The Amorous Busboy of Decatur Avenue

by Robert Klein

  Here we were sitting on the bed, conversing as if the woman were a throw rug. I found it impossible to make a move on Lisa, especially since any sex would have to take place on top of a living corpse. Finally, the awkward situation dawned on Lisa, precipitated, no doubt, by a loud Three Stooges snore from her friend, who at least proved she was alive. We agreed to meet in my room. “I’ll see you in five minutes, honey. There’s certain things a girl’s gotta do,” she said. I wasn’t sure what she meant, but it sounded like a good omen. She came to my room wearing a silk floral pattern robe for which sunglasses should have been required. After fifteen minutes, I was still talking the situation to death, my usual modus operandi of stalling, especially with such an intimidating, experienced woman.

  Then (unconsciously?) I took out my harmonica. I put it in my mouth slowly and sucked out a wailing, plaintive, blues cry in E flat. Lisa’s body tensed. She looked at me and said, “Ooooooooo, baby. Do that again.” I obliged, this time with an even longer, more agonizingly sensual note. “Oooooooo, baby, more.” I sucked even harder on the little Hohner, and she became more excited: “More. Ooooo, baby, more. Play that thing, baby.”

  I was sucking on the harp like a mindless maniac now, and she was going nuts. Finally, I could feel potential artery damage in my lip, so I stopped, but by then she was on top of me, whispering expletives, ripping my clothes off, taking charge. This is why I shall always have a particular attachment to my harmonica. It has amused me, gotten women sexy, and I even made fifteen bucks one night playing “Amazing Grace” on the BMT subway.

  * * *

  Opening night in New York, Mike Nichols had the whole cast lie down in the lobby of the theater in the afternoon. “Don’t be nervous. I want you all to relax,” he said. “Just remember, everything depends on this.” It was a joke, but about half didn’t get it, which increased their opening-night terror exponentially until Mike explained his intent.

  It was an excellent and exciting premiere with good jobs all around. As the family and friends of the cast gathered onstage after the performance, my father approached Mike Nichols and introduced himself. Evidently mistaking Mike for a summer-camp counselor, Ben put a question to him: “How’s my son doing?”

  “Your son is very talented, Mr. Klein.”

  “Well, that’s good.” I was afraid he’d give the great Mike Nichols a twenty-dollar tip.

  My crush on Barbara Harris grew with the knowledge that I would never be her lover. I was her friend and occasional confidant. I brought her several times to the Bronx Botanical Garden, near my childhood neighborhood, and we talked about our lives. It was a very romantic setting. I showed her the steep hill that was Decatur Avenue, which she found fascinating, the antithesis of her childhood turf in flat Chicago.

  She was being wooed by several young-buck movie stars, Warren Beatty chief among them. “He won’t leave me alone,” she told me. How could I blame him? But she did not want to be rushed or pushed into relationships. She would sigh, her face in her hands, and, even with her brilliant talent and critical acclaim, reveal a sad confusion about her place in the world.

  Eventually, she was nominated for a Tony Award, and the ceremonies, including a scene from our show, were to be broadcast from our Apple Tree stage, the Shubert Theater, on our Sunday dark night. Barbara was exceedingly nervous backstage and tried to beg off, saying she could not go through with the performance. Larry Blyden, one of the leads, rebuked her sternly, as if she were a schoolgirl:“You’re going to go out there. Your audience expects it. There are millions of people who will be watching you and will expect you to give your best.” She broke down crying, but twenty minutes later, she gave her usual brilliant performance as Eve to Alan Alda’s Adam, from our first act, based on a piece by Mark Twain. As a capper to the evening, she won the Tony.

  The next night, during the regular performance of the first act, those of us in the dressing room heard strange words from the stage instead of the familiar chatter over the speaker on the dressing room wall. We all looked at each other and ran downstairs. There was a bewildered Alan Alda, looking helplessly on, while Barbara addressed the audience incomprehensibly, in a kind of psychotic reverie, totally ignoring the proper lines. Our stage manager, Jerry Adler, gestured from the wings to Alan. Should he bring down the curtain? A cigar-chomping stagehand was ready with the curtain rope in hand, looking to Adler for the signal. Finally, the audience caught on to the fact that they weren’t seeing the show as planned. We knew we were witnessing the emotional disintegration of a wonderful and talented woman who at that moment had not the slightest idea of what was real and what was fancy. The curtain came down. Understudy Carmen Álvarez finished the first and second act. A call uptown brought Phyllis Newman, who did the matinees, to perform the third act. Barbara was out two months while Phyllis did the part. Jerry Adler has since turned to acting, playing the Jewish mobster Hesh on The Sopranos. Blyden died on vacation in North Africa under mysterious circumstances in the seventies. He was alone and possibly waylaid and murdered by nomads.

  As the show had gotten good notices when it opened in October, and seeing that I would have employment for a while, I gave myself the thrill of buying a car for the first time on my own: a new 1967 stick-shift Volvo sedan. Broadway at the entry level was a proud step, but my sights were set on diversifying, on creating stand-up comedy material. When I had tried stand-up a couple of years before, on Hootenany Nights, I had often been the lone comedian among throngs of folksingers tuning, lots of college boys wearing denim work shirts, singing the blues on guitars purchased by their parents. I had mixed success then, but the maturity and experience from my tenure at The Second City had given me some professional confidence, and the laughs came. From the many nights that went well at the Improv, I proceeded over the next few months to improvise material, fine-tune it, and create a small body of work. When I felt ready, I asked some William Morris agents to come down and see me, but despite vague promises, they were unresponsive. It was only the heads-up about Rollins and Joffe coming to see me that brought them in a swarm.

  The appointed evening arrived. Rodney played the impresario on the big night, totally in charge, with an anticipatory glint in his bloodshot eyes. He had a glass of red wine in his hand, constantly refilled by the club owner, Bud Friedman, as he dashed around barking orders like a caterer, about where the guests should be seated and when my performance should begin.

  Griffin’s people and the William Morris contingent were there at the appointed time of ten-thirty, but Jack Rollins, as would often be the case, was late. After twenty minutes of cabaret singers and corny introductions from Bud in the show room, Lee Stevens came out to the bar and began gently pressuring me to go on, knowing full well why we were waiting.

  As the clock ticked away, I began to get nervous about keeping such important people waiting, and I appealed to Rodney. He got me into a corner near the bar. “Listen, man,” he said. “Don’t worry about Lee Stevens. Fuck William Morris. It’s Rollins who’s got to see you, know mean, man? Don’t go on until he comes, he’ll be here soon.” Lee Stevens expressed concern about missing the last train to Great Neck, and Dangerfield stroked him, and I promised him a ride to his door in that eventuality. At last the most anticipated guests arrived, and Rodney ordered that the singer onstage be given several rude signals, by way of blinking the lights, to get off. The flustered tenor hurried through the last bars of “If I Were a Rich Man” and took his seat. I made a note to apologize to him later.

  Rodney took the platform that served as a stage and, wine in hand, got the audience’s attention with a couple of great jokes and an insult to the talkative front table. He asked a bald man where he got “those haircuts with the hole in the middle.” There was genuine electricity in the room; everyone knew what was going down and what the evening could mean for me. Rodney gave a brief and modest introduction, too modest for my taste, though he referred to my comedy as “the next dimension.” He clearly wanted my performance to do the talk
ing.

  From the first minute, I launched into a ferocious show in which everything worked and the laughs rocked hard off the brick walls. I did stuff about public-school food: “Yankee bean soup that India rejected,” served by a woman with a hairnet. It was a health rule to keep hair out of the food. Of course, her arms were incredibly hairy, but there was no hairnet on them; they were in the potato salad. I did a new piece about the loneliness of being alone onstage, auditioning for a Broadway show. I played an overly cheerful, nervous loser. I talked in echoes, to accentuate the atmosphere of the huge, empty theater. I did all of the voices, of course, the actor and the people out front. “Hello-oh-oh-oh-oh! My name is Robert Klein-ein-ein-ein!” Unlike my own experience, I made the director curt and rude. “Can we get on with it, Mr. Klein?” “Okay-aay-aay-aay! I’m going to sing ‘Almost Like Being in Love-ove-ove-ove!’ From Brigadoon-oon-oon-oon!” “All right, just do it, okay?” When I got to “There’s a smile on my face for the whole human race, it’s almost like being in—” “THANK YOU!” came the cry from the producer, and I froze with my arms spread apart in the middle of the song, holding the pose for a long laugh.

  It was my best set to date, and fortuitously, in front of the most important people I had ever performed for. I looked frequently during the show at my distinguished guests, and they were laughing the big laughs, the kind that make your stomach hurt after forty minutes. The Improv regulars altruistically yucked it up even to material they’d heard before, and Rodney was beaming. I had scored.

  Immediately following, amid kudos and well-wishers, Stevens cornered me with Bob Murphy and his Merv Griffin entourage. They offered an immediate and exclusive deal for five appearances, to hearty congratulations and backslapping from the agents. I was euphoric, though Lee Stevens would indeed miss his train, and I would have to drive him home to Great Neck. Rollins waited patiently until that group cleared out and then sat with me and his partner to discuss some ideas. While Stevens waited for his lift, Rodney entertained him at the bar. First of all, they stated that they would like to “work with me,” which was a wonderful euphemism for becoming my managers. Second, while they thought the Merv Griffin Show offer was splendid, Jack advised me to turn it down. In his opinion, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was bigger and more vital to establishing a television career; he thought my television debut should be on that show. I could do Griffin later. He told me to keep writing material, and in a few months, he would bring people from The Tonight Show, which was taped in New York at the time, to see me perform. The Merv Griffin Show, on which I’d seen the young, brilliant Richard Pryor, and hilarious spots of Woody Allen, seemed pretty important to me and, with their offer, a bird in hand. But the next day I agreed to Jack’s suggestion, and my career as a stand-up began.

  I was soon booked into several major clubs: Mr. Kelley’s in Chicago, opening for the great Sarah Vaughan; the Hungry I in San Francisco; the Troubador in Los Angeles; and the most thrilling commitment of all, The Dean Martin Show. The Troubador was scheduled for right after the Dean Martin appearance, since I would already be in Los Angeles and the club would not have to pay my airfare.

  Rodney worked with me diligently to prepare the five-minute spot required for my network television debut. He explained that the American television-viewing public was vastly different from the hipsters and show-business people who comprised the audience at the Improv, and that whatever material I did had to be comprehensible to them. He did not put it in quite those terms. “Not the intellectual stuff, know mean, man? Don’t make ’em have to think too much. You use some of those big words, and they won’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, know mean, man?” He emphasized that I should take the tried-and-true punchlines, the “never misses,” rather than do a piece with some possible weak spots. In other words, take no chances; present only the best of the best. “Don’t worry about using up material, you’ll back up your truck and write more,” he said. Being able to “back up the truck” was Rodney’s way of describing those few comedians who wrote their own stuff.

  I put together three bits that I practiced and polished and had a great deal of confidence in. Even the reasonably square audiences I encountered at my early occasional gigs responded enthusiastically, just like the hipster insiders at the Improv. They loved it at the small, run-down hotel I played, at the Knights of Columbus and the Jewish Temple. The routines never missed.

  I performed my premier bit about substitute teaching at the Improv the night before the early flight to California. It was a tune-up, a confidence builder, and the Improv crowd gave me everything they had. Everyone made a proud fuss and wished me well in Los Angeles, as if they were sending one of their own to the Olympics. One of my friends, an Improv waitress, even made me a wonderful offer for the night that was almost impossible to resist. But, like a true Olympian, I demurred, for it was the night before the race, my event, and even sex had to take a backseat to the project at hand.

  I needed my sleep, but that night I could not sleep for the excitement, and I stayed up all night. Jack Rollins, ever the night owl, also had no sleep, though we caught some winks in the first-class, generously proportioned reclining seats of the DC-8. It was my first experience in that exalted section, with its miniature crystal salt and pepper shakers, linen tablecloths, and filet mignon. Between dozes, Jack expounded on my wonderful future in movies, television, and on Broadway while I gaped in amazement at the Grand Canyon from thirty-seven thousand feet.

  We finally arrived at LAX, and a driver met us at the luggage area with a printed sign with my name on it, which made me feel very important. We proceeded north on the San Diego Freeway, which I had heard mentioned so often on television in a comedic vein, famous for its traffic jams. But there were no traffic jams. There was only a wide, modern highway with beautifully marked exits and an abundance of Cadillacs and Mercedeses. Even the commercial traffic looked good, the trucks were so shiny and new. We got off on Sunset Boulevard, heading east toward the Beverly Hills Hotel, with Jack dozing and me looking out of the open window at the land of El Dorado. Here it was October, and gorgeous flowers were everywhere, the scents of the unfamiliar eucalyptus and my favorite honeysuckle wafting my way, still summer, in contrast to the autumn chill we had left behind in New York. The sun was shining, the people appeared to be handsome and happy, and the traffic lights seemed to be favorable, an illusion about Los Angeles that I would have for several years.

  Pulling up to the Beverly Hills Hotel was right out of the movies. I’d seen the famous sign and the well-known facade surrounded by semitropical foliage many times. The bellhops stepped lively in removing the luggage from the luxurious Lincoln, with a hearty “Welcome to the Beverly Hills Hotel.” I was escorted to a beautiful junior suite consisting of a bedroom and a small parlor, with a private patio bedecked with two chaise longues and flowers, trees, and shrubs everywhere. Very generous, these Dean Martin people.

  There were three gift baskets of fruit, cheese, and wine waiting for me in the suite. The cards read: “Welcome to the Beverly Hills Hotel. If we can do anything to make your stay more pleasant, please let us know.” It was signed by the manager. Another read: “Welcome to L.A. Good Luck on The Dean Martin Show.” It was signed “Your friends at the William Morris Agency.” The third gift basket, a miscellany of nuts and apples, came with a card that said, “Enjoy your appearance on our show,” and it was signed by the producers, whose scrawl I could not make out. All of these flattering gifts had one thing in common. Though they were sent through exclusive Beverly Hills shops, the fruit was inedible: The apples tasted like potatoes, the pears were like granite, and the oranges, in the land of oranges, were rotten. There were also sour grapes. Nevertheless, these were the most luxurious hotel digs I had ever had and I made a note to take the soap and the shampoo home with me when I left.

  All this, plus a bonus of three extra hours in the day and a tempo that, while not rural, was clearly slower and more relaxed than where I had come from. Wo
nderful. Putting my watch three hours back made me especially proud, as it reminded me that I was getting someplace: by far the farthest I had ever been from home. We had been expected at the NBC studio later in the afternoon for a meeting, with the taping scheduled for the next day, but Jack received a call telling us to go there immediately. We went in a taxi over Coldwater Canyon into the San Fernando Valley and then east to Burbank. I was taken with the beauty of the ride through the mountains, and that such dramatic topography could be located in an area so heavily populated and metropolitan. We arrived at the giant NBC complex. The guard at the gate courteously directed us to the Dean Martin offices with “Have a nice day.” It was, I believe, my first “have a nice day,” the first of thousands I was to hear in Los Angeles.

  Jack Rollins, along with his great success, was known as a true gentleman, soft-spoken and polite with that ever present cigar. We sat in the production office, and Jack filled me with wonderful talk about how I would be a “sensation” on the show and in America. Suddenly, the show’s director and coproducer, Greg Garrison, burst through the door: “Hey, Jack, you cocksucker, how you doin’, you old son of a bitch, you look terrible!”

  Jack answered calmly but with a little embarrassment at the crude entrance. This was definitely not his style. “Hello, Greg, how are you?”

  “Here, Jack, have a good cigar, you cocksucker. Is this your boy wonder?”

  We were joined by the head writer of the show, Paul Keyes, who went on the following year to lend his talents as a speechwriter in the Nixon campaign. Two other people came into the office, one of whom was a secretary. Garrison explained that they would be taping two shows the next day, which left no time for dress rehearsals. This was attributed to Dean Martin’s disdain for rehearsal in general, and this week in particular. Garrison said I should do the routine I had prepared right there and then in the office, in order for them to get an idea of what I would be doing.