(Brandon Kruse/The Palm Beach Post)

More: Movie listings for ‘New Years Eve’

There are many fantasy scenarios in which a performer gets that big break in show business. Screaming profanities over the phone at famed director Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman) is probably not a popular one.

But that’s the way it happened for Sarge, the single-monikered Boynton Beach comedian whose upbeat brand of humor sets him apart from other stand-ups.

As he recalls it, “I get a call from someone that says (adopts Marshall’s famously nasal Bronx-ese) ‘Hello Mister!’ And I was like ‘Who the f—– is this?’ I thought it was my friend Rich. But he said, ‘Who answers the phone like this? How rude are you?’ “

But they kept talking and all of a sudden Marshall has an offer for Sarge.

“He said, ‘I’m doing a movie in New York. You wanna come to New York?’ I said ‘I’d love to,’ and he said ‘Don’t come. I’ll bring you. The difference is if I bring you, you don’t have to pay.’ “

And now Steve Pickman, who is known by his childhood nickname Sarge, is about to get his biggest break with the release Friday of Marshall’s new movie, New Year’s Eve.

It’s a star-studded romantic comedy about the lives of impossibly pretty people like Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, Ashton Kutcher, Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Zac Efron and others that no one honestly believes have a problem getting a New Year’s date.

Into this pretty madness comes Sarge, a handsome, freckle-faced guy who plays Monty, the bodyguard of Bon Jovi’s character and a funny voice of reason.

“Sarge is a big talent, and I know he’s going to be a big star,” Marshall says via email. “He’s funny, a great singer, and plays the piano, he can do it all! He always made us laugh on the set. He’s transitioning right now from night- club entertainer to film actor, and I’m proud to be a part of it!”

It all began out in L.A., where Sarge appeared as comic relief at a star-studded Hollywood tribute to actor Lou Gossett Jr. During the event, Marshall made a point of going over and introducing himself to all of the performers… except for Sarge.

Disappointed but undeterred, Sarge got Marshall’s address “and Fed-Exed him a note saying I was a real fan,” he says.

Then came the call that Sarge thought was his buddy pranking him. Until Sarge figured out who it was and began apologizing profusely.

“But (Marshall) told me, ‘I saw your show, and I’ve been in this business for 60 years and worked with all the comics. What are you so happy about? I never met a happy comedian. They’re all depraved people. Audiences are usually 2,000 miserable Jewish people. We need more happy.’ “

Marshall told him that he was so inspired by that happiness that he’d written a part specifically for him, to play Bon Jovi’s friend. That role expanded into real life: “By the time we finished the movie I was finishing his sentences,” Sarge says. “I feel we became friends.”

Where does Sarge get his positive shtick? “I like making people happy,” he says. “I do a lot of shows for older folks, and they wake up every morning with aches and pains. I’m the fresh air.”

If Sarge is the happy comedian, he’s seen his share of sadness along the way. His road to stardom winds through sports broadcasting, modeling agencies, homelessness and addiction, friendship, family, recovery and accidentally telling off Whitney Houston.

Steve Pickman was born in Miami, the biological son of a Jewish girl and an African-American man she’d had a fling with. He was adopted by a couple from New York, who only knew that his birth mom was Jewish. The older he got, the more obvious it became that his birth father was not, which didn’t mean the subject was addressed.

“I had a close-cropped Afro,” he says. “But they were in denial. I was taken to Great Neck, the Boca of New York. It’s an arrogant, wealthy suburb. I was olive-colored and… other people were telling me I was a half-breed. They used to sing that Cher song at me, make watermelon jokes, and I didn’t understand. I was at an all-white Episcopalian prep school, the only Jew. It’s the kind of place where everyone had seven names.”

His love of performing started early, when he learned piano at 3. Sarge’s grandfather, who had arranged the adoption, instilled in him a love of comedy, taking him to the famed Grossinger’s Hotel in the Catskills to see Don Rickles and other funny guys. He tried acting, and was accepted at the Lee Strasberg Institute, “but I was too miserable about myself. You have to have some self-esteem and self-confidence, and I got caught up in that.”

Meaning of nickname

He’d started going by Sarge, a nickname he was given playing football in at Boston College, before transferring to Emory University in Atlanta, “because I was so loud. I loved it because somebody liked me enough to give me a nickname. I belonged.”

Unfortunately, he picked up something else in college – a pot habit. He wound up not graduating at all, having already started working at a series of modeling agencies including Elite and Wilhelmina.

The latter gig ended when a model he’d never heard of called to cancel several months of lucrative bookings because she was making her debut album.

“I said, ‘Oh, please.’ Out loud I said, ‘It’s another stupid model who thinks she’s gonna be a singer.’”

Whitney Houston went on to be, indeed, a heck of a singer, and Sarge went on to be unemployed. Undeterred, he founded his own company, Punch, at the age of 24. With his success came clubbing, cocaine and a parting of ways with his partners. His success came at a high price.

“I had an unlimited expense account and a drug problem,” he says plainly.

Sarge began working for CBS Sports, but eventually lost that job and wound up literally homeless. No one knew because he was still wearing the suits he’d worn for his CBS job, and was scamming showers in friends’ homes by saying he’d missed his train and wanted to freshen up – “All kinds of lies.”

Drugs take toll

He also admits, without hesitation, that he was helping himself to those friends’ possessions. In fact, on Christmas Day 1990, he had made a return visit to a friend preparing to see what else was available to take – “I had taken his jewelry and sold it, including some heirloom watches. He said ‘Would you have happened to have seen my watches? And I said, ‘As a matter of fact, I took them.’ “

Instead of calling the cops or kicking him out, his friend said ” ‘Let’s get you some help.’ And 24 hours later I was in a rehab center in Delray. All I did was one prayer for my obsession with drugs to be removed, and the next morning, it was over. I didn’t have the desire to drink or do drugs,” he says. “I was in treatment 42 days and then a halfway house in Lantana.”

After “one last stab at sports broadcasting” working behind the scenes at ESPN, “a friend said ‘Why don’t you be a comedian? You’re the funniest guy I know.’ So I did all the worst open mic nights, going out seven nights a week to find stage time,” he says.

Eventually, he did a showcase night at the comedy club Caroline’s, where he killed, and got signed with William Morris Agency. He started opening for musicians like Natalie Cole, the Temptations, Paul Anka and others and got a sidekick gig on Fox Sports radio.

Met wife on cruise ship

But after Fox wanted to reduce his contract, he started doing cruise ships. He met his second and current wife, Anya, on one when she worked in the ship’s boutique. They now have a 3-year-old son named Zander.

“After I’d been this close in L.A., I said ‘I’m gonna move to Florida where I got sober, and be around normal people, and if anything wonderful is supposed to happen it’s gonna happen there,’” Sarge says. “It’s ironic that I first dedicated my life to drugs and alcohol, then to being sober rather than to making something of myself in show business.

“My idol Alan King, when he was dying of cancer, told me ‘I wasn’t much of a father, or a husband, because I was so busy being Alan King. And you never get any do-overs on those other things.’ “

And Sarge, who had tried to make it in Hollywood before, learned how to do it by not trying.

“I had to let go the idea that I was going to be this big star in Hollywood. I never got anything because I auditioned so badly,” he says. “I had to grow up and be a really good guy, not just say I was. It’s amazing the little things that just happen.”