by Ted Heller
But, you know, we didn't even need those gimmicks. The boys were supposed to do a hour and a half, they did twice that. They ad-libbed, they danced and did impressions; they'd toss that invisible, imaginary fireball of theirs back and forth. There were times when Ziggy would be so funny that Vic was on the verge of cracking up, and when that happened it was infectious and the audience was laughing too. The third night, Ziggy—Vic had no idea he was going to do it—dressed up as Charlotte Charlot: the tight black sequined gown, twenty pounds of rouge, the red feather boa, the cigarette holder and guitar. He adjusted the boa halfway through a song that Danny had written and then you saw he also had on a swastika armband. After the song—Billy Ross was accompanying him on the accordion—Vic “interviewed” her. And they were just on. Vic knew what to ask, Ziggy knew what to answer. It was absolute magic! They kept the routine, not only for the rest of the engagement, but for the rest of the war. It really helped destroy Charlotte Charlot's career, thank God.
TONY FERRO: My late wife, Maria, may God rest her soul, was living in Brooklyn with her Aunt Nancy, in Flatbush. We weren't married yet—that was a few months away. I took a train to New York and Vic got us a table at the Blue Beret. Here I am, I'm a butcher now and the son of an immigrant fisherman, and I'm with this lovely girl and we're at this swank nightclub. I'll never forget it. Never.
After that, though, I don't know . . . Vic and me, we drifted apart. I didn't hear from him again. Hell, we worked at Jiggs's together. But he went his way, I went mine.
ARNIE LATCHKEY: It happened again. At the Blue Beret. Some man in his late sixties was laughing so much he burst a blood vessel in his brain and bought the farm. This happened in week one, maybe the fifth night. The Edward G. Robinsons were in the audience that night, and Ziggy is at their table and he and Vic are doing a bit about ordering Robinson a “little Caesar salad.” Get it? Little Caesar? So this poor man in the audience dies. I saw him too . . . you ever see a corpse frozen stiff with a smile as big as Florida? We should all be so lucky to go out like this!
The next day I'm on the phone with Bertie Kahn, which was almost like being on the phone with dead air, he was so damn terse. We were talking about the guy who'd died laughing and I said, “What do we do about this, Bertie? Do you want to call up Winchell and Pegler and Greene and have them bury this?”
“Bury this?” he said.
“This is two people who've died now,” I reminded him. “And that's just the ones we know of. We don't want people to be afraid to see the act!”
“We don't?” he said, debonairly puffing a Gitane probably.
And it struck me like lightning, right in that office—in my chair this jagged bolt struck me! Of course we wanted people to be afraid to see the act!
Bertie made some calls and not only was it in the gossip columns, it was in the news sections too. The Daily News ran it on the second page and all the Hearst papers carried it too. It was absolutely terrifulous press!
DANNY McGLUE: I went to every show. They did two shows a night; they didn't get off until two in the morning, sometimes three. The best shows were always the second ones because there was no time constraint. Barney and Pete Conifer had to get five hundred people out of the club at ten and get five hundred new people in at eleven. The second shows were always outrageous, very free-form, almost stream of consciousness.
About three women each night thought they were having appendicitis attacks and had to be escorted out. I remember this one gent getting up with his wife—he had to take her to the hospital. They stood up, he's helping her walk while she's doubled over in agony, and he's taking her to get their coats. But meanwhile, he doesn't take his eyes off the stage. They were at the coatcheck and his wife's got her coat on but now the husband isn't even aware his wife has to go to the hospital anymore! She elbowed him, as if to say, “Remember, Harold? You were taking me to Mount Sinai?” And he said to her, “Beverly dear, can't you make it there alone?”
After the engagement, I had lunch with Pete. He told me he wanted to leave the Blue Beret, maybe start a club in Los Angeles. If he did, he wanted to know, would Ziggy and Vic play there? We didn't have any plans like that, I told him, we were locked in for the radio show and that was in New York. When was this club going to happen, I asked him. He said it could take years to set up such a venture. Do you think Fountain and Bliss will still be together in two years, he asked me. I saw no reason why they wouldn't be together forever, I told him.
CATHERINE RICCI: When Sal [Fontana], Carmine, and I went to New York to catch a show, Carmine's sides were splitting in agony, he was in so much hysterics! The act had something for everyone . . . Vic would slip in an Italian word here and there and once in a while Ziggy would do some Yiddish. They made fun of Germans and did a thing about Japanese and even British people too. (They never made fun of colored people, though, you have to give them that.) Sal was a lot like Papa, he didn't laugh too much ever, but now I saw him using the handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his forehead from all that giggling.
I asked Vic how much he was making from this nightclub and when he told me I thought he was pulling my leg. A few weeks later Guy Puglia drives up to the house in Codport with a brand-new turquoise blue Studebaker Business coupe and says it's a present from Vic for Mamma and Papa. This car was stunning . . . it would've been the flashiest car in town. Mamma wanted it—she was almost salivating—but Papa stared at Guy with his icy eyes and slowly shook his head . . . then Guy drove it away.
“He's just drivin' it back to New York, huh?” Carmine said to me.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Hey, maybe that younger brother of yours'll buy us a fancy car one day, Cathy.”
“Don't get too pushy now,” I said to him.
“I mean, if he's so generous, why not—”
“Carmine, please!”
The next day, I'm at the bakery with Carmine and we see the turquoise Studebaker go by. We both run out and who's at the wheel? Dominick Mangiapane! With his sister Lulu by his side. Both of 'em just tooling around like a couple of sports.
“That could've been ours,” Carmine muttered to me while we both waved like morons at those two.
• • •
ARNIE LATCHKEY: “I wanna put Guy on the payroll,” Vic tells me one day in the Vigorish office.
I knew something was up when he came into my office and closed the door behind him. That foreboding click of the door, like a pistol to my head being cocked.
“Guy Puglia?” I said, stubbing out my cigar and clearing my throat.
He says, “Ziggy's got Sally and Danny on the payroll.”
“Sally and Danny actually work for us, though, Vic. You know that.”
He lights up a Chesterfield, fixes a pleat in his pants. The Blue Beret dates were finished, the Lifebuoy show was doing well, he'd bought some new duds. Very fancy ones. Gilbert Perreault suits, Rene Robert ties, Richard Martin shirts. Lots of 'em.
“Yeah, I know that. But they're his family, Latch.”
“Sally is his family but Danny isn't,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, but they're bangin' each other.”
The man didn't pull any punches, let me tell you, if he wanted to land one.
I cleared my throat. “That's classified dope,” I told him. “Okay?”
“Look, Guy and me, we go back a long ways. He's like blood to me. He was with me when I was singin' ‘Ain't She Sweet’ for pennies in Boston. We bunked at the Monroe together. And he does stuff for me now. And I feel that he should be paid for it.”
I cleared my throat and asked, “What kinds of stuff does Guy do?” Now, I liked Guy Puglia. I still do. I had wonderful times at the Hunny Pot [Hunny Gannett's saloon] and at Guy's restaurant in Los Angeles. I adore Guy. But, really, I had no damn idea what he did!
“He just does stuff, Arn,” Vic said.
“Can you give me one example? One thing?”
“Well, you know, he takes my suits in to be cleaned, gets my shoes shined. He m
akes reservations for me at restaurants. I see a girl I like in the crowd, he gets her backstage.”
“I see. I get the idea,” I said. “You know, Vic, these are things that I could do.” It killed me to say that. I didn't want to take Vic's clothing in—it was so much clothing already I think I'd have gotten a hernia from it. And besides, those days were behind me.
“Nah, this is what Guy's for. But if you're really willing to get my shoes sh—”
“I think this thing can be arranged.”
“Good. Because I was also thinking of gettin' Hunny on the payroll too.”
SALLY KLEIN: Hunny started coming to the office every Friday at about noon to pick up his checks. Estelle would hand the check to him—it was only for about fifty bucks—and he'd say, “Thanks, 'Stelle.” He'd make small talk for a while, then he'd go.
After a while we realized that Hunny never cashed or deposited the checks. We found out many years later that he'd never once even owned a checking account in his life. There were a thousand checks—not just from us, but from all over—in a drawer somewhere.
ESTELLE LATCHKEY: I didn't have too many brainstorms—I was just a secretary, don't forget, and then I married Arnie—but one thing I did come up with was, why not get Ziggy a girlfriend? I said this to Sally one day at lunch at Schrafft's. It was just us girls. Sally and I were the same age and she was such a doll, really, a wonderful person. I knew about her and Danny. Everybody did. Except Ziggy.
“And who do you propose for this girlfriend, Estelle?” she said to me.
“I can't think of anyone,” I said. “My Aunt Dora in Coney Island does matchmaking though.”
“I don't know about a shiddach for Ziggy,” Sally said. “It's not like this is Tyrone Power we're talking about.”
“Surely there must be someone,” I said.
“He is in show business,” she said.
“That helps.” “That's right, Sally. It almost doesn't matter what he looks or acts like.”
Well, Jane White was the daughter of Joseph Weissblau, whose firm did the books for the Blue Beret and for many other entertainment venues and corporations. She'd been raised in New York, grew up on Fifth Avenue, and attended all the proper schools. She was a pretty girl but not striking—there was something a little bit “off” about her. Jane had auditioned to become a Blue Beret dancer but she just didn't have it, although she'll tell you she did. So Barney Arundel, as a favor to her father, employed her as a cigarette girl for two weeks. Jane had a very bright, very big smile. Pete Conifer was after her, but he was after the house cat too.
JANE WHITE [Ziggy Bliss's first wife]: Yes, it's true that my father was Jewish. But he was only, as far as I know, half-Jewish. My mother was, I believe, a quarter Jewish and, according to Jewish law, I believe, this only makes me one-third Jewish. When she and Dad divorced, she changed her last name to White. My given name was Judith Weissblau. Yeech. I mean, I could hardly spellWeissblau! And it makes no sense—it means “white blue.”
I was an attractive, active, very happy-go-lucky girl. I learned how to ride a horse and I studied ballet and art. My mother sent me to the Brearley School, where my best friends were Custis Warnocke, Grace Anne Payton, and Lanie Danforth. They didn't mind having a friend named Jane White, but Judith Weissblau they would have had trouble with.
I met Ziggy when I was a dancer at the Blue Beret. Those were really marvelous days, before the war. I met incredible people, celebrities and socialites, all sorts of wonderful people. I had seen Ziggy perform with Vic and it was the funniest thing. New York “ethnic” humor was not to my liking, but Fountain and Bliss was so much more universal.
I will not lie to you and say that I was physically attracted to Ziggy at first. He was hysterical, it's true, but he had such red, craggy skin. And that hair! Anyway, Sally and Estelle asked me out to Schrafft's one day and they began talking to each other about how funny and talented Ziggy was and how rich he was going to be. I finished my ham and mayonnaise on white bread and as we were leaving, Sally said to me, “So, Janie, are you seeing anybody?”
“I have a few beaus, Sally,” I said. I began to rattle off the names of my admirers: Keenan Maynard, Jimmy Hetfield, Mitchell George (of the Connecticut Georges).
“Why don't you and Ziggy maybe go out on a date? Have dinner maybe? See a show?” Estelle said.
“You're kidding me? Ziggy Bliss?”
“Yes! Ziggy Bliss!”
“Okay,” I said with a chuckle. Life was short, right? I may as well give it a try.
• • •
ARNIE LATCHKEY: Everything was smooth sailing on our little raft, the USS Fountain & Bliss, which I soon learned was usually a bad sign. That eerie calm in the fan a second before the excrement wallops it head-on. The new radio show was making some noise, they're playing the Riviera in Jersey, the Copa, El Mo. We had them lined up to open a picture at the old Capitol Theater on Broadway the second week of December. And then one day Vic comes to me and says, “I need some help.”
“What is it?”
“I knocked up a broad, Arn.”
“This doesn't surprise me. The way you run around all the time.”
“Hey, what me and Mr. Baciagaloop”—that was his name for his shlong —“do in our spare time is my own business.”
“But you're about to make it my business too, aren't you?” I said to him. “So what do you want me to do? No! Let me guess . . . you're going to marry this woman and be a father to this child and you want me to see to all the wedding arrangements. Is that it? And to arrange for college for this little stripling? Well, where shall we send this promising youth? Drake? Bowling Green? Where?”
“Not quite, Latch.”
“I didn't think so.”
“There are these doctors, you know . . .” he began.
“I'm aware of it.”
“. . . and they can . . . well, you know. And sometimes, some of 'em ain't even real doctors.”
“I'm familiar with it. Who's the girl?”
“Just some girl. Why? You want a name?”
“Nah. I don't want a name. A nice girl? Intelligent?”
“Not really, no.”
“Pretty girl, is she then?”
“Not particularly, no.”
“I'll make a call, Vic. Okay? We'll get this done. Can you make sure she doesn't go blabbing this around town?”
“She won't do that, don't worry. After she told me the news, I introduced her to Hunny.”
“Gotchya.”
“See!” he says. “It's a good thing we're payin' him, ain't it?”
“Yeah, it's terriff,” I said.
I asked him how Lulu was doing and when he was gonna make an honest-woman out of her, and he joked, “Who's Lulu?”
I made a few calls and this little problem was taken care of. And it wasn't some seedy back alley job either, done by some creep with a coat hanger; no, this was done by a Park Avenue surgeon who did the thing on his coffee table in his West End Avenue apartment.
Vic thanked me profusely, said it wouldn't ever happen again, although he added that he wasn't completely sure about that.
SALLY KLEIN: “You hear what Vic did?” Ziggy asked me one day. “He got some broad in a family way.”
“Really . . .”
“He should be more careful, don't ya think?”
He was trying to create trouble. He was trying to manipulate. Always.
“Wanna know who the girl is, Sal?” he asked me.
“Honestly? No. I don't.”
We were supposed to be talking about the radio show. Bormann beer was about to become the new sponsor. We were expanding to a half-hour, getting a new time slot. But we'd been coming on after The Dr. Jones Liver Elixir–Enzo Bugatti Piano Hour and this was like poison for us. We talked about that for three minutes, then . . .
“You ever meet any of Vic's friends? From Lobstertown or wherever he's from?”
“It's Codport. Yes, I've met a few,” I told him.
“W
hat do you think of Guy Puglia?”
“I like Guy. He's a little rough but he has a really sweet heart. Why?”
“What do you think of Tony Ferro? You met Tony ever?”
“I've met Tony. And his fiancée, Maria,” I said. “She lives in Flatb—” “
Hey, that's the girl Vic got in trouble!”
I said nothing for a few seconds, then said, “That's very bad. Does Tony know?”
“Nah. No idear.”
“Okay, Ziggy,” I said. “I've got work to do.”
ARNIE LATCHKEY: An engagement at the Capitol Theater would have been massive for us. Three or four shows a day, a band, Ziggy and Vic opening for a movie, which if my memory serves me well was Sergeant York with Gary Cooper. Bertie had some stunts arranged; he had arranged for a hundred screaming bobby-soxers, he organized for there to be a hundred nurses on call in case anyone laughed so much they'd have a heart attack, there were going to be a dozen ambulances parked outside. This would've been the big push, the thing that put us over the top, into the cream of the crop, the elite. And what happens? The Japs somehow have the chutzpah to ruin this shindig by bombing Pearl Harbor. It's like Emperor Hirohito himself didn't want Fountain and Bliss to strike it big!
The guy who booked the Capitol calls me up on December 8th and says, “Arnie, the boys can't go on.”
I said, “Look, that's Hawaii. That's fifty thousand miles away. This is Broadway.”
“We can't do it. It's off.”
“But life's gotta go on,” I told this idiot. “Look at England. They got pummeled, pelted, and pounded in the Blitz . . . you think the London theaters canceled their shows?”
