Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 7. Robert Osborne

Episode Date: July 14, 2014

Millions of movie buffs know Robert Osborne as the elegant, erudite film historian and host of Turner Classic Movies, but few know that he spent time as a struggling actor, was mentored by comedy legend Lucille Ball, and even appeared in the pilot of "The Beverly Hillbillies" -- a show he was certain would "never catch on." A while back, Gilbert sat in as TCM's "Guest Programmer" and now Robert generously returns the favor by traveling to Manhattan's Society of Illustrators on an oppressively hot July evening to dish a little dirt and share anecdotes about Hollywood luminaries Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Natalie Wood and Walt Disney (among others). 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+. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried with Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my sidekick, Frank Santopadre. You know, if you're like us and you watch Turner Classic movies, you know Robert Osborne as that guy with the white hair that comes out who seems to know every single thing there is to know about movies. was mentored by Lucille Ball, that he's been friends with everyone from Bette Davis to Olivia de Havilland, and he's arguably the world's foremost movie authority. So here at the Society The Society of Illustrators on East 63rd Street in Manhattan.

We speak to Robert Osborne. You know, when I watch Turner Classic movies, sometimes even more fun than watching the movies is watching this next man comment on the films. And that's why it's it was a thrill when he invited me to be on with him to present some of my favorite films. Ladies and gentlemen, Robert Osborne. Thank you. That was great fun having you on TCM. Yeah, that was. And you picked some great movies.

Yeah, I picked Of Mice and Men. Right. With Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney Jr. The Conversation that Francis Ford Coppola did, starring Gene Hackman. The original movie Freaks. Right. By Todd Browning. And The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster.

And you know why we liked it so much is because that franchise which is guest programmer, having somebody, a celebrity come on and talk about movies that they like. What we love is when it introduces movies to some people

that maybe don't know those titles. And we've had people come on and pick Gone with the Wind or pick Citizen Kane or something. And that's kind of a yawn to me, only because those films don't need introducing by anybody. We all know they're great films, and we all love them. But what I love is when somebody comes on like you did and pick four movies, many of which I'd say maybe Freaks is the best known of those movies by a lot of people. But those other movies are a lot of that a lot of people don't even know. And because you come on and pick it, they'll watch it and maybe be, you know, have a new favorite

movie. And it's funny when they asked me to pick films, I was going through this weird, it became like, like I said, the worst homework assignment in the world. Because I was, in my head, I was going, oh, wait a second. I can't pick out Citizen Kane or the Bicycle Thief because it's like, it's going to, it will be so much like everybody knows it. much like everybody knows it. And what I loved about it is after I did your show, so many people are tweeting me saying, I had never heard of that film before, and I watched it and loved it. Yeah, I think that's the great thing about that franchise,

and having people pick movies that they love. Like we were talking earlier about this movie, Murder, He Says, with Fred McMurray and Marjorie Mayne. A gem of a movie that we have in the library now, at least for a while. And it's just a gem. Well, you know, most people have never heard of that film. Most of those people haven't heard of Fred McMurray and Marjorie Mayne. And the fact that they can be introduced to it.

And there's another wonderful British comedy called Make Mine Mink, which is just a jewel. With all these wonderful British comedians and actors like Terry Thomas about this old bunch of people kind of living together in a home. And they want to do something. They're growing old and they want to do something. So they decide to become fur robbers. Robbed fur. And then they'll sell them to a fence and use that money and give it to charity. So it's all for a good cause.

And they're so inept. They don't make every mistake in the book. But for some reason, they never get caught. And it is hilarious. But movies like that are wonderful to introduce. I think of The Wrong Box as that kind of movie, too, which I saw on TCM for the first time. Yes, so funny. All those British character actors and comedians and Peter Sellers and Ralph Richardson.

Right. There's a film that is a comedy that I always enjoyed, and I also discovered it on TV years ago. And that was Champagne for Caesar. Uh-huh. Ronald Coleman. Yes, and Vincent Price and Art Linklater. We've been looking for that. It's hard to find now.

I don't know what's happened to it. Yeah. It was a United artist, so it's in some package somewhere or somebody's attic. Yeah, Ronald Coleman. One of his last films. Oh, wow. And it's in some package somewhere or somebody's attic. Yeah, Ronald Coleman. One of his last films. Oh, wow. And it's a comedy.

It's lovely. It has to do with the game shows on television, early television. Ronald Coleman's a genius. He knows the answer to everything. And Art Linkletter, I believe, plays a role in it. Yeah, Vincent Price is this weird tv executive right so it's fun it's fun yes a lot of jewels out there and speaking of fred mcmurray what about remember the night do you have that on oh yeah we did that we did that a lot at

christmas it's a great one yeah that that's a movie that we really discovered that nobody had heard of yeah it was sturgis, right? Did he not? Preston Sturgis? I think he wrote it. I think he wrote it. Yeah, but for years you couldn't find it. Yeah, absolutely. Lovely, lovely Christmas movie and charming.

Now, we started talking before the mics were on. I had to yell, okay, shut up. Yeah. This is too interesting to waste. Yeah, you didn't do that very gracefully either. It's not as long suit. Yes. When I smacked your car.

That's right. That's right. I got the point. Yes. About how I mean, I always loved like growing up. And I said this on your show that the greatest film school in the country was in your living room. Because they would show old movies during the day. But then you brought up about how badly edited and how they were shown on TV.

Well, originally, you know, they wanted to get the movies, but they always tried to fit them into like a two hour time slot. And they had a lot of commercials. And the more commercials they would sell, the more they cut out of the movie. So and then they had no respect for that. It wasn't about the movies at all, because we have a culture today that does respect film, new film as well as old film. But back then, very few places had that kind of feeling about film. There'd be a few buffs like us.

You could find them in any little town, one or two people in a town. But you had to go to like New York or, say, Chicago or San Francisco, not even L.A. did they have, you know, revival houses very much with old films being shown. But you had to live in one of those major cities to ever be able to see an older film on a big screen. Now, you said about a musical that you wanted to present to some friends. No, I mean, I wanted to see it. It was back in the days before color television. And it was a movie called Cover Girl, still is a movie called Cover Girl,

with Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly, with a Jerome Kern score, wonderful music. And Rita Hayworth really had her most glorious. And Gene Kelly, it was like the first really big movie that Gene Kelly made, the one that really showed how talented he was. And it was coming on television, and I couldn't wait to see it.

And I had no television set. And this girl I know, Carol Cook, who is still a friend of mine, she was crazy about the movie too. And she had no television. So we prevailed upon a friend of ours who had a television to let us come over and watch it at his house in the afternoon when it was on. This first time it was on television. at his house in the afternoon when it was on, this first time it was on television. And he was nice enough to make little sandwiches so we could have something to eat.

And we got all set to watch this movie, and on it came, and all the musical numbers were cut. It was just the story. Wow. And in those days, they had no story in those movies. The whole reason for a musical was the musical numbers. So let's show a musical, but cut out the music. Yeah, we don't have time for that.

But that happened a lot. And also about, we were talking about how just fitting a movie into a TV screen was a big problem. Like sometimes the heads were cut off. Right. Or the bodies were scratched. Particularly when they're showing movies from the CinemaScope age, which was from, like, let's say 1952, 53, when they started using widescreen in theaters in order to get people to come out of their house and see a movie. in theaters in order to get people to come out of their house and see a movie because they thought, well, how do we get people to leave the houses because we're showing movies in houses now at home? Well, let's make it bigger and more colorful because they didn't have color on

television then at the beginning of all that. We'll make them bigger and we'll make them splashier. So the only place you can see a huge event like that kind of what they try to do today with with uh 3d imax 3d and everything is make it such a big event in the theater that it's the only place you can see it you can't see it at home yet in those dimensions so uh they did that but it it was difficult when they had widescreen CinemaScope and tried to fit it on a postage stamp-sized screen at home. And that caused a lot of difficulty. So they had a thing called pan and scan, where they would have a camera actually go film the film

and move the camera wherever the action was going on on the screen so you'd see the action going on or they would then show it in widescreen with a big black strip at the top and at the bottom so that you could fit the whole picture in but none of that was too pleasing to people because i i know i've seen films where it's one soldier on a horse in the movie, and then you watch it in another format, and it's an entire cavalry. Well, like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, you've got seven brothers dancing a lot together, and a challenge dance from the boyfriends of the girls' seven other suitors. And so you've got the camera sometimes, but never on more than three or four of the boys. So you're kind of losing the impact of that whole way it's set up. You're not getting the whole story.

You're not getting the whole impact of that. It's the same thing that they did when they fooled around with colorization on movies. And you've got a movie taking place in a very elegant house in New York City, very elegant Fifth Avenue mansion or something. And you've got

these really dreary, bland colors of the couch and the clothes and stuff that don't convey at all the elegance of the family living in that house. So it kind of destroys the whole structure of the thing. I was going to say, watching something like Miracle on 34th Street colorize is a depressing experience because the color was never natural.

No, never at all. And that brings us back to Samuel Fuller, who one time said. He'd love that. What? He'd love that, that anything would bring us back to Samuel Fuller. Should we explain to Samuel Fuller? That Samuel Fuller, what we were talking about. We just were.

Yes. Off the air. What? Off the air. Off the air. Yeah. Okay. We'll start talking about Samuel Fuller.

Because the director, Samuel Fuller, one time said, life is in color, but black and white is more realistic. Now, let's talk about Samuel Fuller. Well, I kind of agree with that because I think black and white movies allow you to concentrate on what the story is about more clearly. An example would be the movie Tea and Sympathy, which was in color, based on a play by Robert Anderson. Aaliyah Kazan directed the Broadway show. Vincent Minnelli directed the movie that they did in color with the same cast, Deborah Carr, John Carr, and Leif Erikson. The problem is it's a very emotional story about a boy having problems with his sexuality. And he confesses this to this wife of a schoolmaster.

The schoolmaster doesn't understand the boy at all. The wife does. And she's very compassionate to him. And she decides that she's going to go to bed with him to give him confidence about his masculinity because he's being teased about the way he walks, everything about him. And so she's trying to make this decision on whether to do it or not.

And if it had been in black and white, it would have been that when she was trying to make this decision and was out on the patio walking around, you would be concentrating on what her dilemma was. As it is in this movie with Ben Simonelli's love of color and flowers and stuff, he had the patio covered with all these gorgeous colors and everything. Deborah Carr with her red hair was so gorgeous. I mean, there was so much color and everything around. The last thing you were thinking about when you were watching the movie was her problem.

And the color just totally, I think, threw you out of the story and destroyed the story. And the movie was not a success at all. The play was a great success. So I think things like that added to it can sometimes color and things like that can make it look more artificial than it would than black and white does yeah i think orson wells one of his last words were uh oh yeah he he it may have actually been uh ted turner so i don't know if i should say it but same person orson wells i thought ores' last word was a piece of pie. Piece of pie. It wasn't rosebud?

I think he said, tell him to keep his crayons off my movies. Ah. Because I remember seeing the multi. No, that would have been Orson Welles. Yeah. Because he would have accused Ted Turner of having the crayons. Because I remember seeing Maltese Falcon when they showed it in a color version. And I'm thinking this is a whole film noir. I know.

It's supposed to be black. I know. One of the arguing points about TCM when we started, it was certainly a job that I wanted when they offered it to me. And I was grateful to have it. But the one thing I wouldn't do, didn't feel I could do, was introduce colorized movies. And Ted Turner was a big one about colorization at that time and so I talked to this great guy who was the kind of head of the channel just down under Ted Turner and he felt the same way he felt if this is going to be a channel for real movie buffs and movie fans you

had to show the original versions of things you had to show them as it was made. So he made a deal with Ted, because he was also in charge of TBS and TNT, that if we ever showed a movie that was colorized, that they have a colorized print of, on TBS or TNT, we would show the colorized version. But that would allow us to never show it colorized on TCM.

And Ted agreed to that, which I thought was wonderful. But then he eventually dropped that altogether, the colorization. We don't do that anymore. He doesn't do that anymore. But the fact was that if they showed Casablanca in a colorized version on TBS or TNT, it drew bigger ratings than it did in black and white. That is disappointing.

I'm not sure it would today, but I'm talking about 20 years ago when we went on the air. Yeah, that's what Orson Welles said. Today, I really think we do have movie buffs now. We have a lot of younger people that are big fans of TCM as shown up at our

film festival and our TCM crews and our emails and stuff so I'm not sure even the kids would let them get away with that anymore yeah because that was I think that was the quote Orson Welles said tell Ted tell Ted tell this is boy talk about a tongue twister tell that sugar that pie yeah who's eating tell Ted Turner. So that sugar from that pie he was eating. Tell Ted Turner to keep his crayons off my movies. Yeah. Now, if there was ever a reason to admire you more, you were in the pilot episode of the Beverly Hillbillies.

I was. I was. It's on my tombstone. I'd say it's your biggest accomplishment. Well, I have a bobblehead, too. That's my other great accomplishment. And this is no insult to you, but my son smashed the bobblehead. So I'd like another one.

Okay, we'll get you one. When I did this show. There's a Robert Osborne bobblehead? Yes. I feel deprived. Put it in your car. I want one. It doesn't look I did this show. There's a Robert Osborne bobblehead? Yes. I feel deprived. You can put it in your car. I want one. It doesn't look a thing like me.

That's all. No, the Beverly Hillbillies, you know, that was in an era when you did things and when they went away, they went away. They never came back. It's totally unlike today. There was no, you know, there was no cable like we have today. There was no cable like we have today. There was no DVDs. There was none of that. People didn't collect movies.

People went to see a movie and then they forgot about it and never went to see it again. Never had a chance to see it again. It was a totally different world than today. So you are kind of haunted by those things that you did that you thought would never be an issue again. It's not bad. It's kind of fun only because it's the Beverly Hillbillies. But I remember thinking, this is the stupidest show I ever imagined. And the character that I played was the assistant to the banker who was kind of a running part for years.

Mr. Drysdale. Mr. Drysdale. And I was so glad when I got out of that because that's right at the time that I actually met Lucille Ball and got a contract at Desilu. And I was so grateful to not be. But, of course, I had no idea how long that would run or how successful it would be. But it also, it wouldn't have done anything for me because it was a colorless character that I'm sure wouldn't have been involved in much of the storyline. And I might have made some money, but it's not the way I wanted my life to go.

You would have right now been like kind of a joke memory. Yeah, because that whole kind of a joke memory. Yeah. Because that whole thing is a joke memory. But it was very successful. I think Gene Hackman. Oh, it's funny because that goes to the conversation. But Gene Hackman was up for the part as Mr. Brady in the Brady Bunch. So the whole respect for Gene Hackman would have been gone.

Yeah, exactly. And Sandra Bullock auditioned for Baywatch. Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting when you see those things about careers and how choices made and how somebody lost a part and were distraught because they thought that was the end of their careers in life. And if they had taken that job.

Sure. It would have taken them on a whole different path. Now, it's funny because we were talking to Larry Storch from F Troop, and he said he considered Lucille Ball his fairy godmother because she like he auditioned for her and she's the one to put him on stage. Oh, with Cirrus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Opening for Desi.

And so that was with you, too. Well, in a way, she was looking for she was looking for like. She was looking for like 15 people to put on a contract because when she owned the Desilu Studios, which had been the RKO Studios, and when she started out in pictures, she was on a contract RKO, a nobody. And Ginger Rogers' mother was put in charge of all the contract players at RKO for a very good reason. Fred Astaire wanted to get her off the set when he was working with Ginger because Lila Rogers was a very bright lady, newspaper woman, very, very smart woman. She took care of her daughter, and so she would be on the set all the time,

and if they were doing a dance number and something and they finished it, and they said, okay, swell, print it. And Lila was saying, no, I think you need the take on this because there's that one point that Ginger does that, and the dress went there, and her hair went there. And it drove Fred Astaire crazy. They couldn't come down hard on Ginger Rogers, though,

because she was a huge star for the studio. And they didn't want to have Ginger upset. So they couldn't, like, order her mother off the set, because that would have upset Ginger. So they were very smart. They got Leela to come and take over the contract players at RKO. And there was a little theater that they had, a barn, actually, that they turned into a theater. And she trained these kids. And Lucy was one of them. Trained them in dancing, trained them in, you know, sword plays, particularly so the boys would be graceful on their feet and they would do sets.

And then she came up with the idea that every Friday, the kids during the week would work on scenes, little maybe sketches or scenes, whatever. And every Friday before, and of course, these people were all under contract to the studio, the actors, as well as they had producers under contract and directors and set designers and everything. Every Friday before the producers and directors could check off the lot for the weekend, they had to come and sit for an hour and watch these young actors do these scenes.

The point being that the actors would have a reason for doing a good job because you've got potential employers out there. And it gave the employers a chance to see these people. Somebody might see Lucy doing a funny sketch and say, hey, she's good. That girl's good. We've got this small part in the next Rogers and Astera movie that she could do. Or that other girl could do this other thing. So it was a payoff for everybody.

Well, because of that and Lila Rogers, Lucy flowered. Nobody knew what to do with Lucy. But Lila Rogers saw she could be funny. So she developed that part of Lucy and gave Lucy the confidence to do that. So when Lucy owned the studio years later, like almost 30 years later, she wanted to do the same thing for young actors

that Lila had done. And so she put this group together, and I was one of those people in the troupe. Myself, along with a couple of others, got some extra attention because of the people that were under contract there, there were three of us that were really interested in having a long-term career in the motion picture business somewhere, if not as actors, then as producers or whatever. somewhere if not as actors then as producers or whatever and she recognized that the others were more just more uh determined to be stars and and kind of do flashy stuff and so she used to like have us now her i have to say at the same time her marriage was unraveling so she had a lot of

free time desi was never around and he was also you know out doing desilu business and stuff and monkey business and uh so she would have us the three of us come over to her house and she'd show uh movies that she'd done and maybe bad movies and then we'd have a discussion on why they were bad why what could you have done to make that better? And she'd show us some of the old Lucy shows. Now, mind you, because of television and stuff, they weren't that accessible to us at that point. But she had prints of all these things. And so we would sit in a living room and watch a Lucy show that was really funny.

And she'd explain why it was funny or why did we think it was funny. Then she'd show one that didn't work. And then we'd talk about why it didn't work or she was she'd give a solution on what she could have done to make it better it was like a master class it was incredible and so that went on for two years uh she took us to vegas to see the Rat Pack, although they were actually called, what was it, the Klan. They call themselves the Klan, they're not the Rat Pack. The Rat Pack had actually been Sinatra, Bogart, Bacall, Judy Garland, and some other people that lived up on Mapleton Drive. I think it was originally called the free loggers club could have been you probably would but but they were the rat pack and so when bogart died

the clan grew out of that and that was sinatra peter lawford you know uh shirley mclean etc and bacal was kind of a part of that too for a while anyway the uh uh so she took us to see these things i mean i'll never forget the uh thing at the sands hotel with the with the rat pack in which uh lucy we checked into the sands hotel where lucy had to stay because desi had such gambling debts that in order to absolve him of his gambling debts, the Sands Hotel made Lucy and Desi sign a thing that if they ever appeared in Las Vegas or came to Las Vegas, they had to stay at the Sands Hotel or work at the Sands Hotel. If Desi ever wanted to do a band thing again, or Lucy ever wanted to appear on stage.

So anyway, they were kind of committed to the Sands Hotel. So we stayed there, and that's where the Klan was appearing. And so we had plans to go to the late show that night that we got in. And so we all went to our rooms, and we were going to meet down in the lobby at like 11 o'clock for the 1130 show or whatever the late show was. And so two of us came down early and we're kind of wandering around. One of them, one was Jane Keene, who was herself an entertainer and appeared in Vegas many times. And so she and I were kind of walking around the gambling room.

appeared in Vegas many times. And so she and I were kind of walking around the gambling room while, this is a long story, but it does have a point, that we were wandering around and there was a guy at the door where the show was going, the early show was going on. He said, oh, Jane, how are you doing? Are you going to come and see the show? She said, yeah, we're going to see the late show. He said, do you want to just sneak in and have a look right now and everything? She said, sure. So we snuck in and watched just a little part of it. But it was so funny. They were cracking up and they were like, you know, forgetting their lines. They were doing all this kind of stuff.

But it was hilarious. And I kept thinking, oh, my God, I wish this is the show we were watching because the second show can't be nearly as good. So anyway, we then left, came back with Lucy to see the show. Everything was exactly the same. Every ad lib, wow, every goof, everything. And Lucy wanted us to see that, that these were not guys taking it loosely and just kind of flailing around.

They knew what they were doing every second of the time. These are true professionals. And they weren't goofing off at all. They were making big money and they were earning their money. And so lessons like that we got during that two years. And it was so incredible. So I must say, I wasn't like, didn't perform with her like Larry Storch did or something like that. But she was an incredible teacher.

We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. When you were talking about how you didn't, back then they didn't show shows more than once. Right. I think when they were making the deals for the honeymooners audrey meadows i think her brother was her lawyer in it to make the contract and he came up with this idea and they all laughed at her and thinking oh it's her brother he's an idiot so sure say yes to it uh he said if it ever gets shown again she should get paid for it and they like agreed to it because they figured that's so stupid right no one's

going to watch your show more than right exactly that's why they taped over all those wonderful cars and shows yeah they don't exist anymore and some of of the early Cavett shows, he was telling us when we interviewed Dick, that they don't exist because they were so disposable. There was so much this mindset of everything, and it goes back to movies, that once it was shown, once a movie played, and it left your little town, that's the last chance you're ever going to have to see it.

Unless it was Gone with the Wind and the Disney ones. They always recycled those. Although I think when they wanted James Mason to do that Disney one. 20,000 Leagues? Yes, 20,000 Leagues. He at first didn't want to do it. And then as a deal, he said his kids were in love with Disney films. So could he at times like borrow an actual Disney film to show at his house?

Because back then that was how hard it was. It was like that was a payment. Yeah. You could pay him off by letting him watch a Disney film. They wouldn't even let actors buy the prints of their films in 16mm. I know that for years, Rock Hudson was collecting his films that he did at Universal. They let him buy them. But when he did a movie called Something...

What was that called? With Sidney Poitier, Something of Value at MGM, they wouldn't let him buy a print until finally he was to do a movie. Now things were loosening up later, and he was to do a movie for MGM called Ice Station Zebra, and he wouldn't sign the contract unless they guaranteed him a 16 millimeter print they

were very tight on those things i think jerry lewis put it in his contract that after a certain amount of years all the rights to the movie go over to him he did that bob hook did that carrie grant did that. Cary Grant did that. Yeah. So after like seven years, they got the rights to it. Now, you said at one point Lucy told you to go into writing. Mm-hmm. She saw me act. Yeah. Simple as that.

Yeah. So you're saying. She got to know me. She got to know my folks. No. So you're saying. She got to know me. She got to know my folks. Yes. And she said, you know, she knew I loved research. She knew I loved old films and stuff. And she said, you know, you could do it.

It could work. But she said, you're not going to be happy doing it. She said, you're not from New York. You're not street smart. You can learn to do all that stuff, but that's not your basic nature. She said said we have enough actors we don't have enough writers particularly people writing about the movie business and i was a journalism major college and so she said you know you should think you

should think about sticking to the journalism and writing about film and getting into film that way and she said the first thing you should do is write a book. Find a subject nobody's written about and write a book. So I said, well, why is that so important? She said, because in those days, you know, you had to type it on a piece of paper and a typewriter. And if you made a mistake, you had to take it out of the typewriter and start over again. She said, because most people don't have the discipline to sit down and write a book.

Everybody says they want to write a book. Nobody does. They don't take the time to do it. She said, if you've written a book, it doesn't even have to be good. It'll show at least that you have the discipline to do that. You'll get the job. She was so smart that way. You know, she never finished high school.

And she never thought she was bright. She loved to play backgammon and you know all kinds of mind games because she felt she was dumb but she was like incredibly smart i i remember growing up we had like a broken down royal typewriter and i in all the movies all the old movies there would always be a scene of somebody you know sleeping on that typewriter a pile of cigarettes and like tossing away uh crumpling up a piece of paper I still miss all that I still miss the royal typewriter yeah it was something about something about hitting the key and the clicks So you wrote all those Oscar books on a Royal typewriter?

Not all. The later ones, not. Right. But I loved all that. And they used to refer, they wouldn't use the word typewriter. They would go, and I went back to my old Royal. And yeah, that was like you saw someone was working. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. But I type with two fingers. You know, we had a piano and we had a typewriter at home. My sister got home 15 minutes before I did. She got the piano. So I got the typewriter. So, you know, there, if I'd gotten home earlier, I might have been another Jose Turby or something on the concert stage. So the subject you decided to write about was the Academy Awards.

It was. Which you knew a lot about. I did. I did. And it turned out well, and it did open doors. It was amazing. So much of what I learned from Lucille Ball paid off. It was really a really lucky thing for me to meet her. That was one

of the great breaks of my life. You stayed friends to the end of her life. I did. Yeah. After she married Gary Morton, I didn't see her that often, but she would always at least once a year call up and invite you to her house or to a picnic or something or if if they were doing something that like say uh lucy jr was doing a opening in a show in los angeles she'd invite you to opening night and things like that and she'd you know check up you know are you eating okay you know who are your friends where are you still at the same house and all that kind of stuff it's kind of clucking over but they once i left desilu and um started having you know another life and she had another life um and and i think i was you know i and i understand all that would be a memory of her days with desi because that's when

i met her and that's something she's trying to forget. But the Gary Morton side of her life is so totally different because he was very Vegas. And all their friends then were Vegas people like Jack Carter and, you know, Milton Berle. And they were always talking to each other with jokes and stuff. And she also started drinking quite a bit. And so we didn't really have anything in common anymore. You know, we didn't have a common goal because before the goal was this Desilu, you know, workshop that we were in. But she always, it sounded like even when they broke up and she was heartbroken and hated Desi. She never hated Desi. Oh, that's what I was getting. No, she was mad

about Desi. But I think she always had this admiration and respect for Desi. Oh, enormous. Like she knew he was a genius. She also knew that he is the only one of the group, the four of them, that never

got credit for what they did. You know, Vivian Vance and bill frawley both won emmy awards lucy won a lot of emmys i don't think desi was even nominated for one and he's quite funny yeah in those shows yeah he's great yeah yeah you know and and it was tough for desi because desi came from you know cuba from a culture where uh because i met his mother his mother you know the the father was long since gone, but the mother was just this quiet little lady that sat in the corner doing her needle point and stuff, never said a word. He came from a culture where that was what the mother did,

or the wife. She just had babies and shut up. And the husband, you know, told everybody what to do and how to live and all that, and probably had the girlfriends on the side. So he gets married to this Lucille Ball with the red hair and that feisty spirit and was not going to, I mean, she'd come from tough times, and she was a bossy lady. And so from the beginning, you know, when he came to California, he was a big, big sensation in New York with Cugat's Orchestra and then in the Broadway show Too Many Girls, a big red hot Bobby Sox favorite. So he comes to California to make the movie version of Too Many Girls. Who's the star of that movie?

Lucille Ball. of Too Many Girls. Who's the star of that movie? Lucille Ball. So from the beginning, when they connected and they did Right Away, she was a bigger deal than he was. And I used to look at scrapbooks

that she kept about his band and their life together. And in the reviews for the bands, in the Variety Review, we've got off and say, you know, Desi Arnaz and his orchestra opened last night at such and such, you know, hotel roof. And the big event of the night was the appearance of Desi's wife, Lucille Ball, in the audience.

So no matter what he did, Lucy was the big deal. And so I think that's why he chased around with other women a lot, because, you know, to to, you know, some little starlet or something, he was a big deal. But to Lucy, whenever they would go somewhere and again, he did all that great work on the show. He never really got credit for it. They would go somewhere. Everybody wants to see Lucy. They didn't care about Desi. And so I think that was really tough on them. And like where sitcoms all seem to have been born out of was I Love Lucy that Desi Arnaz created.

Yeah. And he was the one who came up with the three camera idea. He got Carl Freund, who was the cinematographer on Metropolis in Germany back in the movie days. And he directed The Mummy? Yeah. Yes. He did. He was the cameraman on the I Love Lucy shows.

So Desi knew how to get the best. Oh, and Mad Love with Peter Lorre. That's right. That's right. Exactly. So now you become a writer at this point. Yes. And does it come naturally to you, even though you were a journalism major back in school?

Well, it did, because I was writing about movies. No, I was writing about movies, and so I was very comfortable with all of that, loved all that. More comfortable than you were as an actor? Oh, always. Because actors, I was never sure I was doing right by the authors of whether it was a play. And I kept thinking, you know, I'd read a script or something I was supposed to do and think, Tony Perkins would be so good in this. Or this guy, George Bapard did this. Wow.

It would be terrific. You know, and that's not the right attitude to have as an actor. You know, and that's not the right attitude to have as an actor. You know, whether right or wrong, there are many people that could do what I'm doing now at Turner. But I kind of feel I'm doing it well. I'd never had that feeling about myself as an actor, ever. And I never liked changing clothes a lot. And also, the kind of parts I like to do were available on stage, and I did some.

But when I got to California, I was always in a suit as a lawyer carrying a briefcase. Right. And helping advance the plot. You know, I did a series called Young Marrieds for a while, and it's just, I've seen some of the old kinescopes of that. They're hilarious because you come in and I'll say, they'll bring me in like on a Monday, and I'll say, how's George doing? Is he better?

And they'd say, yes, no, he took a turn for the worse and all that. So they covered the stuff that was on for the last couple of weeks. So if anybody hadn't seen the show, they could get brought up to date. That's all I said. So you were basically the character

that let the audience know what was going on. I would ask the questions that they would answer and inform the audience of what had been going on the last couple of weeks. One thing I always enjoy about movies in a bad way is when you get two characters talking and one of them will go, well, well,

Jeff Smith, the biggest gangster in town. Right. They put the exposition right into the book. They do that a lot in movies. Yeah. Some of the B movies and stuff. You've been the mayor for the last 14 years. Oh, yes. There was only that mayor for the last 14 years.

There was only that one time that you got caught, but you had to go to prison for four years. And you say, oh, okay, now I get it. Joey, you're my brother. Uh-huh. They had a lot of that going on in A Few

Good Men. Where one character would get angry at the other and say, They had a lot of that going on in A Few Good Men. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Where one character would get angry at the other and say, I know about you. Uh-huh. And then do a whole long thing. The other great thing was those wonderful character actors who brought with them the history. So if it was Eugene Paulette, do you remember him?

Oh, sure. In a big, heavy set with a gravelly voice. You knew he was the banker or the rich father of the girl or something like that. Or political operator. Yeah, so you didn't have to waste any time developing his character. He brought the character with him. Or Jack Carson, you knew he was going to be kind of a flaky, funny guy. Like a Sharpie. Yeah. Edward Arnold Edward Arnold too always played those bangers yeah and the bad guy and the corrupt

guy yeah Jack Carson seemed like one of those people perfect for that time period you know like he always seemed like if he wasn't wearing a straw hat he he should be. Yeah. And also, you know, you look back on his work. He really was a wonderful actor. When you really check him out in, like, Cat on the Hot Tin Roof and Star is Born and some films you forgot he was even in. He was a very, very good actor. Isn't he in Mildred Pierce? Mildred Pierce, absolutely. He's funny, too.

He's funny in Arsenic and Old Lace. They would always have him in those parts where he talked like this. You know, like a smooth talker. And now the people, you've worked with so many people. I have. Yes. Now you worked with Zero Mostel. Right.

Did a play with him. Yeah. So what was that experience like? Well, it was great. It was a play by Paddy Chayefsky that never went to Broadway. This one was supposed to go, and it got very good reviews.

They opened in Los Angeles, got very good reviews, and they were going to take it to Broadway. Excuse me. But he got bored with the play, and he didn't want to sign on for a long run. It wasn't enough fun for him. There was too much dialogue and not enough funny stuff going on.

Who was the director of that play, Robert? Actually, Burgess Merritt. There you go. That one was for Gilbert. Yeah. Going back to Of Mice and Men. Yes, exactly. So he was very funny, very nice,

and you never know how somebody that is, you know, because I thought he was a genius too, Cyril Mustel, but you never know how they're going to react to a young guy who's just starting out as an actor or something. They can be kind of brutal sometimes. He couldn't have been nicer. But he was funny. He used to do outrageous things.

There'd be a very dramatic scene, and there was this lovely girl, Guida Donhow, who was the leading lady. And she had a very dramatic scene where she's talking to him, and he's in a big back chair in a boardroom, and his back is to the audience. And she has this very dramatic scene.

He would do the most outrageous, make the most outrageous faces and uh he'd uh he'd uh act as if he was uh masturbating well she's trying to do this very dramatic scene uh he was he was evil he was so funny so funny which i think she was very happy when the play closed yeah because i i heard with zero mustel it wasn't a totally made up insanity no i think he truly was yeah truly was crazy and we're just quickly going back to your acting days, well, you were working with Zero Mostel, you were acting. You were directed by Robert Altman? I was, and I didn't remember that. This was on a television show called The Whirlybirds.

And I kept a list of the shows I did and the character I played in it and where we shot it and the director. And years later, when I was going back and really kind of compiling that i looked it was like zero must tell i mean uh robert altman i couldn't believe it here's one of the great directors so yeah it's starting out in television yeah then i looked it up and he did a lot of uh whirlybirds all of that i remember also with those little parts you play that one time I was watching, I always thought George Grizard was a wonderful actor. And there was an old series called One Step Beyond that was on.

And George Grizard was in it. And I thought, oh, my God, I'd like to watch that because he was so good, particularly when he was a young fellow. And I started watching it and all of a sudden i thought well i think i've seen this before because it was starting to get a little familiar and then all of a sudden i heard somebody kind of going crazy having a breakdown and it was me i was on the show and i had no idea i had no idea. I had no idea. So I then went back to my book, looked it up, and yes, I was in it. Wow.

One step beyond with George Grisard. I remember George Grisard, I think, was in two Twilight Zone episodes. He was great. Those are great training rounds for actors. Particularly, they did a lot of those in New York. Oh, and everyone's in them. Yeah. And they're wonderful actors

because they're all those, like Jenna Rowlands and all those great New York actors. Robert Redford shows up to his death. Yeah. In one episode, it's Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery. Uh-huh. Is that one of the last two people on Earth?

Oh, yes, yes. That's a great one. And they would have on Earth? Oh, yes, yes. That's a great one. And they would have on an old TV, you could be a guest star popping up in several episodes as different characters. Uh-huh. Yeah. Like Klugman did two Twilight Zone, William Shatner did two. But again, you never thought those things were ever going to be shown again. You know, are they going to have any lifespan at all.

You just kind of went in and did the job and were happy to have the job and happy to have the paycheck. And then you tried to do something else because you're kind of waiting for that big break, either in a not in a series as much in those days, but either in a Broadway show or in a major movie. That was the goal then. I don't think Broadway is the goal anymore. It's certainly where people go and get a lot of respect for going, but Broadway is such a different place now than it used to be, but that was kind of the ultimate to be on Broadway. Because I think they asked Dean Martin if he would ever do Broadway,

and he said, you do Broadway hoping you'll get discovered to do movies. Right, yeah. Robert, I think our listeners and Gilbert would enjoy the story of you trying to sneak into a party for Betty Davis. Oh, oh, oh, oh. And finding

a different way in. Well, this was, there was a point at which I knew the movie industry as I loved it was dying. That it was disappearing. I could see it and I could feel it. And every year you'd go to some of these functions or be around. And there were a lot of new people coming in that were now dominating the the the motion picture field or the Hollywood area. And and these the Cagney's and the Bogart had died before I got to California. But the Betty Davis's were still there and Judy Garland and all of that without much respect. You know, I was so lucky for me because that's why I was able to get to know them

because they had nothing to do. They still had their energy, but they weren't asked to work much anymore. And also, they didn't have to explain who they were to me. I knew who they were. And it sounds strange now, but in those days, you know, a lot of people, you could see Cary Grant at a party and a lot of people say, oh, yeah, Cary Grant. But that was about it. Nobody cared that much. And that's incredible. It is incredible. Now, and Judy Garland, I'll never forget one time being at a party. Then I've been to I did get to know her, but I've been to a party about three parties in

this one week it happened to be a busy social week and she was at all the parties and was always in by the piano singing and I remember at this one party in down in Malibu I was at a buffet table and I there was somebody there and I was trying to have a conversation and she was in the other room singing again. This was like the third night in a row for me. And I kept thinking, Jesus, I wish she'd shut up. I'm trying to have a conversation with somebody. And now I look back and I think, oh my God, I should have been at her feet listening. But again, it was no big deal to be at a party and have Judy Garland singing, which sounds incredible now. But now she's so deified and stuff. She wasn't then.

She was respected because she was Judy Garland. And it was kind of thrilling having her in the room. But after a while, you know, it didn't mean that much to you. Anyway, Betty Davis. Betty Davis was getting an AFI tribute, first woman to get that. And I knew it was going to be a big deal and there would be a lot of Hollywood people there. And it was something I really wanted from my memory book. So I knew Ray Strickland, who was an actor working for John Springer, who had a PR agency in New York. Ray ran the agency

at that point in LA, and they were handling the AFI tribute. And so I called Ray and I said, look, is there any chance that you could sneak me in to the AFI thing? Because I really would love to go. And he said, well, let me figure out something and see if I can. And he said, he called back and he said, well, he said, go rent a tuxedo. He said, I'll get you in through the kitchen. And he said, you won't be able to sit down and have dinner. I said, that doesn't mean anything. This sounds like an Isle of Lucy episode. So I said, great.

So I went to out and rented my tuxedo, which was a big deal, though. When you don't have any money, to put money in for a tuxedo is a big deal. So I got that. So then I went back home. This was like on a Saturday. I got the tuxedo, and the event was, I'll say, the following Thursday. Saturday, I got the tuxedo, and the event was, I'll say, the following Thursday. Okay, so I go back home, and there's a message on my message service from Olivia Havlin. Well, I had met the previous winter when she was in California making a movie,

and I was interviewing her for an in-flight magazine, which got me free tickets to movie passes. I did movie reviews for that magazine for free. But my payoff was I got tickets to go to the passes for the movies because I couldn't afford them otherwise. Anyway, so Olivia and I had made this wonderful connection. And we had a lot of champagne together and did this interview. And she had said at the time, you know, when I come back to California next time, we'll get together again and have more champagne. I said, great. So then she had contacted me once and said, I'm going to be coming back in February.

And so leave some time. She gave me a date and we'll have some champagne. So I got this thing to call Mr. Haviland at her, at her hotel. So I thought, Oh, she's here for the Betty Davis event. And she's going to suggest that we have our champagne. So I called her back and she said, I have, uh, a proposition for you. Not indecent. I have a proposition for you, not indecent.

And she said, would you be available or interested in escorting me to this event that they're doing for Betty Davis? So I went absolutely stunned, silent, because I thought, oh, my God, here I am. Just went out to rent a tuxedo to sneak in to the kitchen. She's inviting me to go with her. And so I was so silent. She took it as hesitancy. She said, well, I think you'll have a good time. And we'll be sitting with Betty at her table on the dais and everything.

So I said, well, I would love to go. So then I thought, well, how do I get her there? I had a Volkswagen Beetle. And knowing her later, she would have been willing to go in that, but I thought that wasn't proper. So I knew a fellow at Disney, Tom Jones, who worked in PR there, and he knew Olivia. And I called him and I said, look, she invited me to go to this. Is there some way that Disney can help me get? Because I knew they had limousines and stuff at Disney, and he was one of the heads of the publicity department. I said, because I need a way to get her transportation, although it was only from the Beverly Hills Hotel to the Beverly Hilton, which was like five blocks.

We could have walked it. And so he was wonderful. He said, absolutely. For Olivia, anything. So we got the car, and he even had a big thing of ice and champagne in the back seat. So we went to the event, and indeed, we were sitting on the dais. And so the show starts, and the way they always did it at that point, they would, at the beginning of the evening, introduce the celebrity. And they would photograph her when she came in and came and sat down at the dais.

Then they would quit photographing. Everybody would have dinner. Then the show would start again, where they would all pay tribute to Betty or or the whoever the honoree was show film clips and all that kind of stuff so I kind of knew what that format was so the show starts and they say ladies and gentlemen Miss Betty Davis so they play the theme from now Voyager a song called I can't it can't be wrong and she enters and she's like waving to everybody, making a little bit long, slow trek up to the table. Well, I get up there and I realize I'm the only one at that table

that she doesn't know. Because it was like Paul Henry and his wife. There was William Wyler and his wife. There was Bob Wagner and Natalie Wood, then there were the two seats for Betty and her escort, then Olivia and then me, Geraldine Fitzgerald and her son, and then William Wyler and his wife, or Joe Mankiewicz and his wife. It's quite a table. Yes. So I'm thinking, oh, my God. Because she, and she, but she didn't come straight up.

She stopped and gave Paul Henry the kiss. And then, hello to Mrs. Henry. And then she stopped and gave William Wyler a kiss and his wife. And I thought, what's she going to do when she's done? And it's not going to be like some kissy-kissy person that's going to kiss somebody that she's never met before. And I thought, oh, my God, I don't know what I'm going to do. And I thought, ah, she'll come up to her place and stop and won't go further down.

So she indeed gives Bob Wagner a big kiss and Natalie Wood, who she adored. And she gets to where her seats were. And Olivia, with a big theatrical flare, goes, Betty! You know, which pulls her to that side of the table. So then she has to kind of complete and go on down. And so I thought, I don't know what to do. So all of a sudden it just struck me I kissed her

hand so she didn't have to do anything and then she greeted Geraldine Fitzgerald who'd been with her in Dark Victory and she greeted Mankiewicz who directed All About Eve and his wife and so then the thing started then she had a party upstairs after the event, a private party. And because I was with Olivia, I got invited to that. But what was so fascinating is the fact that when it was shown on television, they cut. They said Miss Betty Davis and they showed her entering and waving. But almost immediately they show her up on the dais, giving this Olivia de Havilland a big hug, because Olivia had a really beautiful kind of purple dress on,

and then this gallant young fellow kissing her hand. And so for years afterwards, whenever they would have the AFI tribute on television, they kind of recapped the previous year's thing. And they always showed Betty entering and this gallant man kissing her hand. So I was on television for years

just at the opening at that thing. So you went from sneaking into the kitchen to kissing her hand on television. Kissing her hand on television.

But we became great friends, actually, and she was a terrific lady. I heard with Betty Davis, her career was over for a while, and she put an ad in Variety. Hollywood Reporter. Oh, Hollywood Reporter.

That's been misinterpreted. She had just made Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. Oh, okay. So she wasn't really down in the doldrums and it was more uh more of a uh tongue-in-cheek joke but also a kind of a wagging a finger at hollywood that this betty davis you know two-time academy award winner and all that uh was searching for work and it wasn't as though she was never given an offer. She was still being offered things, but most of them were not things she was interested

in doing because she's still trying to keep a quality level in there. But it kind of sounds now she was down and out, living in a poor house, you know, begging for work. But it was also to let people know that she had moved from the East Coast to the West Coast because for many years she lived on the East Coast. She was a New England lady, loved New England. And whenever she wasn't working in a movie,

she always was at her home, always had a home in New England. So the ad had to do with the fact it was done like a telegram and said, here's just to let everybody know, Betty Davis, you know, actress, you know, not as difficult as sometimes claimed, is now living on the West Coast seeking employment and all that. But it was kind of tongue in cheek, but taken out of context, it sounds a little more brutal than it was. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor.

Now, I heard that during the making of whatever happened to Baby Jane, that they say Betty Davis was like sadistic to john crawford not true no i mean i was on that set a lot number one these were two these were two intelligent ladies these were also professional ladies if they hadn't been professional they wouldn't have had careers that went on for like 60 years because hollywood is famous for getting rid of people if they don't behave you know if you if you're like veronica lake and a lot of trouble the minute

you're not making money for a studio you're out you know unless you got a great great talent like a barbara streisand or something you know they don't put up with you if you're not really pleasant and kind of playing the game brando an example he was outrageous but everybody put up with him because he was brilliant and he delivered the goods but no i was on the set a lot and watch this is before i really knew betty well and she used to come in in the morning she did her own makeup she would come over uh that every almost every time i was on the set, Crawford was working in the mornings, and Betty came in later. And Betty would always go over and say hello to Joan Crawford

and Robert Aldridge, who was directing it. And she'd go into the dressing room and come in. They were very cordial. But again, they didn't like each other. But they were also ladies who had worked for years with people they didn't like. But they were in a business where you don't have to like somebody to act in a picture with them. It doesn't mean that they're going to have to be chummy. And they didn't have that much free time anyway.

They were working women. It was a low-budget film. And they didn't have time to pal around or want to pal around. But I don't think there was any like that going on. That's kind of a fantasy of housewives that live in Denver who've never been outside of Denver imagining what life in Hollywood is like. And I think studios like to create those. Oh, for publicity. Absolutely. Like, it's so funny because I interviewed, we both had on Boris Karloff's daughter. So, of course, did Boris Karloff have this ongoing rivalry with Lugosi?

And they said no. You know, it was like the studio. Yeah, these were professional people. They knew that job had to get done. They were not going to concentrate or spend their energy on a feud with somebody. They needed to save that for the energy needed when they're playing a scene. The energy needed when they're playing a scene. Now, who was some major stars you knew or knew about that just were just out of the business, forgotten about?

Oh, gosh, so many, so many. Dorothy L'Amour was one of them. She'd been a huge star in the 40s. Ella Raines, who'd been a big star in the 40s, was totally forgotten about. I'd say, you know, I'd say 90% of them. But many of them weren't that concerned about it. Most of them understood it, for one thing.

The smart ones were ones that had, the women had a husband, or the guys had a wife, and they had families. Or they were like Joel McRae and had investments other places. Randall Scott. So I think a lot of them were. And they also knew that when they were in their 60s, that movies were about young people. Everybody went to the movies to see young people, not to see older people. A few were different than that, but, you know, it's a lot saner place.

Hollywood was then. I'm not sure how it is now, but, you know, if it weren't for the Jimmy Stewart's and the Henry Fonda's and the people that were saying the Betty Davis's and the professionals like Joan Crawford, there wouldn't have been a Hollywood. There's too much money involved to put up with anything like that. You have to deliver the goods. And I think most of those people were raised that way, understood all of that. The few that didn't, like Judy Garland, she understood it. But she had this great talent, but she also had this monkey on her back i think she was you know she was drug controlled for so much of her life which is a pity because

i think she was the the greatest talent maybe hollywood ever developed now they said when judy gollin was a little girl they would give her like amphetamines to give her energy to perform. Well, she wasn't that little then. That's when she was at MGM. And they had these, they just put her, because she was such a talent, made such money for the studio, put her in one picture after another after another. And they would give her these pills with speed in them

to give her energy to get through a day, dancing all day, filming all day. And they also worked six-day weeks then. They worked on Saturdays. And then she would have to take something to calm her down so she could sleep at night. But you have to also remember that when those drugs came on the market, they were called wonder drugs.

People thought they were great because they were doing this wonderful thing. They were cutting your appetite so you didn't gain weight. They were giving you great energy. And oh, that's fabulous. And they could also knock you out at night. Fabulous. Nobody had any concept that these were doing terrific damage to you or a narcotic that was going to make you a dope addict. Nobody. It's like cigarettes, you know. I smoked for years. And then they finally put on the package, it may be injurious to your health.

They didn't say it was. It may be. And that was kind of enough for me because I thought, well, look, if you're really talking about this, this is bad for your health, this doesn't seem a practical thing to do. But then they put on, you know, it is hazardous to your health. And we have all this proof. It seems very strange that people keep doing it today, keep smoking today. But people do.

I remember there used to be a health expert who had go on all the shows named Carlton Fredericks. And he was like the big guy. Was that Dr. Feelgood? What? I don't know. There was a guy around that they called Dr. Feelgood who gave people like Bob Cummings, who was a big health guy, shots. who was a big health guy, you know, shots, vitamin B12 shots and stuff. But they found out later they were all laced with heroin and other things.

There's a word, there's one story I heard, I don't know if it's true, I hope to God it is true, that Groucho Marx character, Captain Spaulding, was actually based on one of these guys. So he would have gone way back. Yeah. Like that, from the 30s. Yeah. Animal Crackers, right? Oh, yeah.

Hooray for Captain Spaulding. Yeah. But I remember with this Colton Fredericks, he was just like a TV guy who was the expert on health. He would always be on these talk shows with a cigarette. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, you know, you look through old magazine ads. Cigarettes all had doctors there smoking cigarettes and stuff.

It was the only thing that, well, there were a lot of cigarette advertisers. I made a lot of money when I was starting out and doing cigarette commercials because they paid so well. And, but, you know, they had, every cigarette brand had commercials on the air all the time. But the only thing that they would ever say is that it could make your throat sore, a sore throat or raspy or something.

Nobody ever said it could kill you. There was never a hint of anything like that. I heard with Disney, they had their artists working overtime to erase the cigarettes from Walt Disney's hand and all the photos. Could have been. Interesting. Yeah,. Could have been. Interesting. Yeah, it could have been.

They used to erase those. And I heard they always knew when to get back to work because he had this loud hacking cough. Well, I know I had a friend, my friend Tom Jones, who's the one that got me the car to go to the AFI tribute to Bette Davis. He was in publicity at Disney. And his job when he originally started with Disney was to be with Walt and get Walt out in a car and away when he started getting too drunk because he was a total alcoholic. Wow. That was his whole job.

He would go with Walt, and Walt would knock back some drinks and stuff, and it was up to Tom to decide, now is the time. And he would get Walt out of there, so he would never be photographed or seen by a lot of people drunk. Or say something inappropriate.

And above the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland, have you ever been there? Oh, yeah. Okay, above it, he built a private dining room and kind of area and stuff where for Disney people or like if I was a guest of somebody at Disney, I could get in for lunch there or something. If I was a guest of somebody at Disney, I could get in for lunch there or something. But he built the whole thing just so they could have a bar there because he couldn't go to Disneyland and spend a day without alcohol. So he built it. So and it's still there. It's kind of a private club at Disneyland full of booze. Oh, wow.

Yeah. I hadn't heard the drunk. I heard a lot of stories about him being a major anti-Semite. Really? Didn't hear that. I think even Roddy McDowell said it about him. He said he was a very cruel man and a horrible anti-Semite. Didn't know that. Yeah.

And he was, I remember, well, I'm telling stories. That's the worst thing. It sounds good. Yeah. Robert, not to jump around too much, but let's,

tell us about interviewing Natalie Wood because I heard you tell the story and I thought it was touching. Well, I was writing, again, for this in-flight magazine to get free tickets to movie theaters and uh she was doing this movie called inside daisy clover and it was going to be her academy award winner it was a really dramatic story and she was really ripe for the next step of some, you know, this was kind of before, no, I think it was after Splendor in the Grass. So around the time she was doing The Great Race?

It was, exactly. But she needed that Mildred Pierce in her career or that All About Eve or whatever, that defining film. And everybody thought it was going to be inside Daisy Clover. And so they were doing a lot of publicity for it. And she agreed to let me interview her for this in-flight magazine, which was, number one, very brave of her because I had no real credentials at all. brave of her because I had no real credentials at all. And usually stars of her caliber would save their interviews for people that they knew or had major outlets. And I went to her house and I was so pleased to be there, but I was so disorganized. I didn't really have my notes together, my thoughts together. I don't remember now why

that was, because I'm usually very well prepared for things, but for some reason I wasn't that well prepared. And I started asking her a question, and then I would jump to something else, and to something else, and she's the one that kind of said, hey, because I had notes but I couldn't find... It's a little how we do it, like

you do a podcast. Complete lack of preparation. But no one helps us. But she actually sat down and she said, look, let's get these papers. Let's just stop for a minute. Let's get these papers together. And she got my notes and she said, okay, this is fine. But then let's move to this on this page five and go into that.

Then it's kind of logical to be going into that. I mean, it was, and she took the time to do that. And I just thought for somebody that was kind of starting out doing that, that was the greatest gift she could have given me. Because she had every right to really say, look, you're wasting my time. You go get organized and come back or say, you know, let's not do this anymore because you're not prepared. There's a thousand things she could have said. She was so dear to me that I've never forgotten that. And I always appreciated that. Restores your faith a little bit. She was lovely. She was really a lovely

lady. Now, when you were talking about a guy who was hired just to watch over Walt Disney, I heard there were several actors, several big stars that would have people hired

by the studio to follow them around. Oh, I think a lot did. Yeah, like for sexual reasons and some... I'm sure. Yeah. You know, particularly when you had people under contract to that. Because it's... Excuse me.

It's very interesting that when you really study the Hollywood canvas, that when you really study the Hollywood canvas, that it was in the 50s that stars started getting into real trouble. I mean, Errol Flynn got into trouble in the 40s, and there was always, like, somebody would get into trouble. But everybody started getting into trouble in the 50s, and I realized it's because

they were no longer under contract to a studio that when lana turner uh had the thing with her daughter stabbing lana's lover yeah johnny stuff and he was killed the uh she was no longer under contract to mgm and i'm sure mgm would have handled it we never would have heard about that. You know, they had very strong PR departments that were in very thick with the L.A. Police Department and all that. The first call would have probably gone out to the police department and whatever. But she didn't have people looking after her at that point. Ingrid Bergman, because she was always a wonderful lady, I have to say wonderful lady, but she was a very lusty lady and she was famous for having affairs. And so not though until she was no longer in a contract with David O. Selznick did she have this affair with Roberto Rossellini

that almost destroyed her career. Put her out of films for eight years in this country when she got pregnant by a man who wasn't her husband. And things like that, I think, went on a lot in Hollywood. I mean, I wonder how many times Lana Turner was maybe involved in something almost as complicated as the Stamonato thing, but it was all covered up. But that's what the studios did. They spent a lot of money.

So I'm sure many people would have people, you know, kind of on their tail, hired by the studio to keep them out of trouble. Yeah, I think Van Johnson had a guy following him around. They would say, I mean, aside from just like actors who are gay going to parties and orgies and stuff where some would go out now dressing up in drag to go out. And you really couldn't afford this for a romantic lead.

No. couldn't afford this for a romantic lead. No. But I'm sure there was much of that going on because there wasn't the threat of being trapped like you are today with TCM or what's it? Oh, TMZ. TMZ. Yeah.

You know, things like that. And the fact that we've got the internet and we've got iPhones that you can follow somebody around and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, back then it was kind of a much simpler time. You had movie magazines that came out once a month and Llewell Parsons came out with a column every day. But other than that, you didn't have paparazzi around and stuff. And so you think you could get away with anything. And you did. So that would be even more reason to have somebody follow you around because chances are if you went out on your own, you're not going to get caught.

But it would be disaster for the studio if you did get caught. Okay. See, right before we wrap, Gilbert, I just want to ask Robert one question. We can't rap on somebody cross-dressing. No. Which is why I wanted to. We have to have a little higher. A quick change.

A little higher level. I just wrote this down on a card, Robert. For the ultimate film buff, three movies that you would tell. We were talking before about movies that were shown. The old days, in the 60s, they would show the same movie, a million-dollar movie, every day. Three movies that you would take to a desert island and that you could watch every day over and over again

and never tire of them. Police Academy 6. Goes without saying. Well, Singing in the Rain would never fail to make me feel better. This is a very joyous movie. I think it would wear well. One of the Pink Panther movies, probably the Pink Panther, would wear well. These are not necessarily my favorite movies, but these are ones that I could see time and time again.

That'll do for now. And This is Spinal Tap would also be in that list because I think that's a really funny. It never ceases to make me laugh. What a great choice. Okay, well, this interview is the reason why I watch you all the time on Turner Classics. It was like, this is my own private, you know, it's like, I love watching you in between the movies. Oh, thank you. Giving these stories.

Well, I've enjoyed this very much today myself. And I loved doing your show because that was like, to me, that was like, I felt like, oh, we're just sitting here in chairs talking about movies. Like, oh, we're just sitting here in chairs talking about movies. And I remember this shows you how much I enjoyed doing your show is that afterwards they said, OK, can you write down your social security number and an address where to send the check? And I wasn't even thinking of like the idea of getting money for it. And if you, anyone who knows me, you know, like if someone calls me and says, this is a charity for blind children, I'll go, how much money do I get?

So that's how much I enjoy. Well, that's great. That's a nice compliment. Well, we thought right from the beginning that, you know, we don't have a lot of money and we don't have a lot of budget because we don't have commercials and stuff. But that if people are willing to take the time to come down, they should get something for that. Because these are people that also work for a living. That's part of their DNA that they get paid for what they do.

And I just think it's a courteous thing to do, no matter what. Yeah, because when I did it, I just felt like, you know, what we just did here feels like if the cameras weren't here, I'd be sitting talking to Robert Osborne about old movies, and we could go on for hours. And that's why this was a pleasure and you're one of those guests, click on the mic and you have nothing to worry

about. Well, it was fun. So thank you from Turner Classic Movies, Robert Osborne. Thanks, Robert. Thanks for doing it. Thank you, Frank. You don't have to thank Frank. I never talk to him. he doesn't thank me

well double thanks to you