In Such Good Company, page 21
Sid’s “funny business” could slay me!
I also never dreamed that I would someday have my own variety show and that Sid Caesar would be a frequent guest! So would Carl Reiner! So would Nanette Fabray!
Sid appeared with us four times, and was a delight. He constantly worked on bits of funny business (“shtick”) right up to taping time.
Carl Reiner
Carl, who went on after Sid’s show to create The Dick Van Dyke Show and write and direct several hit movies, graced us with his sketch “savvy” three times. The chemistry between Sid and Carl was so powerful and important to Sid’s show, it was the main reason I wanted a talent like Harvey on my show. When Carl got in the sandbox with us to play, it was as much of a thrill for me as when Sid was a guest.
As Sid’s sidekick on Your Show of Shows, and later on Caesar’s Hour, Carl did it all. Versatile beyond belief, he could do hysterically funny double-talk in just about every language, matching Sid’s brilliance in accents and attitudes. He was a consummate comedic actor. Sid was very smart, because when you have a partner who can lob the ball back to you, your game only gets better. That’s exactly what Harvey did for me.
Carl in the sandbox with me.
Carl’s wonderful wife, Estelle, was a singer. She had given up pursuing a career to raise a family. She also gets credit for delivering one of the funniest lines in movie history in When Harry Met Sally, directed by their son, Rob Reiner. The scene takes place in a deli where Sally proves to Harry that she can beautifully fake an orgasm and proceeds to writhe and loudly moan and finally scream “YES! YES! YES!” in front of all the other diners, including Estelle at the next table, who looks up at her waiter and calmly says, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Later on in life, she would often perform in various clubs around the Los Angeles area. I made it a point to catch her act several times. She sang with such ease and, I might add, joy. Carl would always be there to welcome the audience. Lots of times, while Estelle was singing, I would sneak a peek at Carl, who was standing in the back, and the look of love in his eyes was something to behold. They had a beautiful marriage.
I’m happy to report that Carl and I remain in touch. Not too long ago, I had dinner at his house. Among the other guests was Mel Brooks. Talk about a fun evening!
Bing Crosby
What can I say about Bing? Wow! My grandmother and I were usually the first in line whenever a Bing Crosby movie (with or without Bob Hope) was showing at our neighborhood theater. He had a cool demeanor that was very attractive to me, even as a kid, and he was a natural-born actor. I got to know him when we swapped appearances on our television shows. He was on my show twice, and I did a couple of his specials.
In one of the sketches on our show I played a starstruck waitress, and when Bing and his manager (Harvey) sit at one of her tables, she goes ape. Totally obnoxious, she badgers Bing into giving her his autograph, forcing Harvey to take a picture of her with Bing, wrapping Bing’s arms around her, etc., etc., and finally ignoring Bing when she spots “a bigger star” coming into the restaurant! Enter Bob Hope!
We had been hiding Bob backstage in a dressing room during the show until it was time for his walk-on. The audience went wild, and Bing’s jaw dropped. It was a complete surprise and he was really delighted.
After the sketch, Bing and Bob kidded around for the audience, trading insults, with the cameras still rolling.
BOB: “I’ve just been around looking for work, and I’m glad you found some. It’s nice to see you on your feet. You look wonderful, you really do.” (Caressing Bing’s cheek) “You just come right from the plasterer’s?” (Referring to Bing’s jacket) “Very nice…these are coming back, y’know. Do you like my suit? I had this made for me in Glendale.”
BING: “Where were you at the time?”
Singing with Bing. He was a real class act.
As I said before, I couldn’t read music, so I would listen to our special material writers sing the medleys and original numbers on tape every week in order to learn the vocals. Both times he was on, we sent a tape to Bing, who also didn’t read music, and he would show up for rehearsals “note perfect.” He only had to hear it once. And some of the medleys we did were pretty complicated! What you saw on the screen was exactly what he was. Mellow, laid-back, and a real class act.
Jonathan Winters
I first met Johnny in the mid-fifties in New York when we both were starting out and had the same manager. Garry Moore had booked us on his daily morning show, long before he had his weekly variety show. Johnny was a whirlwind. His mind was always running at full speed. He was the first comedian I ever saw who really didn’t have a set act. He would be given a few props on a table, such as a hat or a walking cane or a spatula or a handkerchief or whatever, and he would riff on each one, making up hysterical stories. However, we didn’t actually work together until he came on my show as a guest in 1967. He was a master at improvisation, so we simply set up a situation in a sketch and let him run with it. He appeared two more times, and always amazed us with his wild musings.
Johnny was a comedy genius.
He was also a talented artist. Years ago, he invited me to see some of his work at his home, and I was thrilled when he gave me two of his paintings as a present. His humor is reflected mightily in these paintings. The first one shows a woodpecker plying his trade, destroying a wooden cross on top of a church belfry, and the title is Evil Woodpecker. The second one features several large birds standing up. Looking closely, you see that there are two that are belly-up, flat on their backs with their little feet poking straight up in the air. The title? Two Dead Birds.
Dick Van Dyke
My first memory of working with Dick dates back to the late 1950s when we were both panelists on a show called Pantomime Quiz, which was a game show based on charades, but we didn’t actually perform together. Our paths crossed often over the years that followed, and we finally got to work together when we traded guest shots. He was a guest on my show, and I was a guest on his wonderful variety show, Van Dyke and Company.
One of my very favorite sketches that we did together was on his show. Dick played a very old man who is into origami, the ancient Japanese art of paper folding, and I played a very old woman who admires a duck he has made out of a newspaper. Actually, I was doing a character I played a lot on my show, Stella Toddler. The old man tells Stella, “It took me thirty-seven years to make this duck, and it’s my most valuable possession.” She takes it from him and admires his artistic endeavor, then notices that there is some “writing” on the duck. Much to the old man’s horror, Stella proceeds to slowly open up the newspaper so she can read what it says, thereby destroying his pride and joy. She reads: “Stay tuned for the second half of Van Dyke and Company,” while the old man proceeds to have a heart attack.
It was written to be just a short bit announcing a station break, nothing more. However…Dick’s character hauled off and socked my character in the stomach! I then retaliated with a left jab to his chin. What followed was a strictly ad-libbed, slow-motion fistfight between these two old codgers. I repeat…it was totally impromptu on our part. We had not planned it or rehearsed it! Bob Einstein (of “Super Dave” fame) was Dick’s producer and he kept the cameras rolling. Watching it, you would swear we had choreographed it and rehearsed it for days. Not so. Dick and I were miraculously on the exact same wavelength, and the ensuing fight was as funny as it was ridiculous. It was kept in the show, with sound effects added in the editing room. Dick and I had a ball. We both loved physical humor, and this was one of the most fun improvisational experiences I ever had!
In the summer of 1977, Dick and I appeared together for one month on stage in Los Angeles in the play Same Time Next Year. Again, we had a great time working together.
I loved working with Dick.
After my show’s tenth year, Harvey was wooed away by ABC to star in his own sitcom. It was a blow, but I completely understood and we all wished him well. Going into our eleventh season, we came up with the idea of asking Dick to be my costar. I was thrilled when he accepted.
Unfortunately, a lot of the sketches that were written didn’t highlight Dick’s unique talents. The writers were still writing for Harvey, not Dick. After a few weeks, he was unhappy with the situation and asked to leave the show. I didn’t blame him in the least, and his last show with us was around Thanksgiving.
Dick and I are still friends, and it’s always a joy to see him at various functions around town. He’s as nice as he is talented, but I still feel bad that we let him down when he came on board that last season.
James Stewart
The first time I saw him I was with Nanny at the movies. I think I was about three or four, because my feet couldn’t reach the floor. I can’t remember which of his movies it was, but I was transfixed. Every time he came on the screen, with his sweet crooked smile and soft drawl, he was the only person I saw.
Later that night, I couldn’t get him out of my mind; I was drawn to this man in some deeply personal way. Over a cup of Ovaltine in our little San Antonio kitchen, I told Nanny that I knew him. She wanted to know what I meant, and I insisted that Jimmy Stewart was a friend of mine, that we just hadn’t met yet, but we would. She chuckled at that, and we polished off the Ovaltine.
Well, it finally came true. The first time I did meet him was several years later, just at the start of my career. I was in my early twenties and living in Hollywood. I had been on TV a couple of times, and a famous movie director, Mervyn LeRoy, had seen me and was interested enough to invite me to lunch in the Warner Bros. commissary. He was shooting a movie on the soundstages there and even suggested that I come early enough to watch him direct a scene. I was very excited.
When the city bus stopped outside the Warner Bros. gates, I stepped off and approached the guard, who had my name on his list and pointed me to the soundstage in question. I walked into a hulking concrete building with soaring ceilings and catwalks everywhere.
Mr. LeRoy was between scenes and came over to shake my hand and tell me they had just one more short scene to do before lunch. I was shown to a chair off to the side. I watched the lights get brighter and the camera move and focus on a rolling platform that was about two feet off the floor. An actor stepped up onto it and sat behind a desk that was facing a door.
“Ready, Jimmy?” Mr. LeRoy called out.
“All set back here, Merv,” said the voice I had loved for all those many years.
Mr. LeRoy called, “Action,” and James Stewart walked through the door and presented a badge to the man behind the desk.
“Cut. That’s a print. Lunch!” Mr. LeRoy shouted.
Over the years, I saw Jimmy Stewart in The FBI Story a dozen times, at least, but I never saw it without cringing at that point in the film, because what came next was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.
Invited to meet my idol, I stepped onto the platform, gazed into his beautiful blue eyes, and watched his lips move as he spoke to me, but I couldn’t hear a word because my heart was pounding like a drum. He must have worried that something was wrong, because he took my hand and looked at me searchingly. I don’t know what he saw, but I saw his warmth, his humility, his humor, and his heart amplified a hundred times over as he towered over me. I admired many actors, I had a number of favorites, but he was different. I felt so emotional that I thought I might cry. Trying to save face, I turned to comedy—where else?—gave a silly little salute, and said, “Well, I guess it’s time to tie on the old feed bag!” I whirled, stepped off the platform into a bucket of whitewash, and froze as the cold muck rushed into my submerged shoe.
There was no turning back. I decided to play it for laughs and pretend I had done this on purpose! So I proceeded to drag the bucket all the way across an acre of floor—step, drag, step, drag, step, drag. No one was laughing behind me as the whitewash squished and gurgled around my ankle and ruined shoe. I finally made it to the door and dragged the bucket out after me. The rest is vague, but I somehow made it home—and never heard from Mr. LeRoy again.
Years later, Hollywood being a small town, the actor George Kennedy and his wife introduced Joe and me to Jimmy and his beautiful wife, Gloria. Our show had premiered and Jimmy and Gloria were fans, so I invited them to a party we were giving. Gloria told me ahead of time that Jimmy was an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of guy and asked me if it would be all right if they left shortly after dinner. I told her I was delighted they could come at all and they should feel free to leave whenever they liked.
The other guests that night were wonderful singers and musicians: Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, Paul Weston and Jo Stafford and Mel Tormé. So after dinner Paul sat at the piano in the living room and we all gathered around to sing. After the first song, Jimmy walked over and joined in. He was obviously enjoying himself immensely and he and Gloria were the last people to leave, at a little past one in the morning.
With my idol, Jimmy Stewart.
Gloria called the next day to say Jimmy had a ball and to ask me to please invite them, if we ever had a party like that one again. And I certainly did. At some point I reminded Jimmy of our first meeting and the bucket of whitewash; he was sweet enough to say he didn’t remember, but I was tickled when I got a laugh out of him, nonetheless!
Fast-forward to 1978 and we are taping our final show. Tim comes over as I’m about to do my next bit and interrupts me to say, “You have a favorite performer and the guy’s been here every week with his piano, but you never let him on the show.” I look at Tim like he’s speaking Chinese, because I haven’t a clue what he’s talking about. He continues, “You never let him on the show, but I think at this time, since it’s our last show and everything, I’d like to give the guy a break. So do you mind?”
Suddenly the curtain rises and Jimmy is at the piano, lacing into “Ragtime Cowboy Joe”! The audience goes wild and I shriek like a banshee.
Unable to believe my eyes! Jimmy surprises me on our very last show.
He had never been on our show before, but he had hidden for hours in a vacant dressing room so I wouldn’t see him and ruin the surprise. After he took a bow, he talked about how much he loved watching our show, and I was so overcome all I could do was stand there bawling like a baby.
In December 1983 the Kennedy Center Honors was saluting him and I was invited to be in the television segment. I sang, “You’d Be So Easy to Love,” which he had performed in the 1930s musical Born to Dance, with Eleanor Powell.
I have a framed note on my desk at home that he sent me a few days later:
Dear Carol,
We had a fine Christmas. And the best Christmas present I got was you coming all that way to D.C. to sing to me at the Kennedy Center.
Bless your heart. All my love,
Jimmy
—
The Variety Club did a show in my honor a few years later, and Jimmy surprised me by coming out on stage, pulling up a stool, holding my hand, and singing “You’d Be So Easy to Love.”
It is a moment I will cherish forever.
Jimmy Stewart and I had a bond that I cannot explain. That little girl knew what she was talking about when she said he was her friend. Well, I guess some things just are what they are, and if you are lucky enough, dreams do come true.
Yes, I fired Harvey one night, and here’s what happened:
It was during the seventh season. That Friday morning we were working on a rock-and-roll finale. There were certain times when we would have to pretape the finale because it would just take too much time to get it all set up for our live evening audience. This was one of those times. They would watch the segments on monitors, but at home it would all look seamless.
Our guests that week were Tim, who had not yet joined the cast as a regular, and Petula Clark, two of the nicest people in showbiz. We were all lip-synching to our prerecorded voices, dancing in our costumes, and having fun, but something was wrong with Harvey.
Now, at times he could get into a mood. He was in an Elvis getup this particular morning and this was one of those times. He was not a happy camper, and whether it had anything to do with Elvis or not is anyone’s guess. Usually I ignored his moods, because he would be back to his usual funny, lovable self before you could remember that you were annoyed with him, but not today. I could practically see the black cloud hovering over his head. He was scowling at everybody, and at one point he was actually rude to Tim and Petula.
While everyone was changing for the camera run-through, I knocked on Harvey’s dressing room door. When he opened it, I asked him what was wrong, and he basically told me it was none of my business.
I told him his moods were my business when they affected our guests and our show. I said he could be short with me, but not with our guests. He told me I couldn’t dictate how he should feel or act and that he’d just as soon go home and never come back after tonight’s show. He walked me backwards out into the hall, and he closed the door on me.
I didn’t know what to do; I was stunned. For some reason I felt that this was in my lap—it was my problem—and I didn’t want to involve anyone else, not even Joe. It is not in my makeup to be confrontational, but I knew this situation called for it and I was going to have to step up. I conjured up Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford, women who were strong and spoke their minds. If I acted like them, I could stand up to Harvey. Okay, showtime!
FRIDAY 12 NOON; LUNCH BREAK.
