Brief Encounters

by Dick Cavett

  For some reason, and partly because Jack had established it, each felt the need to do The Monologue.

  The results were mixed.

  Linkletter was a man of great accomplishment and performing skill, a shrewd, shrewd businessman. His was a great American success story, complete with humble beginning. He provided the world, especially when he was working with those kids, with a million healthy laughs. Among his list of performing gifts, monology was absent.

  The Tonight Show writing staff included, besides me, veteran writers for Bob Hope, Jack Paar, and other biggies. We had a bad week of it.

  The great David Lloyd would drop on Linkletter’s desk his usual gems, only to have them rejected. “And, invariably, if he picks one, he picks one of my feebs,” Dave would lament. (“Feeb”: Lloydese for a weak joke, thrown in, admittedly, to fill the page a bit.)

  One night at dinner at Dave’s house in Beverly Hills, years later when his résumé had gone on from Art Linkletter to The Mary Tyler Moore Show (including his Emmy-winning “Chuckles Bites the Dust” episode), Frasier, Cheers, Taxi, and more, he reduced the table to hysterics by recalling a specific example of what he called “how to Linkletterize a joke.” So that no living being of whatever dimness could be left behind in getting it.

  Ready? All that you youngies need to know is that there was once a popular comic named Jack E. Leonard, a man physically rotund enough to be appropriately, and affectionately, called “Fat Jack.”

  Here is the one line Art selected from that day’s Dave Lloyd submissions: “On tonight’s show we’re going to talk about comedy teams. You know, comedy teams like Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Jack E. Leonard.…”

  That’s how Dave wrote it.

  Here’s what Art—democratically ensuring that no one hearing it should be left in the dark—did to it. All emphases are his:

  “On tonight’s show we’re going to talk about comedy teams. You know, comedy teams like Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Martin and Lewis … and big fat Jack E. Leonard … who’s so fat, he’s a one-man comedy team … all by himself!”

  The audience reaction? If someone had dropped a pin, it would have been deafening.

  That did it. Rather than for us to go on strike for the remaining days of that week, I suggested a plan. I went downstairs in the RCA building to the bookstore, bought a Bennett Cerf joke book, and we each copied jokes out and handed them in. None of us could bear to find out what fate they met.

  Someone, I guarantee, will react to this with the prerecorded “How can you speak disrespectfully of the dead?” Truth is, I have always found it remarkably easy. Why anyone, by dying, should thereby be declared beyond criticism, innocent of wrongdoing, suddenly filled with virtue, and above reproach escapes me. And the minor crime of smothering jokes hardly puts Art Linkletter in the pantheon of history’s malefactors.

  He was a pleasant and cordial man to be around, and inspiringly professional.

  I don’t know how well he knew his Shakespeare, but he paid three times the grievous penalty expressed in Old Montague’s “O thou untaught! What manners is in this? To press before thy father to a grave?”

  It happened to Art Linkletter with three of his five children. A price even an envious Greek god might consider too high to exact for such success.

  MAY 28, 2010

  A. Godfrey: A Man for a Long, Long Season

  You may feel that this column should bear the cautionary label “Warning: Oldies Only.”

  Because its subject is largely forgotten.

  The astute Andy Rooney, who worked for him, predicted that despite decades of huge stardom, Godfrey would be forgotten, adding that his effect on broadcasting would be indelible.

  He was a colossus of the entertainment world to a degree that may never be equaled; if only for the fact that he had—count ’em—three network shows at the same time on CBS: a simulcast talk show in the morning, and not one but two (live) prime-time shows every week, consistently in the top ten.

  Arthur Godfrey was not just an entertainer. If the phrase ever applied to a human being, he was an industry.

  Advertisers so craved his then revolutionary and greatly successful practice of personally delivering, live and ad lib, each and every commercial that sponsors waited in line. He was the top salesman in radio and television—so it is said. So large was his take for the network on his morning show that it was avowed in the ad industry that by the time William Paley (Mr. CBS) finished his breakfast, Arthur had paid the network’s bills for the day.

  He had vowed he would never praise any product he didn’t totally and genuinely believe in; ironic in the case of the unfiltered Chesterfields with which he was virtually synonymous in the public mind and ear as he intoned the words, “Chesterfields … they satisfy.” As he was first to later admit, they also helped kill him, and his guilt over urging them on the populace stayed with him.

  Somehow he took a shine to me when I was but a struggling comedian in Greenwich Village and had me on the remnant of his career, the morning radio show. He would have to press the “cough” button frequently, muttering “Damn this emphysema” before releasing it.

  Starting out from less than nowhere, he achieved immense fame, wealth, and success, and lived well past the eventual fading of his epic-length career. In his later years, he self-educated himself (as he had in everything, having had no schooling) on a whole new subject: he became an ardent—and effective—ecologist. He repented in later life about what his enthusiastic boosting of the charms of Florida ultimately (over)did to the area. On the accompanying video he mentions first hearing the word “ecology.”

  (Speaking of aviation, by the time he died he had piloted every variety of military aircraft except, to his great regret, a jet helicopter.)

  Godfrey’s vigorous opposition, on a show of mine, to the development of the then controversial Supersonic Transport and what it would do to the atmosphere (“We need that gook in the atmosphere about as much as we need another bag of those clunkers from the moon”) contributed mightily to the pollution of my relations with the Nixon White House. (For creepy verification see YouTube’s “Pres. Nixon Wants Revenge Against Talk Show Host Dick Cavett.”)

  Although other guests had denounced the SST on my show, losing Godfrey, aviation’s great supporter and practitioner (“When Arthur’s not on the air, he’s in it”—Fred Allen), was one too many for the resident criminal of Pennsylvania Avenue.

  John Gilroy, my late producer, came into my office a bit shaken. “Guess what,” he said. “The Nixon White House keeps a scorecard on our show.” A grim and humorless voice on the phone, heralded by the chilling words “White House calling,” had informed John that they had counted the times the SST had been denounced on the Cavett show, were seriously miffed, and would be sending a spokesman to praise the SST.

  Having my show booked from the White House produced an eerie sensation. It was subtly suggested that Mr. Cavett would, of course, be nice to him.

  They sent a crew-cut gent—Nixon liked, in his words, “real men”—named Magruder (not the W-gate one, Jeb). With bone-breaking attempted amiability, Magruder was permitted to do his pitch for the SST, uninterrupted by his, with difficulty, amiable host. When he had said his piece, I thanked him, made clear to the viewers that he had been booked by the White House’s own talent agency, and merely added the few words, “I certainly hope the SST is defeated. But thanks for being here, Mr.… Magruder, is it?”

  The fan was hit. The city of D.C. was not delighted with D.C.

  The Great Unindicted Co-Conspirator (in one of his favorite illegalities) saw that my entire staff was audited, cruelly in the cases of the lesser-paid ones. This, combined with my formal protest of the administration’s attempt to deport John Lennon (henchman H. R. Haldeman, more in tune with pop culture than his boss, had poured into Nixon’s ear, “This guy Lennon could sway an election”) made me persona less than grata at the famous address. Hard to believe I was once ea
rlier invited to a big Nixon do in the East Room—cordially greeted by henchman Haldeman and by Henry Kissinger, in the days before permanently sullying my welcome with the gang.

  Much journalistic ink was spilled over the Magruder show, and Arthur called. “Sorry, Richard, if I made trouble for you.” The famous chuckle followed my assuring him I’d enjoyed every minute of it.

  (Going through an old box of accreted stuff the other day, I was reminded that each time I had Arthur on a show he immediately penned a cordial thank-you note.)

  In my improbable life, which has included meeting nearly all my heroes and heroines in show business and in many other fields, meeting Arthur Godfrey strained credulity. It seemed only a few years earlier that he emerged from our old Majestic slow-to-warm-up radio five days a week, while I was a schoolkid in Nebraska. When I interviewed him, I told him that on a scorching Great Plains summer day, without air-conditioning, you could stroll past house after house and hear, through June-bug-inhabited screens, the amiable voice, uninterrupted.

  When he came on the set, I was often struck by the vigor of Arthur’s entrance. With effort, his limp was not noticeable. The briskness was an act, having to do with the strong will of a man smashed to pieces in a head-on car crash in his younger days. After six months in the hospital, he defied the medics’ assurance that he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair; in middle age—on chronically painful injured hips and knees—he learned to ice-skate.

  You may have to excuse me now. This column is due and, with the A/C on the fritz, the act of typing is producing moist secretion. (I hope you’re not eating.) So may I close, for now, on a subject I hope will be a pleasant nostalgia trip for many readers old enough to remember Pearl Harbor?

  P.S. Thanks for valuable info on Arthur to a man who survived the sometimes stormy seas of being his longtime agent, Peter Kelley, and to Arthur J. Singer for his excellent book, Arthur Godfrey: The Adventures of an American Broadcaster.

  JUNE 25, 2010

  More of Our Man Godfrey

  I’m glad to see how many readers liked revisiting—or visiting for the first time—Arthur Godfrey.

  He’s one more reminder of the infinite possible varieties of human being. I never met or heard of anyone remotely like him.

  The arc of his life brings to mind the old phrase “American success story”: disintegrated family, poverty, scuffling for food and lodging, body smashed in head-on crash, cancer survivor, and a career that brought fame and fortune beyond his dreams. And then a kind of rebirth in later life as an ardent and effective ecologist and conservationist before either word was widely known.

  And, ultimately, fade-out from the public mind.

  Readers, last time, asked about the Julius La Rosa incident, a notorious happening that, back then, seemed to be the hottest news subject of the time.

  Its damage threatened to bring down the Godfrey colossus, and it never entirely went away.

  There are two versions. One is that Arthur heartlessly, publicly fired a personable young singer—a member of the Godfrey “family”—live, on the air. So great was Godfrey’s size in the entertainment world that the dramatic phrase “the nation was shocked” is no exaggeration.

  In fact, reexamining the incident, it’s hardly the unmitigated evil it was depicted as at the time. Not only had Godfrey and La Rosa previously talked about the young lad’s desire to move on, but the big bosses at CBS strongly urged Arthur to handle the parting on the air. Doing so, Arthur used the words “Julie’s swan song” and wished La Rosa well. Listening to it now, it seems both harmless and cordial.

  And yet it was treated in the press as if La Rosa had been shot dead in a public square.

  Godfrey’s later reference to Julie’s lost “humility” was a verbal blunder that some Godfrey hounders in the press blew up to the size of Pearl Harbor. (In the video clip, you will see Arthur allude to—but not refer to—“a couple of bad incidents.”)

  Then there’s the anti-Semitism matter. At its most fulsome, it goes, “Don’t you know Godfrey owned a hotel in Florida with a sign out front that read ‘No Dogs or Jews’?” Although purest nonsense, you can still hear it resurrected by seniors from that era.

  Unreported was the fact that although he did patronize that hotel, he made a point of checking in with Jewish friends and cast members.

  He later bought into the place and abolished the odious policy. Being labeled an anti-Semite was a bum rap that those who knew the man say he emphatically did not deserve. The hotel in question, The Kenilworth, became nationally famous at the time. (I don’t know if it still exists—renamed, perhaps, The Mel Gibson?)

  The attacks on Arthur—and on other media giants over time—bring to mind that dreary cliché about how “the press likes to build you way up, just so they can later tear you down.”

  This dumbbell notion has been around since I learned to read and has the durability of the great pyramid at Giza. Sure, there’s plenty of schadenfreude (all four syllables, please) around, but it’s not evil press monsters who, like those envying Greek gods, like to see the mighty tumble; it’s us. Envious us.

  (Sorry. Subject for another time?)

  Godfrey’s career ran its course. But it was a marathon.

  If you closed your eyes and just listened to his voice, you could see why that God-given instrument seduced a nation. He had the women of this country (exceptions, of course) in the palm of his hand.

  Look at what he provided them. A nice, warm, friendly man in their life, reliable and consistently there. Thoughtful and comfortable to be with.

  And best of all, he spoke directly, individually, and personally to them. Not to a mass audience, but to them, right there in their home.

  This was Godfrey’s genius insight. For months in the hospital after the car crash that broke nearly everything, he had only his radio as companion. And something always seemed wrong. Why, he wondered, didn’t it occur to someone somewhere in broadcasting to talk to him?

  What was really a revolutionary insight was born as the thought: Who the hell is “Ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience” supposed to reach? And who out there feels greeted by “Hello, everybody”? Who feels included in “All of our listeners out there in radio land”? Had it never occurred to anyone, he wondered, to talk only to him? Had they never heard of the magic word “you”?

  When Arthur got back to work, he launched his revolutionary notion by saying into the microphone the simple phrase “How are you?” And a nation of listeners felt, for the first time, “That man is talking to me!”

  My grandmother knew full well that Arthur was speaking, privately and confidentially, to her. So did millions.

  Steve Allen said that Arthur revolutionized broadcasting with that one perception. Not entirely. Smart broadcasters like Allen and others picked up on and emulated it; and yet it remains surprisingly unlearned. Morning show hosts, news anchors, eyewitless news teams and cohosts—whose gallery of ad-lib reactions to startling or funny items consists of “How about that?” and “There you go”—still say, “Hi, everybody.” Thereby, paradoxically, leaving out everybody.

  The strong and priceless quality Arthur conveyed to the listener was always referred to as “human warmth.” (Think what trouble we might be in if Rush Limbaugh had it.)

  A closing note for now. Arthur had enemies. And detractors galore. And Peter Kelley, his agent and long-buffeted survivor of the Godfrey storms—once fired (temporarily) by Arthur—says, “All told, I liked him and he was my friend.” And, acknowledging how difficult Arthur could be when the Vesuvian Godfrey temper boiled up, then adds something rare:

  “Arthur never, never lied.”

  Try that sometime.

  JULY 16, 2010

  Real Americans, Please Stand Up

  All this talk about the proposed mosque in Lower Manhattan reminds me of two things I heard growing up in Nebraska.

  I had a sixth-grade teacher who referred to American Indians as “sneaky redskins” and our en
emies in the Pacific as “dirty Japs.” This abated somewhat after I asked one day in class, “Mrs. G., do you think our parents would like to know that you teach race prejudice?” She faded three shades.

  The rest of that year was difficult.

  As a war kid, I also heard an uncle of mine endorse a sentiment attributed to our Admiral “Bull” Halsey: “If I met a pregnant Japanese woman, I’d kick her in the belly.”

  These are not proud moments in my heritage. But now, I’m genuinely ashamed of us. How sad this whole mosque business is. It doesn’t take much, it seems, to lift the lid and let our homegrown racism and bigotry overflow. We have collectively taken a pratfall on a moral whoopee cushion.

  Surely, few of the opponents of the Islamic cultural center would feel comfortable at the “International Burn a Koran Day” planned by a southern church-supported group. (On a newscast, I think I might have even glimpsed a banner reading BRING THE WHOLE FAMILY, but maybe I was hallucinating.) This all must have gone over big on Aljazeera.

  I like to think I’m not easily shocked, but here I am, seeing the emotions of the masses running like a freight train over the right to freedom of religion—never mind the rights of eminent domain and private property.

  A heyday is being had by a posse of the cheesiest Republican politicos (Rick Lazio, Sarah Palin, quick-change artist John McCain, and of course the self-anointed Saint Joan of 9/11, Rudy Giuliani). Balanced, of course, by plenty of cheesy Democrats. And of course Rush Limbaugh dependably pollutes the atmosphere with his particular brand of airborne sludge.

  Sad to see Harry Reid’s venerable knees buckle upon seeing the vilification heaped on President Obama, and the resulting polls. (Not to suggest that this alone would cause the sudden 180-degree turn of a man of integrity facing reelection fears.)

  I got invigorating jolts from the president’s splendid speech—almost as good as Mayor Bloomberg’s—but I was dismayed, after the worst had poured out their passionate intensity, to see him shed a few vertebrae the next day and step back.