Compiled Transcripts—Lillian’s Childhood(Transcribing and chronologically arranging project interviews as I have them)
First up: Glenn Martin—May 5, 4:00 p.m. ET—Zoom call
BACKGROUND: Martin is Lillian’s older brother—nine years Lillian’s senior, he still lives in Canada, about ten miles from their childhood home (both parents have died).
Madeline: Thanks so much for taking the time, Glenn. As I mentioned in my email, I’m hoping to get a holistic sense of your sister, who she was before joining The Midnight Show. Do you want to just start from the early days? As far back as you can remember would be great.
Glenn Martin: Okay, sure. Well, Lillian and I grew up in Bradville, small town here in Ontario. Rural Canada—we’re not talking Toronto. Our dad had been the local doctor for a long time. Our mom was a homemaker. She had a master’s in poetry, so she was no slouch brainwise, but she gave all that up when she got married. And I was a good deal older than Lillie, nine years. I think she was a bit of a happy surprise. Mom was already, I think, gosh, forty-two when she had her, so they were older parents for sure by the time Lillian came around. I don’t know if that affected her in a negative way. If that was what made her kind of . . . how do I put this?
Lillie was funny. And by funny, I don’t mean in the sense of comedy, although clearly she was quite a funny lady later on. But, you know, as a child, she was an odd duck. She spent a lot of time by herself. A lot. She had this big old walk-in closet in her bedroom, which used to be a storage pantry. We used to find her in there with the door shut, paperback books stacked all around, and sort of . . . talking to herself.
I don’t mean to make it sound like she was crazy or anything like that. I think she just enjoyed her own company more than anybody else’s. And growing up, truth be told, she didn’t have a whole lot of friends. It was never a worry—she wasn’t unpopular, did after-school activities like chess club. I think she did that through high school, actually. Competitions and everything. And then there was 4-H.
Madeline: 4-H, the farming club? Was she an animal lover?
Glenn Martin: Absolutely. We weren’t allowed to have pets—our parents weren’t up for that—so there you go. Yeah, so she was active enough, sociable to some extent, but I don’t think she ever had a boyfriend or anything like that. She’d go to the dances with a date, but you never got the sense it was anything serious, just sort of a friend of a friend.
I don’t think Lillie even kept in touch with anybody from home after she left for college. By the time she was old enough for me to get to know her, I wasn’t home a whole lot, living in Ottawa, you know, so we never formed much of a bond. And she wasn’t real close with our parents either. As long as she was doing all right, getting good grades, keeping out of trouble, then they were happy to let her do what she wanted to do and not ask a lot of questions.
Madeline: Would you say she was someone who kept secrets?
[He shifts, pausing for a while before answering.]
Glenn Martin: She must have been. From the very beginning. And, I mean, gosh, it was all secrets in the end, wasn’t it?
Notes
Sam Petrosian—May 12, 2:00 p.m. ET—Zoom call
BACKGROUND: Sam met Lillian in college and starred alongside her on The Midnight Show before moving on, in typical ’80s funny guy fashion, to write or act in nearly every major comedy blockbuster for the next two decades. Neighborhood Cops, Parent Pains I and II, all five of the Demon Squad movies.
Now he’s almost seventy—a little less aw-shucks “boy next door,” more “Get off my lawn.” The trademark floppy hair is pure gray, the dimples deepened by wrinkles, but he still has residual charm. Unlike some of the noted womanizers in the first TMS class (see: Kent Romero), Sam always came across as remarkably grounded despite his good looks. Of course, that could just be the image he’s best at selling.
Madeline: You and Lillian were close long before TMS. Did you two ever talk about her childhood?
Sam Petrosian (TMS cast member, 1980–1983): Not often, but, you know, over the years, Lillian did tell me enough to paint the most charmingly eccentric picture. She had a pantry, her own personal cubby, and she’d store herself in there as if it were an imagination chamber. She used to go on all the time about how much she missed that pantry, wished she had one in New York. I always pictured Canadian kitsch, Anne of Green Gables surrounded by jars of preserves, heavens to Betsy, gingham ribbons in her hair. Lillie was as stubborn as Anne Shirley, I’ll tell you that much. There were moments she’d have broken a slate or two over my head.
I know she held on to a lot of guilt about her parents. She was distant from them and blamed herself for it, like she needed to make more of an effort to pretend to be the sort of human being they would prefer to have as a daughter. Never a question of whether they could have been warmer human beings to her, but I never pressed her on it. We didn’t have that kind of relationship. I absorbed every word she said as holy writ and nodded along comfortingly. I suppose the more charitable description of that dynamic is that I gave her space. Maybe I should have questioned Lillian more over the years, now that I look back on everything. I don’t know.
I think despite not being particularly, let’s say, cherished by her family, Lillian did grow up sheltered. Wide-eyed, but not in some Christian Coalition way. She was more like a being from an alternate dimension who’d accidentally slipped into our world, and every single thing was new to her. The good and the bad. I’m not sure she was ever fully able to tell the difference between the two. But then it’s not exactly my strong suit either.
Glenn Martin: By the time college rolled around, Lillie was raring to get out of Bradville and never look back. I mean, she left the durn country, so that tells you something. She went to Boston University. I don’t think our folks necessarily knew that she’d even applied there, but she got a scholarship and went off to study French—that’s what she told us, anyway. She’d won a bunch of awards for her French in high school, didn’t do drama or anything like that. So when she’s down in Massachusetts for college and, you know, we find out that she’s in these comedy shows, it came a bit out of left field. We thought, “What? No. You’re talking about a different Lillian Martin!”
There was a big old disconnect, no doubt about it. We thought she wanted to become a professor. You know, after everything that happened, all the press about her lifestyle, the partying or what have you, Mom really beat herself up. She kept rehashing Lillian’s whole life over and over again, saying, “Was she lying to us, starting from when she was a kid?” Not just the acting but, you know, doing drugs, drinking? I don’t think that was the case back home, I really don’t, but . . . there was obviously this hidden side to her all along.
There’s a lot we’re never really gonna understand about Lillie. No chance of figuring it out now. Or maybe there is, if you’re writing this article. Who knows.
Compiled Transcripts—Lillian’s “Townies” Era
Madeline: So how did the Townies first start? Was Lillian there from the very beginning?
Sam Petrosian: No, not at all. It started with me and Stevie Doyle, who I assume you’ve spoken to as well?
Madeline: I wrote him a few times, but he hasn’t responded.
Sam Petrosian: I could see Stevie being a little wary of talking about Lillian.
Madeline: I’m sensitive to that. I know it’s a difficult subject.
Sam Petrosian: It’s not that, it’s . . . Stevie carries around so much baggage these days, he’s practically a bellhop. I’ll get him to write you back.
But you asked about the Townies! Without boring you with too many personal details, I grew up outside Boston, went to middle school and high school with Stevie. At first, we were more what the kids call “frenemies.” We competed to be the preeminent class clown, which our teachers did not appreciate at the time. Later, we worked on the school paper together, and very quickly grew bored, so on the weekends, we put together a satirical alternate newspaper lampooning the teachers and administration. We nearly got expelled over that one.
Stevie was the better student of the two of us, but I was the one who could actually get a date, believe it or not. Now, Kent [Romero] likes to paint me and Stevie as working-class heroes, just so he can seem more “of the people” by association, but the truth is, we’re both from middle-class households. We went to college with minimal financial aid, let’s put it that way. We just weren’t international jet-setter children like Kent “We’re Not Rich, We’re Comfortable” Romero.
Copyright © 2026 by Lee Kelly. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
