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

by Dick van Patten

  I won’t be so pretentious as to say that the African trip changed my life forever or made me a better person. But I did leave with a fuller understanding of the giant gap between those who have and those who don’t. I also see my own life a little differently. Most of us are self-absorbed when we’re young. I know I was. And yet, there are those rare and magical people who seem to be born altruists. To care deeply about the plight of others requires that we temper concern about ourselves. In the Catholic Church, the clergy take vows to ensure that state of mind—vows of poverty and even celibacy. These are commitments that help these wonderful people turn their own focus away from themselves and toward others. Other religions, I believe, have some variant on this—moral teachings and ethical principles requiring that people forego their own pleasures for the comfort of others. One of the advantages of growing older is the ability to see oneself more clearly. As I look back, I see that the time spent with those unlucky children was more important than all my appearances on radio, stage and television. That clear introspection leads to regret for not having done more. I’m sure many people feel that way. By the time we emerge from the self-obsession of our youth, we find ourselves on the homestretch—and wondering why we didn’t do more.

  48

  LIFE AFTER EIGHT IS ENOUGH

  As a result of Eight Is Enough, I became a regular on all the talk shows. My favorite was The Merv Griffin Show, where I appeared many times. Merv was a good friend, and, as mentioned, we played tennis together for years.

  One day Merv was going on vacation and asked if I would be the guest host. At first it sounded great, and I agreed. But as the date approached, for the first time in my entire professional life I began to feel nervous. This was different than what I was used to. I always had a script to lean on. Or, if I was the guest on a show, it was up to Merv or Johnny Carson or whoever to make sure things went smoothly. But now it would be up to me, and I was scared to death that I would run out of conversation.

  One way to ease things was to book people who were already friends. So my first guest was Don Adams. Now Don was a great guy, but he could also be a bit ornery at times. I was sitting in the dressing room trying to think about what I would say to him when I came up with an idea. Before the show went on the air, I went into the audience and asked them to play along. I told them when Don Adams comes on I’m going to introduce him—and then dismiss him in ten seconds.

  So Don came out. He sat down, and I asked him how he was. He responded that he was fine. And then I immediately said in the most serious voice: “Well thank you very much for coming, Don. It was wonderful having you.” Don gave me that ornery look as if I was completely out of my mind and then yelled at me: “That’s it?”

  The audience loved it, which made me a lot more relaxed. I also remembered some advice that Merv gave me which is important for any interviewer—and is also important in real life—which is to really listen. Rather than thinking about what you’re going to say next, listen. There’s always a tendency as a host to be so concerned about the next question that you tune out what your guest is saying. In the end, that just makes it worse. I appreciated that advice, and it helped get me through my week as guest host of The Merv Griffin Show. But I also acquired a new respect for those people, like Merv and Johnny, who have that rare ability to keep a conversation going and to make it interesting to the viewers. I believe that everybody has something interesting about them and people like Larry King or Oprah have a special gift for bringing it out—and doing it day after day. I enjoyed my week in Merv’s chair, but that was enough for me. It’s a lot more comfortable being the guest.

  * * *

  Around the same time, I learned that whatever the occasion, whether as a talk show host, in an African village or anyplace else, an entertainer entertains. That’s the job description. And sometimes you’ve got to be ready at a moment’s notice.

  My son Jimmy loves to tell a true story about some quick improvisation. Jimmy had a friend who introduced him to a very wealthy individual, recently retired, who had moved from Washington to Beverly Hills. Apparently, the man was very much taken with the idea of “celebrity.” He would throw giant parties with hundreds of people at his mansion and invite as many Hollywood stars as he could find.

  One day he dropped dead from a heart attack. Jimmy was asked to be a pallbearer at his funeral, which he thought was odd since he didn’t know him all that well. But he agreed. Then it got even stranger when one of his friends asked Jimmy if I would come. Now I had never met the man in my life. Still, his family insisted that he was a big fan of mine, and they would really appreciate it if I attended. Jimmy thought it was ridiculous, but he asked me anyway. It happened that I had nothing scheduled that day, and the story intrigued me, so to Jimmy’s surprise, I told him I would go.

  A few hours later, we arrived for the services, which were held at the cemetery. I sat down next to Jimmy, glanced at the program and nearly had a heart attack, when I saw in big black letters: “Eulogy by Dick Van Patten.” I looked at Jimmy and said: “What is this, some kind of practical joke?” He assured me it must be a mistake, and he would talk to them.

  So the service started, and I was waiting for someone to announce an error in the program. Instead, the man’s friend who was speaking to the crowd was suddenly overcome with emotion and was unable to continue. At this point everyone looked at me. I didn’t know what to do, so I just got up, walked to the lectern and delivered a eulogy for a man I never met.

  I began by saying what a wonderful guy he was. I then started making things up. I told about our many trips to the racetrack together and our long games of all-night poker. I explained to them about how we had talked so frequently about his interest in sports and the arts and many other aspects of his life that had been so tragically cut short. By the time I was done they were all in tears. Afterwards his mother and father came up to me, and with great appreciation, said: “You told us things about our son, we didn’t even know!”

  * * *

  In May of 1985, I had to say goodbye again, this time to my father. Following World War II, Dad remarried and had several more children: Johnny, Marjorie, Byron and Tim. He remained in New York for most of his life, but then moved to Los Angeles where he spent his final years. We had been close throughout our lives, but in the years prior to his death we became even closer, heading out to the Santa Anita racetrack together nearly every day. It was a wonderful time, and I’m so grateful to have been able to share those years with him.

  Just as I wished Mom had lived a year longer to see the success of Eight Is Enough, I was sad my father died just six months before I received the great honor of having a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The famous bronze stars, set on the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, are awarded by the Walk of Fame committee each year for those making contributions in the categories of film, television, theater, radio and music. It is a special privilege to be among those luminaries, including so many talented people I’ve admired throughout my life.

  Curiously, my star, placed on Vine Street in November of 1985, has just seen some unexpected traffic. It actually resulted from a mistake. There is a star very close to mine belonging to the Los Angeles talk-show host named Michael Jackson. The shocking death of my young neighbor from Queens Road sent thousands of mourners in search of his star. Many of them went to the wrong one near mine and set up a candlelight vigil. (Michael’s actual star is located in front of the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater but on the night of his death it was closed off due to a theater production.) I was glad to hear the talk-show host, Michael Jackson, graciously assuring everyone that he was happy to lend his star for the tribute and that he would gladly give it up if it would only bring Michael back.

  On the other side of my star, is the lovely actress, Virginia Cherrill, from the silent picture era—best known as Charlie Chaplain’s blind flower girl. In the same section are John Wayne, Eleanor Powell, studio mogul Richard Rowland and country music legend Roy
Acuff. I’m delighted to share my small piece of Hollywood immortality with all these great entertainers. And while I wish my Dad could have been with us on that memorable autumn day, I believe he was watching from a far better place and whatever little luster there is to my star on Vine Street, it pales next to Dad’s star which I know will shine brightly forever in Heaven.

  * * *

  In early 1987, I received a call telling me that there was going to be a new award in the name of the great actor Pat O’Brien, and I was to be the first recipient. Pat O’ Brien was among my very favorite actors, and growing up I remember enjoying him in such classics as Angels with Dirty Faces, Crack Up and The Personality Kid. And, of course, in 1940 he uttered those famous words, “Win just one for the Gipper” as the legendary Norte Dame Coach in Knute Rockne: All American alongside a young man named Ronald Reagan. I had worked with Pat once on a television drama in the early 1960s, and he made a deep impression on me, not only as an actor, but as a truly decent and honorable man.

  The event was held at the Beverly Wilshire on Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1987, and was hosted by a Catholic priest, Father Michael Manning. As he presented me with the award, Father Manning said that “humor and dedication to wholesome family values were the hallmark of Pat O’Brien” He then added: “Perhaps, no one in Hollywood exemplifies high Christian principles and love of family as much as Dick Van Patten.” That was a beautiful thing for Father Manning to say, however undeserved.

  The highlight of the evening was a videotaped message from President Reagan. The President recalled his old friend and noted that Pat “typified…all that is good in movies and television. He was a hard-working actor. He loved to use his talent to bring the Good Lord’s truth and laughter to his work.” Then President Reagan gave his approval to my winning the award, stating that Dick Van Patten had exhibited “high ideals” that are a “model for us all.”

  I was deeply moved by those words, and I spoke a few that came from the heart that night. “The only reason I’m taking this,” I explained, “is because no one else in the world thought more highly of Pat O’Brien and idolized him more than I did.” As an actor, I said, Pat “made it look so easy. He was a fast actor, but he was very real.” In that sense, I was referencing the differences between those actors like Gleason and Mickey Rooney and the many radio actors who could achieve a real performance in a heartbeat. That was how I saw Pat O’Brien.

  “To the public,” I continued, Pat “was the cop on the beat or the priest in the neighborhood parish, or the storefront lawyer or the fast-talking private detective…. He made it look so easy that I wonder if his acting was fully appreciated. He was one of the greatest actors that ever lived…. He had such respect for the writers’ words.” Finally, I noted the thing that struck me most about Pat: “There was no self-indulgence in his acting,” I said.

  That lack of pretension was what made him such a special person, and I’m sure that President Reagan recognized that same quality. I told the group that in the end Pat really was a model for all of us, a man devoted far more to his family than to the craft he had mastered. “He didn’t care what happened to his career,” I said, “as long as everything at home was okay.”

  I would like to accept full credit for President Reagan’s generous comment about my “high ideals.” And it is certainly true that for me, my family is the one thing that is most precious in this world. But it’s equally clear to anyone reading this book that I’ve had my share of failings. Still, in the end, we are all more than our failings. No one lives a perfect life, but we are, I hope, judged by our best moments rather than our worst.

  The receipt of that award also reminded me again of the enormous power of television. The many years on Mama and Eight Is Enough set forth an image to the world that no one could live up to. Still, I was always conscious of that image. I understood that the world saw me in a certain light and that there was something good about that; the presence of a Tom Bradford in American living rooms was ultimately a positive thing. I don’t take credit for it. Credit belongs mostly to people like the real Tom Braden, who lived it and wrote a book about it; Bill Blinn who worked with the book and through his wonderful imagination transformed it into a television show, and Fred Silverman who had the wisdom to see the attraction of something so wholesome at that time in our society.

  At the beginning of this book, I mentioned that there is a great distance between a character and the actor who plays that character. That distinction should never be lost. Nevertheless, the actor does have the opportunity to bring some part of himself to the character; to help shape the character. The character in turn can help shape the actor. I’ve never fully lived up to the “high ideals” of Tom Bradford, but he’s always there for me as a model. Cynics often criticize “ideals” as unrealistic. But we create ideals not to achieve them, but to strive for them. Pat O’Brien understood that; so did President Reagan. The receipt of that award was a wonderful moment in my life.

  * * *

  At around the same time, I received a call from Mel Brooks, who was doing another film. It was going to be a spoof of the movie Star Wars. By this time, George Lucas had put out two sequels, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, so Star Wars lore had already become a familiar part of American culture. In Mel’s elaborate comedy, I played King Roland of Druidia whose planet is threatened by the planet Spaceball. In an attempt to steal Druidia’s air supply, Spaceball sends Dark Helmet, its evil fleet commander, who takes my daughter, Princess Vespa, hostage. He threatens to give her old nose back if I don’t tell him the secret access code for the planet’s defensive shield.

  In one of those great Mel moments, everyone waits with bated breath as I reluctantly give Dark Helmet and his subordinate, Colonel Sandurz, wonderfully played by Rick Moranis and George Wyner, the top-secret code that protects Druidia from all its enemies:

  King Roland: One.

  Dark Helmet: One.

  Colonel Sandurz: One.

  King Roland: Two.

  Dark Helmet: Two.

  Colonel Sandurz: Two.

  King Roland: Three.

  Dark Helmet: Three.

  Colonel Sandurz: Three.

  King Roland: Four.

  Dark Helmet: Four.

  Colonel Sandurz: Four.

  King Roland: Five.

  Dark Helmet: Five.

  Dark Helmet pauses. Then looks at me with contempt: “So the combination is…one, two, three, four, five? That’s the stupidest combination I’ve ever heard in my life!”

  Some of Spaceballs’s critics complained the movie was a few years late. After all, the last of the Stars Wars original trilogy had been released in 1983, four years prior to Spaceballs. By then, there had already been a number of Star Wars spoofs, and, indeed, the box office numbers at the time were not as good as we had hoped. But time has proven friendly to Spaceballs, which turned into a kind of cult classic, extremely popular with kids today even though it’s been over twenty years since its release. In fact, I sometimes meet young people who know of me primarily—or even solely—as Druidia’s King Roland.

  * * *

  In the years after Eight Is Enough, I also became further involved in various tennis events, particularly those associated with Nancy Reagan’s campaign against drug abuse. During the Reagan years, Nancy made headlines with her famous, “Just say no,” policy. Some people criticized the First Lady for what they perceived as a simplistic message. But I think they were wrong.

  While it’s certainly true that addiction is a complex phenomenon, and for the hard-core drug abuser, getting clean requires more than just will power, Nancy’s message was designed to reach the millions of children who are not junkies but have been tempted to experiment. At that point, the very best advice to those kids is to “Just say no.” No matter how slick and enticing the drug purveyors can make their deadly product, kids need to have engrained in them a zero-tolerance attitude—one strongly reflected in those simple words.

  I
n June of 1987, I had the great fortune to actually run a tennis tournament at the Reagan White House under the auspices of the Nancy Reagan Drug Abuse Fund. It was a terrific event, with a great group of celebrities and politicians, including Tom Selleck, Chris Evert, Dorothy Hamill, John Forsythe, George Shultz and many others. As it turned out, I was partnered with Secretary of State James Baker, who was an excellent player. We made it all the way to the finals. But that’s when our luck ran out as we lost to actress Catherine Oxenberg—who was married to my friend, Bob Evans, for a full nine days in 1998—and the ringer of the foreign dignitaries, Count Wilhelm Wachtmeister, the Swedish Ambassador to the United States. Later Wachtmeister would become a favorite doubles partner of President George H. W. Bush.

  And the worst part of losing was that President Reagan and Nancy were there in the stands watching our demise. Anyway, it was great fun and all for a wonderful cause.

  * * *

  Life is full of dreams, and mine as a child wasn’t of stardom on radio, stage, television or in movies; what I really wanted was to be a jockey. I learned to ride horses at an early age, and one of the greatest thrills of my entire life was the day I bought Penetrator, my first horse, back in 1946. I rode constantly throughout the years and became an excellent horseman. I mentioned earlier how I got in trouble when I did my own horse stunts on Rawhide.

  I was sixty years old in 1989 when ABC asked me to participate in a show called War of the Stars. There had been television programs called Battle of the Stars that pitted the cast of Eight Is Enough against the cast of other shows. These were fun, but they were just quiz or game formats designed to promote the programs. This was different. ABC had lined up a group of celebrities and great athletes, and they wanted to have some actual competition. Obviously the athletes would win, but we were to go all out—which suited me just fine.

  The lineup was impressive. They had Milton Berle, who was a great pool player, matched up against the legendary Willie Mosconi—it was Mosconi who, as technical advisor to the film The Hustler, taught Paul Newman how to act like a pool shark. Willie even made the most difficult shots for Paul’s great character, Fast Eddie. Jackie Gleason, who played Minnesota Fats, made his own shots. They also had Jack Lemmon set to tee off against Arnold Palmer, Martin Sheen playing basketball against Michael Jordan, and Gabe Kaplan to bowl against the legendary Dick Weber.