In Such Good Company, page 18
One night, a few days before the show was to air, Joe and I made a dinner date with Tim, who was traveling solo. We called his suite, and he asked us to come by and pick him up. When we got there and knocked, he yelled, “Come on in.” We opened the door and walked into the living room. No Tim.
“I’m in here. C’mon back,” he called from the bedroom.
We looked at each other, shrugged, and hesitantly approached the open door of the dimly lit room.
Tim was bare-chested, covers to his waist, smoking a cigarette, while cuddling with a sheep whose head was peeking out from under the comforter.
“Hi, guys. Be right with you.” He got up, kissed his bed partner, patted her on the head, and said, “Don’t wait up, Barbara. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He looked at us and winked. “I know you’ll keep this to yourselves.”
Joe and I collapsed with laughter. “Barbara” was an unbelievably realistic life-size sheep Tim had bought at the gift shop.
No lamb chops for any of us that night.
“Sunset Boulevard”
Who can ever forget “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille,” spoken by the brilliant Gloria Swanson as the fading actress Norma Desmond, in Billy Wilder’s classic Sunset Boulevard?
The movie was a natural for us to parody. Actually, we didn’t stick to the original story, the way we did with Double Indemnity, for instance. We just put the characters in different comedic situations. Harvey was spot on as Max, Miss Desmond’s loyal servant (bald pate, German accent, and all). Bob Mackie outdid himself outfitting me, as “Nora Desmond.” I wore a black wig with waxy spit curls on my cheeks and forehead, a gown (vintage silk and velvet) that could best be described as something that had been packed away in a trunk in the attic for fifty years, torn fishnet stockings, and silver shoes with buckles. My makeup, which I had a happy hand in helping to create, was smeared fire-engine-red lipstick, smeared “beauty marks,” etc. I looked like someone straight out of a Gothic novel, with boobs down to my belly button. Instead of padding, Bob filled the boobs with rice, which made them move like real ones whenever I twirled around. (I should add that the rice was uncooked!)
We had done a few of these sketches when one day, in 1973, I got a note from…well, I’ll let her tell it.
My Nora to Harvey’s Max.
Gloria in all her glory.
Below is an excerpt from Gloria’s book, Swanson on Swanson.
I’ve played a wide variety of roles on many of the big TV dramas and comedy series—Dr. Kildare, Burke’s Law, and The Beverly Hillbillies, to mention a few. My greatest television experience was appearing with Carol Burnett. I watched her show for eleven years, and I still collapse with laughter every time I see a rerun of her Norma Desmond takeoff. It’s even better than her Mildred Pierce takeoff. When I wrote to tell her so, in 1972, she wrote back and asked if I would be her guest star on a show during the coming season. I said I would be thrilled, and soon she called back to ask if I could tango and if I would do a Charlie Chaplin impersonation and sing a song. I said I could and would. We rehearsed and taped the show in five days. I danced the tango with six gorgeous Valentinos, I sang a song, and Carol and I, as a charwoman and Charlie Chaplin, did a Sennett-type skit complete with a Keystone Kops chase. It all came out predictably wonderful.
It was wonderful. She was seventy-five at the time and looked years younger. Her skin was flawless. Also, she had the energy of a twenty-year-old. When we were working on the finale where she played Chaplin, she never took a break. She was constantly working on bits of comic business to make it perfect. And she did just that!
A Woman’s Picture
There were a lot of movies in the forties where a young woman falls in love, but her happiness is short-lived. Either her lover dies or is married or comes down with amnesia. Sometimes she sacrifices her life to save her child, who has no idea she is his biological mother.
I mean how ripe are those for satire?
Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Lana Turner, and Greer Garson were some of the actresses who tore up the scenery in these “three-handkerchief” stories, as they were known for obvious reasons.
Nanny adored these “women’s pictures.” Even at a very young age, I was caught up in them, too, so when we started doing takeoffs on the movies, they were at the top of my list. One of my favorite sketches we did was a combination of Now, Voyager; To Each His Own; and Back Street.
“To Each Her Own Tears”
Our guest stars that week were Chita Rivera and Vince Edwards.
Emily (me) is a very rich old woman who forces her nurse to listen to her life story day after day after day after day. We are taken back in time to learn that Emily is the very plain daughter of her rich mean mother (Chita), and the sister of her equally mean sibling, Lydia (Vicki). Old Dr. Wilcox (Harvey) looks at Emily’s tongue and recommends an ocean voyage to help prevent her from having a nervous breakdown. During the voyage (on the SS Mildred Pierce) Emily is approached by dashing Robert Barrington (Vince). He sits on the deck chair next to Emily, lights two cigarettes (à la Paul Henreid in Now, Voyager), and proceeds to smoke both of them! Emily and Robert fall in love on the spot and ask the ship’s captain (Lyle) to marry them. As soon as they are pronounced “man and wife,” the ship lurches and Robert is thrown overboard. Emily is handed a telegram, which announces Robert’s demise, and she immediately says, “At least I’m carrying his child.” Months pass and we find Emily, with her baby in her arms, being met at the dock by her mother and her sister, Lydia.
EMILY: “Hello, mother. Hello, Lydia.” (They’re unresponsive) “How are you?”
LYDIA: “I’m fine. I married a wealthy millionaire.”
MEAN MOTHER: “I lost everything in the stock market and they won’t give me a dime.”
EMILY: “Oh, Lydia, how could you be so cruel?”
MEAN MOTHER: “Don’t yell at your sister! I still like her better than I like you.”
LYDIA: “I have everything in the world now, except a child.”
EMILY: (Cradling her baby) “I have nothing in the world now…except a child.”
MEAN MOTHER: “What are you talking about, Emily?”
EMILY: “Oh, Mother, didn’t I tell you? I got married and my husband drowned at sea, I lost my sight in Italy, and regained it in Switzerland, I had amnesia…and then I caught a really bad cold on the Riviera.”
With Chita Rivera as my mean mother.
MEAN MOTHER: “And all we got was a postcard saying, ‘Having a wonderful time.’ ”
EMILY: “Mother, this is my baby, the most precious thing in the world to me. My only reason for living, my love, my life, my magnificent obsession!”
MEAN MOTHER: “Isn’t it sweet? May I hold the baby?”
EMILY: (Delighted and touched) “Oh, Mother, of course…Here, darling, go to Grandma!”
MEAN MOTHER: (Handing Emily’s baby over to the sister) “Here you are, Lydia, now you have everything!”
Emily protests, and grabs the baby back.
LYDIA: “I want this child. It’ll have everything, a rich father and an ambitious social-climbing mother.”
MEAN MOTHER: “And Lydia will cough up a lot of cash for the kid, won’t you, Lydia?”
EMILY: “Mother, how could you? Are you asking me to sell my child??”
LYDIA: “How does fifty thousand dollars sound to you?”
EMILY: (Holding the baby close) “There’s more to life than money. A child needs love, protection, the emotional security that he can only get from his natural mother!”
LYDIA: “One hundred thousand?”
There is a LONG pause.
EMILY: (Whispers to the baby) “Take good care of yourself.” (She hands the baby over to Lydia.)
Left all alone, a distraught Emily is approached by the captain, who propositions her by saying he’ll set her up in a “cheap back-street apartment” even though he’s married with children. She says, “Swell.” He gives Emily a handsome photo of himself and charges her two dollars.
After the next ten years have passed, Emily has gone into business and created a little company called “IBM.” She’s now very rich and living in her mother’s house, which she bought. There are photos of the captain all around the drawing room. She decides to call her son on the telephone to try to get him back. Little Tommy, now ten, answers the phone, and Emily has a teary (“Oscar-winning speech”) one-way conversation with him.
EMILY: “Tommy sweetheart, I just called to wish you a Merry Christmas, darling. This is your aunt Emily…” (Spells) “E-M-I-L-Y. You remember me, Tommy, the nice lady who sends you expensive presents? How was your Christmas? Was Santa Claus good to you? Did you like the long pants I sent you? And the pony? And all the real estate? Of course you can take them back, Tommy, it won’t hurt my feelings.” (Fighting back tears) “How’s school? That’s wonderful, darling…Tommy, would you…” (Haltingly) “would you…like to come and live with me?” (Pause) “Hello?”
He has hung up on her. She cries, “Oh, if only my dear dead husband were here!” The doorbell rings and it’s Robert, her dear dead husband, in a soldier’s uniform! Emily quickly hides the captain’s photographs. Robert explains that after he fell overboard, he swam ashore and stopped by for World War II.
EMILY: “Oh, Robert! Now that you’re here, we can get our son back!”
Robert says he came by taxi and goes out to pay the driver. Emily watches him through the window, and we hear the screeching of brakes and a body fall. Emily sadly reinstates the captain’s photos.
We return to the present time and old Emily (whose nurse has fallen fast asleep from boredom), who says, “Soon I shall die and my son will never know his real mother.” The mean mother and sister Lydia enter, followed by Tommy now grown (Vince Edwards), who kindly tells Emily there’s a “Mother-Son Dance” at his school. Thrilled, Emily thinks he means to ask her, but instead he goes over to Lydia and asks her to the dance, while poor old Emily clutches her heart.
THE END
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Chita Rivera was absolutely hilarious wearing a gray wig and playing my nasty mother. Bob Mackie covered her fabulous figure by putting her in a fat suit. There aren’t too many actresses who would agree to appear in such an unattractive getup, but Chita was gung ho.
This was one of the reasons I liked using many of our musical guest stars throughout the entire show, such as in a sketch, as opposed to having them just do their thing and not be part of the whole shebang. They were always more than happy to join in the fun.
Lana Turner
One of the most beautiful movie stars ever, Lana was another one of my favorites when I was growing up in the forties. During the week she was with us, she couldn’t have been nicer…or more nervous. We featured her in a musical number, “Heavenly Music,” with our dancers and Don Crichton, who partnered her during the taping. He would whisper in her ear throughout the dance, telling her what steps were coming next. Bob Mackie dressed her in a gorgeous flowing white gown and she lip-synched to the playback. As scared as she was, the number came off without a hitch.
The beautiful Lana singing “Heavenly Music.”
She was more secure in the sketch with our other guest, Frank Gorshin, and me where she was playing Frank’s devious lover in “The Sound of Murder,” set in London, 1900. Frank, as Mr. Blue Beard, has just married my character, his thirteenth wife, and plans to bump her off for her money, as he did the other twelve wives. Lana and Frank pretend they are brother and sister, who plan to do the evil deed by poisoning his new bride. There was a lot of shtick where the three of us kept switching the glasses with the poison and wound up getting totally confused as a result. It was a complicated bit, but Lana nailed it every time with no problem.
After the show, a relieved Lana told me she’d had a ball.
“High Hat”
Another one of my favorites, “High Hat,” was a salute to those iconic movies starring the fabulous Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Our guests that week were Ken Berry and Roddy McDowall. Ken played “Jerry Travers, a millionaire devil-may-care playboy,” and I played “Dale Montclaire, a sweet and simple girl with spunk.” Roddy and Vicki did wonderful imitations of the famous thirties character actors Edward Everett Horton and Helen Broderick.
Our takeoff opens on an elaborate art deco scene, set in a vast hotel lobby in Venice, Italy, in the 1930s. Our dancers are twirling around to a tune reminiscent of “The Continental.” Enter Roddy and Vicki as Mr. and Mrs. Travers. They check into the hotel and tell the clerk (Tim doing a zany takeoff on the comic character actor Eric Blore) to be on the lookout for Mrs. Travers’s niece, Dale, and Mr. Travers’s nephew, Jerry. They plan to introduce them to each other, hoping a romance will spring up. They exit and Dale enters and accidentally bumps into Jerry. He flirts with her, and she takes an instant dislike to him after she overhears Jerry asking for “Mr. Travers’s room key,” mistakenly thinking he’s her aunt’s husband! How dare he be such a cad! They join in a duet about their mutual dislike (a parody of the classic “A Fine Romance”).
Ken as my devil-may-care playboy!
Singing:
DALE: “He’s foul!”
JERRY: “She’s dumb!”
DALE: “He’s a creep!”
JERRY: “She’s a crumb! Well, chances are this could be a fine romance!” Etc.
There is a mix-up with the room keys, and Dale and Jerry wind up in the same room, comically missing each other’s comings and goings. Jerry sings and tap dances a solo claiming he’s smitten with Dale, and later Dale sings a solo bemoaning the fact that she has fallen for (she believes) her aunt’s husband.
The mistaken identities are cleared up when Dale and Jerry join Mr. and Mrs. Travers in the dining room. Jerry and Dale admit their love for each other, and the entire cast and dancers wind up singing and dancing once again to the parody of “The Continental.”
Ken was absolutely phenomenal as his idol, Fred Astaire. He moved and sounded just like him. In fact, Fred told me once at some event that he thought Ken was a sensational performer.
Amen.
Rita Hayworth
I remember seeing the gorgeous Rita Hayworth in one of her iconic movies, Gilda, in 1946.
I am Golda in our takeoff.
Rita as Gilda in the 1946 movie.
During our fourth season, we did a takeoff on Gilda (which we called “Golda”) with Steve Lawrence doing the Glenn Ford role and Harvey Korman playing the scar-faced villain (played by George Macready in the film). Naturally, I was Golda, sporting a long red wig and a copy of the strapless black satin gown Rita wore in the famous “Put the Blame on Mame” scene. In fact, Bob Mackie’s partner at the time was Elizabeth Courtney, who had made the original gown that Rita wore in the movie, so mine was an exact replica.
After our show aired, I received a telegram from Rita Hayworth herself (!) saying, “I loved it. You should have done the original.”
Wow.
We got in touch with Rita and invited her to be a guest on our show, and she said yes!
Our first reading with her was Monday, January 18, 1971. We were all so excited, and couldn’t wait to welcome her. She arrived, right on time, wearing a fur coat and looking beautiful at age fifty-two. We were all surprised that she came alone…no assistants, no secretaries, no agents or managers. She was all alone and, I might add, quite shy. I was also surprised at how petite she was. On the silver screen she came across a lot taller.
We were to do a sketch where Rita (as herself) was having lunch at the Brown Derby with her agent (Harvey) and Vicki and I were an obnoxious mother and daughter who kept interrupting their lunch with requests for her autograph and several photos. After that, she and I had a duet where we sang “We Belong to a Mutual Admiration Society.” After our duet, I explained to the audience how I watched Rita’s movies over and over when I was an usherette in a movie theater. We showed a film clip of Rita and Fred Astaire dancing in You’ll Never Get Rich, winding up with her famous scene from Gilda, when she did the “Put the Blame on Mame” scene. I asked her how she’d kept that dress up, and she said, “Two good reasons!”
Since I had imitated her Gilda character, for the finale Rita wanted the two of us to dress up like my Charwoman character and do a song and dance together. We loved her suggestion. She enters an empty theater dressed as the Charwoman, and does an imitation of a mock striptease number that I had done many times. She looks in a mirror, and I show up as her reflection. After a brief pantomime where we match each other’s movements, I join her and we finish the number together.
Singing “We Belong to a Mutual Admiration Society.”
I remember hearing somewhere that Fred Astaire once said that Rita Hayworth was his favorite dancing partner. She was classically trained in ballet, tap, ballroom, swing, and Spanish dancing. She was the first movie actress to partner both Astaire (You’ll Never Get Rich, 1941) and Gene Kelly (Cover Girl, 1944). She had been dancing since she was three and a half! So it was a great surprise to Ernie Flatt, our choreographer, when Rita was unable to execute a simple step or two in our Charwoman dance routine. I, who had two left feet when it came to dancing, wound up working with her myself during rehearsals. She was so nervous that we decided to pretape the number so she wouldn’t have to perform it in front of our live audience on the air show. Was she drinking? We didn’t know, but it was evident that something was terribly wrong.
Friday came, and we were all concerned about her. She wasn’t used to an audience, and I kept my fingers crossed that she wouldn’t be overcome by stage fright. The word had gotten out that Rita Hayworth was our guest, and there was a huge waiting list for tickets, for both the dress rehearsal show and the air show.
