In Such Good Company, page 11
“I’ve been thinkin’ about our friendship all these years and I want you to know how I really feel.” Melody then puts her hands on Starlet’s shoulders and shoves her down the stairs, where she lands in yet another heap on the floor.
(I tumbled down those stairs six times that day! Two times in the morning run-through, two times in the dress rehearsal, and twice in the air show. Oddly enough, I didn’t hurt myself at all. It’s somewhat of a miracle, because, as I said before, I was never taught how to do all the crazy stunts I did over the eleven years. I just did them. Once in a while, I’d wind up with a bruise or two, but that would be the worst of it. I remember this particular one clearly because I instinctively let my body go “loose” when I was tumbling down those stairs, knowing that if I stiffened up, I would probably cause some damage. Also, I fell slowly, so maybe that’s why I came out unscathed. The comedy was enhanced by our sound effects man, Ross Murray, producing several brilliant “tumbling” and body fall sounds right on the spot.)
Melody blows a good-bye kiss (the way Dinah always did on her shows) and goes to That Big Plantation in the Sky. Brashley is grief-stricken and leaves. Starlett finally wants to be with Rat, but he wants nothing to do with her, heading for the door to leave as she cries, “But, Rat, what’ll I do? What will become of me?”
RAT: “Frankly my dear, I don’t gi—”
Starlett slams the door in his face before he can finish the sentence. Sissy enters.
SISSY: “What did he say?”
STARLETT: (Echoing Rat) “ ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t gi—!’ ” (Hysterically crying) “Oh Sissy! Without Rat, what’ll I do? What’ll I do???”
SISSY: “Frankly, Miss Starlett, I don’t give a damn.” (She exits after slapping Starlett silly)
THE END
We were asked by the BBC to tape a show in London. Harvey, Lyle, Vicki, and I flew over in April 1970, along with key members of our staff and our guest star, Juliet Prowse.
One of the questions I got was “Why did it take you so long to come to London?”
“I swam.”
It was all pretty exciting, and we had a good time. (Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of our best efforts. I don’t remember how many of our shows were aired in England after that, but they weren’t as successful as we had hoped.)
After our week in London, several of us had made plans to travel to other parts of Europe. Harvey, his wife, and some of our staff members opted for Rome. Joe and I had a very different and detailed itinerary: For four days, we would stay at the historic Dromoland Castle Hotel (built in the sixteenth century) in County Clare, Ireland. Then we would go to Scotland for another few days and stay at another historic hotel (the name of which I can’t remember), where Joe would play golf.
We flew into Shannon (a very tiny airport) and were met by a driver, Derry O’Keefe (how Irish can you get?). We piled into his Mercedes-Benz, where he proceeded to put the pedal to the floor, speeding like crazy down country lanes, slowing only for cows, who happened to be crossing the dirt roads every so often. Looking out the window, I realized why Ireland is called the Emerald Isle. Green has never been so green. The countryside was breathtaking. We arrived at the majestic Dromoland Castle and were escorted to the registration desk. The carpet had to be a foot high. “Plush” was the word for the furnishings and draperies. Our large, comfortable room was awash in brightly colored wallpaper and bedding. We unpacked and took a walk on the grounds. Everywhere you looked there was eye candy.
Gorgeous, simply gorgeous.
And quiet, simply quiet.
We got the feeling that we were the only guests. We had arranged with Derry O’Keefe to pick us up in an hour and take us to the “best department store in Limerick.” Once again, Derry could’ve set a record at the Indy. The best department store, which happened to be the only department store, reminded me of the dime store in Hollywood where my grandmother used to shop when I was a kid, or today’s version of a Kmart. I’m sure it’s a different story now, but there wasn’t much to choose from in the way of souvenirs that day. We drove back to the castle, and around 5:00 p.m. Joe and I went into the hotel pub for a drink.
Quiet, simply quiet.
Again, we saw no other guests. After a few minutes, Joe and l looked at each other and, without saying a word, went up to our room, packed our bags, and had the concierge book us on the next flight to Rome (which was in about an hour and a half!). We called Derry to drive us to the Shannon Airport, saying that an emergency had come up and we had to leave right away. A helicopter couldn’t have gotten us there any faster than good old Derry O’Keefe behind the wheel.
We landed in Rome after midnight…with no place to go. What were we thinking? We had no hotel reservation, nothing. While Joe was getting our luggage, I was making frantic calls to various hotels. The first one I called was the Hassler, where Harvey and the rest of our gang were staying. Everything was solidly booked. I made a weak joke to Joe saying we might have to sleep in a stable. After about another hour of trying, we finally booked a room at a hotel outside of the city. When we registered, we were informed that we could only stay overnight as the room was going to be occupied the next day. The room was so small…how small was it? “If you dropped a Kleenex, you’d have wall-to-wall carpeting!” (Forgive me.) In order to get to the bathroom, you had to walk on the bed. We didn’t care. Exhausted, we passed out and woke up to a telephone call from the manager telling us we had to vacate before noon. We called Harvey at the Hassler Hotel.
Harvey answered and said, “I thought you guys were in Ireland and Scotland!?”
US: “It’s a long story. Can you see if you can get us a room there?”
HARVEY: “I’ll see what I can do. It’s pretty full. I’ll introduce myself to the manager. Nobody knows who we are over here. I can’t promise anything! Where are you?”
We gave him our number and sat on the bed waiting for Harvey to call back, keeping our fingers crossed that he could come up with a miracle. At about 11:45 a.m., the phone rang.
HARVEY: “I told the manager that you had your own TV show in America, and needed a room. He doesn’t know you, so he said they could put you up for two nights only. Get on over here!”
We checked into the Hassler and happily unpacked, trying to forget that our time there would run out in forty-eight hours.
It was great having dinner with the gang that night and laughing about our aborted trip, but we realized that in order to stay longer, I would have to impress the manager somehow…
It is not in my nature to call attention to myself—except when I’m on stage, that is—but desperate times call for desperate measures…The next morning, I took root in the hotel lobby. The intention was to make myself highly visible to any and all American tourists who would (hopefully) ask for my autograph in front of our Italian hotel manager. Nothing was happening. People were passing in and out of the lobby, not looking in my direction. I began toying with the idea of doing the Tarzan yell to get attention. Thinking better of that idea, I moved away from the corner chair I was sitting in and plopped myself down on a pouf in the middle of the lobby. It worked! A family (Mom, Dad, and four kids) from Kansas City was checking in and spotted me. I smiled and said, “Hi there! First trip to Rome?” They couldn’t have been more beautiful. They not only had me sign several autographs, but I posed for pictures with all six of them, with flashbulbs popping all over the place. Other American tourists took notice, and I wound up signing and posing and signing and posing…AND the hotel manager saw it all!
Our stay at the beautiful Hassler was extended, and Joe and I and our gang had a wonderful Roman week together. Oh, yes, and we took the Kansas City family to dinner. Bless them.
Many times I would get the same questions during the Q&As. For instance:
“Why do you pull your left ear at the end of the show?”
“I was raised by my grandmother, Nanny, and when I got my very first job on television in New York, I called her in California to give her the good news, and she said, ‘Well, say hello to me!’ I explained that the network probably wouldn’t be too keen on me saying ‘Hi, Nanny!’ so I came up with the idea that I’d pull my left ear for her as a ‘signal.’ From that time on, whenever I was on TV I’d send Nanny the signal, which meant, ‘I’m fine and I love you.’ As the years went by and I got more and more work, the signal grew to mean, ‘I’m fine, I love you—and your check’s on the way.’ ” (Years ago, a reporter from Life magazine measured my left ear, and it was one millimeter longer than my right ear.)
There’s a request to do the Tarzan yell (the first of many over the course of the show). I comply, and explain how the yell came about. “When I was little—around nine or ten—I had a beautiful cousin, Janice, and we used to act out the movies we saw, like Nelson and Jeanette and Tarzan and Jane. Naturally—because she was the pretty one—I was Nelson and, naturally, it follows that I was Tarzan.” I introduce my beautiful cousin Janice, who is in the audience.
—
An audience member wants to know, “Have you ever had training in learning how to fall down and did you ever hurt yourself?”
“No and yes.”
—
“Are you going to be a Playboy centerfold?” asks another.
“No, but I’m the centerfold in Field & Stream this month.”
The Q&As became one of my favorite parts of the show.
A woman wants to know, “Do you cook?” I give a detailed recipe for my meatloaf, ending with “Cook it for about forty-five minutes, and then go out to dinner.”
—
I’m asked, “Were you ever shy?” I tell the story of when I was around fourteen and got a penicillin shot in the rear end. “It just so happened that I had an adolescent crush on the doctor, and I was so embarrassed that, as I was leaving, I accidentally walked into a closet…and stayed there!”
—
“Is your mouth insured?”
“There’s not enough money.”
—
A woman in the audience wants to know where the ladies’ room is. I call her up on stage and lead her to one backstage. When the woman returns, the entire audience and I sing, “We know where you’ve been!”
A very shy Vicki before she blossomed.
I would do several public service announcements at the end of our show, encouraging all of us to do something about air pollution. I read a poem sent in by a little kid:
Someday I want to grow up
And live in a great big town.
Do you think I’ll ever grow up?
’Cause blue skies now are brown.
—
A lady says, “You look much nicer in person.” I tell the story about a man who stopped me on the street one time in New York, having recognized me from The Garry Moore Show. “He looked at me closely, and then yelled down the street to his wife, ‘Hey, Mae, it is her!’ He then turned back to me and said, ‘You ain’t such a dog!’ ”
—
“What was one of your most embarrassing moments?”
I tell about the time when I was in the ladies’ room in a restaurant and heard tiny footsteps approaching. A little girl about five years old bent down, peeked under the door, looked up at me sitting there, and asked, “Are you Carol Burnett?”
—
These off-the-cuff moments during the Q&As were some of my favorites. I would usually do about fifteen minutes and we’d choose the best ones to air. Also, the Q&A segments provided us with a cushion in case the show ran short or long. For instance, if we ran long, we would “bank” a sketch and save it for a future show.
One of the zaniest moments in the history of the Q&As came about when a woman in the audience asked me when I was going to do another takeoff on Shirley Temple. Now, I could have called on a lot of other people that night. It was a miracle I called on her, and it all worked out so perfectly—this is my favorite!
We had developed a character named Shirley Dimple earlier in the season, and Harvey had played a newsman who interviewed me as Shirley on a couple of shows. When the lady asked the question that evening, the cameramen and the rest of the crew burst out laughing! Why? Because in that very show that very evening we were doing a send-up of Shirley Temple movies that we had been rehearsing for the entire week! It was going to take up the whole last half hour and be our big extravaganza finale!
There were four elaborate sets, dozens of amazing costumes, and our own original music and lyrics. The guest stars were Anthony Newley and Bernadette Peters, appearing along with Harvey, Vicki, Lyle, and our dancers, all supported by our twenty-eight-piece orchestra led by Peter Matz.
So, her question was a total coincidence, but I decided this was too good not to have some fun with, so I asked, “Do you like it when we do Shirley?” She smiled enthusiastically and nodded. “Gosh,” I said, “I’m not sure, but maybe we can whip up something before the end of the show. I can’t promise, but we’ll try.”
The first half hour was our usual formula of some sketches interspersed with musical numbers by Anthony and Bernadette. Then it was time for the second half of the show.
There was the overture and Lyle’s deep-voiced announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen! Tonight we present our movie of the week, LITTLE MISS SHOWBIZ! Starring Shirley Dimple!”
As Shirley with Anthony Newley and Bernadette Peters.
The curtains open and Shirley and other little girls in pj’s are dancing in an orphanage dormitory room. Shirley is the only one with taps on the bottoms of her pj’s feet. The story involves Shirley’s two uncles: the rich Scrooge-like Uncle Meany (Harvey) and his younger brother, the kind, out-of-work, but aspiring Broadway musical playwright, Uncle Miney (Anthony Newley), who wants to write a big Broadway show starring his beautiful girlfriend, Trixie (Bernadette Peters). Each uncle is determined to adopt Shirley, whose father, Moe, died in an accident. Naturally the rich uncle prevails, and Shirley sings a sad farewell song to her friends and leaves with the unpleasant Uncle Meany, much to the dismay of good-hearted Uncle Miney, who sings a sorrowful lament with the remaining orphans.
In the next scene Uncle Miney is in his cold-water flat with Trixie trying to write a hit show tune, which they sing as Trixie taps her way around the room. Shirley bursts in, a runaway from Meany, and begs Miney to let her stay. The girlfriend thinks Shirley’s a brat, and Shirley’s not too crazy about the girlfriend, either, so she tries to come between the pair by writing and singing her own song (a takeoff on Shirley’s “On the Good Ship Lollipop” and “Animal Crackers”), which Miney loves. He says her song will make them a major hit on Broadway if Shirley stars in the show. After they sing it together, Uncle Meany thunders through the door and demands that Shirley come back with him. They finally agree to take this custody problem to the highest court in the land!
In the next scene Shirley’s fate is being determined in a courtroom before a jury. The two uncles and the girlfriend are there when Shirley enters and sings her plea to the judge. Soon she has perched herself on Uncle Meany’s lap and is singing to him, the lyrics asking him not to be so mean. The title of the song is “Don’t Be a Grouchy-Wouchy.”
Uncle Miney and Trixie enter, dancing, in formal clothes. Miney asks Shirley to sing and tap-dance for the court.
She removes her coat to reveal a sequined costume with dozens of petticoats. Suddenly the set revolves, the judge and jury remove their outer garments, and we find ourselves in a Broadway show with everyone singing and tapping their hearts out, including Uncle Meany, who agrees to invest in Miney and Shirley’s show.
TA-DA! The end.
Just before we all took our bows, I asked the lady in the audience how she liked the show.
She said, “Oh, thank you so much for going to all that trouble!”
What great guests we had! At the end of this book there is a list of everyone who got into the sandbox with us for the whole eleven years. I wish I had enough pages to write about each and every one of them, but here are some highlights.
Jim Nabors
I loved Gomer Pyle: USMC. I watched it every week, along with millions of viewers. I didn’t know Jim Nabors personally, but his portrayal of Gomer was not only downright funny, it was touching at the same time. In one show Gomer pulled out a guitar and softly sang a beautiful folk song to his girlfriend as they sat in a porch swing. It was a lovely moment. I wrote him a fan letter the next day. The year was 1965, and Jim and I met for the first time shortly after that, when he was in New York on business. We hit it off immediately.
When Joe and I moved to California, I had the chance to see a lot more of Jim, and my fondness for him only grew. In a funny way, I felt he was the brother I never had, and as if to prove it, I asked him to be my daughter Jody’s godfather after she was born.
We thought it would be fun to perform together in the summer months, when my show was on hiatus, so we wrote an act and took it on the road. We did sketches and sang and danced. After each show, we would set up a table and a couple of chairs and autograph our personal eight-by-ten photos for the folks who came to see us. One time, after Jim had signed one of his pictures, a very excited fan clutched it to her bosom and blurted out: “THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! AS SOON AS I GET HOME I’M GONNA HANG THIS UP ON MY WALL RIGHT NEXT TO JESUS!” Jim literally fell out of his chair.
My buddy, the versatile and amazing Jim Nabors.
Jim loved Hawaii and went there as often as he could, so I wasn’t surprised when he decided to split his time between performing on the mainland and farming on the beautiful spread he bought in Maui. He also bought a lovely home in Honolulu.
One summer we were performing at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and, as usual, Jim had brought down the house with his beautiful rendition of “The Impossible Dream.” As he came offstage, he saw me waiting in the wings, gave me that great big grin of his, and said in his Gomer voice, “Well, I just bought me another tractor!”
