Rickles' Book

by Don Rickles

Personally, I was glad to drag myself up to Malibu and work with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon in the hot sand. I’m not saying my dramatic interpretations rivaled Sir Laurence Olivier’s, but I did my job.

  Listen to the names of the characters I played:

  Jack Fanny

  Big Drag

  Big Drop

  Big Bang the Martian

  Man, this was class.

  If you don’t believe me, look at the other actors who played alongside me, everyone from Dorothy Lamour to Buster Keaton to Morey Amsterdam to Paul Lynde to Buddy Hackett to Linda Evans to Little Stevie Wonder blowing his harmonica on top of some sand dune.

  These films weren’t exactly Gone with the Wind, but they were big box office. Plus, I got a kick out of ribbing Babyface Avalon while he ran up and down the beach like a yo-yo. And for this, believe it or not, he made a bundle.

  Back in the sixties, beach flicks were America’s last gasp at innocence—before the protesters, the hippies and the whole counterculture thing. Besides, they’d shoot the entire picture in a couple of weeks. Fourteen days from start to finish. Not bad for great art.

  I loved the employment and I knew it wasn’t a bad idea to keep my face on the big screen. Only one problem: I was working clubs up in Hollywood at the same time. I’d get home at 4, grab an hour’s sleep and head out at 5 for a 6 A.M. call at the Malibu Pier. When the cameras started rolling, my eyes started rolling back. I was out of it.

  But I did it. I played the schlub who didn’t understand the kids. I was the grumpy heavy. I got the laughs.

  Other films had me actually working on a soundstage. I did X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes with Ray Milland. Some see it as an early masterpiece from director Roger Corman. I saw it as a way to get to know Milland, an icon from the classic films of the forties and fifties. Milland was a classy guy. Funny thing, though, was how they squirted weird dye in his eyes to get the effect of a man who could see through walls.

  Ray was a pro and didn’t mind stumbling around in the dark.

  Eyeball to eyeball with The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (Ray Milland).

  “They’re going to mistake Ray Milland for Ray Charles,” I told him.

  “Not when I start singing,” he said.

  Milland, like Gable, was a strict five o’clock man. When the clock hit five, work stopped and recreation began. Ray liked to relax with a little taste and, no matter how much Corman complained, Milland’s routine could not be disturbed. This was old-school Hollywood. I loved being a part of it, although my part was pretty damn small.

  Meanwhile, back to the beach.

  The beach movies were paying my bills, and the bikinis were keeping me interested in the scenery. It was fun to observe the antics of the young. The youth culture was changing. The change seemed to happen almost overnight. And I got a taste of it one night when I was playing the lounge at the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach.

  Ladies and gentlemen…

  …Meet the Beatles

  The British have landed.

  I’m happy to see them, mainly because the minute John Lennon and George Harrison appear, the lounge at the Deauville fills up. The Beatles are the new sensation, and everyone wants to see them. They take a table off to the side, and the girls start screaming.

  But the Beatles aren’t staying. They’re only here for a quick hello and a few pictures with yours truly. Just like that, they get up and leave. And just like that, the room goes from full to empty, and I’m up there entertaining me.

  The culture might have been changing with the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, but the old guard was hanging tough.

  Back in Vegas, Judy Garland was starring at the Sahara Congo Room and would occasionally come to see me in the lounge.

  Judy loved laughing. She had great spirit, and when she laughed, you felt the whole room shake.

  “Judy,” I said when I saw her in the audience. “A grown woman skipping down the road with Bert Lahr in a lion’s suit isn’t exactly normal. And that Tin Man business…please, that’s really pushing it. I happen to know that Toto the dog has a drug problem. And in case you haven’t heard, the Yellow Brick Road is now in a lousy neighborhood. So please just sing ‘Over the Rainbow’ and we’ll all go home early.”

  Judy loved it but expressed her appreciation in a peculiar way. After the show, she came backstage holding a glass of Liebfraumilch and poured it all over my head. Laughingly, she said, “Don, I baptize you in the name of Mickey Rooney.”

  The stagehands howled.

  I howled.

  I smelled of Liebfraumilch so bad a winery wanted to cork me.

  A Magical Time

  It was happening and it was beautiful.

  I had proposed, my Barbara had accepted and we were getting married.

  Mom and I went with Barbara to Philadelphia to meet Barb’s mother, Eleanor Sklar. Mom Sklar was a lovely woman who lived in a beautiful two-story house. We were all sitting on the couch in the living room, making small talk, when their maid walked down the stairs.

  “Look at this,” my mother whispered in my ear, “they have a maid. They must have money.”

  Two weeks later, they were borrowing.

  Meanwhile, pals wanted to throw me a stag party, and why not?

  Red Buttons showed up in drag dressed as my mother. He was brilliant, but scary. I thought he was my mother.

  A week later, my cousing Allen and I were at the Lexington Hotel in New York, preparing for the wedding. We didn’t fall asleep until 3 A.M. Then at 4, the phone rang.

  This was taken on the top of the cake.

  It was Cantor Yavneh, from my childhood synagogue in Jackson Heights, who was scheduled to sing at my wedding in a few hours.

  “Anything wrong, Cantor?” I asked.

  “Everything’s fine, Don. I just want you and Allen to get dressed and meet me downstairs in a half-hour.”

  “Now? At four in the morning?”

  “Yes, now. Please.”

  Rubbing sleep from our eyes, we got downstairs just as the cantor drove up in his old Chrysler. “Get in, boys,” he said.

  “Where are we going, Cantor?” asked Allen.

  “You’ll see soon enough,” he said.

  Silently we drove through the sleeping city until we reached Elmont, Long Island. When I saw the cemetery where my dad was buried, I understood.

  We got out of the car. The air was thick with fog. The atmosphere was eerie, chilling. We walked past dozens of graves until we found my dad’s. The cantor put on his white robe and prayer shawl. In the still of morning, standing over my dear father’s grave, he sang the Hebrew prayer for the dead. He wailed; he sang with such tender feeling and heartfelt anguish that I felt the presence of God Almighty in every fiber of my being. Afterward, we recited the Kaddish, the Jewish mourners’ prayer, our words melting the morning fog to tears.

  Before we left, the cantor sang a prayer in Hebrew, inviting Dad to my wedding. Then he finished by saying, “May your soul be with us forever.”

  Day of Days

  Back to Brooklyn.

  Back to Ocean Parkway.

  Back to the Elegante nightclub.

  Back to Joe Scandore, looking sharp and greeting guests at the door.

  Back to Rocky helping me on with my tux.

  Back to the place filling up with hundreds of people.

  Back to the scene of my first real success.

  Back to my mom, Etta, beaming with pride.

  Back to feeling that everyone’s rooting for me, that everyone cares.

  Only this time I’m not kidding around.

  Barbara and I have just been married in an Orthodox synagogue, Young Israel of Flatbush.

  Now we’re at the reception, held at the Elegante, where Scandore has done the place over—new carpets, fancy drapes—just to let me know how much he cares. For once in his life, Rickles is speechless.

  Jerry and Rita Vale congratulate us. Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme get up and start singing, “More than the great
est love the world has known…” By the time they get to the second verse, I’m a mess. My tears are flowing; my life has turned to gold. My Barbara will be with me always.

  I’m thirty-eight and couldn’t be happier.

  A few minutes after Stevie and Eydie pour out “More,” I’m back to form.

  “Stevie and Eydie,” I say, “you sang beautifully. But I had no idea you’d ask for money.”

  King Carson

  I’m in the guest chair. Johnny’s behind his desk, cigarette in hand.

  “I hear you and your mother are close, Don,” he says. “How is she?”

  “You don’t know my mother, Johnny, and you don’t care about my mother, so why are you asking about my mother?”

  “I see you’re in a good mood tonight, Don.”

  “I am in a good mood. How’s your mother, John? Is she still working on your farm?”

  “Rickles, so now you’re coming out with your A stuff.”

  “For the money you pay me, Johnny, I can’t even buy Ed drinks. Am I right, Ed?”

  “Keep me out of this, Rickles,” Ed says with his hearty laugh.

  “See that, Ed, when I need you, you turn on me. And you, Johnny, you remind me of a squealer in prison.”

  “Now what does that mean?” Johnny asks.

  “Who cares?” I ask. “You hear the audience. They’re laughing, aren’t they?”

  In the sixties, Johnny was on the rise. His great reign as King of Talk had begun. He was still in New York when I first came on his show.

  People said that whenever I went on the Tonight show, it was an event. Johnny would get off his notes and shoot with both barrels. We had a ball.

  We also became friends.

  One year he had an idea for his birthday: a scavenger hunt. Leave it to Johnny to hire a dozen limos and drivers, assign three guests to a limo and then send everyone out to hunt down their item somewhere in Manhattan.

  I was assigned to find a rag doll in a toy store in the Times Square area. The birthday boy himself was in my limo along with Rosalind Russell. The adventure was on.

  I’m riding in the back with Rosalind while Johnny is busy mixing us drinks. Johnny’s feeling good.

  “You’re playing bartender,” I tell him, “while I’m here entertaining Auntie Mame.”

  Rosalind is a wonderful sport. She’s having the time of her life. When we arrive at the store, we have a small conference. Who’s going into the store to buy the doll?

  “We all are!” says Carson. “We’re a team.”

  The team of Carson, Russell and Rickles walks into a store that hasn’t seen a cleaning crew since World War II. Johnny and I are in tuxes; Rosalind is in an evening gown. The poor clerk is asleep. He opens his eyes and looks at us. I figure he’ll be thrilled to see Johnny Carson and Rosalind Russell. He closes his eyes again. He doesn’t know who they are and couldn’t care less.

  Rosalind finds the doll.

  I buy it. Buck and a half.

  Happy Birthday, Johnny.

  Friends? Impossible!

  Like so many other good things in my life, this one happens at the Sahara in Vegas.

  I’m playing the lounge, while Bob Newhart, a hot comic from Chicago, is in the main room at the Sands.

  “I want you to meet Bob,” says Barbara, whose close friend is Bob’s wife, Ginnie. Ginnie is a former actress and daughter of Bill Quinn, a prominent character actor. Good people.

  “Tell ’em to meet us at the coffee shop after my show,” I suggest.

  “I’ll invite them to the show,” says Barbara.

  “Great.”

  “But if they do come,” says my wife in her prim and proper way, “go easy on them. These are people you really don’t know.”

  “Fine, Barbara. Don’t worry.”

  Show starts.

  I spot a guy in the audience whose taste in clothes makes him look like Emmett Kelly. “Who picks out your wardrobe?” I ask. “Ray Charles?”

  “No need to turn on me, Bob.”

  I ask another guy, who’s on the heavy side, “How much do you weigh?”

  “About two-fifty,” he says.

  “On the left side of your ass you weigh two-fifty.”

  I spot Newhart and Ginnie with Barbara.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” I say, “we’re honored to have a very talented man in our audience tonight. If you like that type of humor, you definitely have a problem. Tonight he’s with his wife, Ginnie, a fabulous hooker from Long Island.”

  Barbara’s face makes a left turn.

  After the show, Ginnie, Barbara and Bob are waiting for me in the coffee shop.

  “Thanks, dear, for being so kind to my friends,” says Barbara.

  “Rickles,” says Newhart, “you’re a different kind of comic. It’s not every day someone calls my wife a hooker.”

  “Bob,” I reply, “you heard the laughs. I made Ginnie a star.”

  “What I can’t figure out, Rickles, is how you do what you do and still live.”

  “It’s easy, Bob. I’m a genius.”

  The kibitzing stops and like normal people we talk about everyday life.

  Doesn’t matter that we’re two guys from two different worlds; doesn’t matter that I’m a loudmouth and he’s a librarian. The bond between Ginnie and Barbara soon extends to Bob and me.

  Turns out we all have the same basic values: nutty humor and family love.

  We become lifelong friends, and the two couples—the Rickleses and the Newharts—travel the world together, a comedy act on the road.

  More on that later.

  Meanwhile, Rickles is slowly but surely moving up.

  Welcome to the Copa.

  “Rickles? Not in my Place!”

  That’s what Jules Podell, boss of the Copacabana, New York’s most famous nightclub, used to say about me.

  “He’s an insult comic,” he insisted. “Not my style.”

  By then I had played Basin Street East, a well-known nightclub, with great success. But the Copa was the ultimate.

  Mr. Podell was powerful. He even put his name above the title, calling it “Jules Podell’s Copacabana.” He ran the place. But, as everyone in show business knew, at that time other important people were involved. As it turned out, those important people liked me. They saw me as a down-to-earth guy. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Sinatra was heading my fan club. It took a while, but Podell finally came around and hired me.

  Opening night was nuts. There was a blizzard, so I arrived a couple of hours early. Even then the line in front of 10 East 60th Street snaked around the block. You couldn’t get near the place.

  “I gotta get in,” said Vito, a guy well known for his powers of persuasion. Vito was the size of a small truck.

  “Sorry,” said the doorman. “We’re sold out. Both shows.”

  Vito wouldn’t budge, but neither would the doorman. The argument went back and forth until the doorman got fed up and turned away. Next thing you know, steam was rising off the doorman’s long coat. Vito had relieved himself on the doorman.

  Before the show started, I was invited into the kitchen to have a drink with Mr. Podell. He always sat on a stool next to the cash register. He never failed to have the Chinese cooks gather around me and cheer, “Hip hip hooray for Rickles!” Then Mr. Podell and I would raise our glasses of Courvoisier, he’d toast me and it was down the hatch.

  When the Courvoisier kicked in, Rickles was ready to face the enemy.

  Opening night was exciting. Tuxes, evening gowns, limos, reporters.

  The club was set up like this: the lounge was upstairs and the famous Copa Room below. It was three-deep at the bar, everyone with reservations impatiently waiting for the main show to start while listening to the lounge entertainment, a couple of young kids doing “Danke Schoen.” You might have heard of the lead singer: Wayne Newton.

  When it was time to head downstairs, Carmine took over. Carmine was a force to be reckoned with. He was Podell’s right-hand man who oversaw
the seating. Talk about power.

  Of course, no one could match Podell’s power. With the place completely packed, he would always find a table for an important patron. Invariably, minutes before show time, you’d see some poor waiter carrying a table over his head with a busboy running behind him. They’d put the table right on stage. Then out would come the tablecloth, the napkins, the silverware and the little lamp.

  By the time the announcer introduced me and I fought my way to the stage, the stage was reduced to the size of a dime. If I moved too much, my tux sleeve wound up in some guy’s linguini.

  Remember Vito, the doorman’s dearest friend? Well, while I was on stage, I saw Carmine escorting him to a comfortable booth. Turned out Vito wasn’t someone you turn away. Let’s just say he wasn’t in the toy business.

  Everyone was there: Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan, Danny Thomas, Ethel Merman. Wall-to-wall stars.

  One by one, I introduced them.

  “Ed,” I said to Sullivan, “wake up. You’re alive.”

  When I was through with the introductions and ready to pick on a funny-looking couple at a corner table, I heard this voice from the back.

  “Don, darling! You forgot an introduction!”

  It was Etta Rickles, standing up and waving at me with her napkin. I couldn’t believe my mother was interrupting my act.

  “Mom, dear, not now,” I said, “I’m a little busy.”

  “I’m sure you’re not too busy to introduce our friend Victor Potamkin.”

  “Mom, give me a break. I’m in the middle of introducing celebrities.”

  “Don, darling, Victor is a celebrity car dealer.”

  “Okay, you win. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Victor Potamkin, celebrity car dealer.”

  The audience gave him a standing ovation like he was the Prime Minister of Israel.

  Etta Rickles strikes again.

  A Really, Really Big Show