Eighty Is Not Enough: One Actor's Journey Through American Entertainment

by Dick van Patten

  I met Mel through Merv Griffin. Pat and I were invited by Farrah Fawcett to play tennis at the home of Merv Griffin’s ex-wife, Julann on Sundays. It was quite a crazy crowd: Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Carl and Estelle Reiner, and me and Pat. People ask how we could have gotten any tennis played with all those nuts around. But the truth is we all enjoyed the tennis, and it was more serious, even competitive, than you might think. I ended up playing at Merv’s for about ten years. After that, I had a court built on my own property, and then everyone came to our house to play.

  Mel had gotten his big break in the early 1960s when he and Buck Henry created, Get Smart, the classic show starring Don Adams and Barbara Feldon. After that, he turned to movies and made some of the biggest comedy films of the 1970s: Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and The History of the World. Around the time we first met, Mel told me he was going to create a TV series again. With the title, When Things Were Rotten, it would be a satire on Robin Hood.

  So, one day we were playing tennis at Merv’s, and, as we changed sides, Mel suddenly said to me, “You know, Dick, I’ve got a part for you in my new series.” I asked, “What part?” He said, “I want you to play Friar Tuck.” I thought that was a little strange, so I said, “Mel, Friar Tuck was a fat man, and I’m not fat.”

  Mel responded emphatically: “Yes, Dick, but you have a fat man’s face. You have a round, fat man’s face.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not. But he went on: “Don’t worry about it, we’ll pad you up.”

  Mel gathered together a talented group, some of whom had worked with him before, including Dick Gautier, who played Robin Hood. And he brought in Marty Feldman, who had played Igor in Young Frankenstein, to direct. Marty did a great job bringing out the best from Mel’s tremendous scripts. It was a terrific show—at least I thought so. We made thirteen episodes, which aired in the fall of 1976 and received some critical acclaim as well as decent ratings for a first-season show. We all thought it was going to run for years.

  Still, it hadn’t been the smash hit that Mel envisioned, and ABC’s new president, Fred Silverman, decided to pull the plug. Mel was furious. The cancellation was sudden and unexpected, and Mel lashed out at the network: “They’re standing in line to see Mel Brooks movies, and I’m giving them free Mel Brooks on television and they cancel it.” He was so angry he swore he would never do another television show again—and he never has.

  Mel enjoyed a long and very happy marriage to Anne Bancroft. He has never really gotten over her tragic death from cancer in June of 2005. At the funeral services, he was inconsolable. He asked all the mourners to please not come up and tell him how sorry they felt. Somehow he thought those small packaged comments we all make at these awkward moments, when there really are no adequate words, were trivial and, in some cases, even insincere. I don’t agree, but everyone grieves in their own way and, we all respected Mel’s wishes.

  The extent of Mel’s mourning was evident one day about a year after Anne’s death when we were together at the Santa Anita racetrack. It was getting late in the day, and I made a call to Pat to see if she wanted to go to a restaurant that evening. When I hung up, nothing was said about it, and shortly afterwards I went home.

  The next day, I saw Mel again, and he said to me: “You know, Dick, you really hurt my feelings yesterday. That was very inconsiderate.” I was stunned. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. So I asked what I had done to upset him. “You have a wife to go with to a restaurant,” he responded, “and I don’t.”

  It had already been clear just how deeply Anne’s death had wounded Mel. I felt terrible that I had inadvertently caused my friend to reflect on his own loneliness. At the same time, it made me realize just how much we all take life’s simple things for granted. Mel wasn’t sad he couldn’t go to the Oscars with Anne or meet the President or work on a Broadway play; he was sad because he couldn’t eat dinner with her. I’ve been more sensitive to those seemingly small things ever since.

  40

  MEMORY OF A DARK TIME

  During the comeback years, I had an opportunity to work on a wonderful production that made me think about my childhood. Eleven months after I was born, the United States fell into the greatest depression in its history. It’s become more relevant to us today, as we now find ourselves in the midst of another widespread economic crisis. Still, we have not, and hopefully will never, reach the depths of what occurred in this country, and around the world, in the 1930s.

  As things unraveled, people across the country, and especially in New York City, were being reduced not just to impoverishment, but despair. At a New Year’s Eve party in the late 1930s, I remember someone asking my father how long he thought the crisis would last, and all I recall him responding was, “It can’t get much worse.”

  I’ve mentioned earlier that to a very large degree I was insulated from the most terrible aspects of the Depression. As a child model, radio and stage actor during the 1930s, I simply never knew poverty in the way so many around me experienced it. I recall taking the E-Train to my modeling jobs in Manhattan pretty much oblivious to the fact that just a hundred yards from the train window there were people who made less money in a month than I was going to make in an hour. Although passing it nearly every day, I never saw the makeshift camps that turned Central Park into a squatters’ village—movingly depicted in the recent film, The Cinderella Man, which told the story of the great boxing champion James J. Braddock, who, for a time, fell victim himself to financial desperation. As a child, the depth of suffering around me was outside both my reality and my imagination—and perhaps it was better that way.

  The first time I really thought deeply about that terrible economic plague was in 1971, when I took a part in a made-for-TV stage production of Arthur Miller’s, A Memory of Two Mondays. Although not one of his most recognizable works, I remember Miller telling me and some of the other cast members on the set that of all his plays, Memory was his personal favorite. No doubt because it’s largely autobiographical, telling the story of a young man, Bert, working in a New York City warehouse in 1935, as Miller, himself, had done. The youngster obsessively saves his paltry wages in order to get into college and, hopefully, work his way out from under the despair that was crushing the workers around him.

  Kristoffer Tabori gave a wonderful performance as young Bert, and the supporting cast, including Estelle Parsons, Jack Warden, George Grizzard and a young Harvey Keitel, were extraordinary. I played the foreman, a decent but limited man who tries the best he can, or at least the best he knows how, to protect his nearly dysfunctional collection of workers from the anger and financial despair that repeatedly triggers their destructive behavior.

  At the opening of the Public Broadcast Television production, Miller spoke briefly about the Great Depression, explaining what he believed that period in our past means to Americans: “I can only think of two times in American history,” said Miller, “when we were all in the same boat—the Civil War and the Great Depression.” Miller died just a few years ago, but I imagine he would have added the days following the attacks of September 11, 2001, as another of those moments when Americans were once again “all in the same boat.”

  But my life was an exception to Miller’s idea. I certainly lived through the Great Depression, and there was a terrible poverty and despair all around me, but I didn’t feel it the same way that most everyone else did—and certainly not the way Miller had. For most Americans, the Depression meant poverty, hunger, and, most of all, a faltering, if not a complete loss of hope. Hope is always our light to find a way out of a dark place. And in the Great Depression hope meant one thing above all—having a job. Miller’s play is so powerful because he understood the importance of work; he recognized that unemployment, even the fear of being without work, has the power to reduce all of us to something terrible. A hungry man with a family to support will endure every manner of indignation, or break in the process.

&
nbsp; My life was different. It would make a more dramatic story if I felt as though I was riding in that same boat or if this book was a story, like Miller’s own life on which the play is based, of a man overcoming terrible adversity and triumphing in the end. That’s a story many of my contemporaries can tell, some of whom really suffered impoverished childhoods or were devastated as young adults by the crisis. But it wasn’t my story. The truth is that I don’t remember those fears in my childhood. They would come later in life for me and under different circumstances, but not growing up in New York City in the 1930s.

  In fact, my biggest problem was juggling all the different jobs—running from the modeling agency to the theater, to the radio station, always conscious of hard deadlines. I was paid what was considered an enormous amount of money at the time. I honestly cannot recall a moment when money was not coming in on a regular basis. I’m sure my parents were worried about it, but for me, I never knew anything different. And my father was never out of work, and so I didn’t experience that sense of foreboding, that terrible feeling that disaster was just a moment away; that mind-set that had poisoned so much of the world that surrounded me.

  But it did affect other kids in the shows. The full Depression hit a year after I was born. But it lasted right up until the start of the Second World War, with some of the deepest parts coming in the late 1930s, nearly ten years after it started. Because it lasted so long, Joyce, who was five years younger than me, saw its effects—often with greater clarity than I did. She remembers the kids who were onstage because their jobs were their families’ only source of income. Many of these kids never had speaking lines in the plays, and their participation carried little of the glamour associated with being an actor on Broadway. Joyce was shocked when she first went to visit some of the other kids at their homes—many of whom lived in crowded tenements on New York’s lower east side.

  The production of Memory of Two Mondays was a powerful reminder of how fortunate we all are. It also spoke to the fragility of our present circumstances. With the advent of the Second World War, the Great Depression finally lifted. Hopefully, we will find a way out of the present crisis without having to endure a similar catastrophe.

  41

  BACK TO BROADWAY

  With the phones ringing again in Hollywood, an opportunity suddenly arose to return to Broadway. Marlo Thomas, the daughter of one of my all-time favorite comedians, Danny Thomas, had enjoyed great success with her television show, That Girl, a situation “dramedy” about a single, aspiring actress in New York City. It was a groundbreaking show, and I was fortunate to have made a couple of guest appearances during its final season. With its focus on the difficulties of being a single woman making her own way in the big city, That Girl was unique to television. The show quickly attracted millions of viewers and made Marlo a star.

  I had enjoyed working with Marlo. On the set, I mentioned my admiration for her father, something I’m sure she heard often. I also told her that I had seen him perform in Boston many years earlier. In 1974, after That Girl had been off the air for a few years, I received a call asking if I’d be interested in a part in a theatrical production that Marlo was bringing to Broadway called Thieves. It dealt with a marriage that after twelve years was falling apart. I would play a neurotic neighbor.

  It was a difficult decision. I was getting busy in Hollywood, and my family had adapted to the change from New York. Taking the part would mean an extended time away from them. But my agent Mary Ellen White and I both felt that a successful run on Broadway would be good for my career in Hollywood. Many film and television actors take time to work in theater. It increases their visibility and enhances their reputation as an actor. I also thought that working with Marlo would be wonderful.

  In the spring of 1974, I returned to my old apartment in the Des Artistes. It felt good to be back in the old neighborhood and working again on Broadway. During one of the rehearsals at the Broadhurst Theater, Marlo’s father, Danny Thomas, came backstage. As is well known, throughout his life, Danny had been a tireless advocate for children’s charities and particularly for St. Jude’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where children with cancer are treated. Danny spoke to us about the charity and encouraged us to contribute, which most of us did.

  Thieves opened in April of 1974. It was an instant hit and ran for seven months. I received wonderful reviews, and some of the critics even remembered me from the old days. “Dick Van Patten was a child star only a few seasons ago,” wrote Jack O’ Brien of New Jersey’s Star Ledger. “Where did the years, and his hair, go! His gifted stage skills didn’t.” Other reviews were terrific, and we used them on a redone résumé that Mary Ellen sent around as 1975 approached.

  42

  CONNING THE CON MAN

  When Thieves closed, I headed back to Hollywood. During the early years of my West Coast comeback, two of my sons, Vincent and Nels, were fast developing as standout tennis players. As a result, we all became involved in a number of celebrity tennis tournaments. When we attended an event in Denver, Colorado, in June of 1975, Vincent was seventeen years old and still known mostly as a teenage actor who happened to be a good tennis player.

  Bobby Riggs was also there. One day he approached me and said: “I hear your kid is pretty good. I’ll betcha ten thousand he can’t beat me.” I laughed and told him I couldn’t afford that kind of bet.

  Riggs was, of course, near the height of his notoriety as a tennis con man. But he was much more than that. In his prime during the 1940s, Bobby Riggs was the number one tennis player in the world. I happen to be friendly with the great tennis legend Jack Kramer, and Jack has always touted Riggs’s stature, claiming in his book that Bobby is the most underrated tennis player in history. Jack would know since he was the one who eventually took the top position in the world away from Riggs in 1948.

  Riggs’s second life began when he started a career as a tennis con man. He was really more of a showman, making outrageous comments and challenging everyone to bet on a match, often giving his opponents some crazy advantage like placing a set of chairs on his side of the court, which he would have to run around to hit the ball. His star rose in the spring of 1973, when Margaret Court, very possibly the greatest female player in tennis history, agreed to meet Riggs in an exhibition match. We don’t hear much about Margaret these days, but she is still the all-time leader in major tournament singles titles with twenty-four, including a real Grand Slam, which means winning all four majors in the same year. Only Margaret, Steffi Graff and Maureen Connolly have accomplished that feat. And only two men have done it: Don Budge and Rod Laver, who did it twice!

  It was a mistake for Margaret to take Riggs’s challenge. But at the time it probably didn’t seem like much of a big deal. She lost badly on Mother’s Day, May 13, 1973. It ended up grabbing more publicity than anyone expected, making the cover of Sports Illustrated and Time. Instead of being an isolated, modestly-publicized event, it became a prelude to the match everyone now wanted to see, Riggs against Billy Jean King, not because Billy Jean was better than Margaret—in fact Margaret had won the French Open before her match with Riggs and the U.S. Open before Billy Jean’s match with Riggs. But Billy was far more outspoken on women’s issues than Margaret, who was shy and reserved. Margaret, now long retired, works as a pentecostal minister in Australia.

  Riggs versus King was everything the promoters hoped for. On September 20, 1973, Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs at the Houston Astrodome in the most watched tennis match in history. Even though Riggs had retired from professional tennis over twenty-five years earlier, the result was still a shock to many. Billy had played smart. Like Margaret, Billy Jean preferred to charge the net. But in the Riggs match she decided to stay in the back court, a brilliant strategy causing the fifty-five year old Bobby to tire out. Although he lost, Riggs quickly became one of the most recognizable people in America, and he parlayed his new fame into even more challenges on and off the tennis courts. The truth is I liked the guy, and we share
d a penchant for betting.

  So while I didn’t take Riggs up on his first offer, after speaking with Vincent, we agreed to a smaller amount. So they played. Vincent won a close match in a tie breaker, and Riggs paid me right after the match—which also means he had ten thousand dollars ready if I had taken the bigger bet!

  Riggs wanted a rematch, but it didn’t happen until October when Vincent met up with him in another celebrity tennis tournament. And Vincent beat him again—this time, like Billy Jean—he won by using his head. After his match with Billy Jean, Riggs had published a book, Court Hustler, teaching the tricks of winning with your mind. Vincent read the book and employed some of Riggs’s own tactics against him. When the match ended, Riggs told the press: “The kid reads my book and knows all my tricks.” He also paid Vincent a very nice compliment, telling the press: “I’ve got to stop giving away my trade secrets. No wonder I couldn’t beat you. It was like playing against myself when I was in my prime.” In his “prime,” Riggs was the best tennis player in the world, so that was certainly high praise.

  They played a final time at the LA Convention Center. It wasn’t advertised, but there were hundreds of people watching. Vincent won again, and Riggs gave me the thousand bucks on the spot. But he was annoyed. Nels and Casey both went to the match, and one thing stood out in their minds. In the early stages, Vincent was handling Riggs fairly easily. And so Riggs, in an attempt to upset Vincent’s rhythm, changed from his standard Dunlop Maxply to a huge oversized racket. We had never seen anything like that, and Nels wondered if it was legal. Later, of course, the oversized Prince racquet would be enormously popular, and today most players use a racket bigger than the old wooden ones. But at the time, it looked ridiculous. It was designed to throw Vincent off his game. But it didn’t work, and Bobby, as always, paid up when the match was over.