It's Not Easy Bein' Me

by Rodney Dangerfield

  They paid me well for the six months of that campaign, so I was planning to do some more. I had two more ideas ready, and the fellow from the ad agency was set to fly out to L.A. again to help write them.

  Then out of the blue I got a call telling me there was some kind of problem. So I called the nice lady at AT&T, who told me that one of the company’s big stockholders didn’t want me in any more commercials because—he said—I wasn’t dignified enough to represent AT&T.

  Okay, I figured. That’s that.

  The other night I turned on my television and saw another comedian doing an AT&T commercial—someone I guess they think is more dignified—Carrot Top.

  * * *

  I tell ya, my wife was never nice to me. On our first date, I asked her if I could give her a good-night kiss on the cheek. She bent over.

  * * *

  Chapter Ten

  Let the Good Times Roll

  I tell ya, my wife is never nice. She won a trip to Las Vegas for two. She went twice.

  Thanks to my appearances on The Tonight Show, my career took an upswing.

  I got booked for the first time in Las Vegas, opening for Dionne Warwick at the Sands Hotel. My salary: $4,000 a week for two weeks, which was a lot better than what I had been making selling paint and siding.

  I had no trouble getting work now. In fact, I had more gigs being offered to me than I could handle, and I was on the road constantly. And it wasn’t working for me.

  I was now forty-seven and feeling old, so I decided to open a nightclub in New York, Dangerfield’s. I opened it for one reason—I had to get off the road and be in New York to look after my two young kids. I wasn’t living with my wife anymore, but her arthritis was so bad that it made it impossible for her to take care of our kids.

  Twice in my life people told me I was nuts. The first time was when I was forty and I decided to go back into show business. Everyone told me I was out of my mind. But I stuck to it and I’m glad I didn’t listen to them. The second time was when my partner and I decided to open Dangerfield’s. They gave me two weeks, a month. Thirty-five years later, we’re still in business.

  Opening Dangerfield’s wasn’t easy. At that time, I had maybe $50,000 in the bank, so I went to all my friends borrowing money—$2,500 here, $5,000 there, another $2,500 over there somewhere. It was hard—and scary—but it made me feel good that so many of my friends had that kind of confidence in me.

  Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.

  The original cocktail napkin from my club. We still use them today.

  * * *

  I loaned a guy $10,000 to get plastic surgery. Now I can’t find him. I don’t know what he looks like.

  * * *

  I was told I would need $125,000 to open the club. It ended up costing me $250,000. It was supposed to be ready in two months; it took about six months. We opened the doors on September 29, 1969.

  While my partner, Anthony Bevacqua (affectionately known as “Babe” because he was the youngest in his family), was overseeing construction of the club, I was working in Vegas. And every night after my show, I’d run all over town getting my picture taken with all the big stars playing there. We then put all those pictures on the wall at Dangerfield’s. We’ve got dozens of them.

  We had a practice run the night before we opened—invited about a hundred people to see the show and eat and drink for free. I knew we were ready, but I was still as nervous as hell. I remember sitting in that empty club with Babe a few hours before we opened the doors for the first time, frantically trying to think of something we might have forgotten. After a few minutes I thought of something—we had forgotten salt-and-pepper shakers for the tables.

  Other than that, everything went great on our preview night.

  We opened for real the next night, and never looked back. We were off and running. We drew young people and old people, tourists and natives. We were even big with the rock-and-roll crowd. I can’t remember all of them—guys with long hair all look alike, you know?—but I know that the guys in Kiss and Led Zeppelin used to come by whenever they were in town. And after about five or six months, we were doing so well that I paid back all the money I had borrowed from my friends.

  A month later my accountant told me, “You have no money left, and you have to pay taxes. All that money you paid back to your friends was supposed to go to the IRS.”

  So now I had to go back to all my friends and borrow the same money again.

  After that screwup, I saw no profit from the club for about two years. That’s how long it took us to pay back all my friends again, to pay the IRS, and to pay off the ice machine. This put me in a weird position, because I was now getting really hot in the business, but I couldn’t take jobs out of town because I had an obligation to my partner, and to my young kids again. I had to turn down good jobs, much more money than I could make working at the club.

  * * *

  Oh, the other night my wife met me at the front door. She was wearing a sexy negligee. The only trouble is, she was coming home.

  * * *

  Before I opened Dangerfield’s, people warned me, “If you start doing good business there, the Mafia will take it from you.” But I wasn’t worried about that—I’d met a lot of Mob guys when I worked at the Copacabana, and I got along great with them. When I opened Dangerfield’s a lot of those guys came in, wished me good luck, and were my best customers. I never had a problem with them.

  Some of those Mob guys were funny. One night this “made” guy was talking about the nicknames he and his friends had given one another when they were kids. He mentioned one nickname a few times that I never forgot. He referred to one kid as Mile-away.

  I said, “Why’d you call him that?”

  He said, “Because whenever there was trouble, he was always a mile away.”

  * * *

  The toughest club I worked was owned by a guy named Nunzio. Man, he was tough. One day he said to me, “Kid, you wanna go hunting?” I said, “Okay, I’m game.” And he shot me.

  * * *

  Once when I was backstage just as Ed Sullivan was about to introduce me, I could hear a couple of the stagehands talking about my club Dangerfield’s. Sullivan says, “And here he is…” and one of the stagehands yells to me, “Hey, Rodney! Can I get laid at your joint?”

  As I walked onstage, I yelled back at him, “Leave my joint out of this!”

  * * *

  I bought another book, How to Make It Big. I got ripped off. It was about money.

  * * *

  They say an elephant never forgets. Around this time, I had a night with an elephant that I’ll never forget.

  One night a woman came to see me at Dangerfield’s. She asked me to do something for charity. They wanted celebrities to perform with the circus, to ride around Madison Square Garden on elephants.

  I said, “Sure,” and two days later, I report to the circus at Madison Square Garden, all set to ride the elephant. The trainers bring the elephant out, and they hoist me up into the saddle. No problem. Now we start walking.

  We’re maybe halfway around the ring, and I find myself having a problem staying on the elephant. He’s moving quite a bit from side to side—he’s swaying and I’m slipping. Sure enough, he swayed this way, I swayed that way, and next thing I knew, I swayed my butt right off the elephant.

  Celebrating our tenth year at Dangerfield’s, with my partner, Tony Bevacqua.

  Courtesy of Dangerfield’s, New York

  Being thrown off an elephant was bad enough, but my ankle got stuck in the stirrup, so the elephant was dragging me around.

  I was scared. “Hey, help me!” I’m yelling. “I’m stuck!”

  But nobody took me seriously. People in the crowd were laughing, waving. “Hey, Rodney, how ya doin’?” They thought it was part of the act.

  When the elephant was walking, every time his rear left foot came down, I had to make sure it missed my head.

  Finally, two guys who worked for the ci
rcus saw it was serious. They stopped the elephant and got me untangled. When I got to my feet and had smacked all the hay off me, I gave the elephant a dirty look.

  Then I thought, Ah, forget it. He don’t know what he’s doing. He’s a dumb animal.

  To show the elephant I wasn’t mad at him, I started feeding him peanuts. Two minutes later he left me for a guy who had cashews.

  * * *

  I tell ya, I know I’m ugly. My dog closes his eyes before he humps my leg.

  * * *

  I got another big break in 1970, when I did my first Lite beer commercial. That was a good gig for me—I went on to do fifteen or twenty more. I mostly hung out with Bob Uecker, Deacon Jones, and Bubba Smith—all funny guys. And they were former professional athletes, so there was nothing I could teach them about having a good time.

  There were a few things I could stand to learn, though. We were shooting one of those commercials on a beach in Florida and I noticed that all the girls were amazingly beautiful and the guys were all so handsome. I turned to the guy next to me and said, “Wow, have you ever seen a beach like this? No fat people. Only young beautiful people. This is the place to hang out. Maybe I should buy a condo down here.”

  This guy looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “They’re all actors. They were hired for the shoot.”

  I remember my first meeting with the famous Canadian hockey star Boom-Boom Geoffrion when we did a beer commercial together. When they introduced me to him, they said, “Rodney, say hello to Boom-Boom.”

  I said, “Hey, Boom-Boom, I know your sister, Bang-Bang.”

  I was doing a baseball bit for another beer commercial, and Bob Uecker had to throw the ball between my legs. He throws the ball pretty hard. I was worried that he might hit me with it.

  So I said to him, “Be careful.”

  He said, “Don’t worry. I’ll throw it around your knees.”

  I said, “That’s no good. You’ll hit my cock.”

  * * *

  When I go to a nude beach, I always take a ruler, just in case I have to prove something.

  * * *

  One night after the show at Dangerfield’s, I mentioned to some people at the bar that I was having a bad night, that I was really feeling down. I got plenty of advice on how to get rid of my depression.

  Of course, I got the usual “it’s all in your mind,” which was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. That’s like telling an ugly girl, “It’s all in your face…”

  A girl said, “Hire a limousine and have the guy drive you around Manhattan. After half an hour, you’ll have no more depression.”

  I said, “Don’t tell me that the forty-eight Austrian psychiatrists I’ve seen, all the money I’ve paid them, their advice meant nothing, that all I got to do is ride in a limousine, and I’ll be cured?”

  A Mob guy gave me his solution for depression. “Come with me,” he said. “We’ll go to Vegas. We’ll fuck whores. You’ll feel better.”

  I didn’t hire the limo…or the hookers. But I got a good laugh at the advice, which made me feel better.

  You’re a great crowd. That’s it folks, show’s over. I’m going backstage now and take a shower. Maybe I’ll get lucky with the soap.

  Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.

  In my life, I’ve talked with many psychologists and psychiatrists. It has cost me a lot of money, but at least I got a few jokes out of it. I think the first one was: “I told my psychiatrist, ‘I keep thinking about suicide.’ He told me from now on I have to pay in advance.”

  One day I was on my way to see my psychiatrist, but I had to make a deposit at my bank. While I was standing in line, the bank guard started talking to me. After a few minutes, I said, “Hey, I gotta run. I’m late to see my psychiatrist.”

  He looked at me kind of puzzled and said, “You need a psychiatrist? A husky guy like you?”

  * * *

  I told my psychiatrist, “Doc, I keep thinking I’m a dog.” He told me to get off his couch.

  * * *

  One night I was in my dressing room at Dangerfield’s before the show, and the maître d’ told me that Johnny Carson was on the phone.

  Carson said he wanted to come down, see the show, and asked if I had room. I told him, “Johnny, it’s Saturday night, first show—we’re full. But for you, whatever you want, as many as you want, you got it. How many will there be?”

  Hanging at Dangerfield’s with that wild and crazy guy, Steve Martin.

  Courtesy of Dangerfield’s, New York

  He said, “Just me.”

  I said, “Come on down, Johnny. No problem.”

  Back then, I had a buddy, Dave Goldes, who had worked for Johnny on The Tonight Show. Dave was an original, funny guy, and brilliant—a Rhodes scholar and a poet—but quite weird. He’s an excellent comedy writer, and he wrote several jokes for me. One I still use in my act: “I feel sorry for short people. When it rains, they’re the last ones to know about it.”

  A couple years before, I got Dave a job writing for The Tonight Show. Carson liked Dave’s jokes but had a little trouble with his personality. Dave was always depressed, always down. He was not sociable. He wouldn’t sit with the other Tonight Show writers at the big table. He’d sit off to the side. And he wouldn’t dress up for anybody. I liked him, but let’s face it—he was a weirdo. So after a while, they let him go.

  At the time I said to Johnny, “Who cares if he’s not social and he doesn’t dress right? He brings in the jokes, right? Who cares if his socks don’t match?” So they hired him back, but a few months later they let him go again.

  Despite this history, I knew Johnny liked Dave, so I called Dave and told him Carson was coming down in case he wanted to drop by and say hello.

  Twenty minutes later, Carson’s in my dressing room. We’re sitting there talking, and I said to Johnny, “Wanna drink?”

  With a young Robin Williams, back in his Mork days. What I went through to get him to stand still for this picture.

  Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.

  He said, “No, no.”

  “I know how it is,” I said. “I like to have a drink…or two…too. So if you feel like having a few drinks, I’ll make sure you get home all right.”

  Carson smiled and said, “Okay, give me a double Scotch.”

  Pretty soon he was feeling good, and the show was about to start, so I took him upstairs. We put a small table off to the side, where no one would bother him, and I go up to do my act.

  After a while Dave showed up. I guess he was just trying to be funny, but his clothes for the evening were a burlap bag and a pair of sandals. The club was jammed, so the maître d’ put Dave at the same table with Johnny.

  When I finished my act, I joined them. I sat down, and Carson called the waiter over. “Let me have another Scotch,” he said, then looked at Dave. “And a pair of socks for my friend.”

  * * *

  You wanna really confuse a guy? Join him while he’s taking a leak in the street.

  * * *

  A couple of years later, the Dangerfield’s maître d’ called me in my dressing room. He said Jack Benny was on the phone from L.A. When I pick up the phone, Jack said he’d seen me on The Tonight Show that night. “Rodney,” he said, “when I’m watching someone three thousand miles away and they make me laugh, I have to call them. There was one joke you told that would have been perfect for me. You were talking about your wife’s cooking. You said, ‘And the way she serves a meal. You put down a steak. How do you forget the plate?’”

  I told him he could use the joke, but he said, “No, I wouldn’t do that.”

  He was right, though. The joke was better for him.

  One of my most memorable nights at Dangerfield’s was when Jack Benny came in. After I did my act, I joined him at his table. He was very complimentary, which was, in my mind, like getting praise from God.

  Benny was class, a real gentleman. After we’d talked for a few minutes, he
said he and his friends were going to a nearby restaurant to get a bite to eat, and asked if I’d like to join them.

  I told him, “Gee, I’d love to, but I’m writing something that I have to finish tonight.”

  He said, “I understand. That’s okay.”

  The truth was that I didn’t go because I knew I couldn’t be myself with Jack Benny. I mean, I’d have to play a part and be a gentleman. Can you picture me saying to Jack Benny, “Man, I’m so depressed. It’s all too fucking much”?

  * * *

  My wife can’t cook at all. She made chocolate mousse. An antler got stuck in my throat.

  * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  A Night with Lenny Bruce

  With sex, my wife thinks twice before she turns me down. Yeah, once in the morning and once at night.

  Hanging out with Jack Benny and Johnny Carson—you can’t do any better than that. But my first brush with fame was back in the early forties, when I did a show with Al Jolson.

  I was working at a nightclub in Atlantic City called the Paddock. One night the boss told me that Jolson was in town doing a benefit show and needed a couple of acts to go on before him.

  I said, “Sure.” Anything to be on a stage with Jolson.

  A few hours later, I was backstage in a theater looking at Jolson standing in his underwear, reading a telegram. He was disappointed. He said, “Why couldn’t it be from a girl?” It’s been rumored that Jolson liked to have sex before he did a show. Apparently that night he struck out.