Rickles' Book (3 page)

W
ith the war over, the country was celebrating like crazy. Everyone was happy. I was happy, but I would have been happier if I could have held a job. Back in my parents’ home in Jackson Heights, I had to figure out the next step.

What to do with my life?

“Sell insurance,” said my father the insurance salesman. “Get a license and start selling.”

I got the license, and Dad got me a job with an insurance company which, for their own protection, shall be nameless. I admired my dad’s salesmanship and tried to follow in his footsteps.

After my first sales call, I told Dad all about it.

“How’d you do?” he asked.

“I did great. I was invited into the living room, where the whole family sat in front of me. I gave a strong pitch. I addressed the father. In clear, simple terms, I gave him the many reasons he needed life insurance. If I may say so myself, I was persuasive.”

“And what did the father say?” asked Dad.

“He said it sounded good and he’d call me in a month.”

“And then what did you say?” Dad wanted to know.

“I said, ‘Okay. See you in a month.’ ”

“Oh no!” said Dad, slapping his forehead.

“What I did wasn’t okay?” I asked.

“What you did was the kiss of death. Once you get a customer going, you can’t let him off the hook. You gotta close.”

“But I opened,” I countered. “I opened real good.”

“Opening is nothing,” Dad stated with absolute authority. “Closing is everything. If you can’t close, you can’t sell.”

I couldn’t sell.

I couldn’t sell air conditioners on a 98-degree day. When I demonstrated them in a showroom, I pushed the wrong switch and blew the circuit. Result: Customers started dropping from the heat and the manager got me out of there so fast I felt like I had skates on my ass.

I tried selling ladies’ cosmetics door-to-door. That didn’t pan out because, even though I didn’t know what I was doing, I thought I could tell the women how to apply the stuff. Later, I learned that one husband came home, took a look at his wife, and said, “Take off the mask, honey. Halloween’s over.” Max Factor I wasn’t.

My big break came when Dad hooked me up with a man who owned a butcher shop. I had two responsibilities—making deliveries on a bike and mopping the floor. I messed up both.

When the bike chain got stuck in my pants and the bike crashed to the ground, a big dog ran off with the meat. I hope the dog was Jewish, because it was the best kosher flank steak in Jackson Heights. The butcher said, “Okay, maybe you can’t make deliveries. But at least you can mop.”

I started mopping the floor when there were still customers in the store. Somehow I knocked over the bucket and flooded the place. People started doing the backstroke out the back door.

I couldn’t sell magazine subscriptions, I couldn’t sell ads in the yellow pages, I couldn’t sell ads in the blue pages, I couldn’t sell new cars, I couldn’t sell old cars, I couldn’t afford a car of my own. Bottom line: I couldn’t hold a job.

Frustrated, my mother said, “Don, what do you really want to do?”

“I want to be an actor.”

“Then go learn how to act.”

That didn’t seem so unreasonable. My reasoning was this: Since acting is make-believe, maybe I could get myself to believe I could act.

V
ery little except for one small fact: We all attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Next question: How the hell did I ever get into the place?

Answer: I have no idea.

You have to audition, but I can’t remember what role I read. I had to be pretty good or I wouldn’t have gotten in. I had no prestige. I had no pull. And once I graduated, I still had no prestige or pull.

So what did I do when I was in there?

It was the late forties and, as a twenty-two-year-
old kid, I didn’t have thoughts of playing King Lear. I did have dreams, but they didn’t include mopping up floors in a butcher shop. So it came down to acting.

I got good direction at the Academy. The best came from a fine director named Phil Loeb. He didn’t get real technical with me. He just said, “Rickles, stop eating up the scenery.” By that, he meant I was over the top. When I pulled back, though, he said, “Don’t lose that energy.”

Maybe I wasn’t Loeb’s best student, but I wasn’t a complete washout. I did some serious roles at the Academy. I made friends with talented guys like Jason Robards and Tom Poston. The fabulous Grace Kelly was also studying at the Academy when I was there. Closest I got to her, though, was picking up the scent of her perfume when she opened her locker.

Anne Bancroft was also in my class. She was brilliant. Anne went right from the Academy to Broadway. I, on the other hand, was standing on Broadway waiting for the light to change.

Jason Robards and I became close. He’d come home with me to feast on my mom’s famous chopped liver. Mom feasted on his charm, and he had charm to spare. Although he was a serious actor, Jason also loved comedy. He’d kid around and say, “Let’s team up. We’ll call ourselves Robards and Rickles.” “No,” I said, “that billing will never make it. It’s gotta be Rickles and Robards.” We both laughed, and that was that.

Back in class, we practiced certain exercises focusing on emotions. One day I was a tree and had to explain how it felt for my leaves to fall. On another day, I was a duck looking for water. Then I was a hunter staring at a deer. Then I was the deer staring at a hunter.

To be honest, I really didn’t get it. Robards and Poston didn’t get it either, but they managed to become good actors. I’m still trying to figure out how the leaves felt.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved the Academy. It was great training. It gave me a chance to play the Jimmy Durante part in
The Man Who Came to Dinner
. That’s the loudmouth character who disrupts everything and interrupts everyone. That wasn’t too difficult for Rickles.

Don Murray was also at the Academy with me. We’d ride the Fifth Avenue bus together. Then he got off and made
Bus Stop
with Marilyn Monroe. John Ericson also rode the bus with me every day from Jackson Heights into Manhattan. Next thing I know, he’s starring with Spencer Tracy and Ernest Borgnine in
Bad Day at Black Rock
. And me, I’m still on the bus.

T
he fifties were a new decade and I had a new life. I had graduated from the acclaimed Academy and was ready. I had the right temperament, I had the right training, and all I needed was the right play.

Mr. Roberts
was the right play. I knew it in my gut. A wacky comedy about sailors in World War II was right up my alley. I knew the territory. I got the humor. There had to be a part for me.

When I got the chance to audition for playwright Josh Logan, I was nervous but confident. I saw my name in lights. Mom and Dad would come and bring the whole neighborhood to see their son starring in
Mr. Roberts
. After that, Hollywood would call. Like my Academy colleagues, I’d be a runaway success. I’d buy my mother a place on Wilshire Boulevard. I’d buy my father a racehorse. I’d make my mother’s dream come true and marry into money.

I felt the audition went well.

Josh Logan felt differently. When he heard me read, he said, “Thank you. Next…”

It was back to Jackson Heights and hot split-pea soup in the middle of July with my father.

But hope springs eternal. Hope was renewed when the next call came from José Ferrer, who was directing a big production of
Stalag 17
. Another natural for me. Another play that suited my style. Another opportunity where eating up the scenery was just what the doctor ordered.

Another flat-out rejection.

José Ferrer said, “Thank you. Next…”

Every day in a different way, Broadway was telling me no.

Broadway, though, was more than legitimate theaters. It was also the home of talent agents. In those days, Broadway was the Brill Building. And Lindy’s, where Milton Berle held court. Strippers, showgirls, comics, jugglers—Broadway was where it all happened.

My friends said I was funny. Dad said so, too. Mom laughed, but she wasn’t too sure.

Okay, I wasn’t in
Mr. Roberts
. I wasn’t in
Stalag 17
. But I was something, wasn’t I?

The question remained: What?

Nineteen fifty-one.

The Camel man sign is blowing smoke rings all over Times Square.

Couples are meeting under the clock at the Astor Hotel.

Baseball news lights up the New York Times Building: After the Giants’ Bobby Thomson destroys the Dodgers by blasting a ninth-inning homer that wins the pennant, the Yanks are turning the Giants into dwarves in the World Series.

The first-run movie theaters are showing
Captain Horatio Hornblower
,
Francis Goes to the Races
(Francis is a talking mule) and
Bedtime for Bonzo
(starring a monkey and our future governor and President). American culture is at an all-time high.

Meanwhile, all I can see are men in trench coats. If you think they’re getting ready for rain, you’re wrong. They’re comedians. Don’t ask me why, but back then every comedian wore a trench coat. That was our costume.

When you didn’t work—which was most of the time—you went to McGinnis’ roast beef restaurant with a revolving bar and a busload of unemployed actors. I’d sit on a stool waiting for my drink, my food and my agent.

Please God, find me an agent.

After all, I deserved an agent. I had worked hotels in the Adirondacks when I was a teenager. Basically it was the same crowd as the Catskills, customers who never stopped complaining about the food while never missing a meal. My job was social director, which meant running the bingo game. As soon as the first number came up, I’d yell “Bingo!” The older crowd didn’t find it funny. But others laughed. I figured I was close to making it.

I figured wrong.

Nonetheless, years later I bought a trench coat. I went to Hanson’s Drugstore in Midtown Manhattan where the other trench coats hung out. I listened to the guys trying out lousy material. Me, I didn’t even have material. I was Make-It-Up Charlie. Even when I was doing my Jimmy Cagney and Cary Grant, I was Make-It-Up Charlie.

But I was determined. So I fortified myself with a chocolate egg cream and made my way to the Brill Building at 1619 Broadway, home not only of song pluggers and songwriters, but agents as well.

I enter the office of, let’s say, agent Mo Lippman. In the reception room I see a dozen other trench coats. All comedians. Everyone seems to be either Jewish, Italian or Irish. We don’t look at each other. We’re too nervous. On the broken-down coffee table is a two-week-old copy of
Variety
. The place smells of stale cigars.

After an hour of waiting, when I’m finally asked into Mo’s office, he’s smoking a Tiparillo and talking on the phone. He sounds like a Hungarian waiter who just stepped off the boat. He gets up, looks me over and says, “Come on in, kid, stand with me by the window.”

The talk always happens in front of the window.

The window looks down on the honking Midtown traffic.

“Why are we standing by the window?” I ask.

“Don’t be a putz,” he says. “We’re standing by the window so no one can hear the kind of deal I’m offering you. If the others knew, they’d kill me.”

“What kind of deal are you offering me?”

“Twenty-five bucks a night. The Top Hat in Jersey. Take it or leave it.”

I took it. And found myself playing to a half-empty fish tank.

Turn the page and I’ll explain.

T
he Top Hat had roughly the same energy as the dripping toilet plunger in my dressing room. But the atmosphere was great. The club boss sat ringside in a bathrobe. He couldn’t stop wheezing and coughing. He looked like he was about to go any minute, but, believe me, no one was volunteering to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Making matters worse, a huge tank filled with fish stood close to the stage. Some of the fish looked sicker than the boss.

Keep in mind, I’m a young comic desperately trying to make it. But what are my chances when half the audience is watching goldfish playing hide-and-seek behind coral rock?

Jersey had other beautiful venues:

Ninety-five degrees in Passaic. It’s so hot the owner leaves all the doors open. As I greet the audience with “Good evening,” a squadron of moths dive-bomb into my mouth.

I’m convinced my next Jersey date will be trouble-free. Passaic looks good. So there I am, going along, singing a song, the audience loving me, when I notice this beautiful girl whose boyfriend resembles a small gorilla. Just looking at him, I know he’s connected.

“Is that your wife?” I ask.

He nods yes.

“Geez,” I say, “she looks like a moose.” The audience sees my take and laughs.

The gorilla stares at me like I stole his banana.

When the show’s over, I’m backstage relaxing. In walks Ape Man on the arm of his lovely lady.

“Tell me again,” he asks belligerently. “Does she look like a moose?

“It’s a joke, “I say. “I swear to God, it’s a joke.”

“If you really think that’s funny,” he snaps back, “I’m gonna have to straighten you out.” His look convinces me that he’s not lying.

I immediately run to the phone and call a friend who’s connected to some good people in New York.

Following night, Mr. Charm returns, a different man. Apparently, he got a call.

Without missing a beat, he puts his arm around me and says, “You’re right. She’s a moose. You crazy bum, I love ya!”