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“Live, From New York, It's... Louis Klein!”

Diehard Saturday Night Live fan finds a life, of sorts, on line

  stephaniemk@nyu.edu

Camping out in front of Manhattan’s Rockefeller Plaza in the shivery predawn for a shot at standby tickets to the taping of “Saturday Night Live” is a durable Saturday wee-hours tradition.

But one stalwart stands - well, sits - above the rest.

Holding court from his blue metallic walker in the chill wind, Louis Klein - the unofficial “line-enforcer” - lets you know that he’s been to 559 shows, starting with the first, on Oct. 11, 1975. This means that the 60-year-old Klein, who was born with cerebral palsy, has missed only about 80 shows.

“I’ve been doing some calculations, and I think Louis has been to more shows than [SNL producer] Lorne Michaels,” says a fellow standby-line guy, six-timer Kyle Connolly, in respectful awe.

Klein’s enduring romance with the comedy show began a few months before its 1975 premiere, when he read about it in the paper. He managed to be in the audience for the first show, hosted by George Carlin and featuring musical guests Janis Ian and Billy Preston. Klein was hooked.

“Well, it was a lot of fun to go,” he says, chuckling. “If you went to something like that, wouldn’t you want to do it again - and again and again?”

SNL even brought real romance into Klein’s life. He met his future wife, Jamie, online in 1999, after they’d exchanged e-mails about their mutual love of the show. When he learned that Jamie also had a disability - she was born without ears, and uses hearing aids - he felt an immediate connection.

“Our similar challenges caused a bonding of our friendship,” he says. Jamie moved from Denver to Queens, where Klein lives, and they married in 2001.

A contingent from NBC Guest Relations came to the wedding. Of course the couple invited the cast, too – but, they were busy taping a Mother’s Day special. Still, Klein said, “SNL gave us a six-minute video of congratulations from the cast and staff, including Lorne Michaels.”

Jamie regularly camps out on the line alongside her husband, though both have been granted permanent tickets to the show by the network.

To the mostly-youthful fans who participate in the standby ritual, Klein is a celebrity in his own right.

“He doesn’t even have to wait in the standby line anymore, but he does anyway,” says Kyle Connolly. “He sort of takes care of the line, makes sure no one’s cutting—the NBC pages really trust him.”

The page in charge of monitoring the line and doling out tickets, NBC’s Tom Reilly, readily gives Klein his due.

“Many of the pages and ticket coordinators have gotten to know him well over the years,” says Reilly. “If he lets us know about someone who is not following the rules of the standby line, we completely trust him. He also often helps us to direct the people to the correct line, which is always helpful since it gets very crowded during check-in.”

With a fan’s passion, Klein explains why he takes his unofficial post so seriously: “It’s only fair that people get their proper place in line. Because if more people jump the line, then other people might not be able to get their shot at getting in.” When Klein informs an NBC page of a line-jumper, that person will no longer be eligible for tickets.

Klein calls the line “a social event” where new friends can bond over everything SNL while they wait for the tickets to be given out at 7 a.m. As daylight nears, the line only gets longer. Sometimes it stretches for five or six blocks.

Naturally, being the line-enforcer has its special perks, in addition to that “reserved” seat. Klein is on a first-name basis with the show’s cast, many of whom stop to chat. And he’s met his fair share of celebrities - so many, he admits, that he hardly gets star-struck anymore.

There are exceptions, of course. He excitedly recalls an SNL episode on November 12, 2006, when a carefully orchestrated surprise appearance by Beatle Paul McCartney “shocked the living daylights” out of host Alec Baldwin. The Kleins were invited to speak with McCartney after the show. “For both of us, it was a moment to remember,” he said. “And it will be a highlight of our lives forever.”

But it’s not just about superstar sightings and perks for Louis Klein. It’s about the more than 33 years of hanging out with SNL diehards on a line snaking through midtown while the rest of the city sleeps. Some might term him “a wild and crraaaaaazy guy!” for subjecting himself to the hassles and the elements when he no longer has to. But Klein declares he’s there for the long haul. “Standby?” he says. “This is half the fun - it really is.”

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