by Paul Shaffer
The Fugitives was the band that gave me my first taste of the road. To be sure, the road was abbreviated; it went no farther than nearby Terrace Bay, home of a gigantic Kleenex factory. It was there that our Ricky announced we couldn’t hit the gig until he did what he called his “Triple S”—shower, shave, and shit. Wayne, who was along for the ride, said, “Funky Ricky’s so funky he needs an equipment man to set up his shit.”
Even the term “equipment man” was exotic to me. Everything about music and musicians was exotic. And if the erotic side of this exotic life was slow in coming, I figured there had to be a payoff.
Chapter 10
Sweet, Sweet Connie
Now before I leave you with the idea that I was a perennial loser in all matters sexual, I want you to meet sweet, sweet Connie.
Everyone knew her. My encounter with Connie came at the dawn of the eighties, at a time when I was unattached. If the seventies was the decade of debauchery, Connie, bless her heart, was determined to extend that happy era by offering her services to all those she deemed worthy. And Connie found many in the music biz worthy.
I am, of course, advancing my story—beyond Thunder Bay, beyond my college days and professional beginnings in Toronto and New York City—to a special moment when a group I helped assemble, the Blues Brothers, was on national tour. The genesis of that band will be dramatized for your reading pleasure at a later time in this narrative, including profiles of its stars. But first, Connie.
I met her in Memphis.
The Blues Brothers were on a tear. Our records were selling millions. The first Blues Brothers movie was a smash. In their roles as Jake and Elwood, Belushi and Aykroyd had become rock superstars. We played to standing-room-only crowds in arenas across the country. What had begun as a comedy sketch had turned into a musical phenomenon. The fruit of our success was a succession of groupies who greeted us in every city.
Connie was more than a groupie. She was a specialist. When our caravan rolled into Memphis, we were told that she had driven all the way from Little Rock to meet us. What I didn’t know—but quickly learned—was the etiquette governing her services. While the band members, and especially the stars, were her primary object, tradition dictated that she first win the approval of the crew; then she would be given entrée to the band.
Apparently she won that approval because at 2 a.m., after our show, I heard a knock at my hotel door. I was at the minibar, fixing myself a drink.
“Paul,” she said, “it’s Connie.”
“Delighted to see you,” I said. “Please come in.”
A good-looking woman with a warm and friendly demeanor, Connie knew how to kick off a conversation.
“I loved your sitcom Year at the Top.”
That floored me. I had starred in an unsuccessful situation comedy that ran for only a few episodes. No one knew anything about it. But sweet Connie knew everything about it; she knew details from every episode.
“Would you like a drink?” I asked her.
“Sure.”
I walked back to the minibar to fix her drink, and by the time I turned around, she had slipped out of all her clothes except her high heels and stockings and had spread herself across my bed like a Playboy centerfold. “Praise God!” was the one thought that came to mind. I was so surprised, so delighted, that I spilled my vodka tonic.
“Don’t worry about it, Paul,” she said. “Just get in bed.”
I did as I was told. I soon saw that I was dealing with a master craftswoman. Her attention to detail was exceptional, and she handled her task with both confidence and cunning. I had absolutely no complaints.
When she was through, she said, “You need a Polaroid, Paul.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have a camera, Connie.”
“Next time.”
“I won’t forget,” I said.
Still in bed, she started reminiscing about her past. “I thought the glory days would go on forever,” she said. “I thought Three Dog Night would keep showing up three times a year and the party would rock on forever.”
“As long as we can make it to the show tonight,” I said, quoting Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re an American Band.”
“You know that I’m actually in that song, don’t you?” asked Connie.
“What do you mean?”
She quoted the first verse:
On the road for forty days
Last night in Little Rock put me in a haze
Sweet, sweet Connie, doing her act
She had the whole show and that’s a natural fact
“You’re that Connie?” I asked in amazement. “Yes!”
“My God, you’re royalty.”
She was so pleased with my recognition of her status that she went to work again. This time I felt like I was being knighted.
After the second time around, she got up and started to get dressed.
“You don’t have to leave,” I said.
“I don’t? Everyone always kicks me out when it’s over.”
“I wouldn’t dream of kicking you out. You can stay if you want to.”
“You’re kidding,” she said. “I’m serious.”
“Wow. I usually have to spend the rest of the night banging on doors to see who’ll let me in. Sometimes I just sleep in the laundry room.”
“Stay. Take off those nylon hose with the seams running up the back and the tears in all the right places.”
“Most guys don’t want me to take off my hose.”
“I’m not most guys, Connie. I think you should make yourself comfortable. It’s been a long day for you.”
“You can say that again.”
We fell asleep. The next morning I wasn’t sure of the etiquette and wondered if I could offer her some kind of compensation.
“Oh, no,” said Connie. “This is my calling. It’s my pleasure. I have only one thing to ask of you.”
“And what’s that?”
“Take me on the band plane when you fly off today.”
“I wish I could, but I can’t. Seating is limited.”
“I’ll stay in the bathroom.”
“That wouldn’t be pleasant.”
“Every time the boys had to use the bathroom, they’d be pleasantly surprised.”
“I’m sure they would be, but FAA regulations are stringent. I know you understand.”
“Will I see you on the next tour?”
“If there is a next tour.”
There wasn’t a next tour. But I’ve never forgotten sweet, sweet Connie, a rock-and-roll legend who knew that there was far more to pleasing a man than sex.
Back in the land of my coming of age, sexual liberation was nowhere to be found on the Canadian radar. What could be found, though, was another sort of liberation provided by music. I remember, for example, when I was still in high school, a band called the Vendettas—not to be confused, of course, with Martha and her Vandellas—who hailed from Sault Ste. Marie, a river city in Ontario even smaller than Thunder Bay, and had played Toronto but were stranded in TB. We opened for them when they played our hometown hockey rink. Their lead singer, Keith McKie, could pull off a pretty damn decent Ray Charles imitation. In his hotel room, McKie played me Ray’s version of “I Believe to My Soul,” explaining how Ray had sung all the harmony parts himself, thus replicating the Raelettes. I was enraptured by his Ray Charles knowledge, but even more drawn to his stories about Toronto, Ontario.
“Man,” he said, “the R&B scene in T.O. is hot. Detroit pimps bring their girls up on weekends where those long-legged ladies work the bars. In some of those joints the music gets so funky you can smell it.”
I wanted to smell it. I wanted to taste it. I wanted to get out of town.
For a boy of my ethnic and cultural background, there was but one way out: college. Fortunately, my dad’s alma mater was the University of Toronto. That’s where Bernard Shaffer saw me not only matriculating as an undergraduate but, following in his footsteps, going on to attend Osgoode Law School.
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Fresh out of high school, I did not resist the plan. A lethal litigator, my father was no one with whom to argue. I knew better. But late at night, dozing off to sleep, I hardly dreamed of being called to the bar—at least not that kind of bar. Instead, my ear cupped to the radio, I heard the distant sounds of WLS all the way from Chicago, fifty thousand watts flying over the Great Lakes. I’d wait till 10 p.m. when the deejay announced the top three most requested songs in Chicagoland: the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” the Supremes’ “Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone,” and the Young Rascals’ “Groovin’,” exotic sounds from exciting worlds of which I knew nothing—and yet I prayed they had a place reserved for me.
Chapter 11
The All-Time Greatest Pussycat of the World
As eager as I am to dramatize the highlights of my college years, I interrupt our narrative to introduce a passion that began well before my career as an undergraduate. To be sure, the passion continued during my time at the university, even as it continues to this day. It is a passion, but also a fascination and, to be candid, an obsession.
I am, in short—and will always be—obsessed with the marvelous yearly telethons put on by Mr. Jerry Lewis. I am a believer in his cause and a student of his methods. Mr. Lewis is, in short, an idol.
But even before beginning my paean to Jerry, allow me to declare my love of show-biz speak. It was Marty Short who pointed out that on the TV special A Man and His Music, Frank Sinatra said, “When a song lingers for many many years, it becomes what we in the business call a standard.” I loved the way that sounded. To a kid like me, Sinatra’s verbal swagger meant almost as much as Chuck Berry’s twanging guitar or Little Richard’s rollicking piano. Show-biz speak, as articulated by the masters (Frank was one, Sammy another) transported me to those magical kingdoms—Vegas showrooms and Hollywood studios—where over-the-top sincerity created personalities who loved themselves as much as we loved them. These were guys who didn’t have much education but were determined to talk as if they had all gone to Harvard.
Jerry was a particular favorite, and I respected him deeply. I not only appreciated his comedic genius but understood that as a director he was an innovator and pioneer. It was Jerry, after all, who had invented video assist, the method that allowed the moviemaker to watch an instant playback in video rather than have to wait for the printed film.
But my regard for Jerry began years before I knew of his technical creativity. Jerry came to Canada on the wings of cable television, a welcome addition to what had been our one-channel choice, the deadly earnest Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which specialized in unentertaining television. I don’t want to put you to sleep with tales of our deadly boring shows, but I cannot resist at least naming a few. Fighting Words featured a panel of guests who had to guess a famous quotation from history. If that wasn’t bad enough, after they identified it, they’d discuss it. The longest-running show was Front Page Challenge, where a panel had to guess the identity of someone associated with a famous Canadian headline. The “someone” always seemed to be a Russian spy who had defected to Canada. The same spy, shot in silhouette and speaking in an electronically altered voice, must have appeared on the show a dozen times.
Things picked up on the Canadian news front when Margaret Trudeau dated Ronnie Wood of the Stones. Canadians were also titillated that when Keith Richards was busted for drug possession, it happened on our shores. He got off when a Canadian fan, a blind girl, testified in his behalf. The judge softened and ordered Keith to put on a benefit concert. When Keith and Ronnie, as the New Barbarians, played for the blind, a Canadian wag, obviously no rock and roll fan, said they should have been playing for the deaf.
Canadians, myself among them, were thrilled when cable TV finally arrived, meaning we’d get to see the big three American networks. I was fixated on ABC. Their shows seemed poorly lit and had a makeshift look to them. Shindig, my rock and roll bible, came on after school, but Jerry Lewis didn’t come on until 1 a.m. I had to prop my eyes open with toothpicks to stay up, but stay up I did. As host of his own talk show, Jerry had a hydraulic lift that rose up so he could work to the balcony. That’s the kind of showman he was.
Some might call Jerry unctuous, but I found his brand of unctuousness attractive rather than repellent. In fact, I found it downright wonderful. Jerry always dressed in a tux because, as he said, he owed his audience no less. Jerry was so tux-centric he’d wear one even on Carson. When Johnny asked him about it, Jerry loved explaining why: “A garbage man has his overalls. A lawyer has his Brooks Brothers suit. In our industry, we have our tuxedos. It’s our uniform.”
When I came of age and found myself wearing a tux at an event I was hosting, writer Tom Leopold, my friend and fellow telethon devotee, wrote this line for me: “As Jerry Lewis says, every profession has its uniform. A priest has his vestments, a surgeon his surgical greens. Hef has that leather-studded jockstrap that he wears in the grotto …”
The greatest expression of unadulterated show-biz schmaltz was undoubtedly Lewis’s fabulous telethon. I say fabulous because in one long weekend blitz we were treated to a candor best expressed when Milton Berle, once Jerry’s opening guest, began by saying “Ladies and gentlemen, this telethon will give you an opportunity to see us as you do not normally see us. For this evening we intend to alleviate the mask.”
I believed Uncle Miltie. I was convinced that his alleviation of the mask would give me a behind-the-scenes look at the stars who so completely captured my imagination.
Jerry was a benevolent autocrat. When it came to this special show, Jerry was proprietary—and rightfully so. The recipients of this charity were, after all, “Jerry’s kids.” Jerry began hosting telethons to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association of America back in the early fifties. And to those who say his devotion to the cause came as a result of his guilt for portraying physically challenged people in his act, I say, “Keep your cynicism to yourself!”
In 1966, Jerry expanded the telethon into a nineteen-hour show featuring his famous tote—telethonese for “total”—board. When the amount raised reached one million dollars, America celebrated as Jerry himself wrote the number 1 on the board.
In the early years, Jerry hosted from start to finish. Part of the thrill was seeing a man work himself to the point where he nearly passed out but never did. In later years, Jerry recruited others to help him, a group he called his “Pussycats.” There was also the trio that Jerry dubbed the “Love Triangle”: Jerry himself, Ed McMahon, and Chad Everett, a show-biz personality best known for the TV show Medical Center. Of course among all the Pussycats, Ed was special. He had a unique contribution that always impressed Jerry: Ed could predict the final tote.
“You’re scaring me,” Jerry would tell Ed. “You’re a witch with these predictions.”
“I’m always right,” Ed would respond.
“If you’re even close to being right this year,” Jerry would say every year, “you got yourself a Jew houseboy for the next twelve months.”
Ed would laugh his jolly Ed laugh, and at the end of the weekend, Ed’s prediction would come uncannily close to the mark.
In telethon lore, no date looms larger than September 6, 1976, when, to the shock of the world, Frank Sinatra escorted Dean Martin to the stage, presenting him to his long-estranged partner and saying, “I think it’s about time.” Jerry and Dean embraced and shed tears before Jerry asked Dean, “So, are you working?” “Five weeks a year at the Megem,” said Dean. “The Megem,” repeated Jerry with a smile, and just like that, a new hip name for the MGM Grand Hotel in Vegas was coined. The Martin and Lewis rapprochement was realized.
There was a distinct dramatic arc to the telethons. They were, in fact, epics. To me, they had a Yom Kippur-esque feeling, with the tradition and the atonement and the suffering. It was all about the suffering. The kids suffer. Jerry suffers for them, even as he suffers to stay up hour after hour to bring in the money. All Jerry wants is a dollar more. Jerry might be in th
e middle of a speech about how this year he intends to “take off on” the press who have been accusing him of using charity for self-aggrandizement. Looking straight into the camera, Jerry adds, “And I’m enough of a showman to realize that if I tell you I’m going to take off on the press, you’re gonna keep watching until I do.”
With that, Ed breaks in. “Sorry, Jer,” he says, “but it’s time for a tote.”
“Show me! Do me! Yeah!” cries Jerry.
The camera pans to the big board; the numbers flip and … yes! The tote has gone over $500K! Now Ed has some boilerplate work to do. He thanks the unions who have allowed their members to perform free of charge on the show. Breaking from the acknowledgments, Ed braves new waters by singing special material: “Holiday for Strings” with lyrics written to thank the Theater Authority and its member unions.
“You pulled it off, Ed,” says Jerry, tireless, grateful, unafraid to move deeper into the day and use all his considerable charm to raise more money for his kids. All Jerry wants is a dollar more. Other Pussycats are there to help. Some, like Norm Crosby, can’t get prime-time slots and are glad to perform at 4 in the morning. I love staying up all night so I can catch some little-known Vegas lounge act. I’m especially charmed by the Treniers, who do their thing at 5 a.m. (I later learn that the Treniers cannot leave the Vegas lounges not simply because they love the ambience, but because, to put it politely, they have a special affinity for the game of Keno.) Meanwhile, Jerry is in the wings or perhaps in his dressing room catching forty winks on a couch. But Jerry always comes back. Jerry comes back every year. Frank never lets him down. And neither does Sammy. Sammy and his sui generis Sammy shtick are a huge presence on the telethon. Jerry’s son Gary Lewis and his Playboys are there to sing their new single “Too Big for Small Talk.” (I can still play it note for note.) There are split screens that thrill us with the cross-continental nature of the spectacle: Jerry in Vegas, Buddy Hackett in Atlantic City. Jerry calls the stations that carry his telethon his “Love Network.”
