My Anecdotal Life

by Carl Reiner

  One of the two anti–Vietnam War events I was asked to host was a New York black-tie fund-raiser in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. It boasted an array of stars, that assured a sellout. I had no idea what my opening remarks would be, until I looked at the roster of stars who were scheduled to appear. Barbra Streisand, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Leonard Bernstein, Harry Belafonte, and Sidney Poitier among others. Seeing those names, I immediately thought of the old standard emcee line, “Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce someone who needs no introduction!”

  I thought, A perfect hook for the affair.

  That glittering night, after being introduced and greeted warmly by the formally attired peace-seeking audience, I strode onto the stage of the great hall and announced that I was “a redundancy!”

  “Yes, ladies and gentlemen,” I insisted, “I am redundant. If ever a show did not require the services of a master of ceremonies, this one would be it! There is nothing I can tell you about any one of these great artists that you don’t already know. Many of you know these great stars personally, and could probably tell me things about them that I didn’t know, or shouldn’t know. However, even though I am not needed, I want to be a part of this important event, and to give myself a legitimate function for being onstage, I will, between each star’s appearance, give you something that none of these great stars can—a miraculous recipe for cream cheese cookies—the world’s tastiest, flakiest, and most delicious cookie ever. It was created by Rudolph Stanish, chef to producer Max Liebman, the guiding genius of Your Show of Shows. At a private cooking session, Mr. Stanish gave me, my wife, and Nanette Fabray his secret recipe for the cookies—a recipe that I wrote down on a slip of paper, memorized, then ate. Even the paper it was written on was delicious. So grab a pen and jot down this secret recipe for cream cheese cookies. You will thank me.”

  I was surprised to see some people actually fishing for pens and paper. The first announcement I made, and all that followed, are darned near verbatim.

  “A four-ounce package of Philadelphia brand cream cheese—ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Paul Newman!”

  Paul Newman, as you might imagine, came onstage to huge applause. I don’t remember what he said or did. I was too busy trying to remember a recipe that Estelle and I had made often, but not since we started monitoring our cholesterol intake.

  After Paul Newman’s appearance, I did not acknowledge how wonderfully he was being received by the audience but simply walked to the microphone, held up my hand, and announced, “A quarter of a pound of sweet butter—Mr. Harry Belafonte!”

  As I searched my memory for the next ingredient, Harry Belafonte was doing what he still continues to do, thrill an audience. When he finished thrilling them, I jogged to the mike and with quiet dignity announced, “Nine tablespoons of granulated sugar—Miss Joanne Woodward!”

  After a wonderful dramatic reading by Miss Woodward, and an embracing reaction by the audience, I offered, “Nine walnut halves, cut fine—Mr. Sidney Poitier.”

  For reasons only scholars, who write books on Humor, can explain, the laughter grew heartier each time I announced an ingredient and followed it with a star’s name.

  By the time I got down to the mixing and baking instructions, the audience was roaring. I started to laugh along with them when I noticed a distinguished gentleman in the first row. It was Joseph S. Clark, a staunch antiwar Senator whom I had met backstage. The audience broke into a sustained applause when I introduced him.

  “Senator,” I said, laughing, “I am laughing at you because I saw you writing down the cookie recipe … and it seemed so mundane a thing for a man of your stature to be doing … or was it a new congressional bill you’re working on, sir?”

  The Senator held up the paper, and called out, “Cream cheese cookie recipe!” His admission provoked many, many hands to shoot up, announcing that they too were jotting down the ingredients.

  I think the announcements that provoked the biggest roars were the last two.

  “Cream together butter and cheese, add sugar gradually, creaming after each addition, then—add the walnuts—Miss Barbra Streisand!”

  And the final one.

  “Use a teaspoon to drop a dollop of mixture onto a cookie tin and flatten with—a wet finger!—Maestro Leonard Bernstein!”

  Maestro Bernstein accompanied Barbra on the piano, and it was a duo to remember!

  After the tremendous applause for their performance died down, I announced, “Bake for ten minutes at three hundred fifty degrees.”

  In the audience, covering the show for the New York Post was Broadway columnist Earl Wilson who, trusting that everything I claimed for the cookies was true, published the cookie recipe in his column. A few day later, my secretary, Sybil Adelman, received a call from Earl Wilson’s secretary, who told her about the steady stream of mail her boss was receiving from his readers—disappointed, irate readers. They had all followed the recipe and had no success in making anything that could be described as “the world’s greatest cookie.”

  The world’s greatest cookie disaster was the tenor of most of the letters.

  “They came out terrible,” a Texas woman wrote, “I threw them in the garbage!”

  “A noncookie!” “A handful of inedible crumbs.” “A flaky mess,” were the kinds of descriptive phrases Mr. Wilson’s readers were motivated to write. They were angry with me for wasting their time and their cream cheese. I sympathized with them. I was a little miffed at Earl Wilson for being sloppy when jotting down my foolproof recipe. I just knew that he had left out an ingredient, and when Sybil reread his column to me, I discovered that he had, indeed, left out a key ingredient! A cup of sifted, white flour!

  How could he do that? I asked myself.

  Easy, I answered, he’s a professional journalist and he—accurately left out the same ingredient that—I left out!”

  Sybil Adelman, who is now a respected comedy writer, immediately contacted Mr. Wilson’s secretary, and conveyed my apologies to her boss for my sins of omission.

  “If General Motors can recall their cars and trucks,” I offered, “I should be allowed to recall my cookies.”

  The following day, my heartfelt apology was printed in his column, along with the unexpurgated version of Rudolf Stanish’s temporarily discredited recipe for cream cheese cookies.

  I make no excuses, but I think that one can understand how difficult it was to keep “a cup of sifted white flour” in my head when listening to Streisand sing “People.”

  Using the newly edited recipe, Sybil baked a batch of the cookies and presented them to me. I found them edible and unexciting, and immediately dictated another note to Earl Wilson, asking him to please tell his readers that when flattening the cookie dough with a wet finger, use a swirling motion starting from the center, and to keep swirling to the outer edge until the dough is wafer thin.

  Except for the two cookie recalls, it was a highly successful event, but it took more events, and more raised voices of dissent, before our leaders did the right thing, and declared the undeclared war over.

  * * *

  I mentioned at the outset of this chapter that I was asked to host two of these rallies. Well, for the second one I was made an offer my conscience would not allow me to refuse. The event was called a moratorium, and was to be held at San Francisco’s Polo Field on the same day that a similar moratorium was taking place at the Mall in our nation’s capital. I should mention that for following my conscience, my name ended up on a list of potential assassins.

  The prospect of addressing one million people, the projected attendance, was nerve wracking. I was concerned about putting my physical and professional life in danger. According to the press, the sentiments of the country’s entire population were split down the middle, and no performer wants to alienate half his audience. Also crossing my mind was the threat of violence by the crazies to those of us who opposed the war. The murder of students at Kent State University was still fresh in our memory.
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br />   Standing on the tallest and widest speakers’ platform I had ever been on were the leaders of every citizen’s group who opposed the war and wished to be heard. I was awed and proud to have the opportunity to meet Oregon’s senator Wayne Morse, who along with Alaska’s senator Ernest Gruening were the only members of Congress to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I remember Senator Morse looking out at the mass of humanity, and saying to me, “I have never seen this many people in one place, not even in India.”

  When I stepped up to the microphone to make my opening remarks, the fleet of helicopters circling the field made it impossible for me to be heard above the sound of the whirring rotors. I asked the sound engineer to crank up the volume on the mike but it didn’t help. Neither the news nor the police helicopters seemed to be in any hurry to leave, and if they did not leave, the scheduled speakers would be unable to deliver their messages, and we’d have no rally. After a frustrating few minutes, I shouted into the mike at the top of my lungs, and was able to instruct the crowd by pantomiming that we all look up at the planes and give them the famous victory sign that Winston Churchill used during the Second World War, and to continue the gesture until the pilots got bored and left. It was a sight I will never forget. Hundreds of thousands of faces, all looking to the skies and pumping their V-for-victory sign with both hands. It took a while but it worked. One by one the helicopters peeled off and the rally went on … and on … and on.

  For the next few hours, my co-host, Paul Shrade, an executive in the Electrical Workers Union, and I introduced scores of speakers. Two or three are etched into my memory. Besides Senator Wayne Morse, I remember introducing Reverend Ralph Abernathy, Dr. Martin Luther King’s most trusted associate, and a Mr. David Hilliard, president of the Black Panther party.

  Mr. Hilliard made a long and impassioned speech that was peppered with words that, even today, only successful rap artists can get away with using in public. He called for the killing of “all those who want to take away your freedom.”

  “If someone want to take away your freedom,” he shouted, “kill the fucker!”

  That was the operative phrase that he used over and over, substituting actual names for the word “someone.” I was standing next to Rev. Abernathy at that time and I asked him what he thought. He just shook his head, and said, “I have never heard words like that on any podium I ever stood on.” Very soon after, David Hilliard, at the top of his voice, bellowed “If Nixon want to take away your freedom, kill the fucker!”

  I am certain that I have David Hilliard to thank for my inclusion on President Nixon’s assassins list. Whoever compiled the list must have deduced that since I introduced Mr. Hilliard at the rally, I must subscribe to his views on who should be terminated. Until a dear El Paso relative sent it to me, I had not seen the list that was published in a Texas newspaper, but there it was, my name sandwiched between two outspoken critics of the Vietnam War and the most feared, potential assassins in America—Tony Randall and Groucho Marx.

  I sighed deeply, then laughed, wouldn’t you?

  27

  Charlie and the President

  I could never have guessed that in 1939, a small item in the New York Daily News that caught my brother’s eye would have the profound impact on my life that it did. Had Charlie not brought it to my attention, I might very well be writing anecdotes about my life as a machinist or, more likely, not be writing anything about anything. What my brother had read was an announcement offering free acting classes to young aspiring actors. The classes were government sponsored, and all that was required was going down to 100 Centre Street in lower Manhattan and applying for admission.

  At the time, I was seventeen and gainfully employed as a machinist’s helper, delivering millinery sewing machines to ladies’ hat factories. My boss, master machinist Abe Weglinsky, had a one-room repair shop that was located at the corner of Thirty-eighth Street and Sixth Avenue, since renamed Avenue of the Americas. Millinery sewing machines were small, but shlepping three of them at a time in bad weather was not as much fun as you would think.

  When I was not out delivering, my boss tried to groom me for a career as a machinist and taught me how to use the lathe to polish needle bars and how to operate a drill press. I was a fair pupil and capable of operating both the lathe and the drill press without hurting myself.

  Up until my brother put the Daily News clipping in my hand and urged me to apply for the class, I had no thoughts of becoming an actor. Why did he think I did? It could be that my need to do silly walks, make funny faces, belch at will, get laughs retelling jokes I had heard on the radio, and do a perfect impersonation of Ronald Colman in Lost Horizon suggested that I harbored a desire to be in show business.

  On the first day of the drama class, our teacher, Mrs. Whitmore, a birdlike, white-haired English actress gave us our first assignment. She required everyone in the class to memorize Queen Gertrude’s poetic description of the drowning death of Ophelia. I never understood why she thought it important for the male students to learn this speech, but I learned it and it turned out to be a valuable tool for me. To this day, if the occasion arises, and even if it doesn’t, I can be counted on to recite it with the same phrasing and dramatic intensity Mrs. Whitmore used when demonstrating how the speech should be delivered.

  All the good things that have happened to me in my life I can trace to that two-inch newspaper item my brother handed to me an eon ago—and I acknowledged that from the stage of the Kennedy Center the night I received the Mark Twain Prize. I said then that I owed my show business career to two people: Charlie Reiner, who prodded me to sign up for the free drama class, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who established the NRA, the National Recovery Act and the WPA, the Works Projects Administration, the government organizations that financially supported all the lively arts by commissioning works from painters and sculptors and sponsoring programs for the development of dancers, musicians, and, bless him, actors!

  That night when I thanked my two benefactors, FDR and my brother, Charlie, had to be one of the proudest and most emotionally gratifying moments of my life. Not only were my wife, all my children and grandchildren, and close and dear members of my family present, but there, sitting among them in the family box, was my brother, Charlie, who had been told four months earlier that he had but a few weeks to live. He had been in a hospice program that was set up in his bedroom, and would have continued with it had not his children, Richard and Elaine, convinced him to try the new cancer drugs that, if effective, would give him more time, time they would appreciate having with him.

  He had told me how sorry and disappointed he was that he would not be able to travel to Washington for the October 24 award ceremony. I assured him that he would see the show before the rest of the country. It was not scheduled to be aired until the following February, but I promised to send him a tape as soon as it was edited.

  I would call him at his home in Atlanta and get daily updates on his condition from his wife, Ilse, a marvel of a woman, or his caring daughter, my niece, Elaine. The drugs seemed to be working and had helped Charlie to get several weeks past his originally projected expiration date.

  A month before the award show, the first in a series of minor miracles started with a call.

  “Carl, guess where I am?” he asked playfully.

  “In the toilet emptying your catheter bag?” I joked.

  It may seem indelicate of me to have made that remark, but those are the things you say when you check in every day for a medical update. There were days of elation when the level of blood in his urine was down, but there were other days when the news was less heartening. On this day, there was excitement in his voice.

  “No, I’m not in the toilet!” he answered smugly, “I am in a tuxedo rental store, getting fitted for a tux to wear at that Mark Twain thing—in case I can make it.”

  And three weeks later, there he was in the family box of the Kennedy Center concert hall, sitting in a wheelchair, wearing his rented
in-case-I-can-make-it tuxedo, smiling down at me.

  Not only did he “make it” to the event but he “made it” to the party afterward, holding court at a table where, for hours, he chatted, laughed, and shmoozed with what seemed like every member of the audience.

  The event was a theatrical highlight for both of us. I appreciated that all of my very good friends and close acquaintances not only showed up but went onstage and said nice things about me and, more importantly, got big, big laughs saying them. One memory that is still very much alive for me was not the event itself but an unexpected aftermath. After the ceremony, I was informed by our producer, Mark Krantz, that the president’s appointment secretary had called to invite us to the White House. President Clinton wished to meet and greet our group and present me with the Mark Twain Prize—a photo opportunity I seized and cherished!

  The following morning, seated around the large, highly polished table in the meeting room adjacent to the Oval Office were not the president’s Cabinet or members of his staff but my grandchildren, Jake, Nick, Livia, and Romy; my wife, Estelle; our children, Rob, Lucas, and Annie; daughters-in-law Michele and Maud; nephews, George Shapiro with his wife, Diane, and Richard Reiner with his wife, Helene, and their children, grand-niece and grand-nephew Rachel and Max; my sister-in-law, Ilse; and Ricardo, a male nurse, who wheeled a smiling Charlie into the room.

  Lolling about, in seemingly good spirits, were my dear and giving show biz friends, Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Steve Martin, Jerry Seinfeld, George Wallace, Richard Belzar, and Joy Behar. Their talent, wit, and gracious presence had, the night before, made the show a roaring success—if we are to trust the audience reaction and the subsequent ratings.