In Such Good Company, page 20
Many times during the season when I did my Q&A bits, someone in the audience would want to come up on stage and give me something…“Can I give you this T-shirt?” I’d say, “C’mon up!” Or “Can I give you this picture I drew?” “C’mon up!” etc. I would always say, “C’mon up!” One Flip Show had one of our writers, Rudy De Luca, along with his writing partner Barry Levinson (yes, the Barry Levinson who went on to become an Oscar-winning director) doing a takeoff on me doing questions and answers, which got to be a little raucous. Rudy was me in a sad red wig and an equally sad gown. He pointed to a pre-set “plant” in the audience, “Yes, you there! What’s your question?” The plant said, “Can I give you an enema?” “C’mon up!”
Not everyone got in drag. Other bits would include sending up the director’s booth, satirizing various sketches and performers, etc., etc. Sometimes it could get a little blue, but it was always hilarious. And so it went. Every year, the Flip Show became the hottest ticket in Television City.
Another hot ticket was our annual Christmas party, which would be held at the Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey. The dinner would be upstairs, and afterward we would hit the dance floor downstairs and dance to the music of a great band. Over the years the bands were led by—are you ready?—Harry James, Stan Kenton, and Count Basie, to name a few.
The Jackson 5
The Jackson 5 stole my heart.
The first time Michael, Jackie, Jermaine, Tito, and Marlon—along with their youngest brother, Randy—were on our show was March 16, 1974.
The Jacksons performed “Dancing Machine,” featuring the incredibly talented sixteen-year-old Michael, and later on in the show they took part in our finale, portraying bored “students” (along with our dancers) in a classroom run by an uptight old biddy (me) attempting to teach the kids how to read music.
Pointing to a music staff written on a chalkboard, the teacher proceeds to pontificate.
TEACHER: “This is ‘Mr. A,’ he is sharp. This is ‘Mrs. B,’ she is flat. Now, if Mr. A and Mrs. B get married and move into a home, can you tell me what happens?”
JACKIE: “They give birth to the blues!”
The classroom erupts in laughter, much to the teacher’s annoyance.
TEACHER: “NO THEY DON’T! They give birth to ‘Baby C’! Now to review, this is a Sharp, this is a Flat, and this is a Natural.”
RANDY: (Pointing to his Afro) “No, this is a natural!”
My character continues trying to engage a totally disinterested bunch of kids, when out of the blue…there is an earthquake!
I mean a real earthquake.
The stage lights above us started swaying like crazy, and everybody in Studio 33 stopped breathing for a few seconds, until the jolt was over. I glanced at our audience, and no one had moved. I figured I should keep on going with the scene, and as the teacher I said, “No visiting, no visiting! The earth just moved. See what can happen when you pay attention!”
There were no more jolts and we finished the number, none the worse for wear.
The Jacksons were very shy during rehearsals, so very, very shy. But when it came time to perform, they blew the roof off the studio! They were the sweetest kids in the world, and I couldn’t wait to have them back with us. They graced our show with their fantastic talents three times. I’m still sad that Michael thought he was unattractive. I thought he was beautiful.
Ray Charles
What a dear, sweet man he was. It was a thrill to watch him perform. He was on our show twice. I remember the first time I met him. He came into the music rehearsal room and was shown, by his companion, where every piece of furniture was so that he could navigate. His companion had to do this only once, and from then on as Ray walked around the room, you’d swear he could see.
Singing with Ray.
One of my favorite musical sketches was with Ray. He got a kick out of the fact that we were going to put him in a sketch as a character and not just have him do a musical number. He dove right in and learned his lines quickly.
The setting was a cocktail lounge and he was the piano player. I was a slightly inebriated customer, crying into my drink, when Ray asks if he can play something for me. I tell him I’d like to hear him sing “Happy Birthday” to Teresa.
TERESA: “Teresa’s a little ‘juiced.’ Can I tell you something else about Teresa? Teresa’s gonna get a little ‘juicier’ because today is Teresa’s birthday, and only one person in this great big whole wide wonderful overpopulated world remembered that today is Teresa’s birthday.”
She tells him that person is her and then she begins to sob.
He starts to sing “Happy Birthday” and begs Teresa to join in. She does, reluctantly at first, and then, beginning to enjoy herself, she wants to hear him sing it one more time. This time Ray sweetly calls her Tessie as he sings, and she starts wailing and crying all over again. Ray asks her what’s wrong, and she tells him her guy used to call her Tessie, but not anymore. Ray is endearingly sympathetic, the soul of compassion. It makes me smile just to remember.
At that point, as Teresa, I sing “Tess’s Torch Song,” with the lyrics describing how her best girlfriend stole her man away. Ray then says he knows exactly how she feels because the same heartache has happened to him. He invites Teresa to sit next to him and listen to his woe. He then begins to sing “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry,” with Teresa joining him. The number ends with a plaintive Teresa singing the birthday song to herself.
It was a beautiful vocal arrangement from our special material writers, along with an equally beautiful orchestral arrangement by Pete Matz. Ray told them how much he loved the whole bit.
After the show, I brought my five-year-old daughter, Jody, backstage to meet him. When she was even younger, she had fallen in love with Ray. The first time she saw him on television, she went up to the set and kissed the screen. She was absolutely mesmerized by him. One morning she was chatting with a plumber who was working in our kitchen, and I overheard her say, “I’m married to Ray Charles. He’s my husband. He’s blind, you know, and I have to lead him everywhere.” I related this to Ray, and he laughed like crazy, and said he’d love to meet her. Jody was overwhelmed when Ray walked into my dressing room and said, “Where’s my Jody?” She ran over to him and he picked her up and hugged her. She couldn’t speak, but those were happy tears rolling down her cheeks.
Carol Channing
I always looked forward to having Carol on the show, because she made every straight line funny—and every funny line funnier. All she had to do was bat those great big eyes with those great big false eyelashes, smile that great big smile, deliver a line with that wonderful, one-of-a-kind raspy voice, and the audience would double over in hysterics.
Carol Channing making a straight line funny!
Everyone in show business knew that Carol never missed a show. When she starred on Broadway in Hello, Dolly! she performed in 2,844 shows, evenings and matinees, and never missed a curtain. She insisted that she owed her remarkable health to what she ate.
After she appeared on one of our shows, Joe and I took Carol out to Chasen’s for dinner. When it was her turn to order, she asked the waiter to bring her a plate—just a plate—with nothing on it. When it arrived, she reached into a small picnic cooler she had tucked under the table and produced a huge slab of raw whale blubber, which she unceremoniously slapped onto her plate. Splat. This must have worked for her, because she was the picture of glowing good health.
Nevertheless, I ordered the chili.
The following season we booked Carol for another show. Early Monday morning, before the first reading with the cast and crew, Carol’s husband called to say she was under the weather, but assured us that she would be right as rain by Tuesday. I was somewhat surprised (Carol Channing…sick?), but I simply said I hoped she’d feel better soon and that we’d look forward to seeing her tomorrow.
Carol was there the next morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with her signature smile a mile wide. I asked her how she felt.
“Ohhh! Darlin’, I’m FINE now, just fine!”
My curiosity got the better of me. “Great, but what happened?”
“Well, we were playing Vegas last week and I had this frozen elk flown in.”
“You flew in an elk?”
“A FROZEN elk!”
“A frozen elk…”
“YES! And it just hit me the wrong way. Boy, did I learn a lesson!”
She took my hand and leaned in close, with those huge eyes staring at me intently. I mean we were nose to nose.
“Carol, you must listen to me and don’t ever forget this.”
I nodded solemnly.
“Whenever you’re on the road, you must promise me to NEVER eat just any old frozen elk.”
I swore I wouldn’t. “Cross my heart, and hope to die.”
Jerry Lewis
What a fascinating man. He was on our show in January 1971, which made him around forty-five years old. He didn’t look it, and he certainly didn’t act it.
In a sketch we called “Society Marriage,” we played two nerdy rich kids who are brought together by their wealthy families hoping they will hit it off and marry. Jerry was at his manic best.
I’m Cynthia and Jerry is Dexter. He calls on Cynthia, and they’re both incredibly shy and unattractive. They’re also very nearsighted, and when they put on their glasses and look at each other for the first time, they both let out a scream. They sit down on the sofa and engage in a conversation about school. Cynthia confesses that she didn’t have much fun because she was a very homely child.
CYNTHIA: “My father suggested plastic surgery.”
DEXTER: “When are you gonna have it?”
CYNTHIA: “I had it already.”
DEXTER: (Kindly) “They did a very unusual job.”
The two of them warm to each other, and after an awkward kiss, they realize they’re meant for each other.
Cynthia and Dexter’s awkward first kiss.
Jerry’s not a short person (in person), but somehow he was able to morph into a tiny, frightened, curled-up, pitiful little creature when being lectured to by his domineering father (Harvey). He could do amazing things with his body, thereby creating the type of character neurosis he wanted to get across. Also, his voice could go up several octaves when he was supposed to be scared or insecure. The audience response was overwhelming.
As the finale on my show, I was the Charwoman (who never speaks) and Jerry was a janitor in a department store after hours, and we make believe we’re “fancy folks” in the store’s dining room. The scene is acted out in pantomime. Jerry is a master when it comes to pantomime, and he came up with several bits of shtick during the course of the sketch. We ended up sitting on a bench and singing, “A Pocket Full of Dreams” and “Somebody.” They were sung straight…no shtick…simply and sweetly sung. Jerry was wonderful, but slightly uncomfortable with the concept. I think he felt that these particular characters wouldn’t switch gears like that. I did, every time I did a Charwoman finale. I would (all in pantomime) be in a setting where I was cleaning up, doing funny bits of business, and then “switch gears,” sit on a bucket, and sing a (usually) sad song. Whatever his reservations, however, Jerry went with it and sang beautifully. In person and in repose, I always thought he was sexy.
One other note: He was a savant when it came to remembering numbers. During rehearsals, he would ask several of our dancers and crew members what their Social Security numbers were, and without writing down anything, he could repeat every one of them without missing a beat.
We got together again in February 2014, when he was honored by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. I was thrilled when he asked me to present the award to him.
The Only One, but Who Needs More?
During our eleven-year run, there was only one guest who was a royal pain. I won’t name him, but he wasn’t a happy camper from the get-go. He complained about the material, the costuming, the music, you name it. We tried to accommodate him at every turn, to no avail. We later learned he was “on” something, which might’ve explained his orneriness. At any rate, it came as no surprise when he simply decided to walk the day before we were to tape the show. He was a belligerent little SOB.
I say “little” because he was very short, which prompted one of our writers to label him “a pony’s ass.”
Sid Caesar
Your Show of Shows, starring Sid Caesar and featuring costars Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, and Howie Morris, was the ultimate sketch show. I’ve revisited it on several occasions (lots of times on YouTube), and boy, does it hold up. When it first aired, I didn’t get to watch it much for two reasons: We didn’t own a television set until 1954, the year Your Show of Shows went off the air, and when it was on the air, I was a student at UCLA and didn’t have much time to watch TV. Anyway, that changed when I went to New York in search of an acting career.
My Fair Lady was in previews and on its way to being the biggest hit on Broadway in 1956. I was a struggling wannabe, living at the Rehearsal Club, which was a haven for “young ladies interested in being in the theater.” Mostly I was hoping to get an agent and land a job. I wasn’t into watching much television then, either, with one exception: Caesar’s Hour, starring Sid Caesar, Nanette Fabray, Carl Reiner, and Howie Morris, airing on Saturday nights. It was a live show, just like Your Show of Shows, and there were no home recording devices then, so if you missed a show you were sunk. The sketches and the performances were something to behold. The cast was beyond inventive. The writers were brilliant (Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, and Larry Gelbart, to name a few). Some of the sketches ran close to thirty minutes! I, quite simply, was hooked. Sid Caesar’s stand-in was a very funny comedian, Milt Kamen. He and I were friends, and we used to meet for coffee every so often at the Stage Delicatessen. I was thrilled when he told me about his job with Sid. I went on and on about how much I loved Caesar’s Hour and how I would never miss a show. One Saturday morning, Milt offered me the opportunity of a lifetime…a chance to watch a rehearsal of Caesar’s Hour that very afternoon! Milt sneaked me into the theater, and I took a seat way up in the balcony. There, I’d be able to watch Sid and his gang rehearse that evening’s show, and then I’d go home to the Club and watch the finished product at 8:00 that night, to see if they’d made any improvements or changes. It was heaven. I went back to the Club, eager for 8:00 to roll around, and was informed that I had won a ticket to see My Fair Lady (which had been donated to the Rehearsal Club by the kindly producers) that very night!
Well, it was no contest. I figured that My Fair Lady would run for a hundred years, but I would never get another chance to see that night’s live Caesar’s Hour. I gave my ticket to my roommate at the Club, and never regretted it, because what follows is an incredible story about what happened that night when Caesar’s Hour aired.
As I had watched from my perch in the balcony that afternoon, one of the sketches was a parody of the play and movie Inherit the Wind. Sid was portraying a Clarence Darrow–type lawyer, defending Howie Morris, who was accused of murder. Carl Reiner was the pompous prosecuting attorney. The entire sketch takes place in a courtroom, complete with judge, jury, and spectators. After presenting their closing arguments, the two adversaries anxiously wait for the jury foreman to announce the verdict. The actor playing the foreman has one line to deliver, “We find the defendant GUILTY,” whereupon Sid laces into a very funny tirade culminating in the jury reversing the verdict entirely, thereby eliciting applause from the spectators and even the prosecuting attorney! It was a monologue out of comedy heaven, and Sid was brilliant. I couldn’t wait to see the final product that night.
Eight o’clock finally rolled around, and I was glued to the television set in the parlor of the Rehearsal Club. The “Inherit the Wind” sketch began and it was going swimmingly, until…the actor, playing the jury foreman, with the one line, said: “We find the defendant NOT GUILTY”…and froze right where he stood. He had blown his one line! The entire sketch hinged on the fact that the jury finds the defendant guilty, thus paving the way for Sid’s “aria.” I was stunned. The looks on Sid’s, Carl’s, and Howie’s faces registered sheer horror. This was a live show! No retakes, thank you very much! Sid finally regained his composure and began to speak. If memory serves me correctly, he opened with something like, “Right! Sure! You say he’s NOT guilty! BUT everyone in this courtroom thinks he IS guilty…and…and…and…I’m here to convince all of you once and for all that he’s NOT guilty!” He miraculously wove his way back into the original speech and saved the sketch!!!
Pure genius.
A nice footnote to this story: The actor who played the foreman was devastated over his monumental goof and was tearing out of the stage door heading for the subway (possibly with the thought of hurling himself on the tracks) when Sid followed him, caught up to him, and said, “It’s okay. You can come back next week.”
I love that story.
I always admired Sid and never dreamed we’d one day be friends.
I did finally see My Fair Lady, never dreaming that someday Julie Andrews and I would work together and become close chums…but that’s another story.
