Funnymen

by Ted Heller

  He didn't ask for his old man's help or for mine or Sally's. You got to respect that. He wanted to go the rock 'n' roll route too, but nobody would let him. But not the Vicki Fountain or Petula Clark thing; he was more like that Joe [sic] Morrison of the Doors or somebody. “You're name is Vince Fountain,” they'd remind him, “not Vince Hendrix.” He put together some kind of psychedelic rock combo but they couldn't get a record deal. They played the Whiskey-A-Go-Go a few times and the Philmont [sic]. I offered to help him out, so did Morty and Hank Stanco, but he didn't want our help. From what I understand—Sally's son saw them perform—they were good, if that sort of sound was to your taste. But nobody would give them a contract.

  I asked Vic if he ever saw Vince sing with Shocking Turquoise—that was his combo's name—and Vic said to me, “That ain't singin', that's howling.”

  Now, I don't believe everything I hear. I don't even believe half of what I hear, and the half I do believe, I don't even believe that. But someone told me that those two hoodlums Tony and Jimmy Fratelli had gone around with satchels full of Vic's dough to get record companies to not sign Vince. It was a “Lady or the Tiger” thing—the dough was the lady and the Fratelli brothers were the tiger. Everybody went with the lady, you can take my word for it.

  Now, why would Vic do that, you inquire? Why would he gum up the works for his own son? Look, I'm no socio-anthropologist but it could've been because he was the big dominant male in his family—the king bee, if you will—the chief of his tribe, and here's the young potent male trying to seize the throne. Here was Vic, starting to lose his hair and his voice, gaining weight and losing his audience, and here was the young stud, the handsome young buck in leather pants and love beads with the smooth voice. And so the old man slays the pretender to the throne. Yeah, it could've been that.

  Or maybe he did it just because Vic was Vic.

  DANNY McGLUE: Vincent moved into some flophouse apartment in San Francisco; he tried to make it with his rock band, but it didn't happen. And he started doing LSD all the time. I ran into him in Los Feliz one night and who knows what he was seeing when he was looking at me? Maybe he saw thirty of me. He was the one who got Donny Klein into the drugs too. It's just a shame. They'd smoke pot and take the drugs and disappear for days at a time.

  Did you know a cop picked Vincent up in Berkeley once? He had some drugs on him, I think it was pot. The cop recognized his name and said to him, “Hey, you're Vic Fountain's kid, aren't you?” And Vincent said, “No.” The cop says to him, “Sure you are.” “If I am, does that mean you're not going to arrest me?” Vincent asked, and the cop said, “I'm your dad's biggest fan. I've seen him at Harrah's in Tahoe three times. I conceived my son to ‘Malibu Moon’ and when my wife left me I listened to ‘Lost and Lonely Again’ a hundred times.” “Look, Vic Fountain's not my old man,” Vincent said to the cop, “so just bust me, okay? I don't give a fuck about anything.” But the cop wouldn't do it. He even gave him the pot back.

  The poor kid couldn't get a break.

  “I made it on my own,” Vic said to me once, “so can he, even though he won't.”

  FREDDY BLISS: There was pressure on me ever since I was a kid. Adults would meet me and bend over and tickle me and say, “You goin' to become a comic too?” I heard that a million times. Even if I fell down while trying to walk or if someone threw a ball to me and I dropped it—I was a very klutzy kid—people would laugh and say, “He's gonna be just as funny as Ziggy.” Often I didn't even have to do something funny or stupid and people would laugh. I'd be trying to do homework and maybe Van Johnson was at the house or George Burns or Agnes Moorehead, who was close friends with Mom, and they'd look at me and laugh. But I wasn't funny, there really wasn't anything funny about me. If I tried to be funny, probably no one would laugh. By the time I was a teenager I was ready to punch the next person who said I was funny or who asked me if I was going to become a comic. But, you know, even if I punched them, they'd probably start laughing.

  Dad sent me to a military academy in Massachusetts when I was fifteen years old. I don't know why; I thought you only did that to kids who are either potential generals or potential criminals, and I was neither. It probably was my mother's idea. It's very possible she just wanted me out of the house for some reason. So I was never a part of the “Hollywood kids” scene. I didn't go to parties with Frank Sinatra's or Liz Taylor's kids. I didn't go driving around with Tuesday Weld or Ann-Margret or Peter Fonda or anyone like that. As a matter of fact I never went to parties and rarely drove around with anyone.

  But I don't want to give the wrong impression. I saw the way Vic Fountain was with Vince, and Dad was not like that with me. He wasn't distant, he wasn't unaffectionate. He was there for me when he could be and was very nurturing. The one person in the entire world who never once asked if I was going to become a comedian was Dad.

  You know, Ted, there's a lot of pressure on a famous person's kid to follow in his father or his mother's footsteps. I don't know if you realize that. A lot of time the pressure comes from within, but a lot of times it comes from other people. Mom and Dad—they'd rather I become a doctor or a lawyer, I think, than start singing or telling jokes.

  Well, what I found out is this: I couldn't do anything. I'm a pretty incompetent guy . . . I've always been that. I went to UCLA and for a year I was premed, but I just couldn't get the biology down. So I switched majors and took lots of politics classes, thinking maybe I'd go to law school. But my grades were pretty bad. I worked hard, I studied and studied, but I just wasn't any good. The other kids would invite me out, to clubs and bars and places, but they were all expecting me to pop my eyes out and make funny faces. Which I didn't do. They wanted me to tell jokes and be funny. When I didn't, they stopped asking me out.

  I did graduate, barely. But—well, I guess I'll never know if this is true or not—I maybe graduated only because my dad made a very generous bequest to the university. He donated about a half a million dollars to start a comedy library there. The Harry Blissman and Florence Blissman Memorial Comedy Library, it was called. It was supposed to cover the history of comedy and comedians from Aristophanes to vaudeville to the present day. Dad was very involved in the planning of this, and I. M. Pei was brought in to design a building. There was talk about a fellowship and establishing a permanent “chair” or something, where they would bring in a visiting professor to teach. (Dad had a typical idea for him: “The chair should have, like, a whoopee cushion on it!” he said.) I think the only person they could get was Henny Youngman, but finally he passed on it. Lenny Pearl, the old-time comic, had given millions to the university too over the years; as I understand it, though, he scuttled the entire project. They never did start the library or the fellowship. And the building was never built. But somehow I did manage to graduate.

  Eventually something was built. Ziggy Bliss's Harry Blissman and Florence Blissman Museum of the Comedic Arts was opened up in Loch Sheldrake in 1990. It's full of all kinds of interesting history about the Catskills, the whole entertainment scene, and the history of American comedy. We've got thousands of tapes and records and articles. It's actually quite a marvelous place. I should know. I manage it. Finally, I found something I can do.

  • • •

  SNUFFY DUBIN: You know, Ziggy did maybe two specials a year for ABC. There was always a Christmas show and sometimes one in the spring too. The geniuses at the networks more than a few times would put Ziggy's Christmas special up against Vic's. Vic would outdraw Ziggy two to one sometimes . . . later it was three to one. And then it was no contest because Oldsmobile, which sponsored Zig's shows, dropped out. But by that time, Andy Williams's or Perry Como's specials were mopping the floor with both Ziggy and Vic. A few times my agent tried to book me on Ziggy's shows, but not one time did Zig ever let me on. And I was getting hot in the late sixties; instead of me opening up for Sandler and Young, now those two Canadian putzes were opening up for me! But I never got on a Ziggy show. So I did what anyone would've done: I
started going on Vic's specials. That cat never turned me down one time. He also never turned up for rehearsal one time either. He wouldn't even read from the TelePrompTer anymore! It was his TV show but he put in a total of five minutes work on it. He'd started that syndicated golf program of his and that sapped up a lot of his energy, which shows you just how much energy he had.

  When Ziggy found out I was doing Vic's show he hit the roof. And believe me, I enjoyed every minute of it.

  When Olds dumped Ziggy in '68, nobody would go near him. Nobody was watching the show—Marlin Perkins tickling a gerbil was outdrawing him. He did this sketch in his last Christmas show . . . it was him and Mitzi Gaynor dressed up as a quarreling couple, two vaudevillians in their living room. And the sketch was something about her lousy cooking, about how her brisket stunk up the entire northern half of New York State. It was Harry and Flo they were playing, this was his tribute, and it stank worse than that brisket.

  When he lost his TV shows, that's when a lot of other things went bad. He still had engagements all around the country. If I was around and had free time I'd stop in and watch. Half of Ziggy's act was him talking about Vic. Imitating Vic, relating funny stories about Vic, putting Vic in weird situations, like on the moon or in the White House or something. Couple times I saw him and he did something real unprofessional: He started laughing at his own material. Actually it wasn't material that he said aloud; it was stuff up in his brain. He never did get it out, he just thought about it and I thought he was gonna completely explode. Very unprofessional.

  He told reporters he was taking a break from the clubs for a while. Takinga break. But, you know, he'd been playing the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill [New Jersey] or the Royal Box in New York and the joints were empty. Except for the hecklers. “. . . And another thing about Vic,” Ziggy would say, and some drunk from Paramus would throw an ice cube at him and yell out, “No. Enough about Vic!” People were taking a break from him.

  PERNILLA BORG [Ziggy's second wife]: It is famous story of how Ziggy meets me. I was Miss Sweden in 1964. I was twenty-three years old. From this I get to do commercials for the Top Brass, the hair cream. Some man is putting the Top Brass in his hair at his gym and I appear in a white towel and I put the Top Brass over him. I say one line: “I want to get it all over you.” It was very steamy, very hot. When I sign for this Top Brass campaign, Earl Wilson prints my picture in the Post. “Bustacious, chestacious, bosomicious, lustacious Pernilla Borg will be steaming things up for Top Brass,” it says. The picture of me is with the white towel and my cleavages. Ziggy calls up Earl Wilson and he gets my publicist's phone number from him. Then Ziggy calls me up at home! I did not believe it was Ziggy Bliss. The funny half of Fountain and Bliss. We are on phone for an hour and he has me laughing so much it is hurting me. He tells me he will be in New York sometime soon and would like to meet me. I say to him, “When will you be in New York?” and he says, “Will you be there tomorrow?” and I say to him yes and then he says, “Then so will I.” And he was.

  ARNIE LATCHKEY: Morty calls me, tells me we got trouble: Ziggy's been seen around New York with Pernilla Borg. Who? I mean, at this point, I don't know Pernilla Borg from Ingmar Bergman. He tells me, “It's that big Swede in the Top Brass ads.” Do you remember that campaign? In the locker room with all the steam and the white towel? Jesus, ten million boys must have gotten their first hard-ons watching a stupid commercial for hair cream. I bet you some of them haven't even subsided yet, it was that hot. (Christ, that whole campaign backfired too, because nobody could tell what the commercial was for: hair cream, towels, Swedish tourism, or steam.) Anyway, as soon as I realized who Pernilla Borg is, I said to Morty, “This has got to be it for Jane White. She's dead in the water.”

  “Arnie,” he says to me, “do you have any idea how much I've done for Fountain and Bliss?”

  “Yes I do, because I've asked you to do most of it.”

  “I just can't take this anymore.”

  “Morty,” I said, “I know you're gonna cover this lousy burnt flank steak with rich luscious icing, with fresh strawberries and sweet sugary flowers and fluffy cream and we're gonna make it through. I just know it. So, please, get bakin'.”

  So the next day Ziggy calls me up from New York. He's in a rage. He's yelling so goddamn loud, his spit was practically squirtin' through my ear piece. “Morty's fired!” Ziggy said. “I want Morty fired and I want him to never work at any job anywhere ever again!” I told Ziggy this would be a little tough to arrange and asked him what had happened. He read to me from Bud Hatch's column. Guess what Morty Geist had done? He'd called up columnists all over New York and L.A. and told them that Ziggy Bliss was having an adulterous sexual relationship with Pernilla Borg, she of the Top Brass ads, and that his wife didn't know about it and it would probably be the end of their marriage even though he'd cheated on her numerous times, and that nobody really thought this would be injurious to Ziggy's career because his career wasn't doing particularly good anyway. That's what Morty told everyone. The truth! And they went with it.

  “Morty told me,” I said to Ziggy, “that he was at the end of his rope.”

  “Did you tell him to get a new—” he started to ask me.

  “Yes, I most certainly did.”

  “I want him dead, Latch.”

  “Look, do you have any idea how much he's done for us? Covering up the abortions and the shoplifting, George S. Collier's peg leg, the dozens of fights, the girls, all the hanky-panky and mishegoss.”

  “Okay . . . okay,” he said. “I unnerstand.”

  “You do?” I said, for it did not seem characteristic of him.

  Maybe a week after this, what happens? Vic was filming Monza: 180 MPH with Camilla Sparv, Omar Sharif, and Alain Delon, and he began a dalliance with Taffy McBain, who's in that forgettable racecar picture for about two laps. Taffy and Vic were seen all over the place, holding hands, smooching, actin' like kids. The paparazzi were all over them like potato on a knish. He'd be singing in Vegas and they'd bring the lights down except for one soft light on her in the crowd and he'd sing to her. Very tender, very sweet, very sickening. After four weeks of this relationship he tells Morty to announce to the world he's marrying Taffy McBain, who, by the way, is twenty years younger than him. So do you know what Morty does? He calls up every columnist there is and—for no reason whatsoever known to mankind—he issues the Eleven Standard Denials and Apologies! About the marriage, about the relationship, about gambling and drinking. About everything under the goddamn sun, it was like! All Vic wanted him to do was to call up Bud or Earl or the Slobbering Lush and say, “Taffy McBain and I are deeply in love and will be getting married in a private ceremony at an undisclosed location at Harrah's in Tahoe next month.” But Morty—you gotta love him—he just flipped out! “I am not marrying Taffy McBain because she is expecting my child,” he had Vic saying. But nobody had ever said that! Grayling Greene ran this: “My marriage to Taffy, whom I love and adore, is not an act of bigamy. I was never married to Faye Kendall.” But nobody ever said that Vic and Faye Kendall had ever tied the knot!

  “Latch,” Vic says to me on the phone from Palm Springs, “my kids'll read this, Lulu'll read this, my mother'll read this. I want him dead. He's dead. Morty's in Forest Lawn.”

  “Do you have any idea how much—”

  “Even if I wasn't gonna strangle him, even if my mother wasn't gonna chew his Adam's apple, do you honestly think that the Fratellis won't go after him?! Look, this is my second marriage, Latch. That's really important. It should be the second happiest day of my life.”

  “I'll talk to him. Maybe he can apologize for the denials and deny the apologies.”

  Poor Morty Geist. He made Fountain and Bliss. And he remade them, over and over again, whenever there was trouble. All the stunts he pulled. I don't know when it was but in Philly once he'd gotten hold of three people who were in the hospital for trying to kill themselves by jumping. And he puts them all up in the balcony and in the middle of a
Fountain and Bliss sketch, all three of them dive off at once. Tell me that isn't genius.

  Dissolve. Four nights later. I get a phone call in the middle of the night, it's Bertie Kahn. Bertie's retired, he's livin' in Fort Lauderdale, he moseys about with a solid-gold, diamond-studded walker. Bertie tells me that Morty had committed suicide.

  “Why now?” I asked. “I mean, I see why he'd kill himself, Bertie, but why now and not five years or ten years ago?”

  “The accumulation, Arnie.”

  All the dozens, the hundreds of things. They had all piled up and collapsed on him. The poor guy. Never married, never had a girl. The kid had no family that we knew of, and Vic and Ziggy—separately, of course—picked up the tab for the funeral.

  “How'd he do it, by the way?” I asked Bertie.

  “Hanged himself.”

  “Damn,” I said. “With what?”

  “A rope. It took two though. The first one snapped.”

  SALLY KLEIN: When I read that Vic was marrying Taffy McBain my first thought was: Poor Lulu. That flame was still burning inside her, but it must have died down when Vic told her what he was doing. Although I think he didn't tell her; Joe Yung did. That's what personal valets are for, huh?

  I said to Jack, “I give this marriage three years. Not a day more.”

  Well, I was off by a year. Because it was over in two.

  REYNOLDS CATLEDGE IV: When the nature of Ziggy and Pernilla Borg's “friendship” became common knowledge, I was contacted by Shep Lane and Merwyn Swick, the prominent Los Angeles divorce lawyer. Mr. Swick informed me that this case could get unsightly or ugly or hideous. “We want to keep it down to unsightly at best, ugly at worst,” he said.

  Mr. Swick asked me what I knew about Jane White. Did she ever fool around, he wanted to know, did she drink, use narcotics, or take pills?