I Remember Me

by Carl Reiner

  For the next few days, I dripped milk into his tiny mouth with an eyedropper and hand-fed him teeny pieces of a soda cracker I soaked in water. Every day, he got a little bit stronger, and last night he started to move that leg—and with the splint still on it. Well, just before tonight’s performance, I removed his splint, and whaddya know, that little scoundrel took his first steps in over a week.”

  Jolson then took a breath and announced, with pride, “Folks, I wanna tell you that today, that li’l cockroach is as good as any one of you.”

  There was at least a five-second delay before everyone in the theater, including my brother and me, burst out laughing. We had all heard shaggy-dog jokes before, but this was the first and possibly the only shaggy-cockroach joke ever told.

  Now, back to that Writers Guild Awards dinner where I was standing at the podium and about to invite Jolson to come up on stage to join me and Jessel. The audience members were well aware of the animosity that George Jessel bore Al Jolson and reacted loudly and positively when a smiling Jolson climbed the steps to the stage, ran to Jessel, and bear-hugged him. It was quite an emotional moment, and there was not a dry eye in the house.

  I later learned that there were two dry eyes in the house, and both belonged to Georgie Jessel.

  Backstage after the show, I told Jessel that it was great to see the two of them hugging and hearing Jolson say, “Thank you, Georgie, thank you!”

  I asked Jessel what Jolson was thanking him for, and Jessel said, “Well, I whispered in his ear that to me he was still a rotten bastard and that if I live to be a hundred, I will never forgive him for what he did—and to go fuck himself! I guess he was thanking me for those kind words!”

  It is a distinct tribute to Al Jolson that, knowing what a “rotten bastard” he was in life did not diminish my appreciation of the magnificent film biography, The Jolson Story, that starred Larry Parks lip-synching to Jolie’s incomparable voice.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Four Fond Memories of My Funny, Foul-Mouthed Friend, David Burns

  David Burns and I first crossed paths in the 1950s, when we were cast members of two shows that were bound for Broadway. One was Alive and Kicking, an undistinguished musical that came and went from the Great White Way in twelve weeks, and the other, Pretty Penny, which never went anywhere, save for tryouts at summer theaters at Bucks County, New York, and at Westport, Connecticut.

  David Burns, or Davey, as he was called, was a well-known character actor. Among his many major roles on Broadway was that of the peddler in a production of Oklahoma! and the lead in Arthur Miller’s The Price. His last role was in Seventy Girls Seventy, where he passed away on stage in the middle of the second act.

  Through the years, I have enlivened many a dinner party by recounting some of the outlandish things that the irrepressible Davey sprung on unsuspecting “pigeons.”

  Davey was a stockily built, balding man in his late forties, who had a puckish face that smiled easily and two devilish eyes that twinkled brightly. His voice was strong, and when he was of a mind to make a point, he would bellow. The world was Davey’s stage, and he used it in an inimitably warped way.

  First Fond Memory

  During the out-of-town tryout of the short-lived musical Alive and Kicking, Davey and I found ourselves in Boston and staying at the Bradford Hotel. One of the stars of the show was Lenore Lonergan, a lovely and accomplished young actress. She had been invited to stay at Sarah Siddons Hall, an old, ultra-conservative theatrical boarding house, run by mature women who felt a need to protect and chaperone young, single actresses like Lenore. The only men ever allowed to set foot into the Sarah Siddons conclave were those who had been invited by a member to attend a charity function or a quiet lunch.

  On a day there was no matinee performance scheduled, Lenore invited Davey and me to join her for that quiet lunch. Lenore, Davey, and I were seated at a cozy corner table in the impressive turn-of-the-century dining hall. Prominently displayed on the wall opposite us was a life-sized portrait of the founder, Sarah Siddons. Most all of the diners were residents and were quite old. It felt as if the diners had been hired by Central Casting to keep the room looking authentically antique. The room was exceedingly quiet, and so as not to disturb the ambiance, Lenore, Davey, and I spoke little, and when we did speak, we spoke softly.

  After eating our first two courses, which consisted of a small cup of clear consommé and a lightly dressed Bibb-lettuce salad, Davey leaned over and whispered something to Lenore just loudly enough for me to hear. What we both heard made Lenore grimace and me suppress a smile. It happened sixty years ago, but I will never forget his words: “Lenore,” Davey growled quietly, “do you know what I would like to do, right this minute?”

  “No, what?” she asked naively.

  “I would like to go up to your room,” Davey suggested through clenched teeth, “rip off all our clothes, and have you sit on my face—for half an hour!”

  Lenore, who knew Davey well, just shook her head and whispered, “Davey, you are disgusting!”

  “I’m disgusting? Davey, bellowed, slamming his fist on the table. “I’m disgusting? You are sitting on my face and you call me disgusting?!”

  With that, Davey stood up, threw his napkin into Lenore’s lap, and stormed out of the dining hall. The ensuing silence was deafening. No one dared move—except me, who high-tailed it out.

  In the history of mouth-dropping, stunned silences, the one Davey Burns provoked that afternoon has to be ranked in the top ten.

  I concluded that the staid women of Sarah Siddons Hall remained silent for so long because they could not process the thought of a woman sitting on a man’s face for one second, let alone, half an hour.

  Second Fond Memory

  It was at the opening-night performance of the short-lived musical Pretty Penny when Davey managed to sabotage an actress’s performance by saying something to her a moment before she went on stage. The actress was, in truth, a chorus member who was given a small speaking part by the producer, with whom she was having an affair. Davey was miffed that “the Bimbo,” as Davey dubbed her, had stolen the part from another chorus member, a truly talented actress who had been promised the part. The meager lines entailed the actress announcing the entrances of the three military officers who were in the upcoming sketch. Two of the officers, Major General Claude Truxton and Admiral Frank Halsey were being played by Davey and me.

  Opening night, seconds before “the Bimbo” was to walk on stage and deliver her first line, Davey, with a theatrical injustice gnawing at him, angrily told “the Bimbo”: “Honey, I know you are fucking our producer. Well, I must warn you, he’s married to my sister, who has threatened to shoot you! And she’s sitting in the first row—with a gun!”

  Outlandish as it was, Davey’s remarks did exactly what he had intended them to do—unnerve and fluster! “Miss Bimbo” stepped unsteadily onto the stage, and instead of announcing “Lieutenant General Phillip Truxton!” she stammered, “Uh, Lt-t-t-tenant General—Trrrillip P-P-Phuckston,” and went on to butcher the names of the other two officers.

  Thanks to Davey’s sense of fairness and innovative intervention, the talented young actress was given back her part and the extra pay that went with it.

  Third Fond Memory

  Davey did not like surprises, and he abhorred fumbling a line during a performance. He was very hard on himself and on others if he thought they had fed him a wrong cue.

  At the Bucks County Playhouse, during a technical rehearsal of Alive and Kicking, a musical bound for Broadway, an incident occurred that illustrates just how deeply Davey felt about his art.

  A tech rehearsal is one in which the actors go through the play without wearing their wardrobe or emoting fully. It is done primarily to check for technical problems and the setting and handling of props the actors will use for each scene. There is nothing w
orse than reaching into your pocket for a gun that isn’t there and having to shoot a protagonist with your extended forefinger—which actually has happened more than once. In summer theater, as a youth, I actually heard an actor shout “Bang!” and the villain fall to the floor after being shot by a barehanded hero.

  As payment to the dozen or so merchants and townsfolk who lend their furniture and rugs to the production, they are invited to watch the tech rehearsal. During this rehearsal, the actors will deliver all their lines and walk through the staging without expending the energy they would for a regular performance. It was at this rehearsal that I saw a side of Davey Burns that I did not know existed. During our time together, I had seen and heard Davey behave as if he were angry at the world and scream, rant, and curse at all the phony idiot producers, politicians, and directors who did not know that they were idiots. The more he ranted, the more beloved his friends found him. Who would not love a madman who made you laugh?

  Davey’s unraveling started a few minutes after the curtain rose on the scene in which Davey and I played military officers. For some reason, no one had told Davey that an audience would be present. This alone might not have unnerved him, had he not been unshaven and wearing a faded, short-sleeved sports shirt. His temperature and hackles rose considerably when he stuttered delivering his first line. I could see the vein sticking out on his forehead and hoped he would recover his equilibrium after the next exchange. In the scene, I was smoking a cigar, and I asked General Truxton if he would pass the ashtray. Davey said, “Certainly,” picked up the glass ashtray, and with all of his might, smashed it on the conference table. It broke into dozens of slivers and shards, and the miracle was that no blood was let from Davey’s hand or my face. The audience gasped, and Davey stood up and bolted from the stage.

  The stage manager came on and announced that the performance was canceled. I followed an irate Davey to our shared dressing room and tried to calm him—in vain. He yelled at me and asked me if I knew that there would be an audience out there, and I said I did, which made him angrier at me for not telling him. It was at this moment, when Davey was at his angriest and in an invective-tossing mode, that our director, George S. Kaufman, appeared at the door to our dressing room—accompanied by his elegant wife, Leueen MacGrath.

  To refresh your memory or add to your theater knowledge, George S. Kaufman and his partner, Moss Hart, were responsible for some of the wittiest and most successful Broadway shows of the thirties and forties. Mr. Kaufman lent his considerable wit to many early TV game shows and was one of the famous celebrities who traded witticisms while seated at the legendary Algonquin Round Table.

  When George S. Kaufman arrived at our dressing room, he was aware that his star actor was having a serious meltdown, so with honest concern, he asked, “Are you all right, David?”

  David stood up, shook his head like an enraged bull, and delivered a scatological tirade at one of Broadway’s most-respected icons who, at that moment, was an ashen-faced target for vitriol. Davey let loose a machine-gun barrage of “F” and “C” words, of both genders and leveled a goodly amount of them at a gasping Mrs. Kaufman, who cowered at the door. When Mr. Kaufman grabbed his wife’s arm and fled from the dressing room, Davey followed them down the hall and continued his filthy-mouthed F- and C-word barrage—adding a slew of “mother-effers, bitch bastards, shit bags, and assholes,” until the great theater legend and his wife fled the building.

  I had never witnessed such out-of-control behavior from any human being. No doubt, David Burns was a tortured soul and a remorseful one, for as soon as he returned to the dressing room, he plopped down at the makeup table and mumbled, “What did I do? What did I do?!”

  That night, he did what we both came to Bucks County Playhouse to do—put on a show. Davey performed well that night, and the audience would never have guessed that, just a few hours earlier, one of the lead actors had completely lost his mind.

  Usually, during out-of-town tryouts, the director will come backstage after a show and offer notes to the actors, but following Davey’s blow-up, we received no notes and no visits from Mr. Kaufman. I did, however, get a visit from a representative of Actors’ Equity. It seems that Mr. Kaufman had contacted our union, leveled charges against Davey, and they had come to investigate. I was cited by Mr. Kaufman to be an eyewitness to the event.

  I was asked to read a transcript of the words Mr. Kaufman claimed David had used to insult him and his wife, and asked if I could verify that “Mr. Burns had, indeed, used that offensive language.”

  Of course, there was no chance that I would ever rat on a pal, and as I read the almost verbatim list of foul words Davey had uttered, I immediately thought of how I might respond without perjuring myself and without incriminating my pal.

  With as much incredulity in my voice as I could muster, I said, “I am shocked! David Burns? Are you serious? Do you, in your wildest dreams, think that David Burns, who played Mr. Vandergelder in The Music Man and won a Tony Award for it would ever use this kind of vile language in a theater? This is a joke, isn’t it?”

  David Burns was known as a character, and everyone in the union knew of Davey’s predilection to rant and rave for comic effect. It was clear that the union rep was relieved that he would not have to censure one of the most beloved characters in our business. Davey received what amounted to a slap on the wrist and a warning not to curse out any more directors.

  Fourth Fond Memory

  Davey and I were in Manhattan, walking along Broadway and approaching the southwest corner of Forty-Eighth Street, when we had our contentious discussion about religion and the existence of the Almighty.

  Davey had asked me outright if I believed in God, and I told him that I did not—that I was an atheist.

  “An atheist,” he smirked. “Well, I can go you one better. I am worse than an atheist; I am an agnostic!”

  “Davey,” I countered, “there is no worse or better—if you are going to use ‘better or worse’ as a yardstick, you should know that an atheist does not believe a God exists, and an agnostic is not sure whether or not there is a God.”

  “Right!” Davey agreed. “I am saying that I don’t know whether or not God exists, but as an agnostic, I hope that he does exist.”

  With that, he raised his arms skyward, and on that busy corner, he shouted to the heavens, “God I hope you do exist—and fuck you, God!”

  David later explained that he was pissed off at God for, among other things, allowing Hitler to kill 6 million Jews and as many non-Jews.

  Davey was many things, but what really defined him was his love and devotion to his wife, Toddy. For twenty-five years, he had been happily married to Toddy, a lovely, charming woman with whom he lived on the small Connecticut farm they lovingly tended. Mrs. Burns, a Christian Scientist, had heard stories from some not-so-well-meaning friends about her husband’s sometimes outlandish behavior—the likes of which she had never witnessed. When asked by one of these “friends” how she could possibly “live with a man like that,” Toddy responded, “If my husband were not the dearest, sweetest, most thoughtful man I have ever known, I would leave him in a minute!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The Pony and the Pool Table

  With your indulgence, I would like to return to the year 1960, when our family first moved from New Rochelle to Beverly Hills. Earlier, when describing some of the noteworthy events that took place, such as our dog’s attempt to de-feather a pigeon, I had neglected to chronicle the most noteworthy event of all.

  That event, a truly blessed one, triggered an emotional response so powerful that it provoked Robbie, Annie, Estelle, and me to laugh so hard and long that we risked blacking out.

  Robbie and Annie who, at the time, were respectively thirteen and eleven, were not at all happy that we had uprooted them from their home in the East, where they had many friends, and transplanted them to a hous
e in the West, where they had no friends.

  They calmed down when they discovered that one or two of the “geeky kids” they met at school had the potential of becoming a best friend.

  In the course of shooting the film Gazebo, I became friendly with Martin Landau, who played a role in the film. I perceived him to be a fine actor, but I was not so perceptive as to foresee that later in his career, he would win an Academy Award for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in the film biography of schlock director Ed Wood.

  Marty and his lovely wife, Barbara Bain, a gifted young actress, became our good friends, and one afternoon, at our house on North Alta Drive, Barbara excitedly informed us that she had just learned that she was pregnant. After much happy hugging and well-wishing, Barbara looked at Estelle and stated flatly, “Estelle, I think you’re pregnant too.”

  Estelle, who I remember looking particularly attractive and svelte that day in her short, black dress and high heels, and sporting the shape and weight she had before giving birth eleven years earlier, laughed, and with happy resignation said, “Barbara, I am afraid those days are over for me.”

  At that time, Barbara did not know Estelle’s age. Most women do not go around telling people how old they are, and Estelle was even less eager to do so, since she had not told our children the truth. When asked, she would say she was a year older than I. She did not relish their blabbing to the world that their mother was almost eight years older than their father. When Barbara made her witch-like prediction, Estelle was forty-five, and neither she nor I was concerned about the possibility of becoming parents again. After twenty-five years, we were finally enjoying a carefree and contraceptive-free love life.