Rickles' Book (9 page)

I
’m in the guest chair. Johnny’s behind his desk, cigarette in hand.

“I hear you and your mother are close, Don,” he says. “How is she?”

“You don’t know my mother, Johnny, and you don’t care about my mother, so why are you asking about my mother?”

“I see you’re in a good mood tonight, Don.”

“I am in a good mood. How’s your mother, John? Is she still working on your farm?”

“Rickles, so now you’re coming out with your A stuff.”

“For the money you pay me, Johnny, I can’t even buy Ed drinks. Am I right, Ed?”

“Keep me out of this, Rickles,” Ed says with his hearty laugh.

“See that, Ed, when I need you, you turn on me. And you, Johnny, you remind me of a squealer in prison.”

“Now what does that mean?” Johnny asks.

“Who cares?” I ask. “You hear the audience. They’re laughing, aren’t they?”

In the sixties, Johnny was on the rise. His great reign as King of Talk had begun. He was still in New York when I first came on his show.

People said that whenever I went on the
Tonight
show, it was an event. Johnny would get off his notes and shoot with both barrels. We had a ball.

We also became friends.

One year he had an idea for his birthday: a scavenger hunt. Leave it to Johnny to hire a dozen limos and drivers, assign three guests to a limo and then send everyone out to hunt down their item somewhere in Manhattan.

I was assigned to find a rag doll in a toy store in the Times Square area. The birthday boy himself was in my limo along with Rosalind Russell. The adventure was on.

I’m riding in the back with Rosalind while Johnny is busy mixing us drinks. Johnny’s feeling good.

“You’re playing bartender,” I tell him, “while I’m here entertaining Auntie Mame.”

Rosalind is a wonderful sport. She’s having the time of her life. When we arrive at the store, we have a small conference. Who’s going into the store to buy the doll?

“We all are!” says Carson. “We’re a team.”

The team of Carson, Russell and Rickles walks into a store that hasn’t seen a cleaning crew since World War II. Johnny and I are in tuxes; Rosalind is in an evening gown. The poor clerk is asleep. He opens his eyes and looks at us. I figure he’ll be thrilled to see Johnny Carson and Rosalind Russell. He closes his eyes again. He doesn’t know who they are and couldn’t care less.

Rosalind finds the doll.

I buy it. Buck and a half.

Happy Birthday, Johnny.

L
ike so many other good things in my life, this one happens at the Sahara in Vegas.

I’m playing the lounge, while Bob Newhart, a hot comic from Chicago, is in the main room at the Sands.

“I want you to meet Bob,” says Barbara, whose close friend is Bob’s wife, Ginnie. Ginnie is a former actress and daughter of Bill Quinn, a prominent character actor. Good people.

“Tell ’em to meet us at the coffee shop after my show,” I suggest.

“I’ll invite them to the show,” says Barbara.

“Great.”

“But if they do come,” says my wife in her prim and proper way, “go easy on them. These are people you really don’t know.”

“Fine, Barbara. Don’t worry.”

Show starts.

I spot a guy in the audience whose taste in clothes makes him look like Emmett Kelly. “Who picks out your wardrobe?” I ask. “Ray Charles?”

“No need to turn on me, Bob.”

I ask another guy, who’s on the heavy side, “How much do you weigh?”

“About two-fifty,” he says.

“On the left side of your ass you weigh two-fifty.”

I spot Newhart and Ginnie with Barbara.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I say, “we’re honored to have a very talented man in our audience tonight. If you like that type of humor, you definitely have a problem. Tonight he’s with his wife, Ginnie, a fabulous hooker from Long Island.”

Barbara’s face makes a left turn.

After the show, Ginnie, Barbara and Bob are waiting for me in the coffee shop.

“Thanks, dear, for being so kind to my friends,” says Barbara.

“Rickles,” says Newhart, “you’re a different kind of comic. It’s not every day someone calls my wife a hooker.”

“Bob,” I reply, “you heard the laughs. I made Ginnie a star.”

“What I can’t figure out, Rickles, is how you do what you do and still live.”

“It’s easy, Bob. I’m a genius.”

The kibitzing stops and like normal people we talk about everyday life.

Doesn’t matter that we’re two guys from two different worlds; doesn’t matter that I’m a loudmouth and he’s a librarian. The bond between Ginnie and Barbara soon extends to Bob and me.

Turns out we all have the same basic values: nutty humor and family love.

We become lifelong friends, and the two couples—the Rickleses and the Newharts—travel the world together, a comedy act on the road.

More on that later.

Meanwhile, Rickles is slowly but surely moving up.

Welcome to the Copa.

T
hat’s what Jules Podell, boss of the Copacabana, New York’s most famous nightclub, used to say about me.

“He’s an insult comic,” he insisted. “Not my style.”

By then I had played Basin Street East, a well-known nightclub, with great success. But the Copa was the ultimate.

Mr. Podell was powerful. He even put his name above the title, calling it “Jules Podell’s Copacabana.” He ran the place. But, as everyone in show business knew, at that time other important people were involved. As it turned out, those important people liked me. They saw me as a down-to-earth guy. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Sinatra was heading my fan club. It took a while, but Podell finally came around and hired me.

Opening night was nuts. There was a blizzard, so I arrived a couple of hours early. Even then the line in front of 10 East 60th Street snaked around the block. You couldn’t get near the place.

“I gotta get in,” said Vito, a guy well known for his powers of persuasion. Vito was the size of a small truck.

“Sorry,” said the doorman. “We’re sold out. Both shows.”

Vito wouldn’t budge, but neither would the doorman. The argument went back and forth until the doorman got fed up and turned away. Next thing you know, steam was rising off the doorman’s long coat. Vito had relieved himself on the doorman.

Before the show started, I was invited into the kitchen to have a drink with Mr. Podell. He always sat on a stool next to the cash register. He never failed to have the Chinese cooks gather around me and cheer, “Hip hip hooray for Rickles!” Then Mr. Podell and I would raise our glasses of Courvoisier, he’d toast me and it was down the hatch.

When the Courvoisier kicked in, Rickles was ready to face the enemy.

Opening night was exciting. Tuxes, evening gowns, limos, reporters.

The club was set up like this: the lounge was upstairs and the famous Copa Room below. It was three-deep at the bar, everyone with reservations impatiently waiting for the main show to start while listening to the lounge entertainment, a couple of young kids doing “Danke Schoen.” You might have heard of the lead singer: Wayne Newton.

When it was time to head downstairs, Carmine took over. Carmine was a force to be reckoned with. He was Podell’s right-hand man who oversaw the seating. Talk about power.

Of course, no one could match Podell’s power. With the place completely packed, he would always find a table for an important patron. Invariably, minutes before show time, you’d see some poor waiter carrying a table over his head with a busboy running behind him. They’d put the table right on stage. Then out would come the tablecloth, the napkins, the silverware and the little lamp.

By the time the announcer introduced me and I fought my way to the stage, the stage was reduced to the size of a dime. If I moved too much, my tux sleeve wound up in some guy’s linguini.

Remember Vito, the doorman’s dearest friend? Well, while I was on stage, I saw Carmine escorting him to a comfortable booth. Turned out Vito wasn’t someone you turn away. Let’s just say he wasn’t in the toy business.

Everyone was there: Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan, Danny Thomas, Ethel Merman. Wall-to-wall stars.

One by one, I introduced them.

“Ed,” I said to Sullivan, “wake up. You’re alive.”

When I was through with the introductions and ready to pick on a funny-looking couple at a corner table, I heard this voice from the back.

“Don, darling! You forgot an introduction!”

It was Etta Rickles, standing up and waving at me with her napkin. I couldn’t believe my mother was interrupting my act.

“Mom, dear, not now,” I said, “I’m a little busy.”

“I’m sure you’re not too busy to introduce our friend Victor Potamkin.”

“Mom, give me a break. I’m in the middle of introducing celebrities.”

“Don, darling, Victor is a celebrity car dealer.”

“Okay, you win. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Victor Potamkin, celebrity car dealer.”

The audience gave him a standing ovation like he was the Prime Minister of Israel.

Etta Rickles strikes again.

I
n the sixties, Ed Sullivan was huge. Everyone read his column and watched him on TV.

Ed had seen me on Carson and wanted me on his show.

“Only problem, Ed,” I said, “is I don’t do stand-up. I pick on people in the audience, and your show doesn’t lend itself to that.”

“Talk to my son-in-law Bob Precht,” said Ed. “He produces the show. Bob will come up with something.”

Next thing I know, I’m in Bob’s office. Nice guy, creative guy.

“Don,” he says. “I want you on the show when we do it in Vegas. Do you have any ideas?”

“Maybe I could come out in between acts,” I suggest, “and do a running gag. For instance, while Ed is announcing the Brasini Monkeys, I’ll say, ‘Ed, the monkeys could be trouble, especially if they’re not wearing diapers.’ Then when he’s about to introduce Gina Lollobrigida, I could run out again and say, ‘Ed, this gal’s gorgeous, but with her accent and your personality it could turn into a bad movie in Naples.’ Get the idea, Bob? I’ll run out four or five times. I’ll wing it.”

Bob buys it.

Showtime in Vegas.

Ed’s on stage.

In his inimitably nasal voice, Ed says, “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we have a big show. A really, really big show. All the way from Mammacutto, Italy, the famous Brasini Monkeys.”

I run out on stage.

“Don Rickles,” says Ed. “What are you doing here?”

“I think you’re making a big mistake with those monkeys, Ed. The lead monkey is William Morris’ hottest client and is demanding more money.”

For some reason—don’t ask me why—Ed changes the topic and starts talking about elephants.

I whisper to Ed, “Stop ad-libbing and bring out the monkeys.”

“Don,” he says, “do me a favor. Go home.”

Ed’s line goes nowhere. And me, I’m standing there like I’m waiting for the bus. So I give it the show-biz smile and head for cover.

When Ed introduces Gina, I try again. I go back out and say, “Ed, forget Gina. Immigration is going to pick her up any minute now.”

In the famous Sullivan manner, he says, “Rickles, I’m telling Immigration where you are.”

The audience doesn’t get it, and neither do I. Sullivan has no idea what’s going on, and I wasn’t about to tell him.

When the show’s over, Ed comes up to me and says, “We were dynamite together, weren’t we, Don?”

Ed still doesn’t have a clue that I fell on my ass, but that’s okay with me.

I was on with the great Ed Sullivan.