Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Pillow talks: Former model isn’t posing as a comic

If anyone knows how to take a joke, it's Honour Pillow.

Since her childhood in the small town of Addyston, Ohio, the comedian says she's received plenty of ribbing about her unusual name.

"The funny thing is, people always think they're being original -- 'On her pillow, ha, ha, ha.' They really think they're the first ones who've come up with that," concedes Pillow, who headlines "Laughs at The Beach" Saturday at The Beach nightclub.

"The name itself is funny," she concedes. "People get a kick out of it. I'm sure they think it's a stage name."

Alas, it is the one printed on her birth certificate. She says her mother, Deborah Pillow, "wasn't really thinking about the whole first and last names together" when she christened her three daughters Spring Starr, Myriah and Honour. Instead, "She really just wanted our names to be symbolic."

In fact, Honour's name was inspired by actress Honor Blackman, star of the 1964 James Bond flick "Goldfinger."

"Essentially, I'm named after Pussy Galore," Pillow explained recently from her East Las Vegas home.

Deborah Pillow is also responsible for Honour's first foray into comedy: Her daughter began telling jokes while competing in beauty pageants as a teenager.

"I didn't have a talent for my talent competition, and my mom just thinks I'm so hysterical ... so it was her idea for me to do comedy," Honour says. "Of course, I was like, 'There's no way I'm gonna do this,' but I did a couple of impressions and I actually ended up placing in the talent competition."

Two years later, at age 17, the statuesque beauty signed a modeling contract and moved to New York City, where she strutted fashion runways as a sports-fitness model.

"The entire time I was modeling I was like, 'Well, this isn't what I thought it would be,' " she recalls. "All I wanted to do was make funny faces in the camera and eat -- for God's sake, have a cheeseburger. So it was just not a good fit for me at all."

She says she realized supermodel stardom wasn't in her future during a 2000 "weigh-in" session. Agency execs "made the comment that if I proceeded on the same track, that I would be referred to the plus-size division of the agency," she explains. "If you're not rail-thin at 6-foot-1, you're pretty much considered a plus-size model if you're over a size 8."

Soon after, Pillow appeared in a "very, very humiliating catalog" filled with clothing for large women. "Right in the middle of my picture it says 'plus size.' And that was it, I was over it. That was the end."

In 2001, after researching the comedy industry, Pillow moved to Chicago, where she trained at the renowned Second City and ImprovOlympic theaters. It wasn't long before she discovered that working off the cuff was not her cup of tea.

"When I got onstage and had to be open and share with other people, that's when I realized that I should be doing stand-up," she says. "In improv, you have to be very open and you have to be very selfless, and in stand-up you can just have the whole stage to yourself and you don't have to rely on anyone ... It's a lot less frightening to me than improv."

Pillow worked the Windy City's open-mike scene before landing some steady paid gigs, along with shows in neighboring states. She claims to have encountered "a lot of angry male comics" along the way, particularly in Chicago.

"I wasn't established yet and just kind of coming in wet behind the ears and they weren't too friendly, so that was really tough for me to break through," she recalls. "It was really hard for me to continue to go to the open mikes and have these men that I'd see every single week not speak to me, not acknowledge me as a comic. But I kept going on."

Looking to further her career, she says she initially pondered moving to Los Angeles but settled on Las Vegas, where she moved a little more than a year ago.

"I knew it takes a long time to develop as a stand-up and I didn't want to jump into something and be in over my head" in L.A., she explains. "I knew the scene (in Las Vegas) wasn't particularly booming, but I knew that I would have an advantage because I'm coming in with some experience."

Pillow estimates she performs about three times a week between area open-mike events, the "Laughs at The Beach" shows and other gigs. Last year she won a comedy competition sponsored by Family Digest magazine, based on her prowess for telling "Yo' mama" jokes. "I know a lot of them," she says.

In her act, the 27-year-old comedian talks about the awkwardness of being a tall woman. "It's something I was insecure about, of course, growing up and being so much taller than the boys, so the only way for me to get over it was to joke about it, make light of it."

She also tackles her experiences being raised in "an all-white town, growing up with Jessicas and Sarahs and Amys, and here we are these three nappy-headed, bi-racial children," says Pillow, whose mother is white and father, Kenneth, is black. "There's a lot of comedy in there."

Her former days as a fashionista have also produced plenty of comedy fodder, including a song parody sung to the disco tune "I Will Survive." Modeling, she says, is "one of the funniest things in my life."

Though she's no linger striking poses, Pillow hasn't emerged entirely from the fashion world: She works as a makeup artist for Bobbi Brown cosmetics, applying products to shoppers at Saks Fifth Avenue at Fashion Show mall.

"I write comedy just from watching all the women walk through" the store, she says.

Look for Pillow to put down her eye shadow applicators and powder puffs in the not-too-distant future: She and longtime boyfriend John Meister intend to sell the condo they share and purchase a camper in which to travel the country chasing Pillow's comedy dreams.

"I wanna get down and dirty with it," she says. "I wanna have the experience of being on the road."

Out for laughs

Ray Romano, fresh off the "Everybody Loves Raymond" finale earlier this week, headlines The Mirage's Danny Gans Theatre at 9 tonight and 10:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $90 plus tax.

James P. Connolly, profiled in Laugh Lines in January, e-mailed with news that he's headed back to Iraq in early June to entertain troops as part of the "Comics on Duty Tour." The shows will be similar to those he performed there late last year. Before going into comedy, Connolly was a Marine Corps officer who served in the region during Operation Desert Storm.

Catch funny guy Dane Cook -- who is set to perform July 2 alongside Comedy Central star Dave Attell at House of Blues at Mandalay Bay -- tonight on NBC's "Last Call with Carson Daly" (1:35 a.m., Channel 3).

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