Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 46. Joan Kramer & David Heeley

Episode Date: April 9, 2015

Filmmakers and film historians JOAN KRAMER and DAVID HEELEY have won five Emmys for their documentaries about Hollywood legends Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda, Katherine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart, just to name just a few. To coincide with the release of their new book, "In the Company of Legends," Joan and David joined Gilbert and Frank to talk about their adventures in writing and directing celebrity bios, their struggles to capture their famous subjects on film and the lasting friendships they forged along the way. Also, Richard Dreyfuss deconstructs "Casablanca," Johnny Carson calls on Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart takes advice from a Stooge and Kate Hepburn clashes with the King of Pop. PLUS: "Uncle Carl" Laemmle gambles away Universal studios! Lily Tomlin walks off "The Dick Cavett Show"! And the strange mystery of JFK and "Over the Rainbow"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by FX's The Bear on Disney+. In Season 3, Carmi and his crew are aiming for the ultimate restaurant accolade, a Michelin star. With Golden Globe and Emmy wins, the show starring Jeremy Allen White, Io Debrey, and Maddie Matheson is ready to heat up screens once again. All new episodes of FX's The Bear are streaming June 27, only on Disney+. Because the Skip app saves you so much time by delivering stuff like your favorite cool treats, groceries, and bevvies, you get more time to have the best summer ever. Like riding roller coasters. Learning to water ski.

Applying sunscreen to your dad's back. Yep, definitely the best summer ever. Squeeze more summer out of summer with Skip. Did somebody say Skip? See me April 10th, 11th, and 12th at Laugh Out Loud, San Antonio, Texas. April 18th, Brokerage Comedy Club, Billmore, New York. April 19th, live podcast with Louis Black at Caroline's on Broadway, New York, New York. April 30th, Caroline's on Broadway, New York, New York. Check my website, GilbertGottfried.com, for more information. The wait is finally over.

Baseball season is here at Flash. The excitement continues old season long at DraftKings.com, the official daily fantasy partner of Major League Baseball. Daily fantasy means no season-long commitments, just instant cash, instant gratification. And I know about instant gratification. Or is that self-gratification? Well, forget I said that. Why wait until the end of the season to claim victory when you can win huge cash every day. At DraftKings, it's like a brand new season every time you play.

Just select two pitchers and two position players. Stay under the salary cap and you can be on your way to an enormous payday. Now listen, last year, Peter from Colorado won a million bucks at DraftKings in one day, just playing fantasy baseball. And with that million bucks, Peter is going to buy himself a second name. Hundreds of thousands of fantasy sports fans just like you have already cashed in at DraftKings. Now it's your turn. Hurry to DraftKings.com now and enter promo code Gilbert to play for free. You could win part of the $300 million in prizes being awarded this season.

Use promo code Gilbert for free entry now at DraftKings.com. DraftKings.com. That's DraftKings.com. Am I repeating myself? Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. Our guests today have written, produced, and directed 17 documentaries for PBS, ABC News, Turner Entertainment, and various film studios, taking viewers into the lives and homes of dozens of Hollywood legends, including Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward, and Jimmy Stewart and Spencer Tracy, to name just a few. In the process, they've worked with people like

Jane Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, Johnny Carson, Olivia de Havilland, Audrey Hepburn, and Frank Sinatra. They've won numerous Emmy Awards and set the gold standard for every televised biopic of the last 40 years. They're also revered for their body of work and so respected in the industry, I can't for the life of me figure out why they agreed to do this show. figure out why they agreed to do this show.

Welcome to the authors of the new book in the company of legends, Joan Kramer and David Healy. Are you talking about us? You're the one. What an intro. I don't think we can live up to this. Yeah, well, say it's an intro slash obituary. You can't live up to this. Found dead in their late Tahoe home.

That's not funny. You do know Dick Cavett holds the record of the only talk show host to ever have a guy die. Oh, yes. The health food guy. The guy that wrote health food books. Yes. Yeah, yes. He told us about it.

He keeled over. Yeah. I would think that hurt the sales of that book. Well, you know what happened? I us about it. He keeled over. Yeah. I would think that hurt the sales of that book. Well, you know what happened? I'll tell you the story if you have the time. He arrived at the studio and the makeup artist, a woman named Toy Russell, who was Dick's makeup artist and everybody else's, led him into the makeup room and said, you know, you look fabulous. And she said to me later, you know, I know faces. I've been doing people's faces for a long time. And she said to me later, you know, I know faces.

I've been doing people's faces for a long time. And this guy looked great. I didn't know how old he was. So he sat down in my makeup chair and I said to him, you know, you don't need a lot. You just need a little powder to take off the shine. And he said, you know the secret of my success? I'm 77 years old. She said, what's the secret of your success?

I eat nothing but twigs, leaves, bark. In the meantime, she says she's pushing her potato chips and her Coke down the counter. And he said, I eat nothing but natural things that you can find outside. And she said, really? And she led him out to the stage. And he goes on camera. They tape segment one. And Dick says, you know, without the real commercial rolled in, we'll be right back with J.J. Rodale. And they went, you know, a two-second break and then up came the camera because they'll roll the commercial in later. And he starts talking to J.J. Rodale again and J.J. Rodale went, thank God I wasn't there that day.

And Dick said, am I boring you? No answer. By the way, the wife was in the audience. And Dick said, hello. And he leaned over and poked him and the body fell on the floor. Well, you know, to say the least, it was the one and only time, certainly in my days there, that they ever stopped tape and cleared the audience. They taped no matter what except this.

Well, they called the fire department, which was across the street from the little theater where we were taping, and the stage was ramped. And so the fire department came with a stretcher up the ramp through the audience. The wife is hysterical, of course, sitting there. And in such a melee, they put the body on the stretcher and went straight down the ramp. They forgot to strap the body on the stretcher. It rolled off onto the floor. In the meantime, Dick had disappeared backstage. No cell phones at that time.

He was overheard on a pay phone making an appointment for a complete physical with his doctor. Oh, nice time. So some good came out of it. Unbelievable. Thank God my mother used to go to tapings. Thank God she wasn't there to see a body roll on the floor. He told us the story. It's scary. It really is. Does it match my story? Oh, yeah, pretty much. Now, there was another – like in the movie on Golden Pond where Henry and Jane Fonda play appropriately enough father and daughter, she's a woman trying to come to terms with her emotionally aloof father who has no love or affection for his children. And judging by your book, that sounds like it could be a home movie.

It was – there were certain reflections of the truth in that. I think making the movie was a catharsis for Jane because she was able to say things as a character to her father that she couldn't say in real life. And Kate was her moral support. Kate would stand just behind the camera offstage basically egging Jane on, giving her the strength to continue with some of these extremely difficult scenes. Wow. With her fist, you can do it. Really? You can do it. Go! Because Jane was, she said it was a waking up in the morning wanting to throw up kind of experience on the day she had to do those scenes.

And the other thing is that in the script she was required to do a backflip into the water. And her intention was to have a stand-in do it obviously. And then she – and talking to Kate, she realized that Kate would not approve of that. And she learned to do a backflip to prove to Kate that she could actually do it. And that's what we see in the movie. It's really Jane doing it. Because Kate admitted to her that she could do a backflip. She herself could do a backflip. She herself could do a backflip. And Jane thought, I'll be damned if I'm not going to

do this backflip. Somehow they'd gone 45 years, both of them in Hollywood, Henry Fonda and Catherine Hepburn, without meeting. And what did Catherine Hepburn say upon meeting him? Did she say something like... Well, it's about time. And didn't she give him Spencer Tracy's hat? The first day of filming, he told us she had something in her hand all crunched up and he couldn't tell what it was. And she said, here, this was Spencer's favorite hat. And he said, you know, this beautiful brown crushable felt hat. And he said, I collapsed. He started to cry. And he wore it in the first scene of the film. And he said, after the scene, I thought she wanted me to just have it as wardrobe.

And he tried to give it back to her. And she said, but it's yours. I want you to have it. And he had it. And he propped it on the side of a bench in his backyard and we shot it. It's in the book. Now, there was a story that hit Frank and I very hard and that was that he was so unloving to his children, Henry Fonda, that – what did Peter Fonda used to do as a child? Well, first of all, let me just say that Henry Fonda, you know, we're quite close to Shirley Fonda, Henry's widow, still. And Shirley made it very clear from the time that she knew Henry, which was the longest marriage he ever had. from the time that she knew Henry, which was the longest marriage he ever had. Henry had two complicated children by his first wife. Jane is not uncomplicated. She's a wonderful lady, and we adore her, and very vulnerable, by the way. She's not a tough broad, as some people

think. But Peter is complicated, and so is Jane. Is that Henry's fault? I don't know. She had a mother who committed suicide. You know, their mother committed suicide. I mean, I don't know how much of aloof and unloving Henry Fonda truly was. There are pictures of him with the kids crawling over his shoulders and as little kids, etc. However, the answer to your question is, long-winded, Peter told me on the phone in my first conversation with him that he used to open his father's dresser drawers and touch his pajamas and his socks just to feel closer to him. And he told me at that point that he was writing a book called Don't Tell Dad, which wasn't published for about five years after we did the show, but he did publish it. And I suddenly realized I'm talking to a grown man who's basically – I mean I had to pinch myself to remember I'm not talking to a little kid.

Not that he sounded like a little kid, but the emotions were – He was still looking for his father. Still looking for approval and love from his father when he told me that. I mean I was very – number one, I was touched that he would share that with me. And number two, I really had to stop and remember that Peter was at the time 50-something years old when he was talking about this. This happened because when we did the show, Jane – this is the time when Ted Turner and Jane Fonda were engaged. And Ted in a way gave Jane an engagement gift which was a show about her father which was going to go on TNT and she was going to host it. So when we met – and then they called us and asked if we'd produce the show.

So when we met Jane, she said, I'm going to contact everybody for you. produce the show. So when we met Jane, she said, I'm going to contact everybody for you. She contacted Shirley to introduce us to Shirley. And she contacted Peter to introduce us to Peter. And that's when Joan called Peter and got this wonderful story about the pajamas in the drawer. But Shirley, we had met actually a number of years earlier when we interviewed Henry in connection with a show we were doing about Katharine Hepburn. They just finished on Golden Pond. And Shirley wouldn't let us into the house. She did not want a film crew in the house.

And frankly, I totally understand. I've taken film crews into houses and I can understand somebody saying, I don't want a film crew in my house. So our first meeting with Shirley was she was somewhat distant. And when we actually met her again as a result of Jane introducing us when we were doing the show on Henry, we met her in a restaurant in New York. And she was very polite, very pleasant. But we sensed a little remove, a certain remoteness from her. But we sensed a little remove, a certain remoteness from her. We eventually met her again in the house in Bel-Air where she and Henry had lived.

And we met because we were going to go through with some memorabilia. She found stuff for us. And what was going to be like a half hour or maybe the most enow, went way late into the evening. We ordered pizza and she was rummaging, going down to the basement, pulling up photographs and bringing up film. David and she were running up and down stairs while I sat there looking through it all. And then the next morning she called Joan and said, I found more. You've got to come back. I found more. But what she said was, she said, I'm really sorry. I felt I was somewhat remote. She said, I wasn't ready to deal with talking about Henry yet. It's still too close to me, too difficult for me. And she had never looked through the stuff that she was showing us from the

basement before. Interesting. So it was very emotional and cathartic at the same time. Of course. And didn't she give you some lithographs as a gift? We're very close to Shirley. We're very close to Shirley. That's nice. We've gone from this remoteness to being extremely close. Henry was an incredible artist. Needlepoint and painter and sketch, black and white sketches. Yeah, the lithographs are in the book, I should say.

One of the lithographs includes that, that Kate gave. Yes, I saw it in the book. lose the hat that Kate gets. That's the thought in the book. Yes. Now, one thing in the book that, you know, me and Frank being Three Stooges fans hit us in particular is that Jimmy Stewart, was he like taking lessons or influenced by Ted Healy? What was the story he told down about Ted Healy?

It was something about respecting your audience. Ted Healy was a stand-in for him, I think, at one point. Very early on in the 30s. Because for those who don't know, it originally, Ted Healy was a vaudeville performer. And it was Ted Healy and his three stooges until they branched off on their own. I didn't even know that. We're trying to wrap our minds around Ted Healy and Jimmy Stewart. It's so incongruous.

Ted Healy was basically Moe before Moe took over. Like he would slap them. That's right. The stooges went through many incarnations, didn't they? Yeah. Well, Ted Healy apparently either was a stand-in or something at MGM when Jimmy started making movies and they became good friends. And he Jimmy Stewart told us that that was the best advice he was ever given. Never treat your audience as customers. Treat them as your partners. And he said he's never forgotten that. And he said he's never forgotten that. And another thing about Jimmy Stewart that seems to be common with people who've been through World War II is he actually was a hero.

I mean, he wasn't one of those guys, you know, in down south station. He didn't just sell war buttons. Yeah. He wasn't just having his picture taken in front of a plane. He was on bombing missions. The lead pilot on over 25 bombing missions over Germany. It was very hard to find film of him at that time because he avoided the cameras. But we did find one piece of him talking to camera and you can see how tired he is. You can see he's drained of energy because they were up all hours and those were very draining.

He already had his squadron. And we had on the Jimmy Stewart show – I don't know if either of you have ever seen it. I've seen it. We had on the show his superior in the United States Air Corps, it was called, before the Air Force. Ramsey Potts, his name was. James Stewart, A Wonderful Life, the show was called. We should – Thank you. Tell our listeners. that he was always very easy to talk to, but he also had a hard sense of discipline,

and he could be very tough when he had to. And he led, as Ramsey Potts said, over 25 bombing missions as the lead pilot, and there would sometimes be hundreds of planes behind him. I mean, it was a huge battalion going after these. By the way, the reason we had to get Ramsey parts is because we'd heard that Jimmy himself wouldn't talk about those. Yeah. What happened when you asked him to talk about it? There's something in the book about it.

Well, we had to talk. we had to deal with his war experience. Otherwise, it was not going to be a full portrait of Jimmy Stewart because most people didn't know about this. And it was a very important aspect of who Jimmy Stewart really is or was, I should say. But we'd been warned that he didn't like to talk about it. Nevertheless, when we sat down to do the interview, and I did the first off-camera interview with him before we put him with Johnny Carson who was the host of the show, I decided I had to go for it. And I said to him, Mr. Stewart, could you describe for us a typical bombing mission over Germany? No. And being the brave fellow that I was, I moved right on to the next question.

It's very peculiar. You got out while getting was good. Yeah, but you see – and I don't – I'm sorry to interrupt you. How dare you talk? Yes, I'm not known for that. My guests aren't allowed to speak. Yes, I'm not known for that. My guests aren't allowed to speak.

I had called around to ask people to talk to me about Jimmy Stewart, not necessarily for quoting them or to be on camera. But I just wanted a full picture of the man that had this image of aw shucks and gee whiz, right? And it's a wonderful life and – All the Capra heroes. All the Capra heroes. So among the people I called was a producer director named Hal Cantor. Hal Cantor had produced and I don't – I think he directed like seven episodes. He directed some of them too, yeah. Some of the episodes of something called The Jimmy Stewart Show in 1971. Am I right about that, David? Whatever.

Close. And I said to him, you know, I know that he's got this reputation. And please believe me, Mr. Cantor, I'm not looking for negatives. I'm not. But I'd like a full picture of this man who has this aw shucks image. And he said, let me tell you about Jimmy Stewart. I'll give you a little piece of advice. Because I said to him, Mr. Kander, you worked with him, you know, on a weekly series. It's not quite the same thing as us dealing with Jimmy Stewart, maybe five times during the course of

the making of this program. I said, you had him every single day for months, right? And long hours. He said to me, let me give you a piece of advice. He said, first of all, Jimmy Stewart has lived in the same house for over 40 years in Hollywood, when people tear down houses and build houses faster than we change socks. for over 40 years without a hint of scandal. He is nice, he is polite, and he's a gentleman. Don't mess with him. He didn't say mess. He used the F word. I see.

I see. Joe won't say it. I said, excuse me? And he said, never forget a few things. The man knows what he wants. He knows what's right for him, and he knows how to dig in his heels when he has to. He has, again, been a Republican in a town where all of his friends, including Henry Fonda, his best friend, are Democrats, all of his friends, including Henry Fonda, his best friend, are Democrats for the most part. He does not back down. He retired as a brigadier general from the military after 27 years. And he never forget that he flew over 25 bombing missions as the lead pilot. My best advice to you is don't

try pulling wool over his eyes. Don't mess with him and you'll get along fine. And we did. We didn't pull wool. No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't imagine. On possibly the other side of the World War II battles, Errol Flynn, who, you know, was a big swashbuckler, handsome Errol Flynn, who I remember hearing a quote much the same way they called John Barrymore, the great profile, that they had nicknamed Errol Flynn the great Jew hater. Oh, I've never heard that. Yeah.

I had read that somewhere. There were a lot of rumors about Errol Flynn, and I didn't hear that one. And they said that he – there's some people who even suspected him of being a Nazi spy. Ah, that's where it came from. That's where it came from. He – let me see if I can remember the story now. He, in his early days, before anybody knew who Errol Flynn was, met with – what's the guy's name? What's the guy's name?

Castro? No, no, no, no. Who's the- Oh, the, oh God. I'm sorry. The German, there's a German, there was a German person who later was thought to be a spy. Yes.

Double agent, so to speak. Interesting. And Errol Flynn knew this man, and I can't think of his name for the life of me. So it rubbed off. If this guy was a spy, then Errol Flynn must have been... We'll have our researchers outside look it up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It just went out of my head.

But he also was accused because Errol Flynn was hired as a journalist to cover the Spanish-American War for a while. He also knew Fidel Castro. And everybody put it all together and came up with, okay, he's a spy.

And it was proven that he wasn't. Makes good copy. It makes good copy. Very good copy, yeah. There were so many rumors that went around about Errol Flynn. We tried to see if any of them were true. Most of the rumors were not. Right. By the way, can I just debunk – tell you a rumor that we did debunk?

Please do. Jimmy Stewart was never – Jimmy Stewart – one more time. Jimmy Stewart never enlisted, which was everybody's impression in the United States military. That's what the publicity – Because he was such a patriot. It was easy to believe that. He was drafted and he told us umpteen times, I was drafted. Read my lips.

I say it's the only lottery I ever won. And by the way, when Johnny Carson was reading the narration script for that, he came across that point and he said, this is wrong. You've got this wrong. He was- He enlisted. He enlisted. And he said, no, no, no, no. We've checked. He said, please, please, call Jimmy again.

I want to make sure we get this right. Joan called Jimmy. He said, read my lips. It was the only lottery I ever won. I was drafted. I will tell you again. And Carson originally didn't want to narrate. The story about Johnny Carson is rather interesting. When we finally persuaded Jimmy Stewart to let us do a show about him,

we had to come up with a host. And strangely, we hadn't thought much about it. We were having so much trouble getting Jimmy to say yes, yes, yes. But we were actually on our way to a meeting at MGM. We were co-producing the show with them. And I said to Joan, Joan, we haven't got a host yet.

Who are we going to use as the host? We're in the car. We were literally in the car on the way to the meeting. We knew this question was going to come up. Jean Arthur didn't cross your mind at all? I love Jean Arthur. My lover, too. She made several pictures with him.

Yes, she did. But probably retired by that, well retired by that point. Jean Arthur was hard to find anyway. She was, she had become

so big of a recluse. So I said, but you know, I said to Joan, look, he's so wonderful with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.

Maybe we should ask Johnny Carson. And she said, look, let's say Johnny Carson. They'll love the idea, right? So we go into the meeting and said,

we're thinking of going after Johnny Carson. And we said to ourselves, how the hell are we going to say Johnny Carson. They'll love the idea, right? So we go into the meeting and say, we're thinking of going after Johnny Carson. And we said to ourselves, how the hell are we going to get Johnny Carson? Joan got to work. Joan, you spoke to Jimmy's publicist, wasn't you? Jimmy's publicist was a lovely man who quickly became a friend named John Strauss, who represented everybody in Hollywood at one point. But he was Jimmy's press agent for something like 46 years, 45 years. John Strauss, I said to him, John, you know, we're thinking of Johnny Carson, but, you

know, he never does anything outside of occasionally the Oscar telecasts as the host. Johnny was on The Tonight Show. He knew he did that well. He didn't want to do anything else. Yeah, there's a piece in the book about him telling you guys why he always turned down movie roles. Turned down the king of comedy. Yeah. The talk show host part. He knew who he was and he knew what he did well. And he knew for a man who obviously must have had an ego and I'm sure people fed it. He knew exactly what to stay away from because he knew what he couldn't do.

And a lot of people don't know what they can't do. He said, the moment I do a movie, the critics are going to chew me up and they'll be right. Well, he was fun in cameos in television shows. He played himself on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. That was fun. But that's him. But that's being him. He's being Johnny Carson.

That's true. That's true. And also, anyway, so John Strauss said to me, the only person I can think of for you to try getting to Johnny quickly is David Tebbitt. David Tebbitt was largely responsible for Johnny getting The Tonight Show when Jack Parr quit because David Tebbitt was the head talent person at NBC for years. So he gave me the telephone number of David Tebbitt. How he knew David Tebbett, I never asked, but anyway, I called David Tebbett, who couldn't have been nicer, and he said, send me a letter, and I'll hand it to Johnny. So we sent a FedEx letter to California, and three days later, David Tebbett called me and said, don't tell him I told you. He asked me to give you his home number, which was a

clue. Don't tell him I told you, but he's going to do this for you. But let him tell you himself. He wants to tell you himself. So I took the number and I dialed the phone. And I have to say, I grew up watching Johnny Carson. I'd sit in front of a television doing homework watching Johnny Carson in Chicago. Yeah, we all did. Yeah. And so he answered the phone himself. He and Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward all answer phones by themselves. And Katherine Hepburn. And Katherine Hepburn.

So he answered the phone. And I must say it was a – I don't consider myself a sycophant when it comes to stars because I've dealt with them so many years. But this was a high talking to Johnny Carson. And I said to him, I told him who it was. And I said, David Tebbitt asked me to give you a call. And I didn't say because I didn't want to betray Dave Tebbitt. And he said to me, listen, I'll be happy to do this program with you if you're sure it would be okay with Jim. I said, trust me. It'll be fine. By the way, they were both like that.

They both wanted to be sure that the other one was okay. They were constantly asking if the other was comfortable doing something for them. They really – they were very close and very caring about each other. Two Midwesterners. Yes. And also – but it was real. I mean that wasn't just because Jimmy appeared on The Tonight Show and they were terrific reading – him reading his funny poem. What you saw on The Tonight Show was real.

That was real. That was not an act. They really adored each other and they were like a mutual admiration. They drove me crazy because on the day that we shot both of them at Universal for the full day on the lot, you know, David will tell you in a minute about his concerns for Johnny. He wasn't concerned for Jimmy, but this is Johnny out of his milieu, right? Johnny's used to a live audience, one take and it's over. Here he had to sit around and the crew had to move locations and he had to wait and he had to do it over again. And he kept saying, David, I know you need it again.

Okay, okay, I'll do it again. And Jimmy would sit by when he had to do something alone and say, that's great, John. Great, John. And Johnny would blow his lines and say, do you like that one, Jim? Great John. And Johnny would blow his lines and say, do you like that one, Jim? Anyway, but Johnny – so what was I talking about? You were talking about Johnny saying yes.

Oh, yes. Only to then change his mind. So Johnny said yes. Could I just interrupt for a second? Getting a big star like that so easily. In three days. It was very, very rare. Usually you're chasing all around the moon looking for this contact.

This was almost unheard of to get somebody to say yes through one contact like this. So we were on the moon. We were over the moon with this. This is wonderful. And he said, when you're coming to California again, we told him, he said, OK, come to my house in Malibu and let's talk about it. Point Dume. He had a beautiful new house. Literally 180-degree view of the water.

Wasn't quite finished. He was still building tennis courts, which he showed us. He was a great tennis fan. He took us out and he was so proud of these tennis courts. He told us that the next-door neighbors, which probably is about three miles away, but the next-door neighbors had two emus. You know how big an emu is? He said, every so often I see the emus in the distance because they're big. Anyway, so then he led us downstairs to his den on a winding staircase. By the way, the landing of the staircase had a full size figure of Stan Laurel. Oh, I love that. Full size, because he was a great fan of Stan Laurel's.

And so we got downstairs and he – And his weights, by the way. And his weights. It was a little kind of gym down there. Yeah. Very cozy. Not terribly big. And he said, you know, I've been thinking about this.

You just did a show with Catherine Hepburn hosting a program about Spencer Tracy. And, you know, she not only knew him, but she worked with him in films. I never worked with Jim other than when he comes on my show, but we're friends. I think I'm the wrong guy to host this show. It was too easy, wasn't it? I threw a monkey wrench in there. Well, David and I, I mean, you could have cut through the room's silence. David and I, we couldn't believe it.

And neither of us opened our mouth. I mean, we couldn't stand it. And we said, what? Why? What? And he said, you know, the guy you need is Cary Grant. Now, if Johnny Selden did anything on television, Cary Grant never did anything on television. Nothing.

And I mean never. But you have to admit from producer's point of view, the idea that Cary Grant would host our program would be the coup of all time. Not that Johnny wasn't a coup, but Cary Grant never appeared on television, ever. And hadn't he turned you down already to that point, Cary Grant? You'd approached him about several things. We approached him about doing a show about him. Right. Yes.

And didn't he say, if I do it for you, I have to do it for everybody? Yeah, but if Johnny was going to ask him, who knew what he was going to say? Of course. Worth a shot. So Johnny said, that's when I found a voice somehow. And I said, Johnny, look, Katherine Hepburn hosting a show about Spencer Tracy is one thing. It's unique. We're not trying to replicate that.

We can't replicate that. We're not going to ask Gloria Stewart to host a show on her husband. It doesn't make any sense. I said, what you represent is every man who was lucky enough in the end to become his friend. And he nodded and he said, let me ask Cary and see what he says. Well, David and I left that house. We came on a high and we left feeling like death. Let's talk about going from one extreme to the other.

We were really up when we drove there. We drove driving back. We were in the depths of depression because I said to John, look, Cary Grant, yeah, it's a great idea. But if we get him, he's going to overshadow Jimmy Stewart. The show's about Jimmy Stewart. People are going to be watching Cary Grant. What the hell do we do with this situation? And Joan said, and I have a feeling that if Cary Grant says, no, Johnny's going to try and find somebody else, he's trying to get out of this. I mean, this could go on for months. And we thought we were in heaven because we got

somebody in Johnny in three days. He could run around for months looking for one person after another, checking with us whether we think it's a good idea and then getting a no and starting with the next person. It looked like he was trying to find a way out, a nice way out. But – Fast forward to the next morning. Next morning, I'm in my hotel room in Los Angeles, in Beverly Hills. By the way, none of us – neither of us slept very well. I can imagine. At all.

By the way, none of us slept very well. I can imagine. At all. On top of which, we weren't sure Johnny may not have been testing us because, after all, we didn't know Johnny. The first time we met him, he could very well have been thinking, let's see what they say if I try somebody really big. Because Johnny didn't think of himself that way as a movie star. And so I thought – I said to David, David, do you think he's testing us? I mean, maybe he doesn't want us to leap at the idea of Cary Grant. But he was serious. He said, let me try him. So the next morning, my phone rings in the hotel room. Well, he said, I've

called Cary. And the housekeeper told me he's out of town doing that one man show he does at colleges about his life and career. He won't come on my show or anybody else's show, and we're friends, but he goes to colleges and talks about his life and career. And so he's going to be away for several weeks, and I guess so. I guess you're stuck with me. Well, as you probably can gather, I'm seldom speechless. And I had to stop for a minute and I said, Johnny, you have no idea how happy I am to be so stuck. Fast forward two and a half weeks. We're back in New York and it's Thanksgiving weekend. And the Sunday after that Thanksgiving that year, at about six o'clock at

night, there was a news bulletin flash all over the full screen television, Cary Grant dead in Davenport, Iowa. He died on the way to one of those appearances at one of the colleges. Next morning, Monday, phone rings, 10 o'clock in the morning, which is 7 a.m. in L.A. I was going to call Johnny, but he beat me to it. I didn't want to wake him up. I didn't know what time he gets up in the morning. He called me. I said, Johnny, I'm so sorry I was going to call you. I'm so sorry. After all, we were fans, but we didn't really know Cary Grant. You were a friend. I feel terrible just as a fan, let alone what you must be feeling. I'm so sorry.

And he said to me, Joan, I hope you're sitting down. I said, why? And he said, because I have to tell you what I wanted to say when you just answered the phone. I said, okay. And he said, I wanted to say, I asked Cary Grant to host your show and he dropped dead. Another great actor.

And I think he was like one of the earliest of a different type of acting. And that was John Garfield. Another guy you made a documentary about. We did. With the help of his family members. Peter Robinson Yes. Julie – just like the Shirley Fonda story, Julie is a great friend. We're still very close to Julie.

We see her frequently. Julie apparently had suggested to TCM that they might want to do a show about her father because they own all his early movies. And TCM then called us and said, would you be interested? We said, wow, it sounds like a great story. This John Garfield story is a wonderful story. Terrible story. And sad. It's a terrible story.

I say it's a wonderful story in terms of it has all the ingredients of a fictional story. It's somebody who started as a street kid, became a great movie star, and then died in his prime. He was hounded. 39 years old. Yeah, shame. Many people say he was hounded to death. Well, didn't Lee Grant say it in the documentary?

She does say it. Yes. We have people in the documentary who are very outspoken about this, that he was hounded not because he was a a communist but because he knew people who were communists and because his wife had at one point been a member of the Communist Party. And the House Un-American Activities Committee basically wouldn't let him go. They were at a point in their life where people were losing interest in what they were doing. They needed a big movie star to bring themselves back into prominence, and they chose John Garfield. Because what Julie told us is that after they grilled him for hours and hours after day after day with the FBI following him,

they would all ask – all the members of the HUAC committee would ask at the end of the day to take a picture with him. So here they are in the process of ruining his life but they want a photo of him. Literally. I mean – Yeah. It tells you what kind of people they were. It's hypocrisy of course. But I guess we're used to hypocrisy like this.

This was just to tell our audience. This was during the communist scare in the 50s of Senator Joe McCarthy. Yeah, McCarthy was the face of the various committees that were basically trying to make a name for themselves by convincing the American public that there were communists in their closets and the communists in the government and we had to get rid of them all. I had a friend. I went to film school and I had a friend, a screenwriter named Arnaud Dussault. I don't know if you know the name. He was named by Kazan.

Yes, yes. And had to go to Mexico and work on B-Pictures. Many people's lives were ruined by the politicians who were trying to put themselves in the limelight. And those who decided to name names. And what was interesting is that

some people named names such as Odette's, Jerome Robbins. They were in the end forgiven because they capitulated and apologized. Kazan never did. Interesting. Interesting. Kazan, in his autobiography, actually said, I did the right thing. I had to name names because there was a serious communist scare. He never, never apologized. And when we did the program with Joanne Woodward about the group theater, she had a wrap party after the production, which took, by the way, five and a half years, but that's another story. She had a wrap party after the production, which took, by the way, five and a half years, but that's another story. She had a wrap party and she invited everybody who participated in the program. And she called me up and she said, what am I going to do about Gaj, which was Kazan's nickname for a long time, Gaj. I said, what do you mean?

She said, I can't invite him to the party even though he's in the show. Nobody will come. Because every one of the participants, such as Phoebe Brandon Karnofsky and Ruth Nelson and Eunice Stoddard and Margaret Barker, were all named by him from their days together in the group theater. And they said to us, we'll participate in the show, but I cannot be in the same room with Kazan. Never. And this is 40 years later, right? And so I said, Joanne, I don't know what to tell you. She said, you know what?

Let me call you back in 10 minutes. I know how to handle this. And she called back in 10 minutes, and she says, I simply called Gadge, and I said to him, look, I'm giving a wrap party for the show we've done about the group theater and I can't ask you to it. She said, however, why don't you and Paul and I have dinner next week, Paul Newman, her husband. And that was the end of the problem. When she called me back, she says, he's not dumb. I didn't have to explain why I can't invite him. Such a shame, a man of such talent.

Yeah, and the films he made. Yes, just brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Facing the crowd. And yet here's this fatal personality flaw. I read a quote where they asked Paul Newman his opinion on Ilya Kazan being a friendly witness. And he said, it's very easy now to say what you would have done back then. That's what Katharine Hepburn told us, too. I asked her.

You did. I said to her, because she had Kazan's autobiography on her side table when we went to lunch one day, and I said, what do you think of that book? And I said, let me ask you something. Could you ever see yourself as having done what he did back then? And she said, you know something? as having done what he did back then. And she said, you know something?

I will never judge somebody until I have stood in their shoes. I had a family, if they had come after me, you know, she made speeches wearing a pure red dress at the time, deliberately, on behalf of Roosevelt. And she said, if they had come after me, and my career went, you know, in the dumps as a result, I had a family, I had a house, I had siblings, I didn't have to support a family and a wife or husband or whatever. She said he did. I don't know what I would have done if he, if I were in his shoes at the time. I said to her, I do.

And she just smiled. She wouldn't have named names. No way. You knew her well. No way. So they were after John Garfield, and then what happened then?

Well, he, again, what really happened, we'll never know because we don't have that insight. He had had a heart problem. Rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever from his late teens, early 20s and it had always bothered him. Was it just coincidence? Well, the stress of it couldn't have helped. Because he had stopped working.

Well, he couldn't. No, he was blacklisted. Yeah, yeah. He could not find work. He couldn't make any. He made two films himself under his own company. He couldn't get any other work at all. He went back to the stage as a result and did work on the stage and work in television but he could not get any other work at all. He went back to the stage as a result and did work on the stage and work in television. But he could not get any more movie work.

Interestingly enough, he was still friends with Kazan, who directed him many times. To the end. You know, I can't answer that. I'm not sure. I remember when Kazan was given that Oscar a few years ago. I remember how polarizing that was. Remember that, Gil? Oh, very, yeah.

Some people would stand and applaud and other people remain seated. Some people had their arms crossed. Oh, the shot of the audience was very revealing. The audience shot was what was the big thing. It really divided people. Absolutely. Still. This is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp.

As a podcast listener, you've heard from us before. Today, let's hear what members have told us. One member said, I would recommend my therapist 1,000 times over. She has truly changed my life. Another member said, the day after my first session, my friends and family said I sounded like myself again for the first time in weeks. You deserve to invest in your well-being. Visit BetterHelp.com to see what it can do for you. That's BetterHelp.com.

Now, I have to get a little salacious. There's always the rumor that John Garfield died in a hotel room with a young blonde. It's not all that far off the truth. What? It's not all that far off the truth. What? It's not all that far off the truth. It wasn't a hotel room. He was in Gramercy Park, I think, wasn't he? It was a woman whose name was Iris Whitney, who I believe was an interior decorator.

The story we heard was that their intimate relationship had come to an end. But they remained friends and they went out to dinner and he ate all the wrong foods. You know, when you're upset and stressed, you start giving yourself comfort food. Well, he had a rheumatic heart and he's hounded and followed. And, you know, they were following him in addition to the FBI was following him and the phones were tapped. The phones were tapped and he ate all the the wrong foods and he said he wasn't feeling well. And she said, come back and, you know, you can take a rest in my place in Gramercy Park. And she put him to bed and she went in to check on him in the morning and he was dead.

By the way, talking about the FBI following him, many, many years later, his wallet turned up. In his wallet was the number of the FBI agent that followed him. Unbelievable. Oh, my God. Underrated actor, John Garfield. Oh, he was quite brilliant. I don't know if you've read that part in the book, but you know who's an incredible movie buff is Richard Dreyfuss. Yeah, we should mention that Richard Dreyfuss worked with you guys

and was a narrator on The Universal Story as well. And he wrote the foreword to the book. And wrote the foreword to the new book. He dictated it to me on the phone off the top of his head. We're big fans, Gilbert and I, of Richard Dreyfuss. He's wonderful. Oh, he's terrific. He's so funny and so brilliant when it comes to movies.

I mean, he can pick out a tiny little element of a movie that you would have never paid attention to. And suddenly he brings that element alive. Can I remind you how we first met him and realized this? When we were doing the show on Jimmy Stewart, we said to Stewart, can you tell us some of today's actors that you think are good, worth watching? And on the list was Richard Dreyfuss.

He only had four, and we went after two and got them. Wow. I'll tell you who the four were if you want to know. Yes, please. Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Richard Dreyfuss, and Clint Eastwood. And why? Clint Eastwood was on the list because he hoped that Clint Eastwood would revitalize what he considers a true American art form, which is the movie Western. And so we went after Clint Eastwood and we went after Richard. We didn't go after Dustin and we didn't go after Redford because in those days, they've gotten better.

But we used to see them every how often on a television interview and they weren't great. It was sort of monosyllables, answers. Oh, yeah. When we got Richard, he was actually making a movie on the Warner's lot with Barbara Streisand. Called Nuts. Oh, yes. Where he's the psychiatrist. Right. That's right. And he said, look, I'm going to have a break in the afternoon tomorrow. Why don't you come to the lot and we'll do the interview. So we said to him, are there any particular scenes in any of Stuart's movies that we should pay attention to?

He described a scene. Was it in Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A scene in Mr. Smith in such great detail. That nobody would pay attention to normally. About how Stuart is handling a hat. Stuart's talking to somebody, but it's what he's doing with that. Oh, he keeps dropping the hat when he's in the scene with,

is it Gene Arthur's scene? It's not Gene Arthur. It's another senator's daughter who he's smitten with. You're right. You're right. And every time she comes in the room, as Richard said, he can't hold his hat in his hand. That's right. That's right. So he keeps dropping the hat behind him and bending down, but he never loses eye contact. He said, Richard said, I've tried it in a mirror. It's impossible. I don't know how he did it because it's choreography in addition to delivering the lines and keeping the dialogue going. He said, we never in a million years would have used that scene in our show.

We did, thanks to Richard. But that's when we realized that Richard really is a movie buff. He knows his movies big time. And it's Jimmy Stewart who named all those? Yes. I can't get over what an honor that is to all those actors. Isn't it?

So Richard must have been thrilled when you told him that. Oh, he was. And Richard became a friend ever since. And we asked him to host Universal Story story which he ate up and spit out he just loved that stuff here is the history of movies the history of universal wow that's gilbert stuff yeah but let me let me just say one thing to you and but when um when richard he became a repertory player for us. So when we asked him to appear on the John Garfield, for the John Garfield show,

he told us something that I couldn't remember because we didn't use it in the program in any great length. And when we were writing this chapter in the book, I remembered and I said, David, I've got to ask him what he said about people of dramatic actors who have a wound. And he said, call him. So I called Richard at home. This is several months ago. I said, Richard, do you remember when you did the John Garfield show for us? You started

to tell us about your theory that every dramatic actor in the 30s and 40s has a wound. I said, can you talk to me about that? Because frankly, we have the transcript somewhere, but our office is in David's loft. He has a big loft. And David was having construction work. We couldn't get to anything at that moment. And I needed to know what he had to say.

He said, sure. He said, my feeling is that every actor of the 30s and 40s who played in dramatic roles, not necessarily, not comedies, even now, he says, has an offstage wound. I said, you mean in real life? When he said offstage, I thought that's what he meant. He said, no, I mean an offstage as the character that the audience may never be told about. For instance, he said the best example is take a look at Humphrey Bogart's face. The moment you see him in Casablanca, he's got a wound. You know that before it's explained in the script.

So he didn't mean the actor had it in his personal life. He meant it was a device that the actor was using. Do you know what he's doing? Richard is describing to me a method, and Richard is not a method actor. He wasn't trained in the method. So all the actors of that era, so Paul Muni, so we could look for that. John Garfield had a wound. He said the best example, he talked to us about Gentleman's Agreement,

in which Garfield has a very small part but it's a pivotal part. Oh, what a powerful scene. And he said – and Richard described – he says a drunk bumps into his chair and he's sitting there in full dress uniform because he plays a military officer. And the drunk bumps into his chair with his buddy and he said to him, sorry, man. Sorry. Hey, you know something? I don't like, you know the scene? I don't like officers. And Garfield laughs, and he says, it's funny, I don't like officers either. And the guy says, hmm, what's your name? And Garfield

gives him his character's name, which is a Jewish last name. And he said, and I particularly don't like yids. And as Richard said, I was doing the interview, and I was as close as I am to this microphone to him, or maybe this far. And Richard said, he shocked the hell out of me. He said to me, he goes from this lighthearted, easygoing scene, and he's suddenly in that guy's face faster than you can spit. That's the wound.

He said it's usually a wound that has to do with lost love. But sometimes it has to do with racial bigotry. And that's what that wound was in that movie. In acting, I think they teach that actors should create a backstory like that. It's a story the audience doesn't know about. That's exactly what Richard's talking about. He says in the backstory, there's going to be a wound somewhere. And he says that may not be in the script, but as an actor, they find it.

It's fascinating. I'm going to look for it now. And you named Universal Studios. Yes, back to Universal. When I was a kid, they had all the old movies on TV and I watched all of them. The old gangster Bogart and Robinson Cagney and everything. But I fell in love, of course, with the old monster movies. And Universal were the kings of old monster movies and Universal were the kings

of the monster movies it was such a joy to do the Universal story because of that and also stage 28 still exists which is the original Phantom stage with the Paris Opera boxes

I think I read that they tore it down wasn't it supposedly haunted? Did we mention that Oh, wow. With the Paris Opera boxes there. I think I read that they tore it down. Oh, no. Wasn't it supposedly haunted? Did we mention that somebody say that the original Phantom of the Opera was shot on stage? We didn't say that. On stage 28. The original 1920s. With Lon Chaney.

Five, Lon Chaney, Phantom of the Opera. That's up Gilbert's alley. They built the stage especially for that. What did you find out about the old movies and how they became the masters of monsters? How long have you got? How long have you got? Universal kind of stumbled into

the horror movie thing. Carl Laemmle brought a lot of Germans over. Uncle Carl. Uncle Carl. Who needed to have his teeth done. Uncle Carl who employed his entire family on the Universal City lot. And he made his son the head of production at one point, which everybody said, this is going to be a total disaster. We were going to interview Carla Lemley for the show.

Yes. She just passed away. Oh, you missed her. Yeah, yeah. We talked to her at the time. Right after we wrote her name down. We wrote her name down and she passed away. Kiss of death, 102? Right after we wrote her name down. We wrote her name down and she passed away. Kiss of death, right?

Yes. The irony is that Carl Jr. ended up producing some of the best movies that Universal had. So they were wrong. But who knows how that happened. But a lot of these German filmmakers that came over in the silent era were experimenting with the sort of impressionistic lighting that was very common in German film. Like Caligari and those kind of things. Those films.

And they realized – well, Carl Laemmle realized that some of these films were extremely effective when they were telling these rather supernatural, strange stories. And they kind of stumbled into it. Then they got the rights to Dracula, the stage play Dracula. And they were not going to use Bela Lugosi. They were going to use Lon Chaney. And Lon Chaney died. So they brought in

Lugosi who'd done the stage play and of course the rest is history and I heard that at one point there was even a note sent down that said no Lugosi I think you're right and

that I think Lugosi said they considered every single actor in Hollywood plus Lemley's cousins and nephews and grandchildren. Unbelievable. I mean, all – apparently he really – there's an article which I can send you by email that was sent to us about how many people he saved from the holocaust carl emily did not know that wow by supporting their coming over sponsoring them coming over people like murnau and and i don't know i can't tell you off the top of my head but i have the article it was sent to me by email because that was always something that that me, the power that the studios had and they were mainly Jews and were they doing anything? Of course, Universal had a huge German subsidiary as well.

All the studios were heavily invested in Germany. So there was this tremendous conflict that the heads had. As you say, all the heads of the studios were Jews. But they had this business interest in Germany. So even though everything was going on there that they could see was pretty dire, they were very conflicted about what to do.

By the way, to this day, Richard Dreyfuss, as recently as two months ago, he's in Europe at the moment, so I haven't talked to him for a while. You know, what he does is teach civics. You know, he's teaching civics. He's an Oxford ago. He's in Europe at the moment, so I haven't talked to him for a while. You know, what he does is teach civics. You know, he's teaching civics. He's an Oxford fellow. He's an Oxford fellow. He went to Oxford for three years, and he teaches civics all over the world.

I didn't know that. A smart actor. I love that. We just talked about him on the previous podcast, The Goodbye Girl, which we both love. podcast, The Goodbye Girl, which we both love. Anyway, Richard was crazy about the story of Carl Lemley and how he gambled the studio

and lost it. On Showboat? That's a wonderful story. Richard has said to us every time I talk to him and every time we see him, the two of you should do a series of documentaries hold on to your chair, a series of documentaries tracing the entire history of the movie industry. I said, Richard, you're out of your mind.

well, we're not qualified to do that. We don't know very much. I mean, we know about the silent era, but I can't claim that I'm an expert on silent film. Joan, you don't know how much you and David know. I said, Richard, how much money do you think this series of yours, this concept, is going to cost? Do you know how much money studios charge for a film clip these days? We'd get them all for free i said really who do you know up there i mean he's unbelievable he keeps talking to me about that over and over and over i said richard give it up it's not gonna happen now uh as far as like the famous germans it was well called freund sure he directed The Mummy, right? Yeah.

Karl Freund. And the cinematography for Dracula. Yeah, he was the cinematographer on Dracula. Brilliant, of course. And Kurt Siadomach, who was the screenwriter of all those, you know, The Wolfman. Yes, yes, yes. The later ones. And, you know, William Wyre was a lemly relative.

We didn't know that until you told us before. It's good stuff. I mean, I don't know how. I don't know if he's a nephew or if he's a cousin. We didn't know that until you told us before. It's good stuff. I mean, I don't know how. I don't know if it's a nephew or if he's a cousin. I don't know. But Lemley sort of gathered them all together. This business of hiring members of family sounds crazy, but it actually paid off a few times.

And the beginning of Dracula is his granddaughter is the first line in Dracula in the carriage. So Dracula did well, so well that they realized they had something with monster films? Yes. And you know what happened? They went all in, huh? At the same time they shot Dracula, they had a night crew. And we interviewed the leading lady of the Spanish version.

They did the Spanish version at night with the same costumes, the same sets and different actors. What we should explain in those days, they didn't take an English language film and dub it. They actually produced separate films for other markets. And because the Spanish market was so big, they would often produce a Spanish language version of exactly the same film. Same sets. Not the same actors. Same sets. not the same actors, same sets, same lighting, same script, and just did the whole thing in Spanish. And we interviewed the leading lady for the Spanish version, whose name is Lupita Tovar, who is the mother, was the mother, of the actress Susan Conner and the wife of the agent

Paul Conner. I know that name. Wasn't he Billy Wilder's agent? I think he was. Oh, he was a huge agent. Yeah, I think he was. Lupita Tava told us that the costumes were often the same but not hers. She said in the American version, the costumes were quite, you know, fine.

Demure. Demure. And she says, my costume, you know, dipped down to there. The neckline really plunged into the Spanish version. I heard they would pass by each other when the American actors and crew were going home. They would see them, the Spanish actors come in and say, hey, how are you? You know the line we used in our show? Because we go from a clip from American Dracula with Bela Lugosi, I am Dracula, and suddenly we cut to the exact same scene with Soy Dracula.

Soy Dracula. So the line we used for the narration was Richard Dreyfuss saying, no, we haven't rewound the film. Did they do a Spanish Frankenstein and a Spanish mummy? Did they do all of this? Don't know because they stopped doing it at a certain point. I see. I don't know when they stopped but certainly a Spanish Dracula, which interestingly for people who are technical like me, was in much better shape because the British – the English Dracula film, sorry. The English-speaking Dracula film had been used so many times.

The negative was beaten up whereas the Spanish Dracula film was almost immaculately – And you know what else Richard loved at that show? The people that got away. The studio didn't sign. Tyrone Power. Universal, you mean. Yeah. Elizabeth Taylor. They all you mean. Yeah. Elizabeth Taylor.

They all made movies. Betty Davis. Rudolph Valentino. So Carl was not batting 1,000. No, no, no. He made a few mistakes. So did Carrie Cohn, by the way. He lost Marilyn Monroe.

Yeah, that was in the book. Now, another one with a sad end in Hollywood is Montgomery Cliff. Also a brilliant actor. Yes. I'm not an expert on Montgomery Cliff, but you're right. What a tragic story. Get out. Sorry. Okay.

We're here by mistake. Yeah. Since you brought up Harry Cohn, and you also did the Columbia story, I found this interesting. Gilbert and I were talking about the famous joke where Harry Cohn and you also did the Columbia story, I found this interesting. Gilbert and I were talking about the famous joke where Harry Cohn's funeral was so well attended. What is the joke? It's Red Skelton.

Yeah. Gilbert heard it as? As Georgie Jessel. The joke's been attributed to different people. Was it Red Buttons? Red Skelton said give the people – there was a huge turnout. Red Buttons you mean? Huh?

Red Buttons or Red Skelton? Red Skelton. Give the people – there was a huge turnout. Red Buttons, you mean? Huh? Red Buttons or Red Skelton? No, Red Skelton. Red Skelton. Give the people what they want and they'll turn up. Not a well-liked man. No. But you know what we found? And it's in the show.

We found home movies. Our associate producer tracked down one of Harry Cohn's daughter-in-law – daughter's-in-law who had her father-in-law's scrapbooks and home movies. And there's Harry Cohn hugging his children with a birthday party for his children. Different side of Harry Cohn. Amazing. He had a reputation as such a tyrant. He was. Rude, rude.

Yes. And can you explain the story how Katharine Hepburn met Peter O'Toole? You better handle that one, David. Take it, David. Well, this is not one they met. Gilbert. Okay. This was during the line.

Why didn't we know this was coming? Of course. You have to know. We'd have to cover something. You have to know. We'd had to cover something. You have to know who your host is. They were making The Lion in Winter, which was Peter O'Toole's movie. And he'd asked for Katharine Hepburn to star in it with him. And she said, make it before I die when she got the script.

So they were filming in England. And she had arrived, but he hadn't met her on the set and he's in his dressing room and there's a knock on the door and he says, come in, not knowing who it is, and he's taking a leak into the sink. I wouldn't expect anything less. That's how he met Catherine Hepburn on the set. And he told expect anything less from Peter Edsel. That's how he met Catherine Hepburn on the sink. And he told us he had to pretend he wasn't doing that. It's like the scene in My Favorite Year where he goes in the ladies' room. Unbelievable.

By the way, I have to tell you, when we were filming Peter Edsel in England, in London, in his house, the British crew was incensed that he told that story. Really? Oh, yes. Offended by it? Yes. David, who's British, I don't think was incensed. Were you? Were you incensed?

We never asked Kate to tell us that story, by the way. The stories about Hepburn in the book, I mean, everybody knows she was a firebrand and her reputation was well-known. I never knew she spat in Joe Mankiewicz's face. Oh, my god. That was because – It goes back to Monty Clift.

That's the Monty Clift story, yes, that she – when they were making – Suddenly Last Summer. Suddenly Last Summer. Monty, I think he'd had an accident not long before and he was actually very – I think he was leaving a party and it was like right down the hill from the party that he ran into a tree or something. Yes, yes. He had an accident. He'd recovered but he was in pretty bad shape and he was pretty fragile both physically and mentally. And Kate felt that Mankiewicz had really treated him badly.

Mankiewicz was the director of the movie. Joe Mankiewicz was the director of the movie. All About Eve. Yeah. As well, yes. Which we almost lived, but that's another story. We'll do a part two down the road. She didn't say anything to Mankiewicz until the very end.

And she did what she thought was her last scene and she went up to Joe and she said, do you need me anymore, Joe? Is that it? He said, no, we don't need you anymore, Kate. That's it. We've taken all your scenes now. She spat in his face and walked off

and said, that's for the way you treated Monty. And they never spoke again. And he had extensive, he had to have his face reconstructed. Yes. I remember hearing a story Murph Griffin told that a guy, he got a knock on his door. A guy came to Murph Griffin's house and he was standing there and he was looking at a total stranger. And he goes, you don't know me either.

And he walked away and he realized it was Montgomery Cliff to see if anyone recognized him. Can I give you a little corollary, an ending to the Joe Mankiewicz? Sure. When we were doing the Spencer Tracy legacy. What? Corollary? Well. Is that a British? That's a British. Coriewicz? Sure. When we were doing the Spencer Tracy legacy. What? A corollary? Is that a British? That's a British corollary.

I just nod my head and act like I'm just saying. Smart British pronunciation. I tend to ask questions which can get me in trouble. I just go, oh, I know that. Smart man. There were a couple of people that we felt were important to Spencer Tracy's story. But we weren't going to invite on to the show without getting Kate's permission.

And one was Mankiewicz. And we said we're thinking that we should talk to Joe Mankiewicz for the show. And she said, yes, you have to. He was so important in Spencer's life. So, Joanan you contacted him i think and asked him if he would come and and be interviewed and he said does kate know and we said yes he she does know she wants you to be interviewed and when he turned up and uh and he said you're sure kate's okay with this? He said, yes. Tears started rolling down his cheeks.

Wow. And the same thing happened with Garson Kanan, who had betrayed her trust by taking notes on all their vacations together with Ruth Gordon and Kate and Spencer. And he then published a book called Tracy and Hepburn. And she just banned him from her life immediately. And we said to her, we decided we better take the bull by the horn. What do we do about Garson? You got to ask him. Garson and Spencer were really close. And you have to ask him. And Garson wrote some of their great movies. close, and you have to ask him. And Garson wrote some of the great movies.

And so we called him and the first thing he said was no. And then he called us back, I think. And he said, okay, I'll do it. And then Kate invited him. After years she invited him to have dinner. And she told us

that he'd been to dinner. And she said, I'm back in touch with Garson. I'll never trust him because I think he's writing it all down, but we're back in touch. Wow. Tell us some of the Michael Jackson stuff. Gilbert and I were really enjoying this. Yeah, we were laughing. The Katharine Hepburn-Michael Jackson relationship, which I frankly never understood. But you guys had a front row seat.

Which goes back to On Golden Pond. It's an On Golden Pond story, really. And it's a Jane Fonda On Golden Pond story. We're sitting in Hepburn's house having lunch. And I saw a book on her side table. I said, are you reading that book? And she said, no, it was left here by Michael when he came to dinner not long ago. I said, Michael?

And she said, oh, yes, Michael Jackson. And she saw the look on David's and my face. You know, the woman hasn't won four Oscars for nothing. I knew she didn't. She knows how to play a scene. She said, yes. Does it surprise you that we're friends? And I said, you want to tell me this story?

I said, I don't think it's a match made in heaven in my mind. Okay. She said, okay, here's what happened. Shall I tell the story? Well, I'll tell the beginning. You tell the beginning. She said we were shooting on Golden Pond. And Jane said to me, I'm going away for the weekend, but I've got a friend that's

coming, that's been staying here. And would you mind looking after him for the weekend? And it turned out to be Michael Jackson. And Kate said, what am I, she said to Jane, what am I going to do with this young kid? I don't know. She said, don't worry, he adores you. You'll get on fine together. So Jane had found, together. So Jane had found Michael a room in an attic of an old house up at Squam Lake where they shot on Golden Pine, New Hampshire. So Saturday comes, the weekend, and Kate goes to that house and goes upstairs. And Michael opens the door and, you know, he talked in this little sweet kind of voice. Miss Hepburn, thank you for coming. Don't you ever do your laundry because everything was all over.

He said, well, you see, Miss Hepburn, somebody usually does that for me. Let's go pick up all those clothes. We're going down the street to a laundromat. This is a scene I find very hard to visualize, but she told us it's true. She did tell you. Catherine Hepburn and Michael Jackson. With a bag full of dirty laundry going into the local laundromat. Into a public laundromat.

Yes. For real. With a roll of quarters. Can you imagine you sitting there watching your laundry going around and you're thinking, oh, I'm hypnotized by this. It's not really happening. Okay. So I said, so what happened next? She said, we went to the laundromat, and I taught him how to put the quarters in the machine.

And as we're sitting there watching, she says, people were rather astonished to start with, but then they got used to it, and then went about their own business. And she said, as we're watching the clothes tumble around, I said to him, Michael, take off those goddamn sunglasses. I want to see your eyes. Yes, Miss Hepburn. She takes off the glasses. She said, then he came to dinner when he was in town in New York.

And I said, what would you like to eat? And he said, I'm a vegetarian, Miss Hepburn. All vegetables, Ms. Hepburn, all vegetables, please. She says, so Nora, her housekeeper, went out and created this absolutely beautiful dinner with all the colors of fresh vegetables. And when Michael arrived, she said, Michael, which is your favorite vegetable? And he said, cauliflower. She says, it's the one vegetable we didn't buy. Cauliflower.

She said, but I was going to let him discover that for himself when he didn't see it on the platter. So she said, and he said to me during that dinner, you know, Miss Hepburn, I'd like to read some good books. Could you recommend some? She says, so I took, I asked my niece, Kathy Houghton, who was in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner playing her daughter. Remember that? Yeah, sure. Kathy Houghton. She says, I asked Kathy to take Michael to Brentonel's or whatever it was at that time.

And he came back. They came back with three huge shopping bags filled with hardcover books. And she said, he proudly showed me what they bought. First of all, I want to see Michael Jackson in the store picking out books. Okay, that's another scene that should be in a movie. But anyway, so she says, and he happened to leave that one behind right over there. She says, I'll bet he's never cracked the spine of one of them. So then she said, but the story goes on.

She said, he then invited me to one of his concerts at Madison Center. I said, did you go? Well, I didn't want to go. But of course, you know, he insisted, please, Miss Hepburn, please, Miss Hepburn. So she said, I took Phyllis. Phyllis was her assistant who was older than Hepburn. Phyllis was supposed to look after Hepburn, but often was the other way around. Phyllis used to be Constance Collier's assistant. And when Constance Collier got very sick, she said to Hepburn, take care of Phyllis. So Hepburn adopted Phyllis. Phyllis was a British school mom type. She was wonderful, by the way. Oh, wonderful.

No, no, no, you mustn't do that. Very, very protective. Okay. Well, Phyllis and Hepburn... I was afraid of Phyllis. Not afraid of Kate, I was afraid of Phyllis. Phyllis, two octogenarians, and Kate's great niece,

Skylar, who was 17, decided to attend this concert at Madison Square Garden where Michael arranged third row seats. They walked down the aisle and, you know, people were a little stunned. I mean, even young kids knew who Katharine Hepburn was, even though that was Michael's main audience, right? So they sit in the third row.

Katharine Hepburn had no clue that when you go to a rock concert, the main star is not the first person to appear. She didn't know there was an opening act. That's right. Right. So they're sitting there and somebody's carrying on loudly. You know, the decibel level was enormous. Let's get out of here. I can't stand this.

He's late. Kate, who was more than on time, she was always early. Always 45 minutes early. You could not give her a call time because she'd show up 45 minutes before that, whatever. So she said, let's get out of here. Skyler said, Aunt Kath. They called her Aunt Kath. Aunt Kath, we can't leave. He knows

we're here. Please stick it out. She said, all right. She says, and on top of which, he's not late. This is the opening act. Well, then why didn't he tell me so we could arrive later? And Skyler said, no, no, no. We had to be in our seats when the concert started. Well, the opening act finishes and out comes Michael doing Michael. Being Michael. Yeah. On stage, which is not the soft-spoken little kid. Yeah, the hand

on the grind. He's gyrating and he's pelvic bumping. Hepburn says, I'm leaving. He's lewd. I don't ever want to see him again. Poor Skyler, 17, says, Aunt Kath, we can't leave. He's expecting us backstage.

That had to be another scene in a movie. Well, they all traipse backstage, troop backstage, and the stage door opens and in walks Katharine Hepburn and Michael comes out to greet her back in his sweet voice. And she says in a voice that a whole backstage cut, Michael, what the hell was that? You're lewd and you're vulgar. And he said, Miss Hepburn, that's what I do when I perform. Well, don't ever do it again. I love that. I doubt they...

Not the best advice. I doubt she ever went to another Jackson concert, but he was smart enough not to take that advice. Boy, what an odd couple. Well, he loved Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda. But there are photographs of them together. It's a true story.

It's not made up. How did he become friends with Jane Fonda? Because she's the one who introduced him. I have no idea. I don't know the answer to that. Somehow they knew each other from Los Angeles and she invited him to the set. He liked the idea. He obviously contacted famous lady stars. Elizabeth Taylor was crazy about him.

He used to escort her around town and apparently he was very sweet with them. But Katherine Hepburn was in no mood for this craziness. Now, this is a ridiculous story that I'm sure is total bull, but I have to say it anyway. Allegedly, there's a popular story that after September 11th, Michael Jackson panicked and took his two friends, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando, squeezed into a car together and tried to make a run for it. This is a new one on me. Now, if you had told us that earlier, we'd have put it in the book. Who told you that story? I had heard this story a couple of times.

Was Brando even around still? I imagine. I guess he was. And how they could have gotten like three feet without a tremendous crowd gathering around. Well, Katharine Hepburn walked into a laundromat. What else? But speaking of vulgar and lewd, some subjects actually escaped you guys over the years. People you wanted to feature in documentaries.

Which Volgrim was people you're talking about? I was referring to Ms. Dietrich actually specifically. There's something in the book about how her response to you guys approaching her was unprintable. I think that was the word you used. Well, we approached a number of people and she seemed like a prime candidate to do a story about. Fascinating life. Oh, my goodness. What a wonderful show that would have been.

By the time she was living in Paris. So we didn't have any contact, but we did have an address. So we wrote her a letter. Joan, would you tell us what she said in the – No, David. I'll fill in the blanks. Okay. I want to hear Joan say it.

Thank goodness we're not on television. It's only the internet, Joan. That's all. That's okay. She wrote back. David has the letter, the original letter. At least she wrote. Yes, she responded.

I have no – what we tried to do is goad her into it by saying, if you don't let us tell your story and you tell it yourself, somebody will do it. Yeah, you're a public figure. Anybody can do it. Why don't you let us tell it with you? Affectionately. Yes. We'll be very nice about it. I don't give a damn who tells my story and how.

But basically she told us to – Fuck off. German or English. That was an English. Now, Frank and I were talking that Judy Garland used to talk to President Kennedy. This is my favorite thing in the book maybe besides Michael and Kate at the laundromat. Oh, you don't like Betty Davis? I loved all of it.

This one really got me. There was a story when we were doing the Judy Garland program. With all these shows, you research, research, research, research. And there's a famous authorized book about Judy by Joe Frank. It's called Judy. Called Judy. Big, thick book. And there was a wonderful story in it about Judy Garland and President Kennedy.

But it was too good. It seemed too good to be true. And told to the author by Judy's daughter who – the author, Gerald Frank, quotes Liza telling him this story. I see. And the chapter in our book is – excuse me – is really about how we went about verifying the story because the story is that – Well, let me – can I just interrupt you one second? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What happened was Lorna was our host. Lorna left Liza's half-sister, Judy's daughter.

And I said, Lorna, I've read the Judy biography and there's a story that Liza tells in the book about your mother calling at the end of a work week when she was doing her live television show. At the end of a work week, she'd pick up the phone in front of Liza and say, what a week. I think I'll call Jack. And Liza would hear her mother dial the White House and ask to speak to the president. And Lorna said to me, look, I know the story. She said, but just as a general piece of information, let me tell you something. We're a family filled with liars. I said, Lorna, you're hosting this show.

You're not giving me a warm, secure feeling. I don't like that statement at all. She said, I'm telling you the truth. I said, is that the truth? Are you lying now? So she said, I think that story is true, but I wasn't in the house. So it's Liza's story.

Well. think that story is true but i wasn't in the house so it's liza's story well oh so so why didn't we call liza i don't know what liza was supposed to do the show she already stood that's right liza stood us up once you guys have a fun michael jackson katherine hepburn kind of chemistry no you know what it's known as? George and Gracie. Everybody talks about us as George and Gracie. And by the way, I've been the victim of his British wit. No, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. She just misunderstands me. So what was it that actually happened when she would call the White House?

Well, the story is that she called the White House and Liza heard her chatting with the president. And then suddenly she'd burst into song and start singing. Sorry. You're missing the big point. We don't have cameras. You can't see me. Can the two of you get your story straight next time? She would say, Liza would hear her mother say, again, you really want me to do that?

Okay, somewhere. And she'd sing eight bars of Over the Rainbow into the phone. So President Kennedy would always ask Judy Garland to sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I love it. So we decided, thanks to Lorna telling me a family filled with liars, I decided we, even though it's an authorized biography, who knows, right? I decided we have to check out, we decided to check out this story because as you guys know, Judy Garland's life and career was swirled for years with rumors, some of which true and some of which not true, right? We didn't want to perpetuate false rumors in our show, if we could help it. So the mission began.

First person I wrote to was Jacqueline Onassis at her apartment on Fifth Avenue. And I asked, on public television stationery, no less, okay? I love your life. You're writing to Jackie Onassis to ask her if the story is true about Judy Garland singing over the rainbow. Jackie was an editor at Doubleday and she was a started her life as a inquiring photographer. I mean, she knows what it means to check out a story. And I'm not writing from the National Enquirer. I'm writing from the public television WNT.

So I told her that there is a story. I did not tell her that it's attributed to Liza Minnelli. I thought that was a bad idea. I just told her that there is a story that Judy Garland used to call the White House and that the president would always never let her off the phone without asking her to sing a little bit of Over the Rainbow. Could you please confirm for me that the story, could you tell me whether you were, that whether the story is true or not? And three days later, I get a call from a woman named Nancy Tuckerman, who used to be the social secretary to Jacqueline Kennedy in the White House years. And she was her assistant at Doubleday at this point.

Is this Joan Kramer? Yes. She said, Nancy Tuckerman for Mrs. Onassis. I said, Mrs. Tuckerman, how nice of you. Thank you for calling. I'm replying to your letter that you sent to Mrs. Onassis. She wants me to tell you the story is not true. Well, I was stunned. I then said, Mrs. Tuckerman, I think I have to tell you something. The story appears in the only, at that point, the only authorized biography in extant of Judy Garland by Gerald Frank, and it quotes the story comes from and is quoted to the author by Judy's eldest daughter, Liza Minnelli. You're saying the story is not true. That means Liza's

lying not only about a president of the United States, but about her mother. There was a dead silence. And she said, well, if the story comes from Miss Minnelli, maybe Jackie just wasn't in the room when the phone calls came in. And as David said to me at the time, you sounded a bit like you're giving a lecture, which I realized. I said, Mrs. Tuckerman, I had nothing to lose at that point. I said, Mrs. Tuckerman, please forgive me if my facts are wrong here. But Mrs. Onassis started her career as an inquiring photographer. She married a senator who became the president of the United States. Then she married a world statesman, and now she's an editor at a big publishing house called Doubleday.

I think she knows what it means to check out a story. If she wasn't in the room, shouldn't her answer have been, I don't know? at a big publishing house called Doubleday. I think she knows what it means to check out a story. If she wasn't in the room, shouldn't her answer have been, I don't know? Story not true and I don't know are not the same thing. I said, what did she actually say? Was any part of the story true? Did he not always ask her to sing? She said, to be honest with you, she sent it to me into her office.

You sent the letter to her apartment and she wrote on the top of it, please call Joan Kramer's story not true. I said, Mrs. Tucker, would you do me a favor and ask her if any part of that story is true? Because frankly, I'm stunned that Liza would make up the entire story. She said, okay, I'll try. Never heard from her again, which I knew would happen. So I told David. Joan, it's your story. David. You're on your own.

When Joan does research, she's very tenacious. Just like Gilbert. For this show. So David said to me... You wrote a book, right? So David said to me – You wrote a book, right? So David said to me, I think that's the end. That's probably not true. I said, David, I'm not giving this up yet.

My next call was to Ted Kennedy's office in Washington and I got his press secretary who said, I don't think the senator is going to know the answer to this but I'll ask him. And he called – the press secretary called back and said the senator does not know. But he recommended that you call Evelyn Lincoln who was John F. Kennedy's personal secretary in the White House. Here's her number. She lives in Pennsylvania. It's amazing. You followed us to the end of the earth. It's amazing that people actually give you all this information.

Oh, absolutely. You want us to wrap up? the earth. It's amazing that people actually give you all this information. Oh, absolutely. You want us to wrap up? Soon. Anyway, so I called Evelyn Lincoln and she said to me, the story is absolutely true. I said, Mrs. Lincoln, how do you know that? She said, because if anybody called the president that was well-known, it had to be put through to me first. And sometimes I was still on the line when I heard him ask her to sing. I said, thank you so much. So I go to David and I said, David,

we have one confirmation and one denial, right? I've got to break the tie. It suddenly hit me that in two offices away from me at Channel 13 was the office of Caroline Kennedy, who worked for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You'd think that I would have caught on to that one a little earlier, but I didn't, okay? So I suddenly thought, Joan, you're really being a dummy. Go talk to Caroline. So I went to Caroline. I said, Caroline, did you ever hear family lore that had Judy Garland calling your father in the White House and asking her to sing Over the Rainbow? She said, no, but it's a great story. Are you going to use it? Because she knew

what we were doing. And I said, I don't know, because I want to confirm the story. I said, I did talk to Evelyn Lincoln at your uncle's suggestion. I didn't tell her about her mother. I left that part out. I said, I called Evelyn Lincoln and she told me the story is true, but I really want to know. I thought maybe you might have heard about it, even though you were young. She said, look, I did know Judy Garland and Sid Luft and their families. They used to rent a house in Hyannisport in the summers, and my cousins were their kids' ages. I was too young, but my cousins played with their kids more than I knew the kids.

She said, but I know who will know the answer to this. Now, I've got to tell you something that I'm going to, that's not in the book, okay? This is, you can hear this. I almost made the blunder of all. When I told this story to David, he said, oh no. I swear to you that memories play games. When I wrote in this chapter about this story, I remember Caroline saying to me, I swear, she said, I know who will be able to confirm this story. Call Kenny O'Donnell at the John F. Kennedy Library and tell him I told you to call. Okay? That's what I wrote down in the original version in the book, okay? Well, to make a long story short, let me finish the actual story, and then I'll tell you what happened that's not in the book, okay? I called the library, and I spoke to

the person I spoke to. They connected me, and he said the story's absolutely true. I said, how do you know? He said, because she used to call at the end of a Friday. We were still in the overall office. And he used to hold the phone away so I could hear her sing. I said, I love you. Thank you. And we used it in the show. It took about three weeks to confirm the story. It takes 15 seconds to show in the program with a clip, right? Okay. That's how long it took. Now, fast forward. I write this story for the book and I said to David, because we said in the first version of the story that Caroline was and still is president of the John F. Kennedy Library and Foundation in Massachusetts. And I said to David, you know something? I better check her title because she's now the ambassador to Japan. Maybe she's not the president anymore.

Well, I started Googling, and I fell over a fact that almost made me pass out. Kenneth O'Donnell died seven years before we ever produced this program. Caroline did not tell me to call Kenneth O'Donnell. She told me to call David Powers. Kenneth O'Donnell. She told me to call David Powers. If I hadn't gone looking for Caroline's title, we would have published Kenneth O'Donnell and some astute critic would have said Joan Kramer thinks she talks to dead people and worse, that Caroline Kennedy told her to call him. I'm a Kennedy buff, so I know all those names. Can you believe that? So I said to David, from now on with a tooth comb, we're checking every iota of this book.

Memories are funny. I could swear she told me Kenneth O'Donnell. Unfortunately, when it comes to the truth of the stories, we have two memories going on. We have our files and Joan kept notes. And date books. I have every date that we met for lunch for Katharine Hepburn. So we know we're pretty damn close on just about all the stories. That's a lot of research.

And we walked around with a camera everywhere, so all the pictures are mainly ours. I wish it had been the trolley song instead. It would have made a better story. Oh, Frank. Don't you think? Clang, clang, clang, went the jolly. Very good. Thank you.

Nice voice. You have another career there. He sings on every show. Does you really do? I mean, that's great. Do you join? No. No, he's quite the...

I thought maybe you do harmony. Do you join? No. No, he's quite the... I thought maybe you do Harmony. Now, before we wrap up, the worst part we were just talking about, the worst hosts are the ones that bring it about themselves. So you're going to do that? Yes. Okay.

Have at it. When I was a struggling comic, I was a teenager and I used to work the concessions in the Broadway theaters selling T-shirts and stuff. And they were doing Matter of Gravity starring Katharine Hepburn and an unknown George – Christopher. Christopher Reeves. George Christopher Reeves. And and we got to know Catherine Hepburn would come before the audience arrived and talk to us. And she once invited us. So I went to Catherine Hepburn's house in Turtle. Yeah. And and and she one time gave me a book of James Cagney's autobiography that I still have that she autographed to me. Cagney by Cagney. Yes, I have it. Yeah. So I have Cagney's autograph in there. Oh, I love this.

What? I'm sorry. She's stepping on my story. Damn it. I thought I would end it with me't mean to do that. See, she's stepping on my story. Damn it. I thought I would end it with me being the great one here. You are the great one. We're going to daven in front of you. We are down on our knees now. People can't see it.

We are groveling. And we're bowing our heads. Well, okay. I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. Coming to you from Nutmeg Post and the courtesy of our friend, Frank Vederosa. With two nut guests. Thank you, Frank. And the courtesy of our friend Frank Vederosa. With two nut guests. Thank you, Frank. And tonight we've been interviewing Joan Kramer and David Healy.

And we just touched upon just a tiny bit of what you'll find in the book in the Company of Legends. There's so much we didn't get to. Frank Sinatra drunk at the premiere. There's so much we didn't get to. Frank Sinatra drunk at the premiere. Also, can I tell you that Dick Cavett, my former boss and still my friend, has agreed to introduce David and me at an event that we're doing in connection with the book at the New York Public Library on June 4th. Great. Which I think is very sweet of him. Can Gilbert and I come? Yes, please.

We'd love to be there. Can we get lunch out of it? That I can't tell. It's at 6.30. It's not lunch. We love you, Kevin. He was our first guest on the podcast. Yes.

He was a great guest. We adore him. Great. We want to have him back. And so funny. Oh, David. You know, David's a British wit. David's tried to at one point, you know, barb, trade barbs.

He realized. No, I gave up very quickly. Well, he was a joke writer and a comedian. And you used to get the guest for Dick Cavett. I got an array of. Joe was a talent coordinator on his show. I mean, because his guest, the Dick Cavett show, was always like, wow, these are people you don't find on any other talk show.

Not just that. Well, I always say the Dick show was not just a talk show. It was a reflection of the times in which we were living. And so therefore, unfortunately, he had a lot of people walk out on him. Yeah. People like, you know, when he called Lester Maddox a goddamn bigot. Lester Maddox says, I'm leaving unless you apologize. And Dick said, I'll apologize to anybody that I've called a goddamn bigot who swears to me that they're not.

Well, Lester Maddox didn't buy into that little ruse and out he walked. Leaving Dick, I told you, we never stopped tape. Dick had a full time. Lily Tomlin walked out on him. I remember Lily Tomlin walking out. It was Chad Everett. Brilliant. I was watching. Chad Everett decided that his time wasn't up yet. I remember. And he decided to ask the entire panel, what is your favorite possession? I'll start with myself. My favorite possession is my wife. Lily got up and said, Dick, invite me back. I'm leaving.

I remember that show. And of course the Norman Mailer, Gord Liddell show, which Dick is – that was legendary. We tried to do a show, a retrospective of Dick's shows, and he narrated the little clip reel we put together for us. And I mean it's just great stuff. And fortunately Resid residuals killed us. Of course. Of course. And Wells and Olivier and Betty Davis.

You know, that's the famous show. You know the show, right? Mm-hmm. John Lennon, George Harrison. Everyone. No, but you remember what happened with Betty Davis? He turned, you know, he said he knew a straight line when he heard it. He said he knew a straight line when he heard it.

And he said to her, how did you handle all those gossip columnists in Hollywood? And she said, you mean Loretta Luella Parsons and Hedda Hopper? And he said, yeah, okay. And she said, you know, I'm a Connecticut Yankee. I never had a problem with somebody asking me a question that I didn't want to answer. And some people think they want to answer. And I would have, some people think they have to answer everything. I used to say, you know, I'd really rather not discuss that. And she said, they usually respected it. And Dick said, I knew a straight line when I heard it. So I said to her, well, Ms. Davis, I think we've kept this on a pretty high level.

She said, yes. She says, I wouldn't expect you to say anything that I wouldn't want to answer. But if you did, I would say I'd rather not discuss that. So he said, well, I'm very glad you feel that way. Betty, when did you lose your virginity? Yes. And once again, Good stuff.

Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm Gilbert Gottfried. I'm here with my co-host Frank Santopadre at Nutmeg Studios. And we've been talking to Joan Kramer

and David Healy who proved once again after we ended the show, they still had more stories that are in the book. Yeah, that are in their book in the company of legends. And tell us real quick when the book comes out. Middle of April, April 16th. April 16th is the time.

It's a wonderful read. Thank you guys for doing this. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you. It was a treat. Thank you. We had a great time. If you like listening to comedy, try watching it on the Internet.

The folks behind the Sideshow Network have launched a new youtube channel called wait for it it's got interviews with comedians like reggie watts todd glass liza slicinger slicing driving friends with her for 10 years one of the funniest people out there and i still have a hard time with the last name liza our very own owen benjamin that's me takes you on a musical journey down internet rabbit holes and much more you don't have to wait any longer just go to youtube.com slash wait for it comedy there's no need to wait for it anymore because it's here and it's funny and i love you a few days ago brooke tudine posted an inspirational quote on her wall that got 17 likes and 3 comments. Thumbs up, Brooke.

Geico also wants to make a comment. In just 15 minutes, you could save hundreds of dollars on your car insurance by switching to Geico. And nothing says inspiration better than saving money. Well, except for those posters that say things like teamwork, excellence, and make it happen. Hashtag keep climbing. Hashtag savings. Geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.