Club Random with Bill Maher - Richard Dreyfuss | Club Random with Bill Maher
Episode Date: April 24, 2023Bill Maher and Richard Dreyfuss on: how the Me Too movement started with the big fish, Mafia wives and looking the other way, the time Bill passed out and why, Richard’s first line in a movie, why R...ichard passed on Jaws – TWICE, and Richard’s Close Encounter with the Queen of England.Â
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Club and no.
How are you?
How are you?
Well, it's been a long time.
Yeah.
Do you remember the show we did together?
Which one, the funny it only 200?
Or my doing your show?
1987.
Yeah.
Your show about the Constitution.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Have you seen it at all?
I saw it in 1987.
I mean, since then, no.
Have you?
Yeah, shit. A lot.
What do you like Norman Desmond?
You're running it in your library every night?
I'm ready.
I'm ready for my close-in.
Uh, Jimil.
But, no, I'm, there's a whole story about that story.
Well, people I know what we're talking about, so I'm going to tell them, like, in the
20th anniversary of the Constitution, which, which of course was 1787.
Kids, I mean, kids that they don't even know 1776,
but kids out there, that's when America declared it's independence,
but it took an 11 more years before we had a constitution
and Richard wanted to do a so celebrating that
because the Constitution is kind of a big deal.
And for some reason,
me, a young kid up in coming comic, new to Hollywood, was, I can't remember what I did in that show.
I remember it was you, were a huge movie star who wanted to do a show about the Constitution,
and I was a young comic who would do anything. So I was like thrilled beyond.
The show opens with you.
Really?
And it is carried for the first 15 minutes, maybe, by you and Jeff's, Jeff, Jeff Tamber.
Who's that?
But Jeffery Tamber?
Yeah.
Was in that?
Yeah. Was that that? Yeah.
Holy, bro.
I never realized how much of this of the show itself, you don't know about, because they,
they, I said to them.
I was being sued.
I was not being sued.
I was suing them or I was trying to know.
Disney.
Disney?
Yeah.
What day do you do?
We said to them, they called us first and said, we know that we're going to be talking
about Owing Richard something in and around, some hundreds of thousands of dollars. And on that following Monday morning,
they called, the same lady called and said,
okay, so we're gonna start with us knowing
that we owe you at least $5,000.
For what?
What did we do?
I still don't understand the gist of this story.
Well, what did we do wrong?
I did 11 films for them.
Okay, but now they're suing you.
No, no, no.
I was gonna sue them.
And it was the same thing that always happens
with when you do 11 films, you know,
they just, they take the bringer.
Right.
Yeah, you have to, okay, now I see you.
Okay, so you have to sue people in Hollywood.
That is true to get your money.
They do have ways of, even movies,
was it coming to America?
Some movie like that, which made $125 million,
which at the time was, you know, today would be like,
I don't know, closer to a billion.
It was a giant hit.
And they somehow found a way to hide all the money.
Right.
Like, well, we didn't really make that money.
I don't know where it went.
Somebody paid for that swimming pool, but I guess it wasn't that money.
And someone paid for your yacht.
Yeah.
But that's how you know you've really made it is when you have to sue for your money.
I mean, until then, you're just a snorer.
You know, you're just, you're So, it's good that you had that long
stretch where your top dog and got to sue the studios. By the way, who hasn't had a beef
with Disney? They fired me in 2001, with their own ABC. I was never really bitter about it.
I was shocked that a show called
Politically Incorrect could stay on a Disney property
for almost six years.
That to me was, it was like the Roman Empire.
It's not that it fell.
It's like how long it lasted.
Yeah.
So I didn't, I understood where they were coming from.
And, you know, I never, ever took any of those corporate feuds,
or made a corporate food.
I knew that a lot of corporate heads at the time
didn't like me.
And, you know, they weren't completely wrong.
I was like 40 and still like, you know,
I don't know, they wanted me to be married
and, you know, they are much more comfortable with that type.
They didn't like seeing pictures of me out at nightclubs at 4 in the morning.
Because I was doing a show that was like, you know, political and not issues.
I mean, people took a jersey.
Why they can't take, they learned to take seriously.
Somebody who still wanted to be in a nightclub and I don't know why.
Anywhere everybody wouldn't.
But yeah, they, I could tell they didn't,
weren't crazy about me,
but nobody ever did anything terrible.
It's fucking show business.
We're so lucky to be in it at the end.
Right at the moment when things that were not serious
became deadly serious,
like the me-to-moving. Yes, okay. Deadly serious. Like? Like the Me Too movement.
Yes, okay.
And that became Deadly serious.
So.
Yeah, I mean, it was always Deadly serious.
Nobody ever talked about it, but I mean, it is amazing how quickly that cascaded from
Harvey Weinstein, you know, which is interesting when you look back because sometimes
when people are solving crimes,
they certainly in movies because you have to roll it out
in for 22 hours, but you know, they start with the low level
criminals and work their way up to the big fish.
You know, you don't get to have your ultimate fight
with the big bad guy at the beginning.
You got to go through all his henchmen, then you got to kill his number one henchmen.
That's always like Gary Bucy.
And then you get to kill the big, big bad guy who's the problem.
But in this one, they went right for Harvey Weinstein.
We killed the bad, we killed the baddest dude right at the beginning of the movie.
And then I think even Bill Cosby was
soon after that. So that was like, then we got, you know, they bagged like
what's the talk about him for a second. Bill Cosby, did you know him? Sure I did.
How did you come to know him? Well, first it was because I knew him, my partner, Judith, was a very old friend of theirs as a couple.
Okay.
But I also knew something else, which was, if you look back at that decade.
Which decade are we talking about this 70s?
70s.
Okay.
And I-
Which is when his nefarious, well, I guess even the 60s, I mean, it is amazing that he was
doing it and getting away with it, not just year after
year, but decade after decade.
Yeah, and here's the funny thing.
Ray people in bell bottoms, and he raped them in spanks.
I mean, he was probably America's worst serial rapist ever.
Certainly. Well, I have my- was probably America's worst serial rapist ever.
Well, I am.
I am.
Well, maybe Harvey was working.
I'm feeling about all of that is that he was the most
prominent of the upper level guys who dated
beautiful girls.
And at that moment, really,
there was no difference between him
and what he did with his girls.
But he was married.
Yeah, he was married.
OK, well, you're not supposed to date
when you're married.
I've heard.
I heard they get mad.
Women, they get mad at these little things you do.
You know, like you, you know, let
them walk ahead of you going into the restaurant. I'm sorry. I was trying to help, you know,
and not telling them that you're married little things. It just bugged them, women. But,
but really, I mean, he was leading this double life. And I, I, what do we think of the wife that she could not have not known, right?
She knew and didn't care. And well, no, it wasn't that she didn't care. It was that
they went on doing that and what was important about the couple, the couple under scrutiny,
The couple, the couple under scrutiny, was they had to work that out between the two of them. But what was completely overlooked and, you know, they were...
Stopped under the rug?
Huh?
Stopped under the rug?
No, it was that the real deal was that people just ignored it if the wife did not make a stink.
So interesting, yes, you're right.
The wife has a big role to play. They call them mafia wives.
Yeah.
And by the way, the real story was that they did know it was part of the dating system.
Okay, it's Hollywood, it's the 70s.
People are doing quailudes.
Men, women.
Right.
No one was holding a gun to the head of women.
Generally, Bill Cosby and rapists accepted.
But people were just parting.
They went to disc's. It was kind
of a fun, crazy time. Plus, movie star. You know, a girl, oh, wow, I can do a coilude
with Richard Dreifest, the movie star. Yes, that's going to happen. Now, listen, this is
you, you and I are about eight years different in age. So this is like one of those things
where I never was in the
Kuelud time and I certainly wasn't a movie star.
Okay, I didn't smoke pot before I went to college.
I did Kuelud's one time in my life.
I was in New York, my first year in New York, I was 22 or 3.
My friends came over and I have a very low idle anyway.
Like, I love drugs that get me up.
Like, pot is an up drug for me.
I don't know why.
Cocaine was the reverse, how ridiculous is that?
Okay.
So, like, we took quail eggs.
Oh, great.
We're going to take, this is like Ford dumb guys.
This is my apartment on 8th Avenue, over a bus stop, 55th and 8th in New York City.
Okay. in 1979.
We take the quayload, we're in my apartment, we're drinking, of course, because that's brilliant
when you took a quayload. We finally, okay, now we're fucked up enough, I don't know what
we're going to do, probably get robbed. We go out, we leave, we walk down the three flights
of stairs and we get on the street, I go two blocks and pass out. Like, I remember being on the hood of a ham.
Just like Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboys,
I'm literally passed out.
And then they took, they peeled me off,
they brought me, thank God,
we're only two blocks from my apartment.
Took me back to my apartment, three idiot guy friends,
put me on the bed, and I woke up 14 hours later
with the door open.
And no date.
No date.
I was lucky to be alive.
14 hours later, it just put me to sleep like
and the door was open and no one had come in and robbed
or killed me, which showed you how
desirable that That studio apartment was ten people will be came in. They just looked around and left like it
They were browsing at a candle shop
That's what my parents did so I don't have my parents came to the door of my apartment and
They were gonna take me out to lunch and the door opened and they
stood there and then they closed the door and left and never stepped in.
And because they just went, oh no, no, no. So, and then we just all imitated one another.
You know, I did 11 films.
I was always one way or another, fucked up and...
Really? I mean, working on the set?
No, no, I was at my apartment.
My parents were going to take me out to lunch.
They stopped.
They took one look at how messy my apartment was.
Close the door and never mentioned it again.
And they were, as parents, completely appalled
that I was that filthy dirty.
And just, I'm not talking about.
You're just a slump.
Is that you're a slump?
Oh, right.
Does it bug your wife?
Is that good?
It did.
Until I found the right one.
Oh, because she's also a slump.
No, she's a very strict.
Oh, so she keeps you in line.
Yeah.
But that was the extent of it. And then
what happened for me was I started to get invited up to the playboy mansion. Of course.
And the movie star, right? What happens? And that I wasn't quite
yet a movie star. Well, George certainly made you that was that moment. It was that was
the adjustment. That was the new term of endearment, I guess. Terms of endearment was 1982. So...
Joaz was 1975.
So...
I know my movie dates.
This was us finding out what were the right dates,
what were the right movies?
Did I... had I made it or was I just about going to make it?
And I was at that turn of my life. And yeah. Where you're not quite sure that you're
sure. No, because you're in the graduate in 1967. That's eight years before George. Right. And lots of
people, this is how iconic you are. Lots of people know that one line you have. Yeah. Check all the cops and they don't know I'm gonna call the cop. I did the best film and the worst film of 1967
Well, we know the graduate was the best one was the worst
See, I'm surprised you don't know that the worst film of 1967. I don't know McKenna's gold
Who the fuck remembers what with the worst film of Valley of the dog Valley of the
remember what with the worst film of the valley of the doll valley of the dolls. Valley of the dolls was not the worst film because I was 11 when it came
out and soon was masturbating to it. And you responded to
Miss Ohara. Miss Ohara. Miss Ohara.
That was the worst line in the worst film ever made.
And you said that?
Yeah.
See, who's in Valley the Dolls?
I had to be.
How do you do?
Who was the...
How do you do?
Okay, but how do you do handsome actress never like made my like adolescent masturbation
list?
Who else?
Who else could I have been whacking it to? There must have
been, I know there was, oh yeah, Jacqueline Bissett.
Jacqueline Bissett, exactly. Yeah.
And with an English accent, which usually is such a boner killer. It's just something about that accent that doesn't go.
And so what she did and that was a big, hot turn on.
Who else?
There was somebody else who was like, even, Jacklyn Bissett is classy.
And there's a whole raft of women who never made it past grade B. So that doesn't matter to a
masturbator. We are not judging you. Actually, it didn't matter to anybody
because that judgment would be made based on that film. What film was it? What
film are you in in that year? Okay. So, I... You were in, but you were already in films, I was plainly masturbating.
What do you think about when you masturbate?
Isn't that the ultimate question I could tell you what really a person is about?
What do you think about when you masturbate with your drivers?
I never thought about my mother.
Oh, well, I hope not. your driver's. I never thought about my mother. I never thought that if I had thought of my mother,
I would be thinking incestuous thoughts. That never occurred to me. And yet, incestuous thoughts
was the engine that drove my masturbation. Really? Yes. Incestuous with who?
Who crossed that street for you?
Yeah.
Chiring minds want to know.
Yeah.
I mean, you brought it up.
But like, if it's not your mother, how many people could it be?
I mean, you're sister.
In the early years, I thought about very little else.
Not grandma.
Who am I thinking of?
Who am I thinking?
I'm asking, who are you thinking of?
Because you know, clearing minds, what I did.
Well, I mean, you do know that porn today is like dominated almost by incest porn.
Like if you go on porn hub,
like it's the same videos that we've been looking at for years.
It's some, check, hopefully a hot one,
although obviously beauty's in the eye.
But there are many beautiful porn stars
who in another era could have been movie stars
if they didn't always
take a bunch of jizz in the face. Which is like not something that the studio, uh, certainly
not in Mr. Mayor's day, uh, looked kindly on. Although, of course, they did it in private.
Anyway, well, they did it. But they did it for Mr. Mayor, only in a private collection.
Oh, yeah. I mean, those guys guys and those guys were worse or as bad
as the Cosby's. Oh yeah. And that what they got away with, like in those days of the studios.
When you read Shirley Temple's book, Shirley Temple. Shirley Temple. When you read her book, you can read between the lines of an enormous scandal?
Well, a scandal that never unscandalized.
She was abused.
Oh, yeah.
I'm sure.
I mean, that's basically what she was. He made as much as they could of a never acknowledged ongoing sin.
It's not that she was abused in the sense that bad behavior on the part of Louis B. Mayor,
it's that that was the done thing to every young Judy Judy Garland, I'm sure, you know, I mean,
yeah, they were just, I mean, men, ridiculous without guardrails.
And are just out of instinct?
They invented the American small town perfect place.
Andy Hardy.
Right.
Yeah.
And who was not in Andy Hardy?
It was Mickey Roni as Andy Hardy.
It was Judy Roni. It was the Jew.
It was the black man and it was. We're not in it. Of course not. No, no, that was it's so
funny in Neil Gaplers book. I think this is what he said. I mean, that's such a great
book about it's called How the Jews Invented Hollywood. And he talks about an industry completely dominated by Jews making movies
for a Protestant America and feeding back the Protestant dream to them. You know, the Jews
took over Hollywood, they invented Hollywood and they didn't say, oh, let's show America the shuttle that we came from in Russia.
No, they themselves loved that they were in this new and better place.
Right.
Where they weren't being chased by Cossacks, they were getting sucked off by
Starlets.
I mean, you know, you ever hear of the Chochinsky riots?
The Chochinsky riots?
No.
I'm probably mispronouncing that.
Where are they?
The Chowchinsky riots were a decade-long
Kassak-Drew.
Oh, sure.
The worst thing that had ever happened
to the Jews in Russia, the worst thing that had ever happened to the Jews in Russia.
The worst thing that had ever happened to them until the Holocaust.
But there were many pogroms.
This is probably just the worst.
But that's what, of course, and it was exactly that.
It was.
It was the show Fiddle Run the Roof is about.
Fiddle Run the Roof is the Kossacks are always coming so I want to written man. That's right. And that was the worst thing you could ever bring up.
And it was the worst thing that had ever happened to any Jews anywhere.
Until the Holocaust, it was the talk of the town. It was the most... Right.
...morto-wound.
Well, the trial that you share a name with.
Yes.
But that was ten years later.
The driver's trial.
Yeah.
That was in the 1890s.
Correct.
And this happened in...
1880s.
In the 1880s.
Yeah. And it was a bad time for the Jews in Russia.
It was.
It really was.
Yeah, it was not a good place.
I mean, there was never really a good time, but...
Do you know that when we hear the phrase, the Pale of Settlement?
Yeah, sure.
Well, that was a...
A Boy's Town of the Cholchinsky riots.
It was, the contacts were basically given free reign to kill and murder anyone they wanted.
But getting back to my masturbation, who else was in Valley? Well, who else was in Valley of the dolls?
Come on, I can almost picture it.
Like, who's the guy?
Not the guy.
Not the guy.
I wasn't masturbating about the guys.
Weirdo.
I was, you're fucking your sister.
What do you, when I even ask about that?
Did you ever, did you have a sister?
Yes. Did you ever give did you have a sister? Yes.
Did you ever give her what we called a movie,
a movie actor kiss?
No.
Oh God.
Please, I love my sister.
Did she ever ask you?
No, we didn't even like each other when we were kids.
We were always like, what?
Of course not.
Yes.
No.
You stopped that hostility.
We're not under a white flag,
and you literally said,
you want to do a movie star kiss?
We're not weirdo.
We're not weirdos like you.
We were just normal people who grew up in New Jersey
and we didn't have memories.
I lived in Queens.
So it's the same thing.
Yeah, Queens.
I'll say.
I live 20 blocks away from Trump and his family.
And I was 10, 15 streets away from what's his name, who I played also, what's his name?
Alexander Haye, Security and Exchange Commission.
And I played them both.
I mean, I played people of that world.
Right.
And so I had a kind of unique perspective.
I was the villain that fucked over the Jews from the stock market,
and billions were lost to this one guy. What's his name?
name. So anyway, the thing was that the 60s, the 1860s were given over to those riots and those deaths. And it was the biggest thing that had ever happened to Jews.
But they still shouldn't have been so mean to Marilyn Monroe.
Did you see that movie with Anna Diarmus?
I loved it.
I thought the performance was amazing.
I thought, first of all, she, with no accent,
she, just like British people, can do our accent
and Australians, of course, perfectly.
Whereas we Americans, I've seen struggle when they're doing a British accent or some
other accent and like every once in a while, they'll lapse out of it for one word and it's
like a clam when you're watching a band, you know, a bad nut.
Oh, God.
But they never, what?
But they never miss the, the brits when they do our accent.
And when she did Marilyn Monroe, I mean, she, first of all, I just thought, I did not,
I thought the movie was legubrious.
Like really, there was no joy in Marilyn's life.
It was just one bad fucking day after another.
I get it.
She was fragile and men abused her.
And along the way, there had to be, you know, I get it. She was fragile and men abused her and along the way
there had to be one sunny day. And also, like, do I know that these things happened the
way they did? I mean, to say the least, you could not be worse to her than the men were.
John Emejio slugs her, Louis B. Mayer, like rapes her with that even smiling at were. John Emejio, Slugser, Louis B. Mayer, like, rapes are with that even, like, smiling at her.
John F. Kennedy, that scene, that was awful.
So, I mean, I stupidly watched that, like, when I watched TV before I got a bed, but
I try not to watch things are disturbing.
I found that so disturbing.
It did disturb my sleep that night.
You were thinking about your sister, but I mean, it was just, the people haven't seen it.
I mean, she goes to see Kennedy.
She's brought to him, you know, like, you know, like, like, Baylor and bring her to my
tent.
And he's been, and it was unfairly drawn.
That scene.
Well, we don't know what Jack Kennedy was like in bed
with Marilyn Monroe, but the scene was he's in bed.
He's in bed.
Now, he had a bad back.
He's got his shirt off.
We don't see really under the, it looks like he's probably naked
with his, just presidents and ex-presidents
don't have any hair on their chests.
You know, it's just, it's like, why he didn't, not in any movie that I've ever seen. I never paid that close attention to that aspect of movie, it's about Kennedy, but I'm
going to rewatch.
Anyway, so they bring her in.
The secret service guy is sitting like right outside the door, so he knows everything
that's going on.
Kennedy's on the phone.
Doesn't get off the phone.
Just kind of nods and waves to her while he's talking
on the phone, like indicating for her
to just start blowing him, which she does.
And then they have this close up of the dick in her mouth.
And it's just, if the filmmaker was looking to move me, he did.
I'll give you that.
I just wish I hadn't watched it before bed.
And I just hoped John F. Kennedy wasn't that bad
because it was just, it was worse than a lot of violence
and it was a kind of, that is a kind of,
I mean, they overused the kind of violence
but shoving your dick in somebody's mouth is violent.
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My aunt sits down on an airplane and sitting next to her
is this young guy and he says,
hi, Dustin often.
And she says,
Marilyn, try this.
And my aunt dined out on that story for years
and cause,
it's Dustin often.
He said he introduced himself as if I didn't know
that he was Dustin Hoffman and I said he doesn't. He does not know that he's Dustin Hoffman.
And at that time, especially, what are you talking about? He doesn't know he's Dustin
Hoffman. He's very, took me 15 years to know that I was richer drafts.
Oh, I don't buy that.
Come on.
Are you serious?
Yeah.
What do you mean to like to realize that let's go back to 1975.
Jaws, if people weren't alive, was like one of those things that's beyond a specific
art form, it was a cultural phenomenon.
It changed the movie industry forever. blockbusters in the summer.
Wait a minute, but you're acting as if
you're talking about the guy as if he already knows
the end of the plot.
And let me tell you, we did.
Okay, but even if you don't know the end of the plot,
you know in 1975 where you're the lead
in like one of the biggest movies ever, that's
not a bad thing.
No, it's not.
Okay.
But you don't know that you're going through it until later.
But you know you're a star because people are gathering like where you go, like they
did for Jesus.
They gather, you know, they talk about followers.
I mean, seriously, you don't know
you're going through that at that moment.
Why?
What are you in a bubble?
What are you in a, in a,
in a space suit?
What are you talking about?
You don't know.
You walk into a restaurant
and people turn their heads and look at you.
You don't realize that?
I'll tell you, exactly that.
This is what you, the woman is walking toward you and she passes you and as she passes,
she, your mother or your sister is behind you and wait and you just fucked her and and she says
Wow, that was something and you say what?
because
she did not
Act out that
That's the truth is until he she passed and here's how it works
Well, that may have happened one time wait a minute. It's more than that. It's far more than that.
You're she's walking down the street and while she's in front of you, she's acting studiously indifferent.
But the moment she passes you, she goes,
passes you, she goes,
that's what happens after she's turned. I can't believe that all the years and decades
where you were a movie star,
this is what happened every single time.
I think that could have had, yes, that happened sometimes.
And not only did it happen every single time,
that's why you are not a lucky guy.
I mean, that's true.
But out grew us like crazy.
And for every great review that you got,
where they indicated that you were part of this new step
that you've taken and you're, you didn't read those things.
Why?
Well, I remember reading about, I overheard Diane Cannon telling a story on Carrie Grant.
And you know what she was married to.
Yes. When Diane cannon was a young
starlet she married and she said aging but still devin and she said quote you
know what he does on a Sunday afternoon he lies down on the living room floor
and he actually reads his old reviews. Wow.
Carrie Grant?
Yeah.
She said that.
Yeah.
Wow.
Now, I'm at the home of Mike Meshio and his mother,
and his mother was a star.
His mother was in a night at the opera.
She was a young singer.
The Marx Brothers.
Yeah.
Wow.
But he had to read those on a Sunday afternoon, you know.
That is pathetic.
I'll give you that.
And I'll tell you something else,
that when he wrote his memoirs,
he wrote on the cover of the memoir,
everyone wanted to be Carrie Grant,
even I wanted to be carry grand.
Well, now that's just what a girl says.
It doesn't make it true.
That's what she says.
She was bitter, bitter about our marriage.
By the way, Diane Cannon may have been in Valley of the Dolls.
Wait, I'm getting a masturbation flat back.
I don't know if it's about Valley of the Dolls,
but Deva Diane Cannon was definitely whack material.
Oh my gosh.
She was in, remember the last of Sheila, the movie,
her boss, you know, you know, wrote that.
It's a genius movie written by Stephen Sondheim.
I'm not kidding.
Stephen Sondheim wrote the movie that became
like the template for how you do a crime thriller.
He was the first one to do that where he shows the scene,
and then the people are talking about it later,
and he re-shows it from a different point of view.
It's every CSI. It's everything.
That was the first one to do it. It was 1974, I think, and it's James, you know, James
Toustonda. He was in like Flint, James Coburn, who was bad. He was a bad man. I love James
Coburn, right? Was it any fucking mind? mind who the guys James Coburn was like the star who gets killed and then
Reckel Welch. Oh, talk about spank of vision. Okay. Diane Cannon, Richard Benjamin, James
James Mason. James miss you know, yeah. Yeah.
A few reds. Roddy McDowell
It's great. It's awesome. I recommended highly highly I
Have the best James Mason story bar none you have the only James Mason story
Go ahead now. I'm curious I never thought it'd go ahead.
Now I'm curious.
Okay.
I'm invited to London to see the Royal Command performance of Close Encounters of the Third
Kind.
Okay.
And you still don't know your movie star?
Right.
Okay.
So we're in that pattern.
No, I actually did know by that moment.
I was.
But that was 1978.
There was only three years after Charles.
Right. Well, did you live. There was only three years after Charles. Right.
Did you live every second of those three years?
No, you said for the first 10, 15 years,
you didn't know you were a writer of it.
Well, it was a thing that came and went.
And, and did.
And you, you have to start listening, or else.
I will be up quiz and you'll fit.
I'm listening, but I, you know, came and went.
I don't know.
When just looking. When just looking of England invites you'll fit. I'm listening, but you know, came and went. I don't know. When just looking. When just looking.
When just looking. When just looking.
When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. from the airport and the driver says, what brings you to London?
Thatty.
And I said, it's a command performance for close encounters of the third kind.
And I've been invited because I'm in the film.
And I had never seen horizontal tears
until that minute.
What is on me?
I mean that he went, his tears went bump.
Oh, no, I've never seen, wow, that is,
and this because of the movie or because he don't see the movie.
He'd seen the movie and it blew his mouth.
He hadn't seen it.
Oh, he just liked you. Oh, but he probably saw you and other things. No, no, no, that was,
but what happened? What's the one where the, I remember it was like iconic. Everyone was doing
this impression. It was really John Belushi's impression. But everybody's doing John Belushi's
impression of you with, I do not like the panties on the lot.
Do you remember that when everyone was doing that?
I do not like the panties on the lot.
It was like all over 1978.
So where they took you was to the,
what are the two hotels that are next door to one another?
Doorchester and the bar.
But.
Bar?
Yeah. I'm not saying it the bar, but the door
just is lovely. Not cheap and Richard
Harris lived it one of them.
Oh, and that's the doorchester. Yes.
All right. So the bar has a pool table.
The bar. Not the bar.
I'm not the, but the most famous hotel in
London. I can't remember the name.
Well, so I go up to the suite with my girlfriend.
And I am met by the most excited, nervous, twitchy staff of the hotel because they're going to take my measurements, send it off to the
tailor so that I can look as I should.
A parallel that you have to wear to get dishonor, like tails or something.
Exactly.
Right.
So.
And then they send someone from the palace who gives you very strict
Protocol protocol. Yes, don't turn your back on the queen. Don't turn your back and also don't say anything
Until she says something right and
If she far she far and we all and all of this
if she farts. And we all. And all of this thing built into the evening. And so that when she raises her hand, you raise your hand like a say on this. And you say, not man and not mum, but man.
Oh, geez.
It's off to remember.
So where did this take place?
In the suite at the next...
Oh, I thought the hotel was just...
Queen came to the hotel?
No, no.
The Queen's representative.
Oh, I see.
But you met the Queen somewhere at the event itself.
You'll see.
I'll tell you the story.
Okay.
And she is, I'm told that only the people who are invited, whose name is on the invitation,
are the ones that meet literally the queen.
So you are also told not to say anything unless she says something first.
Right.
That's a big one.
Yeah, big one.
Right.
So, I practice man, I practice shutting up, I practice all this stuff, and I turn to my
girlfriend and I say, not me, I'm not making these rules. And she says, well, I just have to put up a purpose
because she wasn't named in the invitation.
Oh, it just was plus one.
So, it wasn't even plus one.
It just said, with your drivers.
And so...
But you must have told them that you were bringing a plus one, right?
You didn't ask, you just to say...
I didn't ask, and I... really. Yeah. I didn't ask. How long were you into this relationship, man?
This is a year, a year. So you know each other. Fuck yeah. Yeah. Okay. And this was like
and she was a big deal. Right. And this is, I mean, this is like a Mrs. Barbie's dream date,
you know, as opposed to what? Bowling.
You're going to take you to meet the Queen.
She's just been, thank you.
Is that a, this girl was bitching about that?
I'll bring you into the, you know, into the inner circle.
You're better without her because first of all, you should have been grateful.
It's a bitching to you.
You have to say that you're happy that you're been invited and you'll be okay with it and hold it over my head. Chooses one, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, two, three, three, two, two, three, two, three, two, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, three, two, three, two, three, three, two, three, two, three, three, three, two, three, two, three, two girl who was the picture of perfect innocence and beauty and Puerto Rican Catholic.
Your girlfriend?
Yeah, she was great.
And innocence, you say?
Oh yeah.
It's been her effect when her father found out that she was dating me, meaning a Jew.
He forced her to break up. Really? That's what broke you up?
Well, that's the first one.
Because you're a Jew?
Yeah.
He was a Catholic cab driver.
What if you had just offered to be only Jewish?
But not really a Jew.
Just this the other day. Someone did that the other day.
Is that you?
The oldest joke in the world, Jewish.
It is.
So anyway, her name was...
Well, that's a story worthy of telling.
That's a tale like a modern...
You're right.
You know, Romeo and Juliet, you're...
And I heard her.
I heard her.
I heard her. But she her? I heard her.
But she's the one that broke up with you because of a Jew.
Well, her father.
Her father broke us up.
Okay, but she was a sentient adult.
She could have defied her father.
She was a very pure, 19-year-old Puerto Rican innocent. How old were you?
I was 37.
You know, there's a lot of people because people are haters or like, how ridiculous,
you know, whatever works.
The Woody Allen, who's never had a sex scandal.
Oh wait, bad example.
It's like, whatever works. Woody Allen made that movie.
Larry David played Woody Allen.
The most accurate, I thought, Woody,
you know, what would you call it?
Hologram, whatever it is or facsimile,
because a lot of people wrote lots of movies
where he, somebody else,
assayed the said the, the
thankless task of talking like Woody Allen.
You know, I mean, lots of good actors tried it and it didn't often come out well, but
Larry David was perfect on the idea of whatever works.
You know, I mean, obviously with the appropriate legal strictures, you don't want children
involved, but 19 is not a child. And women and men
they just mature at crazily different speeds. Okay, men are you're barely mature at 37. If you
were at all, a woman can be very mature by 20. We're just at different places. And that's my
story and I'm sticking to it. No, I mean what I mean is, but it is true.
And also people are not their numbers.
People are not their, are not numbers.
They are humans.
Where does it start?
Where does what start?
The misunderstanding that turns into betrayal,
that turns into hatred.
Your sister.
No, everything starts with her.
No, I'll tell you where.
Where?
When it's still cowboys and Indians.
And you're right.
Yes, I believe you're right.
Boys lie like crazy.
Women, girls don't.
They talk to the pack.
And the pack tells them what you just went through
is the betrayal.
And now we're going to tell you exactly how to respond.
And they do not only do they do it, but for the next 12 years they do it.
And a lot of people say, well, it's space aliens and they come and take your kid for 12 years.
When they took my daughter, when they took my daughter.
Who took the aliens?
When they took my daughter.
Oh, really?
Yeah. What do you think happens to kids when they're 12 years old?
There's a kidnap and they take you to another planet
and they're replaced by an Android and an Android.
Who's a lot harder to deal with?
With a myth, with a fucking painful myth.
And when they do that,
they are the same person, but they're not
and don't let them fool you, dad.
That's not my sister.
That is not my sister.
Yes, it is.
No, it isn't.
Yes, it is.
And I'm telling you, they are trained.
And the difference between boys and girls is real simple. Boys are so embarrassed by sexual
problems that they treat one another only through the vocabulary of cartoons. Webos, hey, look at them, Webos.
Hey, that's all that vocabulary.
And girls are mechanical engineers,
and they say, they know exactly how wide and how thick and how,
just this and how they like it like such and such.
And they-
Talking about their like,
like, the size of a dick.
Dick. I thought that, but I didn't want to, I didn't want to assume that
you're only thinking about it.
They're feeling.
Dicks. Okay. So that's true.
That is absolutely.
But they're not thinking about dicks at that young age when the boys are watching
rabbit cartoons.
Right? Well, that depends on your point of view
because I think they are talking about Dicks.
Really, before 10,
that night, I mean,
if I was gonna call it, I would say yes.
I would, you know what,
I'm sure eight year old girls have heard
the song What As Pussy.
And I'm sure that prompted a number of questions. And,
you know, and mom, what's a What Aspussy? And, you know, don't ask your father, he doesn't know.
I mean, I don't know. But, yes, I think I think today's kids are exposed to so much that you're
probably right, that they, they, they, by, and what's on the phone, the internet,
I mean, they perforced must know like things
that I was just clueless about at that age.
You know, I mean, one thing I am very grateful for
is my very innocent upbringing.
I'm sure there are many ways it could have been better,
it certainly could have been more diverse and lots of things that it wasn't back in the 1960s, New Jersey suburbs.
But, you know, no drug issues really in the school. No, not even divorce, no racial issues, no,
just it was just very, very leave it to be for, very innocent.
And it wasn't.
Everybody should be so lucky, you know,
as to not when you're young,
and you have enough to deal with
just with the normal adolescent stuff of, oh my God,
now I do have a dick, and why I'd love to put it somewhere,
but I don't know how to, you know, talk to a guy.
And I don't know why I wanna put it somewhere. I know why. I somewhere, but I don't know how to, you know, talk to a person. And I don't know why I want to put it somewhere.
I know why.
I mean, not at first.
I remember when I was first masturbating.
I did not know like what I was doing,
but I remember in the back of my mind,
it was like, this could be hurting me.
And then the front of my mind was like,
I don't really care.
It just feels good.
How bad could this be for me?
And I was drinking off in the dark.
I wasn't, I wasn't like afraid to look.
I was rubbing my dick against the stuffed animal
that I slept with since I was two.
Poor crazy.
I'm telling you.
And cowards.
We are cowards.
Women at least talked to one another
like mechanical engineers, but boys don't.
You must know different women than I do.
They don't look you in the eye when they see you on the street, and they're all mechanical engineers.
I don't, I think Space Aliens did come.
I think they took you.
I don't know.
I don't know any women who are mechanical engineers, although I know many brilliant women.
But you do know that when your daughter is, let's say, no, 18 or 19.
Well, I don't have one, thank God, but yes.
Well, hypothetically.
What happens in normal families is normal.
Is that? Your daughter will call you when she's 22 and she's going to say, Dad, do you remember
those years when I didn't credit you with having any brains and that you were only my
dad and that you basically knew nothing and I didn't have to respect you at all.
Do you remember that? And you say, yeah, yeah, I do. And then you hit her with your
Oscar. And he says, well, I just realized I was wrong. Yes. And she, and she then says,
anyway, so at Thanksgiving, do you want to come to my
house? And I went, hold it, hold it. Hold it. You're not going to get away with this that quickly,
because you put me through the tortures of the dam. And I don't know whether to
throw you out of plate glass window or kiss you. I would say be.
you out of plate glass window or kiss you. I would say B.
And but the impulse not to is big, big, really big.
Kids, I mean, look, you're talking with a guy who never had kids and I was sort of like
made fun of that for a while.
No, married, you know, kids and now I just get nothing but high fives from people. Because
people just, I mean, kids are horrible. They're, they didn't use to be, but parents lost control.
And of course, kids are feral. They're the kids in the Lord of the Flies. They're awful. So you have to,
if you can't like, civilize them or you won't civilize them, they become intolerable. And they
have become intolerable. So I mean, like, I know everybody thinks their kids
are different.
It's somehow it's everybody else's kids.
And yet...
And let me tell you that when you have this second
conversation when they're 22,
they've just only recently been delivered back
to the planet Earth.
Oh, good.
And that's when you say, Emily, I just want you to know that I lived through every minute
of those 10 years.
And that doesn't allow me to forgive you that quickly because I don't.
Well, I mean, there's two ways to look at it.
And again, you're talking to somebody from the outside who doesn't really get a vote
in this.
But it seems to me, if you choose to be a parent,
and I assume you chose, you are signing a deal
that says you're going to have to put up
with a monster for 10 years.
Yes.
So having signed that deal of your free will,
I agree to live with a monster from the ages of 12 to 22,
whatever it is.
Then when they do it, I mean, you can't like hold a grudge
when it's over.
I think it should just be happy that it's over.
Well, yes, but just as you describe,
nothing is that neat, so that there are hold holdovers and there are months that go by where
you forget that you've already forgiven her.
Do your kids watch your movies?
Or is this the age when they're just starting to get back into it?
Oh, see, that's, isn't that great that we have cellular for you?
For the rest of us too.
It's like, I mean, not just you,
but definitely you.
I've contributed a great body of entertainment.
And I don't care about anything else.
I like entertainment.
Entertainment, yes.
Do I like it better when it's intellectually nutritious?
Yes.
But all what's the three stooges to?
Just, and so your movies were entertaining
because they were smart and they grabbed you,
and they, but they were never forgot to be entertaining.
I don't think a kid appreciates that, you know,
at a certain point.
And the fact that you're the dad overrides that.
Maybe they secretly like,
wow, my dad is fucking Richard Dreyfus,
but it's like they can't because there's these other forces.
And then you get to this other A.
It's like you say you get reolivered back to earth and now
You know now you're probably in for some great times, but you know
You got to let a let go the like you know you you were a monster for 10 years. Yeah, that's what happens when you let the alien on
The spaceship, okay, we always say don't let the alien on don't let the microscopic
Don't follow the cat. Don't follow the cat.
What's that?
That's in Alien.
That's that scene.
Don't follow the cat.
Don't follow the cat.
Jesus.
Oh, jean.
Are there any movies like that that you could have been in
even whether you wish you were in from that era that you were
like, you know, like you could have been in Alien you kidding me? Like you could have been in alien.
That was 1979.
I could have been in jaws.
You weren't jawed.
I turned it down twice.
Well, that was dumb.
You're lucky that they fucking,
and that's, oh my God.
I ended up in it, but only because.
But why you?
Why do you think?
I mean, like, why was I picked?
Yeah, like, there's great actors. You're one of them, but why did they, I mean,... Why was I picked? Yeah, like some... There's great actors.
You're one of them.
But why did they... I mean, they could have...
Who... I mean, everybody was...
Well, I think it was... I was finally picked
because I reminded Stephen of Stephen.
Oh, that's so interesting.
Did you see Fablement?
No, not yet.
No? No.
I won't tell him.
You're like it. I mean, it's not for everybody, but it's so, you know,
he's never made a movie like that, where it says, I mean, you're still on good terms with him,
I hope. Yeah. Okay. Well, then you'll like it, you know, and it certainly speaks to the anti-semitism,
especially in the second half that's going on around today. I mean, you know, he got some of that real punch in the nose because you were in ju
stuff.
What?
Really?
Yeah.
You didn't know that?
No.
Spielberg.
The director.
Big Joe.
I am in MGM Northfield Park Center stage, the Hard Rock, Northfield Ohio, Saturday, May 20,
21, the Mystic Lake Casino and Prior Lake Minnesota, Saturday, June 3, the Met Philadelphia,
Sunday, June 4, the Win Creek Event Center and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
And you have a book.
Could I, oh, and you sign it for me, thank you very much.
One thought scares me.
We teach our children what we wish them to know.
We don't teach our children what we don't wish them to know. So I know you are someone who thinks seriously about stuff.
So I'm going to read this. I was thrilled when you asked me in 1987 to help you figure out this crazy country of ours and be quite interested
to see where you are here all these years later. You're still great to talk to. I thank
you for that. I have to. Are you kidding me?
We haven't talked about the most important thing. We'll for real. Well, let me tell you something. This book represents
six years of a 50-year obsession and I figured out and I'm not kidding, I figured out what was wrong and what what what that wrongness was and it was at our feet and and all the time it was right in front of us and we didn't see it.
And that's why I quit and went to Oxford, I went because I knew the answer to the biggest problem America faced.
And I ain't kidding.
Well, let's not give it away.
I see these commercials on TV or sometimes on the computer.
And it's like, do you want something that grows because you get sort of grab grass and make your dick card
and I'm like, yes, I do.
And it's like, and then they just never say it.
You have to like, the confirm rumors are going
for like a half hour and then you got to send away
to someplace.
So that's where you have to get the book
to point out that answer.
Thank you for doing this.
I'm telling you, it was great to see you again. Clip.
Rando.
What I should do right now is take this look and point.
Shut it up my ass.