by Don Rickles
In the sixties, Ed Sullivan was huge. Everyone read his column and watched him on TV.
Ed had seen me on Carson and wanted me on his show.
“Only problem, Ed,” I said, “is I don’t do stand-up. I pick on people in the audience, and your show doesn’t lend itself to that.”
“Talk to my son-in-law Bob Precht,” said Ed. “He produces the show. Bob will come up with something.”
Next thing I know, I’m in Bob’s office. Nice guy, creative guy.
“Don,” he says. “I want you on the show when we do it in Vegas. Do you have any ideas?”
“Maybe I could come out in between acts,” I suggest, “and do a running gag. For instance, while Ed is announcing the Brasini Monkeys, I’ll say, ‘Ed, the monkeys could be trouble, especially if they’re not wearing diapers.’ Then when he’s about to introduce Gina Lollobrigida, I could run out again and say, ‘Ed, this gal’s gorgeous, but with her accent and your personality it could turn into a bad movie in Naples.’ Get the idea, Bob? I’ll run out four or five times. I’ll wing it.”
Bob buys it.
Showtime in Vegas.
Ed’s on stage.
In his inimitably nasal voice, Ed says, “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we have a big show. A really, really big show. All the way from Mammacutto, Italy, the famous Brasini Monkeys.”
I run out on stage.
“Don Rickles,” says Ed. “What are you doing here?”
“I think you’re making a big mistake with those monkeys, Ed. The lead monkey is William Morris’ hottest client and is demanding more money.”
For some reason—don’t ask me why—Ed changes the topic and starts talking about elephants.
I whisper to Ed, “Stop ad-libbing and bring out the monkeys.”
“Don,” he says, “do me a favor. Go home.”
Ed’s line goes nowhere. And me, I’m standing there like I’m waiting for the bus. So I give it the show-biz smile and head for cover.
When Ed introduces Gina, I try again. I go back out and say, “Ed, forget Gina. Immigration is going to pick her up any minute now.”
In the famous Sullivan manner, he says, “Rickles, I’m telling Immigration where you are.”
The audience doesn’t get it, and neither do I. Sullivan has no idea what’s going on, and I wasn’t about to tell him.
When the show’s over, Ed comes up to me and says, “We were dynamite together, weren’t we, Don?”
Ed still doesn’t have a clue that I fell on my ass, but that’s okay with me.
I was on with the great Ed Sullivan.
World’s Best Sport
Barbara Rickles.
Without doubt, my Barbara is the world’s best sport.
I say that because even though she quickly became a character in my routines, she never complained.
“You weren’t married a month,” Alan King once told me, “and you’re up there making fun of your new bride. How in the world does she handle that?”
“Like a pro,” I told Alan. “She understands me.”
Barbara didn’t blink when I told audiences in New York, Miami and Vegas about me swinging from the chandelier during our wedding night. I made up all sorts of crazy nonsense. I was Tarzan, she was Jane. I’d say, “When we get home from a dinner party, she takes off her diamond ring, stands by the window and signals ships—and there’s no water in sight.” I’d talk about her like she was a shopaholic. If I could get a laugh out of painting her as a spoiled princess, I did it.
Of course, none of that was true.
You’d think that Barbara—dignified, poised, refined Barbara—would give me a hard time. You’d think she’d say, “Don, enough already with the wife who can’t get enough diamonds.” You’d think she’d protest about the sex jokes.
I’d tell the audience, “In the privacy of our bedroom, I say to Barbara, ‘I’m a barge going up the Mississippi and you’re the dock.’ Or I say, ‘Barbara, I’ll tie you to the couch. You’ll be a wagon train going west and I’ll be Geronimo ready to attack.’ ”
For all my craziness, Barb never finds fault. (Well, maybe sometimes.)
My Barbara is also capable of keeping her cool.
For instance: On our second wedding anniversary, Sinatra hosts a dinner party for us at the Flamingo Hotel after my show at the Sahara. At ten o’clock, in walks the man. Talk about generating excitement! “You look lovely, Barbara,” he says charmingly.
Sinatra orders drinks. Sinatra orders appetizers. Sinatra has no patience for slow service. He tips like a king, but when he’s eating at your restaurant, you better be on your toes.
The conversation is light and polite: Frank is talking to Barbara and me about what’s happening in Vegas. The hors d’oeuvres are hot. The Jack Daniels on the rocks is cold. Beautiful evening.
A magnificent Chinese dinner is served. Frank starts in on rice and chicken followed by shrimp and spareribs. Everything’s mellow, even though the slow service is getting on Frank’s nerves.
One of the waiters accidentally drops noodles on Frank’s pants. That does it. Accidentally or not, no one would dare drop noodles on Frank’s pants. Without warning, Frank gets steamed, gets up and turns over the table. All of China falls on us as Frank storms out.
There Barbara and I sit, covered in won tons and rice.
Without missing a beat, Barbara points to the glass of vodka that she’s holding in her hand. “Waiter,” she says, “could I have some more ice?”
I can’t believe it. I’m married to a Valium.
Next day Frank sends an apology to Barbara.
I say, “Hey, why is he apologizing to you and not me?”
“Because he’s a gentleman,” says Barbara, “that’s why.”
Diary of a Mad Actor
Maybe “mad” isn’t the right word.
Maybe “frustrated” is better.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t getting work. I was.
I did Gomer Pyle, Gilligan’s Island, The Munsters, Burke’s Law, Get Smart, Hennesey, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Addams Family. There was hardly a sixties sitcom I didn’t do.
When I did a scene with Don Knotts on The Andy Griffith Show, it became a problem. Don’s famous shakes cracked me up. Even though film was rolling, I couldn’t do my lines. I was laughing too hard.
“Look, Don,” I said, “I’m going over to the corner to think about deadly diseases for a while.”
The deadly diseases did their job. I was able to get through it.
I had a starring role on The Lucy Show. I played a boxer, and Lucille Ball, a comic genius, actually sparred with me in the ring. Lucy knocked me out.
I missed out on several juicy dramatic parts that I sought—that was the source of my frustration—but I didn’t complain because work is work and I was working.
Even the little parts I appreciated. Anything was better than having to take a real job.
I was cast in the TV version of The Thin Man with Peter Lawford. You remember the original with William Powell, Myrna Loy and Asta, their beloved wirehaired terrier.
Well, in this scene I’m a cabdriver who comes into Peter’s apartment, faints and then just lies on the floor while Asta pulls the wallet out of my pocket.
Sounds easy.
But when Asta shows up, he looks angry, mean and hungry. I’m also wondering why his trainer is wearing leggings, gloves and a mask.
“Sure he’s eaten?” I ask the trainer.
“Yes.”
“Sure he’s trained?”
“Yes,” says the guy. “All you have to do while you’re on the floor is squeeze this little ball. It makes a sound only Asta hears. That’ll signal him to come over. Then, with his mouth, he’ll remove your wallet from your back pocket.”
“Action!” orders the director.
I enter, I faint, I squeeze the ball.
Asta goes nuts. He races over and attacks my leg like I’m Alpo.
“This has never happened before,” says the trainer.
“This time there won’t be any mistakes,” promises the trainer.
“You don’t happen to have a gentler Asta, do you?” I ask.
“The dog’s been trained perfectly,” says the trainer.
“I saw that,” I say.
“Action!”
Enter, faint, squeeze ball.
Again, Asta charges me like he’s got rabies. It’s worse than the first time. The dog’s growling and biting and tearing into my coat.
“The adorable dog must not like you, Don,” says Lawford.
“The adorable dog is a cold-blooded killer,” I say.
“Let’s shoot the scene one more time,” says the director.
“Over my dead body,” I say.
“If you insist,” says Lawford, checking his watch, “but hurry up, I have to meet Frank.”
I insist that they give the hound a doggie biscuit to calm him down.
He eats, we shoot and finally the animal figures out that his job is to go for my wallet, not my throat.
Further dramatic challenges:
I get a good part. This one’s with the brilliant Ben Gazzara on the TV show Run for Your Life.
If I’m remembering right, I play an entertainer who committed some horrible rape. Don’t ask me why, but every time a comedian is cast in a serious role, he’s either murdering his father with an ice pick or strangling his sister.
Anyway, in this episode, I’m on my way to jail. Ben, a compassionate lawyer, is my last hope. I have to convince him to take my case.
It happens outdoors, so we’re set up on a street on the Universal lot. The shoot’s in the afternoon, so all that morning I’m working over the lines, getting myself psyched. Ben’s doing the same. We’re concentrating like crazy. This is a big scene and we’re committed to nailing it.
Our initial take is going great.
I’m deep into the emotions, spitting out my lines like Cagney. Ben’s terrific, giving me so much to play off. We’re deep into it when, out of the blue, we hear this voice booming out of a megaphone.
“ON THE RIGHT YOU’LL SEE BEN GAZZARA, WELL-KNOWN ACTOR, DOING A DRAMATIC SCENE FOR THE TV SERIES RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.”
It’s a tram filled with Universal Studio tourists and their eager-beaver guide.
“Get that goddamn tour bus out of here!” screams Ben. “And shoot the driver!”
The guide is speechless, the tourists speechless.
Problem is, when we finally get back to work, I’m speechless. The mood’s broken, I’ve forgotten my lines, and when I finally remember them, Ben and I aren’t connecting the way we were.
My Emmy won’t be arriving anytime soon.
Moon Over Harry
I told you how I met the wonderful Harry Goins when he was tending bar back at the Slate Brothers. In his own way, Harry was as meticulous and squeaky-clean as me. I’m a two-shower-a-day man who can’t stand mess or anything out of place. Harry was the same. He understood my rage for order.
As the sixties progressed, it seemed like the whole country was in a rage. Protests. Vietnam. Riots. Unlike other comics, I’m not much on political satire. It’s not that I don’t read the papers. I do. I read the ball scores. But I’m aware of what’s going on. In the sixties, you had to be.
The country felt like it was tearing itself apart. Racial tensions were especially high. Race riots were breaking out in the big cities. It wasn’t an especially humorous time, but no matter what the political circumstances, people like to laugh. People need to laugh. And I need to make a living. So I was out there, playing the clubs and doing my best. Harry was out there with me, and one night at the Eden Roc in Miami Beach, he found himself part of my act. Here’s what happened.
From the wings, Harry saw I was working hard, sweating like crazy and in need of another glass of water. So he brought it to me. Harry was a dignified and shy guy who didn’t like the spotlight. The minute he hands me the water, he takes off.
“Wait a minute, Harry,” I stop him. “I want to introduce you.”
He’s embarrassed.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I say, “this is my dear friend Harry Goins. How many years have we been together, Harry?”
“Too many to count,” he says.
“And you can see, Harry is a black man, and I’m a white man. We obviously come from different backgrounds, but we stand together on this stage as brothers. And as a brother, I must say these race riots are terrible. It’s awful how stores are being looted. The burning, the rioting, the stealing. But if, God forbid, it does happen again—and I pray it doesn’t—all I can say is, ‘Harry, I could use a couch and a couple of end tables.’ ”
I put my arm around Harry and tell the audience, “I’m kidding, of course. Harry is a loyal friend and there’s nothing like loyalty. He was there for me in the beginning when I had nothing, and now that I have money and success, Harry, I don’t need you anymore.”
Some years later, I took the family to the same Eden Roc. By then our two beautiful babies were born—the oldest, our daughter, Mindy, and our son, Larry. Morris Landsburg, who owned the hotel, didn’t pay much, but he gave us a suite, meals, a cabana, beach towels, suntan lotion and threw in a free locker.
I always made my show entrance from the back of the room. Morris liked standing next to me as I waited for my musical cue.
We’re standing there when I see a little smoke coming out of the side door.
“You see that smoke?” I ask Morris.
“No.”
“You smell something burning?”
“Nothing’s burning,” Morris insists.
The smoke gets thicker and the smell gets stronger.
“Don’t worry,” says Morris. “We’re looking into it.”
All of a sudden, here come four firemen wearing oxygen masks. They’re dragging huge hoses through the lobby. Bringing up the rear is another fireman with an oxygen tank.
“Just a little grease fire in the kitchen,” Morris assures me.
As he says that, the lobby’s getting darker and the smoke’s getting thicker.
“Everything’s under control, Don,” Morris assures me.
Now people are running out of the showroom with handkerchiefs over their faces. They’re coughing like crazy. Meanwhile, waiters are chasing them, screaming, “You didn’t pay your check! You didn’t sign for your check!”
“There goes my salary,” I say.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking of the wife and kids up on the top floor.
“Let’s go!” I tell Harry Goins.
The elevators are down, so Harry and I head for the stairs. We climb all the way up, get Barb and the kids out of the room and climb all the way down.
The fire’s extinguished, no one’s hurt, but poor Morris, God rest his soul, spends all night trying to figure out who ran out without paying.
Hollywood Goes Yugoslavia
As the sixties wound down, I wound up in Yugoslavia, where I worked on Kelly’s Heroes, a big-budget caper comedy set during World War II with Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Carroll O’Connor and Donald Sutherland.
The real star on the set turned out to be my man Harry Goins. If you think he did good in Miami, wait till you hear what he did in the Balkans.
Harry wound up dancing with more gorgeous Yugoslavian beauties than all the picture’s stars put together. He was the first black gentleman these ladies had ever seen. Harry told them he was a genuine Native American Indian. That got them even more intrigued. He became the black Arthur Murray of Eastern Europe.
They told me the shoot would take three weeks. It took six months. I also had a problem with the food. Everything was swimming in oil. Some of us became track stars as we broke the sound barrier to the bathroom.
Bottom line, though, was that the cast and I became buddies.
“You’d be great, Clint,” I told Eastwood, “if you’d ever learned to talk normal and stop whispering.”
Clint gave me t
hat Eastwood look and whispered something I couldn’t understand.
Telly was terrific. He was Mr. Charisma. The guy walks in a restaurant and everyone turns around and claps. Right away he starts in with “Bring on the food. Where’s the wine? Where are the women?”
When Savalas talked like that, we called it “A Touch of Telly.” During the shoot, we went to Greece, where the ladies couldn’t get enough of him. Especially when he started throwing plates, as was the custom, at the feet of gorgeous dancing women. When I threw the plates, the waiter gave me a bill for two hundred dollars’ worth of broken merchandise.
“Telly,” I told him, “the girls’ feet are bleeding.”
“Don’t worry about it, Rickles. To them it’s a good night’s work.”
Telly reminded me of my pal Tony Quinn. Whatever country Telly and Tony traveled to, people assumed they were native-born. In Greece, they were Greeks. In Italy, they were Italians. In Mexico, Mexicans.
I once visited Tony in Rome. He lived in a villa with a church on the property. I wondered if that was a gift from the Vatican for playing the pope in a movie.
“What’s Zorba doing in Italy?” I asked him.
“Zorba is international,” he said. “Zorba belongs to the world.”
I loved hanging out with Tony. He’d encourage me to down glass after glass of grappa. It was like drinking gasoline right off the truck. I felt like if you’d lit a match, I was dead.
Zorba, Ricardo and Rickles.
As the grappa took hold of Quinn, he started planning our careers.
“Don,” he told me, “you and our pal Ricardo Montalban are going to be in my next picture. You’re playing Irving and he’s playing Al.”
Excited, I called up Ricardo, whom I adore, and said, “Tony’s putting us in his next movie. You’re Irving and I’m Al.”
It wasn’t to be, but next time I saw Quinn, he hadn’t backed down.
“Don” he said, “I’m about to do a new movie. I promise you, my friend, you’re playing Irving and Ricardo is Al.”