So much of Larry David's actual life has been written into Curb Your Enthusiasm. As he did with Jerry Seinfeld when creating Seinfeld, Larry has found comedic gems within his own life to mine. This includes a very real love/hate relationship with comedian Richard Lewis that's featured heavily on the HBO sitcom.
Richard is among the many famous faces who have come on the show as warped versions of themselves. Some big celebrities cameo as fictitious characters, but the best ones are almost always playing themselves. And one celebrity in particular REALLY didn't want to come on...
Who Was The Hardest Cameo To Book?
During his 2017 interview on The Rich Eisen sports show, Larry was asked about which celebrity was the hardest to book on Curb Your Enthusiasm. At first, Rich seemed to think that legendary author and fatwa-victim Salmon Rushdie was the hardest to book. After all, Salmon comes with a security risk and is a respected intellectual. But Larry said that Salmon was fairly easy to book for an episode during the season of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which a fatwa (an Islamic law calling for the death of an individual) is called against Larry. The truth was, Salmon was a big fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm and had met Larry on a couple of occasions. So, he was just a phone call away.
What about all the big celebrities on the show, such as Elizabeth Banks, Bryan Cranston, Ben Stiller, Melissa McCarthy, Stephen Colbert, Martin Scorsese, John Legend, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ricky Gervais, Michael J. Fox, or Lin Manuel-Miranda? They must have been hard to schedule and convince to come on the show?
Nope.
Not even former New York City mayor, former presidential candidate, and billionaire philanthropist Michael Bloomberg was as hard to book as...
Bill Buckner.
Baseball Legend Bill Buckner Took Some Major Convincing... Here's Why...
In reality, the hardest celebrity cameo for Larry David to get on Curb Your Enthusiasm was baseball legend, Bill Buckner. A lot of this had to do with the fact that he was best known for the Red Sox October Error; a moment where Bill repeatedly was unable to catch a ball that cost the Red Sox 1986 Red Sox. In fact, to the day he died in 2019, Bill was best-known for this massive sports fumble. Luckily, he was able to poke a little fun at himself and his negative reputation on Curb Your Enthusiasm, particularly when he was able to catch a baby thrown from a burning building.
Still, getting the man behind The October Error to cameo on Curb was a big ask...
"I called Bill and I was very nervous about that call," Larry David said on The Rich Eisen Show. "I was so desperate to do that [episode]. I love that episode."
In the episode, Susie (played by the well-paid Susie Essman) asks Larry to get a Mookie Wilson autograph for her husband, Jeff. While trying to get the signature from the baseball legend, Larry befriends Bill Buckner who is having a hard time shedding his negative baseball reputation. Larry, always loving to stand up for the underdog, tries to ingratiate Bill with society, but things repeatedly backfire until the climactic moment when Bill catches the baby thrown from the burning building.
"[Bill] didn't want to do [the episode] at first. I really had to stay on the phone with him and he had to think about it. And then I had to send it to him to read."
It ended up taking a little bit of bribery for Larry to secure Bill on the show. After finding out that Bill's daughter was an actor, he offered her a part in the show.
"I think when I offered that... The Quid Pro Quo."
How The Ending Of The Episode Was Changed For Bill
But how could Bill turn down a chance at altering public perception of his notorious mistake? However, as Larry told Rich Eisen, the choice to have Bill catch the baby and come off as a hero almost never came to be...
"There was a draft where he dropped the baby."
"Are you serious! How could you not keep that?" Rich Eisen laughed.
"I couldn't do it. I knew it was funny but... You know, it was hilarious, him dropping the baby. Okay? That was hilarious. But I couldn't do it," Larry said of the ending. "The [alternative ending] made me cry a little bit. When he caught the baby. And so... we had to redeem him."
Finally, Larry did claim that Bill was a "fantastic guy".
"One of the greatest guys I've ever met," Larry admitted.
At the very least, he came across as one of the most gracious celebrity cameos in Curb's history. It takes a lot to parody yourself like that.