Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 133. Will Jordan

Episode Date: December 12, 2016

Legendary comedian and impressionist Will Jordan stops by the studio to look back on his 70 years in showbiz and to regale Gilbert and Frank with stories about Charlie Callas, Don Rickles, Lenny Bruce, Sheldon Leonard and David Janssen, to name a few. Also, Will praises John Byner and Larry Storch, meets Lou Costello, remembers Hanson's drugstore and impersonates everyone from Ed Sullivan to George S. Patton. PLUS: Sabu! Foghorn Leghorn! "Broadway Danny Rose"! The genius of Bill Dana! And the return of Rickie Layne and Velvel! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Discover Echo from Cirque du Soleil. Now playing under the big top at Toronto Lakeshore Boulevard West. Tickets at cirquesdusoleil.com. Echo. Thanks for presenting partner Sun Life. The world is yours to create. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and once again, we're recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Ferdarosa. Our guest this week is a character actor, stand-up comedian, and master impressionist

who's been seen in feature films like Mr. Saturday Night, The Buddy Holly Story, Down With Love, Elvis, I Want to Hold Your Hand, The Doors, and a favorite movie of this podcast, Broadway, Danny Rose. TV appearances include The Tonight Show, The Merv Griffin Show, Craft Music Hall, The Red Skelton Hour, The Donald O'Connor Show, American Bandstand, The Joey Bishop Show, and worked on the Broadway stage in both the original production of Bye Bye Birdie and the 2009 revival. He's considered by some to be the greatest celebrity mimic and impressionist of all time with his dead-on impersonations of everyone from Groucho Marx to James Mason, but is best known for his imaginative and definitive impression of Ed Sullivan, an imitation that was itself imitated by many performers. Please welcome to the show one of the most inventive comedy minds of his generation,

the legendary Will Jordan. Thank you. I remember when you say, I can't wait to hear what I'm going to say. Welcome, Will. Well, I want to say a few words about this wonderful guy, Gilbert, here. This is a wonderful man, and not just because he does things about impressions. Of course, naturally, I have a kinship with my colleagues of other mimics. And he's wonderful. But he's also a great comedian.

I told you how much I enjoyed him. And I don't know where to begin. Of course, the aristocrats is the one I – but he was good in everything. I'm just remembering different things where you did impressions where you didn't even do the words. You went, and that's something I never heard of before. I thought that was very, very original, you know. Terrific. Well, over the years, of course, as a mimic, you try different things, and we're always trying to be different. And I started out, I was not a voice mimic originally. I was a face, of course you can't see, but I would make the face of Charles Lawton and I made the face of Jack Benny and I made the face of Clark Gable and that's how I got started. But then later on when I started to get my jobs, many of them were on radio because when I started there wasn't that much TV going and I appeared on the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scout show,

and I had a routine of movie stars playing baseball. So of course, you couldn't see me, but there were some kinescopes. That's early television that was recorded on a different, a cheaper procedure than the videotape we have today. And on that was, you could see my voices, my faces, but naturally I was doing voices. And, for example, I had Charles Lawton was the umpire. And Groucho Marx said, if the bases were half as loaded as you are, we'd have won this game long ago. That's pretty good. And Jimmy Stewart said, well, the ball came by this way.

And Ed Sullivan said, oh, well, I can't remember it. But that's how I started. And then little by little, well, I can't remember it. But that's how I started. And then little by little, I was doing a lot of impressions. And I was doing an impression of Ed Sullivan. And I did it on his show in 1953. And you think I'm going to tell you it was a big hit. It was not a big hit because I imitated the real Ed Sullivan. I had not yet invented the things that you now associate with Sullivan, which were pure fiction.

I mean, he never said really big show until I did. He never cracked his knuckles. He never did the spins. All of that was because the audience kept saying, don't end that. Don't just do more. And I said, but I can't do more. Ed Sullivan doesn't do anything. more ed sullivan doesn't do anything well now thank you thank you very much jd's and lemon ludy's and uh jody's and uh folks

now you know you know actually we've got some really fine really fine sensational youngster because you do a really really all that felt you know I'll tell you about our lineup for next week's shoot you know we get some really fine fellow fellow fellow fellow I'm sure each and every one of you here are all familiar first you know actually because because she's in the balcony just really real fine youngster who is it the Queen the Queen of England we're very thrilled say hello to your sister and the fella with the camera thank you very much

you've been wonderful good Good night. Good night. See you all. So the audience inspired me to ad-lib, and that ad-lib has turned out to be a tremendous thing for me and everyone else. So I really owe my happiness to the audience has wanted me to do that, but I never thought of doing Ed Sullivan.

If you told me when I was a kid, you're going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars imitating Ed Sullivan, I said, imitating Ed Sullivan? I want to imitate Charles Lawton. I want to imitate Bing Crosby or something like that. But it turned out to be a very lucky break for me, and a lot of really wonderful things happened after that. I remember growing up, not just the impressionists, but just comedians in general, everybody did an Ed Sullivan imitation. That was one, every single person. And they would always do that.

They would always go, you know, twist around and crack their knuckles and go, you know, a really big shoo. Oh, and suck in the cheeks and go, you know, really be cute. Oh, and suck in the cheeks and do all those mannerisms. Yes. But for the people who don't believe me, in case there are, if you look at the Eds, and they're all on tape. The show started in 1948.

I appeared in 1953 and then 54. You will not find in all of the, if you care, who cares? If you care. you will not find Ed Sullivan ever saying really big until 1954 because that's when it was invented by me. They all started imitating you. Yeah. It's certainly a big surprise to me because I thought of all the things I do, that is the least.

But, you know, the audience tells you. I always let the audience. And of course, sometimes all comedians were disappointed. We think our best jokes don't go over and we do some stupid old joke and they scream, you know. And I'm doing, you said James Mason. I would do a good impression of James Mason. I found out the audience would rather hear a bad imitation of James Cagney than a good imitation of James. So you have to go with what the public. But then over the years, things began to change and mimicry changed. And my buddy David Frye came along and started to do the politicians.

By the way, he didn't want to do that either. And he became famous doing only political. Sure. He wanted to do Peter Lorre and everything else. Nixon most famously, David. When he did Nixon, he didn't care for it. But then, you know, he began to change.

He said the audience, and he started to add all, and it was a very good mimic, of course. But he started to do people that other people don't do. So I tried to do that, but I couldn't connect. I was imitating Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson when they were running against each other, but it did not have the chemistry effect that it did with David Frye.

Maybe it was my fault, but I hadn't found a way to make it, I don't know, theatrical or interesting enough. Well, it's funny with David Frye, every time somebody imitates Nixon, they're doing a David Frye imitation. Yes. And every time somebody imitates Ed, as we said, they're doing a David Frye imitation. And every time somebody imitates Ed, as we said, they're doing Will Jordan. There's some people that added to it. I mean, for example, Johnny Biner managed to do Ed Sullivan without copying me. It is possible.

I like Johnny very much. We had him on this show, Will. And he did Ed Sullivan without imitating me. And I said, well, of course, you're looking at Ed Sullivan. You're not looking at me. If you're going to do an impression, look at the original. Don't look at the mimic. But unfortunately, the public, you have to please the public. And many times we do things that we don't think are that hot. But the public, you've got to make the people happy. So then David came along and suddenly all my impressions became dated. And today it seems that mimics themselves are just not as popular as they used to be.

I was going to ask you about this. It's like growing up, well, there was that show The Copycats because there were so many impressionists. Now on Saturday Night Live and shows like that, you'll get people imitating current stars and politicians. that you'll get people imitating current stars and politicians. But the idea of going up on stage and going, you know, if Humphrey Bogart walked in, it might go something like this. Well, you used to turn their backs and then get into character. And fix their collar and mess their hair up. Something you don't see anymore too much.

Well, I talk to some of the young new mimics coming up now who are marvelous. There's a guy in Australia,ia keith scott he's magnificent and he is all of the people that were doing the cartoon voices and many have passed away so the for example the guy that did bullwinkle is no longer living so keith imitates the guy that has passed away he no mel blank is gone so he now imitates he and others do it and it's a whole new breed of people. And even he said to me, he said, who do you imitate anymore? If you imitated, I mean, I'm not sure of this, but if you imitated Trump or Hillary, would you really know her voice? And I said to him, well, you know, before the people become popular, I heard the original discussion with Nixon and JFK.

unpopular. I heard the original discussion with Nixon and JFK. And I was in a... Marilyn Michaels had a terrific party, and we had the radio on. And there's Nixon and JFK. And a guy comes over to me, not in showbiz, and he said, how could you imitate these two? They both sound alike. And I said, can you imagine how unknown those voices were so that a guy would say, I can't even tell Nixon from JFK. Wow, that's amazing. That's what happens before you know them. So, you know, you never heard an impression of the people that didn't become president. You know, nobody is doing Dukakis. Nobody is doing Gore.

And if they did do them, would you know it? Would you know that it was correct? Not without prosthetic makeup like they do it on SNL. that it was correct. Not without prosthetic makeup like they do it on SNL. And I have to tell you something before we go on. Like at the beginning of the show, when you complimented me on being an impressionist, to me, and I want the audience to know this,

that to me, Will Jordan complimenting me on my impressions is like Fred Astaire saying, hey, you got some nice dance moves there. Oh, thank you. Well, when I was talking to Shecky, now Shecky is a great comedian. Shecky Green. Shecky Green. Oh, boy.

Shecky does excellent impressions. In fact, I told him kind of what you told me. I said to Shecky, you do a great Ed Sullivan. And he talked about experiences he's had with do a great Ed Sullivan. And he talked about experiences he's had with Ed Sullivan, where Ed Sullivan hated him for some reason. And but while telling the story, he would imitate Ed Sullivan. I said, but that's perfect. He imitated. I never anybody imitate Danny Thomas. He did a perfect impression. He probably still does. And again, it depends. But the bottom line is, does

anybody care? I mean, you've got the greatest impression in the world, but who cares? Like, I used to imitate Sabu the Elephant Boy. Oh, I love that. That was a good one. And when I did it, I would

again embellish on it and change it a little. And the audience liked it. I never really I really wanted to do that on a cartoon, I would, again, embellish on it and change it a little. And the audience liked it. I never really, I really wanted to do that on a cartoon. I thought, not just because it was funny, but because whenever I did it in a nightclub, everybody started to repeat the line. I said, well, if it's contagious, that's a good sign. Now, Peter Lorre, I mean, Sabu sounded something like Peter Lorre. He would say, I didn't know what I was doing.

If I knew what I was doing, I wouldn't have done it. Now, when I did that in a nightclub, at the end of the show, every waitress says, I didn't know what I was saying. It's contagious. Why? I don't know. It's not an exact impression of Sabu. It's good enough. He didn't sound like that.

Sabu wasn't funny. So, you know, you had to make him funny. It's good enough. here again and again, because you know, phonetics is strange. You don't know why when you think of the great trademarks of people, Gleason said, and away we go, and this one said, you wonder, there's nothing funny in that, but it's a phonetic sound, the sound. For example, long before you were born, Jerry Lester, before he

was on Broadway Open House, had a radio show, and he had an expression, stop that dancing up there. It's not funny now. And there was a comedian named Joe Penner, and he would say, you want to buy a duck? Now, those expressions don't make any sense, but they're not supposed to because it's phonetics. You know, Gleason said, and away we go. What's funny about that? There's something about the sound of it. And this is what, of course, we all look for is a trademark sound or trademark look or something like that. And some of us find it and some of us don't.

But you've got to keep trying, you know? Well, you know what? As far as somebody who had a sound and a rhythm that he was underrated, and that's Bud Abbott. Yes. And, of course, in Who's on First, there's one part where Costello goes, you know, I'm a pretty good catcher myself. And Abbott goes, so

they tell me. And there's nothing funny about the line, but that cracks me up when he says that. He was amazing. You know, Bud Abbott was actually, he owned the act. You probably know the story. And Lou Costello was just one of many people he tried out

to do the comedy, you know. In the beginning, I don't know if this is true. Your listeners will probably correct me, with that Lou Costello's voice wasn't that high. And Bud Abbott said it would be funnier if your voice didn't sound like mine. Because in most comedy teams, there are exceptions, the comedians don't sound alike. And, I mean, Jerry Lewis didn't sound like Dean Martin so he encouraged Lou Costello to speak higher

but that was not necessary I met Lou Costello his voice was not that high that was a caricature that he did but Bud Abbott of course had a very deep voice as a matter of fact Bud Abbott's voice was so deep

that none of the mimics could do it everybody imitated Lou Costello on these cartoons but nobody could do Bud Abbott Have Have you gotten a Squatty Potty yet? The New York Post calls Squatty Potty the best chunk of plastic $25 can buy. Squatty Potty has thousands of five-star reviews on Amazon. Let me tell you what it does. Doctors say the healthiest way to have a bowel movement is squatting down, but no one can do that anymore. And if you could squat down, why would you do it in your apartment? What, on a newspaper? So you sit on the toilet. The Squatty Potty lifts your legs up so you're getting the benefit of squatting. And it opens up your colon and it helps as far as constipation or hemorrhoids.

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I've talked about that about a hundred times on this show in one episode. It was, I used to do a joke, a little sick joke, that the casting is done by Helen Keller. We can't see, we can't hear, but we know what you want. When I watched that show, Bud and Lou, I remember thinking, did either one of these guys listen to those comedy routines? Not only the voices were off, the timing was off. Timing was non-existent. But since I was led into it by you just mentioning it, I love the ending when Bud Abbott dies. He's laying in the hospital. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. When Costello dies, Buddy Hackett as Costello, is in the hospital bed. Artie Johnson shows up as his manager, and under his jacket, he snuck him a strawberry malted, and he takes one sip, Buddy Hackett, and his weakened state goes, you know, Irving, I had a lot of strawberry voltage in my day, but this one's the best. And he falls down dead. I got the feeling that Buddy Hackett wanted to show people he could act. It didn't matter that he was playing Lou Costello. That was incidental.

He was using it as a show. There were many mimics, not all of them, many mimics who really felt inwardly that they were better than the person they were imitating. So you have a guy imitating somebody like Johnny Ray. And then he would break into his own voice as if to show the public as if they would care. I can really sing better than Johnny Ray. I said, but is that appropriate? I mean, we want to hear Johnny Ray. We don't want to hear how great you are. And that's the feeling I got from Buddy Hackett. He wanted to show that he could act. I said, but you're doing, do that when you're in a straight-A acting part. But many of these mimics want to show you they

can do anything. And so they try to improve. Well, improving is okay, but your job as a mimic is old-fashioned. You're supposed to sound like the guy. Very traditional. You're just supposed to sound like him. Has Shecky ever done Luke Costello? Because there's a resemblance. There's a physical resemblance. Shecky can do anything.

Shecky did, he would do Wallace Beery. Very good. Oh, I can't think. He did so many. Jackie Leonard, he did on the copycats. Yeah, I remember that. Shecky did. He would do Wallace Berry. Very good. Oh, I can't think he did so many. Jackie Leonard. He did on the copycats. Yeah, I remember that. Shecky was is a brilliant guy. And he's you know, it's interesting. We were all many of us were born only a few months apart from each other. For example, I'm the in my era, although these people are nothing like me, but we were born a few weeks apart. Like I was born a couple of weeks after Neil Simon and Eartha Kitt and

the great black actors. And then right after me was Norm Crosby and George C. Scott and Peter Falk. Now there's no resemblance to us, but we're all the same age. Now I met the guys that were born a year before me.

Should I say the year? I guess I can't. 1926. These are the guys that are 90 now. I'll tell you the reason why I'm mentioning 1926, because it seems like the people that I knew were all born in 1926. Mel Brooks. Mel Brooks. I think Dick Van Dyke's 90. Mel Brooks. Mel Brooks.

I think Dick Van Dyke's 90. Oh, that's right. And Hugh Hefner. Rickles. Yeah. Rickles. Now, how old is Marty Allen? Marty Allen is 94.

Wow. He's older. Now, one of my friends died last week. You might not know him. He was 93. That's Milt Moss. I'll tell you who that is. You might not know him. He was 93. That's Milt Moss. I'll tell you who that is. You may not know the name.

Milt did a million things, but he was most remembered. He did I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Food. Oh, of course. Oh, sure. Of course. We lost Milt last week, and he was very good, you know. Did a million commercials and a million different things. But when he did that. That was the Alka-Seltzer commercial.

I remember him. While we wait for Gilbert to find the men's room, we promise we'll come back to the show after a word from our sponsor. Don't go away. If they hear you, they want you. Run. A Quiet Place, day one, June 28th. Get tickets now.

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And now back to the show. Now, because you mentioned, so before I forget, I remember running into you, and you were currently making a lot of money being hired out by corporations to pretend you were George C. Scott as Patton. Yes. Well, I didn't originate the idea. So I once, I was running ads in a magazine, Advertising Age, which, as I told you, a wonderful engineer, you can't imagine how these guys have helped me, engineers.

They would tell different people, well, get Will Jordan. He can't imagine how these guys have helped me, engineers. They would tell different people, well, get Will Jordan. He can do anything. Of course, it wasn't true, but it was nice of them to say that. So he was telling me, there's a guy making a fortune. I'm going to try and remember his name now. A Chicago comedian who was making a fortune doing General Patton. And what he was doing was imitating George C. Scott, of course, because if you heard the real Patton, you wouldn't want to hear the real Patton. He had a high-pitched voice. He sounded like Trump. Completely undistinctive.

Of course, his material was great and everything. And so I sent a little tape to one of these guys, and the guy returned my tape, and he said, he returned the tape of Simon Wilder, the guy that originated it. And then I said, oh, you sent me the other guy's demo. And I heard the other guy's demo, and I said, well, but I don't want to do what he's doing. This guy Wilder was a brilliant guy, and he did little bits on the Sid Caesar show, and a very good guy, and a good mimic and everything. But he didn't look like George C. Scott. He was very short. He looked like a midget, a midget Patton. But he did the voice pretty good. And so his questionnaire asked questions about the company and he would joke. But I didn't want to do that.

So when I thought of doing it, I thought, well, what about the jokes from the Friars? Now, you can't imagine what a lucky break that was. The jokes from the Friars fit salesmen like nothing in the world. As a matter of fact, the jokes from the Friars were even better at a sales meeting because you had a whole bunch of guys in the room who want to win. And that was what Patton talked about. You've got to win. And so I took the Friars jokes and made up a few of my own, and when I delivered them, it went over great.

See, at a Friars roast, you have seven or eight comedians roasting one person. I was one person roasting seven or eight salesmen. So the variety of jokes were much better. So I got a lot of jokes together, and I was also helped by a great writer named Pat McCormick. Oh, yes. His name has come up. So many jokes. Well, I'll just tell you one of his.

I don't want to go into too long. One of his jokes, which I thought was very funny, I decided I could make it fit. But you can't tell the joke unless you find someone in the audience, which you couldn't do in a nightclub. And you'll deliver it as Patton. But you couldn't do this in a nightclub. Yes. You could only do it in a room where everybody knew everybody else.

Because if you call this guy cheap and you didn't know he was cheap, it's not funny. So you'd find a guy, for example, that was the big beer drinker. Patton McCormick's joke was he said he drank so much, he had so much gas, they had to hire Red Adair to cap his ass. Of course, the audience has to know who Red Adair is.

Of course. He capped oil fires. That joke would not work out of that context. The context of that. And so it made me... Can you do one of the speeches? Yeah, well, yeah. I reworked the speech from the movie, but the reason I'm hesitating is because all of the lines had been changed to fit that company.

Oh, of course. And right now I don't have one company in mind, so I'll just sort of do it. Now, by the way, that speech was written, believe it or not, by Coppola. Oh, wow. Coppola took... Oh, yes, he Coppola. Oh, wow. Coppola took all... Oh, yes, he wrote the screenplay for Patton. He copied the real Patton speeches, the real Patton,

because you couldn't do... In a movie, it had to be two minutes. Yeah, right. You couldn't do a half an hour. When I did a half an hour, it's because I had the jokes. But basically, it was, you know, George C. Scott came out and said,

I want you all to remember, no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country. And all this stuff you've heard about winning, it's a lot of horse down. Villious bastards who talk about making it on your own. And Saturday evening, a bunch of limp-wristed hack writers who know as much about selling as they do about fornicating. Now, we have the best here. And then I would put the names of the best things about that company as compared to their competitors.

And the jokes would be we're going to take the competitor and cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. But it wouldn't be the treads of our tanks. It would be something comparable in that company that would sound like that. And, of course, that was the way. But the jokes were written because I would say beforehand, is there a pain in the neck? Is there a guy that's 300 pounds? Is there a guy that's old?

And then the joke would fit. Now, many of the jokes were not that good, but they went over because they knew. For example, there's a million jokes about pain in the neck. This wasn't that good a joke. I'll tell you what, I'm making the point that this was not a good joke, but it got a screen because you knew the guy was a pain in the neck. And the joke was Joe Brown or something like that. Joe Brown, you heard of the great Will Rogers, I never met a man I didn't like. Then it was Dale Carnegie wrote a book, How to Win Friends and Believe People. Both Will Rogers and Dale Carnegie took Joe by the hand, took him out in the alley, and

kicked the living shit out of him. Good joke. But you had to know the guy that was making the money. Because you can't just say somebody's a pain in the neck. It's got to be a guy that everybody knew was a pain in the neck. And that was the script that I wrote. What's better than Will Jordan and Pat McCormick collaborating on a patent? Oh, my God.

He was a genius. That's just great. Yeah, Pat's come up on this show, too. We've talked about him. We had a mutual friend, a great writer, who was one of my closest friends for many, many years, named Ron Clark. Oh, yeah. Sure, you know Ron Clark.

Ron is the one that wrote many of those Melrose movies. Worked with Rudy DeLuca and those guys. Ron also wrote a play called Norman, Is That You?, which was a flop on Broadway. They made it into a movie with a black cast. Yes. And then he took it. Ron is Canadian, French-Canadian. Ron speaks perfect French.

So he goes and he does a French version of it in Paris. It's been running for like 20 years. The whole idea was, I may be exaggerating now, was that the French people usually, not always, did not make fun of Gaze. Everybody else did. And this was the first movie where Gage made fun. Now, the two guys that wrote Casual Fall, who were very, very good writers, they said, we never thought of doing a movie or a story about Gage. But when we saw Norman, Is That You?, we said, let's do it. And they wrote this stupendous movie and play, Casual Fall. Of course, Ron didn't write that.

Ron wasn't good in that field. But Ron Clark was a tremendous help to me, and he was the one that he created the copycats. Copycats, if you're interested, was created, it was a spinoff. What happened was Alan King goes to the movies, and we're all on there. There's, oh, I can't think of the name paul lind and all we're all doing bits and everything like that and alan's doing impression but not good but i'm there to be the one real mimic you know the legitimate one you know so i said well let me do it in full makeup and custom because you could do it so when i did clark gable i could wear full clark gable makeup and then the

next scene i'm wearing full makeup for Charles Lawton. And next scene, see, I was able to do that. And, of course, that gave it the full dimension. Because when you do a nightclub act, you can't change your costume. You can change a little bit. So when the movie, when the TV show was on. Copycats, you mean? No, I don't think it was a movie.

They said, let's, Ron Clark says, why don't we make the spinoff into a show with nothing but mimics? I see. And that's, that went. And that show had, you were in great company. It changed from week to week. Yeah. But mainly it was Frank Gorshin, Rich Little, David Frye, but not all the time. George Kirby.

And Marilyn Michaels. And, but it was not always the same cast all the time. George Kirby. And Marilyn Michaels. But it was not always the same cast all the time. We did several of them. We did one for NBC, one for CBS, one for ABC in England. And the cast kept changing, you know. But, of course, it was a lot of fun. That's Gary Smith and Dwight Hemmion, who were the, I think they were the guys behind all of it. The kings of variety television.

Weren't they the ones behind Barbra Streisand? I think they were. Sure. They're very, very good. I think our pal George Schlatter directed the Norman Is That You movie with Redd Foxx. Oh, my God. By the way. Yes.

Yes. Now, you were telling me earlier that you wanted to make a book called Their Old Noses. Yeah. The only reason I didn't continue was I said, well, I mean, is that going to give me prestige? Don't get me wrong. I love money. I'm Jewish. I love money.

But I was really more interested in, like Rodney, I was interested in getting respect. I didn't really become in show business to make money. I was a failure as a kid. Everything I did was bad. I wanted people to know me. Money was fine. Of course, we all want money. But I didn't really care about money.

So when Patton came along, it was money. And everyone said, aren't you happy making money? I said, here I am making more. I would make more money on one night than I used to make in six months. But the bad part was everybody thought all of those years I was out of work. Because it wasn't on TV.

Good and bad. But you were saying, you were talking about all the people who've... Well, there was Steve Rossi, Marty Allen's straight man. Yes, yes. And you were saying what he said about his nose. Well, he said, I'm Italian. I got to get my nose fixed.

Of course, all Italians didn't need to have their nose fixed. I mean, Frank Sinatra didn't need to get it fixed. Dino had his done. Dino had his done twice. Yeah, twice. One of them was paid for by Lou Costello. By Lou Perry. Also Lou Costello.

You're right, you're right. I'm sure, yeah. Lou Perry through Lou Costello. Yes. But—and it turned out that—I have a picture of both nose jobs. And I think— You keep these, Will, in your files? Well, yeah.

There's only about five or six pictures. I see. It's not a book. It's just for laughs. Right. Just for laughs. Right. But then I found out Dinah Shore had her nose done two or three times.

And some of them are kind of tragic. And I don't say this to make fun because she was a lovely woman. I worked with Nanette Fabre. There was a show on early. Still with us. I don't know if you remember early, early, early television. She was a lovely woman. I worked with Nanette Fabre. There was a show on early. Still with us. I don't know if you remember early, early, early television. 1950, there was a show called Arthur Murray.

Oh, yes. Based on Arthur. And I did that show. Very nice. And he was very nice to me. Arthur Murray could hardly talk. Very nice guy. And on the show with me was this fabulous woman, big, tall, fabulous woman, Nanette Fabre. Now, the story was that she had so many nose jobs that there was nothing left but two holes in her face.

And I said, that's terrible. But then when I worked with her, I said, it's true. So now the joke was that she made a movie. I don't mean to say anything bad because I really respect this woman. This was a very – a great actress and a great comedian. She worked with Sid Caesar. This is a very talented woman. Still around.

And she has a hearing problem. She's great. But anyway, the joke was, if you go to see the movie Bandwagon, her nose is blue. So I thought it was a joke. And I had seen the movie. Then I looked at the movie, and her nose is blue. It turns out that, I don't know the exact details, but the makeup, which filled the nose in and nicely photographed blue.

Bizarre. But since I'm the only one that noticed, who cares? But she was a very nice woman. I remember thinking when I did the show, this is a complete professional. Boy, she was in a Broadway play called High Button Shoes with the great Phil Silvers. And everything that woman ever did was absolutely great, you know.

But I really like when people compliment people. You know, you're talking about praise. One of the nicest things, I remember hearing Jack Benny, who was always very nice. He wrote me a letter saying I was very good and my manager lost it. Oh, damn. But he was talking about Phil Silvers. And he said, is this a great compliment? He said, Phil Silvers never does anything wrong.

Isn't that a great compliment? Wow. Never does anything wrong. Isn't that a great compliment? Wow. Never does anything wrong. Isn't that a great compliment? Wow. And it's true. Phil Severs, you never saw Phil Severs do anything wrong. He was always good.

Oh, wow. Even when he got older and everything, he was always good. Now, Will, do I have this right? You started as an actor before you moved into being an impressionist? You went to acting school, didn't you? Yeah, I went to the American Academy. And that's where I met Don Rickles and Tom Post and many of these other guys. Tom Post and, wow. But it was a fluke.

They were not in my class. They were in the class after me. But they were older than me because I was a 4F. And they were all discharged veterans. But my friend, you wouldn't know the name, Eddie Ryder, a million little bits and parts and moves. He was very gregarious. And he said, let's hang around with the other class. I said, but we have our own classmates. You know, why would you have? So we went and then we saw Tom Post. Now, he was right, because if I had continued, if I had continued to hang around in that same class was Jason Robards, Carol O'Connor,

In that same class was Jason Robards, Carol O'Connor, Anne Bancroft, George C. Scott, Colleen Dew. I could have hung around with them in 1945. But what you don't know, you don't know. And what was Rickles like to hang out with? Very funny, but never insulting. In fact, I'm one of the few people, there must be more than one. I remember his first act. His first act, he worked for, it was a guy named Willie Weber.

It was a joke. Sure, sure. He was sort of the kind of lowest echelon of club dates, but he had a lot of jobs. He worked for him because he gave you more work. And the routine that I, well, he did a lot of routines, but the only one I remember now, because I thought it was very funny, is he's a guy in a movie theater trying to sneak a smoke so that the usher doesn't see him. Now, can you think of anything further from what he does than that? But in real life, he would come up to my place and he would exaggerate. He would say, what do you mean you've got a—you have a big duplex apartment?

It's very strange, but nothing insulting. Then later on, of course, everybody believed that he copied Jackie Leonard. Well, there must have been some influence there. He wasn't exactly like Jackie, but there must have been some influence there. You see, but Jackie Leonard, of course, Rickles was marvelous. But Jackie Leonard was from a different era. Jackie Leonard was more theatrical. Jackie Leonard would spin his hat. He would marvelous. But Jackie Leonard was from a different era. Jackie Reynolds, Jackie Leonard was more theatrical. Jackie Leonard would spin his hat.

He would sing. He would dance. John Rickles couldn't sing or dance or anything. Not that he needed to, but a different kind of background. And Rickles wanted to be a mimic and he used to ask me to do, help me, help me, help me do impressions. So I said, I taught him how to do Clark Gable and I taught him how to do. Now when he goes on TV, he said, then I, I imitated Clark Gable from Clark Gable. I said,

no, you imitated me. But that's okay. I still love it. They did a movie together. Yeah. Run silent. No, no. Rickles is wonderful. And then he did impressions in the same way with Don Adams. Now, when I met Don Adams, Don Adams was doing an act with the brother of Larry Storch, a very talented kid named Jay Lawrence. Oh, sure. Now, you would remember Jay Lawrence from Stalag 17. Now, the best one was supposed to go to Larry Storch, but Larry Storch loved his brother. And he literally pitched his brother to actually any mimic could have done it. I mean, any above average mimic could have done it. Not that Jay was bad, but anybody could have done that. But of course, Jay was good looking. But then, you know, there were other mimics that

were good looking. And that really helped Jay get a start. Jay died very young and Larry has never completely gotten over that. But Larry was able to do the thing that Frank Gorshin and I could not do, which is give up the impressions completely. Now, Jim Carrey, I think, gave up, and no one even knows that he was a mimic. There were some people, Frank Fontaine, who were able to give up the impressions so completely

that no one even knew. So, Frank Fontaine, the crazy goober guy, was a mimic. And so was Larry Storch was the best mimic I ever saw. Oh, he was terrific. He inspired you, didn't he, Larry Storch, early in your career? Yeah, yeah. But the point is that we all tried to do it.

And Gorshin did some things without the – but he never lost – you still wanted to see – he did George Burns on Broadway. He did a character on The Batman, which was not an impression. They were right there. In spite of the greatness, you never wanted to see Frank Caution. So finally he wanted to convince people that he was a great actor. So what they had in Vegas years ago was they would have short versions of Broadway show in a lounge. So a Broadway show is two hours. But in a lounge it might be 45 minutes show is two hours, but in a lounge,

it might be 45 minutes. So he would do 45 minute version of some play. Why? So that he could show people that he could act in a scene. So he convinced somebody who was doing a play called The Life of Jimmy Walker, the famous... The Mayor. The Mayor. And unfortunately, of course, he was miscast, but that's not the point. He was a good actor. The point is that the script wasn't there. But that was going to be Frank Gorshin's entree into being a straight actor. And he did a lot of acting, and he was very, very good.

But you always wanted to see him do Kirk Douglas. He would always pop up in movies and TV shows, Frank Gorshin. But you wanted to see Kirk. You wanted to see those impressions. You wanted to see Burt Lancaster. Burt Lancaster, yeah. And before we let you get away with this, you mentioned like Clark Gable and Jack Benny. Can we hear some Clark Gable and Jack Benny?

Well, when I was doing Clark Gable, I was looking at a lot of movies and I noticed something, not to make this complicated, but Gable didn't sound the same in every movie. So I said, well, you want the young Gable, the medium Gable, or the old Gable? But I've seen people do Gable. Gable's voice was obviously not the same all the time. It kind of had a hoarse sound to it.

So when mimics would imitate Gable as being very sharp and clear, that's not accurate. His voice, you know, they would do Gable, serious, sweetheart. But that's not the way. Really, it was more of a hoarse sound. Like, you see, Scarlett, as long as Bonnie was alive, there was a chance. But when she went, she dug everything. No, Scarlett, I'm leaving you.

I'm going back to Charleston where I belong. I want to see if there isn't something of charm and race left in this world. Now, that's the way I think he really sounded. But again, the audience wanted, there was a comedian named Jack the Leon. He did the greatest James Cagney and the greatest Peter Laurie. And even though he was great, he couldn't, he did fair. But then he decided to play a gay for an audition on Barney Miller. And he changed his name to Christopher Weeks. And he played the gay guy. And I said, but Jack, you're a mimic. He said, they want me to be gay. So I'm gay. And he was a big hit. He was a big hit. He was a big hit. That's a big hit.

That is a big hit. Our show today is being brought to you by AdamandEve.com. Adam and Eve, a store that I've been kicked out several times for drooling over their merchandise. And for a limited time only, you'll get 50% off just about any item. When you select one item at 50% off, you'll receive three free adult DVDs, which I want to complain about because one of the adult DVDs was Judgment at Nuremberg. So, you know, and it's a good movie. Great actors are in it.

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or an actor that was a good comic. You never saw anybody do both. Gleason, you said, was a good actor, but he didn't have a good stand-up back. Let me just think if I can give you... Danny Thomas was not a good stand-up back. Let me just think if I can give you... And Burl, who wasn't a good actor. Danny Thomas was not a good actor originally. Now, Danny Thomas started on radio when he was a kid, may enter a little trivia.

Danny Thomas was some of the cowboy voices on The Lone Ranger. Now, The Lone Ranger came from a studio. Did somebody ask me about WXYZ before? WXYZ was the network station that came from Detroit. Why is the network station in Detroit, you know? And that was where the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet came from. It was probably formed by stage actors that were stranded there, and they put them on. And of course, you had these great stage voices, which you don't hear today. These stage actors don't have those great voices that they used to have years ago.

So they, you know, there were like 10 guys playing the Lone Ranger. They would become famous and leave. You had to get another Lone Ranger. But if you listen to the Lone Ranger, you'll hear somebody say, it's Danny Thomas playing little bits, little bits. But then he became famous, really, doing the nightclub act. He became famous, really, doing the nightclub act. He went to Chicago and he had a way of taking a napkin and doing like Turkish or it was Lebanese, Lebanese stuff.

And he was the biggest comedian in Chicago, nightclubs. And then he played New York and it was good. But he was not successful on TV. He made several movies. Did a jazz singer remake. Oh, yes. Nothing successful. Did a movie with Doris Day, which he played Gus Kahn.

But it wasn't until he got a hold of another guy who helped him named Sheldon Leonard. Of course. And I think, of course, I can't prove this. I think Sheldon Leonard literally taught him how to act or at least improved him enough because Sheldon Leonard was such a genius. But there was a rumor about Sheldon. This I don't know if it's true. I'm just telling this is a rumor. There was a rumor that Sheldon Leonard was really Lebanese and that his real name was Ashad, which is a Jewish name, but it could also be a Lebanese name. name. So the rumor for years and years was that many of these

Lebanese comedians would say they were Jewish to get the agents to like them, to get William Morris to like you. So Danny Thomas... Now, Danny Thomas' real name sounded Jewish. Amos Jacobs. But he wasn't Jewish. Right, I know.

Now, there was an actor that won the Academy Award for Amadeus, whose name was... O.F. Murray Abraham. But he wasn't Jewish. Right., whose name was O.F. Murray Abraham. But he wasn't Jewish. Right. But his name was Jewish. Right. So, I mean, it's good and it's bad.

I mean, it depends on, you know, it depends on what you want. Sheldon Leonard was a brilliant guy. I mean, he was a mogul. And yet he always played that sort of guerrilla character. He would always be like a dumb gangster. He had a wonderful voice. And I remember once I got a call to do a commercial. There was a bank called the New York.

They wanted the New York Fox. And I went through a lot of voices. First I started with original voice. Then I started doing impressions. When I did Sheldon Leonard and I said, that's it. You are the voice. Sheldon Leonard sounds like a fox. We got these animals.

We don't know what we're doing. You know, that kind of voice. And they bought it and I said, fine. But then I found out that a lot of people on commercials were really doing impressions and, you know, kind of saying that Jim Backus was Magoo. Right. And he said that that was partly W.C. Fields. And, you know, I'm not saying that every actor is a mimic.

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that every actor is a mimic I'm not saying that I'm just saying sometimes they are and well Mel Blanc was doing Art Carney and you know well Mel Blanc also much as I love him was not always honest he would say he stole one thing the reason I know that

is I worked with the originator Senator Claghorn was originally done by a guy named Kenny Delmar. Now, I know that because I was lucky enough to actually have been on the Fred Allen show. I was like 21. What a thrill.

I'm on the radio with Fred Allen. That was a high point in my life. And there's this Kenny Delmar, fabulous guy. I mean, that's a joke, son. Now, along comes Mel Blanc and steals it and calls it something else. Oh, yeah, Foghorn Langhorn. That's a real steal.

Yeah, because I think originally they called him Dynamite Gus on the Fred Allen show and then Senator Clagg on. But, of course, the script was written by Fred Allen. But we're not talking about the jokes. We're talking about the character now. But Kenny Delmar was wonderful. I know that he could do anything. In fact, you know, when they made the movie Citizen Kane, Orson Welles wanted there to be a takeoff on March of Time.

So they wanted to get the original guy who was fabulous. That's Westbrook Van Voorhis. Now, that's the greatest voice. I'm out of time. That's the greatest voice you'll ever hear. I mean, that's unbelievable. And they couldn't get permission. So they got one of the guys, one of the Mercury Theater players to imitate him. So, I mean, you realize the importance of impressions. I'm only concerned

when I think that the person is hurt. I think it's okay, but you shouldn't hurt the people. the person is hurt. I think it's okay, but you shouldn't hurt the people. When you hurt the people, then stealing is too much. And I was hurt by thieves. And so I sympathize with people who tell me they were hurt. I mean, if you steal a joke from Henny Youngman, it's terrible, but you're not stealing Henny Youngman. If you steal my Ed Sullivan, you steal my life. That's my bid. You take that, I got nothing left. You know, if Frank, you talk about Frank Fontaine, hypothetically, it never happened, but it could have happened. He was the easiest guy in the world to imitate.

I wasn't doing nothing. Anybody could do that. If it didn't happen, he was lucky. But if it had happened, there'd be no Frank Fontaine today. Because you can't protect yourself. I tried to sue people. You can't, I only know of one case where anybody ever won when they sued.

You can't protect your material. And the same with characterizations, which doesn't mean to say that everybody's a thief, nor does it mean to say that everybody's not original. I'm just saying there are a lot of people that you're hurting somebody when you steal from them. And most of the people that stole from me were geniuses that didn't need to steal. And that's that. I mean, Jack Carter didn't need to steal. And that's what hurts. And it also makes it hard for you to believe. Why would a big star like Lenny Bruce steal from you? And I said, you have a point. Why? But he did. He take your bit. Was that George McCready? The Adolf Hitler story. Oh, the Adolf Hitler. did. Did he take your Sabu bit? No, he took George McCready.

The Adolf Hitler story. Oh, the Adolf Hitler. Yeah. And he also did an imitation of George McCready. That was your imitation. Lenny Bruce wouldn't, I mean, with all respect to Lenny, he was a genius. Lenny Bruce didn't know who Marie Ouspenskaya was or Sabu or George McCready. That's from my experience being loving the old movie actors and everything, you know.

But Lenny could, oh, I mean, he was really a legitimate genius, no question about it. But, you see, that's the thing. If you're a genius, you know, I remember seeing a great guy named Lee Jacob who I loved. Oh, yes. He was being interviewed once and he kept bragging because he felt that his death of a salesman, which, by the way, I thought was by far the best, although I saw it 20 years after the original on TV. Lee Jacob, death of a salesman. Oh, yeah. One of the best things I've ever seen in my life.

And he's talking to this interviewer, and the interviewer says, he says, boy, you know, you're bragging a lot. He said, we had Laurence Olivier here last week. He didn't brag at all. And Lee J. Cobb said, Laurence Olivier can afford to be modest. Wow, that's great. Oh, wow. That's a great one. Do a snippet of your Lee J. Cobb for Will.

Oh. That is no good. There's nothing wrong with a waterfront, nothing but a dirty little rock. Why, you bunch of bleeding hearts. You don't intimidate me. I'm entitled to my opinion. Great. Pretty good.

Everybody was imitating Brando. Nobody believed me. And I said, listen to the rhythm of who was the great black actor that won the Academy Award. Help me. Poitier? No, the top black actor that won the Oscar. Guess who's coming to dinner? Poitier.

Sidney Poitier. Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger. I will show you how they're all doing Brando. I will give you a specific rhythm. Yes. I am sick. I am tired. Now, that is an imitation of everybody.

That's Brando. That's Lee Jacob. That's Brando. That's Lee Jacob. That's Brando. That's Rod Steiger. And that's Sidney Poitier. That rhythm, that particular phrase I just did, you will hear them all use that thing. I always noticed that with Sidney Poitier. I always thought he sounded like Steiger and Brando.

You see, what they would say is, well, I'm doing the method acting. I said, but nobody in the method sounded like Brando before Brando. You look at people like Karl Malden, he doesn't sound like that. All the people that sounded like Brando came after, not before. So you know they had to be. Interesting. Of course, there was the rumor, too, that Brando copied. That could be true. That's another gray too, that Brando copied. That could be true.

That's another gray area, that Brando copied Montgomery Clift. That could be, because Montgomery Clift was a very thoroughly trained actor. He was a protege of one of the greatest actors in the world, Alfred Lunt. And, boy, you know, those were the—Lunt and Fontaine, those were the—that's the top of the American theater, I think. And Montgomery Clift was great, you know, and everything. But again, I don't know. But Brando Shirley was original, you know. Many of those people all were kids.

You know, they were all kids on Broadway. You know, there was a play called Life with Father. And every year the cast had to be replaced because they grew up. So you look at all of these kids and you'll find many of the biggest played kids on Life with Father. Van Dyke. What? You know, the... Dick Van Dyke? Yeah. No.

Oh, the one that had the sister that... Van Patten. Oh, Dick Van Patten. Van Patten and Marlon Brando. And they were kids. They were like nine or ten-year-old kids on Broadway in Life with Father. So these were all thoroughly trained people and everything. But, of course, Brando, you know, had some kind of a little quirk.

His lover and his boyfriend and his girlfriend was Wally Cox, another fantastically talented little guy. I remember I worked at a nightclub called the Village Vanguard, and Wally Cox got up to do a guest shot. Now, in those days, it was unheard of to not be in a tuxedo. You can't believe this today. You could not even work the cheapest club date in the Catskills without a tuxedo. It was just not done. And Wally comes up with his good luck tweed suit.

And he got up, and I just couldn't believe it. Hey, doofus, what a crazy guy. Can you tell that? I said, this guy is a genius. But Max Gordon, who was the owner, said, you have to wear a tuxedo. He said, no, I can't wear a tuxedo. This is my suit. And, of course, it was a sensation.

Then he played the Blue Angel and he was absolutely marvelous. You know, when you're talking about people's rhythms, I remember watching Martin Sheen in Wall Street. Martin Sheen in Wall Street and he says at one of his lines is you can't judge a man by the size of his wallet and that sounded exactly like George C Scott saying you owe me money. And later on, Martin Sheen admitted that he worships George C. Scott. It's wonderful they got the guts to admit it. You remind me of another thing that happened with

sound-alikes. Johnny Biner, who was very good. Charlie Callis, who I like, but I don't respect as much as I do Johnny. Johnny's much more original. For example, being that we're talking about rhythm, so let me just stay on that subject. Johnny Biner imitated Jessel.

Of course, it was funnier. Not that Jessel wasn't funny, but it was funnier than the real Jessel because he changed the rhythm. For example, Jessel would say, but when Johnny Biner did it, he said, ladies and gentlemen. Well, Jessel didn't go up like that.

That's Johnny Biner's figure. Now, when Charlie Callis comes along, he gets on the Dean Martin show, and he's doing Jessel, but he's not doing Jessel. He's doing Johnny Biner. Then he goes and he does another character, and he's imitating Foster Brooks, that little thing. And I'm saying, doesn't Dean Martin, don't they see that this guy, and not that I dislike Charlie Callis, I dislike what he did.

I have nothing against him personally. And, but he got away with it because people love Charlie. Mel Brooks loved Charlie Callis. He's a funny little guy. I think Jerry Lewis helped him an awful lot too. So, you know, I'm going to tell you a funny story about Charlie Callis, which has nothing to do with impressions.

But to me, it was such a crazy, crazy funny story that I'm going to tell you for no reason at all. Charlie Callis had a girlfriend in my building. You know her. That's like a showbiz clinic. I love this. Charlie Callis didn't want his wife to know.

So he sees me in the elevator and he says, you must never This is like a showbiz clinic. I love this. Didn't want his wife to know. I can understand that. So he sees me in the elevator and he says, you must never tell. And I think he lived in, I think all the comedians lived in Fort Lee or something. They all lived in Jersey. And he said, you must never, ever tell anyone that you saw me here. I said, Charlie, I wouldn't care if you were making it with a polar bear. Why should I tell anybody? Who cares?

Who cares? So then I said, well, forget it. Now we get booked on the English copycats done in Lund, Elstree, Hertz. And there I am, and we're putting the makeup on, and I get this very nice gay makeup guy. And he says, oh, you didn't bring your Bing Crosby hat here at something Bergman. We have more costumes anywhere in the world. We'll get you a Bing Crosby hat. We'll get you a this and

whatever. They could get you anything in the world. So he's talking and I had a very bad hair piece and he said, oh, I'll fix this. It'll look good and everything. So he's talking to me and he says, oh, I love you. I was there in New York and I had such a good time and I said, well, I live right in the middle of New York. So he's talking to me and he says, oh, I loved it. I was there in New York and I had such a good time. And I said, well, I live right in the middle of New York. I live on 57th Street. And he said,

where do you live? I said, in the middle of the block, between 9th and 10th. And he says, you live in that building? I said, yeah, you know that building? He says, do I know that building? Charlie Callis has a girlfriend. Ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha! I know that building, Charlie Callis has a girlfriend there. He doesn't want me to tell anybody, and people in England know. Oh, that's wonderful. But I like Charlie. I don't want to insult too much because I like these people, you know. But a little insult is okay, you know. Can we ask you about something's happening in New York City, and that is the Carnegie Deli is closing. Oh, yeah. And that's the end of another era.

Yeah. And a famous movie that is associated with that that you are in, and that was part of the intro. Kind of an interesting story that goes with that. You see, many comedians would get together and be funny. So Woody thought it would be a good idea, but it turned out it wasn't. It seems like it would be, because actually if you record comedians telling jokes,

it's not funny to anybody but comedians, but Woody wasn't aware of that. So what he did, he hired all these great comedians, Corbett, Monica, Jackie, G Yeah. Sandy Barron. Sandy Barron. And we're everybody was cut out of the movie, not because they weren't good, but because the audience didn't get it. The only one he left in was Sandy Barron and me. The reason he left Sandy Barron in was because Sandy Barron had a plot. Right. He's driving the story of Danny Rose. If he didn't have it, he would have been cut. But you had Jackie Gale,

you had Corbett Monica, who was so sure he was going to become a star that poor Corbett paid for the back page ad and variety, which of course, thousands,

saying, catch me in Broadway, and he's not in it. Oh, jeez. It's really, a really hard time. Was there a Ralph Richardson bit that was cut?

Yes, that was cut. That's on my album. That's your bit. But anyway, the thing is that he left my bit in. I don't know why. I guess he had to have something in. And I did an impression of James Mason.

Luckily, the gal from the news thought I did the greatest James. I don't really do the great. But she thought. So I was lucky enough to still be in it. But all of those guys. Anyway, then I got very sick. And I was lucky enough to still be in it. But all of those guys. Anyway, then I got very sick. And I was in the hospital. And then Woody calls my manager, Jack Rollins, and says, we have to shoot your three days again.

And I said, oh, boy. But luckily I recovered enough. And we did the same three days again in the Carnegie Deli. Then when I went to Carnegie Deli later to the people that took over, I said, this is a picture of me, and we're all here and they didn't know. Oh, Jesus. They didn't know that the movie was there. And I said, you didn't know

the movie? A big movie showed a scene from the Carnegie Deli and so I don't know now that it's closing whether or not it's going. But I'm going to try to be there at the close and say, well, we should go. And maybe Woody will be there too. We should do a special episode from there or something. The first impression

I ever did, I went to see a film called The Seventh Veil and I didn't even want to become an impressionist. What I was trying to do was develop an English accent. The idea of impersonating James Mason was the furthest thing from my mind. And out came this impression and I've been doing impressions ever since.

This thing is all in like the mask, right? And then I did Picasso for a few weeks. There's also a place that I always would read about and hear about that I used to assume was a comedy club, but it wasn't. And that was a place called Hanson's.

You know, I was just going to ask that question. It was on my card. It's a good thing you mentioned that because there really is not enough said about it. Hanson's Drugstore. Yeah, there's really an awful lot to say. I can just give a brief thing. It was just a drugstore, nothing more, except that it had a counter. In the old days, drugstores had a counter where you could eat, and it had that.

But other than that, it was nothing else. The reason it became famous was because it was next to a building that probably had more agents. The building was 1650 Broadway. Now, all the comedians hung around there to be near the agents, to get a call to go and do a job. So I was lucky enough to take pictures. I had a cheap camera, and now those pictures apparently are valuable to some people, because here are all of these people like Rickles and Joey Ross and people like that when they were not yet not yet well known. And so I took all of these pictures with this cheap camera, never thinking that that'd be valuable. And now, you know, Howie Storm, Howard Storm is the guy who was.

Well, he's in Broadway, Danny Rose with you. He was also a big friend of Gary Marshall. And Howard is the one that helped maintain the club called Yarmie's Army. Yarmie's Army was a group of comedians that band together in California. And that's where you met everybody there, comedians and everything. And so he— And Yarmie was Don Adams' brother. Yes.

And that was Don Adams' real name. And then there was Bill Dana. And Bill Dana's real name was Zwas Marthy. And it turned out, very nice guy. Bill just turned 92, I think. Oh, wow. 92 or 91. Bill, if you're out there, we'll be calling you.

We've got to call Bill. Oh, he's wonderful. Anyway, he's really responsible for Don Adams because, you know, Don Adams had the character. Well, his character, there's a question of a guy that made an impersonation in his life, William Powell. Of course, it was not exactly like Powell. It was much funnier.

He made the voice higher, not that he couldn't have done it in them, but by making it higher, it was funnier. Could you show us how William Powell talked as opposed to Maxwell's part? I don't do a good William Powell, but I mean, that way of inspector, a man is accused of being a homicidal maniac. And then, but Don Adams did, man is accused of being, you know, the main reason was it's funnier. Yes.

It's also easier for the mimic to do. So that was two reasons for the mimic to do the voice higher, partly because his voice, see, David Fry could do bass, and so could Guy Marks, but not all the others. That doesn't mean that they were a better mimic. It meant that they were potentially a better mimic. So Don Adams could make his voice deep. But if someone like Guy Marks had done it, he could have done in the deeper voice. But Don Adams did it higher. Now, getting back to Bill Dana.

Now, Bill Dana was originally in that same village vanguard that I worked with an act called Gene Wood. They were Dana and Wood. Very good. Very good. But then it broke up and Gene Wood became one of those hosts of the quiz shows. Very talented guy. Good looking guy. And so then he goes, Bill Dana goes with Don Adams who auditions for the Steve Allen show. And of course he does that great bit. Are those the legs of a homicidal maniac. You know that stupid? Oh, yes, yes. Not only was every word written by Bill Dana, but the comedy parts. Now, would you believe was written by Bill Dana, not Don Adams? Wow. Would you believe?

You owe him a lot. Bill Dana is really the genius. But, of course, Don Adams did it. Don Adams did it. And Get Smart, it was always, you know, like there are 9,000 control agents outside. Would you believe a group of Boy Scouts? That doesn't mean that Bill Dana wrote the material. The material was probably written by Mel Brooks and— But he came up with it.

Well, Buck Henry and Arnie Salton and some really great writers. And Bill Dana became famous doing something that nowadays would not be allowed. He told me that or something on the show said that he said, I've got a great character. Can anybody do Spanish? So we asked Louie Nye. I don't do Spanish. He asked everybody. And so Steve Allen said, let's let the writers do. And there were several writers who actually performed on The Man on the Street.

But the one that was most successful was Bill Dana. Now, Bill Dana was a Boston Jew. He was certainly not Puerto Rican. I mean, you know. But he could do that accent. But more importantly, Bill Dana was very prolific. Bill Dana was one of these guys like Maury Amstead was. They could write, and Woody Allen, they could write 100 jokes.

Well, I'm not necessarily good. I could never write 100 jokes. I mean, I come up with one. But Bill Dana was a machine. You know, he made like 10 albums and everything else like that. And later on when we were trying, I found out with that talent, he was actually writing with Norman Lear. He was writing much of All in the Family. Yeah, sure.

He wrote the famous Sammy Davis Jr. episode, Bill Dana. What a brilliant guy. Good writer. What a brilliant guy. I remember he got famous as Jose Jimenez. It used to be, you know, my name Jose Jimenez. He had no experience as a dialectician.

He just... Some people can just do something. I've met people who say, well, I'm not a mimic, but I can do – I can't – some weird person. Yeah. That they just happen to sound like or happen to look like. I remember when I was looking at these advertisements for lookalikes, there would be people who would say, well, I look like Jimmy Carter. And these poor companies paid money because they figured the guy looked like Jimmy Carter

was going to be great. And I said, don't you get a tape or find out where they played before? And many of these guys, the guys that look like Kissinger, they only were good in a photo. They're going to pay a guy like this maybe $5,000 a night and he shows up and he can't do it. And I said, but when you buy me,

you've got hundreds of letters from people that I did general patent for and everything else. But anyway, these buyers, not all, of course, were very gullible. And it was amazing how you could convince them with a photo. Well, you know, but then later on, of course, see, all of these things were trends. I mean, the whole mimicry thing, all of these things are all gone out of style now. People are laughing differently. I mean, if you had told me years ago that comedy clubs would replace nightclubs, if you had told me years ago that guitars would replace every other instrument, we couldn't have believed it.

Because when we were at Hanson's, Bobby Darin used to come around, and we all liked him. He was very nice. And he had a guitar, and one of the comedians, Jackie Clark, that was the comedian that Tony Martin loved. Very nice comedian.

And he said, when I heard about Bobby Darin, I said, that's it. I'm going to be nice to anybody carrying a guitar. That's great. Bobby Darin was very talented. Don't get me wrong.

But the point is, I think you have to blame the public. I mean Mel Brooks said when they were talking about why they took Sid Caesar off the air, that was a very interesting – where all the writers were talking. And Mel Brooks said the dumbing down of the American public. See, everybody's afraid to insult the public by saying – but they did dumb down. But they did dumb down. So the line was, well, the public, I mean, why did they watch Lawrence Welk instead of Sid Caesar? And Larry Gelbart said, well, Lawrence Welk is funnier.

That's a great line. That's Larry Gelbart. That's a great line. Not exactly a talentless guy. I want to ask you one other thing about Hanson's, too, and I just found this in research, and I also want to thank Cliff Nesteroff, our buddy, for providing a lot of terrific guy, a smart guy, and a lot of research.

He wrote some lovely things about me. A lot of research on you. If he hears this, I want to thank him again. We absolutely will. At Hanson's, a couple of things. You used to stand out in front of Hanson's and perform? That's really where I found all of my bits that were not impressions. And that was where, among other things, the Solomon came. But you must remember the things that connected were not everything.

And so often, as all comedians will tell you, it's not the thing that they thought was best. Jack Benny used to say, I wanted to be a violinist. And, you know, when you look at these comedians, this is a book I should write if I ever get on. How many comedians did not want to be comedians? The Ritz brothers were dancers. The Three Stooges were singers. The Marx brothers were singers.

They became comedians by accident. By accident. Jack Benny did not want to be. I don't mean that everybody did, but it's amazing. Victor Borger was a concert pianist. Yes. And Herb Schreiner was a harmonica player. So they, and many magicians became comedians because they needed jokes to cover the bad spots.

There was a guy named Robert Aubin who put everybody's acting, including some of my stuff in a book, and magicians would get the book because they had reached a point where stand-up comedy was beginning to dominate everything. And then when the regular nightclubs closed and you have comedy clubs, no more singers, no more dancers, no more jugglers, no more acrobats, gone. No more acrobats. Gone. Now, you were saying in some interview about Hanson himself that he told you he was getting tired of you hanging around. You said nobody ever bought anything. Is that true? Yeah, but then he saw me on The Sullivan Show, and he said, oh, now you can hang around.

Yeah, because he used to say to you all the time, what would he say to you? Quit hanging around. Quit hanging around. He wanted to empty the store. And, of course, he's right. I mean, Rodney Danger was in there all the time. We were all in there. I mean, you know, there was no way of my – I bought a cheap camera on a cruise, a $40 camera, and I took these pictures.

If I had known, you know, I would have – Can you name some of those people who hung out at Hanson? Well, I've mentioned some before, but I'll mention again. Norm Crosby, Don Rickles, certainly, Rodney Dangerfield, and some that you wouldn't know, like, well, you knew Joey Ross. And, of course, Lenny Bruce. No, no, no, Lenny, I don't think so. I think Lenny was more in California at that time. Did Jerry Lewis have a loft? Yes. No, Jerry Lewis used to take girls think so. I think Lenny was more in California at that time. Did Jerry Lewis have a loft? Yes.

No, Jerry Lewis used to take girls up there. That's what I mean. In broad daylight. That's what I'm asking about. Jan Murray would talk about that. He said, Jerry, he was maybe a kid. He used to, I made out much better than Dean ever did. I believe that.

Yeah. I definitely believe that's true. But to have been so blatant about it and, you know, you heard about these guys that would dry hump in a doorway. I remember some of my friends worked at Grossinger's. Eddie Fisher was

once a busboy, and so was Joey Foreman, the great Joey Foreman. Joey Foreman, remember him? Oh, yes. And they would talk about Garfield. Now, Garfield was a tiny little guy, in case you didn't know. These stories of their heights, they're all exaggerated. They said Richard Burton was 5'10", he was 5'7". They said Alan Ladd was 5'7", he was 5'5".

But you don't want to say their true heights. But he said that Garfield would dry hump girls in the doorways. He was this super, super star. John Garfield. But he was oversexed. Well, I mean, it's okay. It's just that, what are you talking about? Because you don't expect it.

You know, the unexpected is often very funny. But I thought Garfield was a great talent, and I think it was terrible, that communist thing. Well, you've heard all about that. Now, in the movie, The Front, what's interesting is the things in The Front were based on real people. Now, the reason I'm interested in that is the person that Zero was playing, his name was Heckey Brown, which would have implied that he was like Shaggy Green. No.

Actually, who he was depicting was my teacher at the American Academy, Philip Loeb. Philip Loeb committed suicide with several others because of the communist thing. And everybody didn't commit suicide, but Philip Loeb did. And there's a variation of that for the movie. It's like The Godfather. Everything in it is really based, but it could be fiction too. But it's based on some rumor that you heard.

All those people in the front Herschel Bernardi was blacklisted Marty Ritt the director Walter Bernstein the screenwriter when I worked The Hungry Eye the guy working the lights was one of the Hollywood 10 and I said you're working the lights

at The Hungry Eyes I can't get a job but I think once I think Kirk Douglas was the one that oh he hired Dalton Trumbo I think once Kirk, I think Kirk Douglas was the one that, uh, Oh, he hired Dalton Trumbo. I think that was the beginning of, I remember when, when I first did Sullivan in the coconut rope, which was my, my, my big success. Um, Eddie Cantor came out and said to me, you did to Sullivan what Welsh did to McCarthy. what Welsh did to McCarthy.

Wow. I told that to Sullivan, and Sullivan said, so we got a call from Look magazine. They called up Sullivan, and they did a story about me, and Ed quoted that line from Eddie Cantor saying, but I had done Ed Sullivan before in 1953. And I said, oh, sure, I want to do it again. But I was working at Coconut Grove, which was a great success for me.

And in order to get to L.A. and to get to New York, that took a long time. It was like, I think, 12 hours. It wasn't until the later 50s that you could make it as quick as you can now. So I had to miss my show Saturday night, which was a big thing. But Eddie Fisher said, well, it's OK. My best friend, Joey Foreman, will do it. So then I said, but Eddie, why isn't Joey Foreman opening for you instead of me? And he said, because I saw you at Eartha Kitt's opening. And when you do it, Ed Sullivan. And I said, as a matter of fact, Eddie didn't really like me that much. And he said, but when I saw you do Sullivan, I said, and of course he was right. It was a big success.

But I think I was more of a success if the audience was full of show people. If everyone in the audience was an actor, they were a better audience for me. The actors could appreciate the impressions more. And so you had dealings with people during the House of Un-American activities. No, not really. Just him. But, of course, we all knew it was bad. And I joined a lot of these groups for acting.

And I probably joined several of these groups that were communistic and everything. But there were many people that were complete communists that were not hurt. Erwin Corey was not hurt. I'll give you an example. Larry Adler, the great harmonica player. These were dyed-in-the-wool communists, but their careers were not hurt. Lucille Ball was, but it didn't hurt her. But other people like Garfield and Larry Parks, I mean, how do you rate how much of a—you are more of a communist than he is. You are 50 percent—75. How do you rate? You of a—you are more of a communist than he is? You are 50 percent of—75. How do you rate?

You're a communist or you're not a communist? Anyway, my friend—and one of my friends told me, because this is something I don't know, so I'm just repeating this. I have no way of knowing this is true. But my friend believed that the wives of Larry Parks and John Garfield were the communists. And that they—I don't know if this is true. That they simply went along with what their wives said. Garfield were the communists. And that they, I don't know if this is true, that they simply went along with what their wives said. Because the people that knew Larry

Parks said, Larry Parks a communist? Larry Parks didn't know who the president was. Wow. He was a nice guy, but he wasn't any great brain. She wound up on All in the Family. What was that?

Oh, a talented woman. I'm not talking about her talent. Larry Parks? Yeah, Larry Parks' ex-wife. Who did she play? She was the wife of Vincent Gardena. Oh, you mean Betty Garrett. Yeah.

Betty Garrett, yes. Yeah, from Laverne and Shirley. And weren't also a lot of these things that these people belong to just like basic unions, like taking care of workers and stuff like that? I believe that the Hollywood Ten were somewhat connected to communism. I believe that.

But the point is, who cares? I mean, what has that got to do? I mean, unless you could prove they were actually going to overthrow the government, you could go down to Union Square and there's crazy nuts talking about everything under the sun. Oh, of course. So are you going to arrest all of them?

I mean, it was silly. It was just – it was this guy McCarthy wanted to get – and he wound up – We had Lee Grant on the show a couple of weeks ago and she was very, very much affected by it. She didn't work from the age of 23 to 36. She said that Garfield came on to her once, and she said, oh, I'm so sorry I said no. That's great. We'll ask Lee about that. Will, what about some of these other impressions, these lesser-known impressions, like you did Alec Guinness, Ray Moland, Robert Shaw? Any of them still come to mind? We were all trying to be different, but at various degrees of success. Again, you know, you go at home and you do it, and it's perfect in the tape recorder, and you go out in the audience and they don't get it.

They don't get it. I mean, I can't think. So many impressions I did. I thought very well I did Henry Fonda. I couldn't make it. Then David Fry heard it and said, can I do that? I said, well, I mean, you can do think. So many impressions I did. I thought very well I did Henry Fonda. I couldn't make, then David Frye heard it and said, can I do that? I said, well, I mean, you can do it. But David was so good, he actually could improve. See, David had a much more flexible voice than me. Not his normal voice, but David could do a bass. I couldn't get that deep. And David could give the backup

depth to Gregory Peck and things like that that I couldn't do. So you must remember that impressions are not just speech, it's voice. Voice is much harder to do than, because there's a million dialecticians, but there's only a handful of mimics. So speech is easier to copy than voice is. For you have to change the muscles in your throat to shape it, you know. And this is hard to do. And, you have to change the muscles in your throat to shape it, you know, and this is hard to do. And, you know, it's hard to just find that right thing. But a very good mimic can do, David Frye could do the voice of Mitchum without even speaking, just, you know, and there's a way to do that. I remember one time some magazine did an article on everyone, comedy and drama, who has played Nixon, who has imitated Nixon.

And the one person left out of there was David Frye. Wow. Yeah. David Frye made up the characteristics that we think Nixon did. We know Nixon did this, but it's a little subtle, but I'll tell you. Yeah, the two peace signs, victory signs. No, that's not what David invented, the phrasing. For example, Nixon never went, oh.

That doesn't sound like anything, but oh, my. That breathiness. Nixon had no breathiness. That was David Fry's way of making it theatrical. In fact, there was even a rumor that David Frye made up Pleased This Punch for Hubert Humphrey. Oh, Hubert Humphrey, yes. I'm not sure that's true, but it's very possible David would do that. David was very, very creative and everything.

Because like everyone else, he would call me up and do some terrible impressions. He would do the worst James Cagney and Peter Lorre you ever heard in your life. But that's par for the course. Can we hear a little bit of your old Peter Lorre, Will? Well, my Peter Lorre. No, this Jack the Lion. Let me just think if I can do somebody that nobody else does. Nobody else does. Well, one of the voices do somebody that nobody else does. Nobody else does.

Well, one of the voices I did that nobody else was doing was Andy Devine. Okay. Oh, great. Why, you book? Now, not too many people were doing that. So I would try to do all the comedians like the – Groucho was a hot guy and Henny Owen. Still takes his girls.

I make a little TV. I got Jackie Leonard. I make it a little deeper. You got Jack Carter. That's as low as you can get. And I would notice the similarity in people, like that Robert Preston sounded like Clark Gable. We've got trouble, trouble, my friend, trouble in the city,

and that rhymes with B, and it stands for, but then you had Dale Robertson, who sounded like a little bit of a drunk Clark Gable. Yes. I remember Dale Robertson. When I met David Jansen, a wonderful guy. The fugitive. Yes. You remember Dale Robertson. You know what it sounded like. When I met David Jansen, a wonderful guy. The fugitive.

Yeah. And a very nice guy. He was a child actor. I didn't know that. Very good. He looked like Gable, short, had the big ears and everything.

And he used to say to me, if you want to imitate me, I'm imitating Cary Grant and Clark Gable at the same time. So if you do Cary Grant and Clark Gable, you get David Jansen, which was the comment,

which was literally true. That's what he did. But anyway, he paid me the greatest compliment in the world, and it was silent. One of the early copycat shows, there was a screen there, and David Jansen is sitting there, and somebody is saying, look, this is Will imitating Clark Gable. and somebody was saying, look, this is Will imitating Clark Gable. And all David Jansen did was look at me, look at the screen, and look back at me, and that was the greatest compliment I ever got in my life.

That's great. His silence was the greatest compliment. He was paying me the greatest tribute. He couldn't even talk. And then later on he told me, they made a movie called Gable and Lombard. And he said, how could they have not called me? James Brolin. How could they have not called me?

I mean, everybody thought I was Gable's son. Yeah, there was a rumor that he was Gable's son. And he, James Brolin. James Brolin is Gable? Again, that's Helen Keller. What if we tried to get you guys to do like a little bit of dueling James Mason? Would you be up for that, Will? No, no.

My voices aren't that good. But some voices, I can seem to do Peter Falk. For some reason, that's an easy voice to do. But it comes easier to me than some of the others, you know. And also I could do Eddie Cantor. By the way, Jackie Mason, who I'm also not crazy about, Jackie Mason could do Eddie Cantor. And it's amazing.

They couldn't find a guy to imitate. They made the movie The Great Ziegfeld. And with all the Eddie Cantor mimics, they got a guy that didn't sign. Now they had to get a guy to imitate Will Rogers. Now, wouldn't you know, Will Rogers died, the biggest name in the world, just as they're making the great Ziegfeld. Well, so they got a guy that looked about as much like Will Rogers and sounded like him. And, you know, there were people that could really imitate Will Rogers' voice perfectly. But they got this guy. And the movie, they've got a guy doing it.

He doesn't sound like him. Now, of course, it's MGM, and they have all the money in the world. But again, it gets back to Helen Keller. It's casting. It's not necessarily having the money. It's having the ability to hear and tell if someone is a good actor or a good mimic. When they did the Yankee Doodle Dandy, they were stuck. We've got a guy that sounds like Rose, but we can't get a guy that looks like FDR.

So this is amazing, mimicry trivia. That's the only movie where there's two guys playing FDR. Interesting. The guy that you see is not the guy that's doing the voice. Right. That's good trivia. But at least it shows they were trying to. That's what they did in Ed Wood with Orson Welles.

That's right. They had Maurice LaMarche looping Vincent D'Onofrio. Yeah. Right. That's not the best Orson Welles in the world. You've got to get this friend of mine, Keith Scott, does it better. When we did the copycat show, George Kirby came back and said, you don't know this. the copycat show. George Kirby came back and said, you don't know this.

But when you're making, Marilyn Michaels and I and maybe Gorshin were interested in makeup. I spent a lot of time on makeup. I wanted to. And he said, you don't know this, but when you're making up, all of the cast

is behind you. They didn't want you to see them. They're all studying you. And I said, George, that's the greatest compliment I've ever gotten in my life. That's the greatest compliment I've ever gotten. When you tell me other mimics were in awe of me, even if it's not true, it's a great compliment. Well, here's a mimic who's in awe of you right here. I really am. And George Kirby, he was this old black comedian impressionist. He was very talented.

Tell us about his life. Very interesting guy. He, of course, he had a lot of trouble with the law, and he was busted several times and made comebacks and everything. And it's a shame. People like Steve Allen raised a lot of money to get him. He was on drugs. Yes.

And then he got out, and he gets out, he gets out. Oh, yes. He gets out. He's a star again. And then he gets busted again. But he was still a great mimic and everything. He could imitate. There are not too many mimics could imitate women. You think a lot can do it. But try to think of anybody who could really imitate a woman's voice.

How many mimics can you mention? There might be one who could really imitate a real woman's voice. You think that's easy? How many men can really do that? Larry Storch could do it. Larry Storch. Now, I'm not talking about falsetto. I'm not talking about Mickey Mouse.

I'm talking about a full sound. Yeah, he used to do like Pearl Bailey and things like that or Eartha Kitt. But of course, in all due respect, black people's voices are thicker and easier to, they sound better, but they're also easier to imitate. It's easier to imitate Louis Armstrong than it would be to imitate, say, Dick Hames, which doesn't mean that the talent, it's just that the qualities to it are more things that you can hang your hat on you know now there was also and before we wrap uh that they once asked um ed sullivan who out of all the people out of all the favorites on the ed sullivan show who his favorite was and he said ricky lane and velvo

no actually what he said what no ricky lane is the one that was on the show the most. Oh, yes. No, excuse me. He was on the show the most. No, Carmen Santoro is Sullivan's secretary. He told me the truth. The one who appeared on the Sullivan show the most, you'll never guess, was Teresa Brewer. Wow. Almost a hundred times. Then you had Topo

Gigio. Yeah. Then you had Senior Wences. Yeah, he was on a few times. Then you had Ricky Lane, who told me he did it 45 times. Ricky Lane said he never got a job out of it, even though he was on 45 times. So being on The Sullivan Show was not really necessarily a good thing. Now, the people at the same time, at 8 o'clock on The Steve Allen Show, isn't it amazing? Almost everyone that was on that show became famous.

Isn't that interesting? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Tom Poston, Don Knox. That's right. Steve Lawrence, Edie Gourmet, Andy Williams, Louie Nye. Almost everybody on that.

The only one that didn't make it was Dayton Allen, but Dayton Allen didn't want to go to California. And yet, Ed Sullivan was on 1, but Dayton Island didn't want to go to California. And yet Ed Sullivan was on 1100 hours. 1100 hours. Amazing. How many people did he make famous? Very few. Yeah. Okay. We should have Will take us out with a little bit of Sullivan. Can you favor us? You know, this is so insane. Can you favor us? Well, we're putting you on the spot. I was going to forget to ask you to do something. The older I get, the more I begin to sound like B.S. Pulley. Bless your heart.

In Sullivan, you need to be a tenor. Basically, I was a tenor, but it's hard for me to pitch my voice higher. But I can give you a rough idea. You know, here on our stage, because we had sensational youngsters, over here was 742 Polish dentists to come out here and drill for you on our show. So anyway, I got a call from a very nice guy

at Capitol Records saying, would you like to do Ed Sullivan on a record? I said, great. So they dug up a Boudre O'Brien song called Bye Bye Love. Oh, sure. And I imitated Sullivan, but I wanted that to be the B side. The A side was Sabu,

which I thought was my ticket to stardom. And on the B side, I'm doing Fly, Cop, it's Fly. I'm doing Sabu. But on the other side, I'm doing Bye Bye Love fly. I'm doing Sabu. But on the other side, I'm doing Bye Bye Love. There goes my baby with somebody new. Be sure. And that, well, that sold more.

And, well, it was a nice experience. And you know what's funny is I was looking at your movie biography, and you were in so many movies. As Ed Sullivan. Yeah. But that was just my voice, though.

Oh, but still. Well, you're in I Want to Hold Your Hand. You're on camera. And in The Doors. And The Doors. But in Buddy Holly's story and in Elvis, it's just my voice. And even in Saturday Night, it's just my voice. You don't see me in those movies.

Okay, they're called The Doors, and they've got the number one single in the country right now, Light Your Fire. Light Your Fire, is that it? Yes. Now, they're not your usual group, but I think they're going to fit in just fine. Everything's going to be fine.

Boys, boys, meet Mr. Sullivan. All right, fellas, fellas, just wait. I heard you're a record. Light that fire. Light your fire. Light that just really, really fine. Just really, really fine. You know, when I look back and people say,

have you got a demo? And I said, well, all the things I've ever done in my life, I don't really know if I could ever show you one tape that showed me at my best. Because, you know, this is good. I did this good on this one, this one. But I really don't have a what you'd call a good demo. And if I were, of course, I couldn't do it today.

I couldn't possibly do those things today. So now, you know, my life is more interested in history. I've become the big wise ass know-it-all. We sit in the park and, oh, no, that wasn't the – that was the second version of this movie and the first version was this guy. You know, movie trivia. I mean, in a way, I'm ashamed to be reduced to just that. But that seems to be what I – I remember all of these. But I also think it's a shame when we do trivia, we don't talk about the theater. Because when I was an actor originally, I wanted to go to—I was in summer stock.

In 1947, I auditioned for a stock company. I didn't know that we weren't going to get paid, but I auditioned anyway. And I was—me and this guy, John Dennis, an actor that you might have seen from here to eternity for two seconds. We were the stars. The stagehand was Mel Brooks. And we got there and the checks were bouncing and I said, you know, but I got to know Mel very well.

Very, very talented guy and everything. And he said, I really want to direct. So I said, Mel, we're not getting paid. So I said, I really want to go and do a stand-up because I'm really not an actor. I had studied acting and I, you know, very good school.

But I'm not happy with this. I guess my ego, I want to talk. I don't want to read anybody else's lines. But Mel stayed there. And then I met him again later when he was writing for Sid Caesar. was writing for Sid Caesar. And he was, I met him on the street, on 58th Street, and he said, Sid is not giving me a salary, but he gives me 50 bucks a week. This is before he began, and then little by little, Sid began to realize that Mel was coming up with the greatest bits, the greatest lines and everything. But originally, the people were Louise Tolkien, this guy Mel – Mel Tolkien?

Yeah, well, Mel Tolkien, right? Those were the originals. The others came later. Woody Allen came later. And then Larry Gelbart. They came later. But Mel was the only one, I believe, that really did not have that much of a background and everything. So Mel more or less had to prove himself.

Later on, it wound up that he was probably the main writer because when I look at the Sid Caesar sketches, I see Mel all through. Oh, wow. Not everything, but all through it. Now, I have to, like, wrap now, and you're, like, one of those guests i could talk to for like uh the next year oh well i better get off well we'll come back you're in the neighborhood so come back sometime

and we'll just we'll just talk about movies and stuff we'll just riff yeah so i'm wonderful i'm gilbert godfrey this has been gilbert godfrey's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we have been talking to the greatest impressionist ever and just all around great entertainer Will Jordan. This was a treat, Will. It was a treat for me

to have someone that listens to me. Come back again. Thank you. Okay, buddy. Thank you.