by Carl Reiner
Charley, a dedicated bugler, practiced every free moment of every day. If he were not such a good person, he might have been strangled to death. The last line in Irving Berlin’s song, “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning,” said it all. “And then, we’ll get the other pup, the guy who wakes the bugler up.”
Charley had one unusual talent that made him the envy of every serious drinker in our company. Once a week, Charley would get stinking drunk—and he did it with less than eight ounces of tap water. It was hard to believe, but our master bugler was also a master self-hypnotist. It would take him less than half an hour of slow sipping and self-hypnotizing to get his eyes to unfocus and his speech to slur. My bunkmates and I decided that whether he was really drunk or just pretending, he was doing no harm to his liver.
I will now attempt to describe what I have shamelessly heralded as the most theatrically triumphant day of my young career.
A week before Christmas, our commanding officer, Captain Dixon, the one who chose not to discipline me when I went AWOL during my honeymoon, called me into his office. During my stay at the University, I had made a few successful appearances at the USO in town, and the captain had seen one of my performances. It was also noted in my file that I had been an actor/emcee in civilian life. Knowing this, the captain thought I might be the one to cobble together a variety show to present at Gaston Hall on Christmas Day. I was thrilled to be asked and immediately went to work. I knew of three or four talented soldiers in our unit, one a guitarist-singer, Eddie Riley, who sang a show-stopping rendition of “Paper Doll.”
“I’d rather have a paper doll to call my own,
than have a fickle-minded real live doll.” (Johnny S. Black, 1915)
Also in our outfit there were four soldiers who sang old standards in close harmony, a baritone who could belt out an operatic aria, and an accomplished pianist who could accompany the baritone and also play some Chopin or Gershwin. That would be our Christmas extravaganza, four acts and me as emcee and comedy-monologist. Armed with chutzpah (colossal nerve), I hunkered down and prepared for the big day.
As part of my act, I would offer my fairly good impressions of motion picture actors. As show day drew near, I decided that instead of doing my standby impersonations, it might be more fun if I did impressions of our Jesuit teachers and instructors. There were three I was able to mimic, and I knew that would be well-received. One was Father Verhoosel, a hip Jesuit priest who wore his clerical hat at a jaunty angle, and when in his office, could always be found with his feet on the desk and a racing form in his hand. He spoke with a thick Belgian accent in a deep monotone that he produced from the back of his throat. It was difficult to understand what he was saying, but his sonorous, room-filling voice was comforting.
I was able to do a spot-on impression of Professor Coutinho, a Portuguese professor who, we were told, helped to create Portugal’s Falangist government. Professor Coutinho was a political scientist who, early in his career, we heard, had spent time in Paris with one of the architects of the Russian revolution—a dear friend and fellow Marxist, Vladimir Lenin.
Many of our group of three hundred students leaned to the left, and when they heard that Professor Coutinho knew Lenin personally, they could not wait to hear what the famous revolutionary was like—and the first question asked was, “What was Lenin like?”
With his high-pitched, nasal voice, in short, staccato, Portuguese-accented sentences, Professor Coutinho almost answered the question. He did not tell us what Lenin was like, but rather what he liked. For literally ten minutes, Professor Coutinho spoke of their meeting at a little Paris bistro and what Lenin liked to have with his coffee. In great detail, he described the “little chocolate nougats” Lenin ordered every day. The professor was not certain we knew what a chocolate nougat was and took a goodly amount of time describing what the nougat looked like, how it tasted, what it was made of, and how fine was the chocolate that was laced through it.
After hearing more than we needed to know about chocolate nougats and Lenin’s love of them, one of our group interrupted the professor and asked if he might tell us more about “Lenin the man.”
“Lenin was nice man, very nice man!” the professor happily replied. “I call him Vladimir. Vladimir was little taller than me but had smaller hands. He was smart man, very smart man—had good ideas—many good ideas…also a short, pointy beard—from photographs you can see what kind beard…”
From our session with Professor Coutinho, I was thoroughly convinced that Lenin was smart, nice, not too tall, and liked nougats—and our Professor Coutinho knew everything there was to know about those cute French pastries.
To this day, I cannot see a chocolate nougat without thinking of Professor Coutinho and his good friend, Vladimir, the “very nice man.”
By show time seated in Georgetown University’s staid Gaston Hall were the Georgetown student body, the three hundred soldiers from Company E, a few dozen priests, professors, and teachers, and a smattering of State Department officials, all primed to enjoy our Christmas offering.
Generally, performers are nervous before walking out onto a stage, but on this night, because I was also the producer of the show, it was not nervousness I was feeling but rather a numbed excitement. I knew that the acts I had gathered would do well, but I had no clue as to how “the powers that be” would react to material I had never before performed.
Would those who control my fate smile and find me funny, or would they frown and find me a perfect candidate for a court-martial?
Just as I had foreseen, all the performers on the bill did great. I was particularly heartened by the cries for encores that each of our musical acts received.
My army buddies were very supportive and laughed loudly when I did my impressions of our professors, and I was relieved to see that most of the faculty who knew the men at whom I was poking fun were either smiling or laughing. After I delivered my impression of Professor Coutinho, I walked off into the wings to appreciative applause and did not return for a bow. Instead, I ran around to the back of the stage, and after the applause had petered out, I made my appearance, not as myself but as someone whose gait and body language I hoped they would recognize—and they did. A hush fell over the auditorium, a hush that hid the collective thought, Oh no, he’s not going to do an impression of him!
The “him” they never dreamed I would have the guts to impersonate was the dean of the School of Foreign Service, the Reverend Father Edmund A. Walsh.
Once a week, all the university’s students were present in this very hall when Father Walsh delivered a lecture on geopolitics, a subject on which he was the preeminent scholar. Our dean was a frequent visitor to the White House or State Department, where he was asked by top government officials for his opinion on the geopolitical problems that were besetting Europe and the world.
At Gaston Hall, we often heard him expound on his “Theory of the Heartland.”
“Whoever controls the heartland,” he insisted forcefully, “controls all of Europe and therefore, all of the civilized world! That is why it is imperative that the United States use its military might to seize this territory before the Russians do!”
It did not concern him that the Russians and Americans were fighting side by side to rid the world of Hitler and Nazism. Under no circumstance could Father Walsh accept godless Russia as his ally.
As one might expect, some outraged student fed Father Walsh’s statement and position to the New York Post. Back then, the Post had a liberal bent, and its headline screamed, “Government Sponsored Fascism at Georgetown!”
It naturally caused quite a brouhaha.
Nonetheless, on that Christmas afternoon, I strode to the lectern, approximating Father Walsh’s mien, and behaved as if I were looking at an audience who had respectfully greeted me by standing up. I nodded benignly and uttered a spot-on impersonation of Father Walsh’s de
ep, well-modulated voice, instructing them to “Please be seated!”
I was greeted by a gasp and a few guarded chuckles. The gasp was from those who were shocked that I would dare to make fun of our revered dean. The guarded chuckles were from those who were aware that rows full of clergy and teachers were in the balcony, looking down at them. To laugh at jokes that skewered Father Walsh would not be the most politic thing to do—and that’s what we did. I skewered, and they laughed!
Pitching my voice to Father Walsh’s register and using his mellifluous tone and cadence, I launched into a version of his lecture on the “heartland,” ending with: “While it may have been true, that ‘Whoever controls the heartland controls all of Europe,’ there is a newer and truer truth emerging about the heartland! I have just this night been informed by a ranking member of our State Department that adjacent to the heartland, two new territories have been discovered. They are the liverland and the onionland. On our blessed Earth, was there ever anything more compatible or gastronomically mated than liver and onions? I daresay not! It does the heartland good and will bring everlasting happiness to our homeland.”
You will have to take my word for it, but the laughs that this silly parody engendered were seismic, way beyond what it deserved. No doubt that austerity of Gaston Hall, the constituency of the audience, and the suicidal nature of the undertaking were, in great measure, the reason for its success.
I spent the rest of that day accepting and enjoying the accolades I received from my buddies. At night, as I lay in my bunk, I took great pleasure recalling the images of Father Verhoosel, Professor Coutinho, and the many men of the cloth, seated in the balcony, pounding on the railing and laughing uncontrollably at my impression of Father Edmond J. Walsh. Had their dean been present, I doubt they would have allowed themselves to act as they did.
I am, at this moment, reliving and once again enjoying this very special day in my life.
The morning after my performance, I was asked to report to Captain Dixon’s office, where I learned that Father Walsh had requested that I visit his office—“immediately!”
Of one thing I was certain: nothing good could come from this visit.
Father Walsh was not smiling when I entered his office. He sat behind a huge, antique desk that was as cold and impressive as he was. He nodded politely and invited me to sit in the wooden chair opposite him. I waited as he straightened some papers and then neatly slipped them into a drawer. His first words, delivered in his hypnotically mellifluous voice, were: “Private Reiner, I was told that you put on a little show last night—a Christmas entertainment, I understand. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And who, may I ask, requested that you put on this, um— entertainment?”
“Our captain, Captain Dixon asked me if I could get some performers together and do a little Christmas show for our company.”
“A little Christmas show, I see.” He nodded and then stared at me for too long before asking, “Private Reiner, do you plan to, uh, put together any more of these—little shows?”
“No, sir, I do not.”
“I see,” the Father said, peering into my soul. “Well, should you change your mind, I would appreciate it if you would check with me first! Will you do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You may go, Private Reiner!”
I had dodged a bullet. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I had fully expected to be kicked out of Georgetown, re-assigned to an infantry unit, and never again see my wife or my folks.
At the end of the year, my buddies and I graduated Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service as French interpreters, and after being re-assigned and trained as teletype operators, we became members of the 3117th Signal Battalion and shipped to Hawaii, where, to this day, very little French is spoken.
Such are the ways of the military. They move in mysterious ways, but somehow they do get the job done!
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Deaths of Jackie Cooper and His Priceless Pet
After awakening each morning—which can be anytime between eight and eleven, depending on the quality or seductiveness of the old movies on late-night television—I make my way to the breakfast table and read the morning papers. I check the obituaries, and if my name is not listed, I’ll have breakfast. I make a point of checking the ages of the deceased, to see if they are older, younger, or the same age as I. Of course, like most people, I am heartened to read the names and history of the living centenarians. Not too long ago, I learned that an old friend, Norman Corwin, the revered radio dramatist, had passed away at 101. A few weeks earlier, I had called to wish him a happy birthday, and we talked about his brother, who made it to 102, and his father, who lived to be 110. I challenged him to do better than his dad and go for 111, and he said, “I’ll do my best.”
And his best was a not-too-shabby 101 and five months.
Earlier this year, I had read in the Los Angeles Times that Jackie Cooper had passed. He was just short of eighty-nine, a couple of months younger than I. I did not consider Jackie a close friend, but we were very close acquaintances and even closer neighbors—our homes in Beverly Hills being less than a block apart. Two incidents immediately came to mind. One involved our involvement in the 1964 presidential campaign, and the other was about an arowana he had bought. An arowana, I learned, was a rare and exotic tropical fish.
About twenty years ago, we met on our street in Beverly Hills, where he excitedly told me about his having spent fifteen hundred dollars to purchase this arowana and asked if I would be interested in seeing it.
Who would not be interested in seeing a fifteen-hundred-dollar fish? My older brother, Charlie, was a tropical fish fancier but had never bought anything but guppies and never paid more than a quarter for a pair.
The tank that held Jackie Cooper’s exotic fish was in the living room of his impressive two-story brick house, located at the corner of the famous Rodeo Drive and Elevado, the less-famous cross street.
I had never before heard of this breed of tropical fish, and it was different than any I had ever seen. It was about a foot long and had a big, flat head that was shaped like a triangle.
About a year after visiting Jackie Cooper’s home and seeing his weird pride and joy, we happened to meet again, and he invited me to see how large his arowana had grown. He explained that the fish’s growth depended on the size of the aquarium it lived in—and Jackie had built an especially large tank that allowed his flat-headed friend to grow to be almost three feet long. Jackie happily informed me that his fifteen-hundred-dollar fish was now worth fifteen thousand dollars, and he had been offered as much by the curator of an aquarium—an offer Jackie rejected.
The tank “Mr. Flat-head” now swam in was about ten feet long, three feet wide, and had been mounted in the center of a handsome bookcase that housed beautifully leatherbound classics.
Each day, the arowana, when not sleeping, would glide lazily up and down the length of the tank, make a slow U-turn at each end, and continue to swim hundreds of similar slow, graceful laps.
Not long after Jackie had proudly exhibited his fifteen-thousand-dollar pet for me, we met at a Rite-Aid drug store, where he informed me that his precious fish had died. I asked him what had happened, he shook his head and said, “Automobile accident.”
I might have laughed, had I not seen the sadness in his face. He was definitely not trying to be funny.
He sighed resignedly and explained that a drunk driver who was barreling down Rodeo Drive jumped the curb and ran up onto his lawn. The car’s bright lights shone through the living room’s bay window and directly into the eyes of the startled flat-head. The poor, panicked fish had sharply turned away from the blinding light, so sharply that he broke his back and died instantly.
Jackie said his rare, tropical fish ended up “looking like a floating number seven.”
Sometimes I wish I was not such a passionate disbeliever in a hereafter. It would be nice to envision a heaven where my very close acquaintance, Jackie Cooper, might reunite with his flat-headed pet—and possibly Wallace Berry, with whom, as a child actor, he co-starred in The Champ.
During the 1964 presidential campaign, Jackie and I, along with other forward-thinking Democrats, Henry Fonda, Barbara Rush, Jackie Cooper, Joan Staley, Tippi Hendren, and Eddie Fisher, volunteered our services to help elect Lyndon Johnson and his running mate, Hubert Humphrey and keep the country from falling to Richard Nixon and William E. Miller. To this end, we agreed to fly to a half dozen or more large cities and speak at rallies on behalf of these candidates. I was the nominal master of ceremonies, who succeeded in getting a few laughs before introducing Jackie Cooper and Henry Fonda. They, in turn, made very convincing speeches on why it would be a disaster if we did not elect our guys. Eddie Fisher was our closer and never failed to excite and entertain the crowds by singing a number of his hit songs … always melting the audience with his rendition of “Oh My Papa.”
On the way to one of our venues in St. Louis, the public relations folk thought it would be newsworthy and a great photo opportunity if, while in Missouri, we made a detour, stopped at Independence, and visited our much-loved former president, Harry S. Truman.
Harry Truman was always considered to be a straight-shooting, no-airs man of the people, but we were all surprised to discover how down-to-earth he really was. After his term in office, he went back to his modest home in Independence, Missouri, and resumed the life he and his wife, Bess, had chosen for themselves.
Our group was driven down a narrow street of unprepossessing homes, where we saw some folks standing in their yards with non-manicured lawns and chatting with their neighbor over a picket fence. At the fence of the modest two-story frame house that was adjacent to President Truman’s home, a man wearing overalls and clutching a hoe chatted amiably with a similarly clad neighbor.