The Improv

by Budd Friedman

  JOHN MEYER, composer, lyricist, and former New York Improv piano player:

  I got to the Improv around 1964, about a year after it opened. It was still called the Improvisation, and it was already quickly gaining a reputation as a place where singers and comics could drop in and try things out. Around this same time, I met another singer named Betty Rhodes who later became my girlfriend and lived right around the corner from the Improv. One night, she suggested we stop in to meet Budd and see if we could get on. I’m not sure if he’d heard of either of us yet, but he was instantly enamored of Betty even though he was married to Silver, and he immediately put Betty on.

  Betty was one of the sexiest women you could ever meet on top of having an incredible voice. She was just the complete package, and we were all gaga over her, particularly Budd, who practically fell over himself that first time we came in. But he also liked the way I played, so not long after that he hired me to become his piano player for seventy-five dollars a night. This was a fortune back then, but he knew I was his secret weapon for keeping Betty around, so he somehow managed to come up with the bucks and paid me weekly in cash.

  In any case, I had a blast and in the coming months and over the next year or so, I was there almost every night. The comics loved me and used to call me “Knuckles” because I had a theatrical instinct for punctuating their routines musically with things like car chases or love scenes to accompany the setup of their bits, plus I could hold my own doing shtick and throwing them lines.

  I had also recently co-written a musical satire called The Draft Dodger about a rich kid who evades the army during the Vietnam War, which was already five years old at the time and very controversial. When I told Budd about it, he loved the idea. He had this friend named Eddie Blum, who arranged for us to audition the show with the legendary Richard Rodgers, who wrote the music for Carousel, The King and I, South Pacific, and Oklahoma.

  We were all ecstatic, and Budd even held a backer’s audition at the Improv. There was subsequent interest in a film version and we sold the rights to a small company called Commonwealth United. There was also interest from Warner Brothers, although the lawyer we had at the time loused up the negotiations and the whole thing just completely fell apart.

  When John first told me about his idea, I was instantly intrigued. Unfortunately, I think the reason why it probably never got off the ground was because ultimately everybody thought the Vietnam War would soon be over and they got cold feet. Needless to say, it wasn’t, and giving up on the show so easily probably wasn’t the greatest decision on my part.

  Nor was it the last time I made a choice that I’d later regret.

  SEVEN

  The Singing Waitresses

  In the good decisions column, one of the best I made in the beginning was to hire singing waitresses. Similar to my decision to hire a piano player so that the singers would have an accompanist, the idea was that we would always have entertainment on hand even if no one else showed up, and it was a practice that continued long after I opened my second club in Los Angeles in 1975. Elayne Boosler and actor Karen Black were probably our most famous ones, but there were many others like Phoebe Dorin, who started with me very early on.

  PHOEBE DORIN:

  Like Budd, I came from an advertising background, first at CBS, and then in the art department of Dell Publications, where I was miserable. I’m not sure how I first found out about it, but everyone in the acting community already knew about the Improv, and I think I just went over there when I found out Budd was looking for waitresses, and he hired me. He wasn’t particularly personable back then, and sometimes he could berate you and you’d think, “My God, I’m just a waitress. This isn’t rocket science.”

  But since I’m one of the ones who made the transition to becoming a performer, I also think he had great respect for me. I was twenty-three or twenty-four at the time. Unlike being an aspiring actress at other places, if this is what you wanted to do and you were waiting tables at the Improv, everyone else knew it—especially if you were also singing there. The interesting thing about it was that the people who came in and the people who waited on them were practically one in the same. It was like a network. Our roles could switch at any time, because we were all in the same boat. Nobody knew where anybody was going to wind up.

  JUDY ORBACH, talent manager and former New York Improv assistant manager:

  I come from a show-business family. My dad’s cousin was Jerry Orbach from Law & Order, and my father, who was originally from Germany, sang at the Berlin Academy of Music and later Carnegie Hall. My mother was a Juilliard graduate and my brother Ron was in the original Broadway cast of Neil Simon’s play Laughter on the 23rd Floor.

  Show business was always in my blood. I started singing when I was three years old, and by the time I got to the Improv, I’d been doing it almost my entire life. I was already writing songs, and I was ready to move to New York. The first time I went there, I was sitting in the audience with my mom listening to these waitresses and I was like, “Shit, I can do that.” And with a completely straight face, she looked up at me and said, “Go talk to somebody.”

  So I got up from our table to ask one of the waitresses who was in charge, and she pointed Budd out to me. I went right up to him and said, “Are you Mr. Friedman?”

  He said, “Yes.” And after telling him I could sing, he looked me up and down and told me I was up next. Then he hired me to be a hostess and a singer even though I lived in New Jersey. It didn’t scare me, because I was already a performer. My mom played for me that night. I did a couple of songs from Funny Girl and then I did some of my own stuff.

  SHELLEY ACKERMAN:

  I knew I belonged at the Improv from the moment I first heard about it. Back in early 1971, I was home watching television one night and there was a documentary about the Improv on PBS. Actually, it was more like a special where they featured comedians and singers, sort of like An Evening at the Improv was years later. Each one of them was fantastic, and I was absolutely mesmerized both by the talent and the magical feeling in the arrangement.

  I had already been singing at several showcase clubs and this little place on Second Avenue called The Apartment where Jimmie Walker, who was an Improv regular, also performed. Jimmie had been in the documentary I watched and a couple of months later I saw him at The Apartment. We started talking after the show and I told him I wanted to sing at the Improv.

  “All right, there are auditions. I’ll bring you there,” he said. I auditioned for Budd not long after. I brought my own accompanist, Robin Field, who used to play only in the keys of C and F. I was doing a lot of Stephen Sondheim material back then, and I did one of his songs and Budd loved it. I wound up working there from July 1971 until 1980, first as a singer and soon after as waitress also, even though I was only seventeen at the time.

  I still had a shitty day job collecting rents at an apartment building, which I hated, and I figured it would be much more convenient to work where I sang. But when I told Budd I wanted to be a waitress, he told me there weren’t any openings. Two months later, I was singing at the Improv and miserable in my day job when one Friday afternoon I got a call from Budd and Silver asking me to babysit for their two young daughters.

  While in his house that night, he called and told me I would start as a waitress the following evening—at which point he added, “I’ve never hired anybody who was fat before.” I was probably thirty pounds lighter than I am now and I was adorable, and he hurt my feelings. My theory at the time was that he must have thought he was Hugh Hefner, but he hired me anyway. That was the dichotomy about Budd. On the one hand, he could be downright nasty and just explode at the drop of a hat—especially if you left something on the table or there was a napkin out of place—but then there was also a very tender and generous side to him.

  In my case, I think it spoke volumes about his recognition towards me not only as a singer and a waitress, but also as somebody that he could count on to help him run the club. Aft
er I’d been there for about a year, he came up to me one night and told me I needed singing lessons. I was flabbergasted and I didn’t quite know what to say, so I said, “I do?”

  He said, “Yeah, your voice brings me joy, but you don’t always hit the high note right.” When I told him I couldn’t afford them, he offered to pay for half, which he did. I’ve never forgotten that. When Budd decided you were talented, he would help any way he could—and his help was invaluable because he always seemed to be connected and he always tried to facilitate. I remember one time early on before I was ready, he took me to an audition at Radio City Music Hall. They were looking for a Judy Garland type. Although I could sing like her, I didn’t really look like her, and I don’t think I was more than eighteen at the time. He also took me to the Playboy Club and brought me to this Sunday night showcase they used to have at this hotel up in the Catskills.

  He was always doing things like that. So for all the crap some people might say about him and how penny-pinching and cheap he was, I saw another side to him. Even though he could be ruthless and mean, he always had a heart, and when it came to helping me become a better singer, he put his money where his mouth was. There’s really no one like him. He was part P. T. Barnum, part ringmaster, and part British music hall impresario.

  EIGHT

  Liza Minnelli and Judy Garland . . . Onstage at the Improv

  In keeping with our name, there have been many unplanned moments that have happened at the Improv over the years, but one of the first that stands out—probably because it was one of the first—was the night I put Liza Minnelli on. At the time, she was fifteen or sixteen and a student of actor Charles Nelson Reilly, who taught a musical-comedy class in Greenwich Village and was also in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Broadway with Silver.

  We’d only been open for a couple of months. On this evening, Liza came in and asked me to let her sing because her father, the famed director Vincent Minnelli, was in the audience and had never heard her perform before. It’s still like a picture in my mind. I already knew who she was, but I was busy making coffee, and when she tapped me on the shoulder and asked if she could sing, I just sort of brushed her off. And then because it hadn’t yet sunk in that Vincent Minnelli was actually in my club, I continued to ignore her. By this point, she was practically in tears.

  “Oh, please, Budd,” she begged. This is when I finally caved in and said, “Oh, okay,” as if I were doing her a favor. And then when she went on and I heard her sing, neither of us could have been happier. While she had a young voice that wasn’t fully developed yet, she was still Judy Garland’s daughter and when she opened her mouth, it was absolutely mesmerizing.

  SILVER SAUNDORS FRIEDMAN:

  A few months later, Liza brought her mother and her future husband, Peter Allen, to hear her sing, and we had to form a reception line in the doorway. As Judy Garland made her entrance, it was as if we had crossed swords over her head like she was the Queen of England, and then we all shook her hand and she sat down.

  Finally, Liza got up and sang, and then Judy did a number, but she couldn’t remember all the lyrics, so she tried to inject some levity. From the stage, she pointed to Liza who was sitting at a table in front and said, “Come up here and save the family name.” It was perfect.

  JOHN MEYER:

  I’m the one who first brought Judy Garland to the Improv. By this point, I was no longer the piano player and I had a gig at this other club called Three. One of the regulars was this very flamboyant gay sound archivist named Richard Stryker, who came up to me one night and told me he was putting together an act for Judy, who was very down on her luck at the time. Richard was a big fan of mine, and he asked if I had any material that would be suitable for Judy.

  Well, as it turned out I did. And then the following afternoon, I came over to his apartment in the Carnegie Hall studios and did a song, which Judy later did on The Merv Griffin Show, called “I’d Like to Hate Myself in the Morning.” I did the song for him and he loved it. Then he asked me if I’d had dinner, and when I told him I hadn’t, he proceeded to ask me if I wanted to have an orgy—at which point he pulled out this amyl nitrate capsule (a popular sex drug at the time) and shoved it under my nose.

  Now, I’m completely straight, so of course I said no and immediately left. But a couple of nights later, Richard invited me over again. At first, I was like, “You’re not going to try and fuck me again, are you?” As it turned out, Judy was living with Richard at the time, which was really amazing considering the fact that she was a major star and he was basically nobody. But Judy was also practically destitute and depending on the kindness of anybody who would take care of her, which Richard happily did.

  So here comes the kicker. I arrived at Richard’s apartment and there was Judy with her secretary. She was really depressed, but then when I sat down at the piano and started playing, she came to. She even anticipated the lyrics and we finished the song. Immediately afterwards, Richard got up and left the room. That’s when Judy looked at me and said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  I remember being in awe, but also feeling panicky, too, because it suddenly hit me that Judy Garland and her secretary were expecting me to entertain them for the evening, and when I reached into my pocket, I discovered that I only had forty-five cents. This was before the days of ATM machines, but even if they existed I was flat broke, so when we got downstairs and into my car, my mind began racing about what the hell to do next.

  That’s when it occurred to me to drive over to the Hudson River and West 56th Street, which was the municipal pound where they took cars that had been towed and loaded them up on barges. I was desperate for something to do until I could figure out what to do next and so we drove over. I figured that it might amuse Judy, but after parking near the pier for about twenty minutes, the guard finally told us to leave and that’s when we headed over to the Improv where at least I knew I could get a free meal.

  As soon as he saw us, Budd nearly fainted, as did Rodney Dangerfield, who was also there. Rodney was practically catatonic as he tried to speak. He said, “Miss Garland, I do’wanna sound like a schmuck, but really, sincerely, there is no one, and I mean no one—”

  Eventually, Judy got up to sing and I sat down at the piano, but neither one of us could remember our keys, although we ended up staying at the Improv until four in the morning. But when it came time to leave, Budd wasn’t about to let us go until he could capture the moment for posterity. So, he called a friend of his, who was a newspaper photographer for the New York Herald Tribune and asked him to come over and take a picture. Then Budd followed us out to my car, which was parked on the street in front of the club, and rested his elbows on the passenger side making small talk with Judy as I started the motor. This went on for like six or seven minutes, but the photographer never showed up. Finally, I said, “Budd, we’re going home.” And then we drove off.

  The night Judy Garland came in with John was just incredible. And then several months before she died in 1969, we had Judy, Liza, and Liza’s boyfriend Peter Allen unexpectedly drop in. There were only about ten people in the audience, and an actor friend of mine named Jack Knight was also there. Judy, Liza, and Peter were performing, and all of a sudden I decided to join them—with me seated in a chair, Jack pushing me around, and all of us singing “Under the Boardwalk.” At the time, of course, we were just in the very beginning, and I still had barely the slightest inkling of who and what was to come. Perhaps that’s why those memories of having Liza Minnelli and Judy Garland continue to linger so strong after all these years.

  NINE

  Not So Blown Away by Bette Midler . . . at First

  As extraordinary as Liza Minnelli’s debut appearance turned out to be, not everyone’s first time on our stage turned out so well, reminding me also that while first impressions are often the most lasting, you can’t always judge a book by its cover.

  One of the best examples of this is Bette Midler, who was never a wa
itress at the Improv, contrary to popular belief. Instead, she was already playing Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway when she first came into the club around 1967. My friend Helen Verbit, who was also in the show, is the one who brought her in.

  BETTE MIDLER:

  I moved to New York from Hawaii in 1965 and got Fiddler on the Roof in 1966. I started going to all of these little clubs around town about two years after I got there, particularly during my last year in Fiddler. Like a lot of kids on Broadway in those days, I did it because you were always looking for places to put together your twenty or forty minutes of new material so that you could do something besides just stay in the show you were in.

  Like it still is now, the jobs were few and far between. The musical theater itself was also in transition from a kind of legitimate, traditional grown-up American musical to the rock ‘n’ roll musical, most of which I always thought were pretty awful. So most people were looking around to see what else was going on, and Budd’s club was a great training ground. I must have heard about it from somebody in the show, and if Budd says it was Helen Verbit then I’ll take his word for it. Helen was a wonderful woman who lived on the West Side and gave me matzo brei for the first time. I’d never had it and I’d never heard of it. I just remember thinking it was so interesting that people would even eat it because it was so strange.

  Helen was this very social woman who loved to go out. She was in the chorus of Fiddler and I believe she understudied Yente, the matchmaker, who at that time was Florence Stanley.

  Bette was already in Fiddler, so when Helen brought her in and told me about her, I put Bette on without thinking twice. I forget what she was wearing that night or what she said to me, but she was very sexy and playful, almost flirtatious, and I got a big kick out of her. She was also funny, and I thought she was going to be a slam dunk. But then the material she sang just didn’t deliver the way that I expected it would. Mostly they were dirges, which were heavy and awkward. The audiences just didn’t like it—or her, for that matter.