Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 98. Illeana Douglas

Episode Date: April 11, 2016

Gilbert and Frank dial up actress, producer and film buff/historian Illeana Douglas, who talks about her new memoir, I Blame Dennis Hopper, and shares some highly entertaining anecdotes about everyone from Marlon Brando to Peter Sellers to former beau Martin Scorsese. Also, Rudy Vallee soaks up applause, Melvyn Douglas lends sage advice, Robert De Niro watches the Three Stooges and Illeana mourns the loss of drive-in theaters and "ethnicity" in films. PLUS: Shelley Winters drops names! Buddy Hackett cops a feel! Illeana does Richard Dreyfuss! Richard Dreyfuss does Spencer Tracy! And Joe Pesci roughs up Don Rickles! This episode is sponsored by Parachute. Shop online at http://parachutehome.com/Gilbert for new sheets, duvets and other bedding essentials and receive $25 off your first order by using the offer code GILBERT. This episode is also sponsored by Seeso. Comedy’s experiencing a serious renaissance right now, and Seeso is a comedy streaming service tailor-made for comedy-lovers and nerds, with thousands of hours of the best comedy, 24/7/365. Go to http://Seeso.com and start watching all the comedy you can stream for free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to connexontario.ca. Hi, I'm Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and we're here at Nutmeg Post with our engineer, Frank Fertorosa. Our guest this week is a writer, producer, and actress who's appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows.

You've seen her work in Goodfellas, To Die For, Cape Fear, Stir of Echoes, Ghost World, and Grace of My Heart. TV appearances include Seinfeld, The Larry Sanders Show, The Drew Carey Show, Entourage, and Six Feet Under. She's worked with everyone from Robert De Niro to Buddy Hackett to Christopher Walken to Jerry Lewis, and her own new book is called I Blame Dennis Hopper and other stories from a life lived in and out of the movies. Please welcome one of our favorite actresses and very likely the only person more obsessed with Richard Dreyfuss than we are, Ileana Douglas.

Yay. I'm so happy to be here. I love that. Thank you. So we were talking, and now I guess that was our rehearsal. Talk about how we met. Okay.

We met at the, it wasn't even a premiere of Aladdin. It was, they did, animation has come so far, but they did a pre-screening of Aladdin and it was just sketches. And they had this extremely expensive kind of faux Indian premiere. And you were there. And I was with Martin Scorsese then. And you were telling us how you almost didn't get the part because they thought you were maybe too one-dimensional to play the parrot. Yeah. thought you were uh maybe too one-dimensional to play the parrot yeah and uh he thought that was one of the funniest things he just he would always repeat that he's like

remember that time we met so yeah i was too one dimension i didn't have the dimensions to be a cartoon parrot. Yeah. We remembered that. That was so funny. And I remember, well, two things I have to bring up. Okay, number one in your book, you describe yourself as an Italian Catholic.

Yeah. Yeah, but your grandfather, great actor Melvin Douglas. Two-, great actor Melvin Douglas. Two-time Oscar winner Melvin Douglas. Yes, yes. Revered actor. Is, in fact, a Jew, isn't he? Well, I guess he is.

He's half Jewish. I mean, we're in show business, so we're all Jewish, right? The way I look at it. It's already established. You can't be in show business without being Jewish. But technically, he was only half Jewish because his father was Jewish. His mother was a southern Scottish belle from Kentucky. Jeez.

Yeah. So that. This would mean you are, in fact, contaminated with Jewish blood. But aren't Italians and Jews the same? You're looking at two right here. We've got both sides represented. And, you know, many times, many times I've wanted to contaminate you with Jewish blood. But we have to get the guilt thing is slightly different.

The guilt, the Italian guilt, the Jewish guilt, a little bit different. A little bit different. Now, I remember, and it brought back a memory of the first time meeting you, that in your book, you talk about being with the cool girl in the car. And she would ride up front and you'd be in the back. And she was the pretty cool girl. And if she wanted a Coke, you ran out and got it for her. Yes. coke you ran out and got it for her yes i remember uh you standing there and i think scorsese introduced us yeah and and uh and he said you know this is eliana douglas and you said hello and i said i'm kind of thirsty can you get me a diet coke and you got me a Diet Coke. Is that true? Yes. I was so insecure.

I would always think that, you know, nobody knew who I was. I was always like, well, it's Marty. And people just want to talk to Marty and try to get a job is what I was always doing. You weren't trying to get a job, right? No, no. I was trying to get a Diet Coke. Oh, okay. Yeah, and you ran and got me a Diet Coke.

Oh, well, good. I'm glad. I'm glad. I always remember that. Oh, thank you. Well, I was, you know, I figure you wanted your quality time with Martin Scorsese. Yeah. Although he was a big fan of yours.

He was, you know. Was. Yes. I'm hoping he still is. When did he turn against me? Well, maybe he'll turn up in vinyl. See, having, for me, having Martin Scorsese as a fan is like having a blonde with big tits as your best friend. But he like, you know, but he was a fan of yours.

So you should be on vinyl. I remember he he invited me out of nowhere before I even met him. He invited me to appear at Gracie Mansion when Koch was still in office about a whole thing about preserving old films. Yes. Yeah. That would have been the kind of exciting things we were doing. Yeah. Comedians were doing yeah while other comedians were doing cocaine we were uh you know yeah and i remember the first time i spoke to him on the phone he says well i i i really want you to to go there and speak and and you know you'll speak there and robert de niro is going to be there and you know what a great public speaker he is. So he knew you were a film buff.

Yes. Yeah, he knew that about you. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, are you a Jerry Lewis fan? Oh, me too. He is. We talk about him on the show a lot. We're all obsessed.

You can't go out with Martin Scorsese without being a Jerry Lewis fan, too. Oh, yeah. You know, De Niro is obsessed with Don Rickles, too. Oh yeah. Don Rickles, you know, De Niro's obsessed with Don Rickles too. Right. I heard that Don Rickles during Casino would just constantly be cracking jokes. Oh, that's true. Well, you know, the whole Don Rickles,

the whole reason he's in Casino, I was always obsessed with comedians and I owe a lot to Bob Costas, because I saw, I don't know if you guys remember the old Bob Costas. Of course, yeah. We had him here. Do you remember when he had Don Rickles on for five nights in a row? He just kept the camera going. And he had him on five nights in a row and he was talking about Vegas and I was crazy about Don Rickles and after I watched that show I said Marty you got to get Don Rickles in

Casino he knows all about this and Marty you know bless his heart was always so insecure he'd always think oh Don Rickles doesn't want to be in my movie and of course he ended up, he did it, and he was in, you know, he was in Casino, and all he ever did was make fun of Robert De Niro. He was terrible. Joe Pesci, though. Yeah, I remember reading that De Niro would do a dramatic scene, and Rickles would say, oh, that's the way you're going to play it? All right. Totally, and he loved it. scene and Rickles would say, oh, that's the way you're going to play it? All right. Totally. And he loved it.

The only person he was afraid of was Joe Pesci because Joe Pesci would really rough him up. You know, they were shooting these scenes. It was like, you know, well, in Las Vegas, they, you know, they work 11, 12 o'clock at night. There was no sense of time there. So they would be doing these scenes and they'd have to wake up Don Rickles in his trailer. You know, it was midnight to go do a scene. And he was very afraid of Joe Pesci beating the hell out of him.

We were also obsessed with the Costas show, Ileana. It was the greatest, wasn't it? Oh, and the last kind of show, and we said this to Bob, the last kind of show where you could, like the old Cavett show in a way, where you could get a guest on not only for several nights, but really get those kind of in-depth interviews. And he'd get people like Frankenheimer and Rod Steiger.

And didn't you talk Marty into doing the show? I did. Those are also memorable episodes. I said, you have to do this show because, you know, once this show is gone, there will be nothing else like this. And I was I was correct. Yeah. He was really glad that he went on and did the show.

Yeah. There hasn't been anything like it since. In your book, I remember I laughed at one point because in the beginning, it reminded me of that Albert Brooks movie, Lost in America. The best. Where he decides to give up his advertising job rat race because he wants to live like Easy Rider. Touch Indians. Yeah. And that happened to you. Yeah.

My parents saw, you know, we had just, I mean, I was a little kid. I was four. But my parents had met in New York City and were living in the village. And they moved to Connecticut. And they were just about to sort of start the kind of classic American middle-class dream. And then my father saw the movie Easy Rider and came home and quit his job and became a hippie and started a commune called The Studio and started a band. And all of a sudden hippies were living all around us.

And, you know, he started emulating Dennis Hopper and the values of the movie Easy Rider, much like that movie, you know, with Albert Brooks, Lost in America. And it changed my life. It changed my destiny because they saw that movie. My mom used to say, why did they, why did we see that goddamn movie? And when you finally met Hopper, what, what you, obviously you told him this, you were dying to tell him this. Oh, well, that was like the whole joke. I couldn't wait. I said, this is going to be great. I'm going to meet Dennis Hopper and blame him for my life and ask him for all the money I think he owes me because you know

we became poor because of the commune um because you know free love is expensive as we began to as my parents figured out but the day I was supposed to meet Dennis Hopper on my way to the set I ended up being in a car accident uh because accident because the intern fell asleep at the wheel. And so by the time I met Dennis Hopper, I was like lying on the ground and saw my life flashing before my eyes and thought I heard my father speaking to me. But in fact, it was the real Dennis Hopper. And so it was very different than I had anticipated. And he, you know, cradled me in his arms and told me I was having a concussion and said, your brain isn't supposed to move inside your head. It's not supposed to do that. And that's why I had my own epiphany

with Dennis Hopper. You know, it's funny, Ileana. You and I also met. There's Gilbert's phone going off. We'll edit that out. Okay. I'm sorry. You got it. You and I also met at the Joy Behar show a couple years ago at HLN in the green room, and you were so nice. And it was just funny because I walked into the room. We'd never met. And within, I think,

three minutes, we started talking about old movies. Obviously, you knew who your grandfather was. And why I think you were destined started talking about old movies. Obviously, you knew who your grandfather was. And why I think you were destined to do this podcast, and I have to tell this to Gil, too. I didn't get a chance to tell him. I'm going through the book, and I'm finding movie after movie and reference after reference that we've made on this show. Oh, my God, yes. Really?

Well, I mean, when we're not doing celebrity interviews like this one, we do a little mini episode on Thursdays where we just we just obsess about movies we love. One movie you mentioned in the book that's an obsession of mine is The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster. There you go. Frank Perry. Perry, my first professional job in show business, right across from, you know, from Frank Perry, working with Peggy Siegel, the film publicist, and working day by day next to Frank Perry, the swimmer. That movie hypnotizes me every time I watch it. I could watch it a million times. You know, Alec Baldwin for years wanted to do a remake of that.

I didn't know that. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. I didn't know that. I wanted to, but I can't swim and I look terrible in swim trunks. Well, you asked, we were talking about Robert Osborne and Gilbert being on TCM and The Swimmer was one of the movies you picked, actually. Right, Gil? Yeah, I picked The Swimmer, The Conversation, Freaks, The Swimmer, The Conversation, Freaks, and the original of Mice and Men with Lon Chaney and Burgess Meredith.

Isn't that a killer? Isn't that a killer? I have the album of that movie. You know, remember the day they used to sell it? Oh, yes. They'd have like the music and then they'd have the conversation. They'd have like the music And then they'd have the conversation So if you ever wanted to cry Which is me, I always want to cry

Like another way to make yourself cry Is to after the movie Get the soundtrack And then you can have the conversation On the album And make yourself cry Beautiful film Yeah, I remember I had

Of course the album to The Godfather. The Godfather. Now you just have the movies. You don't have to have the albums. No, something about having the album, again, it's that secretive thing where it wasn't as easy to share emotion in those days. Do you find that to be true? Like if you were watching a movie with your friends, if you cried in a film, you were like an idiot or a loser or something. So you wanted to do all that stuff privately.

maybe bringing it up to your bedroom and closing the door, you can put on the album, re-listen to it, and re-feel all those feelings that you couldn't do in public. At least that was me. Oh, and I just remembered something I had to ask you. Yes. Getting back to your grandfather, the great Melvin Douglas. Yes. What was his greatest piece of advice to you?

Oh, I love that. Well, we were on the set. I went to visit him in the set of being there. And, you know, I was a little kid. I kind of wanted to be in acting. And at that point, I was kind of obsessed with Ruby Keeler. I thought that was like what acting was was being in a movie being ruby keeler but he said leona you want to be an actress i want to give you one piece of solid advice wherever you are always order the club sandwich because wherever you are in any country the one thing they can't screw it up it It's always the same. So always remember to order the club sandwich.

That's sound advice. Go ahead, go. This is Melvin Douglas, one of the greatest actors ever, and that's the bit of advice. That's what he said. But I can't tell you how many times, like, you know, I remember having food poisoning in Madrid and being in Brits, you know. So many times I open a menu and I'm like, yeah, I'll have the club sandwich.

He didn't win two Oscars for nothing, Eliany. No, he knew. He knew. Order of the clubs always go with the club sandwich. It's always the same. Speaking of Melvin Douglas, and I was getting back to why I thought you were destined to do this show, another movie we talked about and that you picked, Gil, was HUD. Yes.

Yeah, I recommended HUD. Yeah, we've talked about HUD. We've talked about being there. We've talked about, I know you're like ace in the hole. Ace in the hole. We talked about. Greatest. Ace in the hole is happening right now.

Yep, yep. Sure is. Right? And a little bit of face in the crowd. Yes. More ace in the hole. Yep. Yep. Sure is. And a little bit of face in the crowd. Yes. More Ace in the Hole. Yeah. The media has created Donald Trump and they pushed it. Everybody's going to go watch Ace in the Hole. They just pushed it a little bit too far and now they kick it back. But he's out there. He's goose stepping. It's's great it's a hell of a movie and we've also talked about Bang the Drum Slowly

which turns up in your book and The Changeling with your grandfather and After Hours and The King of Comedy and these are all movies that we've discussed on the show and they play a prominent role in your book because I don't follow sports at all and yet I love Bang the Drum Slowly I saw it at a drive-in and they play a prominent role in your book. Because I don't follow sports at all,

and yet I love banging the drum slowly. I saw it at a drive-in. I mean, again, there were so many great films I saw at drive-in movie theaters. You know, parents, there was no parental discretion. They sent us off to the drive-in, and we were watching nudity and watching all these films. And so luckily for me, I guess because I was unattractive, while everybody else was getting it on, I was actually, I'd actually be watching the movie and watching these amazing

films. I saw Serpico that way, but bang the Drum slowly. You're right. I don't even like sports. And that's one of the saddest movies I have ever seen. It is heartbreaking. And a couple of times on this show I have sung the song that

De Niro and those other people not the sad song but when they're on the variety show. Yes. And they start singing that song. It's a killer. It's a killer. And we have no other actors like Vincent Gardenia.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Right? We loved him. We loved him. Yeah. No one exists. Like, you know, again, we have wiped out, which is getting back to your thing about being Jewish.

We've wiped out ethnicity in films where you need a great Irish guy. You need a great Jewish actor. You need a great Italian actor. There's just a broad, quote unquote, ethnic person. Does that make sense? That's interesting. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. Yeah.

And see, they talk about diversity, and it's great to have diversity, but it's like we're also losing cultural identity within what makes each culture interesting. And speaking of drive-ins, we're also losing movie theaters. I mean, one of the saddest things in your book, I mean, the nostalgia stuff about you and the drive-in is very sweet. But also you start talking about the theaters, the old New York theaters that are gone. Like the Thalion, the Ziegfeld just closed here, which is heartbreaking.

The Ziegfeld, how many great movies have I seen at the Ziegfeld us too I mean I remember just being like depressed and just thinking I gotta go to the Ziegfeld and just just see a movie just to sit there and see a movie and know how good it feels to see a film I mean the scary thing is I can foresee the day not in in the way future, but close up when that's when all the movie theaters close up. Yeah, that's well, that's true. I mean, that's it's happening in this. You know, you can you can watch movies on Netflix, but we don't have the context of seeing it in a group. That's one of the things they talk about in the book, what it actually felt like to see Jaws as a kid. Oh, yeah.

And just being a group of 600 people screaming their guts out at a movie and to actually feel that excitement and what that excitement felt like. Yeah, those days are are gonna be gone well you still you've still got the arc light and and and the chinese theater and the cinerama dome i mean we've lost i think almost all the show places in new york gil yeah there's almost nothing left i i remember seeing gone i remember seeing death wish in the. And every time he shot down a mugger, the crowd would go insane. Yeah. And they'd be jumping, cheering and applauding

and that kind of thing. I know. Well, it's exciting. You don't, the only time I experienced that now is in Turner Classic Movies when they have the film festival. And they'll show something, like they showed It's a mad mad world you know in in

70 millimeter and people were going insane because you you know you just don't get to experience anything like that anymore well we've also talked about how sometimes the movie going experience colors your your memory of of seeing that film oh Oh, completely. You know that day, you went to that theater, you met that person online. I mean, seeing, I saw Pennies from Heaven, the Herbert Ross version of Pennies from Heaven, the Steve Martin movie, and a snowstorm at the Ziegfeld. I'll never forget it. I was one of the two people in the theater. And it really affected my experience of the film, which is something I think we're going to lose. Totally.

I remember being in acting school and we had an experience in our class. I mean, completely tragic where a girl in our class had been murdered. I mean, came to New York with a big dream. And, you know, our teacher gathered us all and he said, you guys should all go to a movie today. Like we didn't know what to do with ourselves. He said, you know what, go out and see a film and be together and watch a movie together. And even that seems like a kind of an old fashioned idea. I mean, this was, you know, 1986.

old-fashioned idea. I mean, this was, you know, 1986. But, you know, movies used to make you feel good. Yeah, it's an experience that we're losing in New York, which is very sad. Yeah. Well, plus the whole, as I write in the drive-in. And drive-ins, too. The social experience. Oh, yeah. Also, I remember when I used to go to movies movies and I'd see a movie that I really liked, I wouldn't want to experience anything else. I wouldn't want anything to interfere with that feeling. Yes. Yeah. I know. Yes.

I know what you mean. Because you've, you know, I remember like, yeah, watching a movie and, you know, you got this whole vibe and you'd leave the movie and my mother would say to me, what is the matter with you? And I'd be like, yes, it's working. I'm whoever I'm just seeing in the movie, you know. It was kind of like you are high on something and you didn't want anything to interfere absolutely i didn't want people to talk to me i didn't want to see tv or any other movies yeah i i just wanted to live in that i agree i agree and i wonder if we you know it's very rare that we have that experience now and did you ever have the experience where if somebody didn't like a movie

you liked that you, you know, broke up with them? Ended a friendship. You guys are laughing. I'm like all the time. My test was always the heartbreak kid. That's my test. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

We've talked, that's another one we've talked about on this show. If somebody doesn't like the heartbreak kid, like, I can't be friends with him. Well, our friend is Drew Friedman, who's Bruce J. Friedman's son, who wrote the original story. He'll be very happy to hear you say that. Like, if you can't quote that film, I cannot be friends with you. And A New Leaf, since you're talking about Elaine Beck. Well, A New Leaf again. One of your picks.

Classic. Marty and I used to quote that all the time. She'll be in my house, touching my face. Now, you, I've heard, do a Shelley Winters imitation. I am not a comedian. You're a comedian. I was a comedian for like a minute. But I barely, barely got by with Shelly Winters.

In my era, you know, she'd already, you know, she'd been a 50s bombshell. Right, sure. Post Poseidon Adventure, she'd gotten sort of large and she got a buy a lot by sort of talking about her her you know she'd been friends with marilyn moreau robert de niro but she used to she would kind of have like a like a little catch in her voice when i was you know bobby and i were we're I were friends, and I taught Marlon how to be sexy. She was constantly, like, rubbing her breasts. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast,

but first, a word from our sponsor. You know who does a wonderful Shelley Winters in the Poseidon Adventure, Eliana, is Mario Cantone. Really? Oh, my God, Mario Cantone. I love him. Yeah, we've had him on the show. He's a friend. And he does maybe the best Shelley Winters going.

But that was pretty damn good. Thank you. George Stevens said to me, when I was working with Stanley Kubrick, he said, she always was like almost out of breath. Always talking about who she shtupped, too. Yeah, always. Yeah, that was the big thing. You know who took over for the talking about I knew Robert De Niro and I knew Al Pacino? Sally Kirkland. Yeah. She's the new Shelly winner.

She, for a while, was going on every single talk show. And her claim to fame was, oh, I went to acting school with robert de niro and oh god iliana there's so many places we could go i mean you you want to talk about being on the set of being there as a kid do you want to talk about our shared obsession with richard dreyfus oh where where do we listen let's try to do them all quickly. Okay. Because this is just book one. I know. You got more in you, huh?

Book two, we're going to get into the Larry Sanders show. Oh, yeah. The phenomenon of that. It's all one big movie. There's so much we have. We have to ask you about Buddy Hackett and action. I mean, we could keep going. Buddy Hackett. you know, again, there was a time in show business where it was not politically incorrect to come up to your co-star, put your hand up her skirt and say good morning. Sad things like that.

I miss those days. I know, me too. He says it to me. Be like, oh, buddy. And then you'd sort of try to put his hand out from under your skirt. And I'd say, oh, buddy, you realize I'm not a waitress in 1962. We're not at the Sands Hotel.

But yeah, so Buddy was just an incredible person to work with. Oh, yeah. Tell us some Buddy Hackett stories because we love them. I'll tell you the most. I mean, Buddy was, of course, incredible. Incredible. But I would say that the the the saddest thing, but also the most endearing thing about Buddy is that we were on top of the world with that show action. I mean, it's a fun show ahead of its time. Yeah. When we just thought, you know, we we I made that show business mistake of like we all thought, oh, this show's amazing and we're going to be here forever. But, you know, then we got canceled. And I remember shooting on the very last day and we

were in some ridiculous outfit. I was dressed as the elephant princess. And I remember Buddy Hackett sort of crying and saying to me, I'm never going to work. This will be my last show business job. You're never going to see me again. And I said, oh, buddy, that's not true. And of course, it like it was true. And it was, again, one of those sort of sad, you know, things, those reminders of those show business legends, Buddy Hackett, Milton Berle, Jerry Lewis, like once they're gone, that's it. It's true. That's it.

We have no ties to what it was actually like to be a comic in those days. And we all we have left is the stories that they told us. And they weren't, you know, they weren't as forthcoming in those days, except about women they slept with those that they talk about all day long. But, you know, once those type of people leave, all we have left are the people that they told stories to. So it becomes more and more important. Well, it's one of the reasons we do this show. I mean, we're trying to keep that alive.

Exactly. Again, another example is Peter Sellers. You know, I only had the experience of meeting him one time. My grandfather had this experience. He was in the army. They had been just completely coincidentally stationed together in Burma at the same time. So he had a relationship with Peter Sellers prior to being in the movie but they had a very special relationship and i knew him really as inspector cluzzo from the films but you know my grand you know so again i went from this experience of seeing a poster of him on the wall to now i'm meeting him and he immediately went into this Inspector Clouseau, you know, you know, routine for me of

accusing me of being in this, you know, French baguette stealing ring and everybody was laughing. But then he got very serious and he said, he asked me, you know, do you ride a unicycle? And I said, no, I don't ride a unicycle? And I said, no, I don't ride a unicycle. And he said, oh, but you must. You must ride a unicycle because it's hard and not everybody can do it. And it was such an odd thing to say to a child. Yet it seemed funny and I kind of remembered it. And then all these years later, as I write about, I had this experience where I go to see a psychic. She informs me that, you know, Peter Sellers has this message for me that he's

sitting there on a unicycle. And, and it was incredible. And to me, it was this reminder, again, of this idea of him, what he said to me all these years later, being on a unicycle. And it's hard being a comic, and it's hard. Not everybody can do it. But he was somebody that was misunderstood, I think. People don't understand how complex it is to be a comedian going back to buddy hackett and jay moore probably yourself you know people are comedians are pretty crazy and i don't think we have as much sort of understanding for them as we used to have. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah.

You know, like it's we're not as forgiving these days with as much Prozac and blah, blah, blah that's out there. I feel like there's less of a forgiving atmosphere for people who are vulnerable. You know, Buddy Hackett used to be, you know, he was very he'd be very crazy and then all of a sudden he's very sweet then he'd be crying then he'd be groping you but but you know it was like you know give him buddy hack just give him a break nowadays that would be all over the Internet. I know. I know. That Buddy Hackett grabbed some girl's ass.

They demand an apology. No. He'd have to go on every show as a confessional. I know. As long as we're talking about Buddy, have you seen him play Lou Costello in the TV movie? No. Ileana? Okay.

If nothing else comes out of this episode... There was Buddy Hackett and Harvey Corman played in this Bud and Lou movie where they were Abedin Costello.

And I mean the routines were terrible in the movie. They couldn't get the timing down at all. As Gil says, it's like they'd never seen Abbott and Costello. Yeah, it's like they never heard of Abbott and Costello and were just handed the script. But there is one scene that I thought, oh, this is the greatest movie death scene of all time. Yeah.

I thought, oh, this is the greatest movie death scene of all time. Yeah. Artie Johnson from Laugh-In shows up as their, I guess, Eddie Sherman, the manager. Yeah. And Buddy Hackett as Luke Costello is in his hospital bed. It's on YouTube, Pilianna. You could see it. Okay. And Artie reaches under his jacket, and he takes out this container, and he goes, I got you a strawberry malted.

And Buddy takes one sip, and he goes, you know, Artie, I had a lot of strawberry malted in my day day but this one's the best and he his head falls to the side and he's dead oh no you must see it as somebody who knew buddy and worked with him you must you must oh my god that was this week buddy also you know he hated smoking couldn't smoke around him and we had we went to new york for the what they call the up fronts that's when you they you know decided your pilot's going to be picked up and we were at the up fronts and there was some actress and her manager was smoking in New York. In those days, you could smoke. And, you know, Buddy got up from the table, grabbed the guy

and punched him in the jaw. That's a good story. The guy was on the ground. Like, no, you can't get away with stuff like that. You'd be like, it's Buddy Hackett, whatever, you know. Well, it's like Don Rickles would have had his career destroyed,

the stuff he said nowadays. Yeah, I know. You can't say anything these days. What Jerry Lewis stories do you have meeting and working with him? That's book number two. There's some of it in the back of book one. Yes. Toward the end.

Laying the groundwork for Jerry is that what we met and I got cast weirdly, this little cameo in a movie called Max Rose. And I was playing his psychiatrist. And we just hit it off. We started, you know, becoming friends and I traveled with him a bit to watch shows with him on the road. And it's he's got a whole fan base out there. I mean, I know people have very strong feelings about him, but he did contribute a lot to, you know, the film industry. I don't know. I can't speak about people's personal feelings about him, but I didn't feel any of those things. You know, again, he works with

he worked with Kathleen Freeman. He was a huge fan of Toadie Fields. We love Kathleen Freeman. So it's always interesting, again, to see the public perception to somebody and what that comedian's privately like. And all you can do is stand back these days and go you know i think maybe he's a little misunderstood can he give you a gift he gave it well he's given me many gifts the first gift he gave me was again a uh wanted to give me a flashlight and uh he wanted me to have a flashlight which i thought was a sort of a nicely significant gift. Because when I was a kid, I used to have this dream about having a gigantic flashlight and putting it in the sky.

That was my dream. I was leading kids. I was leading people through the darkness. That I was leading people through the darkness. So him giving me this flashlight was a sort of strangely significant gift because I thought it coincided with, you know, my work on Turner Classic movies. And, you know, he never had his handprint footprint in front of Gromit. Wow. I didn't know that really yeah so it was something i sort of mentioned and campaigned for him again he's not the most politically correct person but um i felt as if he was kind of do something and uh so they you know they it ended up uh you know he did get his handprint footprint there. It has brought back some, I think, positive feelings for him. But, you know, he's a complex person.

People don't seem to relate to him. You know, although I think his movies are great. You know, again, I don't quite understand it. And Scorsese looks up to Lewis. I think he does to a certain extent. I mean, I what my recollection was interesting being having Marty talk about Jerry and King of Comedy and all of his contributions to King of Comedy, you know, which Jerry, you know, originally King of Comedy was going to be Johnny Carson. Yeah, sure. And then that didn't work out. And then they ended up with Jerry. And once Jerry came on board, he really kind of shaped that movie in ways that I don't

think people are really aware of, which is some of the things I had heard from Marty. And then later on, when I got to know Jerry, those were things that he confirmed, you know, being able, you know, there's a whole, there's a whole part in the movie where they're doing the live television show. And Jerry directed a lot of that. Those were all like his suggestions. He had a lot of contributions to that film, much more than I think he ever acknowledged, you know. We've talked about that film. We love it. Oh, it's the best.

They don't make black comedies. Hollywood doesn't make black comedies like that anymore. No. They don't do them as well as that. No, not at all, especially with an icon like him. Yeah, it's so good and i i remember also in your book and i had heard this before then it fascinated me that originally uh steven spielberg was going to direct cape fear and martin scorsese was going to direct schindler's list yeah that, that's true. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, they swap projects. Yeah. I'm the rememberer,

I guess. And you go ahead. No, no, that's true. Marty originally had the option on Schindler's List and he was going to do it. And through, you know, while I was out doing this little cameo again in this movie called guilty by suspicion they discussed it and they ended up swapping material so marty ended up doing cape fear and spielberg ended up doing schindler's list and uh and it it's interesting to see how that all you know how that all turned out i think it worked out it it's interesting to see how that all, you know, how that all turned out.

I think it worked out. It's one of those things like I kind of wish separately they had both done both pictures. Well, it's interesting. that because he was not Jewish, would audiences, you know, would he be raked over the coals for doing a film like Schindler's List? It's a risk. What do you think? Well, the closest he dealt with the Holocaust a little bit in Shutter Island. He did?

Yeah. God, I don't even remember that. Oh, yes. Yeah. Because it's like, what, DiCaprio has memories of like shooting down the Nazi soldiers. Oh, yeah. Oh, God. Okay.

I think I blocked that out. That's like one of the movies that sort of goes over the top of my head, I guess. There's a lot of like rear screen projection in that film. Yeah. That somewhat threw me. And I know Marty was a big fan of Val Luton films. Do you like the Val Luton? Oh, yeah, sure.

We've talked about the Body Snatcher. Yeah. So when I saw Shutter Island, it seemed like a Val Luton movie. It had a lot of those qualities. I hadn't thought it through that way. Had you, Gilbert? No. It is a little bit like that.

It's got those qualities. But interesting that you point that out. I wonder if that was a big regret of his. Yeah, because there is a scene in a concentration camp. Wow. And then when he meets, what's his name uh ruffalo no the um the exorcist oh yeah max von seedow right uh he's it's it shows there's a tension there because he's speaking in like a German accent. Yes. So he immediately hates him.

Interesting. Okay. I just wish Martin Scorsese had directed more comedies, out-and-out comedies. I mean, Goodfellas is funny and Casino's funny. But After Hours, which we've talked about, Gilbert and I have talked about, and The King of Comedy are so wonderful. You just wish he'd gone back to that well. Yeah. Well you and i we may be in the minority i felt that way i was you know when i met marty when he was doing last temptation of christ those were all i love king of comedy and after hours i wasn't as much of a fan of Raging Bull. Right.

You and me both. It's great. I like, even though I know they're the classic films, but I just loved After Hours. I thought it was one of the funniest movies I'd ever seen. It is. And King's Comedy. I just thought it was brilliant. And yet, for lack of a better term, I mean, all of his films are highly regarded, but those two films are a little bit

of ugly stepchildren. I think so. And maybe because the reception wasn't great that he didn't go back into making comedies again. But boy, both times that he tried, he hit the bullseye. Gilbert knows that he's very funny,

loves comedians. He does love comedians. Yeah, he was at the roast. He was at the Jerry Lewis roast. Oh, yes. At the Friars, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I think he's very funny,

but, you know, I guess you're right. I guess doing a comedy at this stage would be sort of tough, maybe. And I remember him sending me a tape of like an old Eddie Cantor voicemail routine as a Jewish tailor that he was a big fan of. Did you ever see Hell's a Poppin'? Oh, no. Olsen and Johnson? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, he would watch he sometimes we would watch these movies yeah we watched hell's a poppin and sometimes you know they and he also loved red skeleton it was a big red skeleton we won't hold that against him not a name again mentioned too much but there was uh right there was like i i you know sometimes like if i was like i i was like please don't make me watch one more like red nickels uh red skeleton film i'd be forced to watch red skeleton so since we touched on it and by the way i want to go go i want to speak since gilbert mentioned spielberg uh this is a side note but you also have defended a film that we've defended on this show

1941 the best yeah again we're in a minority no it's it's it's you know, the interesting thing is when I show that film on TCM on second looks, everybody thinks the film was a disaster. It was that it was a hit. It just was not blockbuster. It was not of the level of Jaws. However, that being said, when we showed it on TCM, there was a whole new renewed interest in the film. And since then, it's been given a Blu-ray release. They've started to screen it again. Wow. Maybe in part because of you guys. I think so.

Beating the drum. People, again, Spielberg never made another comedy. I know. Put his name on a couple as a producer, but never. Yeah. So here's two, arguably, the two best filmmakers, the best American filmmakers of the last, what, 40 years? Yes.

And they both had slightly compromised experiences, you could say, making comedies, and I think shunned them after that. And I think it's unfortunate. And Spielberg and scorsese and all those guys of that time period are all friends well i mean are they friends i don't know i'm asking you i'm the interviewer you're the guest i'm asking you. I don't think they are friends. You know, when

we were living in New York, I always felt like, you know, Marty was like the Phantom of the Opera. You know, in his brownstone, never going out. And I used to try to get him to go out and, you know, see people and be out in the human race and meet other filmmakers.

I think there's this assumption that they are all really close friends. And I but I think that there's a little bit of friendly competition amongst everybody. You know, I don't know if they're as close friends as we all imagine it. You know, does that make sense? Gilbert wants to live in a world where they're all really good friends. Yes. Yeah. I want I want it to be like the Rat Pack. De Palma too? Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's quite that way. I remember, you know, sort of going out to Steven Spielberg's house in the Hamptons and it would be like Marty and Brian De Palma

and Spielberg and it was always very awkward between them. There was always a little bit of friendly competition between them. The only thing they could agree on was that Coppola was a genius. That was their all. They would all be competing with one another and there'd be a sort of quiet as, you know, they get to Apocalypse Now and go, yep, yeah, Francis is a genius. And that, you know, they'd be on safe ground. Now, you do Raging Bullwinkle? No.

I used it. Back in 1986, I did it. But I no longer – you don't have enough money to make me do Raging Bullwinkle, which is one of the scariest things I ever had to do. Everybody keeps making you do it. I saw you on Kevin Pollack's show, and he tried to get you. It's not even funny. I'm not a comedian. That's why I was a comedian for about a minute.

Well, does Gilbert know that? Do you know that Ileana did stand-up here in the city? Stand-up New York? At Stand-up New York. Were you briefly managed by Carrie Hoffman? No, I wanted to. A guy we know? Oh, okay.

I won this contest. I was like, how hard could this be? Be funny for five minutes. And I won a couple of contests at Stand Up New York. And what was so funny was he kind of lied to me and he said, you know, listen, you do well here and you win this contest and, you know, I'll get you on Letterman. So I got on, I won the contest and I said, when do I get to be on Letterman? And he goes, no, no, you play your cards right, you go out on the road, you do some gigs and someday you'll

be on Letterman. So I didn't like the idea of going on the road. I went on one gig. He sent me on one gig to like Mount Vernon. And I was taking the subway home at one o'clock in the morning and thinking, how do how do girls do this? Like, this is terrifying. I mean, how does a young girl do stand up without getting molested? Rough life. That was always like uh experience of doing stand-up there was like the casual groping that that that preceded uh everything that i would do i didn't quite understand but is that just me or no no i get groped all the time people grab my dick before I go on stage.

Or he wouldn't go. I was doing stand-up with people like Judy Gold, so maybe they didn't have the experience that I had, but I was always experiencing like, wow, this seems to be like, this is kindedy and seedy environment to do stand-up uh so it didn't uh i wasn't crazy about it you know and the minute i heard you know that you'd do one set then you have to go in the village and go do something there and i was like i can't this is late at night i can't do this the whole world for me seemed kind of out of place.

But I love doing sketch comedy. And when I was doing sketch comedy is where I developed the raging bullwinkle routine. Oh, please do it. Marty came and watched me do that. Do the raging bullwinkle. Oh, it's terrible. Just do it. We can cut it out.

What was the, you know, it was very simple, you know. You just have, you have like, you know, Rocky the squirrel, you know. You know, did you fuck my wife? You know, that's all. It's Bullwinkle asking Rocky. Yes. And Pesci was the flying squirrel? Yes, Pesci is the flying squirrel.

I got it. And what does he say? Are you nuts? Did you ask me a question like that? Why'd you ask me a question like that? a question like that? Why'd you ask me a question like that? I know you laughed as much as Marty. Marty

was the funniest thing you ever heard. When we were on Goodfellas, he'd say, oh, Bob, Bob, you gotta hear this raging bullwinkle. It's so funny. And then suddenly, I'm like a person. I'm like, I've got this much of an act. It's so funny. And then suddenly, I'm like a person. I'm like, I've got this much of an act.

It's not even like perfected. And suddenly he's got Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci staring at me while I'm doing raging bullwinkle. It's a pretty cerebral comedy piece, if I must say. If I can say, Ileana. Especially for a young comic to have come up with that. Yes. Thank you.

Pretty smart. Oh, and tell us about meeting Brando. Well, I mean, again, where do we, did you ever meet him? No. No. Just an amazing person. Well, again, this is when I was, you know, with Marty, I was out in LA. Of course, I love the irony. I was doing a low budget film called Wedding Bell Blues, and he was receiving the John Huston Humanitarian Award.

Our lives were kind of different. But he said, oh, by the the way because he would always do this oh by the way marlon brando's coming over for lunch he's going to talk to me about this movie and you'll get to meet him and i had a panic attack i didn't want to meet marlon brando i was like i he meant so much to me as an actor he was like it i had posters of him up on my wall and, you know, I just did not want to meet him. But Marty insists that I meet him. And it just turned into this crazy experience at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel where Marty kept, he coached me. It was like when a producer, you're going to be on a talk show and the producer keeps coaching you about, you'll say this, Dave will say this. And Marty had coached me so much.

Don't talk, don't say about acting, Marlon Brando, don't do this, don't do that. The door opened and there was Marlon Brando. And I literally just burst out crying. I started bawling. And he was like, oh, my God, my dear girl, what is the matter with you? And I just went on this. Everything you are is what I want to be. You're my kid.

Everything I want to be is because of you. And Marty was like, get a hold of yourself kid but all of a sudden you know Marlon Brando just it was very weird like we just kind of locked eyes and he started crying and we just had this weird connection where we both got like really really emotional and it just changed the whole kind of day. I write about this whole experience. And he never left our room. He was there. He came there for lunch, stayed for dinner. He didn't end up leaving until like one o'clock in the morning. And it turned into this, you know, long day's journey. And tonight with Marlon Brando, where it changed the whole trajectory of my relationship with Marty. Finding out about Marlon Brando, it was really an incredible experience.

And Marlon Brando, much like Dennis Hopper and some of the other people, you know, he kind of changed my life. I don't know if you ever met anyone because he was from the movies. It's difficult to explain. If you have an upbringing like I did, that was completely unstable, right? You have no father figures except for Melvin Douglas. So I look to the movies for social cues, right? Then what happens if one day your social cue comes from a man who you have seen in movies? He's not even real. He doesn't exist. But suddenly he is real. He does exist. He's two feet away from you in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and he's giving you validation. You know, for me, that experience, I didn't need to go to therapy. That experience cured me. For other people, they would say, okay, well, maybe that's silly or that's not real or whatever. For me, because my whole world wasn't real,

having Marlon Brando give me that validation, in a sense, cured me, if that makes any sense. And if Marlon Brando believed in me, who was I not to believe in myself? That's quite a story. Didn't he say something about your feet? Yeah, well, that's how it started. That's how it started because he looked at me and he said, he looked at Marty and he said, they were talking about movies. And I just thought, you know, I had so, I mean, listen, when I met you, remember, I was like, do you want a Diet Coke?

Do you want anything? You know, my whole thing was, I just thought, well, you know, people are here to see Marty. They don't care who I am. I'm an actor. They don't care. So I tried to always make myself invisible. don't care. So I tried to always make myself invisible. And so while Marlon Brando was talking to Marty about this movie, he all of a sudden stopped and he looked at me and he said, look at your feet. And I looked down and my feet were kind of inverted, pigeon toed.

And he said, that's a sign of insecurity why should you be insecure and I just burst out crying and that's why I said I I am insecure you know and I just went on this thing of feeling as if I don't know why I'm here you're here to talk day of, you know, he called me a tuning fork because he started to cry. And it was this very strange thing where suddenly Marlon Brando and I were engaged in this really incredible emotional experience. And I had like, like you know Marty on the sidelines kind of going hey what about me now you also say then

Brando sent you flowers and you were talking to another girl about possibly fucking Marlon Brando well yeah Well, yeah. My biggest show business regret. I mean, to this day. And again, I don't know if he wanted to.

Maybe he did. Hopefully he did. But anyway, we had a real moment there. We connected. moment there, we connected. He sent me a really beautiful, a personal letter, along with like a bushel of roses. And he invited me to his house for lunch. And this is when I was still in a relationship. And Marty's assistant recommended quite strongly that I not go there to his house for lunch. So ultimately I didn't go, but it was my biggest show business regret. And,

and you were saying that it went so far as discussing with this other woman, like how, how his fat would get in the way and what position he would have. He was very large at the time. I mean, he showed up. He was wearing a sweatsuit. He was wearing this blue velour sweatsuit, which matched the color of his eyes. I was like, where do you even get that much velour?

I've never seen that much velour in my life. It was very, very large. And he had actually said he lost 30 pounds. I'm thinking, you know, 30 pounds from what? You know, 300? But my friend, you know, I got invited to lunch and I was like, ultimate fangirl. I was like, oh my God, I'm going to go to Marlon Brando's house. I'm going to have sex with Marlon Brando. I'll tell you all about it. She's like, you're in a relationship. I was like, I don't care. It's Marlon Brando. But she kept trying to ruin it for me by describing that because of his

girth, there would probably be only one or two ways we could have sex. Incredible. Whether or not that's true, men of girth need to come out and explain whether she was correct or not. We'll put it out there. But she kept trying to ruin it for me. To this day who would i mean you should get a hall pass it's my own brand right a hall pass right so what were the positions too much info there's only one or two ways if a man of gigantic girth, you could either be underneath him and he would suffocate you or the girl would have to be on top.

Either way. And if she's on top, he's gigantic. You just can't look down. That's when you just have to fantasize. Three-card aim, desire, and, you know, don't look down. While we wait for Gilbert to find the men's room, we promise we'll come back to the show after a word from our sponsor don't go away let's talk about another another great actor that uh that has a prominent role in the book

and that's part going back to your intro uh richard dreyfus oh yes who we love we've talked about him on the show we've talked about the goodbye girl we've talked you've talked about the you picked the apprenticeship of donnie kravitz i love the best is it fair to say i love when you say in the book that you wore him down until he became your friend that's true that's true when i was first of all i was obsessed with him this is one of those interesting things i mean the movie the goodbye girl i thought it was real. You know, when I moved to New York, I actually tried to get an apartment in the building, even though, you know, they shot the movie in a soundstage and the exterior of the building was on 78th Street in Columbus. And I actually tried to get an apartment in the building on 78th Street in Columbus.

He slides down the fire escape ladder. Yeah. Yeah. I think I know the building. You do? At the time, there was a place called Alice's Underground. There was a thrift store in the bottom floor. And I tried to get an apartment in the building, and I couldn't get it.

But that's how real I thought it was. And I was, and again, when I was in acting school, I remember doing, I was in a play and I really, they didn't like what I was doing. And I said, you know what, screw it. I'm just going to be Richard Dreyfuss. And then suddenly they were like, I don't know what you're doing, but keep it it's great and i'm like dreyfus jaws that's what i'm doing but um so then years go by and then i get cast in this movie with richard dreyfus and again i'm like oh my god it's gonna be amazing i can't wait to tell him i'm obsessed with him and but it was a drama it was not a comic movie Meyer Lansky and I was doing a very serious scene with him and I I could not stop laughing because you know he was very funny in the film and uh but

we eventually sort of got to talking got to be friends but it was really through Turner Classic movies that I wore him down into actually participating in a friendship with him and letting me interview him on stage for Turner Classic Movies. And I think that was really a turning point because he hadn't done many film interviews. I don't think he takes his own career seriously. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's interesting. Well, what I found interesting in the book is you said you were doing Richard Dreyfuss. And when you talked to him about this, he said he was doing Spencer Tracy. Yeah, I finally revealed to him that I was doing him. And he said, oh, that's funny, because I was doing Spencer Tracy.

And I was like, what? And he goes, yeah, I love Spencer Tracy. I said, wait a minute. So I'm doing you doing Tracy. I'm not even doing you. You know? Now, is there any way you can demonstrate what your performance as Richard Dreyfuss was like? He needs to be full body. You know, he's got this thing where the way he walks, he kind of, right, wait a minute, let me try. Ileana is getting up. We're on Skype looking at her. We should tell our listeners.

We're looking at her living room and now she's standing up. He kind of, he does, you know, he does the bent over. That's pretty good. It's pretty good. He's going to walk away and then he goes aha and he's a great on screen thinker

you know as you talk he goes say alright talk to me as I'll be Richard Dreyfuss you guys talk to me go ahead Gil okay I think we caught the shark shark I think we caught the shark Shark? I'm telling you what you did

He has this kind of cockiness, this belief in himself and what I love about him is as the other person is talking, he's kind of nodding like you can't wait until the other person is through because, you know, he's going to rip into him. Did you guys see him recently on Stephen Colbert? No, no. I'll have to track that down. Yeah, it's interesting because there is no longer a place for Richard Dreyfuss on television. Wow.

It's there. We just don't have the time. You know, that's why podcasts are so important. There's not the time on television for nuance anymore or for long, prolonged comedy bits. Remember the old days, comedian would come on and they'd kind of plan something. There's just-

Oh yeah, Steve Martin always brought a bit to the Tonight Show. There's six minutes to come on. To me, Dreyfuss, you need that nuance and that build for him. We're going to get him on this show. We're determined. You must have seen Mr. Holland's opus a few times. It's a killer.

Yeah, he's just, he has so much range. The movie is a killer. You go, I am not going to be taken in by this movie. He's got the deaf son. I'm not going to. And then by the end, you're bawling. And in the book, you talk about that scene in The Goodbye Girl, and he's so funny in the film. And we'll just throw in youngest man to ever win the best actor and all of that.

And you point out in the book last comedic performance to win in a lead role. Completely interesting topic. No one since Richard Dreyfuss has won best lead actor. You can look it up. No one has won best leading actor for a comedic role since Richard Dreyfuss. Banner year because Diane Keaton won for Annie Hall the same year. That's the interesting year, yes. You talk about in the book that moment in The Goodbye Girl, and I know Gilbert knows this, and he's so damn funny in the film.

But when he bombs in Richard III and they go backstage to see him and he's sitting there at the dressing table. Yeah. And it's absolutely heartbreaking. It is. And there's this whole turn because it's this whole comic, you know, persona, very cocky very confident and in that moment you go oh wait a minute is this whole thing an act is he maybe more vulnerable than we had imagined and i think for me personally he started this whole, again, idea of the comic personality, the comic, the schlubby guy that gets the girl. That's where it began with the goodbye girl. Interesting.

And you can see a whole people after him, you know, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, et cetera, that begins with Richard Dreyfuss. And I don't think anybody gives him credit for that. The vulnerability of the comedian who gets the girl, gets the girl because he's charming. And I think it's one of the not to make this about awards, but I think it's one of the years that Oscar really got it right. 77. And then two years later, they would get it wrong when peter sellers does not win for playing chance the gardener in i know in being there it's hard to imagine loses to dustin hoffman and i love dustin hoffman but not for kramer versus kramer it that i mean it's a good movie but it can't compare with peter sellers. No, it was the performance of a lifetime.

Yeah, and what about the growth of the popularity of the movie being there? Yeah. Which, again, went through, you know, it's another whole interesting topic. You guys love movies. But the death of Hal Ashby and Bob Fosse, I feel, really contributed to the lack of sensitivity in films. They were two really interesting filmmakers. And I feel like their loss is really felt. You know, Hal Ashby with movies like Coming Home, The Last Detail.

Oh, yeah. Bound for glory. Yeah. You know, his his take on society, that social satire that being there is I really feel is missing. But being there is I think has gotten like an enormous repopularity because of our crazy political system. because of our crazy political system. But that's a great film. And to me, Peter Sellers in the movie is, I don't know, beyond reproach. It's a performance you can't even describe. And Gilbert worked with Jack Warden.

Oh, yeah. Who's in Being There. On three of the Problem Child movies. He was terrific. You know another Martin Scorsese favorite film, Problem Child, John Ritter. It pops up in Cape Fear. There you go. It's come full circle.

Yeah. Again, my whole goal in life is to work with people. I was working with John Ritter on a movie called Hacks. And I said, you know, by the way, Martin Scorsese is a huge fan of yours. He put Problem Child in Cape Fear as a little nod to you. So, yes. That's great. He is a fan of that movie.

I love Jack Ward. Oh, yeah. And it's like with Duddy Kravitz, they had both Jack Warden and Joseph Wiseman. Ah, the best. Yeah. Speaking of Fosse, did you and Richard ever talk about all that jazz and what happened? No. Is he willing to talk about that?

Do you know? No. I mean, as I said, it's a shame that Fossey is not around. I think it's really, it's really a shame. Well, you know, Dreyfus, you know, the goodbye girl, you know, of course, originally it was Robert De Niro. Right, Bogart slept here. Bogart slept here. Right.

And then it didn't work out. And, but the goodbye girl, bringing it back to Dustin Hoffman, apparently was based on Dustin Hoffman. Oh, yes. We've said this on the show. You talked about this when we talked about Goodbye Girl. You remember, Gilbert? Yeah.

That's who it was originally based on, and that story, that's where the original idea came from. And I think Mike Nichols was directing the De Niro Marsha Mason version before they rebooted it and then Herbert Ross. It's really, you know, successful movies exist in a state of grace, right? Everything has to go right. And whatever happened to Max Rose? Because it also has Ben Gazzara, another favorite of mine. That's a good question.

I don't know. I just heard Jerry Lewis and I wanted to be in it. But after it went to Cannes, I think that the screening in Cannes did not go well. Oh. It became like many other movies where it exists, but I don't know if anyone has seen it. There is so much in the book, again, Ileana, which we want to say as we wind down, only because we'll all get exhausted. We could keep going. There is so much in the book. I want you to tell the Rudy Valli story real quick if you can. Did you get to that part in the book?

Oh, yes. Gilbert, it's so touching. I mean it was sad and sweet. You know, it's interesting. When I was writing the book and when I wanted to do the the memoir I wanted to tell this memoir through movies and it was interesting when I was talking with my editor we had reached a point where you know he wanted me to be talking more about my career and I'm like I don't care about like I haven't done anything interesting and I kind of like I had read these notes that were, you know, sort of challenging where I thought, geez, am I even on the right track?

And I took a couple of days off and I said, you know what, I'm just going to write about something. I don't even know if it's going to go in the book, but let me write about an experience that I really had that profoundly changed my life. that profoundly changed my life. And that ended up being the Rudy Valley chapter because my first experience being on the peripheries of show business was getting a little job at this place, the Camelot Dinner Theater. And Rudy Valley, who was in his 80s by that point,

had come in to do this one-man show and watching him for the seven days he was there perform kind of night after night uh just really changed my life he was such a trooper and he kind of took a liking to me and on the last night that he was there and again i should say that rudy valley for people who don't know he invented crooning oh yeah you know oh he was he was a matinee idol yeah and ben crosby was a fan of his frank sinatra is a fan of ben crosby so again we have this whole trajectory of show business but i was so it was like when he was performing it was like he wasn't this 85 year old man out in the boondocks of Connecticut I saw this matinee idol you know

performing and people giving him a standing ovation and cheering and on the last night he was there he invited me back to his dressing room this like creepy little dingy dressing room at the Camelot Theater. And I thought, oh boy, this is what my grandfather has warned me about. He's going to pounce on me and be my vagabond lover. But he took out this little very cheap GE tape recorder and he pressed play he said I want you to hear something I think you'll appreciate it and we were sitting there in his dressing room and I was listening

to this thing and I said is that the ocean? I didn't know what it was I heard this like whooshing sound and he turned around and he looked flourished with his hands and he said, that's my applause. And it was so touching because I thought, you know, in this moment, like if you could be Rudy Vallee, if you could record your applause, if you could somehow hold on to that joy that

you've given people, that maybe in a sense, that is the essence of what show business is. Because so many times, you know, you leave the stage, you're only happy. I don't know any performer who's happy for more than 10 minutes is that how long it lasts if it lasts longer than 10 minutes you tell me once you get off stage oh it's i i always hear and i totally understand uh why some why so many people in show business get on drugs because there's this high, you know, they're all applauding, they're worshiping you.

And then, you know, you go back to your dressing room and you're sitting by yourself. And it wears, it's like a magic spell that suddenly wears off. And so watching Rudy Valley, off. And so watching Rudy Valley listen to this applause on a cheap GE tape recorder that he had recorded, and this man had been like a giant in show business, I just thought, I saw the future of my own life as a performer. And I was like, wow, that's all it is. If you could somehow remember, try to remember this joy that you've given people, which is impossible.

But if you can try to remember that, that can somehow, you know, give you this sense of purpose that no matter where you are, that's all it is. It's very hard to retain. And your friend Roddy McDowell. I tried to incorporate that in the story of what it feels like, you know, if that makes any sense. Oh, very much so. And your friend Roddy McDowell gave you similar advice. Hang on to the joy. Yes.

Very touching. Again. Yeah. Very interesting thing. Yes. Very touching. Again, very interesting thing. He blew me away when he said that people like Marty Scorsese and Spielberg were beyond feeling any joy in their work. And that somebody like Marilyn Monroe could not retain and hold on to joy. And that was what led to depression. And so these were things that people said to me very early on, and they were warning signs so that, you know, I didn't let myself fall into that trap of feeling depressed, of trying to, you know, trying to understand how do you

retain joy? How do you hold on to that feeling of wanting to make audiences happy? It's very, very hard, very challenging. It's one of the profound things in the book that stays with you as well as the Rudy Valley story. Yeah. And what, go ahead. No, no, I was going to say it's, it's, it's, it's challenge because it is. It's like it goes up, you know, it disappears. I know all the joy that I've ever experienced, most of it has not been in real life. It's been in show business. And that's always sort of weird because it's not really real. It's fleeting.

It's not real. You're not supposed to get happiness you're not supposed to get happiness you're supposed to get happiness from holding babies you know tell you you love you but if you don't have that the only other happiness you have is when someone you respect and admire says hey i saw your movie and, you know, I really dug it. And you're like incredibly happy. And then when you find it fleeting away, you're like, no, no, please don't let that feeling go away. So but that's what show business is. There is so much we could cover. There's so much in the book. The book is dense. There's I mean,

there's there's stories. There's there's love of movies. Are you still doing the thing with TCM? Are you still doing second looks? Oh, my goodness. Well, we're developing the second looks actually into what could possibly be a web series, which could be really interesting for the online community. But in the meantime, we're getting ready for the TCM Film Festival, which is coming up in the end of April. And then we're doing Trailblazing Women. The first year we covered female directors. And now this year we're going to be covering female actresses, their social contributions.

And we're going to start shooting that in July. So I'll still be doing that. It's all I watch is TCM, Gil. I don't know about you. I'm obsessed with it. And what are those movies? What are those posters? I was just going to ask her that. We should again tell our listeners we have Ileana on Skype. So we're looking at her den. I've been looking over your shoulder at that. Have you been trying to figure out what they are and piece them together? So have I. What's the big one over your right shoulder?

I've got Jules and Jim. Okay, it's a great one. I've got Some Came Running, Frank Santra, Dean Martin, Robert Montgomery, Ride the Pink Horse. I've got Side Street. I've got The Nutty Professor. There you go, Gil. Oh, great. Signed by Jerry Lewis.

That's a good, that's a really good one. And then I'm surrounded. Here, wait a minute. Hold on. She's turning the camera around. Hold on, hold on. Oh, look at that, Gil. Oh, wow.

A whole collage of Jerry Lewis in clown makeup and his regular. Yeah. And the MDA telethon talks and the whole thing. We don't have, we don't have, we need headshots like this to come back. I know. Gilbert will send you one. He'll sign one for you with a series of looks i i love those kind of headshots they always made me sad there were ones that would come four four shots and one would be

in like an army helmet the other would be like a southern general. The other would be a playboy. Or like a kung fu pose in a white karate suit. There's so much we could talk about. You're doing another book, so we'll have to do another episode. Yeah, I'm starting on my second book, which is called Nostalgia-holic. That's my, because I'm obsessed with the past. Ileana, one of the touching things in the book, and you talked about why podcasts are important, and this touched me. You said we all have, movies change our lives, and we all have to be living historians. I think it's true. I mean, I think of myself as, you know, I mean, one of the weird, you know, hits. And there's been, you know, the book has been like like oh she's such a name dropper but it's like to me it's you

know i think of myself as a rememberer you know and i remember these stories and i'm trying to give voice to people that meant a lot to me who else is talking about buddy hackett or rudy valley or jerry lewis we are on this show that's's about it. Constantly. Yeah, it's constantly. Although I don't know if Buddy Hackett ever got shit on. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think he was.

He didn't like cigarette smoke even. No. No, no one's talking about these things. You know what this is like? This is like, what is that movie? Fahrenheit.

451? I forgot the number. The one the ray bradbury story yeah yeah where they all had to walk around uh memorizing these books and reciting them yeah yeah because all these books were gone well that's i mean listen when i'm on a film set nobody knows who anybody is anymore so it's like in order to give film some context and you're talking about something you know the fact that nobody knows who spencer tracy is anymore i know it's really you know it's kind of frightening i think i i was at a table and these people are talking about jack benny and one of them said, was Jack Benny ever funny?

And the other one said, oh, the other people on this show were funny. But Jack Benny just kind of stood around. And I thought, what? Yeah, crazy. Well, you know, some days, I mean, so that's why I say, like, I'm trying to give context for some of these people that I've met along the way. You are. You know, and find their, put their place properly in film history, which is what Turner Classic Movies does. And I find it weird when I'm reading by someone who allegedly is a movie expert and I'll go, oh, my God, they're getting everything fucking wrong.

Well, that's true. There isn't, you know, in my day again, because my grandfather was Melvin Douglas, you know, the Jew, I really had to have my movie history. Correct. I couldn't like screw up something with Greta Garbo because he'd actually worked with Greta Garbo. Of course. And we gave your uncle, your uncle, your grandfather a short shrift on this show, unfortunately. And we, there's so much we could also say about him. I mean, he worked with Fay Wray and Greta Garbo and Dietrich and George, and George Zucco, Gilbert, you would care about, and Loopy Velez and Karloff. Unbelievable.

And what a career. Yeah. And Robert Redford. Right, of course. George C. Scott and the list goes on. Lionel Atwill. Vampire Bat. These are the people Gilbert cares about. You say Robert Redford, he says Lionel Atwill.

And George Zuko is one of my favorites. Yeah, look him up if you don't know him. I will as soon as this call is over. But no, I couldn't screw up my references, you know. And now it's so weird. Like people just write stuff down and it's derivative and it's not even really accurate or reflective of what the person was really like. So in a sense, I'm trying to, again, give a voice to somebody, you know, like Marlon Brando or some of the people that I've worked with, like Robert De Niro. You know, nobody's ever written.

We think of Robert De Niro, but I thought, you know what? I'm going to write a whole chapter about what it is like to work with Robert De Niro. Because nobody writes. No one's done a profile of Robert De Niro. Did you ever consider that? Yeah. You said that when you were doing this dramatic scene in Cape Fear with Robert De Niro in between takes, you'd be acting out Three Stooges

routine. Yes. That's great. He was into the Three Stooges. I know. Over my head. I don't... I'm not even going to say I appreciate their humor. I'm not even going to say that. I do not... Well, that's sacrilege.

And I don't want to fucking talk to you anymore. We're missing some chromosome. They're waving a flashlight at us, to Jerry Lewis' flashlight, telling us to wrap it up. Okay. We're going to wrap it up. We'll do it again.

We hope you'll come back. There's so much we didn't cover. We'll come back real soon. After the Turner Classic Mov classic movies film festival i'll have more gossip on everybody we'll come to new york and we'll do it live yes and i'm sorry you can blame the airline that um you know well it's the it's the one that is if if you don't have sex with anyone, they call you a blank. Wait a second. A virgin. Yeah.

You said it. You said it, not her. Before I forget, I got kicked out of the Metropolitan Museum of Art after a screening of Goodfellas. What? I said, where's the party at? goodfellas what i said where's the party at and the guy waves his hand the guy behind his desk and security guards grabbed me and threw me outside is this true yes absolutely true and then i finally got back inside and some woman was following me around saying that she thought I was taking pictures. And so let me just say, fuck you, Metropolitan and Museum of Art. Did you tell Marty this?

I did. And what did he say? He didn't react at all. He's an asshole. Fuck Marty Scorsese. He's going to call you now. You're going to be in vinyl like next week. You're going to be like Ray Romano.

There you go, Gil. You should be so lucky. We'll have you back. When you're in New York, we'll talk more about your grandfather's films and more stuff from the book. And I'll contaminate you with Jewish blood. Thank you. And I'll contaminate you with Jewish blood. Thank you.

Now, we've been talking to actress, producer, director, and now writer. And film historian. Yeah, and film historian, Ileana Douglas. And she's got her new book out, I Blame Dennis Hopper and Other Stories from a Life Lived In and Out of Movies. And most importantly, she is the granddaughter of Jew actor Melvin Douglas. He used to bill himself as that, didn't he? Yeah, he did. He did.

The book is phenomenal, too. I just want to say to our listeners, our loyal podcast listeners, it's a memoir. It's a film history book. It's a movie guide. There's so much in here. It's so dense. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that.

I want them to read it, and then they can write me if they have any questions. And as I said, I'm going to do a follow-up. So I've got a bunch more stories in me. It's great. And to go out, Ileana, you said – I heard you say that you wanted to marry Groucho when you were growing up. Oh, my God. There was something wrong with me. So quick. He was my – with me. So quick.

He was my, like, again, yeah, it was, again, another, it was delusional. I was like, I used to be obsessed with marrying Groucho Marx. I didn't get to meet him. I meant to calve it, though. Close enough. So just to get you into your sexual fantasy. Here you go. You're lying in bed now, and an elderly Groucho Marx is on top of you wearing his beret going,

Oh, I'm going to shake my chicken. No. Don't ruin it for her. He's going around the house doing his cigar. I'm going to go drown on you now. Keep it clean, Groucho. He's singing Lydia the Trout Toot Lady. Not my fantasy.

Lydia the Trout Toot Lady. Ileana, this has been fantastic. Thank you. A lot of fun. Ileana Douglas. Thank you. A lot of fun. Ileana Douglas. Thank you. And this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre at Nutmeg Post with Frank Ferdarosa.

Thank you, Frank. Thank you again. And I really hope to see you in person again soon. You will. I promise. I promise. Bye-bye. Very soon.

Bye. Bye.