"So I wanted everything to cease, and I wanted to throw the dice." Steve Martin, overdosed on success, threw his dice and what a number he rolled: the lead in "Pennies from Heaven." In this MGM tragi‑musical, which zigzags from doomed darkness to dreamy fantasies, Martin plays Arthur Parker, a song‑sheet salesman, who lies and cheats, sings and dances ‑ who does just about everything, in fact, but act funny. For a man who rose to stardom through comedy, he was clearly taking the biggest risk of his career. 

It was a role Martin worked hard to get. He had to learn dramatic acting ‑ from the director, Herbert Ross ‑ and take tap‑dancing lessons for months, well into the production of the film. He had to accept what amounted to a year's retirement from, to put it mildly, a wildly successful comedy career. And he even had to butt up against his own friend and manager, Bill McEuen. "I just think he shouldn't be doing a dramatic role at this point," McEuen said, a few weeks before the movie opened. "I would've been happier if he'd done a couple of more comedies first, then tried something different."

But Steve would not be stopped. Martin had seen "Pennies" in its original form, as a six‑part, nine‑hour television series produced by the BBC in 1976 and shown later in the United States on various PBS stations. "I couldn't believe it," Martin said. "I'll sit there and go, 'This is the greatest thing I've ever seen.' What the movie's about is so common to everything. Arthur's desire to be everything was so simple. You loved her, you got her, you lost her. Pop music now, or in the Sixties, was complicated, but these songs were just, "Here's what life is gonna be.' And that promise has been made to people of our generation as well as to people of Arthur's generation."

Ten days after "Pennies" opened, Martin's mood was a reflection of the film's business ‑ a mixture of disappointment, optimism and caution. Backed by rave reviews, it did well in New York City, but elsewhere, reviews were mixed and business was so‑so. "I'm disappointed that it didn't open as a blockbuster," said Martin, "and I don't know what to blame, other than it's me and not a comedy." About the critics? "I must say that the people who get the movie, in general, have been wise and intelligent; the people who don't get it are ignorant scum."  

When Martin got the role in "Pennies," he was thirty‑six years old and the hottest comedian in the country. His concerts competed with large rock shows, drawing audiences of 25,000 people. Two albums sold more than a million copies each, and a third had the million‑selling single "King Tut." He played Vegas and published a best‑selling book, "Cruel Shoes." All four of his NBC specials have given that beleaguered network something to smile about. And his first full‑length feature film, "The Jerk," grossed $100 million on an investment of some $4.5 million. In fact, it was on the strength of "The Jerk" that Martin was mentioned as a possible Arthur Parker when Herbert Ross began casting "Pennies." Several other actors, among them Al Pachino and Richard Dreyfuss, were sent scripts. But Rock McCallum, executive producer of "Pennies," says most of the actors were put off by the "unsympathetic" nature of the Parker character and by the work the part required.  

When Martin met with Ross and writer Dennis Potter at Martin's home in Beverly Hills, Potter recalls: "Steve started talking about Arthur, what he felt about the part. As he talks ‑ he actually put on a hat and did a tentative dance ‑ he instinctively understood Arthur, and from that moment on, I had no doubt." Ross, who got into film as a choreographer and has directed a few dancers ("The Turning Point" and "Nijinsky" being among his credits), calls Martin "literally the only actor in Hollywood who is equipped to do a musical. There is not one actor who has the skills that he does."

We are at Martin's house in Beverly Hills. From the outside, it looks like a forbidding fortress. But inside, it's sunlit, wide‑open spaces, all white walls (or, more often, half walls or columns with rectangular cutouts) and gray carpeting, with careful, tasteful and clearly professional decorating. Furnishings are mostly contemporary, in greens, roses and maroons. Bookshelves are filled with a substantial library of histories and collections of American art (there are two dozen books on James McNeill Whistler alone), along with leather‑bound scripts from Martin's films and TV specials. It is a house with no clutter, no magazines on the coffee table, no records strewn about (in a cabinet, though, one finds albums by Steely Dan, Kraftwerk, Devo, Mozart and tapes of Thirties music). On the walls hang artwork, both modern and nineteenth century, including a John Henry Twachtman. Martin has been a serious "looker" since college days and a collector since he could afford to be one.

Offstage, with friends or strangers, Steve is, simply, off. He's a cooperative interview, but he doesn't want to talk about fellow comedians, he says, "because all I'm going to say is nice things, and it's going to be so boring." He wants to keep his relationship with Bernadette Peters (costar of "Pennies") private. And the same goes for his art collection. Agonizing over whether to even talk about it, he explains: "As a comedian, I'm willing to trade out my private thoughts about things that are personal to me for space in the magazine, and I'm willing to say dumb things that, six months later, I go, "Why did I say that?" But when it comes to art, which is so personal ‑ and I'm trying to make it part of my personality ‑ I'm not willing to say dumb things about it. I want the freedom to be stupid about it, to learn about it, to think about something I still don't understand. It's like why I'm a vegetarian, I don't know. I can't defend myself, and I don't have to defend myself. It's like the artist doesn't have to explain or justify anything about it. And I think it's important for me to keep that position, for my own personal health.  

But on occasion, Martin the comedian emerges. He notices my scribbling into a notebook. "What're you writing down?" he asks.  

I tell him, "Striped dress shirt, black slacks...."  

"Well," he volunteers, "my shoes are mauve. They're dress shoes, but I want to break them in, so I'm wearing them two hours a day." He chuckles.  

And the socks? 

"Oh, I'm breaking in these socks, too."  

Why did you decide to take such a risk with your career? 

I was asked about that before I went into the project, and there was no hesitation. When I first started doing my act, it was not...normal. It was not what was expected. That's what the public caught onto. And I said, "If I start getting trapped by my own sameness, I'm not doing what they secretly want, which is for me to do what I want to do."  

The last time saw you, you said this movie would be the biggest challenge of your life. Did your expectation come true?  

More than I thought, I was in such a state. I'd been on the road ‑ about seventeen years. But three years really steady, and it was debilitating. You get physically tired, emotionally tired, and start wondering what you're doing.

It got to the point where when I'd do new material, it sounded like old material even to me [puzzled laugh]. And one thing I didn't understand that frustrated me was, I was doing comedy and the audience was doing an event. They were at an event, and I was going, "Wait a minute. This is my little joke. Why are you waving balloons at me during my joke?"  

I needed a break. I wasn't looking for a dramatic role; I didn't know what I was looking for. Then this thing came along, and it was like seeing the perfect circle. You knew you had to enter it.  

After the first weeks of shooting, did you feel confident about your acting, or was there fear?  

[Laughs] I would not allow myself to be afraid. I thought that would really hurt me. I felt I had been through so much. I'd faced 20,000 people in concert, and I refused to be intimidated. I was not easy.  

There's something about the movie that overwhelms me, and it's touching and it's different and I love what it's saying, even though I can't express it. When I was in college ‑ one reason I was in show business is I'd read a poem and think, "God, that thing is beautiful." And I would get in my speech class and read the poem. I wanted to pass it along. The thrill for me is when a sympathetic person watches this film and gets the same feeling I had when I was the BBC version.  

Was your goal always to be in movies?  

Yeah, stand‑up comedy was really just an accident. I was figuring out a way to get onstage. I made up a magic act and, "Hey, I'm in show business," and that led to nightclubs. I felt like a comedian, that was my work. As I got into the movies, I was reminded, "Hey, this is really why I got into show business." I do like the movies. It's so condensed. You get to try and make it right.  

But there's nothing more condensed than a one‑liner to an audience that laughts right back.  

But with movies you've got constantly new material, constant new challenges.

Wasn't it in college (Long Beach State, 1964) that you hit on your particular brand of comedy?  

College totally changed my life. It changed what I believe and what I think about everything. I majored in philosophy. Something about non sequiturs appealed to me. I philosophy I started studying logic, and they were talking about cause and effect, and you start to realize, "Hey, there is no cause and effect! There is no logic! There is no anything!" Then it gets real easy to write this stuff, because all you have to do is twist everything hard ‑ you twist the punch line, you twist the non sequitur so hard away from the things that set I up, that it's easy... and it's thrilling.  

For a while there, you thought about becoming a teacher.  

But then I though, "I can't give up show business." I'd studied philosophy and realized the only true value was accomplishment. So I changed my major, transferred [to UCLA] and went into theater.  

You were already doing some comedy. Where did you first perform onstage?

At this club, the Prison of Socrates, on Balboa Island [near Newport Beach]. It was Hoot Night, and I got up and just threw everything in to try and get fifteen minutes. So I had my magic, and I read poetry and played the banjo, and I juggled. It's exactly what I'm doing now.  

What kind of a response did you get?  

Gosh, I don't know. Part of the things, when you're young and naïve, is that you think you went over when you didn't, and that's what keeps you going. Your desire's so great to do it, you don't just quit.  

How did you meet your manager, Bill McEuen?  

Well, I used to go to high school with his brother, John, and we slowly communicated. We didn't get together, thought, till I started writing for the Smothers Brothers. I was about twenty‑two when we decided to sign a management thing, and neither of us, I swear to God, knew what we were doing. [Dumbstruck voice] "I got a manager now...." I can't believe the intensity of his devotion. He tape‑recorded everything you did back in the early days. Sure. He used to sit out there every night, watch every show, and laugh. And I'd hear his laugh and it's sort of keep[ me going. It was like him and me, kind of cheering each other up. I know I'm dying, he knows I'm dying, and we're laughing about it. For a while you slipped into a hippie look.

How much did it reflect your life?  

Well, I was just going through a stage, like anybody. I was listening to rock music. I smoked some marijuana. That was when I was about twenty. Marijuana's so strange in that you can get a lot of different things from it. When you first start smoking it, you get really high, and then after a while, you just get tired. When I started writing, I quit.  

How did you get the job writing for the Smothers Brothers?  

I had a written a stack of things in college, in creative writing class. I had a girlfriend who was a dancer on the show, and she showed Mason Williams [the show's head writer] my stuff. Mason paid me out of his own pocked at first. After your hippie phase, around 1971.  

You started wearing white suits. How contrived was that?  

It seemed at the time like something really far out. It was planned, and then the white suit became gurulike when I started achieving success. But when I cut my hair, I didn't do it to think, "Well, this will help me out in show business." I just wanted to forget about the past. Even before the white suit, you were doing some strange things, not only in your act but especially after the shows, leading crowds out into the streets and going to McDonald's and ordering 300 hamburgers and one French fry. That's what I had to learn in acting, that it was the degree of your commitment to an idea that made it successful or not. The idea could be wrong, but you must be committed, and that's what I was to the act at the time. All the way. I remember the first time I ever walked out of the hall at the end of the act, and the audience came with me and I had them all get in a swimming pool ‑ which was empty ‑ and then I swam over top to them, and they all put their arms out, and I thought, "Gee, there's a breakthrough! I'm gonna do this every time now." I was that spirit, I think, that caught fire to the rest of my act. I stopped going outside because it got too dangerous. I realized if I go out and take 3000 people someone's gonna get run over. That's when the concerts become "events." But even after that, they were great shows, shows that thrilled me. It was like playing an instrument. The audience was an instrument. I can do this and they'll do this. There was a periods of, like, a year and a half where I felt so good; my body, my fingers, everything was working. When it got beyond that....I don't want sour grapes, like I was selling out 20,000‑seat concerts and was unhappy. I wasn't on one hand. It was the traveling, the circumstances ‑ it just got me. I started doing things like collapsing onstage. It was a signal.  

What about the time you had to go the hospital?  

It was a concert in Knoxville, Tennessee, with about 7000 people in, like, a gymnasium. They were hanging from the rafters. It was about 100 degrees outside and humid, so it must've been 125 degrees onstage. The first five minutes I could feel sweat coming from my hair and running down my face. And the suit got soaked through. And I was about a half‑hour into the act when I realized I couldn't go on. I had to leave. They called the medics and took me to the hospital. It was just exhaustion. I was a wreck.  

How did it affect your performance? Did your act become rote?  

No, that wasn't the problem. My act was always formulated. It's not like you get depressed and go out and do a lousy show. You could be exhausted, and something happens and you're on top of it. That's the enigma of performing. You can be very down and go out there and suddenly feel it. Or be very high and never connect with the audience. I started getting tired when I was getting into the nonconcert situations, like Atlantic City or Las Vegas. I felt something was missing.  

When you began to get a lot of media attention, people tried to explain why you hit when you did. Did you agree with their assessments?

You know, in those articles, I always looked for something larger. I always felt there was a deeper meaning to what I was doing than just being "wild and crazy," something more philosophical. I had a view that there was something funny about trying to be funny. I needed a theory behind it in order to justify it at the time, but now I don't. I see it for what it was. It was just fun, and it was stupid and that's why it was successful. But a lot of stupid comics have failed.  

Why did you succeed?  

It was like everyone was ripe, and I was there and had the act I'd been doing for ten years, and boom, you know? I just think people wanted something new. I mean, I wanted something new, so I sort of became it. You were one the most popular guest hosts of "Saturday Night Live."

Was there an instant chemistry?  

It grew over the years. After a couple of times, it was a lot easier to write for me, and we had things to go to. I was not much of a contributor, except for my monologues. 

When you were invited onto "SNL," did you already know the show?

Sure, I saw the very first show, and I loved it. Saturday Night Live was a huge force. It made movie stars ‑ John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray. They and Richard Pryor and Lily Tomlin and myself were the comedy of the Seventies.  

Do you have plans to work with "SNL" case members in movies?

Oh, I'd love to. We had a project at one point with me, Belushi, and Aykroyd, called The Three Caballeros, but it went the way of a lot of projects. Belushi and Aykroyd and Murray and Laraine [Newman] came on my special [November 25th, 1981, on NBC]. There's a nice camaraderie, but we're not the best friends. Belushi was over here the other night with Don Novello [Father Guido Sarducci], and we sat around, talked and bullshitted. That was fun. You don't get a chance to get real close because... "I'm off!" or they're gone. You know, you really see each other only at rehearsals.  

Do you plan to get back to the stage soon?