I did a movie called Shamus (1973) that was produced by Bob Weitman, who had been the producer at the Paramount when Frank played there in 1942. Those were the “bobby-soxer” days: five thousand screaming girls, packed to the rafters for every show, and thousands more lined up in Times Square. The first time Frank walked onstage, the roar was so loud it stunned him, and he couldn’t sing a note. All he could hear was the bandleader, Benny Goodman, saying, “What the fuck is that?”
Most of the kids would stay for all six shows. If they got up to go to the bathroom or buy popcorn they’d lose their seat, so they brought lunch and peed in their pants.
Weitman had a button he could push from way up in the booth to bring the curtain down. Frank would come onstage, wait for the pandemonium to die down a little, and then start to tell a joke. Weitman would push the button.
“I don’t pay you to tell jokes, Frankie,” he said. “Just shut up and sing.”
That Paramount gig made Frank a superstar, and I’ll bet that was the last time anybody spoke to him that way.
Frank was a caring and loyal friend—especially to those who’d stood by him when he was down—and he was a gracious host. He had so many houseguests people began calling him “the Innkeeper.” When he gave a party, he was constantly refilling your drink or piling food on your plate. He gave expensive gifts for no reason and would ask friends, “What can I do for you?” And he meant it. He once told Shirley MacLaine, “I wish someone would hurt you, so I could kill them for you.”
Frank could be so charming and thoughtful, it was scary. But he could also be unbelievably cruel. You never quite knew which way he would go. You could tell pretty quickly if it was a bad day, and you left him alone.
I think Frank could have been a terrific actor. He’s wonderful as Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953), the role that won him an Oscar and brought his career back from the dead. But after that, I think he got lazy. He didn’t take acting seriously. He’d never want to do more than a couple of takes. Generally that was enough, and if you know what you’re doing, it doesn’t get better with more takes. But actors who worked with him said he was kind of slipshod. While they wanted to go deeper into a scene, he just wanted to get it over with.
But Frank was always serious about the music, and he was anything but slipshod when he made a record. I watched him cut “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.” You needed a pass to get in, and there were a couple of his ape-shapes guarding the door.
In the studio there was a table, a glass of ice, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, a pack of Camels, and an ashtray. He came in, lit a cigarette, poured himself a drink, and nodded to the orchestra. They did a run-through and Frank said, “The oboe’s off.” He caught it. The oboe player made an adjustment and they did the song again. Frank would give the musicians notes between takes. They must have done the song a dozen times before he was satisfied. He was in total control and knew exactly what he wanted.
—
I KNEW THE GUYS who kidnapped Frank Sinatra Jr. I met them through Ryan O’Neal. We played softball together and they were also on the team. They were pretty good athletes and seemed like nice guys, but they were not the brightest bulbs in the building. Always looking for a scam. When I heard they’d kidnapped Frank Jr. I thought, Of all the people in the world, why would you take Frank Sinatra’s kid? You’ll have the police, the FBI, and the Mafia after you.
They grabbed Frank Jr. from his room at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, where he was appearing with the Tommy Dorsey band. They had a hideout ready in L.A., but they were so broke they had to get gas money from Frank Jr., who had just enough cash to get them there. When they asked him for his father’s phone number, he said, “No way. Do whatever you want to me, but I’m not giving you his number.”
One of the kidnappers heard that Frank was using a hotel in Reno as his headquarters, and they were able to get a call through to him. They’d planned to ask for exactly $240,000, but as soon as Frank was convinced that they had his son, he offered them a million dollars.
“No!” these geniuses said. “We want $240,000 and not a penny more!”
They collected the ransom and actually got away, but they couldn’t help bragging about it. They were caught a few days later after spending only a few thousand dollars on a living room set for the ex-wife of one of the kidnappers.
The FBI was ready to confiscate the furniture, but Frank said, “Nah, let the poor broad keep her couch.”
Needless to say, Frank was pissed off.
I thought, Whatever the government does to these guys, it won’t be half as bad as what will happen to them when they get out of prison. They were convicted and got long sentences, but they got out in a few years on a legal technicality. Frank never took revenge . . . as far as I know.
I didn’t know Frank Jr. well. I was with him only a couple of times and thought he was the dullest man I’d ever met. The poor guy had no personality whatsoever. In all fairness, Frank Sr. was intimidating, to say the least, and having him for a father must have been impossible.
The daughters, Nancy and Tina, were not my favorites either. They were attractive enough, and Nancy was a good singer, but they weren’t my kind of gals. Talk about a sense of entitlement. As Frank Sinatra’s daughters, they considered it their birthright to be difficult.
For a while Tina was dating Doug McClure. Doug and I were both under contract at Universal and we became friends. Doug was scared to death of Frank, and I’d do silly things with him. One day I told him, “Frank called and said, ‘What time did Doug bring Tina home last night?’”
Doug turned white and said, “What? What time did I bring her in? It wasn’t late, it wasn’t late.” He called to apologize and Frank must have thought he was crazy.
Doug was always being ordered to do this or do that, go here or go there, and I said, “Doug, tell ’im to go to hell! Live your own life and he’ll respect you more.”
But Doug didn’t think that was a good idea. He was a sweet-natured guy without an ounce of mean in him. People remember him best for his long run on The Virginian in the 1960s and ’70s. He was also good at comedy, but he couldn’t find the right projects. And he wasn’t aggressive in the pursuit of any kind of success. He had no idea how to elbow his way into anything. Otherwise I think he could have had a big career.
The last time I saw Frank was on the set of Cannonball Run II (1984). It turned out to be the last movie he did. We were shooting in the desert near Las Vegas, and Frank flew in on his own jet, at his own expense. He was the first one on the set. Frank was in a good mood, joking with everybody. Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin were there, making him laugh. Sammy was one of the most versatile and talented entertainers of the twentieth century. I first met him in New York, when he was playing clubs. We crossed paths many times after that and became friends. He’d come to my parties and always sing a song or two, but we never got to work together. Finally, when we were casting Cannonball Run, Sammy was the first one I wanted. I thought of him as the “anti-Dom”—skinny and black instead of portly and Italian, but just as gifted. During the shoot, Sammy did to Frank and Dean what I did to Dom: Push them over that edge and crack them up during a take. Like Dom, Sammy always cooked on the set. He took his pots and pans everywhere.
I loved Dean. He was so damn funny and likable, it was a party whenever he was around. I was once in Vegas standing with him backstage at one of his shows. He had a glass of bourbon in his hand when the stage manager came over, reached for the glass, and said, “You’re on, Mr. Martin. I’ll take your drink.”
“Whoa, pally,” Dean said, pulling the glass toward his chest. “I ain’t goin’ out there alone.”
Our producer Al Ruddy told Frank he didn’t know what to pay him and Frank said, “How about you donate a hundred thousand to my favorite charity?”
Done!
Al also gave Frank a model train set. If you’d told me a famous sin
ger was a model train nut, Frank Sinatra is the last one I would have guessed.
Johnny Carson
Almost everything good that happened in my career started with Johnny Carson. More than anyone, he was the reason I got to do comedy in films. Before I met Johnny, I’d played a bunch of angry guys in a series of forgettable action movies, and people didn’t know I had a sense of humor. My appearances on The Tonight Show changed that. My public image went from a constipated actor who never took a chance to a cocky, wisecracking character. And that’s exactly what The Tonight Show Burt Reynolds was, a character . . . a swinging bachelor having a ball being rich and famous. The women, the booze, the limos, the private jets . . . this guy did everything but wink at the camera.
Actors plugging a movie on a talk show all say pretty much the same thing: “It was a privilege working with the director, and the leading lady was a joy—so lovely, so unselfish—and always prepared.” Then the voice gets a little deeper: “And I loved everything about shooting in the Philippines, including dysentery and malaria. Everyone should go there.”
But after a few vodka tonics in the greenroom, I’d come out and say, “It’s a turkey. Don’t waste your money.”
If you were quoted in print saying that kind of thing, people thought you an ungrateful shit. But when you said it with a big grin on The Tonight Show, they loved it.
I didn’t spare myself. If Johnny asked, “What are you doing after the show?” I’d say, “I’m gonna walk up and down Broadway trying to get recognized.” If he brought up my string of flops, I’d say, “My movies are the kind they show in prisons and airplanes, because nobody can leave.” It all showed that I didn’t take myself too seriously, that off-camera I didn’t just stand around wearing my Number 3 Virile Look.
I was a guest on The Tonight Show probably a hundred times, but one appearance stands out in my memory. It was in September 1974. There must have been a full moon that night, because before my spot there was a food fight with Dom DeLuise that ended with Johnny dropping an egg down Dom’s pants and breaking it.
Just before I came out, I grabbed an egg and a can of whipped cream. As I walked on the set I sprayed whipped cream all over the front of Johnny’s sports jacket and tossed the egg to Dom. I put the can down and Johnny grabbed it. He came out from behind the desk and we stood face-to-face. Without saying a word, he piped a bead of whipped cream up and down one of my legs and then put a gob of it on my crotch area. He gave me a “So there!” look and handed me the can. But before I could do anything, he rubbed the whipped cream in. With a circular motion.
I glanced over and Dom was on the floor. I scooped a dollop of cream from Johnny’s tie and flicked it in his face.
He took the can and sprayed it down my shirtfront.
I grabbed the can, pulled out his waistband, aimed the nozzle down the front of his pants, and sprayed for about three seconds—Reddi-wip makes such a delicious sound—and calmly gave the can back to Johnny.
He took it, but this time, instead of retaliating, he sprayed it down the front of his own pants with a blissful smile on his face, ending the bit on a roaring laugh.
Everybody thought it was planned, but we hadn’t even talked about it, let alone rehearsed it. Johnny had no idea what I would do. I had no idea what I would do. I just knew that he’d follow my lead, and that whatever he did would be funny.
We had that kind of rapport. We both loved Laurel and Hardy, especially their clockwork timing in the tit-for-tat routines where they traded blows or pies or attacks on each other’s possessions in turn, each waiting calmly for the other to retaliate according to the unwritten laws of slapstick combat. Doing Laurel and Hardy with Johnny was the most fun I’ve ever had in front of a camera.
—
I MADE MY FIRST Tonight Show appearance in the mid-sixties, when it was still in New York. I’d been briefed not to touch Johnny or anything on his desk and not to speak to him during commercials, so at the first break I turned to Ed.
But Johnny leaned over and said, “Hey, want a drink?”
“Don’t talk to me!” I said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t talk to anyone during commercials.”
Johnny got a kick out of that, and said, “How would you like to guest-host the show?”
I was stunned, but I was also too dumb to be scared, and without thinking I said, “Yeah!”
And that’s how I became the first actor to guest-host The Tonight Show. Before that, only comedians had sat in for Johnny. For some reason I was cool about it. I shouldn’t have been, but I was fearless in those days. I asked for Judy Carne as my first guest. It was a risky thing to do, but I thought it could be funny if it worked.
Judy and I were married in 1963 after dating for six months. We were divorced after three years, but the marriage was over long before that. It soon became obvious that we had very little in common. I couldn’t get into her lifestyle—the nonstop partying, the hard drugs, the kinky sex—and she wasn’t thrilled with my tendency toward fisticuffs. After one of my many brawls, she said, “God, you’re boring.” To this day I credit Judy, and to an even greater extent Dinah, with helping me discover that a guy doesn’t need his fists to make a point.
In 1968, she was a sensation on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. She’d be dancing in a bikini and she’d say, “Sock it to me!” and be doused with water or hit with a pie. “Sock it to me!” became a national catchphrase, with everyone from Ringo Starr to Richard Nixon coming on the show to coin it.
When her career began to wane, Judy’s substance abuse got worse, and she made a lot of money talking about me to the tabloids. She claimed I hit her, which was not true. It broke my heart.
When Judy came on The Tonight Show, we hadn’t spoken in the six years since our divorce, and following Johnny’s practice, I made sure not to see her before the show. I introduced her, and when she sat down, the first thing she said got the audience involved right away: “God, you look good.”
“So do you, I’m sorry to say.”
“Why did we ever get a divorce?” she said.
“I don’t know,” I said, “but whatever the problem was, it was my fault.”
“No, Burt, it was my fault . . .”
We went back and forth like that, and the sparks kept flying until Judy made a crack about Dinah. “I hear you like older women,” she said.
Well, you don’t step on the flag. The crowd turned on her, and I had to slap her wrist.
“Not older, Judy, just classier.”
They cheered.
Judy realized she’d made a terrible mistake, and I had to throw her a lifeline. “People don’t know this, but you’re a big fan of Dinah’s, aren’t you, Judy?”
“Yes, Burt, I love her.”
“You have all her records, don’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“You’re lying, but that’s okay. The crowd still loves you too, don’t you, folks?”
They applauded, and we went to a commercial.
—
I HAD NO IDEA how hard it is to host a talk show. Johnny made it look easy, but it’s an unnatural act. The pressure is overwhelming. And exhausting. Dick Cavett likened it to going to two hundred cocktail parties in a row and being the life of them all. After the show you just want to go home and collapse. But not Johnny. He told me that the hour taping the show was the most alive he felt all day.
Johnny found his vocation at the age of twelve, while lying on the living room rug propped on his elbows, his face in his hands, listening to Jack Benny on the radio. He’d memorize the jokes and deliver them in the schoolyard the next day. But not just the jokes. He watched Benny’s movies and absorbed his body language, his facial expressions, and above all, his pauses.
Benny was a master at milking the space between jokes, and he could wring more out of silence than most comedians could get from a punch line. Like Benny, Carson wasn’t
afraid of silence . . . as long as he’d created it. He could stretch a laugh forever without saying a word, then deliver the perfect capper. He was always cool on-camera. He could ad-lib a quip in any situation, and he could play off the unexpected and make a triumph out of a disaster, like the way he handled the Ed Ames incident.
The actor-singer who played a Native American on the NBC series Daniel Boone comes on the show to do a tomahawk-throwing demonstration. The target is a Western sheriff made of plywood. Ames throws the tomahawk, making a direct hit on the wooden sheriff’s crotch, to the delight of the studio audience. When Ames moves to retrieve the weapon, Johnny stops him. Holding two tomahawks, Johnny pretends to sharpen them while he milks the moment, and when the laughter finally subsides, he says to Ames, “I didn’t even know you were Jewish!”
Pandemonium.
When that dies down, Johnny says, “Welcome to frontier bris!”
More pandemonium.
Finally Ames asks Johnny, “Do you want to try it?”
“No,” Johnny says, shaking his head. “I couldn’t hurt him any more than you did.”
—
FOR AS LONG AS we were friends, Johnny complained about his mother. He grew up in Norfolk, Nebraska. His father, Homer, was an executive at the local power company, his mother, Ruth, a homemaker who said she didn’t like boys because they were “dirty.” Throughout her life she never expressed pride in his accomplishments: A reporter once got the idea to watch The Tonight Show with Ruth to get the proud mother’s reaction. After silently frowning all through the monologue she said, “That wasn’t funny,” and left the room.
When Johnny got an award from the Television Academy, he called Ruth.
“Mom, they’re giving me the Governor’s Award. It’s for lifetime achievement in the television industry,” he said.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose they know what they’re doing.”
But Enough About Me: A Memoir Page 13