by Robert Klein
His name, I learned, was Rodney Dangerfield, though where a guy like him got a name like that I couldn’t imagine. He was a fixture there, and just starting to have success in a new incarnation. Some of his material was worthy of comparison to Art Buchwald and Russell Baker, pithy if inadvertent social commentary. “I’ll tell ya, our parks aren’t safe, our schools aren’t safe, our streets aren’t safe: But under our arms, we have complete protection.” His first show-business career, as Jack Roy, had been promising, but he quit at the urging of his wife, who wanted more security, and he soon became a successful entrepreneur in aluminum siding. His heart, though, was elsewhere, and he continued to write comedy and offer it to comedians like Jackie Mason and Joan Rivers until he bagged the siding business and became Rodney Dangerfield: a name, he subsequently told me, that he got from the Manhattan phone book.
It is worth pointing out that at the time, few comedians wrote their own material. Rodney had several Ed Sullivan Shows booked, and shortly, he was to appear on The Merv Griffin Show. I was to spend several years watching him, listening to him, and learning the craft as I followed him around to many of his gigs.
Certain techniques were instinctive, though complicated, like understanding the nuances and construction of a joke and how to test it. I learned how to play the whole room and grab the audience from the start. Other aspects, while seemingly simple, were incredibly important, like how to use and hold the microphone, and whether or not to remove it from the stand. Rodney taught me to find out the composition of the audience. How many Jews? Italians? Blacks? How old are they? How much did they pay to get in? When do I get paid? What to do if the laughs aren’t coming? I couldn’t have learned any of this in any university in the country, even at the Yale School of Drama.
I was with Rodney at a small hotel he was playing in Cape Cod. It was a gorgeous sunny day, though there were thirty-knot winds whipping up the bay. Rodney suggested we go sailing in one of the hotel catamarans. “What do you know about sailing?” I asked. “What’s there to know?” he answered. He gave Vinnie the boat boy a twenty-dollar bill that almost blew away. We got into the boat and were off.
Rodney was standing up with the wind blowing his hair, an exhilarated look on his face, repeating over and over: “This is too fuckin’ much. This is too fuckin’ much.” He occasionally went to tug at his collar, even though he was wearing only a bathing suit. It felt more like a speedboat than a sailboat, and in ten seconds we were nine hundred yards from shore. Then he said, “I think I’ll take a swim. Know what I mean, man?” We were still moving pretty good when he dived over the side. I did not know how to manipulate the sails so as to easily come around to Rodney in the water, so I pushed the rudder all the way to one side and made a nice tight turn of six miles. I finally reached the white speck in the water, and a pale arm reached over the pontoon. Rodney had come within a minute of drowning. As I helped him up onto the boat, in his exhaustion and panic, he still sounded like Rodney Dangerfield—a drowning Rodney Dangerfield. “That was too fuckin’ much,” he said as he coughed up half of Cape Cod Bay.
I went with him to Miami, where he played the Diplomat Hotel and had a kind of reunion with his father, with whom he had been estranged for many years. Phil Roy was in his early seventies and had throat cancer. He had not been around for his son’s childhood, and only recently had they had a rapprochement. As we sat on the beach, his father, obviously proud, kept repeating in his fading voice that Rodney should keep hitting his “no respect” theme. “Jack, it’s a good hook. Keep it up.” The old man died shortly thereafter. Rodney kept hammering the theme at the Improv.
* * *
David Frye was a nationally known impressionist who also regularly worked out material at the Improv. Not only did he do excellent imitations of voices, he actually seemed to become, body and soul, the person he was imitating. He worked in the traditional way: naming the subject, turning his back on the audience, pulling up his collar, and turning back again as Lyndon Baines Johnson, Nelson Rockefeller, Richard Nixon, or Burt Lancaster. He could do a brilliant Bobby Kennedy. His body and face would change in an uncanny way.
I had met him in 1964 at the Café Wha? on Bleecker Street on a Hootenanny Night. I went down to the men’s room before my set and noticed a man at a urinal with a mirror in front of it, doing an impression of James Cagney: “You, you dirty rat. I’m gonna get you like you got my brother.” He repeated “dirty rat” a dozen times to get it right, all the while urinating, shaking, and closing his fly. I was not used to seeing such behavior at a urinal, so I considered retreating upstairs. I did have to go, though, and I was to perform shortly and was nervous enough without compounding my terror onstage with the urgency to urinate. I ambled nonchalantly to the farthest urinal from Cagney, who paid not the slightest attention to me.
Now here he was, three years later at the Improv, flanked by his writers, a real up-and-comer who was appearing on national television. He was also, for all his brilliance, a highly eccentric, hard-drinking, ill-tempered man who could enjoy and not enjoy his hard-earned success in a manic-depressive way. He was myopically focused on his career, which was his life. The night after Bobby Kennedy was killed, I saw a drunk David Frye crying in a secluded booth at the rear of the club. I went over to him, and he beckoned me to sit down next to him. “I’ll be honest with you,” he slurred. “Sure, I’m sorry that he’s dead. But Jesus . . . Jesus . . . I can’t do one of my best voices now.”
He would often get into arguments at the Improv, and being five foot four, he usually withdrew from the dispute before punches were thrown, but he could rile people. In those years, Dangerfield was an excellent improviser, the new, more theatrical term for what Rodney called ad-libbing. He was as fast on his feet as anyone. One night Frye began to heckle Dangerfield from the back of the audience, and Rodney replied with some barbs that David took exception to, including: “David Frye, the great mimic. A mimic is one step above a juggler.” A furious Frye had to be restrained by friends (it was easy), and he put forth a slew of profane but hardly clever vitriol. He got louder and louder until he was screaming. Rodney, microphone and cigarette in hand, shook his index finger at Frye as if addressing an eight-year-old child and said, “Don’t you raise your voices to me!”
About a year or so after I first went to the club, I met Bette Midler, who had replaced one of the daughters in Fiddler on the Roof, then in a long run. She would come after the show, dressed in eccentric clothing that looked like it had been borrowed from Fiddler’s wardrobe department. Bette was an extremely rare breed: a Jewish girl from Honolulu who had a totally New York sensibility. She would try out musical material every night, showing changes and experimentation from the night before. She was relentless in her attention to duty, in finding out what worked and what didn’t. She tried ten different versions of “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain,” from a jazz interpretation to a ballad, before she dropped the idea. Accompanying her was Ray Johnson, the ever talented, ever patient longtime piano player at the Improv, who later became my accompanist and with whom I worked and traveled for several years. At first, with the bad lighting and sound system and Bette’s unspectacular looks, the audience would sometimes be talking and inattentive, and she had to fight to gain their focus. But she had the energy of Judy Garland and the balls of Bette Davis and plowed on her merry way. It was amazing to see how talent wins the day, for in thirty seconds they would rapidly become enthralled by her.
By contrast, Caesar Peters was an impressive-looking black man, deep-voiced, handsome, and six foot six. When he ascended the stage, the audience would hush and pay rapt attention to his booming basso and imposing appearance. But Caesar was a man of modest talent and could not deliver the goods, and in a matter of forty-five seconds, the crowd was in rapt conversation, ignoring the big fellow.
Bud and Silver Friedman knew a good thing when they saw it and would supply free food and drink to Bette, as well as some guidance: This kid was a long way from home. They be
came her first managers. Bud got her a booking to perform for the Friars Club. The audience snickered at her Bohemian appearance, but once again Bette won them over with her talent and originality. I would frequently drive her home to her apartment in the West Seventies, near Amsterdam Avenue. She was an ever optimistic girl and determined to succeed despite an industry run by people who were seldom able to think out of the box, who slavishly imitated what had worked before. The prerequisites for a “girl singer,” as the job title was known, included extreme good looks, considered as important as talent and ability. So Bette Midler, like Barbra Streisand before her, created her own standard for beauty and sex appeal and went on to kiss many a leading man in the movies.
I initially met Richard Pryor at the club in 1967. Though he was not yet well known, there was an exciting buzz about him. Richard was an exceptional talent, with the gift of virtuosic mimicry, excellent timing, and funny body language. He was trying out new ideas, which gave a spontaneous feeling to his set, including the parts that weren’t improvised. The material was fluffy, apolitical, inoffensive, and very very funny. I was immediately a fan. He had made several successful appearances on summer shows and The Merv Griffin Show as a hilarious yet adorably puckish collegiate type given to wearing white sweaters. On several occasions, we got up and did improvisations together, along with Lily Tomlin. He was articulate and charming in our talks; and as I had not yet appeared on television and he had, he generously answered my questions. Richard pointed out that we created our material in a similar way, and he was right, though he improvised brilliantly without a Second City pedigree or any training. He liked me, and he liked my stuff, which pleased me tremendously, as the feeling was mutual. There was an air of innocence about him that was appealing; perhaps his midwestern Peoria, Illinois, upbringing, I thought. One night I asked him what college he had gone to, and he broke out laughing as if I had told a primo joke. “Man, that’s funny,” he said between giggles, with his hands flailing—he laughed with his hands, too.
“What’s so funny?”
“I didn’t go to college, man. I spent my childhood with the pimps and whores and shit like that.”
I was shocked. He didn’t seem like a person raised in such circumstances. I made fun of the fact that we came from such dissimilar backgrounds: me the middle-class educated Jewish boy, and he the survivor of a past I could hardly imagine—both comedians. It was revealed that as kids, we both had used comedy to avoid getting beaten up and had been class clowns.
Pryor and I hung out for several days, until he returned to California, but not before an incident occurred out on Forty-fourth Street, right in front of the club. Richard got into an ugly argument with his woman and began to slap her hard across the face, which was very disturbing. She had a bloody nose. It was a violent side of him I had not seen before, and it made me very uncomfortable. I sort of joked about it the next day, saying I was just a middle-class guy and he was obviously dangerous and did he do it often, because that sort of antic made me nervous. He said he understood perfectly how I felt; that he was drunk, that he and his girlfriend occasionally had their differences, that they had made up. He was his appealing self again, and it was a wonder to me that a man so likable could turn so suddenly into someone else. No doubt drugs and alcohol were a catalyst, but one had to contemplate his experiences as a child.
It was 1968, which was an important and difficult year that included the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and several riots in American cities. It was a significant time for Richard, the straw that broke the camel’s back. In the following years, his incarnation as a cute, nonthreatening collegian was cast aside, and a hard-edged, profane, more authentic Richard Pryor emerged. I never saw Lenny Bruce or Jonathan Winters, my prime inspirations, in person. But I saw Richard at Avery Fisher Hall, and he was the best comedian I ever saw live.
Besides performers at the Improv like Pryor, Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin, Robin Williams, Danny Aiello, and others who achieved big careers, there were those who tried and fell by the wayside in a kind of show-business Darwinism. Laura the waitress comes to mind. She was a pleasant, intelligent person and overqualified for her job, which she of course saw as temporary. A zaftig, hourglassed woman with big breasts, she was determined to pursue a singing career. Her specialty number was the Aldonza the Whore song from Man of La Mancha. When she was told she was up next, she would, like Clark Kent, remove her waitress outfit and change into a provocative costume featuring garter belts, seamed stockings, and a high-tech bra that pushed her bust upward at a thirty-degree angle. When she took the stage, she would transform herself into Aldonza the Whore, and at her prearranged cue, the meager spotlight would dim. All too often, the meager sound system would dim as well, and Bud Friedman, the self-proclaimed “charming, bearded host,” would rush to the stage and try a series of low-tech microphone checks. He used a lot of blowing into the microphone as well as an annoying assortment of “Is this on?” “Check one two,” hitting the mike, and a feedback squeal that could cause permanent deafness.
Laura the waitress would do her dramatic Aldonza the Whore song with all the passion and anger she could muster, and the first row of tables particularly, would get the in-your-face effect. Her presentation included thrusting her head back, her chest out, and her hands on her hips in the manner of the naughty, haughty Aldonza. She had a loud voice, and toward the end of the song, she would put her foot up on the front table aggressively, causing the patrons in front to arch back as if they were watching a 3D movie and somebody threw a spear at the camera. Unfortunately, people in the audience were often eating. Then would come a veritable musical assault that was totally inappropriate for customers who were chomping into a steak or a pile of ribs. I can only paraphrase the graphic lyric that she screamed right into the faces of the front row, but it was something like: “Born on a DUNG HEAP! Look at this kitchen maid REEKING WITH SWEAT! I am Aldonza the whore!” This was abetted by her ample underarm hair, which was far from an appetite stimulant. Invariably, the victimized tables could be heard en masse: “Check, please! Check, please! Now, please!” The owner didn’t mind, as on a busy night he could turn those tables over easily. One could imagine Laura doing eight shows on a Saturday night and making Bud Friedman a fortune with her pounding references to dung heaps reeking with sweat. At the end of her number, she would quickly change out of her costume, back into her waitress apron, and give her customers their checks. Food orders always diminished after Aldonza’s performance. “Aldonza the Whore” was the chef’s favorite song.
Danny Aiello was also a fixture at the club, though we initially knew him as the maitre’d/bouncer. He was a gregarious man, devoted to his family, who had seen hard times: a survivor, gently spoken and polite to a fault. This humble demeanor was no doubt compensation for the notion that Danny Aiello was one tough guy. He would often join me onstage, along with the comedian Bobby Alto and a singer named Bud Mantilla, to be the background group for my doo-wop improvisations. I would create lyrics and a melody, and they would create doo-wops and shooby-doobys as we went along. Danny’s wonderful acting talent was still a secret to most of us then, but he was the best bouncer I’ve ever seen. He could eject the toughest of them quietly and efficiently, with minimum force and tumult, so as not to disturb the karma of the room. On very rare occasions, he used a short right hand to the belly that one could hardly detect.
Life at the Improv quickly became the locus of my social situation as well as my professional one. I have always been grateful that I lived during the sexual revolution, which, as revolutions go, was much more fun than the French or Bolshevik revolutions. Much to my joy, I found that a good many of the women I met were willing and ardent revolutionaries. There was no such thing as AIDS, and syphilis was practically unheard of, though one occasionally heard that this guy or that one got the clap. I got the crabs once, but that was more zoological than pathological. The chief concern had always been getting a girl pregnant. Now birth-contr
ol pills and diaphragms had become as ubiquitous in young women’s purses as lipstick and house keys, and many young men consigned their primitive condoms to the ash heap of history. It seemed like everyone had sex with everyone: strangers, first dates, people passing in the night who knew each other for a few days or a few minutes. Frequently, bodily fluids were exchanged before names.
One got the feeling that long-term platonic relationships were an impossibility, as the lure of sex was inexorable. Friends who routinely discussed politics or the mundane would break down eventually, out of curiosity, the allure of the new, strange, and different being what it was. Undoubtedly, there was a thrill about going from the distance of casual friendship, to wondering what the sex would be like with this person, to the bedroom and shared intimacy. Sometimes such encounters ended the friendship or strained it, and other times people returned to the old relationship, their curiosity satiated. Some continued in the best of both worlds—friends and sexual partners—as it was generally given that one did not have to be in love with someone to fuck them.
Sex was a newfound freedom for many, especially women, and was looked on as a rightful and healthful function that one had best perform with some regularity. If you had to wait to fall in love before you had sex, you’d rarely have it, or you’d have to fall in love three or four times a month. Purely sexual relationships sprang up, and many of the guys and girls had regulars with whom the understanding was that they had sex and little else, by mutual agreement. They were able to turn the passion on and off like a light switch: roaring stud and passionate siren with bodies locked together one moment, and pragmatic adults the next.
