Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Ed Begley Jr. Encore

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

GGACP celebrates the 40th anniversary of the classic drama "St. Elsewhere" (premiered October 26, 1982) by presenting this ENCORE of a memorable interview with veteran actor ED BEGLEY JR. In this episode, Ed talks about the glory days of the Troubadour, the timelessness of "The In-Laws," the absurdity of Hollywood urban legends and the career of his Oscar-winning dad, Ed Begley. Also, Forrest Tucker takes a nip, Steve Allen checks into St. Eligius, Harry Belafonte shuts down Rodney Dangerfield and Ed hits the rink with Charlie's Angels. PLUS: Wheeler & Woolsey! "Amazon Women on the Moon"! Mr. Warmth lowers the boom! Ed remembers his friend Peter Falk! And the unsolved death of John "Stumpy" Pepys!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your teen requested a ride, but this time, not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your teen to your Uber account today. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Spring is a great time to start a new workout routine. With the weather warming up, it feels easier to get into the rhythm of things. Whether you have 20 minutes or an hour for a Pilates class or a guided outdoor walk,

Peloton has everything you need to help you get going. Get a head start on summer with Peloton and choose a flexible payment plan that works for you at onepeloton that sort of thing. Hi, I'm Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Verderosa. Our guest this week is an author, director, producer, activist, environmentalist, and one of the most visible and versatile actors of his generation. You've seen him in dozens of popular movies, including The In-Laws, Cat People, Eating Raul, This is Spinal Tap, Transylvania 6- Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, Pineapple Express, and the recent Ghostbusters, just to name a few. You also know his work from popular television shows such as Mary Hartman, such as Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Columbo, MASH, The Larry Sanders Show, The Simpsons, Six Feet Under, The West Wing, Arrested Development, Better Call Saul, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. and curb your enthusiasm. For six memorable seasons,

he played Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the acclaimed medical series Saint Elsewhere, garnering six Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe nomination in the process. In his lengthy and successful career, he shared the big and small screen with Alan Arkin, Peter Fogg, Richard Pryor, Meryl Streep, Kirk Douglas, Jack Nicholson, and Jane Fonda, as well as former podcast guests Ileana Douglas, Michael McKean, Henry Winkler, Ron Liebman, and even me, Gilbert Gottfried. It's our pleasure to welcome to the show a man who's done just about everything a person can do in show business. My old co-star from that cinematic classic Back by Midnight

and a man who was once pulled out of a bar by a notorious party animal John Belucci the talented and ubiquitous

ubiquitous I Ubiquitous. Ubiquitous. I knew that would fuck me over. Ed Begley Jr. Wow. Do I sound important from that? That's really, I'm even impressed myself. You were very kind to cut out all the fat, to cut out all the stuff that wasn't quite as exemplary,

but it sounds like I've had a hell of a career for what you just said. I'm impressed. Quite a resume. Well, but adding fat to it, of course we, we were both in, I think Rodney Dangerfield's last film.

That's correct. Back by midnight. Randy Quaid was Randy in it. Randy Quaid was in it yes yes yes have you seen him lately I haven't seen him in a while the last I heard of Randy Quaid he was

hiding out in Canada and with Evie his wife Evie yes and he said that there was this group of celebrity whackers after him. And I'd like to get in touch with those celebrity whackers because they sound like a good time. I've got a list too.

And so he was hiding out in Canada and he held a press conference to announce that he's hiding out in Canada. I remember this now. Which kind of counteracts. Yeah, it kind of defeats the purpose. What the hell was back by midnight? It keeps coming up on this show, Ed, and I looked it up today. It was getting out of prison like on a hall pass kind of thing or something or sneaking out of prison i can't remember the details i don't remember my part

even i remember the day i shot in a boardroom somewhere you played a character named robert wade and gilbert played a security guard right do you remember the plot other than getting out No, I've never seen it. Me either. I didn't read the script. You know what? I don't think I did either. I think I just read my part. I don't do that often, but I think I did it for this one. I read my part and went, okay, when is it?

Thursday? Fine. And someone told me, because it was, you know, Rodney toward the end, and he didn't have the energy he used to. They said, for the most part, he was like a big part in the movie he's allegedly starring in. Right. Like the other people were taking up the slack, and'd just pop in and out at times. He called me after that, and he asked, he wanted a favor. Hey, I've got to talk to you.

I've got to talk to you. Oh, my God. Your dad, Odds Against Tomorrow. What a movie. Odds Against Tomorrow. Robert Ryan. Oh, Harry Belafonte. I've got to play that part your dad played.

It was great in the part, but I want to play it. We're going to do a remake. So I said, that's a great idea. I encourage you to do it, Rodney. You need to get a hold of Harry Belafonte. See who has, I said, well,

I know who has the rights. It's Harry Belafonte. It was a Harbell production. So contact Harry. You got to get a hold of him for me. So I called up Harry Belafonte to see if he would release the rights to Rodney. You can imagine his response. I can imagine.

He's a very nice man though Harry Belafonte he was very nice to me as he was on the set I visit on the set very nice man he was very kind and nice but it was a no I try to wrap my mind around Rodney remaking odds against tomorrow right which is a great noir movie by the way yes it is dad's great net robert wise and and so you visited him on the set of the original well there was only the original yeah i visited him uh there in hudson new york where they filmed it had a great time met robert ryan harry belafonte and my dad to be on the set with him was always a treat whenever he brought me i was very excited to be there and this was uh great stayed in some wonderful little hotel that had a bunch of art on the walls about um rip van winkle you know it was one of those kind of hudson places hudson river places it was very exciting for a

kid then we went to the premiere there too a car picked us up in merrick long island and drove us all the way to hudson new york a long trip you can imagine. And we went to the premiere. And very exciting for a young boy. I think I was 10 or 11. Jesus. And now Robert Ryan, he would always play like mean characters. Yes. And quite often, you know, bigoted, racist, and anti-Semitic characters.

But he wasn't like that. He was not. To my knowledge, he was a very nice guy, and my dad loved to torture him. He called him up one time that I remember. I was in the room. He called him up and did some crazy voice. Hello, is this Mr. Robert Ryan? Yes, this is he.

You know, my dad had his number, obviously. I'm here. This is the mayor of hudson new york phil cutworth and i remember meeting you there in hudson when we did rods against tomorrow and i'm in the neighborhood i'd like to come by and see you and say hello well i i don't know that now is a good well i'm right nearby i'm actually next door i'm gonna i'm gonna come by and say hi and poor bob ryan is dying and trying to you know supposed mayor of Hudson, New York, not to come by. My dad starts laughing his ass off. And then Bob, Ryan, you son of a bitch.

You cocksucker. You fucking asshole. He did another good one with your dad on Dangerous Ground. Oh, that's right. I forgot about it on Dangerous Ground. Yeah. Another good one. That's a good movie, too.

Yeah, yeah. Your dad's in so many of those good noirs he's in dark city sorry wrong number oh yeah sorry wrong number another good one good and all of them pretty boomerang boomerang right kazan yeah and what i have angry men yeah what i always remember we're talking about that is your father standing up going well you can't believe them. You know the way those people are. They're all liars. You know what those people are like? Come on.

You know the boy did it. Why is everybody looking at me like that? What are you looking at? And it finally came down. The last two bigots standing were him and Lee Cobb, I think. Oh, yeah. To the bitter end. Yeah.

It's great because E.G. Marshall shuts him down. He says, we've heard what you had to say. Now sit down and don't open your mouth again. Oh, yeah. To the bitter end. Yeah. It's great because E.G. Marshall shuts him down. He says, we've heard what you had to say. Now sit down and don't open your mouth again. Oh, that's great. That's a great moment. He shows so much range because he goes from being rageful to just being defeated. Yeah. And meek.

And it's a wonderful piece. It is. And it's what's so amazing about it is he's acting like racist. He's like a villainous character at that point. And then when he's defeated, you feel bad for him. Exactly. Yeah. It's a wonderful turn, wonderful job by Sidney Lumet.

Great script, great everything about it. A remarkable movie, really. We love that one. You know, I got a kick at doing the research on you, and you're talking about your dad. Your dad, of course, won the Oscar for Sweet Bird of Youth. By the way, him winning, the footage of him winning, of Rita Moreno giving him the award is still on YouTube.

I finally found it. I hadn't seen it my whole life because I was in military school, and they wouldn't let me stay up to see it. So I had never seen it until like five years ago, three years ago. I can't seen it my whole life because I was in military school, and they wouldn't let me stay up to see it. So I had never seen it until like five years ago, three years ago. I can't remember. Somebody said, you know, there's a clip on YouTube. They sent me a link, and I saw it.

I just loved it. It was so great. He thanked his agent. He does. He thanks Richard Brooks and his agent. But he really goes out of his way to thank his agent. But I was telling Gilbert, where did he carry his Oscar? Because this is fun.

He carried it around with him in the car. He had it in the trunk for a while, then he had it under the driver's seat. In this little velvet, it comes with like, they give you a little velvet sleeve for it, a little tie at the bottom. Wonderful. And he carried it around, and he was very generous with tourists and people. You're Ed Begley, I've seen you, I saw you in 12 Angry

Men, I saw you in Sweet Bird of Youth. Oh my God, can we get a picture? Yeah. You want a picture with an Oscar? Oh, my God. Are you serious? Ed Begley's going to take a picture with us and the Oscar. He'd pull the Oscar out of the car, and he'd hold it with him,

and they'd touch the Oscar, and he'd hold it with him. And I went, this bastard. When am I going to hold the Oscar? I'm his own son. I never, you know, I kind of grabbed it just to feel it myself, but he never mentioned, Ed, you want to hold the Oscar? And he's giving these people, he doesn't even know their names, from Oshkosh, he's letting them hold the Oscar. And we're flying back to New York from LAX, and he goes,

okay, I've got to go get some seats for us. You want an aisle seat, right? Okay. Here, hold this. And he gives me the Oscar. I was so petrified that he finally handed it to me. Oh, Christ. Oh, shit.

Oh, shit. I dropped the Oscar and broke it. Oh, jeez. I broke Daddy's Oscar. Is there any symbolism there? Wow. Wow. What happens in a case like that?

Does the Academy repair it for him? What happens immediately is my dad comes back, okay, I got you an aisle seat. Like, what the hell have you done, boy? What have you done? You broke Oscar. Jesus Christ, what the fuck is the matter with you? I thought he was literally going to kill me

there's more than one time in my life I thought he's actually he was taking me for a drive once he was just upset about something he was furious with me

about something then as it turns out he had gotten over that he said come on let's go for a drive and I thought he was actually going to kill me he drove me out

to this remote thing I thought should I look in the back is there a bag of lye and a shovel? What's going to happen next? And he would just, no. What's the matter? You look funny, okay?

I love you, boy. What? Okay. I think one of my favorite stories is you're talking about how you used to love to go to the set. And this is fun. Gilbert would get such a kick out of this that he would take you to visit his famous friends. And you were so young that sometimes you didn't quite appreciate't quite appreciate it or you weren't you didn't even know who they were oh yes i had no idea who they were we would go whenever we drove up to san francisco

we'd stop in montecito there santa barbara area we'd stay at a hotel the miramar i think was a hotel it might still be there very nice hotel we'd stay there and then we'd continue on and the next day we'd get to San Francisco but um he'd also visit this elderly couple that I just I was always bored to tears that he'd stop and see this couple they would talk about things I didn't understand and you know then we'd get in the car and we'd go and it was like please wake me up when you're done and then I realized years later it was Paul Muni Paul and Bella unbelievable. Unbelievable. Two people named Paul and Bella, and I said, who are those people we'd stop? That was Paul Muni, Eddie.

One of the legendary great actors. One of the best actors ever. Scarface, fugitive from a chain gang. Fugitive from a chain gang. They both won Tony's for Inherit the Wind on Broadway, Paul and my dad both. Then Paul left the play,

and my dad went, over Paul left the play, and my dad went over the weekend, went up doing for the next, after the Sunday matinee, then he wound up doing the Tuesday. He did Paul's part. He switched parts, did the other part, which was kind of a hat trick. I couldn't believe he did that. Didn't he also take you to a comedy club that's no longer in Hollywood? A couple of times?

It was called the Hollywood Comedy Club. It was on Highland. The building is still there, I believe. It's the American Legion Hall there on Highland, right near the Hollywood Bowl. And you'd go in there, and sometimes Miltie would be there, and this one and that, some people that I knew, and some people that I just can't believe i got to meet some of

the keystone cops were still alive one or more than unbelievable wow wheeler and wolsey one of them was still alive burt wheeler yeah burt wheeler i think was still alive yeah incredible incredible comics from vaudeville days great comics silent film classic classic comics, the Keystone Cops, and I got to meet them. So I'm a very lucky young man. Now, were Wheeler and Woolsey the ones where one of them drew the glasses on his face? I believe so. Yeah. That sounds right.

Woolsey died in the 40s. Very good. Wow. That's very good. This is the kind of stuff we talk about on this show, Ed. Good. It's good stuff. These are our obsessions. yeah that's very good this is the kind of stuff we talk about on this show ed good it's good and you said you were in military school and you actually liked it i loved it i don't know if the intention was to punish me it was definitely to park me somewhere because he got married he

was married to this woman he met briefly and he needed to park his two kids somewhere. So my daughter, my sister went, his daughter, my sister went to one, uh, a school out in long Island. And I went to school up in Niagara falls and it was a Catholic military boarding school,

the triple crown of repression. So I thought this is going to be terrible. It was fantastic. It was the nuns, these nuns different than the nuns kindergarten through seventh grade out in Long Island. They were like batting kids around every day, just literally blood, bloody lip, bloody knuckles, bloody nose regularly. And I went there, and these nuns, the Franciscan nuns, didn't hit anybody. And they had a science class unheard of at the other school. They didn't want to teach science because it didn't really fit with the Catholic doctrine. Science didn't fit

in too well. But this other thing, this great school called Stella and Agra, they had a science class and the nuns were very nice. And you're a kid. I was 12 years old marching around in a uniform with a wooden gun. I was in heaven. Wow. I loved it. If it was punishment, it didn't work. I really liked it. And we also acted, if you could call it acting, in a cereal commercial together. Yes, we did. Quaker Natural?

Something, something. Oh, no, there was a, yeah. Something not. Yeah, yeah. I think it was a Qu a, yeah. Something not. Yeah, yeah. I think it was a Quaker Natural commercial. I think, I think that's correct. Did this get on the air, this commercial? Yeah.

I must find it. Yeah. I'm pretty sure it did. And I remember, to show your professionalism, you didn't eat lunch on the set so you'd be able to actually eat the cereal. Wow, what a memory you have. I think that's correct. That's ringing a distant bell. Yes, and now I ate lunch, of course, because it was free.

And I'm as far from professional as you could be. As far from professional as you could be. And what I went in for instead was they have the spit bucket. Because if you've got to eat food, you're usually eating the food like a thousand times a day under hot lights. So I'd eat it, smile, and they they yelled cut and i'd spit into the bucket that's what most people most sane people i can't believe i kept eating of it well i've been there with models that you know don't want to have too much food anyway and they would have a three-finger salad after you know having too much of this stuff and they'd be oh yeah okay i'm fine let's do another after having too much of this stuff. And they'd be like... Oh, yeah.

Okay, I'm fine. Let's do another time. So you guys worked together twice. Twice. Back by midnight and a... And a cereal. Unknown cereal. I think we did one or more of those George Slaughter American Comedy Awards. You were at that more than once, I thought. Yes. Oh, yes. Yes, I was one or more of those george slaughter american comedy awards

you were at that more than once yes yes i was at a few of those yeah one of those was remember the time were you there oh sorry go ahead no go ahead ed do you remember the time when professor erwin cory got up at the american comedy awards george slaughter's thing and he got up and he did that unbelievable bit that i want to get a clip of and just look just to study for the genius of it he came up on stage and ladies and gentlemen welcome please professor Erwin Corey and he comes out nods to the audience and he has like these five by seven index cards and he stands there he shuffles the cards around. He moves, he shuffles them again. He does this for three of the most brilliant minutes,

and it's a podcast, so I can't do any justice to what he did physically. But he then goes on for three minutes, at which point, after a minute or less, you're pounding the table. Whatever he's doing, you're laughing're laughing so hard he's saying nothing he's clearing his throat at the three minute mark three minutes of that of saying nothing other than clearing his throat and other sounds he then goes furthermore he was just brilliant just brilliant george might have a a copy of that if you check with him we had george here i will check with him. We had George here. I will check with him. Wow.

I would love to see that. Somebody send me a link about that. He saves everything. I'm sure he has. And you worked on one of the great comedy films, The In-Laws. Oh, thank you. I agree. That was a classic.

Wonderful. Thank you. And tell us about Alan Arkin and Peter Falk. Let me say, first of all, Paul Reiser's a friend, and he had an occasion to do the Malibu Film Society thing where normally you come and you do a movie that you're in. And he certainly could have done the movie he was in with Peter Falk. He did a movie with him that was good, and he was very good in it.

Peter was always great. He chose to show instead a movie he was not in, Paul Reiser did, called The In-Laws. And I hadn't seen it since maybe I saw it a second time in the 80s. It came out in 79. We did it in 78. It came out in 79, and I loved it then, of course, in 79. I saw it again maybe in the 80s, loved it still.

And this was a year ago or so, and it held up so well. I couldn't believe it. And as to these two guys, to Peter and Alan, I still talk to Alan from time to time. I talk to Peter throughout his life. He was born on September 16th, as I am, as I was, and a few years apart of course but we would have our birthday together regularly with shara with his wife sharon and my wife and uh

ingrid and then later my second wife rochelle we would get together and have times with him just i just feel blessed to have known him and to still know alan arkin to the nicest funniest guys and you look at that movie the in-laws and just take one scene that scene we're in that diner that new york diner wonderful it's one of the best scenes why they play it like it's like it's strindberg they do not play it like it's a comedy they play it like the two wonderful actors that they are and it's hysterically brilliant because it's real you know it's just there's a reality to that movie with all the absurdity that's going on.

They keep it 100%, you know, Uta Hagen real or whatever way you want to look at it. It's just shocking how well it held up. You committed a federal crime. Of course it's federal. The Treasury Department is on the case. So what happens if you get caught? We't get caught not if he's not the week if you get caught is the agency going to come forward and say it's okay he works for us no no no i'm out in the cold on this one shell if

i get caught they shred my records they say they never heard of me and it's 20 years in the slammer what about me i was the one running through the streets with that goddamn thing i was the one in the gutter and you were tremendous shell the way you handled yourself i can't tell you how impressed i was no i mean this it's been something i've been wanting to say you were sensational shell and it's an act of friendship that i will remember for as long as i live which could be about an hour so what do i got an hour and a half i've heard you say that that you that's that that's the way to play comedy like it's checkoff which could be about an hour. So what do I got, an hour and a half? I've heard you say that, that that's the way to play comedy, like it's Chekhov, like it's Strindberg.

I think so when you look at the people that you really, and again, there's stuff that happens that's absurd. Harold Lloyd is hanging from the hands of a clock, but he makes it real and Buster Keaton made it real and these great actors, they make it real and there's a time to spike out from that carpet of reality you lay down like even in the in-laws serpentine Shelley serpentine you know and they're running in zigzag zigzag angles and that's wonderful but that level of reality you take the great comic actors also like Dabney Coleman always plays it

totally 100% real and it's brilliantly funny. Buffalo Bill was brilliant because he never played it for laughs, and they didn't write it for laughs. They wrote it for reality, and it's one of the great, in my opinion, comic half-hours in history, Buffalo Bill. He's a genius. And I think George Burns said on Burns and Allen, he liked hiring actors because the actors believe it. Yes. That's interesting that's always compelling

to watch and it's it's it's uh really a great rule to abide to by a funny thing happened though when we saw the in-laws with because it's a re-release now on dvd i only had it on vhs when i saw it again in the 80s. I had a tape copy, and it looked rather poor quality, of course, but it looked like it did the original film version. But then I saw the DVD re-release, and the movie was very good, but my hair was blonde in the movie,

which it shouldn't have been. My hair was actually red in the movie, but somebody turned a dial somewhere when they did the re... They went, this is not Ed Begley's hair color. They turned it on. You gave us a little glimpse of your Falk impression, Ed, so we have to put you on the spot

because it's just that good. Could you... Could I ask you something? That guy, the guy that was in the movie with me that played Barry Lutz, what the fuck is his name? The big... No, the guy that was in the movie with me that played Barry Lutz, what the fuck is his name? The big albino guy, what the fuck is his name? Ed Begley.

That's right. Ed Begley Jr. What a pain in the ass he was. What a five-star pain in the fucking ass. Perfect. Thank you. ass perfect thank you now peter folk and it's sadly the time period we're living in uh like the public got to witness him after he was suffering alzheimer's like it made it all over the internet i didn't't see any of that. I didn't know until this moment that that footage was out there,

and that's unfortunate. But where was he in this footage? Where did they capture him? He was out in the street, you know, I think in L.A. Oh, yes, he was looking for his car. I've heard about this now that you mention it. Yeah, and he looked really, like really like out of shape and his clothes were rumpled up and he's yelling at people to get away from him and it was you know it's a horrible thing

because that's the time period we live in i know that's a shame that that's out there but it is that but fortunately it's so greatly outweighed by the incredible things like Price of Tomatoes and In-Laws and all those Columbus. Oh, the great race, the Blake Edwards picture. Everything that he did, this guy, Robin and the Seven Hoods. Even that little pit in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, he makes it his own. He makes it his own. Just a few minutes of screen time if he jumps off the screen dabney and i were very good friends with peter and we went to visit him after we had

heard of his condition but he went in and he didn't seem to know us at all and after share was there for a while his wife share after a few minutes it seemed to me that he didn't know it was her and he were watching we're just talking to him to him and just trying to engage with him and what have you. And we kind of gave up after a while. We talked amongst ourselves. And then we talked to Shara and talked to his caregiver. He was very nice. And then he looked over and went,

Oh, yeah. Oh, yes, yes, yes. He would point to Dabney and me, and he knew us. And it was such a gift. That's great. It felt so good that we had come. That's great. Okay, just when the show was starting to get good,

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and sparks are going to fly. New episodes Sundays. Watch free on CBC Gem. Gifting dad can sometimes hit the wrong note. Oh. Instead, gift the Glenlivet, the single malt whiskey that started it all for a balanced flavor and smooth finish.

Just sit back and listen to the music. Ooh. This single malt scotch whiskey is guaranteed to impress dad this Father's Day. The Glenn Libet. Live original. Please enjoy our products responsibly. I don't know his fucking name. Gilbert Godfrey.

Gilbert Godfrey. Is that it? Godfrey? That's it. Okay. Now I'm supposed to do this now? If you wouldn't mind. Yeah. Right, yeah. Gilbert Godfrey. Is that Godfrey? That's it. Okay, now I'm supposed to do this now? If you wouldn't mind. Yeah, okay.

Hello. My name is M. Emmett Walsh. One T in the Emmett. And I want to thank you for watching and listening to Gilbert Godfrey's whatever it is he does and they pay him money for. Gilbert and Frank, what's your game now? Can anybody play? He now back to the show.

Was that set crazy, Ed, with Dick Libertini doing the Senior Wences thing and Arkin and falk i mean was it was it another great actor richard libertini love him we're sorry we didn't get him on this show yeah i know everything that he did you know uh the one with uh peter falk and with lily that wonderful um what was the one where oh uh all of me they trade spirits or something yeah the the carl reiner movie all of me yeah very fun very good all of me very very good he was so wonderful in that everything that dick did was wonderful and he brought so much to this character this and he played it big but real again you know it was very large what dick did in that movie but i found it to be totally believable because he came from that place of he was an actor, he was a comic actor, but he just always impressed me.

We were very good friends, Dick and I, and I'm just proud to know him. Was Arkham improvising a lot? I've heard you say it was a little bit like jazz, like what he would do. There was a wonderful script there, this brilliant script by Andrew Bergman, of course. Yeah.

And, you know, they did the original takes with that, but I seem to remember there were some times when they would, certainly in front of the firing squad, there was some scripted stuff that was great, but Alan and Peter added some stuff when they were there in front of the firing squad, and Alan is, you know, weeping and kind of... With a blindfold on.

It's just so goddamn funny. He's talking about how few women he's had in his life. Exactly. He's regretting that he was watching Peter Falk on a talk show. And he called up his agent or manager and said, I want to work with Peter Falk on a movie. And he goes, well, what kind of movie would you like it to be? And I go, well, it's me and Peter Falk, and Falk annoys me. And that's what they had to write a script on.

It was a great idea. Alan's a very smart man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What two great guys to work with, and so early in your career. I'm so lucky. I'm so blessed to have worked with them and to still be in touch with Alan. He just sent me an email the other day, and we talk on the phone occasionally. I'm very good friends with his brilliant son, Adam Arkin.

Oh, yes. Son Adam is a great, great actor. Fan of his, too. And now a great director, too. And tell Arkin to do this podcast right away. Oh, we're dying to get him. Yeah, he's the best of the best. Your pal William Daniels has also been elusive.

Two people we want to get on this show. Well, I'll help. I'll talk to both of them. I just saw Bill the other day. I saw him not 48 hours ago. Bill and Bonnie are great friends. We love, Gilbert and I, we talk about The Graduate, The Parallax View, even Captain Nice. Captain Nice, he was great.

Buck Henry. Look, it's the man who flies around like an eagle. Look, it's the man who hates all that's illegal. Who is this man with arms built just like hammers? It's just some nerd who flies around in pajamas. That's no nut, son. That's Captain Nice. How the hell did you just do that, Gilbert?

I'm now more impressed than ever with your career. That's really very impressive, young man. He sang it for Buck Henry, who was also impressed. I just saw Buck the other night, too. Buck's a dear friend. Another genius. So great. What a comic.

Ed, do you have any memories of being in Buddy Buddy with Billy Wilder's last movie? I do. You know, I can't believe that I got to work with a great Billy Wilder. You know, I just played a cop.

I had like a line or two. Very simple scene. We shot it in Riverside, California. No, it was Santa Ana now that I think about it. It doesn't matter. Please tell me the difference between Riverside and Santa Ana. Not that I can remember. Neither city would say.

Are you sure we're there? But the Inland Empire. But it was so much fun to be on that set. I didn't have any scenes with Walter Matthau or Jack Lemmon but I'd met them both and just loved them both. I.A.L. Diamond. I.A.L. Diamond was on the set as well.

Is he Diamond? And advising Billy about this line or that, you know, kind of working things out and it was just, you know, pinch me kind of moment. it was fairly early in my career it was 1980 i believe and uh that we shot it i can't remember when it came out maybe 81 81 yeah and yeah and uh working on the set with billy wilder and to be there in the same movie

and paul apprentice who i see all the time was in it as well yes we had paula was we had richard benjamin here yeah richard's a dear friend of mine i see paul and richard often and uh dana elkar was in it oh sure dana elkar you know him gilbert from uh i think was the the on macgyver oh okay now we did a million things. Million things. Yeah. And this surprised me. You used to be in a comedy team with Michael Richards. This is correct. We went to college together, and everybody at Valley College in the San Fernando Valley was trying to do and failing to do a Michael Richards impression. He was just so incredibly funny, and somehow he took to me and we had a comedy act. We went to the troubadour and did a Monday night hoot night thing.

And then Doug messed, Doug Weston wanted to manage us. And we started to have some momentum. We went to the ice house and played the ice house. We went, um, to the comedy store the week they opened. It was still Sammy shore that was running at that point.

It was not, uh, yet Mitzi Mitzi's property. Well, it was still sammy shore that was running at that point it was not uh yet mitzi mitzi's property well it was community property was always our property and his but uh he was running at sammy was and rudy deluca was there the very funny rudy deluca was there too was part of that and we went on stage me and michael in uh greek male dancers outfits with little like balls hanging from these skirts. I don't know where we got those.

I do remember now where we got the costumes from the costume department of Alley to College. We borrowed them, went on stage with roller skates and these Greek dancers' outfits. We had no routine at this point. We'd just get up there and wing it. I mean, the balls. But Michael was so funny.

There was a huge problem with the act. Huge problem. The problem was Michael was so funny there was a huge problem with a with the act huge problem the problem was Michael was so goddamn funny I'd regularly have to turn up stage and kind of rock and not let the audience see come back what do you mean by that sir I challenge you I shall not abide by this you know and come back and try to participate in the scene whatever Michael was coming up with but he was so brilliant back then it was every bit as brilliant as Kramer and you know Marblehead Manor and all the other many things that he's done Fridays he was so brilliant back then. It was every bit as brilliant as Kramer and, you know, Marblehead Manor and all the other many things that he's done. Fridays, he was brilliant back in the 60s, 1968 when I met him, and is still brilliant to this day.

What did you guys call yourselves? Vladimir and Estragon. Vladimir and Estragon. College students. Of course. Yeah, of course. And you said your father really didn't push you in to show business or open any doors for you. And you're correct.

That's right, Gilbert. And it's one of the best gifts he gave me to not help me because I had the entirely wrong attitude growing up. I literally didn't understand why he wouldn't just get me an episode at the minimum or even better yet, a series. You know, get me a Gunsmoke. or even better yet a series. You know, get me a Gunsmoke, get me a Perry Mason, a regular job. Lassie, I would be very good as Lassie. Johnny Provost, wonderful kid, but I think it should be me. And I had no training. Imagine the son of a plumber going, that looks easy what you do. You kind of fit the pipes together, right? I'm ready. I'll ride in the truck today and do, you know, you guys stay in the truck. I'll just do it. I'll do some plumbing. I had no idea. And I went out and interviewed starting at age 10, got nothing ever because I didn't know what I was doing.

Then finally took some classes, what a concept, studied a bit and got a job like right away out of my three sons. And, but I still was resentful because I had that wake me when I'm famous attitude that some people have you know I didn't want to put in the work and uh and I so I wasn't getting enough work as an actor so I became a camera assistant because I just wanted to make money obviously and I wanted to work in the business so I was an assistant for a while and then Jim Brooks from room 222 at that point, he was a head writer. And Gene Reynolds gave me a job on Room 222. I did one, then I did another and another.

And that built a little momentum. And I started to work as an actor back around 1970. And sadly, didn't really start to work until my dad passed away. He didn't get to see me work much as an actor. That's too bad. I've heard you say, it's just kind of sweet, Ed. I've heard you say he helped you in ways that you didn't realize. Exactly. He would have me run lines with him, which was a favor to him. I was helping him too. I'm running lines. But during the course of that, you know, this one, look at the stage direction, Eddie, this guy, he's very still. And he says, you know, scared, you know, just, just, it'll help me if you played a little more, you know, and he was giving me an acting lesson without calling it that and it was so wonderful uh uh

that he did that i'm just i love my old man and i miss him still i love going through these old credits adam 12 room 222 the immortal with christopher george oh yeah one of those one of those fugitive knockoffs wow that's right the f. The FBI maud, Nanny and the Professor, Mannix, Ironside. Charlie's Angels. On roller skates. I skated my way through that one. Okay, explain that plot to me. Roller disco was popular.

This is 1979, okay? Big time for roller disco. So I'm at a roller disco place. I was at Flippers or I was at that place we used to skate with Helena. This woman, Helena, had a club called Helena's in the 80s, an actress, Helena Caliñotes. And she had this, she and I actually together had this Monday night skating thing at the Sherman Square Roller Rink. And I think they might have even come there, these producers of Charlie's Angels to find, you know, people who

skated. They heard there was actors there and I skated pretty good in that, at that point. I still skate a little bit, but I skated okay. They went and they had seen me in a few things. I said, you want to, would you be interested in doing a Charlie's Angels? I went, absolutely. said, would you be interested in doing a Charlie's Angels? I went, absolutely. So I went and skated on Charlie's Angels. If you've seen the episode, you've got to see a few scenes of it. Just look at the clips at some point. It's really beyond ridiculous.

It's one of the flimsiest plots you've ever seen. You've got to write an episode about roller skating. So we'll have a girl get kidnapped at the roller rink. They're in a competition. She and her boyfriend, played by me, and she'll be kidnapped, and what's that about? I mean, people were clearly very high writing these scripts. There's so much fun stuff here at this particular point in your career.

Do you remember being an Evil Roy Slade? Vividly. Gary Marshall, Jerry Belson script? Correct. It was such a funny script by Gary and Jerry. Such funny people. Oh,

everyone's in it. My God. Everybody's in it. Mickey Rooney, my scenes were with Mickey Rooney scenes. I had one scene, it was with Mickey Rooney,

but the script was hysterical. I thought, this is going to be a winner. This is the funniest thing I've ever read in my life. It was a pilot only and never saw the light of day again. They just didn't get it. get it they went what is this it's too hip for the room

jerry bells is one of the funniest guys i've ever met when the wonderful writer and his dear friend harvey miller died harvey miller passed away years and years ago now 20 years ago or more and jerry was still very much alive himself then and he kicked in with i think jim brooks let's say and gary marshall the three of them picked up the tab for the memorial you know for the food and what have you in the hall whatever they did there's some food and what have you and they all they split it three ways and on the memo line of jerry's check he wrote business death i love jerry belson's movie the end the burt reynolds picture oh right yeah everything jerry did was great like gary another funny guy too very very funny

and jerry paris who directed evil roy slade that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you knew Don Rickles. I was so proud to know Don Rickles. I got to think how I met him now. I met him at some function. It doesn't matter what now that I think about it. But he had worked with my dad, and he was so kind about my dad. And I love hearing about my dad, as I still do. And he just decided he liked me because he just tore me apart right away. I can't remember what he said.

You know, you're probably not going to win an Oscar, Ed. There's no probably about it, you know. You're not going to the podium, okay? Do you understand? You don't have it in you. You're lucky your dad fed you, for Christ's sake. Look at yourself. You just came after me.

And it's like, what? I mean, it's a great moment when rickles comes after you i mean there's no higher praise what an honor cares enough to to attack you so funny so great i saw him as recently as um when did he pass is it a year ago now uh maybe a little less a little less i saw him maybe a year and a half ago there's a thing for a wonderful artist ed roucher and he was friendly with ed as i am and he went there and we got we talked at length on that night i loved him barbara is a wonderful lady his dear widow barbara is fantastic we send her a lot of love there's these these credits from this period and i've heard you be interviewed about

some of these things i mean mean, Cockfighter. Is that where you befriended Harry Dean? That was a gay bondage movie. Oh, no, that's another movie. I'm sorry. That was with Harry Dean Stanton. Actually, now that I think about it, that was the first time Harry and I worked together. We didn't work together much.

Oh, you were friends before. Huh? You were friends before that movie. We were friends from meeting at the You were friends before that movie. We were friends from meeting at the Troubadour and then Tana's. I see. You know, you would go back and forth between the Troubadour and Tana's in the early 70s to see where the attractive young ladies were and where the, you know, the fun was. And there was a lot of fun there.

You know, it was the Eagles were hanging out there at the Troubadour at that, and not just hanging out, being on stage there, and great people. Irving Azoff, the manager, was there too, and David Geffen was there, and Joni Mitchell would be there at the Troubadour, and Bette Midler played there, and Elton John played there, and they'd go back and forth.

The people go to Taunus and the Troubadour, and I'd seen Harry Dean in different wonderful movies that he did, starting with Paul Newman. What's the movie? Cool Hand Luke. Cool Hand Luke, yeah. And Cisco Pike, I think, had come out already by then, and so I befriended Harry,

and he started inviting me by his place after last call to watch something called The Z Channel. You'd have this big box, a big plastic tuner box. It was like before there was Showtime and HBO and and all that there was something called the z channel it was an early form of cable in la and so harry had that we watched these movies on the z channel after we had gotten drunk katanas and i used to get really drunk in those days so i'd pass out on his couch wake up the next morning and walk back to my place. And we finally got a movie together called Cockfighters.

So we go to Georgia. We were in Macon, Georgia, I think. And right away I walked into the lobby of the hotel, and Harry was there. I said, thank God there's another homosexual on this movie. I feel comfortable now. And Harry laughed his ass off. And from that moment on, we were really great friends. But we're there like four or five days.

And I finally said to Harry, I said, Harry, we get to call up Tana's because it's been like the Troubadour. Nobody would miss you. But at Tana's, we were there every single night at the bar. There's a guy, Guido, from Italy. And this Italian, Mater Di Guido, I said, we better call Guido or Michael at the bar. There's a guy, Guido, from Italy, and this Italian, Mater Di Guido. I said, we better call Guido or Michael at the bar, the Yugoslav bartender. We better call them and tell them where we are. They may be worried about us, you know, gone for five days. It's unheard of for us not to be there for five days. So I call up and Guido answers. Good evening, Thomas. I said, Guido, it's Ed Begley. I'm here with Harry Dean. We're out of town. Oh, thank God. We're going to

call the police. We were going to call the police tonight. Oh, thank God. We're going to call the police. We were going to call the police tonight. I swear to God, we're going to call the police. So why were you going to call the police? We thought you'd fall asleep watching the Z Channel with the gas on by accident. We thought you were dead. I mean, they literally thought we had died.

There was no other possible explanation for not being there for five days. The two of us, not just one or the other. Occasionally, he'd get a job or I'd get a job, but the two of us gone together. They the other occasionally he'd get a job or i'd get a job but the two of us gone together they thought we had died together on the couch as long as we're talking about the partying days and we put it in the intro that you the were you who were you trying to out drink when when belushi yanked you out of the bar two times i tried to out drink a real champion one time i tried to try to out drink the brilliant musician

and songwriter Harry Nilsson that didn't end so well either but then I tried to out drink Jack Nicholson's kind of father figure Shorty George Smith this wonderful guy that was married to

what Jack thought was his aunt was in fact his what in fact was his aunt he thought thought was his aunt. It was, in fact, his... Right. No, what, in fact, was his aunt. He thought it was his sister, Lorraine. Shorty was married to Lorraine. And so Shorty came to work.

He had a part in the movie. And he would drink. He worked on the railroad. He was a brakeman or something on the railroad. And he would still stay well-oiled under any conditions and certainly waiting around to act in a bar in Durango, Mexico. He would drink a lot of vodka. So I challenged him to a drinking contest,

and at some point I woke up with Shorty George gone and a pool of bodily fluids on the seat next to me. I was just like a wreck. It didn't work well. And then finally, Judy Belushi and John grabbed me by the collar one day when I was trying to out-drink Shorty again and said, you've got to see some of the town. You're going to kill yourself.

I was too far gone for John Belushi is the point. Wow. Too much parting for john so i know i was in quite a state oh my god john belushi thought you were like something to worry about something to worry about i'm concerned about ed he's too wild wow one night we drove this car into a ditch we were driving to or from Jack's house in some rented car, a car we had borrowed from the Teamsters. And I was driving, I'm pretty sure.

And we went down. It was a muddy road or what have you. Went off the road and into a ditch and couldn't get it out. Teamsters had to tow us out. We got a lot of shit for that, rightly so. Those were the days. You spent some time with Nielsen, Harry Nielsen? He was a very good friend. Harry was a great friend of mine, and I was proud to know him,

and a brilliant, brilliant singer-songwriter. One time in New York, though, we had been drinking all day, and then he said, do you want to get together for dinner? I said, sure. He said, meet me back here in an hour. I'm going to go freshen up. We're going to go have dinner with some friends that live in Manhattan. I said, okay. Beat him back there. We get in a cab and we go to the Dakota.

We start to go up the elevator. I started to think and I went, no, it can't be. Going up to this floor of the Dakota, open the door. Hello, how are you? Here's Yoko. I'm John. What's your name, lad? Hi, itlin oh my god yoko it's the bloke from eddie hartman eddie hartman look at and they were all like john lennon is asking me like fan questions about louise lasser and mary hartman mary hartman i'm trying to keep my face from cracking so wow that's the kind of pal that harry nelson was he introduced me to ringo

and to john and so many people he was a great friend and what a talent what more people more people should know about his music and about his his wonderful singing voice whenever the beatles were asked who's your favorite artist they all said harry nelson harry nelson yeah yeah and they all loved him personally because he was one of those guys, some people when they get drunk, they get nasty, they get whatever they get. The drunker he got, the nicer he got. He was the sweetest guy that ever lived. And I remember Harry Nielsen had that cartoon, The Point,

that I think both Ringo did a narration on one of them. And then I think Dustin Hoffman. That sounds right. Both of those sound right, actually. Tell us this, Ed. About one of your heroes played your father on St. Elsewhere. Oh, you're talking about Steve Allen? Steve Allen.

Yeah, tell us about Steve. And by the way, looking at those St. Elsewhere episodes, somebody loved the old Steve Allen show because Louis Nye turns up and Tom Poston. Who else did they have? They had nearly everybody. I think they had Tom Poston. They had Bill Dana.

I think they had every single person. I don't think they had Don Knotts. Don Knotts, they kept trying to get, and he was busy with other shows. Right. And he couldn't do it. But every single other person, and I, like the writers and producers,

like Mark Tinker, Bruce Paltrow, all of them, John Macy, Tom Fontana, were all huge Steve Allen fans. I had this treasure my dad had gotten for me. He had a signed picture of Steve Allen. And one day they announced to me that my father's going to be in an episode they're going to have a character of my father actually be in the episode it was going to be Steve Allen and Jane Meadows were going to be my parents I couldn't believe it it was a huge moment they were so nice to me I

became friends with them I remained friends with them we'd talk on the phone a lot and uh what a treat to know them whoever was I don't know if it was fontana who was but you know shelly berman turns up chuck mccann turns up dick shawn these guys were fans of of older comedians they were big time they had very good taste and one thing that i always think about, because you were talking about the drinking going on, and that's that Hollywood years ago and show business in general, it was like there was no such a thing as alcoholism. Everybody was just drunk, seemed like. drunk, seemed like. It would be a regular occurrence where you would say the prop guy, you know, listen, in this scene coming

up, we're at the bar, make sure you put some real whiskey in. I need to just calm down. Okay. And the director, not the director, the producer, nobody. Or even forget about just alcohol. Alcohol was ubiquitous. People would regularly drink in a scene or drink, had nothing. It wasn't a bar scene at all. They'd just be nipping, you

know, before the take, and people would regularly do coke on the set. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, the way it started to be in the 80s. If you're wired, you're fired. You know, just say no to drugs. That started in the 80s. Before that, it was like,

if you don't do blow with the director, what's the matter? Are you a narc? We got a narc here on the set. What's wrong with you? You don't want to do blow with the director? People would worry about you if you wouldn't do drugs with somebody. You never offered drugs on a movie set, Gilbert, in all your travels?

No, and it's like. Interesting. I heard like, I mean, I was on Hollywood Squares for a while. But I remember they said with the original Hollywood Squares, like so many of those game shows, they would have someone with a cart wheeling around like alcoholic beverages. Yes. They wanted you relaxed.

Just relax. Let me get somebody to get you a drink. That's the way it was back in the old days too with, you know, like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, you know, you need some pep pills. Get them some pep pills. They got a scene to do.

You need to relax. Go get some sleep. Here's some sleeping pills. They both got addicted to medications because the studio would give them medications to get through another day. They'd do whatever it took to get the shot, to get the day, to make their schedule.

And they were little kids. They were kids at the time. They were giving speed to and sleeping pills. It was very common. I remember working with Forrest Tucker on this pilot. We did a pilot together.

Forrest Tucker had a cane. I got to have my cane in the scene, but we don't really need the character. cane i gotta have my cane in the scene but there's not we don't really need the character shouldn't i need to have my cane okay so the character's got a cane like a walking stick not really a cane a walking stick and he had it with him at all time then i realized why it had a cap on the top and then the walking stick he had these vials so he could poke a drink just before the take or in the middle of the take if he was off camera for a second, if he walked off camera for a moment, he would take a poke from this cane,

this walking stick that he had. It was a walking stick with a hollow middle. Wow. And it had a generous amount, like two flasks worth of liquor in the walking stick. And he was actually great the whole time he was drinking never flubbed a line nothing ever went wrong and then for the last half of the shooting he had to go do this he claimed this was a reason i don't know if it was true he said i've got to do an

iditarod race in alaska you're kidding you're gonna do an idea yeah and you can't be drunk for that you got to be sober to do something like that with the dogs and the ice and the snow. So he got sober for the last few days of the shoot. And he was a wreck, as you can imagine. Wow. Because he had been drunk for the past 30 years. And now he's got three days of not drinking. Poor Forrest was not in good shape.

Old Hollywood. Gilbert, you're very well behaved. Ed brings up Forrest Tucker. Yes. And a walking stick. Yes. And you didn't say anything. Okay, Forrest Tucker is also famous among the classic, well, Milton Berle's the king. Oh, I know where you're headed with this.

Okay, go ahead. I think it has to do with being well-endowed, correct? Yes. Well, Tucker was legendary. He was, apparently. They said one time on the golf course, he got down on his knees and hit the golf ball with a stick. It was a gimme putt, right? I hadn't heard that.

I hadn't heard that. Wow. I kind of hope that's true. Richard Kind told us that story. We're going to assume it's true just because we want to. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this what about this ed what about this is this is an odd and forgive me for bringing this up early in your career in 1978 you have any recollections of making a movie called record city vividly the cast because

the great cast tell me the cat i remember it pretty well myself. You tell me what you got. Frank, for starters, you got Frank Gorshin playing a rabbi. You could end there. Oh, my God. Exactly. Jack Carter, Kinky Friedman, Harold Sakata, who was Oddjob. Oh. Yes. In Goldfinger.

Gallagher. One of your favorites, Sorrel Book. Oh, yes. Ruth Buzzy. Yes, Sorrel Book. Dean Martin's uncle, Leonard Barr. And last but not least, our friend Larry Storch. Oh, jeez! Larry Storch, what a cast.

We shot it in Eagle Rock, California, and I found a bar nearby since I was still drinking at that time, so I was able to make it through the day there because of a bar nearby at Eagle Rock, but we shot it at an abandoned record store, maybe an out of,

I can't remember what happened. It was some storefront there on Colorado Boulevard. We shot there for a while and it was shot on videotape and not like three inch, you know, good quality video tape like they shot at that time. The old days they would shoot, you know, good quality video tape. Like they shot at that, at that time, the old days they would shoot, you know, the Hollywood squares or what have you on, on big three inch tape. It was shot on like three quarter inch tape. So the quality of it was not good.

This is a motion picture they're going to release in the theaters. And they actually premiered it in some theaters and people were like asking for the money back, going, I can watch TV at home. Back then, TV was an HD, obviously. It had 525 lines. You know, it just looked like some bad old footage, and it was footage that was shot, like, a few months before,

and it looked like hell. So it came and went very quickly. But what a cast. Any memory of any of those characters, of Jack Carter or Gorshin or leonard barr i remember being on the set with them i remember you know being well oiled trying to get through my lines and not get fired yeah i remember one day i was i had forgotten that it was videotape and that there was a booth and people were watching in the booth. I was in front of the cameras or getting the final setup

and tweaking a light or the focus or something and started going, talking some fake Swedish voice. I went, and a record city piece of fuming dog shit. Jim Aubrey, total moron. And get me the fuck out of here. You know, and doing a mixture of, you know, fake Swedish. And then finally I feel behind me some hands move a little bit to the left, Ed.

And somebody was angrily moving me around. It was Jim Aubrey, the guy who was producing and directing it, who was watching in the booth. I forgot that there was a booth because it was electronic. I went, I'm clear to make some disparaging remarks in front of the crew because everybody else felt that way. He was a guy that was an executive at CBS, and he decided he was going to make a movie, and this was a less than stellar production, to say the least.

And everybody thought it was going to be a complete joke, and I guess it was. But I didn't know that he was watching from a remote. That's how well-oiled I was. I forgot what format. That's hilarious. Jim Aubrey, I think, was the legendary guy who was in bed with a mob. Oh.

Do you know that story? I didn't know that part. I know he was a guy that when it was changing from the golden age of television to something else, he was a guy that approved all those shows like green acres right and beverly hillbillies he was the baileys of balboa baileys of balboa with paul ford that's right oh my god who remembers that show i'm more than a little impressed frank well he was it's the kind of stuff we talk about on this show so don't be but at cliff nesteroff came and told us a story about Jim Aubrey, which I will go back and double-check, and I'll send you to you.

It's interesting, but I think it's a mob story. Might be. You look back on your career. I mean, obviously, the people, the giants you've worked with we read on the list, but you got to work with these fun oddballs, these oddball characters. Like you did, this is a question that we actually got from one of our listeners, Big Daddy.

He says, this is one of the things I wanted to ask Ed. He worked on those Dexter Riley Disney movies with Kurt Russell, but he got to work with iconic character actors

like Joe Flynn, Pat Harrington, Jim Backus, and Fritz Feld. Wow. All true. What great actors. And I was like,

you guys are a huge fan of each and every one of them so to work yeah yeah and get to know joe flynn joe flynn was fantastic of course mikhail's navy and a million other things he was just great to be on the set with him was extraordinary i i just loved him and i still see kurt on occasion i know kurt and goldie a bit so i get to see them. You were in all of those. You were in the Computer War Tennis Shoes. Yep.

Nanny in the, oh wait, no, it was called Charlie and the Angel. Charlie and the Angel with Fred McMurray. Yep. And you, here's another story that's popped up maybe once or twice on the podcast. You worked with Cesar Romero. Oh, he's in the computer-wore tennis shoes. He's in the computer-wore tennis shoes. That's correct.

Now, do you know anything about Cesar Romero? He was a gay gentleman, I believe. Yes. That was Joe Flynn. And according to legend, Cesar Romero... I'm going to study Ed's face as you tell us. Would gather up a bunch of boy toys and they'd surround him. And some people claim he'd be standing ankle deep in warm water when he did this.

I don't know. But he would be, at least from the waist down, naked. He'd pull down his pants and underwear. And the boys in the crowd would throw orange wedges at his ass. And this is what Cesaresar romero uh was turned on it sounds too far out sounds like way too much work for caesar or was my dad called him butch romero butch you're working with butch romero huh yep butch who's caesar romero no yeah butch romero you're working with him good luck i'll have you know it. One

time, I lived near Vineland and Ventura at that time, and there was a place there called the Valley House. It was a gay bar. They also had laundry machines there, and I lived nearby, and I didn't have laundry machines, so I would regularly do my laundry there. One day, I went, I'm going to go into a gay bar. I've never been in a gay bar, so I'm going to go in and get a beer, and I got a beer, and everybody was very nice to me it wasn't nobody bothered me what have you I was about 21 years old at that time finished up my laundry in home the next day I went to work and Joe Flynn was in the scene so Ed hey how you Joe? I saw you yesterday at the Valley House. What are you doing there? Yeah, sure, you're doing laundry, yeah.

They got some Speed Queen machines there, and I understand now what you were doing. You're doing a spin cycle, huh? No, I was actually doing laundry. Sure you were. With a beer in your hand. No, no, I was waiting for the spin cycle to finish, and I got a beer.

I was trying to talk my way through with explain my whereabouts to joe is very now there's a pro a man who can take your caesar romero story pivot on a dime and turn it into a just as good joe flynn story oh but i don't mean to not finish up with caesar Romero. It just sounds too far out. It's like the thing with the gerbils and Richard Gere. It just doesn't sound right. It sounds made up. Well, we've had several people, you're among them, who work with Cesar Romero. We had Frankie Avalon here. We had Adam West, Julie Newmar.

None of them would confirm the Cesar Romero story or had even heard of it. The only argument I've gotten on the Cesar Romero from other people was that some people believe it wasn't orange wedges. It was tangerine wedges. That's as far afield as they'll go. Just keep in mind, you know, there's crazy things that happen that might be true, but also there are people out there. And that's what I think happened with the Richard gear fabrication. I believe it to be untrue myself.

I have no verification that it's true or untrue, but I believe it to be untrue. It's like taggers. You get to tag your specific thing. Whoever started the, I believe fictional account about Richard gear. They know that they did. And I went,

this is a story that's worldwide. I did that. I started that. It's like a graffiti artist. Yeah. And I think that might be true with the oranges and Cesar Romero too, but I have no way to confirm or deny it. But you may be the one that started it, Gilbert.

I swear to everyone out there, it is true. Okay. I can't deny it, so. It is true. Okay. I can't deny it, so. And, you know, I mean, with all rumors, and certainly the Richard Gere one is like that, everybody has a best friend or a cousin who works in the emergency ward.

Oh, yeah. But none of them have names. Nobody's like, my name is such and such, and I can now come. Nobody even with a muffled, you know, distorted camera and backlit. I worked. I was actually in the hospital there. I was the one that had a helper. There's nobody that's come forth on some video anywhere in the world that actually was there.

But they all know someone personal. They know somebody. Exactly. The ambulance driver, the doctor, the cop. But I knew the fruit vendor. Get out of here. The green grocer? Yes, who lived across the street from Cesar Romero.

From Butch. I knew the president of Tropicana. He'll go on like this for hours, Ed, if you don't stop him. He might have been sun-kissed, though. Here's one of your... Sun don't kiss. here's one of your son don't kissed here's one of your favorite that one of our favorite ed begley credits that gilbert and i were talking about before you before you came over uh son of the invisible man from amazon

women on the moon oh thank you which you with you and carl gottlieb directing you so funny i just watched it again last night you're very very kind, but that is a funny, funny segment, and it holds up. Just me taking my clothes off always provokes hilarity. Well, it's also so faithful-looking to James Whale's Invisible Man. They went to great lengths. That's the part that really got me in that it looks like one of those old movies. It looks exactly like it. Yeah yeah they did a good job carl gottlieb and uh who's the producer robert what's oh robert weiss very very good

robert k weiss yeah and and in it you're the invisible man such a funny premise and you're going here let me take my pants off yeah and like you ever see a shirt make a phone call and i think i'm invisible because the chemicals that i think made me invisible have just made me crazy and so i think i'm invisible i'm 100 visible i just take off my clothing and uh and walk around like a total maniac. And you're there, bare-ass, going, look, my shirt is moving by itself. Gary Goodrow's in there, too, somewhere. He sure is. Speaking of the committee.

Gary Goodrow, what a talent he is. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Is he still with us? Is Gary still with us? He passed. I think he did. He passed a while ago. I loved Gary.

Yeah, very funny. The committee, very funny. Carl Gottlieb, speaking of Carl Gottlieb, who we also have to get on this show, was Carl the one who wrote Christmas Carol 2 that you're in with Roddy McDowell and Paul Benedict and James Whitmore? Do you have a memory of this? He directed that. I think he wrote it as well.

Yes, that was Steve Martin's Comedy yeah it was uh steve martin's comedy hour right and he and steve might have written it together carl made of might have written it with the staff or alone there you go i don't remember that important detail but carl directed it for sure and i believe he wrote it as well what a talent he is huge talent iron balls mcginty from the jerk yes that's right. Carl Gottlieb. And he wrote the screenplay for Jaws. Wrote Jaws. Wrote the Jaws script. But he wrote the screenplay, and it was a fine screenplay.

Yeah. And he pops up in Jaws. Yes, he does. Yeah. A very, very funny guy. Can we ask you quickly, Ed, just you have your choice here because there's so much. I have so many cards that we're not even going to get to this stuff. Do you want to talk about your relationship with Chris Guest and those guys?

And by the way, the scene in Mighty Wind where you're the Swedish-American who suddenly breaks into Yiddish. Thank you so much. That's some of my favorites. Truly wonderful. I love those movies myself just as a viewer. I love being in them. I'm just lucky to know Chris Gast. I met his sister Alyssa years ago in the early 70s,

and through Alyssa I met Chris, and we became good friends. And then he gave me an opportunity to direct something. He had a deal with Showtime or somebody, and it was my first time directing it. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I never finished it, but it didn't stop him from being supportive of me. So when he started to do these improv movies, I was not in, well, I was in Spinal Tap, that one, the very small part, playing the drummer.

He thought of me for that. It was his idea and Rob's idea that I'd be in that. I was happy to be in that. Tell Ed you've never seen Spinal Tap. Go ahead, tell him, I dare Ed you've never seen Spinal Tap. Go ahead. Tell him I dare you. I never saw Spinal Tap. Which he told McKean when we had him here. It's a pretty funny movie.

It still holds up very well. It's another case of playing it seriously, and that's why all the jokes land. They don't play it for laughs. They have some absurd things going on, but they play it very, very very straight and it works well um so after spinal tap he did a couple of movies and i wasn't in any of those but happy he was doing these great movies and then he did waiting for guffman i just couldn't believe how great that movie was wonderful and the next movie that he did he

he had a meeting with me and he said um i'd love for you to be in and play the hotel manager so i just uh was over the moon happy to be in it and i wound up being in geez i think every movie that he's done since i haven't missed one since uh best in show so i'm a lucky guy to be his friend tell tell us about that scene because i swear the ballad band is cracking up that he's that he's breaking character when you're doing he was shocked as i kind about that scene because i swear that balaban is cracking up that he's that he's breaking character when you're doing he was shocked as i kind of was shocked because i wasn't planning on it i'm not sure if i did it to get a laugh out of chris or why i did it there was no reason i should be talking yiddish i'm just i'm a swedish american guy and i have some a scene in

which i do a little fake and a little real Swedish, but this is a scene where it's Bob Balaban, as you say, is in the scene, and I'm this guy who's a PBS kind of producer trying to ingratiate myself to this guy, and I figure what might be funny is the way many Goyish guys decide to ingratiate themselves to a Jewish gentleman. They start peppering the conversation with Yiddish,

and I just kept throwing it out there one after another, one after another, bing, bang, boom, boom, like a batting cage, boom, boom, boom. And he's running around like a Vildahaya. And the Shpilka said, I felt at that time, it's a Mahaya to sit here like that. You feel like Mishpuka. I just kept one after another. And Bob was not expecting that. So he's just sitting there trying not to crack up or trying not to react in any way but the look on his face is great what makes it what i do is fine but what bob balaban does makes the scene work it's great and you said you said that other directors

would have said stop what the hell are you doing but but guess yeah just just knew to let you roll you know i just did it as kind of a surprise to me and everybody to bob for sure and uh and then chris said that's great we're going to move in a little tighter let's do that again so i did it for the rest of the coverage and he uh he liked it i thought for sure he's going to want an alternate version he'd take off his headset and go ed ed you're a swedish american character why why the hell are you spouting yiddish stop it get back to the scene roll those christopher guest movies it's like they're comedies but it seems like they're so close to being tragedies yes two characters are helpless that's what's one of the keys to them i agree yeah he gets great actors jane lynch and parker posey these and michael higgins oh all of them fred willard

michael mckean catherine o'hara don lake catherine o'hara eugene lovey he and eugene used to do all the heavy lifting with best in Show and with Waiting for Guffman and those movies. And they would write these things together and for your consideration. And now it's Jim Piddick and Chris, but they do all the work. And then we all come in, me and Jane Lynch and Parker Posey, and everybody comes in and we just get to have a party because they've done all the work writing the outline. And then we just come in and decide we're going to be, you know, speaking Yiddish or whatever decide we're going to be, you know, speaking Yiddish or whatever we think is going to be funny or Chris will like.

But they do all the work. It's really a treat. Speaking of, this is just one more question, too, from one of our listeners, and I want to get this in. This is from Don Motley. He said, Ed, your Dutch accent in Shelley Duvall's Fairytale Theatre where you played Rip Van Winkle's neighbor was excellent. How did you

learn that? What a kind thing to say. Wow, I totally forgot I even did that. I didn't know that many people had seen that. I knew a guy that was from Holland, so I just kind of tried to do it the way he spoke, and that's very kind of him.

Wow. Tell him thanks. See, people are paying attention to this. There are. This is a massive body of work. I'm never going to get to half these questions on the cards. I'm never going to get to meet the Applegates. Michael Lehman, I work with him still.

I just work with Michael Lehman a bunch of Blunt Talk episodes, work with him many times. This show, Betas, great director, great writer. Yeah, love Heathers. Yeah, Heathers. Gil, you want to ask anything about Transylvania 6-5000, since you're a monster movie guy? Plus John Beiner, who was here on our show.

I love John. It turns up in there. And your pal Norman Fell. Oh, my God. playing my dad it's like an abedin costello movie it is really you and goldblum it's classic rudy deluca you know stuff rudy deluca is a very funny guy and he wrote this wonderfully slapstick movie and he they wanted jeff goldblum and me to be in it. And so I dove in first. I wasn't being offered the lead in any movies at that point.

So I signed up and agreed to do it and signed a contract. And I called up Jeff. I said, Jeff, are you going to do this? I'm going to do it. Do you want to do it? Are you going to do it? Yeah, I did it. I just signed the contract.

They want you to do it too. Come on in, buddy. So we did it. And then pretty soon Jeffrey Jones is doing it and Carol Kane is doing it and Joe Bologna is doing it and John Bynum is doing it and Carol Kane's doing it and Joe Bologna's doing it and John Biden's doing it Michael Richards is in it Gina Davis

what a cast I wish you and Goldblum would make more movies together you guys were great you guys were a great duo what a great friend he's been so good to me had me on his TV series

when he had that series when he was a reporter he regularly you know thinks of me for things. He's a dear friend. I just got honored by the LA City Council. They had an Ed Begley Junior Day at City Hall in the city of Los Angeles. They declared it Ed Begley Day, and he came down there. My dear friend Jeff came down for that.

Bobby Kennedy came down. I love those guys. Ed, tell us about your podcast too. That came and went. It was fun to do. Is it done? It's done. We did it for a while and I enjoyed it.

It was a wonderful thing to do with my wife. And it was her idea. She wanted to do a podcast to get more of this environmental message and design stuff and health and wellness stuff out there. It was her baby and I was happy to do it with her. to get more of this environmental message and design stuff and health and wellness stuff out there. It was her baby, and I was happy to do it with her. But we did it for about a year. I think it was about a year. And after a year, I just didn't have the time. You guys know how much time it takes to set this up

and to do all the work to make it happen. It was a lot of work. And the people who helped us with it were great. They were doing all the heavy lifting themselves but i just felt bad because they're you know it was just time consuming it was good it was eclectic a little bit a little bit of everything yeah here's the last thing i want to do gill is there anything you want to ask ed before i do these it was funny because you mentioned him before who and in my documentary i mentioned fritzfeld fritzfeld speak i can't do it yes yes i can't either he would always be like the maitre d and he'd go

ah your table is ready and he'd smack his mouth and make a loud popping sound. A huge, perfect popping sound. Which I'm not capable of. I just made a little bit of sound, but it's hard to do as it turns out. Did he ever play anything other than a maitre d'? Did you ever see him in another role? I don't know. He was always like.

Maybe a bellman. Maybe a bellman, right? Yes. Or a hotel manager. Yeah. And it would always be, oh, right this way, sir. And he'd pop his mouth. Yeah.

This is one last fun thing, if you'll indulge us, Ed, because you are a trivia expert. You were a trivial pursuit guy in the day. Do you still play? I used to be good at it. My brains are not functioning the way they used to, but I'll give it a go. Okay, these are easy.

Gilbert can even help you out. These are just three quick ones. who made the very first screen appearance small screen or big screen as james bond the first james bond was um the first james bond oh come on shaken not stood nope this was on television on television yeah okay i thought sean connery was the first but obviously i'm wrong on tv i don't know that it was barry nelson yes barry nelson it was casino royale correct done for television oh my god casino royale and i saw that movie how could i forget that that's right casino royale i forgot that barry nelson okay here's another one this is president's day or today is at least Lincoln's birthday.

Five actors who played Abe Lincoln. Okay, Daniel Day-Lewis. Good. Raymond Massey. Good. Raymond Massey, Daniel Day-Lewis. Oh, man. I'm running out of steam quick.

Henry Fonda. Henry Fonda. Henry Fonda, very good. David Selby. Yes. Walter Houston. Walter quick. Henry Fonda. Henry Fonda. Henry Fonda, very good. David Selby. Yes. Walter Houston. Walter Houston. Walter Houston did that.

I didn't know that. John Carradine. Yes. Sam Waterston. Sam Waterston. Sam's a wonderful actor. And the man sitting next to me played Abe Lincoln. I didn't know that.

What did you play, Abe? I played Abe Lincoln. I didn't know that. What did you play, then? I played Abe Lincoln twice. The first time on The View, I came out as Abraham Lincoln. That's right. Yeah. And then I did the big movie version as Abraham Lincoln in Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West. That question was asked in your honor, Gilbert. Yes, I was Abraham Lincoln in that.

I got to see that. I love Seth MacFarlane. Oh, yeah. I love you, Gilbert. Oh, thank you. Ed, this is a lot of fun. You have anything you want to plug? You're going to do another season of Future Man for Hulu?

Maybe. We don't know what's going to happen another season of Future Man for Hulu? Maybe. We don't know what's going to happen with any of the characters, so I can't talk about it. Okay. I hope we see me back there again. And I'm also doing a show called Compliance with Courtney Vance and Mary Louise Parker. Okay.

And I just did some Portlandia that just came out. And I did uh yeah uh Kirby Enthusiasm was just on what else I've been crazy busy which I like I like busy you were in speaking Larry David you were in a uh you were in a rare Larry David authored SNL sketch that's right it was a very funny sketch it was as funny as any curb or any Seinfeld scene. It was brilliantly funny in the Larry David style, making a big thing out of something very small. Something very small escalates and escalates and becomes huge.

And it was a very, very funny scene with an architect and this design for a building in Manhattan. It was great. One of the few sketches he got on the air. Yeah. You guys missed each other because you hosted in 84 and Gilbert was a cast member in 80

or 81. Right, that's right. You didn't miss anything with my season. You're the best. I wish I had worked with you as well. Well, Gil? Well. I'm almost, worked with you as well. Well, Gil? Well. I'm almost, that's all I've got.

Well. Unless you want to ask about Bob Crane. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. To think we were going to end the show without asking you. You worked with Bob Crane. And he's in the. I'm super dad.

And he's in the Bob Crane, Paul Schrader movie, Autofocus. Yeah, you played the reporter. The reporter in Autofocus for Paul Schrader, who's given me more work than any other director. Yeah, you're in Blue Collar, Cat People. Now, did you know anything about what Crane was doing? Nothing. We worked with him in, I think it was 72,

me and Bruno Kirby and Kurt Russell and a bunch of other people worked with him in 72. Had no idea. Never heard any rumors, nothing. It was Bob Crane from Hogan's Heroes and how great to work with him. We didn't have many scenes with him, to be honest. We had scenes away from him for the most part,

but he was nice as can be and uh didn't hear any of that stuff till after he passed i know his son a little bit and i started to hear some stuff about the fact that uh he might have been killed and hadn't just you know i mean clearly he was killed he didn't kill he didn't hit himself over the head, but there was all kinds of theories about who did it. And I didn't know any of that. I didn't know any of that dark stuff at all. It's just one of the interesting things about a long career is that you've been around so long, if you'll allow me to say, that you wind up appearing in a movie about a guy that you worked with 30 years earlier.

I know. It's a strange journey. Yeah. To still be doing it after half a century. I can't believe how lucky I am. This is 50 years now I've been working as an actor, and I just feel blessed as I did the first job I got. Well, we want to thank.

That's nice to hear. And we want to thank Mark Malkoff. You did a great show with him. And that's where we got the idea to grab you and get you here and we're glad we did thank you thank you guys and and the most important moment for me is when you said to me off the air that while working on the movie with caesar romero you walked into his dressing dressing room and there were a bunch of homosexuals throwing orange wedges at Cesar Romero.

Wait a minute. I didn't say. Oh, my God. Now. Oh, you said it was my mouth, but I know you're going to take that and run with it. We live in fear of being sued by the Romero estate, Ed. I understand. Well, the Romero estate, the Danny Thomas estate.

Boris Tucker. Ed, this was a real treat for us. Likewise, Frank. Thank you. Likewise, Gilbert. So good to see you both. Thank you so much for having me on. Thanks for doing it.

Thank you. Our listeners will love this one this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and the very entertaining and talented and of course, most importantly, my co-star in Back by Midnight. That's right. One of my finest jobs. Yes. Thank you, Ed. Thank you, Ed, very much.

Thank you, Bill. A lot of fun. Likewise. It's a birthday Special thanks to Paul Rayburn, John Murray, John Fodiatis, and Nutmeg Creative. Especially Sam Giovonco and Daniel Farrell for their assistance. Give me some money. Give me some money. Don't get me wrong. Give me some money. Try getting me right.

Give me some money. Your face is okay. But your purse is too tight I'm looking for a pound, notes, loose change, bad checks, anything Give me some money Give me some money Give me some money Give me some money Give me some money. Give me some money.

Give me some money. Give me some money. Give me some money.