by Carl Reiner
Norman Lear: Gracefully walked into the room carrying a large, three-layer cake that he had commandeered from the kitchen, and asked, “Who’d like a piece of this delicious cake?”
He then dug his bare hand deep into the cake and offered us a wad of the wet goop he had scooped out. Throughout his long and extraordinarily successful career, Norman has always found the time, the layer cakes, and the occasions to delight audiences with his classic pantomime. Gentleman that Norman is, he always offered to serve the ladies first.
Pat Marshall: Strode confidently to the grand piano that stood in a corner of the living room and magnificently accompanied herself as she belted out “Mr. Wonderful,” the hit song from the Broadway show of the same name that starred Sammy Davis Jr. and Pat Marshall.
Frances Lear: A businesswoman, who had no known performing talent, she announced that she was going to do her impression of a woman in a current mystery film who had been murdered. Frances then lay down on the floor, face up, and became the corpse. To her credit, she did not breathe or move a muscle for almost a full minute. For her accurate portrayal, she received at least as much applause as any of the seasoned performers.
It was at this point that Larry Gelbart suggested that it might be interesting if a couple of us eavesdrop on the members of the audience and report back what they said about the performers and their performances. Anne Bancroft was the first to volunteer, and she did this by casually moving to where two of us, who were designated as audience members, were chatting. Anne then returned and reported to the others that the audience absolutely loved the show and all the performers, and singled out “the interesting dark-haired girl, Anne Bancroft,” saying how thrilled they were to discover that “an Academy Award-winning actress could sing so beautifully and be so gracious and down-to-earth.”
Pat Marshall had a similar experience and mentioned that someone wondered if they could get a recording of her singing “Mr. Wonderful” and a copy of Good News, a movie in which she starred with Peter Lawford and June Allyson.
And so it went, each performer eavesdropping on the audience and reporting what was overheard. Every performer had similar story to Anne’s, with each being the audience’s particular favorite.
Larry Gelbart claimed that he had left the house and visited a local restaurant, where he heard strangers who had wandered into our living room and seen our show report how amazed they were “to see so many big celebrities all in one house—and putting on a show!” He said that they particularly liked Pat Marshall’s singing and the hilarious quips her husband delivered. The man couldn’t remember his name but said that he wrote most of Bob Hope’s jokes and also the play, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
CHARADES:
The playing of charades was, at that time, a favorite after-dinner activity, and during one of these historic weekends, our group played a round of charades with a passion and an outcome that was above and beyond what I believe most people have experienced.
As prescribed, we formed two teams, and to add spice, we decided that husbands and wives would be on opposing teams. Their team, captained by Norman, went into an adjoining room, and ours, led by Larry, went into another room to find subjects that would be both challenging and funny to act out. After coming up with ten good charades, Larry called out, “We’re ready to play!” and Norman responded, “We need a few extra minutes!”—which we gave them. After the “few extra minutes,” Larry called out again, but this time there was no response. When we went to find out why, we found their room empty, the front door open, and Norman’s car gone. We also found their little joke to be mildly funny and a bit mean-spirited. Naturally, we immediately started to discuss what we could do to ensure that they got the comeuppance they deserved. Again, I have no memory of who suggested that we do what we did, but by gum, it was one heck of a brilliant suggestion.
Guessing that their group would soon return feeling smug about their little gambit, we worked feverishly to do something that would make them regret making us feel like dopes.
The “something” we did was go about and strip the cushions and pillows from every sofa and club chair and toss them about the room. We overturned the chairs and sofas, toppled the coffee table, the dining-room table, and a couple of standing cabinets. We pulled the large area rugs from the floor and stacked them in a rumpled mess against a wall. We took the oil paintings off the walls and placed then atop the upended furniture. The larger oils we left on the walls but made them hang askew.
After making the room appear to have been vandalized, the five of us vandalized ourselves by rumpling our clothing, tousling our hair, smudging our faces with fireplace ashes, and disheveling ourselves sufficiently to appear as if we were the victims of violent intruders.
Estelle and Anne, who had been a party to the idea of sneaking out and going off, shrieked in guilty horror when they saw the lifeless bodies of their husbands sprawled about. It was a short-lived guilt, for they quickly realized the truth, but we felt that their few horrified gasps were enough for our charades team to claim a moral victory. We had beaten our loved ones at their own dirty game!
It may be hard to believe, but I contend that the fun and laughter we all had on that first Yenemvelt weekend was equaled the following year, if not surpassed—and you can check that with any member of our club. I am sad to note that, of the five founding couples, one member of each Yenemvelt family has “shuffled off their mortal coil.” Anne Bancroft, Estelle Reiner, Dom DeLuise, Larry Gelbart, and Frances Lear are no longer with us, but if you were in a position to check with their mates, you will find that I speak the truth…or something close to it.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Rickles, Kovacs, and Sinatra
(A Warm Story about Cool Celebs)
In 1959, I had the pleasure of going out on the town with the above “cool celebs.” At that time, Don Rickles was not yet a “celeb,” but Frank Sinatra certainly was, and Ernie Kovacs was a newly arrived one. Ernie’s wildly inventive comedy shows were a staple on early television, and at this point in his career, he was being wooed by filmmakers and television producers to star in some prestigious works—one being a Playhouse Ninety production of Topaze, a classic play by Marcel Pagnol. In an early film version, the character Topaze, a naive schoolteacher, had been portrayed by no less a star than John Barrymore.
I was offered a supporting role in the project and was excited by the prospect of flying to Hollywood and appearing in a film that starred a one-of-a kind comedian whose inventive mind had always intrigued me.
As I recall, neither the play nor the production was very impressive. The production company had reserved suites for us at the Beverly Hills Hotel, which was both convenient and scary. Ernie’s driving to and from work every day was the convenient part—the scary part came as we left the hotel driveway each morning. At about sixty miles per hour, he sped from the front of the hotel down a steep hill, past the stop sign at the end of the driveway, made a sharp left turn onto a street, and traveled twenty yards before coming to a screeching halt at the red light on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Rodeo Drive.
Had another vehicle been coming down the intersecting street Ernie had blindly entered, you would not be reading this book.
After experiencing Ernie’s harrowing maneuver, I questioned his judgment and sanity. “Ernie,” I asked tactfully, “are you crazy or what? What if someone were driving down that street?”
“I knew there wouldn’t be!”
“How the hell could you know that?”
“Because it’s a thousand-to-one shot a car would be there. The odds are in my favor.”
“Well, my odds could be a five-to one—so I’d appreciate it if we go by my odds.”
He compromised and accommodated my urge to live by heeding the stop sign—on most mornings.
One night after rehearsal, Ernie asked me if I would like to
join him and Frank Sinatra to catch “this wild new comic, Don Rickles.”
Of course I accepted his invitation, and it turned out to be a memorable evening, so memorable that, at this very moment, I am typing it into my computer. Before I get to a conversation I had with Frank Sinatra, I would like to quote some of the less-censorable lines I remember Don Rickles spraying about that night. For those few dozen people who do not know what Don Rickles does, he is a comedian who never fails to convulse an audience by picking on and insulting various members of that audience who have paid money to see him.
Ernie, Frank, and I were seated at a little table in the middle of the club. None of us had ever seen Rickles before, but we had heard that he picked on people. He started by asking questions of and insulting the people closest to his platform. The two quips that have stuck in my head all these years, he directed at two celebrities he was told were in the room. The first was Elliot Roosevelt, President Franklin D.’s oldest son. Rickles wasted no time.
“I’m told that Elliot Roosevelt is with us tonight,” he said, smiling. “Elliot, where are you?”
Elliot stood up and embarrassedly waved at Don, who said, “Hi, Elliot! Folks, let’s give Elliot Roosevelt a big hand!”
While the audience applauded, Rickles continued, “Say hello to your mother, Elliot. I saw her in Vegas last week—yeah your mom, Eleanor—at the Frontier Hotel. She was in the lobby, standing behind a pole, swinging her pocketbook over her head and yelling, ‘Hi ya, sailor, you wanna have a good time? Room 204!’”
At one point, a young girl came to our table and asked Sinatra for his autograph, and this caught the quip master’s eye.
“Hey, Frank,” Rickles shouted. “You’re not going to get rid of those pimples on your face tonight—that broad you’re with—she ain’t gonna put out for ya!”
And so it went. Everyone was fodder for Rickles’s verbal abuse, and strangely, those in the audience whom he chose not to insult were openly disappointed.
After the performance, a smiling, pussycat version of Don Rickles came to our table, fawned over Sinatra, said how happy he was to meet me, and then walked off, chatting with Ernie. For the next half hour, I found myself alone with Frank Sinatra, and during that half hour, we sipped some beer and had a conversation that forever endeared him to me. I don’t know how the subject came up, but we found ourselves talking about our parents, generally, and our fathers, specifically. We both seemed to have mothers who were supportive and very proud of us and told us so. My father, I offered, was not very demonstrative but made it clear that he agreed with my mom when she first expressed her view of my performances.
“He’s the best one!” my mom whispered out loud when she saw me perform in a school play as a third grader. Mom continued to repeat that mantra throughout my career whenever she saw me perform on Broadway or on television.
Sinatra volunteered that he never knew what his father thought about him or if he ever thought about him. He said that his father was not much of a talker.
“When I was a kid,” he said sadly, “I don’t think my father said ten words to me.”
When I asked how his father felt about his son being the idol of millions of bobby soxers all over the country, he shrugged and said, “I didn’t know how he felt, because he sure as hell didn’t tell me. All I know is that he got up every morning, went to the firehouse, maybe put out a couple of fires, came home, had dinner, then went to the bar and chatted with his buddies until it was time to come home and go to bed—that was it.”
Sinatra said that’s how it was for years. When I said that I could not believe that his father was not aware and proud of what his son had accomplished, he told me about this one particular visit he made to his parents’ home in Hoboken, New Jersey. He had just returned from a highly successful tour, and all the newspapers were filled with descriptions of the love and adulation he had received from the tumultuous crowds of screaming fans.
His mother welcomed him home with a big hug and kiss, and when he asked where his dad was, his mom told him that he was probably at the corner bar, his off-duty hangout.
Frank said that he went to the bar, but his dad wasn’t there. The bartender had a funny smile on his face. “If you are looking for your Pop,” the bartender informed him, “he didn’t come in today—but he sure paid us a visit yesterday.”
Sinatra seemed to be enjoying telling me this story, and it soon became apparent to me why. Frank learned from the bartender that his father came into the bar the day before, and just as he walked in, he heard a customer at the bar ask his friend what he thought of “this Sinatra kid,” and his friend made a very derogatory remark about Sinatra’s sexuality.
Frank said that the bartender told him that his father pulled the guy off his stool and beat the crap out of him—and gave his buddy a few shots too. Frank was beaming with pride as he related the story. He said that he went to the fire station to pay his Pop a visit and maybe say “thanks for standing up for me.” When Frank got to the firehouse, he was told that his father was in the locker room. He went up a flight of stairs and found his father standing at his open locker and reaching into it.
“His back was to me,” Frank said, “and I called out, ‘Hi, Pop!’ and without turning, he slammed his locker shut, then looked over his shoulder at me and said, ‘Hi, Frankie. What’re you doing here?’”
He said that he and his father had one of their regular, unsentimental exchanges, but the overall effect of that visit changed his feelings about his father and his father’s overt disinterest in him or his career.
In the few seconds Frank’s father stood in front of his open locker, and before he slammed the door shut, Frank was able to catch a glimpse of dozens of newspaper photos and clippings scotch-taped to the inside of his locker door—and all of them about Frankie Sinatra!
Frank said that those few seconds made him realize that his father did love and care about him but could never allow his son or the world to know that he had a soft side. Those few seconds also allowed Frank to search for new ways to be a dutiful son to a reluctant father.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Can a Jewish Kid Be an Irish Tenor?
(And Someday Meet Judy Garland)
John McCormack
When I was six years old (and yes, I do remember that day eighty-four years ago), I asked my father that question. To my young mind, it was a perfectly reasonable thing to ask. Among his collection of RCA Victor’s Red Seal recordings by Enrico Caruso singing arias from La Traviata and Pagliacci, were a few songs recorded by the world-renowned Irish tenor, John McCormack. The one I loved was, “The Tumble Down Shack in Athlone.” By listening to it over and over and singing along with him, I learned all the words. I did have some difficulty in staying on pitch and keeping proper time, but I was quite pleased with my rendition.
I had another compelling reason to feel that I might one day pursue my dream to be an Irish tenor. My father had an old and dear friend named Max Kalphus, who spoke with a distinct German accent. He had a brother who sang on the radio, and every Monday night at seven, my parents would tune in station WOR and listen to a program of Irish songs sung by John Calvin. I had been told that John Calvin’s real name was Joseph Kalphus, and he was Max Kalphus’s brother.
John Calvin spoke with a charming Irish brogue, and before each song, he would talk about why he had selected to sing it. To introduce “The Tumble Down Shack in Athlone,” I heard him say, “I first heard this loovely song, when I was a wee lad, a’sittin on me mither’s knee. I c’n still hear her sweet voice a’singin’…I’m a lang way from hoooome and my thoughts ever roaaam, To ‘ould’ Erin far over the seeaaa.”
After the song ended, I told my father that when I grew up, I wanted to be an Irish tenor like John Calvin. My father said when I grew up, I could become a singer and sing Irish songs, but I could not become an Irish tenor. When I asked why n
ot, he reminded me that our family was Jewish. I was confused and asked how Max Kalphus could be Jewish and have a brother John who was Irish. My father had the patience to explain that in show business, an actor or a singer can be become anything they want to be. If an Irish man wanted to sing Jewish songs—that would be fine. He pointed out that Al Jolson, who was Jewish, sang songs that black people sang—and he even put on make-up to look like the singers who sang those songs. Whatever my father said to me obviously did not discourage me from pursuing a profession where I was able to attempt—and more times than not, successfully perform—as an Englishman, a German, a Russian, an Italian, a Frenchman, a Japanese samurai, and, for one memorable evening, an Irish tenor.
That performance was memorable, not only for my singing of “The Tumble Down Shack in Athlone,” but for singing it to my all-time favorite movie star, the one and only Judy Garland.
In 1960, I was invited to be a guest on a show Judy hosted, and I had the best time sitting beside her and being interviewed by her. In my time, I had sat beside and been interviewed by the greatest hosts, among them Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Dick Cavett, Regis Philbin, Merv Griffin, Craig Ferguson, Art Linkletter, Ernie Kovacs, Mike Wallace, Ellen DeGeneres, Joy Behar, Katie Couric, Arlene Francis, and others, but on none of them did I ever have a romantic crush.
On Judy’s show, I told her of my desire, as a wee lad of six, to grow up to be an Irish tenor, and to prove to her that a Jewish lad could have become an Irish tenor, I sang for her, and for an unsuspecting public, a creditable, Irish-accented rendition of “The Tumble Down Shack in Athlone.”
Judy’s smile of approval made my day.
Before that show, at a pre-interview in her dressing room, Judy and I discovered that we were the same age. I confessed to her that when I was thirteen, I was smitten by a girl who sang “Balboa” in the short subject, Pigskin Parade. At sixteen, when I saw her play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, my feelings for that girl deepened.
