By: Tom Duggan – August, 2018
The Queen of Comedy Christine Hurley is making a rare stop in Lawrence this month at Salvatore’s restaurant in Lawrence on Friday August 24th.
The Valley Patriot caught up with our old friend Christine for a quick interview about her local appearance.
Tell people who Christine Hurley is?
“Well first, I want to say how much I love Mike Agricola the owner of Salvatore’s. He’s such a great guy and when I had the chance to come back to Sal’s I jumped at the opportunity if for no other reason but to see Michael again.”
“But, who is Christine Hurley? I’m a mother of five, married to my firefighter husband for 30 years. I’ve always been told I’m funny my whole life but I never thought for a minute that I would have a career in comedy. But, if you keep your eyes on the prize and work hard, things happen and I fell into it almost by mistake.”
Christine says she did the “Funniest Mom in America” 20 years ago and it started her on the road to being such a big name in comedy. My husband and I drove to New York and auditioned for ‘Funniest Mom’ for Nick at Night. There were 1,100 people auditioning and I ended up being the first runner-up. It was my very first time on stage and I wasn’t nervous at all because I had no expectations. I had never done it before so it was organic. As soon as I got on stage, though, I knew this was for me; I loved it.”
Christine says she went back to her “regular life” for a couple of years after that but got calls from people who had seen her on ‘Funniest Mom’
“I didn’t have an established name in comedy. But, I was lucky. I started to do live shows in Plymouth. We have a friend who owns a restaurant and my husband asked him if I could do comedy, so they gave me my own room and I got very successful because we had lots of friends come and cheer me on. It happened really fast and soon we brought in big names like Lenny Clarke who saw me perform and took it from there.”
“They were all wonderful to me and they helped me. Johnny Pizzi he saw me ten years ago and he said ‘I’m going to make you a star!’ and God love him, he kept his word.”
“Right now, I’m on the ‘Food Network’ as a contestant on “The Great Food Truck Race” that’s airing right now. I went to California for 6 weeks in March and it’s airing now.”
Hurley was a member of an all-star pack of nationally famous comedians at Boston Garden three years ago for “Comics Come Home”. “It was unbelievable, working with Dennis Leary was awesome, working with all of them was awesome. Dennis has been very supportive of me and given me a lot of work, he’s a really good guy.
Last summer Hurley had her name in lights in Las Vegas and was in Montreal for the “Just for Laughs Comedy Festival”.
“I saw Lenny (Clarke) played at Salvatore’s last month. I love Salvatore’s and I love Lenny. That must have been a great show. He and I work together four nights a week. We are a great team and we’re pretty good apart too.” she said laughing.
“We have a very similar energy. He’s also been so good to me, and a great supporter. He helps me a lot. I mean, you could pinch me, if I ever could have thought five year ago that I would be working with Lenny Clarke.”
Hurley says her success is mainly due to her firefighter husband. “Jimmy Hurley is fabulous about all this comedy stuff. He loves it. I met him when I was 16 at a house party and told my friends ‘I said stick a fork in him, I was going to have to fake a pregnancy to get him. He works his ass for me, he loves every show – there’s no jealousy there at all, he’s very proud of me.”