In Such Good Company, page 12
When my variety show was about to premiere, I asked Jim to be our very first guest. I had no idea if we were going to be picked up by CBS for a second season, and when we were, I thought, “Jim’s my good-luck charm!” He was our guest on the first show every year for the entire eleven seasons.
Jim liked teasing me about my being hooked on All My Children (AMC), my favorite soap opera, which I watched every day in my office during our lunch break. One Monday when he was my guest that week, I invited him to have lunch with me and watch the show. He said, “I’d love to have lunch with you, but do we have to watch that dad-gummed soap opera of yours?” I told him it was a deal breaker: “no AMC, no lunch.” He laughed, and showed up at noon. I turned on the TV. It was an episode where the wily, beautiful Erica Kane was in a load of trouble (although, when wasn’t she?). Jim watched and rolled his eyes a few times between bites of his ham on rye, indicating how silly he thought the whole thing was. We finished our sandwiches and reported back to the rehearsal hall at 1:00.
The next day (Tuesday) at noon, Jim walked into my office with his lunch, sat down, and said, “What kinda trouble do you think Erica’s gonna go through today?”
In 2015 I flew to Honolulu to celebrate Jim’s eighty-fifth birthday, along with my daughter Jody and her husband. The party was held in his home that overlooks the ocean. It was quite a shindig. Several tables were set up around the swimming pool, and the food was delicious homespun Southern cooking as a salute to Jim’s home state of Alabama. Over two hundred guests attended, including a past governor and the present one. A Marine Corps band serenaded the throng and ended it with everyone joining in for a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Jim is so very much loved in the Aloha state that I’m sure if he wanted to, he could run for governor and win in a landslide.
He is still in Hawaii, so we don’t get to see as much of each other as we’d like, but we talk often. He remains my good-luck charm, whom I love very much.
Ken Berry
When I was still doing The Garry Moore Show, I flew to Los Angeles to visit my grandmother while we were on a break.
One night I attended the popular Billy Barnes Revue, which featured comedy sketches and musical numbers performed by several new talents. That was the first time I saw Ken Berry, and I fell in love with him. There was nothing Ken couldn’t do. He was a terrific dancer, singer, and comedian, and he was sexy.
When I got back to New York, I told Garry about Ken and convinced him to give him a shot on the show. Ken was booked and flew to New York, where he performed a spectacular tap routine.
He and his wife at the time, Jackie Joseph, became good friends of mine, and when my variety show was on the air, Ken was my guest nineteen times. He was also a guest on a special I did for CBS and costarred with me in a television version of Once Upon a Mattress, as Prince Dauntless to my Princess Winnifred.
Ken has always been extremely shy and unassuming about his talent. Totally “egoless.” I don’t think he has ever been aware of how brilliant a performer he is. He would be fairly quiet during rehearsals, quickly learning his lines and the complicated dances Ernie Flatt cooked up for him, with nary a comment. He was totally cooperative and an absolute doll, but still kind of shy. However, come showtime and with the cameras rolling, he absolutely “lit up” in front of the audience and was gangbusters in every sketch and musical number…a powerhouse of an entertainer! No wonder we had him come play with us nineteen times!
In a way, Ken was born too late. He could’ve had a fantastic career in the heyday of those great MGM musicals, which starred the likes of Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Donald O’Connor. He possessed all their qualities, and yet was uniquely original.
I’m just happy that our show was able to show him off to great advantage. Added to that, he was and is one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever known.
Bernadette Peters
My husband Joe and I first laid eyes on a nineteen-year-old wonder by the name of Bernadette Peters when we went to see the show Dames at Sea (a campy takeoff on those old Busby Berkeley movie musicals). She was being managed by a mutual friend of ours, Lou Kristofer, who told us, “You have to see this girl, she’s fantastic!!” That was an understatement. Not only was she beautiful, and could dance and sing up a storm, but she was also hysterically funny. (Later, in other roles, she also proved she could elicit tears from an audience with her dramatic abilities, as both a singer and an actress.) After seeing her in Dames at Sea, Joe and I went backstage and introduced ourselves. Our show was going to start airing that coming September, and we asked Bernadette then and there if she would be a guest. She was the very first guest we asked. She wound up being one of our most frequent guest stars.
Bernadette Peters was the first guest we ever invited to appear on the show.
We had a great time being villains together, along with Tim Curry, in the movie Annie. She also played the role of Lady Larken in our 1972 television version of Once Upon a Mattress.
Of course, she went on to become the Queen of Broadway, where she continues to reign supreme. To this day, I consider “Bern” one of my closest friends.
Alan Alda
Even though we don’t see each other, living on different coasts, I consider Alan and his terrific wife, Arlene, good friends. I had the pleasure (joy!) of working with Alan three times. The first was when he came on my show in 1974, and in the same year, we acted together in the television version of the Broadway play 6 Rms Riv Vu, which he also directed. Then in 1981, I played his wife in the highly successful movie The Four Seasons, which he wrote, directed, and starred in.
We kept him pretty busy the week he got into the sandbox with us, by using him in every sketch and musical number. He also happens to be a very good singer.
Alan Alda was a great and versatile guest.
He appeared in a “Family” sketch as Larry, Eunice’s brother, who pays Eunice, Ed, and Mama a visit on Christmas Day. Larry is a successful freelance artist but is considered by Eunice and Ed to be somewhat of a “nance,” just because he’s artistic and single. They also keep harping on the notion that if Larry doesn’t have a steady job, then he must keep getting fired! Every time Larry tries to explain what being a “freelance” artist means, they keep interrupting him with their own petty arguments, ignoring him completely. Things reach a fever pitch when Larry finally explodes, telling them off in no uncertain terms!
Alan exited to thunderous applause from our studio.
In another sketch, he played a nerd, Morton, who could impress his girlfriend, Selma (me), only by pretending to be famous movie stars, such as Humphrey Bogart, Robert Redford, etc. He quotes his favorite lines from classic movies, thereby fooling the adoring Selma, until she finally catches on when she turns on the TV and sees a couple of late-night movies where the exact same lines are being said by the actors on the screen! Angry as hell, she confronts Morton on their next date. He explains that the real Morton is dull as dishwater. After he begins behaving and speaking like the “real” Morton, Selma realizes that she’s better off when he’s “Robert Redford.”
Since this was our Christmas show, Alan and I also played a couple of department store workers on Christmas Eve who have had it with all the late shoppers and their demands. They run into each other after the store closes, and there’s immediate chemistry. They sing “Nobody Does It Like Me,” and wind up exiting arm in arm.
The show ended with our musical finale featuring Alan and me and our dancers in a salute to Manhattan.
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An interesting side note: in the mid-forties, Alan and I just missed being childhood buddies. When I was growing up on Yucca Street and Wilcox Avenue in Hollywood, Alan’s father, Robert Alda, was starring as George Gershwin in the Warner Bros. movie Rhapsody in Blue (1945). During the filming, his family rented an apartment across the street from where I lived with my grandmother. When Alan was seven years old, he contracted polio. To combat the disease he went through a very painful treatment regimen developed by Sister Elizabeth Kenny that consisted of applying hot woolen blankets to his limbs and stretching his muscles, which hurt like hell. He told me he used to look out the window and watch the neighborhood kids roller-skating up and down Wilcox Avenue, between treatments, wishing he could come out and play. He never did…and I was one of those kids.
The painful treatments he suffered through did the trick. He recovered beautifully, and to this day, he can kick as high as a Rockette.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Sammy was a special guy. Not only was he one of the most versatile and talented human beings on the planet, he was one of the easiest people I ever had the pleasure of working with. He threw himself into some of our silliest sketches with abandon, and there were moments when he would lose it and crack up in front of the audience, topping even Harvey when Tim would get to him.
Musically, he was a master. He sang. Oh, how he could sing. He had a God-given voice that (in my opinion) rivaled Sinatra’s. We did a medley of Broadway tunes that remains, to this day, one of my very favorite duets.
However, there was one sketch that Sammy and I did that was just this side of being fairly serious. It was called “Backstage.” Sammy played a major star entertainer, Johnny, who after twenty years has returned to his hometown in the South to perform. I played a woman, Eleanor, who knew him when they were both kids, his mother being her family’s maid.
The setting is the backstage dressing room. Johnny has just entered after a successful performance and is being interviewed by reporters. He’s asked about his upcoming show business plans. He’s going to do a Broadway show, and then star in a Western movie, etc., etc.
Sammy “backstage” with my Eleanor.
Eleanor, in a pale blue evening gown, sporting a white fur stole and wearing a teased beehive hairdo, has followed the reporters into the room, and even after all these years, Johnny recognizes her. “Eleanor Simpson!” he says, delighted to see her. She corrects him. She’s now married and her name is Eleanor Wheatley. He introduces her to the reporters, and after they all leave, he asks Eleanor to sit and visit. She’s more than happy to do so. During the sketch, we discover that Eleanor is a passive-aggressive bigot. She asks about his “Mama,” and bemoans the fact that they never had such a good maid, adding, “And, Johnny, you were no slouch when it came to shinin’ my daddy’s boots! He always used to say he thought maybe you had some kind of magic spit!”
Johnny is taking all this in stride and is very polite, even though it’s turning into a most uncomfortable visit. After a somewhat barbed exchange, he asks Eleanor if she thinks he’s a little out of his “place,” and she insists that it’s important for people to “stretch!” Oblivious to her insults, she rattles on. “Although people might say you’re a little out of your place doin’ a Western…I mean you don’t see John Wayne goin’ off and pushin’ himself into a remake of Porgy and Bess!”
Johnny asks about Eleanor’s husband. She explains, “I’m sorry I didn’t bring my Justin back, but he thought he’d be intruding seein’ as how you’re my old acquaintance, so he said he’d wait in the bar.” Johnny suggests that they join him for a drink, but Eleanor is uneasy with that thought, telling him that maybe he can meet Justin some other time when her husband’s in a better mood. She goes on to say that when the check was presented to them after the show, Justin was livid, saying, “A ten-dollar cover check just to watch a…!” Eleanor catches herself just before finishing the sentence. She insists that Justin is very liberal. “We own a cute little restaurant over on Walnut Street, and we hired all black waiters. Naturally, the cashier is white.”
Johnny is holding his tongue. Eleanor keeps putting her foot in her mouth. “Remember all the fun we had as kids? We had fun, fun, FUN! But there was one thing I learned from you when we were kids!”
“What’s that?”
“Never to play Hide and Go Seek with you at night! I mean, you coulda been standin’ right in front of me and I never woulda known it…unless you smiled!”
Johnny has finally had enough, and politely escorts her to the door. He calls her “Eleanor, honey.” Smiling, she sweetly tells him she thinks that’s a little overstepping his place. He apologizes and offers her his hand. Still smiling, she avoids taking it, but as she leaves, she says, “Good-bye, Johnny, and…God bless.” The door closes, and Johnny says to himself, “Good-bye to you, too, Mrs. Wheatley. And God bless…”
Sammy loved this sketch. So did I.
That week, after we had our regular Wednesday run-through at 3:00, Sammy surprised everyone by inviting us all down to Studio 33, where he had set up his seventeen-piece band that played for him when he performed in Las Vegas and around the country, and doing his full nightclub act for us and anyone else who worked at CBS who wanted to come. The joint was jumping for an hour and a half.
What a nice thing to do.
Roddy McDowall
I had a crush on Roddy when I was ten years old after seeing him in Lassie Come Home.
It was a thrill to meet him years later and have him as a guest on our show, but it was even nicer when he became a very close friend. Without a doubt, Roddy was one of the loveliest people in show business. He was also one of the most loved people in show business. He started out as a child actor in the movies, gaining stardom at age twelve in How Green Was My Valley and then going on to make Lassie Come Home (where he and Elizabeth Taylor bonded and became lifelong friends), My Friend Flicka, and others. I say he was loved by the industry because, although he knew just about everyone and was a confidant of many, he never, ever told stories out of school. Roddy McDowall was born free of the “gossip” gene.
He had the distinction of being one of the rare child movie stars who grew up unscathed by the business. When he reached adulthood, he easily moved into grown-up roles, and became one of filmdom’s most admired character actors.
He was also a crack photographer and published several books under the title Double Exposure, featuring celebrities writing about celebrities accompanied by the portraits he had taken. I wrote about Jimmy Stewart, and was thrilled when Anthony Hopkins wrote about me.
Roddy guested on our show five times, the first of which was in March 1974. That was the first time we did “The Family” sketch where he played Eunice’s brother Phillip. I always loved it when he got in the sandbox with us. He was a wonderful actor who jumped into every sketch with abandon. That first Friday morning, which was our tape day, he spent three and a half hours in the makeup chair getting into his famous Planet of the Apes character, Cornelius. He appeared with me during the Q&A, where we sang a very funny duet of love songs. After that, he had to run like hell back to his dressing room and quickly get out of all that ape drag to do the rest of the show! It was above and beyond the call of duty.
Tall, dark, and hairy!
Eunice and her brother Phillip.
His cozy home in the Valley was the setting for countless Wednesday night dinner parties. In the style of eighteenth-century French salons, he would usually invite no more than ten or twelve guests and the evenings were all about conversation. Who would be there? On any given Wednesday, the guest list might include Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Alec Guinness, Bette Davis, Laurence Olivier, and Mae West! I was invited often, and those parties—hands down—were the best. We’d start with cocktails in the living room and graduate into the dining room for dinner. After dinner, we’d all go back into the living room for coffee and conversation. I usually sat in a particular antique armchair where I was the most comfortable, in the corner next to the fireplace. The stories would fly and the laughs were plenty. Being the movie fan I had always been, I felt like I had died and gone to heaven.
Roddy was on the Selection Committee for the Kennedy Center Honors, and every year, we would put our heads together and come up with names we thought should be honored. Several made the cut, among them Irene Dunne, Myrna Loy, and Shirley Temple. No doubt, both of us idolized the movie stars we had grown up with. Had he lived, I have no doubt that Roddy would’ve been an honoree. He left us in 1998. At the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, California, there is the Roddy McDowall Rose Garden, a beautiful tribute to a beautiful soul.
The antique chair I always sat in was left to me in his will. It’s in my office. He also wrote a note that came with it:
“…and my dear, dear CB
we have so far to go
Ever, R.”
Vincent Price
Vincent was an absolute hoot. A fabulous character actor in such films as Laura and Leave Her to Heaven, he went on to make his mark in horror films such as House of Wax and House on Haunted Hill. As a guest, he threw himself into our brand of wackiness wholeheartedly. He was on our show four times. One time we did a takeoff on a horror movie, which we titled “House of Terror.”
Setting: A spooky castle in England in the early 1900s. Vincent played a devious scientist who marries and brings home an unsuspecting Cockney Tart, played by me. He plans to put the brain of his elderly mother (Vicki) into his new bride’s younger body. The servant Igor (Harvey) has feelings for the new bride and warns her of his master’s dastardly plot. They overcome the evil scientist and zap his body, turning him into the handsome Lyle, much to the Tart’s delight.
(Harvey stole the sketch with his hilarious physical interpretation of Igor. Also, the door to the laboratory set accidentally came off its hinges and we had to work around it. Vincent very cleverly ad-libbed: “That’s the third broken door this week!”—much to the delight of the studio audience, proving, once again, that we treated each taping as if it were a live show.)
