It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs (9 page)

He said, “Okay.”

So he makes up a name and runs it in the paper.

Despite my attempt to perform “anonymously,” word got around the neighborhood that I was appearing there, and plenty of people who’d dug me years ago showed up, which led to some confusion. When it was time for me to go on, the emcee said: “Here’s Rodney Dangerfield.”

I walked out on that stage and it felt weird. I saw all the same faces, only now they were twelve years older. And they looked at me, then looked at one another, and said, “Rodney Dangerfield?”

I said, “Hey—if you’re gonna change your name, change it!”

My show went fine, despite my nervousness, and afterward I asked the owner, “Where’d you get that name?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I made it up, just like that.”

All my friends said it was a funny name, so I decided to keep it. My wife told me, “With a name like Rodney
Dangerfield, if you don’t hit, you’re an idiot.” She said I should write a bit about my new name.

One day I had nothing to do, so I gave it a try. I wrote it in one afternoon.

This is jumping forward a few years, but a while later I made an album called
The Loser.
It became popular in England because of the bit about how I got my name. I called it “What’s in a Name.” It went like this:

When I went into show business, I saw an ad in the paper. It said: “Improve Your Personality.” So, I went to see the man.

He told me my personality was okay, but my name was my problem
.

I said to him, “My name? How could a name be a problem? Even William Shakespeare said, ‘What’s in a name?’”

He said, “Who?”

I said, “William Shakespeare.”

He said, “Look, do you want to listen to me or do you want to listen to your friends?”

I said to him, “I don’t understand. Is it good to change your name?”

He said, “Of course. I always keep changing my name. In fact, now I can give you a very good deal. I have a new name coming in next week, and I need the space. I can give you a new name for five hundred dollars.”

I said, “Five hundred dollars? That’s a lot of money.”

He said, “It’s a great name. It’s a name once people hear it, they’ll start saying it.”

I said, “What’s the name?”

He said, “Rodney Dangerfield.”

I said, “Rodney Dangerfield?”

He said, “See, you just heard it, and you’re starting to say it! Listen to me, take the name.”

I said, “Wait a minute. Suppose I use the name and I don’t like it. Can I bring it back?”

He said, “Of course. All I ask is one thing. While you’re using the name, don’t give it a bad name!”

So I decided to call myself Rodney Dangerfield. As soon as I got home, I thought to myself I made a mistake. I called the guy up. I said, “Look, I want my money back. This is Rodney Dangerfield.”

He said, “Who?”

I said, “Dangerfield! Don’t you remember?”

He said, “Oh, yeah, Shakespeare’s friend.”

I said, “Look, I don’t want the name.”

He said, “Don’t be foolish. You have to get used to it. Sit in hotel lobbies, have yourself paged. Try it for two weeks, I guarantee you’ll like it.”

So I tried the name for two weeks. I still didn’t like it. I went to bring it back. I couldn’t find the guy
.

He had changed his name
.

My stock publicity photo when I reentered show business
.

Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.

Around this time I bought a new car and I picked a manager for a strange reason. I was still doing a lot of one-nighters in the Catskills, and after my show I liked to get drunk. It was about a ninety-minute drive back down to New York, and I was usually in no condition to drive myself home, so I started looking for a manager who was a good driver.

In 1963, after a couple of tough years into my comeback, I got a big break, a chance to audition for
The Ed Sullivan Show
, the biggest variety show on television back then. I went on in the afternoon, after the dress rehearsal. I followed Dame Judith Anderson doing a death scene from
Macbeth
.

I can still remember some of the jokes I did that night:

I live in a tough neighborhood. When I plan my budget, I allow for holdup money
.

I tell ya, in my building, nothing but robberies. Every time I close a window, I hit somebody’s hands
.

The Ed Sullivan Show
audition was a tough test, but I was rehearsed and ready, and everyone said that I had done well. Now I had to go home and sit by the phone, waiting to see if Sullivan would book me on his show.

Three weeks went by and I heard nothing. Then I got the call. He booked me on the show for March 5, 1966, for $1,000. I was broke—and the happiest guy in the world.

When that big night came, I remember sitting in my dressing room, waiting for the show to start. I looked out the window. It was raining, but the streets of midtown Manhattan were crowded and I thought to myself,
Look at all those people who are gonna miss seeing me tonight on
The Ed Sullivan Show.

My bit went great, and they booked me for a second show at $1,500. That second performance also went well. I was finally getting somewhere.

Time and tide and hookers wait for no man
.

O
ne night when I was doing
The Ed Sullivan Show
I lost my place. What happened was I didn’t sleep the night before. I was okay at the dress rehearsal in the afternoon. Then at night, just before the show started, I was exhausted. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I walked out and did three or four jokes, and all of a sudden I thought,
What’s next?

I just kept saying, “I don’t know. What can I tell ya? What can I tell ya?”

I looked at Sullivan. His face looked like he knew something was wrong. I figured he knew I lost my place. I felt terrible.

I was going through torture trying to think of the next
joke. Now, in my head I am groping to find any joke, any joke at all, and finally I thought of a joke. I told it. Then I realized I jumped about three jokes ahead. I just lost those and went with the rest of it.

I took my bow and went over to Sullivan. He said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Rodney Dangerfield.” Then he turned to me and said, “If there’s any more like you at home, bring them over here.” I was surprised. Then I went backstage and everyone told me how good I did. No one even realized that I lost my place. But me, I’m too strict with myself. I’m still not over it.

I tell you, I can’t take it no more. My dog found out we look alike. He killed himself.

M
y career was heating up, but I was still selling siding, a strange combination that led to some funny experiences. At that time I was talking to a big agent, Dee Anthony, trying to get him to represent me. Dee was going to visit the great singer Tony Bennett at the Copacabana. He asked me to join him.

After the show, we all hung out backstage, had a few drinks, and had a great time.

I told Tony I had an aluminum-siding business in Englewood, New Jersey, and Tony said, “Hey, that’s only
about ten blocks from my house. Give me a call sometime. We’ll get together, bullshit a little.”

I called him the next day, and he said, “Come on over.”

So I go to his house, and we’re talking about this and that for about an hour when I remembered that I had a siding job I had to check on. I said, “You wanna take a ride with me?” He said okay.

When we got to the job, I said to one of the siding mechanics, “You know who I got in my car? Tony Bennett!”

He goes over to the car and starts talking to Tony.

The other workers see this, and they want to talk to Tony Bennett, too. Next thing I knew, the woman who owned the house came out with a camera. Then the neighbors wanted autographs. It became a circus.

I got in the car and said, “A lot of fun, hey, Tony? We’ll do it again sometime.”

Since then he don’t return my calls.

Another time, I sold a siding job to a couple on a Saturday. That Sunday night, I did the
Sullivan
show.

The following Monday morning, the woman asked one of the guys on the installation crew, “Is Mr. Roy in show business? I think I saw him on
The Ed Sullivan Show
last night. But they called him Rodney Dangerfield.”

The guy said, “Yeah, that was him. He does some show business on the side.”

Not long after those two appearances on
Sullivan,
I was working at the Copacabana Club in New York when
Ed Sullivan came in with a small group of friends. The Copa show went well, and as I walked off after my act, Sullivan jumped in front of me with a big smile and shook my hand.

“You must do our show!” he said.

“Mr. Sullivan,” I said, “I’m already doing your show.”

After that, I got four more shots on
Sullivan
. I still had plenty of problems, but I knew I was going to make it in show business.

I told my dentist my teeth were all getting yellow. He told me to wear a brown necktie.

M
y appearances on the
Sullivan
show led me to come up with another key part of my new act—my wardrobe, if you’d call it that. For the past forty years, I’ve always worn a red tie, white shirt, and black suit onstage. That happened mainly because I have no taste in clothes, so I’m not real confident when it comes to matching ties and shirts and shoes and all that other stuff you have to worry about if you want to dress nice.

When I did my first
Sullivan
show, I thought,
What
should I wear?
It was my first time on television, and I wanted to look good, so I picked something safe: red tie, white shirt, and black suit.

Things are tough. Now I’m taking in laundry.

Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.

Worked just fine. Nobody complained about my clothes. Nobody complimented them, either, but…

Two months later, I’m on the show again. What should I wear this time? I don’t know. So I said, “I’ll wear the same thing. Who cares?”

My third shot? Same thing.

Any other television show? Always the same thing.

Black suit, white shirt, red tie. By now it was like a uniform.

One of my outfits is now in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington—right next to Lindbergh’s plane. I hope they’re not using my shirt to clean Lindbergh’s plane.

With me, nothing goes right. My psychiatrist said my wife and I should have sex every night. Now we’ll never see each other!

T
hanks to my “What’s in a Name” bit, I got booked on the biggest TV show in England,
The Eamon Andrews Show
. That was on a Sunday. Then I had to fly back to the States to do
The Ed Sullivan Show
the following Sunday. I thought,
Boy, I guess I’m in show business—Sunday the
best television show in England, and next Sunday I’m doing the biggest television show in the U.S
.

After a few shots on
Sullivan
, it was easier for me to get booked in clubs, and I was now earning $4,000 a week on the road. The television talk shows would now put me on, too—Merv Griffin, Joey Bishop, Mike Douglas—which made it much easier for me to get booked in bigger clubs, where I made better money. Then my agent made a deal with
The Dean Martin Show
for me to appear on twenty-eight shows. I signed on to do some short skits—just me and Dean—and I would write all the material.