Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Joe Pantoliano

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

GGACP celebrates the birthday (b. September 12) of Emmy-winning actor Joe Pantoliano by revisiting this memorable interview from 2016. In this episode, Joe joins Gilbert and Frank for a revealing and entertaining conversation about Italian-American stereotypes, underappreciated film directors, dysfunctional families, onscreen immortality and the secret to playing convincing bad guys. Also, Joe meets Gregory Peck, remembers James Gandolfini, takes advice from Robert Stack and takes the fall for Harrison Ford. PLUS: Eli Wallach! "Midnight Run"! Joe befriends Natalie Wood! Gilbert Gottfried: Teen Idol! And Frank Sinatra welshes on a debt! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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a million delicious instant prizes and a grand prize of 25 000 play at games.circlek.com or at participating Circle K stores. Good enough for something so fantastic. Fantastic. So here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Colossal Podcast. Godfrey's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, where once again, recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Verderosa. Our guest this week is one of the most versatile and most recognized actors of his generation with notable roles on the Broadway stage, as well as both the big and small screen. TV appearances include MASH, Simon & Simon, Hill Street Blues, Heart to Heart,

L.A. Law, Tales from the Crypt, NYPD Blue, The Simpsons, and the miniseries From Here to Eternity, and of course, the villainous Kappa Regime, Ralph Caffaretto on HBO. Close. Close enough. I get Smith wrong. Joe's enjoying this. Where was I? Sopranos.

Oh, yes. The Sopranos, for which he won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor. So you'd figure, major hit series, he won an Emmy. I should know the name of the character. He's worked. He's given unforgettable performances in some of the most popular movies of the past 30 years, including Risky Business, The Idol Maker, The Goonies, Empire of the Sun, Midnight Run, Bad Boys, The Fugitive, Bound, U.S. Marshals, Daredevil, Mement Nolan, and alongside everyone from Robert Downey to Tom Cruise to Harrison Ford to Robert De Niro. And if all that isn't impressive enough, he's also the author of two New York Times bestsellers, including Who's Sorry Now and Asylum. Please welcome to the show,

Cypher, Teddy, Cosmo, Caesar, Eddie Moscone, and Guido the Killer Pimp, one of our favorite actors, Hoboken's own Joe Pantoliano. Well thank you. Gee when you put it that way I should be dead for three years. It's a miracle I could even walk. He sometimes adds that to the Was found dead in his New York apartment. Is survived by. Survived by. Now, you said that the only time you know who you are is when you're playing a part. Yeah. I came to the realization that I never knew who I was as a person, you know, as a guy. And so the only time I ever really felt comfortable in my own skin was between the time somebody said action and cut.

Or when the curtain came up and then down. Because in that moment, I knew who I was. I knew what my objective was. I knew what my lines were. I knew what my intention was. I knew what I wanted. But life is not as predictable as those things. So there was a certain comfort in playing those parts,

you know, and being an actor and pretending to be somebody else. I also came to think, you know, to conclude that part of the reason why I liked to play villains was that growing up as a kid, I was bullied a lot. And I always felt like a coward. I was a coward because I didn't stand up for myself.

those parts, I can treat the people that mistreated me with the fury and the disdain and the contempt that I wanted to be able to do when I was a kid. Kind of correcting it in art, what happened in life. Yeah. My doctor, my psychiatrist once said it was like that. I said, you know, from manipulating my brain all these years as an actor, did I make myself nuts? You know, when I had this breakdown, was it because I was an actor? He said, no, probably the craft that you chose saved your life, that you sublimated all of that pain and unresolved trauma, which they call post-traumatic stress now, into a craft that enabled me to visit those emotions and feelings and put them through a creative format. You know, I heard, I think Peter Sellers said in interviews that he didn't exist unless he was a character.

Yeah. Yeah, I know that. I also know that I have a hard time enjoying life unless I'm, when I'm not working. I have a hard time enjoying life unless I'm – when I'm not working. You know, I'm just like not doing much. I'm not interested in much. I don't know if you can relate. I know that feeling, yes.

And you said you're from a family of diseases. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a corticopia, like a marathon of. Yeah, I was surrounded by symptoms. You know, the idea that recently they call these things mental illnesses or disorders. And I don't see them as disorders. I see them as an unease, a dis-ease. That's part of the title of your book, Asylum, Dis-ease.

And so it's not a permanent state of mind. It's a momentary state that you can regulate and get out of. Many times, like in my family, it was manifested in eating disorders or cigarette smoking or alcoholism or gambling addictions. Like my father who loved taking risks. So he was a byproduct of being a part of organized crime and went to jail a lot for that. and went to jail a lot for that. But the excitement and the energy that took you out of this kind of, for me, was the idea of being an actor, the kind of bipolar atmosphere of getting a call,

finding out about a project, trying to get the project, trying to get up for the audition, getting the audition, waiting to hear if it's good news or bad news. Well, you've described show business as an addiction too, waiting for the next high. Yeah. And it's like show business is a series of – I was very touched with the letter you showed me from Frank Capra. A ton of luck and a pound of courage. Because you really need to be lucky. You really, you know, you have to be assertive and aggressive

and wanting to get an opportunity, but you have to get those opportunities. Otherwise, life isn't so nice. I've seen that in a lot of interviews. You always do mention luck. Yeah. And this is something that I always think about whenever it has to do with creative people with either mental, emotional problems or substance abuse. Is the idea of like, you know, like an oyster will get like a grain of sand and it irritates him and he has to deal with it. And that's how he makes a pearl.

So do you think like if a psychiatrist just came by, snapped his fingers and made you totally normal, would you still be able to be as good an actor as you are? You know, I don't know. I wouldn't want to be as good an actor as you are? You know, I don't know. I wouldn't want to be totally normal. I got enough problems as it is. Same question, Gilbert. Same question for you. Oh, yeah. Have you considered that? Oh, I question for you. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Have you considered that?

Oh, I definitely think that. Yeah. I definitely think if I wasn't so insecure and had so many, you know, like OCD and all the crap that goes on in my head, would I be able to perform? Right. Well, you know, the other thing is that I think most great accomplishments are born out of resentment. In my in my own life, it was like I was going to show my mother I wasn't a piece of shit. I'll prove to her that I'm not a piece of shit. I'll prove to the to, you know, Miss Engler, my English teacher, that I'm not a fuck-up. I'm going to show them I'm going to become successful.

I'm going to become a movie actor, and I'm going to fucking show them that I'm not a piece of shit. And so for me, it really started to get complicated once my dreams started coming true. You know, these ideas and becoming successful and getting the things that I thought was going to define me, the physical life of definition by definition of the car I always wanted and, you know, the beautiful wife and the beautiful house and all of these things. And then, you know, and then the burden and fear that I would one day lose them.

And that they never provided any comfort. So I was frightened of losing all of the things that never did anything for me emotionally. It's like I always kind of felt like whenever I signed the deal with the devil to have a career in show business that back then part of the agreement I felt like was that I would be immune to all the problems that regular people have. That's right. Like no I wouldn't have depression. I wouldn't have sadness, frustration. It would all be gone. All be gone. All be gone.

And I could erase my past. You know, all of this controversy the last couple of days with Donald Trump talking about the vets and the idea of it being weak, a person being weak. Some people are weaker. Post-traumatic stress. weak, a person being weak, some people are weaker, post-traumatic stress, you know, and the media coverage continues to paint this as a military condition. And post-traumatic stress is not a military condition. Anybody can have post-traumatic stress. You know, it's any event that occurs in your lifetime that lives inside your head six months after the event and you can't get it out of your head even when you want to. That's what – it's a trauma that was unresolved that is still living inside you. And most of the guys – a lot of people, the guys and gals that I talked to because I went to Iraq because I did a documentary called No Kidding Me Too.

And what they were talking about had very little to do with horrific events. Most of the people that suffer from this are first tour of duty, first deployment within the first 30 days of deployment. And, you know, the suicide rate right now is like 20 a day. employment. And, you know, the suicide rate right now is like 20 a day. But I think it's a microcosm what's happening in our colleges and, you know, to our kids at that age, this, you know, 18, 19 years old, you know, to be a man, to come into a culture where you're 18 or 19 and have all the, you know, now what do I do? I think it's difficult. So I think it's nice. It's good that they're talking about this stuff, but it's not just veterans that, you know, have traumatic pasts. I think like 85% of Americans have unresolved childhood traumas

that occurred between the ages of birth and six to seven years old. I must say, reading your book, I can understand why there's some post-traumatic stress. It's a stressful childhood. It's sort of like you grew up in a Eugene O'Neill play. I mean, there's a lot going on there. Give Gilbert a little bit of the context of, you know, you said your father was a gambler. You had your mother's cousin was a mob guy. I remember fighting all the time, fighting, fighting about not enough money.

There was no money. And you moved 10 times, didn't you? restricted, or we were moving because the landlord, because of all the fighting and all the noise and all the arguing, or we were sneaking out on a bill. And, you know, one of the things I remember, I talk about it in the book, is that we had no credit. is that we had no credit. In order to get anything, in those days, in the 50s, the late 50s, I remember that they would attach, like my mom would buy a TV set,

and they would attach like a parking meter device. So to get an hour's worth of electricity, you put a quarter in it. And they came out every month and they cleaned out these machines and that's how they got their payment. Same thing with refrigerator. So can you imagine that you didn't have the quarter to put in the refrigerator, the milk went bad. But also my mother had this relationship with her third cousin. And I remember when Cousin Flory, I remember him coming as a two-year-old, three-year-old kid, and I remember his mom, who I called Aunt Lizzie.

And I recall, I went to an event. My daughter worked, she works for a film producer in Midtown, and they had an event downtown on West Street near Bank or Horatio Street. There's a hotel down there. holding prison where he was processed and then sent off to Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for a 15-year sentence. So when Flory went away in those six years, I remember these Christmas rituals of sending packages to Atlanta. And they always said that he was off – he went off to college.

I thought it was an interesting explanation. And you said that they were tapping the phone lines? They were tapping – yeah. When he came home and he was – he got back into the life, there would be these little clicks and my mother thought she could outfox the FBI by whispering she'd whisper hello

one time when I did From Here to Eternity it was a big deal for us it was a big deal for me it was the first important job I got TV was a mini series based on the original book by James Joyce that was a big 1954 Academy Award winning movie that Frank Sinatra played Angelo Maggio. I got cast in the Angelo Maggio part. It resurrected his career.

And we were both from Hoboken, New Jersey. So they made a big deal about that when it was time to release this mini-series. You the new transfer? Yeah. I'm Angelo Maggio. And before you get too friendly, I better warn you. I'm a draftee. Pruitt.

Never met one of you guys before. Oh, yeah? Well, don't let the clothes fool you. I happen to be a very important member of this unit. You would do well to cater to me. Okay. So my mother calls me up, and she goes, Joey. She's still whispering. Why?

She goes, somebody from the New York Times called me up. And I said, well, what do they want? They wanted to know about you. They asked me if I talked to you and how I felt about you being from there to eternity. And I said, what did you say? She said, I didn't say nothing. I told them you were dead to me. And I hung up.

A couple of weeks later, the article comes out. My Aunt Rosie, they found her. They interviewed her. My mother, what the fuck are these people interviewing her for? I'm your fucking mother. Yeah, well, I— You hung up on him, Mom. Right.

Now, this thing with post-traumatic stress, I wonder, are you like me, with post-traumatic stress, I wonder, are you like me where you keep having arguments with people who, for all you know, have been dead for the past 50 years? Oh, gosh. Well, you know, that's the thing is that, you know, that's eternal life, isn't it? Yes. They live inside you. They live. I have dreams. I have talks. Yeah, I have talks. I don't know if I'm arguing anymore. Some of them I'm not talking to. But yeah, you know,

because it's unresolved. It's unresolved. So, the only way to resolve it is reaching down there and I love that song. She says,

I don't care if the world knows what my secrets are. Perfect. That's Joey's ringtone. But, yeah, no, that's what happens. That's what happens. And do you constantly go back and try to do things over again?

There's a therapy that they have where you act that out. Dr. T. and Dayton, I think she's a specialist in that. But I've spent – before I realized that I was really crazy, I had somehow gone through about 27 years of therapy. When I was 20 years old, I found therapy with a group therapy. It wasn't really a doctor. It was like a lay therapist. But I did that for like 11 years because I felt like there was something really bad in me and I needed to be controlled.

Otherwise, I was going to, you know, somebody was going to be harmed by my selfishness and my self-centeredness. And so I needed, I always needed direction. I think it's one of the reasons why I stayed in acting school for that long. And I think a lot of people are like that. You know, a lot of, you know, we're kind of tribal by nature. And so, you know, we want to, we want to be validated. Yeah, sure. It's one of the nice things about this business actually, is that when you're collaborating, I've heard you say that your favorite projects are the ones where

you're collaborating, where you're brought in on the creative process. I mean, there's people around you. Yeah. You know, there's a creative process. I mean, there's people around you. There's a fraternity. I mean, that's got to help a little bit. And it's also the nature of that form, that creative form, making movies. Everybody's got – whoever's got a good idea. You said you don't like films where the directors just say you stand over there, you stand over there. But projects like.

Yeah, I don't like directors like that. Where you brought in on the creative process. Yeah. It struck me now like where you were talking about how years of therapy and that you wound up on The Sopranos, which had to do with therapy. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, very interesting. And, you know, that's the other thing is that all of these characters on that show were sick, you know.

They weren't all born that way. It was a byproduct of the kind of exposure to evil that they were exposed to. And I thought that way about the character I played, Ralph. Cifaretto, by the way, Gil. Is that how you say it? How do you say it? Cifaretto.

I didn't know his last name for about a year. Santo Padre took him about 12 weeks. So don't feel bad. Talk a little bit about Ralph since you brought it up. I mean, I heard you say you tried to make him the nicest, funniest guy you could make him. Well, yeah, because his behavior was, you know, was given circumstance with the behavior of the things that he did. One of the things that came to me a couple of months into it, I guess I'd done a couple of terrible things,

and I called David Chase and I said, you know, I have a feeling that it seems to me that Ralph never throws the first punch. It's almost like he taunts his victim into retaliating, then giving him the permission to hurt them. And it's like, if you look at it, every time that he struck out against somebody, you know, with the girlfriend, you know, she says, I want to get a nice house.

And he says, oh, yeah, we'll name her after you. You know, so she can grow up to be a stupid slob like her mother. And then, you know, what are you, crazy? You piece of shit. And then she hits him. And same thing, there's a scene that I had with a guy who was an Arab guy who had a garbage truck and he wasn't paying his vig. And I'm saying, you got to pay and I break something on the table and he hits me with a baseball bat and we beat him up. So it was like taunting somebody

and then getting them to retaliate. He even says when he gets yelled at for what he did to that girl, he goes, she hit me. Right. You know, she hit me. A, she hit me. B, she's a hooah.

It's a boy. We'll name him after me. If it's a girl, we'll name her Tracy after you. This way she can grow up to be a cocksuck and slob just like her mother. Are you out of your fucking mind? Get him, you motherfucking piece of shit! That's right. That's right. Get it all out.

Get it all out, you little hooah. That's my mother. My mother used to call women, my sister, she'd say, get over here, you little hooah. It was never hooah. She turned it into two words. So I did the same thing. That was an homage to my mother. I remember growing up, it was always hooah.

Yeah. That's an East Coast thing. I heard it too. Yeah. Yeah. And before we forget, what was it like working and what was he like as a person, James Gandolfini? He was adorable. He was kind. He had a sense of humor. He was very generous.

Um, he, he, he was inclusive, not exclusive to a fault. I think, I think, I think that Jimmy, um, also felt, um, you know, it's projection on my part, but I feel like possibly that, you know, why me? Why is all this good stuff happening to me? I'm just, you know, I'm just this fat guy from Jersey. You know, why, I mean, when he did, I think it was season four, I was gone by then, but he got a big payday. And he wrote huge amounts of checks to people that were not getting a payday. You know, crew members, somebody, you know, crew members, somebody, you know, he would, I remember one Christmas, he did a Christmas party where he just got a ton of cash and he was giving cash away to everybody. You know, he was that kind of generous. We had Dominic Chianese sitting right where you are and telling us some of the same things about him. I find this interesting too. You find it hypocritical that people say, especially Italian-Americans, say the show is disrespectful to Italian-Americans, the same people that worship the Godfather.

Yeah. And also, a lot of those people never saw the show. I never saw – and I never had a conversation with David Chase about this. But I never saw the show as an anthology about Italian-Americans. I thought it was more about the deconstruction of the American family. Like The Godfather represented the construction of family honor, right? And the hero was a show about a group that became so dishonorable that they did anything to anybody

and they betrayed each other, you know. A lot like what this political season is all about. Yeah, there was some of that. like what this political season is all about. There are some of that. 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. Wish you were a better investor?

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Yeah. You know, and so. And your family knew his family, knew Sinatra's family. There was a little bit of bad blood. And I love the story about your dad. Oh, well, you know, that's – Gil, you'll like this. What happened was is my grandfather was the first Italian, was born in Italy, Pietro Pantoliano,

who became a firefighter in an all-Irish business model. Firemen in Hoboken were all Irish. He was the first Italian immigrant to become a fireman. Worked his way up through the ranks and became the first Italian American. By then, he became an American citizen – captain of the precinct. So he was the captain. So in those days, I guess like today, they made – he was retiring and Dali Sinatra went up and said, hey, listen, if you – Frank's mother.

Yeah. If you appoint Marty, Frank's father, to succeed you, Frankie will give you $1,000 under the table. Okay. Yeah. He's playing at the Paramount. Go to the Paramount. And he'll give you the money.

So now years later, my father's dead now, all of that bad blood. But I found out that the story was that Grandpa went there. Frank wouldn't let him in, left him at the stage manager door. He said, I don't know anybody by that name. I don't know anybody named Pete Pagliano. So that was the story. And so Pagliano's hated Sinatra for stiffing them, right? So when I'm writing my—when I'm doing Who's Sorry Now, the first book, I go to Hoboken mayor's office, Stevie Cappiello, who used to be a cop and was from the Third Ward.

And he said, you know, that ain't true about Sinatra. What really happened is Jip DiCarlo, who was the boss, he was like the boss of all of New Jersey. He was like the underboss of Vito Genovese in New York, right? Jip finds out that Frankie made this deal and he goes to Frank, he goes, oh, Pete sent to me for three grand, give me the money. So Frank gave him the thousand

dollars. So when my grandfather went to the Paramount, what really happened was Frank came out. He goes, hey, Pete, how you doing? He said, did you see the show? He says, no, no, I came for my money. He says, oh, I gave it to Chip DiCarlo. He told me, you know, you ordered. He goes, oh, yeah. He says, well, don't tell the kids.

So then he, Grandpa goes in the car. My Uncle Popeye says, you get the money? He goes, no, the son of a bitch didn't don't tell the kids. So then grandpa goes in the car. My uncle Popeye says, you get the money? He goes, no, the son of a bitch didn't pay me. He said he didn't know who I was. And your dad held on to that for a long time. He was dying. He was diagnosed with lung cancer.

And he had a pain in his leg and they rushed him to the hospital. And he's doing the paperwork for the emergency room somewhere in Hudson County. And the nurse said, where are you from? He said, Hoboken, New Jersey. And she says, oh, Frank Sinatra country. And he said, fuck you, fuck Frank Sinatra. I don't want to die here. And they put him in the car,

and on his way to the other hospital, he died. I love that those are some of his last words. Fuck you and fuck Frank Sinatra. That's great. You told a story, and I think they even made it into a cartoon. Can you tell that story about this beautiful girl the first time I ever brought a girlfriend home yeah you were very shy among

girls yeah and and also I thought that you know I thought that women would eventually turn into my mother you know like you know I don't want to be under their thumb like my mother's. You know, my mother would just beat the hell out of my father, even my wise guy father. You know, she was the toughest man I ever knew was my mother. That's a good one. So I take this girl, Ellen, and she's like a runway model and she's beautiful. And I want to show off a little bit. And I take it down the Jersey Shore where Flory and my mother can scratch up enough money to rent a bungalow for a week. And it's Sunday afternoon and we're sitting down and my mom's at

the head of the table and Flory's at the other head. I'm sitting next to my mother. Alan's across away from me next to my mother. My sister is between me and Flory. And then there's Joe, the insurance man, who was a friend of Flory's, sitting next to Alan in between Flory and Alan. So my sister has got this glass of iced tea. uh and in the inside of the glass there's ridges and she's kind of mixing the ice uh inside the glass and it's hitting the ridges and it's making noise and it's bugging me and i go marianne do you have to do that and my sister was like 12 at the time she goes jesus christ and she slams the glass you can't do a fucking thing in this house so flory says watch your mouth my mother steam starts coming out of her ears and she looks down at him and she goes, she ain't your daughter, mind your own business.

And Flory picks up a salad bowl and smashes it on the table and he goes, I put the food on this fucking table. Don't you ever talk to me like that. And my mother goes, oh, big shot. What are you going to do? Shoot me? You're going to shoot me? And I'm like, I get so mad at her.

I go, you see, that's why I don't bring anybody into this house, because of your fucking mouth. And my mother turns on me now, and she goes, you little summoner bitch. Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? And my mother grabs her breast. She twists her breast breast and she goes, I cursed the milk that fed you. You should have died in my womb. In my womb, you should have died. And Ellen is eating. All she can do is eat. We're screaming and crying and food's flying everywhere. And she's just her head's down and she's eating sausage and peppers.

Food's flying everywhere. And she's just, her head's down and she's eating sausage and peppers. And I pack my bag. I'm outside. Joe's saying, go in and tell your mother you're sorry. Fuck you. I didn't, you know, she started it. And Ellen, we're leaving.

And Ellen sees the deconstruction of her family. It's the end. And my mother opens up the screen door. She goes, Joey, you want coffee? It's perfect. So, Joe, let's talk a little bit about your attempts to escape. What did you watch? You watched a lot of the Million Dollar Movie.

You watched Martha Ray. I watched Martha Ray and the Million Dollar Movie. Merry Mailman. The Three Stooges, Abbot and Costello. And I just loved Harpo Marx. But I had this, you know, I remember watching these black and white films and thinking that there was this tremendous fear that I had that I'm going to die. I'm going to live my whole life and I'm going to die and there's never going to be any evidence that I ever existed. But I'm looking at these actors, black and white actors and actresses, and I'm thinking, well, gee, they're dead, but they're still here.

They still exist on the television. People see them, and that's the evidence that they were there. If I become an actor and become successful, I never even thought about becoming. I'll become an actor, and I'll live forever. There's a term in the book you use, technicolor ghost. Technicolor ghost. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when you were talking about how your mother would attack your father, it reminded me of Pat Cooper when we had him on the show. Oh, I love that guy. The mother was, his mother was busting his father's ass.

And so the father just quietly got up and found the marriage certificate. And he goes, you know, what name is over there? And what name's that? And what does it say there? And he goes, now where on this page does it say, I got to take you, you shit? You should listen to that episode we did with him, Joe. I'll send it to you. Oh, I got it.

It's gold. I love Pat Cooper. It's gold. Oh, God. But, you know, when I saw The Godfather, I remember thinking there's something wrong with this picture because the women were so subservient and quiet. And I was like, that's not how I remember it. The other way around. The men were always quiet and the women were like running the family.

Right. And so that's another reason why I wanted to tell this story. And so that's another reason why I wanted to tell this story. But then Terry Winter, Terry Winter read a galley of Who's Sorry Now? And I said, you know, this— Sopranos writer. Yeah, writer on Sopranos and other things, great things. But I said, you know, this idea about the dominant father and the weak mother, that's not how I remember. But, you know, the godfather is really based on Mario Puzo's mother.

And I didn't know that. That's interesting. It's really interesting. I didn't know that either. Yeah. Now, we have, I think, or had, rather, a mutual friend that we both knew and we both worked with Charlie Rocket. Yeah. I worked with him on Saturday Night Live, that terrible season.

Yeah. And – I didn't know – you know, that part of Charlie, I didn't know. I knew that he was – I knew him socially at first. We wound up working together on a movie. But there was a time when we were all spending a lot of time in New York, him and Tony Edwards and Charlie's wife, Beth, and my wife, Nancy. And Charlie was always a sobering companion.

You know, he was very charming and funny, but he was also a good listener. So I had some really deep conversations with him about my own confusing life. conversations with him about my own confusing life. And then, you know, life, you have kids. But we asked him because he was an ordained minister. He went and got one of those $11 ordained ministers. And so he married Nancy and I. He married us.

And it was great. And he was great. It was a wonderful event, a wonderful and we had a we had a blast and we were both nancy and i were both married before so it was kind of took the onus off of of it uh but then you know charlie i was shooting a film in florida that i was also a producer on so i was in pre-production and he called me and it turned out that they had moved back to Connecticut, but deeper, closer to Rhode Island where he's from, I believe. And I said, well, yeah, I'm in Florida now. And Tony, they got a place in Connecticut. Why don't we all get together for Thanksgiving? How you doing? And he said, I'm pretty good. You know, slowing down a little bit.

But, you know, I take the train in and I do some voiceover stuff. And he sounded fine. And then Nancy called. That was Sunday on, I think, Wednesday morning or Tuesday morning maybe it was, to say that Charlie had slit his throat. You know, it was really, that was kind of like the beginning of my journey through this depression that was always there, but I didn't know it.

And because I remember thinking, like, well, I had this thought that was, maybe that's the answer. You know, not like not an anger or the first thought was maybe that's the answer. And it scared me to death. The idea that, you know, what do you talk, you know, like the conversation I'm having, like, what's wrong with you? How could you even think that way? And, you know, it was a combination of 9-11 and all of

this stuff happening. And it kind of kicked up all of this emotional dust of the primary, that 10, 11 years of the first 10, 11 years of my life that just started getting kicked up. So Charlie's death was among the wake-up calls. Yeah, it was a big wake-up call. Did you stay in touch with him, Gil, in later years? I didn't really stay in touch with him. I remember what's totally untrue with Charlie is like they say, you know, he said, fuck on the air and that destroyed his career. And it didn't. He was always in movies, TV shows. And I remember the last time I saw him,

we just got thrown together in this Jenny McCarthy sitcom. We were both doing guest spots on the same. We were playing brothers. And he invited me to his house for dinner and we had a lot of laughs and so and i didn't see any other side to him i mean especially cutting your throat that's i mean self-hatred with with two yes with two knives well you know like japanese style and so that's not a cry for help. That's – you hate yourself. Well, or not.

I mean it's like what one of the doctors said because Nancy and I think our friend Kayla, they went up to be with Beth. It's like punching a wall, you know, or hitting a steering wheel. You know, we'd be surprised to know how many people out there commit suicide and wind up looking like car accidents. You know, people go into trees or boulders. It becomes this fuck it moment where you just, you know, you just go like – and then you can't take it back. Right. They talk to people who jump off bridges. That's what I always think about whenever I hear about someone jumping off a bridge or a building.

There has to be that fucking split second where you go, what the fuck did I just do? Right. Right. Right. Now, you say you're happiest when you're working. Was making it as an actor just starting to make it as an actor in the early days? Do you have a memory of that? Did that take some of the crappy feelings away? No, I think from the first time I did a play in high school, that feeling, being in the lights and people, or just doing scenes in acting class.

There was something to that. Hearing an audience, hearing their attention, getting a laugh. hearing their attention, getting a laugh. It was very exciting, and I felt alive. The thing about depression is, in my case, that it felt more alive than happiness. You know, when I'm in a bad state, I can feel it in my chest. You know, I can feel it in my heart. I feel it in my body. When I'm in a state of elation where there's like good news, you know, things are going good, it doesn't feel real to me you know interesting it's not as familiar it's not that it's not as familiar feeling you you said that you were at the sundance film festival and you were talking about sitting on your bed you're all dressed oh yeah i was going

skiing and uh and i and i had put on all my ski stuff. And I had the goggles on the top of my head. And I couldn't move. And I had this talk with my brain saying, move. Come on, Joey. Move. Just take the next step. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I remember hearing Dick Cavett describe it as if somebody had come up with this elixir and put it five feet away and say, drink this and everything will be all right. Everything will be great. That he couldn't make it those five feet. Let's just shift gears a little bit. I want to get to some of the things in the book, some of the angels in your career, the two of the touching stories or your relationship with Eli Wallach and Ann Jackson and then later Natalie Wood. Yeah.

People you call your angels. Well, you know, Flory was an angel. You know, the people that made you feel like you will work the investment when you have nothing and they represent what your dream is. But the Wallach family have been a very important part. We talk about them on this show quite a bit. It's one of our favorites. And they are, you know, it was like Roberta and Peter and Catherine was a kid when I met her.

I was 18 when I met them. You knew his children in acting school. I knew Roberta. Roberta. We were in acting school together. And then I got to know everybody because she brought me over to the house. And I was at the house for Annie's, Shiba, and then Eli's this summer. That living room that I went into when I was 18 years old, I was in that living room 40 years later.

Weird. And she passed recently, Ann Jackson. She passed. Yeah, she passed. Actually, it was Annie's. Yeah, Annie was the last one. And Eli Wallach is who they wanted for Maggio. To be Maggio.

There you go. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, he was doing a play and couldn't do it. Did you show up at his house on the wrong night? There was a New Year's Eve party. It was a day party. Yeah, the wrong day.

Yeah, it was my friend Michael Kell and I. We were invited to go to their New Year's party. And I guess New Year's fell on a Sunday. But it was actually going to be on the second. No, it fell on a Saturday. So we went. And Eli opens the door. He goes, hi, how you doing? Good. You want to see the kids? I said, no, we came for the party.

He goes, the party's tomorrow. Oh, my God. He says, well, come on in. So we're in the kitchen and then somebody else came. So they wound up, you know, making some stuff and having coffee. And so we got to go twice yeah that's nice do you this this is something i experience a lot do you like in your life like look at stuff just even going on in a day and you go wow anybody else would would think they died and went to heaven anyone else would be enjoying this so much. Yeah, because, you know, it's like an empty, it's like the hole is so big, you can't fill it up, you know? And it's like,

when I was, you know, if I was, you know, if I was a movie star, if I was making $2 million a picture, if I was making $7 million a picture, if I was making $20 million a picture, then I'd be happy. When I won the Emmy Award, it was like – I was just going to ask you about that. It's an Emmy. Yeah. You had an is this all there is moment. Yeah. I bet you if this was an Academy Award – Yeah.

Robert Stack, I did a TV show called The Finelli Boys, and Robert Stack guest starred. We spent a whole week with Robert Stack, one of the greatest guys. The stories he told, wonderful. But he said, you know, when he won, he went and did The Untouchables, and it was Desi Lou, and Desi Arnaz bought him a a Mercedes and he was like, I don't want to go. And his wife said, you got to go. And he said, but winning an Emmy is like being the world's tallest midget.

Who gives a shit? That's a great line. So I'm like, it was like, I'm up there and I'm hearing Robert Stack. Who gives a shit, right? Now, you also, you said a story, I think the movie was Black and White. Oh, it's so bad. And you asked, you were friends with Robert Downey Jr. Right.

So you wanted to call in a favor. I called in a favor. And I said, Robert, you know, there's a part. Can you call? And he said, sure. And then I got the job. And I guess, I don't know if Toback knew who I was, but, you know, I'm on the set with him.

And he's like, you know, Downey called me. I said, that was really nice of him. He goes, well, you know what he said. He said, if you don't hire Joe Panigliano, you should die of cancer. It's like Jerry Lewis in The King of Comedy. Wow. What a great line. He has to be an interesting guy, Tobin.

Yeah. I love Fingers. I love that movie. Yeah, he's a... But, you know, it's like I always... I say in Asylum that Hollywood is really where the craziest people go. The sickest, craziest, dysfunctional, insecure. That's where we go.

That's our haven. That's where we go for our cure. And then if you're lucky enough or unlucky enough to get everything you want, if you're really fucked up, you give it back. All of those stories, they wind up giving it back. And they go, why would they do that? Why would they, you know, why would they beat their wife?

Why would they do, you know, alcoholism and drug addiction? Why would they do that? Because it ain't enough. The hole is still there. You know, they have a 12-step program. They say it's an inside job. You know, that you can't heal it from the outside. You can only heal it from the inside.

We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal podcast after this. Tell us a little bit about, you're out in L.A. with your first wife and Natalie Wood. You meet Natalie Wood, who meant something to you because as a kid, West Side Story meant a lot to you. And suddenly the director's inviting you into his office and there's Natalie Wood. And that was a moment for you. That was a life-changing moment.

I was like, I think she's the first movie star because I was only 26 years old and recently in California. Maybe I saw people on the street, you know, but I'm meeting Natalie Wood and, you know, and then Steve Railsback who played Pruitt and I were in that courtyard where Buzz Kulik's office was and they were teaching us how to march with a technical advisor. And I remember this guy walking toward us and he had an ascot and a car jacket on. And he said, Joe Panalana.

And it was Robert Wagner. And that's the other – I grew up with It Takes a Thief. Oh, sure. I love that show. And I love the way his hair. You know, the way they made his hair. And I was like, holy shit. And he says, so I hear you got a crush on my wife.

And I was like, how about that? And then they invited us to their house. And you met Gregory Peck. Oh, I just saw met Gregory Peck. Oh, I just saw the Gregory Peck documentary. Yeah, after I done, I did From Here to Eternity. It was semi-successful. They wanted me to do the series that I didn't do.

And I went back to weighing tables at Mateo's, who's from Hoboken, Maddie Action, on Westwood Boulevard. I was a waiter there. And the show is like just, it's coming out. It's up against Roots 2. And they're showing it once a week. And so, you know, people are asking me to sign their menu. That's a showbiz story. You're in a movie. You're in a hit movie. They offer you the series. You don't want the series. You want to do movies, and you think you're going to be stigmatized by doing series.

Do I have that right? Pretty much. So you go back to waitering, and everybody recognizes you. Yeah, and that you could do in New York, but in California it was maybe not a good idea. So anyway, the agent finds out, and he says, you can't do that. What does it cost? I'll give you, you know, we'll loan you $6,000 to cover your nut until you get your next job.

In the meantime, I was owed $6,000 in back taxes. So I had to borrow $6,000 from the Wagners and RJ said, well, come over to the house and I'll give you a check. So he said, wait. He said, come back here. There's somebody I want you to meet. And Gregory Peck was – they had a little gym and he was working out. And he goes, Greg, Greg, come here.

I want you to meet somebody. And it was like, how do you do? And I was like, holy shit. That stuff is surreal. that stuff is surreal when you meet these people that framed your life but larger than life and a guy like gregory peck really was larger than life um and uh you know and and and and they say something nice to you and it's like you know it helps you to keep going. Sure. Keep going.

But when I was doing Frankie and Johnny on Broadway, and he came with Jill St. John, you know, came to see it, you know, didn't tell me he was coming. I mean, that's the kind of – he's such an adorable guy. You wanted to be like Spencer Tracy. You wanted to be like Cary Grant. Yeah, and I got stuck with Joe Panigliano. You haven't done bad, Joe.

Now, you mentioned another actor who, for the people out there who don't know the name, look him up. You'll recognize him right away. That Robert Davi. Robert Davi. Yeah. Did I mention him? No. No, inidavi. Rabidavi. Yeah. Did I mention him? No. In an interview. You mentioned that you guys grew up together? No.

Did you say you were rivals? The two of you didn't get along. We didn't get along on well, I didn't get along with him on the in the Goonies. Oh, okay. We didn't get along with each other. And we knew each other. He had done a couple of days' work

on From Here to Eternity. And he lived in Marina del Rey and I was living in Venice. And we hung out a couple of times. So we kind of knew each other. And so when they put us on film, they put us on tape for the Finelli brothers, I remember him saying, you know, in the interview, because it wasn't an audition. It was just like an open interview. And he said, you know, he's interview, because it wasn't an audition, it was just like an open interview.

And he said, you know, he's wearing a hairpiece, right? Which I thought was really a shitty thing to say. So I took it off and I said, so yeah, so if you want me to come without it, I can come without it. I pulled it off. You want me to be younger? And I lowered it. I said, I can be younger.

You want me to be younger? And I lowered it. I said, I can be younger. And I guess they liked the banter, but that relationship kind of evolved into what happened in the movie. It was what happened in the movie was, you know, the way we were treating each other off camera, too. Interesting. I love bringing up these old actors, these great character actors, Robert Dobby and Steve Railsback, too. Railsback, yeah. And the great Stuntman.

Stuntman. And he played Charles Manson. Charles Manson. Helter Skelter. He also did Ed Gein. Ed Gein? Oh, Ed Gein, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Good actor, underrated actor. Now, I remember, and I mean, it mentions MASH in your credits, but I remember that episode. You do? You're lying in bed. And I think I remember it because it has to do with a Jew. Okay, I got to hear this. You like want to get out of the army. I wanted to – yeah.

I steal this guy's – His dog tags. This guy, he dies and I steal his dog tags and I wind up going into the hospital and they give me a blood transfusion that almost kills me because his blood type is different than my blood type. But when I saw that episode, it inspired me to get a nose job. Because they – you know what they call 50-50? It's like when two people are looking at each other so the camera is getting the angle. looking at each other so the camera's getting the angle.

And I said, you know, you could have Cary Grant's career if you had a smaller nose. So I said, I'll play less bad guys if I had a smaller nose. So my son, years later, MASH is on television. It was MASH from Risky Business. I said, look, I'm in this. And my kid's like nine years old, and he's looking at the TV, and he's looking at me, and he gets out of the chair, and he gets eight feet closer to the TV. He looks at me.

Now he's three feet away. Finally, he's nose-to-nose to the TV, looks at me. He gets, now he's three feet away. Finally, he's nose to nose to the TV. He keeps looking at me and he goes, Dad, what happened to your nose? Of course, I remember in that episode, Father Mulcahy has to learn some Jewish prayer. And he comes to my character, right? Yeah, he comes to me.

Yeah, that was a great job because that was like the last year that they were doing it. 81, you did that MASH episode. My kid was just born then. Yeah. My son was just born. Pretty early in your career. Yeah, David Ogden Stiers, he also directed that episode. And, you know, it was like doing a play.

The first day, everybody sat around the table, and then they camera-blocked each scene. So you shot it Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. What do you remember about making a – was this a pilot or a series called McNamara's Band? With John Beiner. We had John on the show. Oh, wow.

We had John on a couple of weeks ago. How's he doing? Funny as ever. He's in Florida and funny as ever. Where does he live in Florida? We'll track him down for you. We'll get you the info. John Beiner, that was the first job I got.

That was really the first job I got in California. McNamara's band. It was Harry Columbia. It was Bernie Kukoff and Jeff Harris. And, you know, Harry went on to be—he was Beiner's manager. He was Michael Keaton's manager. Yeah, I was going to say Michael Keaton. But it was about—it took place during World War II and they were – it was like the dirty half dozen.

Okay. It was like these guys are all in jail and you work for the government and if you don't get killed at the end of the war, you get your pardon. And Beiner – they were bank robbers. And Beiner was the brains. And then Bruce Kirby. Yeah, Bruno Kirby's dead. Right, Bruce Kirby. He was the getaway driver who couldn't drive. Sid Haig was Zoltan the Great.

Oh, wow. Sid Haig, too. Sid Haig was the leg breaker that couldn't hurt a fly. I was the bomb specialist that was afraid of bombs. We did three episodes. It was like three one-hour episodes for ABC. It was fantastic. It sounds almost Hogan's Heroes-ish a little bit too.

Yeah, and it came after Hogan's Heroes. But Hogan, wasn't that Starlock 17 Hogan's Heroes? Pretty much. Pretty much. But I remember I was doing a scene. We were at the Harold Lloyd Estate. But Hogan, wasn't that Starluck 17 Hogan series? Pretty much. Pretty much. But I remember I was doing a scene. We were at the Harold Lloyd Estate that years later my friend Ron Burkle bought and turned it into a beautiful palace. But it was run down and we shot there. And I remember I was wrestling a bear with the Nazis.

The Nazis. We pretend to be gypsies. We pretended to be Nazis. It was hysterical. It was hysterical. That's great. You also told a story that one time you were going to do a movie and you had a 24 hour layover in Tokyo. Yeah.

It was for it was Empire of the Sun. Yeah. And the layover was at Nagata which was like three hours from Tokyo. But I wanted to see Tokyo. I'd never heard of Nagata, which was like three hours from Tokyo. But I wanted to see Tokyo.

I'd never heard of Nagata. And so the Tokyo guys, the Warner Brothers guys, picked up my girlfriend and I and drove us all the way to Tokyo. And we had this amazing night. And I drank a lot of sake. And we got on the airplane and it was a Chinese airline. And they, you know, boy, you really appreciate guys that know what the fuck they're doing because this plane was going. Oh, God. My worst nightmare. And I'm throwing up in the bathroom.

You know, the muscle, the body muscle. You go, ah! My ass is hitting the door. It's banging my head against the wall. And I'm puking everywhere but in the toilet. And I was green. When we landed, I was green. And I'm walking with my girlfriend.

And these Chinese guys, these spotters, they grabbed me. And they were going to quarantine me. They thought I was hazardous. And the production manager was a British guy, saw what was going on and grabbed me and was able to talk them into letting me go through customs. And by the time I got to the hotel, I was feeling a lot better. Our friend Frankie Verderosa is, of course, here, as he is every week. And he's a big fan of Midnight Run. So we have to, out of respect to Frankie, we have to ask you about Moscone. Eddie Moscone. Eddie Moscone and Bale Bonds.

Moscone's Bale Bonds. Jerry, put Eddie on the phone. Jack, what's the progress? I got him. You got who? The Duke. He's standing right here. You got him? Already? Sure do. Want to say hello?

Say hello to your bail bondsman, Eddie Mascone. Hello. There you go. Jonathan Mardukas in the flesh. Jack, I love you! What happened? How did this happen? Where'd you find him? I found him in New York. We're at the airport. Holy Christ, this is wonderful! This is wonderful news! Martin Bress, the director you knew previously. I knew Marty when he was, you know, from his NYU days as a student.

And then, but Jerry Saldo was a mutual friend of ours. And Saldo, I guess, mentioned to Marty, you know, Joey Pants, and then Marty called and said, listen, there's these two characters, you know, whichever one you want. And I read it and I said, I don't want to, I'd done that before.

You were supposed to be two of the hoodlums, the guys that worked for- Yeah, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, yeah. Is this idiot number one? Right, right, okay, I got you. Farina. Farina. And I said, I want to do something different.

I say, I want to play the accountant. He says, yeah, well, that ain't going to happen. He said, I said, well, then what about the bail bondsman? He goes, no, no, no, no. I got this other guy. I got this guy in my, you know, I want him to be a big guy, big, big fat guy. I said, well, that's the only part that I could do. He said, well, you know, that one I ain't giving away. You know, if you want that one, you got to earn it. You got to come in and read for it. So I came in and I read and, uh, and I

got the job. Uh, you read with De Niro. I read with De Niro. read with De Niro yeah and I remember my agent calling he said I got good news and I got bad news yeah okay so what's the good news you got the part great

what's the bad news just went at the turnaround at Paramount why because they because Marty wants Charles Grodin and they wanted Cher

I remember they wanted Cher. Did you know that? Oh, no. To be the accountant opposite De Niro. Oh, jeez. Can you imagine? So he said, you know, so, you know, Marty stuck by his guns and Universal picked it up.

It's a hell of a movie. Yeah, it still is. Yeah, it just holds up so well. Yep. We had Amy Heckerling here and she's also friends with Martin Bresson. We were asking, you know, what's going on and why he isn't still making films because he really had a— You know, Marty didn't make a lot of movies when he was working. Yeah, but—

It was like every four years, every time there was an election. Like, he'd be doing a movie right now because it's an election year. But he— But going in style is so good. So good. And everything's getting remade. Yeah, I know. They've been talking about trying to remake, doing another midnight run. But, you know, he'd be the last guy they'd call because these studio guys, they get younger and younger.

And they want to – it's almost like their reward ambition. Let's get a young, good commercial director or video director. We're going to get – you know, it's like, and Marty's the guy that brought that to life. And when you think about what he did with Beverly Hills Cop. Yeah, sure. Which was a Stallone vehicle. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, Marty knows his stuff and he's really excellent. I just worked with Ron Shelton, who did— Another guy. You know, he did Bull Durham, Tin Cop. Sure. White Men Can't Jump.

Right. And, you know, this is the first film he's directed in, like, 12 years. He wrote Bad Boys 2. I like Blaze, too. He wrote Blaze and directed blaze and he wrote and directed cob with tommy lee jones you know this is a guy that it's like i remember the first day at work we rehearsed for a few days like a week but then it was that first day at work and i was like wow it's been a long time since I've been working with filmmakers that really know what they're doing.

And I was reminded how long it's been and how these young kids, you know, they've got the ambition and somebody gives them the money. But a lot of them, you know know it just doesn't come together and then they go well gee why isn't the movie business any better you worked with three directors and andrew davis uh martin breast and paul brickman who all made early marks really good films yeah and then all three of them kind of fell off the map a little bit. Well, you know, it's like... Paul Brickman's follow-up to Risky Businessmen Don't Leave is very good. But Paul, I mean, my impression of Paul is that he doesn't... I don't know if he likes directing that much. You know, I know he loves to write and he's been very prolific in his writing.

But I don't know if he liked the idea of all of these departments because he didn't take the energy from Risky Business because he got offered. For the next year and a half, he was the first guy they went to. I'm sure. he got offered for the next year and a half. He was the first guy they went to. I'm sure. And then, you know, but a lot of, you know, we're all, these guys are all in their early 70s now, you know, and apparently there's only two guys are allowed to work after 75 and that's Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen.

Right. Interesting. They get the pass. Interesting. Nobody else is allowed. Right. Interesting. To get the pass. Interesting. Nobody else is allowed. Right. Interesting. Good films.

And tell the story of The Fugitive. It's a funny story, too, is when you decided you would be the guy that went – Oh, with Harrison? You'd be the guy to take the beam. Yeah. So let me see. How did that start? Let me see how that started. The setup was because we shot that in continuity and we improvised a lot. And the writer would write the sequence and then everybody would look at it and say,

are we going to do it this way? Are we going to do it differently? And so the beam story was Tommy Lee, Harrison is having the fight with the bad guy. You know the Climax Guild? They're in the laundry room. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They go through the glass ceiling of the elevator. Right.

The skylight. And then Tommy was going to get hit in the head with the beam and then the bad guy was going to take tommy's gun and then tommy was going to shake out of it and save the day and and tommy and harrison and andy were like you know that's ridiculous you know hit hit the guy in the head with a beam. You know, I shake off the dust and I save the day. So they walked out of the trailer and Andy's like, eh. And I go, Andy, hit me in the head with a beam. And he goes, what?

And I go, hit me in the head with the beam. We go in the laundry room and Tommy goes, Cosmo, come with me. You go that way. I go that way. He goes this way. The bad guy hits me. Takes my gun. Tommy saves the day.

So it's in this, you know, the next day. The sides come out and I'm in the scene. Another scene I'm in. Good. I keep reading it and they're killing me. So I go, what? So I run in. Andy, Andy.

I said, you can't kill me. He goes, why not? I said, what if there's a sequel? He goes, all right, so we won't kill you. So now it's like three in the morning because we shot that. It was all night shooting, like six weeks a night shooting at the Hilton Hotel. And Andy was the camera operator on a medium cool with Haskell Westler oh no shit wow and you know

that's where the Democratic Convention was and it's where the riots were and that's where they became part of medium cool because it was you know all improvised

yeah so so Andy was like you know it's very important to me to make this movie here at the Hilton. And so now I'm laying on the ground, and they've already shot the hit, and they're doing the scene where the guy comes, gets the gun,

and I'm like, I'm moving. I'm like rolling. Oh, because I know that they could make me look dead. But if I'm moving, you don't have the technology yet, right? If I'm moving, at least I got a shot. So I look, these other feet come in, somebody calls cut, and I look up, and it's like a camera panning up to this face. And it's Harrison Ford and he's shaking his head very slowly. And I go, what?

And he goes, you should be dead. And I go, oh, it was your brilliant idea. I go, no, no, no. I said, you know, the beam hit Tommy in the head. It wasn't killing him. And Harrison goes, what do you give a shit? You don't have to be in the aftermath sequence. I said, well, what if there's a sequel?

And he smiles and he goes, there's not going to be a sequel because I ain't doing this piece of shit again. And I said, oh, yeah, well, fuck you. We'll just chase another $15 million asshole through the woods. And he starts laughing. And now a couple of years go by and they call and they're making the sequel. And Harrison and I shared the same manager, Pat McQueenie, who became his agent later in life. And so she calls and says, Harrison's in New York. He's doing The Devil's Own.

They're having the big premiere. You want to go? And I said, yeah, thank you. And so I go and it's at the Four Seasons restaurant on Park Avenue. And there's like hundreds of people. And I see Harrison Ford Ford popping out of this crowd I'm coming down these stairs and he's like pops out, Joey Pants

pops out, Joey Pants and so I start walking through the people toward him and he does the same and it's like you know, on the beach and he grabs me and he goes, so you're doing that piece of shit? and I said, yeah he says, good thing you didn't listen

to me he's adorable man i love that guy i like andrew davis's um a steel big steel little too yeah it's good that's that's that makes two of you yeah well and he loves that movie it's good yeah it's good and and brickman's follow-up but men don't leave with jessica lang is also very good very good yeah it's it's hard because there's an expectation you know the the because the first film is so big that if it's that if the follow-up film is not quite as well you know with andy he'd been trying to make steel big, steel little for a long time. And even when you look at the fugitive, the corporate manipulations and pharmaceutical companies and pharma and all of the stuff that's going on, that he kind of gingerly put into the storyline of the picture.

That's not what people remember. But when you look at it, you get a closer look now, you go, oh, wow, he's saying something here. And the same thing with Steel Big, Steel Little. I just remembered something, and this is important to fans of this show. Uh-oh. You were in The Idolmaker. Now, in The Idolmaker, Peter Gallagher plays the lead singer, Caesar, who's kind of like a Fabian. And the song he had, his one-hit song in the movie that he sings over and over is,

Baby, baby, I just want to take you where I'm going. Baby, baby, I just want to take you to the sky. I'll make you feel good, baby. I'll make you feel loved, baby. I want to take you to the sky. Mean anything to you, Joe? When you did that, Jeff Barry wrote that song. Oh, yeah.

Wow. He was the technical guy. He'd be a great guest for us, Jeff Barry. Is he still alive? He's around, yeah, sure. He's the best.. He'd be a great guest for us. Yeah. Jeff Barry. Is he still alive? He's around. He's the best. Yeah, I'd love to get him. And then I remember the middle.

Oh, stop it. Tell me why you and I are not close together. Tell me why did someone break your heart? So that was Bob Marcucci. Yeah. Who was Frankie Avalon and Fabian. It was really the story of Bob Marcucci and Fabian, Frankie Avalon. James Darin too?

No, not James Darin. Yeah. But those two guys, because back in the early 50s, a lot of that was happening in Philly. It was the Philly sound. Frankie was here. He was? Avalon, yeah. And Bobby Rydell.

I just saw that Bobby Rydell is working on the new Taylor. He had probably a small part in the new Taylor Hackford movie with Bob De Niro. Also was a guest on this show, Bobby Rydell. I love Bobby Rydell. Did a Gilbert impression. I used to go. Yes. I saw Bobby Rydell at Palisades Amusement Park.

Wow. With Cousin Bruce Morrow. Wow. He was the first recording star that I ever saw in person. I went to Palisades Park, and they had that little singing arena, and these guys would lip sync to 45s. Yeah, it's our childhood, too. We're trying to get Chuck Barris, who wrote Palisades Park. Chuck Barris?

Yeah. Is that the guy that had the crazy show? The gong show. Yeah, and allegedly he was a hitman. But he also wrote Palisades Park. And he's still alive? Yes. These guys are all still around, Joe.

We're trying to get them in here to tell their stories. I love that Chuck, what is his name, The Gong Show. Yeah, The Gong Show. Yeah. Is that he writes that book and he goes around telling everybody that the CIA, if he reveals anything, the CIA will kill him. And he's going on TV shows, making movies about it. Yeah, they made movies about it. Clooney directed it. And I'm thinking.

Sam Rockwell. But the CIA, the minute they find him. I think he was just having fun. You know, it's like Clooney would make that movie like for real, like he really was a CIA agent. No wonder it didn't make a nickel. Last thing I want to ask you, too, before we talk about your organization, too. I've heard you talk about the Matrix and you've said you still haven't figured it out. Is that true?

Yeah. Do we have a deal, Mr. Reagan? You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss. The plot line for The Matrix wasn't, like, so easy to follow.

Yeah, both of them. You know, so somebody said, was it hard for you to follow the plot line to Memento? And Chris Nolan said, he's still trying to figure out the plot line to The Matrix. I like that. You're also our second guest, a little trivia, to have played Roy Cohn. Yeah, I talked to Roy Cohn. You did? I called him up on the phone.

I was doing, this was a miniseries about Robert Kennedy, right? Brad Davis played Kennedy. And Harris Ulan played Joe McCarthy. And I played Roy Cohn. And I called up his office. And I told the secretary that I was playing him in an NBC miniseries. You know, he got on the phone and spoke to me for like 40 minutes. Very charming, very charming guy. And Donald Trump's mentor.

Mentor. Scary. Wow. Well, you know, what's going to happen to Trump, I think, is what happened to Cohn. He owned nothing in his name. In the end, the government took everything after he died. He left everything to his boyfriend and then he took everything from him. But I think this hubris and back to the hole, that hole that you got to fill, that Trump had a really good thing. And I think he's exposed himself to so much, to a magnifying glass that's going to just tear him apart. And driving down here today, I passed by on West Side Highway all those Trump buildings, and I noticed that one of the names is already down.

You know, that they took a name. And, you know, and I think in the next two or three years, all of these deals that he has, they're licensing deals. He doesn't own those buildings. I think that, you know, he's going to get found out and go to jail for tax evasion. And it's going to be bad. You heard it here from Joey Pants, the prediction. And you're sitting across from the man who referred to him on national television as Mein Fuhrer. Have you guys seen the movie?

It's called Look Who's Back. It's a German film. No. Oh, it's on Netflix. It's fantastic. Look Who's Back. Adolf Hitler comes back. It's in German. Oh, boy. on Netflix. It's fantastic. Look who's back. Adolf Hitler comes back. It's in German.

Oh, boy. He wakes up. It's like he comes back after 70 years in modern Berlin. He's still in his uniform right before the bunker. And they think that he's a Hitler impersonator. And he becomes a sensation, like a comic. They think he's a comic. It's fantastic.

What a premise. But the first interview that he does is the guy, he's like a Jimmy Kimmel guy. He goes, what do you want to do? Now that you're back, he goes, I want to make Germany great again. Movie was made in 2011. Wow. It's fantastic. It's fantastic. It's prophetic because it's like nothing changes.

Yeah. Because he says in the movie, he goes, look, I didn't take over. The people elected me. You know, it's not Trump. It's the people. Of course. It's us. Of course.

You know, it's like, ooh. He's a case study. You want to talk about somebody wearing their insecurities and their craziness, their stuff on their sleeve. How did he react, by the way? I know it's only television, but when you basically called him Hitler. Maybe he was flattered. Right? Yeah.

He was on The Apprentice, on The Celebrity Apprentice. And you called him Mein Fuhrer. Yeah, I said, thank you, Mein Fuhrer. And you were ahead of your time because that National Lampoon photograph. Was it Spy Magazine? Oh, I forget. There's a photograph that surfaced recently, Joe, and you'll find this interesting. It's on social media of Gilbert like doing a Nazi salute behind Trump.

It's a picture that was taken in what, the 80s? Yeah, that was in Spy Magazine. In Spy Magazine. Me standing, making faces behind Donald Trump. Fantastic. Let's plug Joe's books, too. Oh, okay. Before we go, they're both terrific reads and absorbing.

Thank you. Before we sign off, Joe, tell us about your organization. Tell us about No Kidding Me Too. Well, you know, when we started No Kidding Me Too, it was a celebrity outreach using celebrity to shine the light on the stigma, they can get better and become even greater participants in society. Discipants in society. You know, a lot has happened now. A lot more celebrities are talking about it and making it part of who they are.

And that's stopping the stigma. That's what you mean. Yeah, stopping the stigma and shame of disease. I mean, recently, a lot of people are coming out and talking about it that wouldn't have talked about it. So it's like it's gotten to a point where people are doing it openly better. What can our listeners do to help? Gee, you know, get the movie. Okay. And the movie was made in 2009.

Yeah. The documentary is called No Kidding Me 2. Okay. And the movie was made in 2009. Yeah. The documentary is called No Kidding Me 2. Right. You can download it on Amazon. Okay. And these books you can actually – you can also go to Audible and hear me tell the stories. I should read the title of this. Yeah.

Yeah. They're terrific. Joe Pantoliano. I got your name right. That's a start. Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead. And you wrote two bestselling books. One of them is Who's Sorry Now?

The True Story of a Stand-Up Guy. And Asylum, Hollywood Tales from My Great Depression, and Asylum, Hollywood Tales from My Great Depression, Brain Dis-Ease, Recovery, and Being My Mother's Son. So Who's Sorry Now and Asylum. Yeah, Who's Sorry Now covers the first 17 years of my life, and Asylum was the last 20. Where'd the title come from, Who's Sorry Now? Well, that was a song my mom would sing when they would pop. She would just dig into them

and then finally when they start screaming at her, she starts singing Who's Sorry Now? She yelled it. She didn't sing it. Whose heart is breaking? It was like her declaration. I won. I won.

And Connie Francis bookends this episode. Joe, you have to come back. We barely scratched the surface. I hope you come back and see us again. I'd love to. I'd love to just have a nice talk with you guys. So much. We were so busy talking about your craziness we ignored your career.

I've been ignoring it for 40 years. Okay. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre.

And we've had on the guy who won an Emmy for some character I don't know the name of. Ralph. Let's say it for him, Joe. Okay. Ralph.

Ralph Cifaretto. Cifaretto. Close enough. Close enough. Yeah. You got Pantoliano right. Close enough. And Joey Pants would make it easier.

That's right. So, Joe Pantoliano, thank you so much. Thank you, Joe. This was terrific. Thank you guys very much, really. We'll see you again. Okay.