by Tim Conway
The wrangler nodded. Carol then turned to Peter Matz and said, “Okay, Pete, let’s start again. Do you want to take it from Number One or Number Two.”
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how the audience responded, that is, how every single person in that studio, from the control booth, to the stage, to the audience, erupted. You could have passed the pail around the entire room. You have to be a special performer to top an impromptu animal act like that, and that’s exactly what Carol was, and did.
Here I am telling Carol stories again. Maybe I’ll wire the keyboard and every time I type “Carol Burnett” I’ll get an electric shock. Better not do that. Chances are I’d electrocute myself within two paragraphs. Much as I love her, I have to banish her for a while. Who I really want to talk about now is Harvey Korman.
Harvey
Harvey Korman and I were much more than friends. We were much more than brothers. I don’t know what the next step on the relationship ladder is, not including “don’t ask, don’t tell,” but whatever it is, we were it. He was my partner, my friend, and my target. With the exception of height and religious persuasion—Catholic vs. Jewish—we were the same person. To this day, I have no idea exactly how tall Harvey was, but he seemed to be around ten feet. We saw eye to eye on everything, except I had to stand on a chair to do it. We were as close as the pages in this book. We even had the same personal problems. Both our first marriages ended in divorce and both our second marriages endured. We loved our children and devoted our very beings to them. We had the same car troubles—dead batteries. You name it, we were the same. Wait—except for the fact that we dressed differently. Harvey, in fact, may have been the worst dresser in the world. I purchased my clothes at Carroll and Co., a men’s clothing store in Beverly Hills. Harvey took clothes off the costume rack from Carol’s show, combined them in a helter-skelter way, and called the result a wardrobe. His number one outfit was his go-to ensemble for semiformal occasions, which included anything that fell between loungewear and black tie. The first time Charlene saw his number one outfit in all its glory was during a weekend trip to San Francisco where Harvey and I were doing a benefit. Charlene and Debby Korman joined us. We were going out for dinner, and Char and I waited in front of the hotel for the Kormans. They walked out the door and as they approached us, Charlene grabbed my arm.
“What on God’s earth is Harvey wearing?” she gasped.
He was, of course, in his number one outfit. I shall now attempt to describe that ensemble without gagging. It began with a multicolored shirt that had as much going on in the pattern as Dan’s mosaic cellar floor on Orange Street. None of the shirt’s colors matched anything else he was wearing, which included a yellow tie and a brown sports jacket, both lifted from a “Carol and Sis” sketch on The Carol Burnett Show. The jacket had some sort of crisscrossing pattern; the cut was of a style that had definitely gone out of style. His double-knit pants were brown but not a complementary shade to the jacket. They were flared at the bottom, and the hem on the left leg had come undone leaving the cuff flapping in the wind. On his feet he wore brown loafers with white cloth inserts on the upper vamps. To top it off, a gold chain-link ID bracelet, that must’ve weighed five pounds, circled his right wrist. And that’s how my friend Harvey appeared when he got dressed up, except for black tie events when he had to wear a tux. Oh, I almost forgot, sometimes he sported a Dodgers baseball cap that he’d received on Fan Appreciation Day at Dodger Stadium. He’d even wear his Dodgers cap with his tux.
One sartorial occasion is forever etched in my brain. Harvey and I were invited to be Cary Grant’s guests at the Hollywood Park racetrack. We were thrilled at the invitation and equally thrilled to learn that Grant was a huge fan of our show. Some of you may recall that, besides being a great actor, Cary Grant was just about the best dresser in show business. Harvey picked me up to go to the track and, of course, he was wearing his number one outfit. We met Mr. Grant in the dining room for lunch before the races began. I wasn’t sure how Mr. Grant would react to my pal’s bizarre attire. I should have known that he was too much of a gentleman to show anything. I’m happy to report that Cary Grant didn’t blink an eye when he shook hands with “Nicely-Nicely Johnson.” We sat down at a prominent table and had lunch. Every time Harvey brought his fork to his mouth his sleeve would draw back revealing the chain-link ID bracelet in all its glory. Cary Grant had to have seen it—the people across the dining room could see it—but he said nothing. Knowing Harvey, he probably was waiting for Grant to compliment him on it. We we’re sitting there eating and chatting when Grant dropped a little salad dressing on his jacket. As he brushed it off with his napkin, Harvey did a double take and cried out, “Oh, I don’t believe it, Cary Grant dribbles, too!”
Along with his eccentric way of dressing, Harvey had an eccentric way of doing almost anything. For instance, he drove a car that had a small hole in the roof. Rather than lay out the few bucks it would have cost to have the thing professionally restored, he did his own repair by taping a plastic Dodgers baseball helmet over the open space. You could always spot Harvey’s car in traffic. By the way, Harvey’s thrift was legendary; he could be suckered into any deal that promised a bargain. And I could come up with those deals at the drop of a hat. We were sitting around at rehearsal one afternoon when Harvey commented that he’d gained a few extra pounds and was looking at various diets.
“The best one I know is the Gavin Diet,” I told him.
“What’s that?” Harvey asked.
I had made up the name on the spur of the moment and, prompted by Harvey’s query, I immediately made up a diet to go with the name.
“Well, it was created by a Dr. Gavin and the best thing is you don’t have to eat anything special or count calories or anything like that. And it doesn’t cost anything, either.”
At the words “doesn’t cost anything” Harvey leaned forward. I had him hook, line, and sinker. All I had to do was reel him in.
“What are you talking about? How can there be a diet that doesn’t cost anything and lets you eat anything?”
“I know it’s hard to believe, but I’ve been on the Gavin Diet for years to keep my weight constant. It’s so simple I don’t know why everybody doesn’t go on it. It’s based on the fact that your body burns up the fat to keep the body temperature at a constant ninety-eight point two degrees.”
“How the hell do you do that?” demanded Harvey.
“Well, it all happens at night. When you go to bed you have to sleep in the nude, without blankets, and you’ve got to keep the windows open.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. It’s that simple.”
“And you’ve done it?”
“For ten years.”
“And that’s all you have to do?”
“That’s all.”
That evening Harvey went on the Gavin Diet; he went off it the next morning after his wife asked him where he got the crazy idea that sleeping in the nude with the windows open had anything to do with losing weight. The funny thing is, he never said a word to me about what happened. I only found out because Debby told Charlene.
Another time while we were on the road, his suitcase, a beat-up imitation leather knock-off that he’d owned for years, split open, forcing him to buy a new one. He purchased a cheapie with a three-dial combination lock and brought it to my room.
“I can’t figure out how to open this thing,” he said tossing the suitcase on the bed. “I pushed the dials around but nothing clicks.”
“I know how to open it,” I replied.
What I didn’t tell him was that the combination dial usually was preset to 0-0-0 and opened automatically. Inside the suitcase the instruction booklet told you how to set your own code. Harvey never saw the instructions because he had messed up the preset. I picked up the case, held it up to my ear as though I were listening to the clicks on the lock, and put 0-0-0 on the dial. Then, I put the case on the bed and opened it. He was dumfounded.
&nb
sp; “How did you do that?” he asked.
“Well, I knew this guy who’d spent a lot of time in prison and he taught me how.”
I shut the case and gave the lock a spin.
“Stop!” Harvey cried, “Don’t lock it. I’ve got to open it.”
“Ah,” I answered, “that’s where I come in. I’ll open it for you, but each time I do, it’ll cost you two dollars.”
“You’re kidding me,” said Harvey.
“Try me,” I said.
I made eight dollars on that trip; eight dollars from a guy who could name all the presidents of the United States in order but couldn’t figure out how to open a simple lock.
The cornerstone of our relationship, professional and personal, was my ability to make Harvey laugh just by looking at him. While I got a real kick out of getting any of my colleagues to crack up during sketches, I lived to break Harvey. He was the easiest target in the entire ensemble, which was ironic because he was, excluding the lady herself, the most professional actor in the company. Harvey prided himself on being a comedic actor, which is not the same as being a comic. He considered himself to be a really good straight man, that is, someone who is funny himself but who knows when to shut up and serve the star. Harvey acted funny but he could have acted serious, too. He knew a lot about acting, and if you don’t believe me, ask Vicki Lawrence.
In case you don’t know how Vicki became part of The Carol Burnett Show, it happened when Vicki was a high school senior. The media had reported that the Burnett show was looking for someone to play Carol’s kid sister. Vicki sent a letter and a picture of herself to Carol and, by golly, she got the job. Fine, except that Vicki was a teenager and had no experience. Carol had faith in her, but there was talk of letting her go after a few episodes. Vicki’s job was looking precarious when Harvey pulled her aside and took her under his wing. He worked with her on accents and building believable characters. He worked her hard and whipped her into shape. Such good shape that she was the only cast member, except for Carol, who was on the show for the entire eleven seasons. (Have I mentioned that it took seven years for me to become a permanent cast member?)
When it came to getting Harvey to crack, I had a distinct advantage because I also was one of the writers on The Carol Burnett Show. Over the years there were easily fifty writers, not including the ones who did special material like the musicals. People who watch Carol Burnett and Friends, half-hour syndicated shows cut down from the original Burnett shows, don’t get to see those amazing production numbers since they were edited out. Honestly, they were like Broadway shows. We had dancers, and singers, and guest stars. Everyone was in those numbers except Mr. Tin Ear. If I appeared, I didn’t sing and you can thank your lucky eardrums I didn’t. (Happily, in 2012, when Time Life released a comprehensive collection of The Carol Burnett Show DVDs, those lost musical numbers were included. Now, you can see me not sing.)
Back to my writing. I’d write a sketch, they’d print the scripts, hand them out, and we’d go over them in rehearsal. Half the time I’d put in things that I never intended to say or do during the actual performance. For me the script was a trampoline from which I could jump into the unknown. Harvey tended to walk the script like it was a tightrope. That’s not to say that he couldn’t improvise; he certainly could, and he certainly did. The difference is I was constantly on the lookout for opportunities to do things on the spur of the moment; grabbing and using any situation was at the core of my performances. Not Harvey. He was content to stay in character. But if an opening presented itself, he’d go with it.
Harvey was quick, a great ad-libber, and a real natural. He said a lot of funny things in the forty-some years we were friends. A couple of them come to mind; one involves Louise DuArt and Marty Klein, and the other involves Elizabeth Taylor.
Louise is one of the greatest comedic impressionists in the business. She was on the road with Harvey and me for years, and then when Harvey left she continued to tour with Chuck McCann and me. Listen, seeing Louise alone is worth the price of admission. She is amazing. A lot of mimics do Streisand and Joan Rivers, you name it. But how many women do you know who can do a George Burns that’s more George than he was? That’s Louise, a master of her art.
Louise, Harvey, and I were performing in a Canadian casino, and Charlene and Marty joined us for lunch at the casino deli. We were halfway through the meal when, all of a sudden, Marty said, “I’m going down.” With that, he leaned to one side and slid onto the floor where he lay unconscious. It happened fast, but fortunately a couple of paramedics were at the counter ordering sandwiches. (Paramedics should be on staff at any establishment serving corned beef and pickled tongue.) They rushed to Marty’s side and began taking his pulse and all that stuff. By then Marty had come to and was looking rather annoyed that his lunch had been interrupted. One of the paramedics turned to the rest of us; we were seated around the table eating our salads.
“Does he have a history of heart trouble?” the EMS asked.
“He’s an agent,” said Harvey, “he doesn’t have a heart.”
The other time came during an interview we gave on TV. We were talking about the Burnett show spoof of Gone with the Wind when the interviewer asked what our own favorite movies were. I forget what I said, but Harvey mentioned A Place in the Sun as one of his. You may recall the film starred Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, and Shelley Winters. Briefly the story is, Monty’s going with Shelley, gets her pregnant, but in the meantime he’s met and fallen in love with Elizabeth, and decides he has to kill Shelley in order to be with Elizabeth.
“Tell me,” said the interviewer to Harvey, “would you kill your wife to be with Elizabeth Taylor?”
“I’d kill my wife to be with Shelley Winters,” shot back Harvey.
He could toss off impromptu remarks with the best of them, but he wasn’t hell-bent on digressing. I was. Whenever I deviated, Harvey was left hanging in midair. How I loved to watch him struggle to stay in control. His lips would start to quiver. He’d clamp them together and draw his mouth tight. His eyes would roll up and begin to tear; his face would turn red. His cheeks would puff up. He could hold on for just so long, and then he had to laugh. It wasn’t a question of if Harvey would break up; it was a question of when. A betting pool flourished during the Burnett show taping sessions. People would put money down on the exact time that Harvey would go up. One sketch perfectly illustrates what I’m talking about.
I got the idea for “The Dentist” from talking to my own dentist. While in dental school he accidently stuck the needle into his own thumb when he was administering Novocain. He carried on with a numb thumb without telling the student patient. That was the barebones outline of the sketch. Harvey was the patient, and I was the novice doctor reading from an instruction manual as I went about my work. There was no mention of Novocain in the written sketch. It was pretty simple, so simple that Harvey spent the week telling me that it wasn’t that funny and was going to bomb. I told him not to worry. I was going to do something at the very end that would tie everything together. He replied that nothing could save this “piece of crap.” I didn’t tell him or anyone else that I planned to stab myself in the hand with the Novocain-loaded hypodermic needle and then go to work.
During the rehearsals, I fumbled around looking first in the book and then into Harvey’s mouth as he sat in the dentist’s chair. When we began taping the scene on Friday, Harvey got in the chair and I began my watch-out-Harvey-here-it-comes routine. If you view the video, you can tell exactly when I start to move away from the script just by the expression on Harvey’s face. I intended to stab my hand with the needle but I didn’t stop there. I jabbed my hand, I jabbed my leg, and I jabbed my head. Harvey sat there in the chair ready to explode, which he did. The poor guy actually wet his pants by the time the sketch ended. (I think people who worked with me should have taken out bladder insurance.) What amazes me is how I was able to keep going without breaking myself. Just the sight of Harvey in torment was enough t
o get anyone going.
Harvey loved that sketch, the two of us used to sit and watch it over and over and laugh just as hard each time we viewed it. Later, a friend of mine told me that she saw Rowan Atkinson do a sketch on London television that was just about a duplicate of what I did with Harvey all those years ago. I was flattered.
The Oldest Man, a recurring character I played, caused Harvey no end of pain. The Oldest Man was a senior, senior citizen who wore a wild white-hair wig and was completely bewildered. I could get Harvey going just by walking across the set at an unbearably slow pace. The Oldest Man was billed as the “world’s oldest something-or-other” in various sketches. In one of them, I was the world’s oldest fireman called to a fire in Harvey’s apartment. I entered the room to find Harvey on the floor overcome by smoke and crying for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. In the script, The Oldest Man looks suspiciously at Harvey and then, shrugging his shoulders, takes out a breath spray. First I squirted it in Harvey’s mouth, and then in mine. Harvey knew I was going to do this. He also knew that the Oldest Man was going to think further about this mouth-to-mouth business and take out a pocket comb. While combing his white locks, the Oldest Man would sing a bit of “Kiss of Fire,” a song popularized by Louis Armstrong. Harvey was fairly composed as I sprayed his mouth and then mine. I leaned over him and began croaking, “I touch your lips and all at once the sparks go flying / those devil lips that know so well the art of lying . . .”