Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 219. Don Murray

Episode Date: August 6, 2018

Gilbert and Frank track down Oscar-nominated actor Don Murray, who talks about the thrill of live television, the pros and cons of method acting, his lack of interest in "movie stardom" and the challenges of making his screen debut opposite the legendary Marilyn Monroe. Also, Don teases Otto Preminger, Keir Dullea lights up the screen, James Cagney dances between takes and Charles Laughton helms a filmnoir masterpiece. PLUS: Frankie Five Angels! "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes"! Don remembers Rod Steiger (and Rod Serling)! Jack Warden watches a stag reel! And the mysterious death of Albert Dekker! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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No pressure. Are we rolling? What? We are rolling. We're here with the great comedian Gilbert Gottfried on his show, which is called... Gilbert Gottfried on his show, which is called... Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast.

And it is. And my co-hosts, Frank Santopadre, Paul Schaefer, Richard Belzer, and Tom Leopold. And Houdini. And Houdini. Houdini, the podcast dog. We had a lot of fun. Yes. Tune in.

Tune in. Tell your friends. Is it streamed? How did we see it? Put paper down. It was extreme. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. We're here once again at Nutmeg Studios with our engineer, Frank Furtarosa. Our guest this week is an actor, producer, writer, director, activist, and a good old-fashioned Hollywood leading man,

and a movie star you know from his many TV appearances, such as Craft Theater, Playhouse 90, Police Story, How the West Was Won, The Outcast, Hotel, Matlock, Wings, Murder, She Wrote, Knot's Landing, and the recent revival of Twin Peaks. But it was his work on the big screen where he made his most indelible mark. In popular movies like A Hat Full of Rain, Shake Hands with the Devil, Advise and Consent, Baby the Rain Must Fall, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Deadly Hero, Endless Love, Peggy Sue Got Married, and his pet project The Hoodlum Priest, and his film debut Bus Stop, opposite the legendary Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe. In an acting career that started back to the early 1950s, he shared the screen with Hollywood's biggest stars such as Steve McQueen, Henry Fonda, Helen Hayes, James Cagney, Alan Ladd, Anthony Quinn, and Charles Lawton, as well as some of the greatest character actors

of the last half century, including Jason Robards, Burgess Meredith, James Earl Jones, Martin Balsam, Roddy McDowell, Jack Warden, E.G. Marshall, and Eli Wallach to name a few. He's also been the subject of a recent documentary entitled Don Murray Unsung Hero about his extraordinary experiences in and out of show business. Please welcome to the podcast one of the great actors of his generation and a man who says he wanted to be Danny Kaye when he grew up, Don Murray. Never quite made it. You never quite made it being Danny Kaye?

Never got to the fame of Danny Kaye. Why did you want to be Danny Kaye, Don? Because he was the ultimate of what I liked to do. He made people laugh, and also he sang and he danced, and that's what I like best of everything. Even though I had very little opportunity to do musicals, that musical theater is my first love. But you'd be happy to know that we've spoken to a few people who worked with Danny Kaye. More than a few, yeah. Yeah, and as much as they all had nothing but great things to say about him as a talented performer, they hated him as a person.

Not everyone. Well, in that case, I'm glad I didn't end up looking at any fans. Joyce Van Patten, you know that actress. Sure. Don, she was on the Danny Kaye show, and she liked him quite a bit. So she was the exception to the rule. But he had a bit of a difficult reputation. Well, he was wonderful on the screen anyway.

Yeah. So all the millions of people around the world didn't know him as being difficult. They just knew him as being very entertaining. Oh, sure. Sure, court jester. And I got to tell you a personal story that'll mean nothing to anybody except me. And that's that I remember over the years watching TV with my parents. And whenever you popped up in a movie, my father always said, oh, he was in that movie, The Hoodlum Priest.

Well, I'm glad to remember that one because that's the one that I wrote and produced as well as acted in. So I'm happy when people remember that. So I wish my father was alive just so I could say to him, I'm interviewing the guy from the Hoodlum Priest. I wish he was alive, too. I can use all the fans I can get. I like it, Tom. Now, you started off actually as a promising athlete. Well, luckily, I was too small when I was in high school to play football successfully. I was on the football team, but I was strictly a bench writer.

But I got to be actually had some success as an athlete once I got to be 17 years old, and I played semi-pro basketball. And I went on. As a matter of fact, the best thing I ever did is I won the very last Crosby golf tournament. Oh. Which is. That's impressive. Did you turn down athletic scholarships, Don?

I never had any offer for athletic scholarships. What I did is I turned down going to college and I went to dramatic school instead at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. I'm very happy about that because that really started my career in almost

a professional way because it was a great academy. Who was there? Who was studying with you at that time? My class was Jason Robards and Don Rickles. Oh, my God. How about that? How about that?

Wow. People forget Rickles was an actor. Yeah, and do you know that Rickles was invited back for the senior year, and Jason Robards wasn't. Oh, wow. Oh, boy. Something's wrong with that picture. There's something wrong with the Academy's predictions on talent.

Wasn't he in Silent Run Deep, Rickles? He was. Oh, with Clark Gable. Yeah, I remember him in a lot of early roles. Yeah, but most of the time he's making millions of dollars for doing the same thing he got thrown out of class for at the academy. About that. And the last laugh.

Now, you also had a chance to join Actor's Studio. And you said an interesting thing, that your reason for not joining was that when you'd see an actor light up a cigarette in the scene. Do you remember this? Yeah, the scene became about the cigarette instead about what the characters were feeling, what they're going through. what the characters were feeling, what they're going through. I found what, but the main reason I didn't join the studio is that it was almost like talking to people who were religious fanatics. Interesting.

And the acting, of course, is not just a business. It's mainly an art form. But in an art form, it's still an art form, an entertainment. It's not religion. So people that get involved in it and talk about anybody who doesn't act in their method is sort of almost sacrilegious and not worthy of consideration. So you rejected that.

They were a little too dogmatic about it, their approach? Yeah, I found that. As far as you were concerned? So many of the actors that I worked with that were actor-studio actors had those kind of attitudes, and I never liked that, so I didn't enjoy it. Yeah, those actors who say oh that's the strasburg method the better method is the adler or the stanislavski yeah that's right yeah but uh what is what is really the only real method is to uh

listen and talk and react honestly to the material you're working on and what you're given. Mainly, my acting method was I got my performance from the eyes of the other actors. That's why I always had to see an actor if I'm doing

a close-up. I would not do a close-up just to a camera of someone. I had to have the actor there and look in his eyes or her eyes and react to what I see, not only to the dialogue that I'm speaking. Interesting. Now, what did you do if you were with an actor who didn't have something in their eyes? Well, there's something that Ilya Kazan used to say,

whatever happens, use it. And that's what I would do. I would use it. If someone was not really reacting to me, I use that as part of the character. I use the character of trying to get that other actor to really pay attention to what I was saying to him. And so I would use that.

I would use perhaps a frustration within my own character at what was not coming back from the other side of the camera. But it would always have to be from a basis of reality. Never faked anything. Always felt what I was saying. When you left the Academy, Don, you started doing some live television. Yes, I did. Yeah.

Gilbert read a couple of them. Philco TV, Playhouse, Craft Theater, U.S. Steel Hour, Studio One. What was that experience? We've had a couple of actors in here. We had Barbara Barry here, a couple of people who did, Lee Grant, a couple of people who did live television. What was the experience? We've had a couple of actors in here. We had Barbara Barry here, a couple of people who did, Lee Grant, a couple of people who did live television. What was the experience like for you? Terrifying and wonderful.

Terrifying and wonderful. Terrifying in that, like a Broadway play, you had to know all the dialogue and be completely familiar and comfortable within the character, but you had very much less time to work on it than you did on Broadway because the rehearsal periods were much shorter. So that's why I say terrifying, because you didn't have that much preparation and you were live. And when accidents would happen, for instance, a camera would get into the shot. When accidents would happen, for instance, a camera would get into the shot.

There's no take two. That's it. The camera is in the shot. You're doing Billy Budd back in the 18th century, and there's a modern camera going through the shot. There's nothing you can do about it. Nothing you can do. You did Lux Video Theater. It was a Rod Serling story.

Did you know Serling, by the way? Had you met him? Yes. What was he like? Well, of course, just a towering talent. Just a wonderful man and very appreciative of what actors did. And he gave actors wonderful roles to play. It was a shame that he died so young.

Yeah, chain smoker, I believe. I think so, yeah. Yeah, and every Twilight Zone he had a cigarette when he was introducing it. Everybody was smoking on camera in those days. Yeah, they were. As a matter of fact, you do a scene in a movie and they have all the extras light up so you get smoke in the shot. They like that ceiling, that smoke. Almost like fog would give you. So they had extra smoking to give more of a mood look to the film?

Exactly. Wow. Fascinating. I didn't know that. Oh, my God. Pretty cool. We're looking at some of these actors

you work with in live television, Don, too. Charlton Heston, E.G. Marshall, Fred Gwynn, Jack Warden, who you would go on

to work with a bunch of times, Kim Hunter, Martin Balsam. What an exciting time for all of you young actors. It was an exciting time

and all those people you mentioned helped to make it exciting time and all those people you mentioned helped to make it exciting and you just can't wait to get on the set in the morning to to be with these people and creating something by someone like rod serling that was really great and do you remember any stories about jack warden or uh even g Even Gilbert got to do a movie with Jack Worden. Don, you have that in common. Oh, good. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. He was in the movie Bachelor Party with Jack Worden. There was a scene where we're supposed to be watching a pornographic movie. And, of course, they don't show any of the pornographic movie. They would today, but in those days they couldn't. don't show any of the pornographic movie. They would today, but in those days they couldn't.

And Paddy Chesky, the author, told us to ad-lib our reaction to what we're seeing. And so we had several ad-libs, and the best would come from Jack Warden when one of the characters, Larry Bryden, says, oh, well, you've seen one, you've seen them all. And Jack Warden says, yeah. Want to run them backwards? That was one of my favorite great ad-libs.

He seemed like a real character. Oh, he was. What an actor. Yeah. I mean, the range. And he did everything. He was a terrific actor. I love the story he tells about, you know, he had a real thick New York accent himself.

And he went in to read for King Lear, the Shakespearean play. And so the English director, he comes in with his New York accent, and the English director got so perplexed that he said, well, Mr. Wooden, how do you see yourself? What would you do in the Shakespearean drama? And he said, well, who's playing Leah? This is so funny, Don. Because last week I was interviewing someone and I remembered that story.

And I told that story on the air. But to hear it from you is amazing. Well, hearing it from you, now I know it's true. Everything Gilbert says on this show is true. Oh, yeah. Tell us about getting cast in Bus Stop and how it happened. And that was kind of a big break for you. I mean, certainly as far as movies are concerned.

Yeah, it was. I had been actually offered movie contracts from the time I was 19, I had been actually offered movie contracts from the time I was 19, but I always turned them down. Because they entailed what I call a slave contract, where for seven years you could only work for that studio. And you had to play whatever parts they offered you. Right. So I turned that down several times. I sat down several times. But when it got to bus stop, Joshua Logan, the director, had seen me on Broadway in a play called The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder, the great author of Our Town.

And I was playing the character that's like Hitler, you know, the terrible killers of the world is what I played, a real, really bad guy. But Josh Logan saw the energy in that, and he thought that he could apply that energy to the comedy in Bus Stop. So he insisted on screen testing me. And I thought I was totally wrong for a part. I never had played a part like that before. You're a New York kid who never rode a horse. That's right. Never rode a horse.

That's right. Just a hobby horse. Anyway, I thought I kept on all through the screen test saying Josh I you know I don't know have any idea how to play this crazy cowboy you know why I'm just wrong for this this is silly for me to even be doing the screen test and he said shut up I'll tell you what you're right for and thank God he did. As a matter of fact, my performance in Bus Stop was more than Josh Logan's performance and my own. All I did is I did everything he told me to

do. And it worked out very well for both of us. But it was really a Joshua Logan performance, not a Don Murray one. And you, of course, worked with Marilyn Monroe in that. Yeah, what a thrill that was. Yeah, she was remarkable. That was her comeback film. She left movies and started acting at the Actors Studio for a year. And this was her comeback film. So we had the press around us all the time.

It was like working in a fishbowl. And people who did other films for her throughout her career, like Whitey, her makeup man, Whitey Schneider, he said that Bus Stop was her best behaved movie. But her best behaved movie, she was still like two or three, four hours late every day. And she took a week off in the middle of the filming, and she was supposed to have been home with the flu, but actually she was having a romance with Arthur Miller, the great playwright.

Interesting. In the Chateau Mamon Hotel in Hollywood when she was supposed to be on the set. So she delayed the production for her personal life. She did, yeah. for her personal life. She did, yeah. And she had a very, very great deal of difficulty sustaining a scene. She'd just get into a scene and forget the line or forget some actions she was supposed to do.

So you had to do take after take after take. And I learned in the very first day, after people that had done movies that were Broadway actors said, oh, your movies are easy. You don't get on take one. Is it take two or take three, whatever. Yeah, if Marilyn Monroe doesn't get it right, you do take two and right on to take 20 and so on.

But as long as she gets through the scene, that's when they're going to print. So you better be at your best in every take because whatever you do, when she's done her best work, that's what's going to be in the movie. So it was very, very difficult to do my first movie under those circumstances. Well, and she was training with Lee Strasberg.

And then didn't she take Paula Strasberg, Lee's wife, with her on every movie she worked on? Yes. But Joshua Logan would encourage Marilyn to work with Paula, but off the set. You know, on the soundstage, but off near the doors, not on the set where the people were setting up the scene. And they did that very successfully. As a matter of fact, I think Paula, she gets in trouble in the movie My Week with Marilyn, with her working with Marilyn on the set, which Olivier was very perturbed about. But Logan encouraged her to work with Paula, but not where we were working on the set, off to the side.

It's fascinating. Go ahead. I'm sorry, Don. Their collaboration was very, very valuable. As a matter of fact, when I watched that film in later years, I realized that she was so wonderful, Marilyn was so wonderful in Bus Stop, that she definitely deserved to have an Oscar because that was really definitely the best performance by a female actor of the year, I believe. You guys have great chemistry in the picture.

I just watched it again. Oh, yes. And it's interesting. And a couple of things. One, her performance is great. I agree with you. It's Oh, yes. And it's interesting. And a couple of things. One, her performance is great. I agree with you. It's interesting, too. I heard you say she had perfect skin, but she got so anxious that she would break out in hives on camera.

That's absolutely right. She had skin like a baby's, you know, and she'd walk on the set and you'd say, wow, you're just so smooth and so just perfect pink complexion. And as soon as the cameras start rolling, she'd break out in a rash. And particularly, fortunately, not on her face, but what happened on her neck and her chest, and I'd have to dab her with a white makeup to hide the rash. And it was all from nerves. Imagine that. Because as soon as they said cut, it would go away.

And as soon as they said roll them, it would come back again. And one thing they said that made me think like any guy back then would have paid to have been on the set. When they were filming this scene, she was in bed. And she's supposed to be naked under the blankets, and she actually was naked. Yeah, that was funny because Josh Logan said to me, Don, look, Marilyn, you know, she's in her own emotions, and she keeps on moving around in the bed and exposing herself,

and so the scene's going to end up in the cutting room floor if we don't solve this problem. So when you see that she's trying to, she's not trying to, but you see when she's revealing accidentally what should not be revealed, what would be cut out, just reach down and tuck the sheet in around her. I said, well, won't that be seen in the shot? He said, no. He said,

I'll be cutting in close enough so we won't see your hands doing that. So all through the film, I was, whenever we had an intimate scene together, I was doing things like trying to hide her bare buttocks or

her breasts. And also when she'd get off her marks and she'd get out of focus and everything, Logan would have me put my hands on her hips and move her back onto her marks. So I was doing this, playing my first movie in a cowboy accent when I'm a New Yorker. And I'm taking Marilyn Monroe, the movie star, and pushing her around and moving her onto her marks while I'm doing scenes with her. So you were one of the luckiest bastards in the world. You're basically getting paid to feel up Marilyn Monroe.

Isn't that incredible? It is. I'm in jail for it. Yeah. That scene where you get up on the barroom table and you quiet everybody down. And by the way, I'd seen it years ago. I didn't know that you were a New York guy, that you weren't from that part of the country. I mean, I totally bought it.

It's a credit to you as an actor. That, you know, when you see a movie as a young person, you don't think of those things. Gee, where is that actor from? You just, you know, you suspend disbelief. And I always bought you guys together. I always thought you had great chemistry in that movie. Oh, good.

Well, I felt very comfortable with that because, like, he's fascinated yeah with her character with sherry and i was fascinated with uh with marilyn so i just used my own emotions my name is borogar dick i'm the ham i'm 21 years old i own my own ranch up in timber hill montana where i got a fine herd of herford cattle a horses, and the finest sheep and hogs and chickens in the country. Now, I'll come down for the rodeo tomorrow with the idea in mind of finding me an angel, and you're it. Now, I don't have a whole lot of time for sweet-talking around the bush, so I'd be much obliged to you if you'd just step outside with me into the fresh air.

Watch your side. You just step outside with me into the fresh air. What'd you say? My name is Beauregard Decker, ma'am. I'm 21 years old, and I own my own ranch up in Timber Hill, Montana, where I got a fine... I know I heard all that part. Okay, let's get out of here. No, uh...

I'm mighty grateful to you for what you did, but, uh, we're not allowed to go out with the customers. But you could buy me a drink if you wanted. I'm so dry I'm spitting cotton. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. But first a word from our sponsor. BetMGM brings the real-time action. Embrace a season's worth of swings with BetMGM, your one-stop shop for all things baseball. BetMGM.com for Ts and Cs.

19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Gambling problem? Call ConX Ontario at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. That's the sound of fried chicken with a spicy history. Thornton Prince was a ladies' man. To get revenge, his girlfriend hid spices in his fried chicken.

He loved it so much, he opened Prince's Hot Chicken. Hot chicken in the window. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. And isn't it that scene where you're standing on the table, if I'm not mistaken? He's quieting everybody in the room. Yeah, and you say, well, start your yammering.

What I love is there's a promo for that movie. The studio promo was Introducing Hollywood's newest hunk of man, Don Murray. I'll tell you what kind of a hunk of man I was in. I did that. I was in a forerunner of the Peace Corps for two and a half years. Yeah. And I had gotten a very bad case of infectious hepatitis.

And I had lost weight. I got down from 185 pounds to 140 pounds. And when I started bus stop, I still had the effects of that hepatitis. So they put a, under my shirt, they put a big heavy wool sweater to make me look bigger and huskier. Oh, that's a good secret. Yeah, right. And that's why when I read those ads, hunk of man, I said, oh my God, are you kidding? Hunk of man, this is a

hunk of dried beef. Now, and you always, you had chances, I guess the studio was pushing you to go, okay, he's a good cowboy hero. That's what, and you didn't want any of that. No, as a matter of fact i always wanted to do the opposite of what i did before and i got great great criticism from my agents about that they said you have to establish your personality and do that personality over and over again that's what the audience that's what makes movie stars and so i I said, well, he said, if you want to be an actor, go back to Broadway. But if you want to be a movie star, you develop a Don Murray personality.

And I said, well, if I had to choose between being a personality or an actor, I'll choose an actor any day. So if I'm not acceptable and changing roles all the time, then I won't go back to Broadway. So my second film I chose, instead of The Wild Cowboy, I chose the very introverted accountant, New York accountant. Right, Chayefsky. Chayefsky's bachelor party. Yeah.

And as a matter of fact, New York News critic, I think it was Kay Gardello, she said, well, Don Murray has a little bit too much of the wide open spaces in him to be believable as a New Yorker. Riley! Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah. So I said, well, wow. That made me feel good about my performance in Bus Stop. I was able to fool people into thinking I was a cowboy. Yeah. Because I was the last thing from a cowboy. Also, the great Carolyn Jones turns up in that movie. Oh, yeah. She was wonderful. Yeah, that whole cast

was wonderful. That whole ensemble cast. Yeah, wasn't it? She was nominated for a number of awards. I know, for a small, what turned out to be a small part. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And you were in the movie Advice and Consent. One of my favorites. It's a good one.

And can you tell us the cast of that movie? Well, it was Charles Laudan and Henry Pidgeon and Burgess Meredith. Oh, Henry Fonda. Henry Fonda. Right. Will Gere. Yeah, yeah. Gene Tierney.

Gene Tierney, right. Had a great cast, and Otto Preminger did a wonderful directing job. And over the years, it's been appreciated more than when it first came out. Over the years, it's been appreciated more than when it first came out. Some important critics thought it was too critical and showed our government in a bad light, but actually it showed the government in a very honest light. There are people who are unscrupulous and people who are very scrupulous in government, just as they really are. But I think that hurt the film at the beginning.

But then as years go by, even those critics who were critical when it first came out came around and realized what a wonderful work of art and also what a wonderful social documentary it was. It holds up very well. And obviously it's timelier than ever. Yeah, isn't it? Yeah. Political corruption never seems to go out of style.

No. And you played, your character was based on an actual person. Yes, it was. Yeah, Lester Hunt, who was a target of McCarthy. I didn't realize that's who it was. Yes, well, according to my research anyway, a senator from Wyoming

who was driven to commit suicide. Oh, my goodness. Wow. Yeah, I could be wrong. Or the Internet could be wrong, Don. No, I'm sure you're right. I just wasn't aware of that. And you played a homosexual in that. Well, you know what?

It's funny because my character had had a homosexual affair when he was over in the Army serving in the Pacific at a very isolated, lonely time. And then he went back and lived his life as a heterosexual, had a wife, he was in love with, had children, and so on. So when people, I remember at a big press conference in Washington when they asked me what it was like to play a homosexual. I said, well, why do you call him a homosexual? He was a guy that just had one affair. I said, if President Kennedy hits one golf ball, do you call him a golfer?

That's a good analogy. That's funny. Other actors shied away from the part because I always assumed the character was bisexual. Yeah. He's in a relationship with a woman, but I guess that's open to interpretation. Yeah, that's true, yeah. But other actors turned down the part because of the gay content, and that didn't dissuade you at all.

You wanted to take a chance with the material. As a matter of fact, I thought, they, actors, are afraid people would think they were gay. You know, and I said, I don't care if they think i'm gay because maybe all these beautiful women will try to cure me hell of a plan now you you got along with preminger i mean we were talking about danny k but otto preminger is another uh another person whose reputation preceded him a little bit. People hated him. I got along fine with him.

What I found with Otto Preminger is that I would always kid him. And he was reluctant to attack me because I would always turn around and make a joke about him. I see. So he was very careful about not doing that. As a matter of fact, my wife, Betty Johnson, she was one of New York Top's models, and she was visiting us on the set, and we weren't married at the time.

And she had a cover of McCall's magazine that came out when we were shooting in a hotel scene in Washington. And Otto Preminger saw her on the cover of McCall's, and then I introduced her to him. And he said, Miss Johnson, I want you to be in my movie. And she said, no, promise.

No, Otto, I'm not going to bring you in the movie. He said, why not? I said, because. He said, you yell at the actors. I wouldn't let people yell at me. He said, oh, I never yell at the actors. I just yell at the crew. And I said, yeah, like Henry Fonda, the makeup man, Charles Lawton, the chief grip.

What was working? This is Lawton's last picture, by the way. Yes. Advise and consent. Can you tell us something about him? Something about your experience of the man? We love Night of the Hunter, which I think the one time he directed. And he was the best Quasimodo.

And, of course, The Hunchback and much other wonderful work. Yeah, and the most amazing thing, you mentioned Night of the Hunter, which is a brilliant movie. Yeah, we love it. And he never got to direct another movie. Isn't that weird? That killed him. He absolutely would love to direct other movies, and that movie was a classic. It's considered a masterpiece today.

It is a masterpiece, and he never got to do another one, which was very, very sad to him. He was just very gracious and very self-effacing. I remember they were a makeup man. Someone said, powder his face. Take the shine off. And he said, oh, it doesn't matter what you do to my face. It will still look like an elephant's ass. Love that. still look like an elephant's ass.

Love that. And you worked with an actor whose name only pops up on this podcast, and he had two names. One was Max Showalter, and the other was Casey Adams. Do you remember him, Don? I remember him very well. He played a reporter on the show.

He was just, he's a wonderful actor. He just had such energy and such commitment to whatever part he played. And yeah, he did have two names. Yeah. Yeah. In Bus Stop. By the way, I think Advise and Consent was the first gay bar scene in a Hollywood picture.

Yeah, I think it was. And that scene where you come into the bar is a wonderful piece of acting, in my humble opinion. Well, thank you. It was very easy to do because they had it set up, you know, real, and to

walk into a bar where everybody at the bar are men. There's not one woman there. To walk in that and to act that scene, it was so real

that it made it very easy for me to have the reaction I did. As a matter of fact, that Bremenger realized what was going to happen at my reaction, so he didn't rehearse the scene. He shot it right from the first beginning so he'd get my reaction to what I was seeing for the first time, and that's what he used. Right.

It's heartbreaking because you realize by reading your face that he still finds himself attracted to men when he walks into the bar yeah you realize the pit this the painful realization for him yes exactly and and when you did another movie hat full of rain and another good. And you also acted with an actor that I can also brag I acted with. And that was Bill Hickey. Oh, Bill Hickey. Oh, Bill Hickey was a wonderful actor. He played my Uncle Carlton in an episode of Wings. Which is a show Don has also done.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about Cagney, Don, about working with the great James Cagney in Shake Hands with the Devil. That was a thrill for me. James Cagney, I loved him,

not for his shoot him up and kill people in the car trunk, but for Yankee Doodle Dandy and also for The Fighting 69th, the World War I movie. And The Fighting 69th, my uncle was in the real Fighting 69th and World War I, and he got a Purple Heart for being gas in France. So I had that association with Cagney from that picture. And when we were on the set, I would, in between takes, I would do exercises like push-ups and sit-ups and stuff like that. And Cagney would dance. That was

his exercise. He would dance while you did push-ups. Yeah, that was his exercise. And he did that all through the film in between takes. It was quite remarkable to watch. I loved his dancing. I loved his dancing.

I described his dancing as a bear cub being pushed and bouncing down a staircase. A bear cub being bounced down a staircase. I saw an interview with you, Don, and you said, this is interesting, you said he was embarrassed by his gangster pictures. Did you know that? He was. Yeah, I had heard that. He thought of himself as a song and dance man. That's what he loved.

And I said to him, I said, how come you don't do more musicals? And he said, because that's what I was trained for. He says, it's like going in the army, whatever you're trained for, to have you doing something else. And he said, how about you? Are you from a farm and you're a for to have you doing something else and he said uh how about you you from a farm and uh you're a real cowboy and i said no only hobby horses the only horses i rode he said well

you see what i mean he said that's hollywood whatever you don't do that's what you'll be doing in movies and you worked with an actor a busy back then, who died in the most frightening way. And that was Albert Decker. You remember him? Yes, I remember him very well. Big husky guy. And how did he die? The police.

I guess there was a smell coming from the apartment and the police broke into the apartment albert decker was hanging in the shower bound and gagged with his hands tied behind his back yeah true and obscene drawings all over his body and the police called it a suicide and that was it god oh my god i never knew that story yeah wow sorry to take the show in a strange direction don't bother you well you know that reminds me, another terrible murder was Saul Mineo. Yeah, in West Hollywood. He was stabbed to death. Yeah. When he was with me in The Rose Tattoo on Broadway.

Right. He played one of the little boys in that. And there's a book of cartoons by a cartoonist named Steig. And each page of the book had a different drawing of a personality, a person, not a real person, imaginary person. And I asked everybody in the cast to write, to sign their name to the character that meant most to them in their own life. And he signed the character where he was being stabbed with a used knife in his back. He was being killed by a knife. And he himself was actually killed by a knife.

That's weird. Yeah. That's very eerie. And was Sal Meneo one of those like tortured souls that they always... Yeah, I think he was. I think he was a very, actually

a very good actor, and of course he had an association with James actor, and of course he had an association with James Dean. And he got to be a real fan favorite of young people. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast right after this. That's what you say. At Miele, our partner is the planet. Our appliances use less water and energy and are tested to last for 20 years of use. That's the ultimate form of sustainability. I'm Nelson Fresco, President of Mila Canada. From now until June 30th,

every Mila dishwasher purchased supports the planting and preservation of Canadian forests through the Mila Forest Initiative. Join us in making an impact today for a better tomorrow. Visit mila.ca to learn more. Live from Nutmeg Post, we now return to Gilbert and Frank's amazing, colossal podcast. Let's ask you about Hat Full of Rain, which we brought up before, and you work for the great Fred Zinnemann. But this is also interesting, is that the story was written by Michael Vigazzo, who was known

to audiences as Frankie Five Angels in Godfather 2. Yeah, he was. I don't think many people know he was a writer. And it's a wonderful piece of work. These FBI guys say,

Michael Corleone did this, Michael Corleone did that. Michael Corleone did that. I'm sure. That's very good. You're terrific in that as Johnny Pope. Well, thank you. When they bought that, Buddy Adler, the head of 20th Century Fox, when I was in a set of Bus Stop,

he said, I bought a movie for you. And I said, oh, really? Which one? He said, it's a Broadway show. It's called A Hatful of Rain. And I had seen it. Now, they bought it for me to play Polo, the comedy part. Right. That Francioso played.

And when we were about to start rehearsal with director Fred Zinnemann, he said, I think you'll make a wonderful polo. I said, I don't want to play polo. I want to play the dope addict. And he said, well, God, everybody took it for granted. You're going to play the comedy part. And I said, that's why I want to play the dope addict, because I want to do the opposite of what people

expect so luckily Logan's I mean Fred Zinnemann said well if you want to play the dopadic you're the dopadic so that's how that came to be and Tony Francioso who played

Polo in it and had the comedy in the show, he was nominated for an Oscar. How about that? And he won the Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival for his role in that movie. Everybody's good in that. Henry Silver is very scary as the drug pusher, as a mother.

Still with us, by the way, Henry Silva. Yes, I'm glad to hear that. I love Henry Silva. He's just a wonderfully human being. And this evil guy is one of the nicest guys you could ever imagine. And you worked with Rod Steiger. Yeah. Oh, on Happy Birthday Wanda June.

Happy Birthday Wanda June, exactly. What was Steiger like to spend time with and to work with? Well, he was very, very serious, of course, very dedicated to his art. He's just a wonderful actor. And he was especially friendly with me. I found him like a real pal on the set. It was a comedy, and I wanted to play the part of the vacuum cleaner salesman, which was a very funny part.

And he said, well, I don't see you in comedy, Mark Robson said, the director. And I said, well, do you see Bus Stop? He said, oh, yeah. I said, not that time. But you've done drama since. I always think of you as a drama, dramatic actor. So I said, well, I'll come in and see you. And so what I did is I found an old, rusty vacuum cleaner in the cellar of my house.

And I took that rusty, valid vacuum cleaner and I walked into his office, put it down his table and proceeded to sell him the rusty vacuum cleaner. And I had him laughing so hard that he finally said, okay, okay, I give up. You got the part. Nice work. And then he finally said, okay, okay, I give up. You got the part. Nice work. You had a quote that one time they asked, I think it was Betty Grable,

how to make it in show business. And I think her quote was something like, well, take Fountain, and that's the quickest way from Beverly Hills to Hollywood or something. If I would ask you how to make it in show business, what would your advice be? Are you trying to make it in show business? Too late for me. Well, I could ask you the same thing, but I'm sure you've told people.

So I'll tell you how to make it in show business. Number one, realize that you're going into something that statistically your chances of success are practically nil. So know that going into it right away. your chances of success are practically nil. So know that going into it right away. So that since you're starting from below scratch, we all are, be thankful for any bit of show business that you're able to accomplish or any position you're able to achieve,

whether you play your life doing bit parts or you become so-called star, still give it all and get the most that you can out of whatever you've been given. And the most important thing is to realize that there are many other actors in the world, but there's no other you, that you are unique.

And in the course of life, you are unique and irreplaceable. Just keep that in mind whenever you're rejected for a part. And just if that's what you really want to do, just keep going and keep going and keep your heart in it and do the best you can. That's great advice. You know, you remember the actor Billy Barty, Don? Oh, I sure do.

Well, did you know Gilbert lost a part to him? He didn't make it on my basketball team. No. Yeah, I was once up for a part in a movie. Mel Brooks movie. Yeah, and they liked my audition. And then at the last minute, I found out they're not going with you. They're going with Billy Barty.

So you could have used some of Don's advice. Yeah. Right. Tell us about playing a bad guy in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Because you didn't play too many SOBs in your career, and you were very scary in that role. Oh, Governor Brecht in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, he was no villain. He was trying to save the Earth from being run over by apes. Oh, I see.

He was a good guy. He was a hero. He shows what happens when you're soft on apes. You were friends with Roddy McDowell, too, weren't you? Yeah, we were buddies in New York years before we did that. I was his friend during a time when he was really struggling. His career as a child star was over, and he hadn't established really a career as a young leading man,

and he was having a terrible time doing it. As a matter of fact, his big break was of all things in a musical. He played the villain in Camelot on Broadway, and that's what really brought him back to prominence again. What a fun actor. Oh, yeah. And he was a good guy. He was a good human being.

Could watch him in anything. Yeah, true. He was wonderful as a ape, where he created that character. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And it took him three hours to put that makeup on every day. And then for lunch, he had to just sip liquid through a straw. So I always had fun having a big juicy sandwich in front of them.

Always did that every chance I could. Let's ask Don quick about Hoodlum Priest, which was your passion project. about Hoodlum Priest, which was your passion project. And doing the research on this, I went down a rabbit hole and found out all this crazy stuff about the making of the movie. Not only you at war with the director ultimately, but the priest himself that the picture was based on, that the story was based on, would end up becoming something of a nuisance, which puts a very strange spin on the story.

Well, first, when we come down to the director, we didn't have any arguments during the filming of it. It was only in the cutting stage, and I think that's very typical of directors. By contract, they have the first cut, but they don't have the last cut. The producer has the last cut, usually, unless it's one of these super directors who are also producers. And so when it came down to cutting the film, Kirshner had his first cut, Irvin Kirshner, the director. And then I had the final cut.

And that's when he got very, very disturbed and demanded to have his name removed from the picture. And fortunately, I wouldn't remove his name. I kept his name there. And from that, he went on to do his Star Wars movie and all the other good movies he made. Yeah, all that came from Bus Stop. So it's a good thing I didn't listen to him when he asked for his name removed. But Father Clark, Father Charles Diffen Clark, the real priest, he was remarkable. And he had two things that were remarkable about him. Number one, the character that I wrote was the real Father Clark.

He talked exactly as I spoke. He talked like a hoodlum. like a hoodlum and uh he he came up to me like when i first met him i met him at a screening uh in saint louis of shake hands with the devil but the cagney movie and uh he came sit next to me he said hey listen i ain't no square priest you see kid and he was started talking to me during the movie. I said, well, Father, you know, I'm fascinated. I want to talk to you, but I haven't seen this movie yet. Could you come to the hotel tomorrow?

Came to the hotel the next day, and he told me the story of his life. He said, I'd like you to maybe make a documentary of this. I said, no, I don't do documentaries. I'm going to make a real movie of it. So I just took his life and just stories he told me, and I wrote the movie. And when we were making the movie, he was trying to placate or charm or whatever you want to call it, his financial backers for this halfway house

that he was building for convicts that had came out of jail with no place to live and no job and so on. And halfway house takes care of them until they get on their feet. halfway house takes care of them until they get on their feet. And he would do things like, the big blow-up was when there's a scene of, I'm giving communion in jail, and it's after Father Clark has been accused of being a hoodlum himself, and not being just a, not just being a priest who acted like a, but was actually colluding with hoodlum himself and not being just a not just being a priest who acted like him but was actually

colluding with hoodlums uh and uh he it was a scene where he's all alone and giving communion and he came in with a young man he said this is uh so-and-so and he's so-and-so's son, one of my biggest backers, and he's going to play the altar boy. And I said, well, Father, there is no altar boy in the scene. It's taken from the real scene when you're all by yourself and you're down at the bottom of your emotions because you're being accused of all these terrible things. And I said, it's very important that you be all alone here standing out.

It's you against the world at this time. And he said, if you want to make the movie about a Protestant minister, you don't need no altar boy. But if you're going to make it about a hoodlum, you've got't need no altar boy. But if you're going to make it out of the hood bridge, you've got to have an altar boy. And so I just cut out the scene. I just didn't do the scene because it didn't make any sense to have the scene if he ended up in prison with an altar boy.

It's sort of the story of your career, Don, a little bit in a microcosm, is that Hollywood was pushing you to be a big star and you were interested, a movie star, and you were interested in being an actor and making small stories and making personal stories that meant something to you. And that movie is a great example of that. Yeah, that's a very good way of putting it. That's it exactly. And didn't Care Delay

almost bleed to death during the making of the movie? It did. The scene in the movie where they're robbing the market, Care Delay and Don Joslin, the young hoodlums, he breaks the window

and he reaches inside to open the door and he cut his artery. I mean, it's his arteries. It's squirted from his wrist like a geyser. And it really, you know, he really did lose a considerable blood. And it was a very dangerous situation. He was very brave about it, and as a matter of fact, he was back the next day after he got out of the hospital,

was back the next day working again. That was very scary. I think that we were so lucky to get him here to lay. He had never done a real movie. He had done some television, but this was his first film. And I just, fortunately, the critics felt the same way as I did. I thought he was one of the best young actors I'd ever seen on the films. It's an important film. The critics thought so too. It's about something, you know?

Yeah. And it was about something that was close to you. And it comes through. It was. You know, you talk about being close to me because when I worked in this group, Brethren Service, the forerunner of the Peace Corps, I worked with refugees in these barbed wire camps over and around the outskirts of Naples, Italy. And the barbed wire camps were, you know, they were not prison camps,

but they might as well have been in many ways because there were guards at the gate and they had to have a pass for refugees to go in and out. They couldn't hold a job even though they could find one. So they were very much living like prisoners. So the kind of emotions that I felt from working with those refugees were the same kind of emotions I felt for the young hoodlums and hoodlum priests. And I transferred those emotions from the reality of the life I lived there

to the film reality in the Olympics. And all of that can be seen in the – what's happening with that documentary, with Unsung Hero? I don't know. I hope it's going to be shown somewhere. But I don't know what's happened to it. Because watch some of it online, and I was telling Gilbert, it's the story of what I just mentioned. It's the story of a man who was kind of pushed forward by the studio system, who rejected the studio system, and wanted to do his own thing. I heard you described as a rebel with a cause, which I kind of like. I like that, too.

I thought that was good. Not my line, by the way. Yeah. And the last thing I wanted to say, Don, too, as we as we wrap along those lines, and I don't know which friend of yours said that Don is the kind of guy that could fall into a vat of manure and come out gold leaf. Oh, God, that was my best director at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. His name was Peyton Price. Peyton Price. And he was my coach through all my career. And that's what he said. He said, you fall into a pot

of manure and come up dripping gold leaf. I like that one. It's great. You did it your way, didn't you, Don? Well, I tried to. And in Hatful of Rain, you were actually studying junkies. Yeah. It was an interesting experience because it made me less sympathetic to junkies because they're so self-centered and so focused on the next fix that they tell you the stories how they just totally destroyed their families.

But all they were really concentrating on is how they were suffering from not getting their fix. So I wasn't really sympathetic to the junkies. And actually, it worked best for the film because my character, Johnny, has such self-loathing for himself. He's so embarrassed and so chagrined and so tormented by his inability to deal with his drug addiction. So it really helped. My attitudes to real junkies helped in playing that part. Good performance. You and Ava Marie Saint, that whole cast. Yeah.

All right. So this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. And I'm picturing my father standing here in front of me and I'm saying to him, I just interviewed the guy from

Hoodlum Priest. Don Murray. Well, I say hi and thanks to the spirit of your father. What was your dad's name? Max. Max.

Max Gottfried, a Don Murray fan. Don, this was a real treat for us. We really appreciate it. Well, thanks. I enjoyed talking to you. And I want to thank Jim Giordano and your son, Chris Murray, for putting this together, for helping find you and book you. Well, your son didn't have to find you.

Yeah. But to book you for this show, we really appreciate it. You've seen it all. You've done it all. And Mick helped your son set this up today. He's my youngest son. Oh, and Mick. I want to thank Mick, too.

Don, thanks for taking the time to do this for us. Oh, it's a pleasure. I enjoyed it. And thanks for the years of entertainment. Thank you. And thank you for your years of entertainment, too. Oh, thank you very much. How about that?

Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast is produced by Dara Gottfried and Frank Santapadre, with audio production by Frank Verderosa. Web and social media is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley-Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to Paul Rayburn, John Murray, John Fodiatis,

and Nutmeg Creative. Especially Sam Giovonco and Daniel Farrell for their assistance. Thank you.