothers are gonna be after me!' "

In Geppetto, Carey displays vulnerability, warmth, pain -- and a great talent for singing and dancing. "People will be quite surprised by how different he is from his sitcom persona," says Tom Moore, the movie's director. Adds former Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who plays the wish-granting fairy in Geppetto: "The guy can hoof!"

Carey was cast after producers saw him dance on his sitcom. "We didn't want to do the gray-haired, kindly-old-man version of Geppetto," says executive producer Mike Karz. "Our story is hipper and more comedic." Carey took singing lessons and logged extra weekend rehearsals to fine-tune his dance numbers.

Carey was moved by Geppetto's flaws. "He wants to be a father so badly, but he doesn't know how. He made this child thinking that would be the answer to his problems and he'd have love in his life. But he had to learn how to be a father. It's a love story."