Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Rupert Holmes Returns!

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

GGACP celebrates National Piano Month (yes, National Piano Month) by revisiting this 2017 interview with songwriter/composer-turned-dramatist (and lifelong pianist!) Rupert Holmes. In this episode, Rupert discusses (among other essential topics) the brilliance of Bernard Herrmann, the lesser-known films of Boris Karloff and the fine art of “cracking” celebrity impressions. Also, Frank Gorshin channels George Burns, Gilbert mimics Sydney Greenstreet, Bob Hope goes psychedelic and Rupert remembers his childhood hero, Jerry Lewis. PLUS: “House of Wax”! The Great Gildersleeve! Grandpa Munster rocks out! Rupert” collaborates” with Mickey Rooney! And the boys pay tribute to “Old Dark House” movies! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's so gentle. We've never smelled so good. Shop Old Spice Total Body Deodorant now. TV, comics, movies, stars, hit singles and some toys. Trivia and dirty jokes, an evening with the boys. Once is never good enough for something so fantastic So here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks

Colossal Classic I'm sorry, I have the wrong room. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer Frank Fertorosa. Our guest this week is back by popular demand and also because he's a mensch and we like hanging out with him.

He's a singer, musician, record producer, composer, playwright, novelist, and screenwriter, as well as our resident expert on the career of Casey Adams, aka Max Showalter. He's won Tony Awards, a Drama Desk Award, and the Edgar Award for Mystery Writing and in 2014, ASCAP presented him with its prestigious George M. Cohan Award, acknowledging both the diversity and depth of his career as a composer, lyricist, playwright and novelist. He's worked with everyone from Barbara Streisand to Jerry Lewis and his songs have been recorded by the likes of Barry Mandlow, Dionne Warwick, Dolly Parton, Judy Collins and Britney Spears, Frank Sinatra was an admirer, and he met Groucho Marx and Orson Welles too.

Please welcome back one of our favorite guests and favorite people, and a man who can recall all the surnames of Lucille Ball used in her four sitcoms. A man of many talents, our pal Rupert Holmes. Hello Gil. Thank you for that. So welcome back Rupert. I'm delighted to be here.

Before we miss it, can you name? I found this in deep research. He picked the one! I can tell you they're all the road movies, okay? Road to Singapore, road to Morocco, road to, the one damn thing I can't, I found in 1986, People Magazine interview with you. She did my favorite husband, she did, that was my favorite husband and she played,

I can't remember, no, I don't know all the surnames. Okay. You picked the one, the one. People Magazine lied, they said you used to use it as a device when you were commuting I can't remember. Now I don't know all the surnames. You picked the one? Okay. The one. People Magazine Live, they said you used to use it as a device when you were commuting from New Jersey to New York City. I, you know, maybe that's true.

That would have been like 1980s, so it's only 37. Yeah. You know, how that slipped out of my head, I have no idea. Lucy Carmichael. Now, the really scary Lucy show. And Lucy Carter. Yeah. The really scary Lucy show. Lucy Carter. The Lucy, the really scary Lucy show, that was life with Lucy.

That was one of the worst. She was 90 or something. That probably should have been paired with Make Room for Granddad. Oh my god, yes! And you know what he's known for. Yeah yeah. It has to do with glass coffee tables. Lucy Ricardo, Lucy Carmichael, Lucy Carter,

here's Lucy, and finally Lucy Barker on Life with Lucy. And we won't go into the stone pillow where she played the homeless woman. She did have, I Love Lucy was spun sort of out of the momentum of a radio show she did called My Favorite Husband. Yes, correct. With Richard Denning.

Very good. And I can't remember if she was a Lucy on that or not. Didn't you work with Gail Gordon? Was Gail Gordon on that? I did. I did an episode of Hi Honey, I'm Home with Gail Gordon. He was the greatest. Gail Gordon was incredible. Now that was one of those characters that, you know, it was Gail Gordon, Frank Nelson, and the great Gilder sleaze were all that kind of characters. They're all ripping each other off.

There were two great Gilder sleaps. There was Willard Waterman and Harold Peery. Peery, I think that's it. And they were, they sounded completely identical. They would all do that. But Frank Overton, uh, uh, uh. Frank Nelson. Frank Nelson, I'm sorry, Frank Overton. Yeah.

Frank Nelson was. Frank Overton has also come up on this show. Yeah, oh yeah. Absolutely. But Frank Nelson, he was, for your listeners, he was, he was, yes, right? Yeah. On the Jack Faddeus Show.

It did, had some wonderful sketches at the train station. Uh, where they'd be in the train station for like 20 minutes and every announcement and trying to return the tickets and yeah Also Christmas shopping episodes with all Nelson right terrific right right right right right and Mel blank Yeah, that's where Mel blank winds up shooting himself I'll wrap the package real nice. I'll make it real nice for you You know I'm thinking it will go with these shoelaces We've lost we're now into incoherency here. Well, before we jump to, to go back to the intro,

we lost Jerry a couple of months ago. Yeah, we did. And so you worked with him on the Nutty Professor musical? Yes, I worked with him for, other than some film work he did, this was the last big thing that he did in his life for and he directed the musical I wrote it with Marvin Hamlisch and this is this is Jerry Lewis who prior to the JFK assassination the worst news that anyone in my world had was that Dean and Jerry were breaking up.

I remember I saw Partners at the Pearl River Movie Theater and we were playing on the playground and someone came over like they had news about a death in the family that said, Dean and Jerry are breaking up. And it was shattering. I've been watching a lot of the Colgate comedy hours since he passed.

And what those two guys were doing, they had about six minutes of material. And then they just, and then they just, I loved it. They would continually be stuck with eight minutes of dead airtime live on television and they had to fill it. And they would, and he would. The pratfalls that he would take, just amazing stuff. This guy, before there were the Beatles, Dean and Jerry were the coolest guys on

the planet and who you'd want to be. And it was only a matter, we didn't know it would be cool to be Dean, we thought it would be great to be Jerry. But it was really when I wrote Say Good Night Gracie about George Burns and Gracie Allen, I realized Martin and Lewis were a boy and girl act. I mean, a heterosexual boy-girl act. Jerry just wanted Dean to love him and be his brother

and be everywhere that Dean went. Never looked at it that way. Yeah. And it was really just like, oh, now you love me. And interestingly, a number of their movies were like Never Too Young, is that what it's called? Never Too Young? That was the major and the minor, which was made with.

Oh, Ginger Rogers. Ginger Rogers and Ray Millan. That's right. And they made it as Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Wild. Scared Stiff is really Ghost Busters, Ghost Breakers, which is Bob Hope and Dean's, they split those personalities up.

So they were just amazing. And Jerry, you know, his movies, there was always at least 10 minutes of genius in it. And sometimes the whole movie was genius. Aaron Boyd to me, I think it's an amazing film. You like that one, Gil? Oh yeah. Aaron Boyd. Now Aaron Boyd, I think is the one where he does

Chairman of the Boards. Yes. And da-dum-dum-dum. And you, and you, and me, and she, and bun, da-gum-da-da-da-da. I mean, the time he must have spent with that, he does that in the typewriter, too. Oh, yes.

The typewriter's amazing. You know what's funny? Now, if someone watches that movie, they'll go, what is he doing? They won't know what a typewriter is. Yes, that's true. Yeah. Oh my God.

Yeah. Now, Jerry told like later on, like he used to avoid talking about Dean, and then later on when Dean was getting more and more weak, he started to talk about the intense love between them. Do you think there was ever a love between Dean and Jerry? Okay, it's said that Dean once, I think that, I think there was love within what they were doing. In other words I think they loved the act. This happened again George Burns and Gracie

Allen. George Burns was he was struggling to have a toehold in Vaudeville. He was 30 when he met Gracie Allen and he fell in love with Gracie Allen and I always felt that just as much as falling in love with her, he fell in love with the idea that he finally had a great act. And Dean was making it. Dean would have been a good crooner and Jerry was doing, oddly enough, when we talked about Chairman of the Board and the lip-syncing to Count Basie records and Leroy Anderson's the typewriter, he was doing a lot of lip-sync to records. That was his act in the Borsch Belt, playing records and miming to them, which was considered entertainment. Yeah, Dick Van Dyke had an

act. He did the same thing. Yeah, but they found each other and they started patting the show and just winging it and going out there and ad-libbing 20, 30 minutes, going out to the audience and it was a mixture of Olsen and Johnson basically slapstick and I think that they did fall in love with being these two guys that everybody wanted to know, be, see. You couldn't get in to see them at the Copa. Outside the Paramount Theater, you think there were crowds for the Beatles, there were crowds for Martin and Lewis then?

And I think they fell in love with that. I think that what did happen between them was that Jerry always had a different vision of what he was gonna do. The last film they made, I think, Jerry oversaw the script. And I think Dean did not appear in the movie until about 17 minutes into the film.

I see. So the writing was on the wall. And I think that that that that undid the breach. I mean you know it was easier to everyone thought I just can remember everyone in the universe thinking poor Dean Martin what will he do now. They used to have the Martin and Lewis comic book every month DC Comics put it out and for about two months they tried to put out the Jerry Lewis comic book and the Dean Martin comic book. And no one bought the Dean Martin.

I remember the Jerry one. Well, you remember the Jerry, that kept going. Sure. Along with that laugh riot, the Bob Hope comic. The Bob Hope comic. I remember them both. Bob dresses up like a hippie. So when you met him, did you spend enough time with him Dresses up like a hippie.

So when you met him did you would you spend enough time with him to tell him to share how much affection you know? Yeah, yeah, no, I I actually Got to really spend time talking with him and joke, you know, and he I mean I have things that Voicemail messages from him that... Oh, you save them. Of course. Great. Wonderful. Of course. Well, he read this script that I had written of Nutty Professor, but so that the guy could

sing and so that it would be humane. It's actually a very gentle script about bullying and all like that. And it went over great. We're still working on the negotiations for the rights now. But no, when I met him, the first sentence, you know, you say things to people impulsively. And I met him backstage at Damn Yankees when he was running that. And I looked at him, it was Jerry Lewis.

I mean, that's Jerry Lewis, you see. And I said, thank you for making life worth living. And he went like, oh, oh God. And it's like, that's why I do this. That's why I do it and all like that. We got to talk a lot, and I just never quite, I would sit there and we'd be chatting about stuff, and I'm thinking, I'm talking, this is Jerry Lewis.

This is Jerry, and I don't know, have you had, you must have had idols that you are sitting there and you're talking. Well, I mean, Jerry Lewis, I met a few times and it was also, it was one of those things where I get very, you know, sarcastic and cynical and particularly Jerry Lewis I'd make fun of with being overly sincere and the egotistical thing. The mawkish Jerry. Yeah, but you know, the great filmmaker Jerry, you know.

The complete filmmaker. But yes. Boy, when you were in his presence, you go, I'm here with Jerry Lewis. I can't believe this. Letterman once turned to him on the show. I remember he said, you look like a star, you smell like a star. That's great. He did he had this cologne that he discovered in Paris and he had like 900 bottles of it. It isn't made it's kind of blue in color and it isn't made anywhere but he stockpiled

it and he was going to be wearing that cologne and he would come in and man the room would be that and it Sounds like it would be a little overwhelming, but it was Jerry Lewis's cologne. I love it. That's what Jerry smells like And no it was it was wonderful. He also said I'm not gonna get into this right now But he said a couple very moving things to me about losses in both our lives and very nice and so I got to see a Jerry that, I mean, some of the times that you saw Jerry, it was difficult, you know what I mean? And he got, he always sit there and wonder what, he seemed bitter. And a lot of great stars towards the very, very end, they get bitter.

And I always think it's because they feel that they've been driven all their lives and they're gonna Pass away like everybody else. I suppose and and So I don't know where that comes from Well, we talk a lot on this show about the perils of meeting your heroes But in this case for you, it was it was rewarding. I had a chance to meet John Lennon. I wouldn't yeah You told you told us last time. Yeah, and and Carrie Grant interesting. Yeah, but you met Groucho and Orson Welles and Frank Capra. Frank Capra and Groucho and Orson Welles, who I think I mentioned this question.

Yeah, you mentioned it. About his suits, right? Yeah. I'm just glad the Jerry experience, because it's a hero worship story, I'm glad it turned out well for you. Well, you've gotta understand, when Marvin and I started to write this score,

I didn't mention this, I don't think. I'm not sure, we touched on it briefly. We touched, okay. But I had to, I'm not an, I don't do impressions. I'm not, I can perform on a stage and I can talk on a stage, but I don't do comedy roles or something. And I had to sing the songs that Jerry's character that he created was going to sing.

And I suddenly realized I had to do Jerry Lewis for Jerry's character that he created was going to sing and I suddenly realized I had to do Jerry Lewis for Jerry Lewis and that was the most terrifying thing I can possibly imagine. Did I mention this last time? No, I think you did. Okay, so so I'm standing there and Jerry Lewis is as far away from me as you or Gilbert and and I'm thinking he's now gonna hear what Professor Kelp, Julius Kelp, sings like, who's never sung in the movie, and I've got to do it. And I'm standing there going, ah, Miss Purdy, I believe you'll find that one part oxygen, two part... And it was amazing. And at the end of the song, he applauded and he said, Holmes, you're a real ham. And I thought, Jerry Lewis is calling me? Ha ha ha ha was a great day in my life.

What I've always heard, people who I talk to about Jerry Lewis, they say basically, it is the Nutty Professor, because he was a Jekyll and Hyde. One minute he could be a best friend the world and in a second he could turn on you. Really? I did not encounter that guy, but he was in a very happy circumstance. Here are all these young people, all being that world he invented in 1960. There's a Stella who looks so much like Stella Stevens. You can't

immerse him a gown. Wonderful singer and actress and wonderful looking. And here's a guy who is basically channeling both Buddy Love and Professor Kelp. And it's kind of, and he's directing and they're all, and everyone's, I'm looking at the chorus and all of them just had this giant Oval mouth as he's talking because they're all going. Oh, I'm listening to Jerry Lewis So he was in his just in glory on the second day environment on the second day He sat down with them and he said okay, and then he named the first names of every person in the cast There were 20 people Wow from memory. He had gone home and memorized that. So that was a, that meant a lot to them.

Wow. Wow. That's a cool thing. Yeah. I don't remember names of people I've worked with for 40 years. Including mine. Yes. Well, we've only known each other since 93. We were, you're struggling with the name of the show.

He was. Yes. Yes, he was. And now we're gonna leave that in. While Gilbert tries to remember who our guest is... And what's your name? A few words from our sponsor. call me Ray or you can call me Jay or you can call me Johnny or you can call me Sonny or you can call me Junny or you can call me Ray Jay or you can call me RJ or you can call me RJJ or you can call me RJJJunior but you

doesn't have to call me Johnson and ladies and gentlemen you have been listening to Gilbert Gottry's amazing wonderful funny hysterical podcast I love him right or wrong. I love him so much that I'm gonna sing this pretty song. Oh, fuck it. This is enough. And now, sadly, we return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing Colossal Podcast. Now, as far as horror... Yeah. It's Halloween week, so we should talk horror. Yeah, we should talk horror. And now we had Mick Garris on the show who directed the TV Shining. And Psycho 4 and some other interesting things. But according to Mick Garris, and we have no reason to question him.

He said Lon Chaney Jr. had a really big dick. That was your takeaway from the Mick Garrison interview. Only after he played Frankenstein. It was a stitch up job. He said, as long as you're sewing me together, can you throw in a salami for my boy in the army? Well, you're into Bernard Herrmann. Oh, I am.

And Mick did Psycho 4. And I guess the Psycho sequels were not using the Bernard Herrmann music, and he brought it back. Well, that's insane. For that one. To not use the Bernard Herrmann. For two and three, I don't believe did. And I think he made a point of bringing it back.

The one that was shot for shot, but in color? That wasn't him. That was Gus Van Sant. No, no, I don't believe did. And I think he made a point of bringing it back. The one that was shot for shot but in color? That wasn't him. That was Gus Van Sant. No, no, I know that. I'm saying if they were stealing the shots, you'd think they'd steal the score too. Cape Fear, you know, when they did the remake, they used. Oh, yes.

They used his original. Walt Scorsese, such a purist. You would expect that. Bernard Herrmann's one of, great American composers ever. It would be like if you were to do Hard Day's Night but dub in different songs. Yeah, that's, yeah, yeah. I mean, what was interesting about Psycho and that score, Herman did something very unusual.

You've got to understand that when you hear any kind of good score that's non-synthesized, anything from the golden days of Hollywood and straight through to the present with the true orchestra, you've got strings, so you've got violins, violas, cellos, double basses, and then you've got brass, trumpets, trombones, French horns, and odd instruments. You've got tons of woodwinds. You've got flutes, clarinets, oboes, English horns, bassoons, double bassoons, bass clarinet. You've got a battery of percussion. And all that is color. All that's color. And so when you have a spring day, you know that the

flutes are going to get a workout along with the clarinets and the strings. So Hitchcock had made, along with the clarinets and the strings. So Hitchcock had made... This was the first... Psycho was the first black and white film that Hitchcock had made in quite some time. I think the prior... Maybe, um, I confess...

Or Wrong Man or one of those. Wrong Man. Wrong Man and I confess were both black and white, but he had been doing gorgeous work, you know, trouble with Harry in the Vermont autumn and all. But this was his first black and white, but he had been doing gorgeous work, you know, trouble with Harry in the Vermont automaton. But this was his first black and white film. If I, I may have this wrong, but I believe it was his own production company doing the film. Uh, I don't know. He was doing it for a studio, but he, it was out of his pocket. And he also wanted to kind of keep the vibe of the TV show that he had been doing. So this was his first black and white film.

And Bernard Herrmann, we all remember how gripping that score is and the murder scenes. But he decided to write a black and white score. So go back, next time you hear, watch Psycho, you will hear nothing but the string section. There are no woodwinds, there are no brass, there's no other color in the show. Every color in that score is from violins, violas, cellos, double bass.

Oh, and that's how we approach it. That's fascinating. The The I heard a story that Brian DePalma was using Bernard Herman for one of his movies. Sisters. Brian DePalma was constantly trying to be Hitchcock. Yeah, he took the word homage to a new level. Oh my God, yeah. I remember when I amaged my bank for about $5 million. And I heard at one point, Bernard Herman, they were watching the film and, you know, the dailies, and Bernard Herrmann said,

you know, nothing happens in this film in the first half, practically. And Brian De Palma explained to me, said, well, you know, if you watch Hitchcock's films, it looks like nothing is happening at the beginning, and then later on, everything happens. And Bernard Herrmann said to him, they'll wait for Hitchcock, they won't wait for you.

I remember going to see the film, it was Sisters. With Margo Kidder. With Margo Kidder, and it was such an unreal experience because so devoted to Hitchcock and so devoted to Bernard Herman. And so I'm watching this movie and I'm hearing the Herman music and I'm waiting for the things that happen on screen to be Hitchcockian. And they sort of are a little bit, but it was like it was like, it was, I once, I wrote a Broadway musical called Curtains and I went to see it in, at the Papermill Playhouse after it had ended its Broadway run. They did a completely different production at the Papermill Playhouse and they had gotten all the costumes from the Broadway show.

And so the entire cast is wearing all the same costumes I knew from Broadway. And I'm watching the show, the costumes are fine. All the heads are wrong. It's all the wrong faces on the costumes. I'm looking, so it's like the lower two-thirds of the stage looks like my show. The upper third, it looks like I've walked into the wrong thing. And watching Sisters with, the Herman score was just overwhelmed, the images on screen. It was also a grainy film.

It was one of those ones I think they shot in 16 millimeter possibly. The Cape Fear score is very memorable as well. It really is. It stays with you. But the nice thing there is that Scorsese came up with a good film. You go with the reuse of the score.

Yes, yes. And he brought back all the actors from the first one. Oh, he brought back, yeah, Gregory Peck. Yeah, Martin, Martin Balsam was back. And Mitch, and Mitch. You remember who Gregory Peck's wife is in the original? Polly Bergen. Yeah, yeah.

And the girl was Lori Martin. Wow, you're good. Who was on a TV series called National Velvet based on the Elizabeth Taylor. I didn't even know that was a TV series. Yeah, it was. You stumped me with That's My Boy when you walked in the door. Well, that's because that's before your time, Frank.

We were talking about Gorshin, too, and since you brought up... Yeah, he was the mimic. He invented, everybody who does Burt Lancaster or Kurt Douglas is doing an imitation of Frank Gorshin. And he had a great Richard Widmark, too. Oh, yes. Yes, he did. Yeah, and...

He looked like Richard Widmark. Yeah he did. And you were talking off mic about him before before we actually turned them on, but you worked with Gorshin in another show you created, Say Good Night Gracie. Say Good Night Gracie, he played, and it was amazing because he would channel George Burns,

it's about George Burns' life from his youth in the Lower East Side till he was 100. And swear to God, first of all, one time I'm outside the theater and a woman walks out after the show and she says, you know, for 100 years old, he looks really good. That's fantastic. Now that's art over reality.

But it was fascinating to watch Frank Gorshin take the bows at the end of the show. Because the show would end because he'd show it end he'd walk off he'd come back on and He'd be George Burns and they'd applaud him as George Burns And then he'd step back out and he'd come back on he had changed nothing, but now he was Frank Gorshin He just let himself he shed the character of George Burns. He didn't like, you know, pull off a wig and rub the makeup off or anything like that.

He just came out and took the bow as he would take it, not as George Burns would take it. And the audience would gasp. They'd go like, oh, that's right. We weren't seeing that guy. And every night he would talk about, he would get to where George won the Academy Award and he'd say, I was 80 years old and the audience would applaud, but that wasn't, that's not the actor, you know. What a credit to the actor that the audience is on some level buying into the fact that

they're watching George Burns. Within seven minutes, he was George Burns. And you were saying Frank Gorshin was a major smoker. He was, not only that, but he like did bits about loving smoking in his nightclub act. So strange. He actually would come out, I mean, talk about, you wanna alienate an audience these days?

Before he did say goodnight, Gracie, I went to see him in a nightclub in Atlantic City, and he came out and did 10 minutes on I Love Smoking, and it's great smoking, smoking in front of him, all like that, and what's great smoking, smoking in front of him, all like that. And what happens when you smoke like that, caught up with him. Yeah, it really caught up with him on the Vengeance.

You did a lot of George Burns research, I would imagine. I did, I had the total access, it was Say Good Night, Gracie was written with the approval of the George Burns and Gracie Allen estate, Ronnie Burns. Yeah, sure. Who was actually a funny guy on that show. Ronnie Burns, remember Ronnie Burns on the burns and Ellen show. Oh wow yes Yeah, yes, you know he would be funny. He did good takes and I used to think to myself Well, it's in the blood, you know, it's genetic. Look whose parents are he was adopted. He just was good

They tried to make him into Ricky Nelson. They actually got a guitar and they put out a couple of singles and nothing. What do you know about Swain's Rats and Cats? I don't know anything about it. That was a vaudeville act. An infamous vaudeville act that George Burns used to talk about. Oh, well he used to be, he changed his act every three months himself because he was no good. And the owner of the theater would say, didn't I see you here three months ago?

He'd say, no, that wasn't me and I got a new act. And one time he saw that there was an opening that someone said, can you get me, I'm trying to remember this, I'm going to say, you know, Frank Lang and his dog. And he said, oh, I'm Frank Lang and his dog. Oh, great. And so what he did is he went on the alley, he picked up a dog. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

He carried the dog on stage and sang three tunes with the dog and his dog. Wow. Fantastic. Great, yeah. Now, and to get back to Frank Gorshin. We're really delving into horror in a way that no one has. Yeah.

We got plenty of horror. You said Frank Gorshin, like in his last days, he had cancer and he was in an oxygen tent. And then what... He would get out of the oxygen tent to get the pack of cigarettes that was still in his pocket, in his jacket pocket that he was hiding there, so he could have a cigarette. Amazing. You know, I got to tell you, I've quit things in my there, so he could have a cigarette. Amazing. You know, I gotta tell you, I've quit things in my life, but cigarettes, it's murder.

I didn't know you were a smoker. Oh yeah, Barbra Streisand. That'll do it. Yeah, John Peters too, right? I was in, I hadn't smoked, and my whole life, I was like 26 years old. And in those days, in fashionable mansions in Beverly Hills, it was considered very, very elegant and thoughtful to have a little porcelain vase, a small little vase, which would have an assortment of handsome cigarettes in it loose.

And you'd have a Sobrani filter, the black with the gold tip. You'd have a Eve, I think was the thing. It was not, it was a lady's cigarette you know and you'd a Marlboro and all like that and then you have little dainty matches with a With gold tips and one day Barbara turns to me and says Roper. I want to know are we gonna should we do this with? Horns or should we do this just like a piano you've got to have an idea tell me and I said Barbara And I reached for a cigarette. I took it. I lit it I went And I thought where has this been all my life? I've just bought myself 15 seconds to think. And I said, wow. And I said, yeah, no, we definitely need big brass

and stuff like that. And she said, oh, that's good. And I thought, I'm not going anywhere without you, Mr. Cigarette. And within two weeks of the pressure of doing an album with Barbra Streisand not because just because it was I was doing a Barbra Streisand album and I had never done something on that scale before up to two

packs a day. Incredible. Yeah I quit eventually. Good for you. As far as horror goes I've heard stories that people who have had like tracheotomies put the cigarettes in the hole in their neck and smoke it out of their neck. No, yeah, because that's how addicted they are. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Back to horror. That is a horror. Yeah, that's a horror. You. OK. Lon Chaney Jr. had a big dick.

You know, we were we were fine up to then. And then somehow... We... It seems like at every... It seems like at every key juncture, Gil, you have a dick joke in there. Yeah, he's... That's how you know he's... He makes his presence felt.

Gorshin, by the way... You should write my autobiography. You understand me. What about Gorshin, by the way. You should write my autobiography. You understand me. What about Gorshin? That he was nominated for an Emmy for Batman. Yeah, because we were talking about it in the hallway. Was he not also nominated for an amazing episode of Star Trek where he played a half-black half-white?

That's also very memorable. But you had something about House of Wax that you emailed me. You said you had a bit of trivia. If you know this already, I'm sorry. We may not. Okay. It's just wonderful. To me, it summarizes all of Hollywood.

I know we've all had experiences working with Hollywood. So TV was a big threat to the movie industry in the 50s. The solution seemed the powers that be at the major studios decided the solution was to do things TV couldn't do. And that's why you got Cinerama, that's why you got CinemaScope, wide screen, cast of thousands, opulent color, VistaVision, Todd A.O., 70mm, all that stuff. And 3D was gonna save the world having 3D movies. And there had been a couple of 3D movies that did well based on the novelty, Buona Devil.

Buona Devil. Wasn't that the first one? Robert Stack and Nigel Bruce. And I heard that with Buona Devil, the director was No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, it was pointless already. Well, well played sir. Anyway, so Warner Brothers decides to do the big epic 3D movie and it's going to be first rate at every level, big budget, so they do House of Wax with Vincent Price, with everybody's favorite Frank Lovejoy. Yes, a young Charles Bronson.

Charles Pachinsky. Pachinsky, right. Phyllis Kirk, later to do The Thin Man with Peter Lawford on TV. And Carolyn Jones as the Joan of Arc. Carolyn Jones. And my personal, one of my favorite actors of all time, Dabbs Greer. Oh yeah, I love Dabbs Greer. If you saw him in a show, you'd know him in an instant.

Known for Westerns. Yeah, and also Perry Mason. He was about 11 murders on Perry Mason. I did it. So they do this, and it's gonna be big technicolor and a big budget and all like that and fabulous sets and They decide to hire a really good action director named Andre de Toth who was known for you know War movies and westerns a really good he'll turn out a good movie There was only one unusual thing about Andre de Toth, which is he only had one eye

You knew this Gilbert Wrong movie and you thought it was bought a devil in 3d. Yeah, you had the wrong movie. You thought it was Bwana Devil. In 3D, you have to have two eyes, because it's tricking your eyes. Andre, we've cut the glasses for you. Do you want the red or the green? Which, how's it looking from over there, Andre? Now how do you do that? How do you hire? Why do you put in this new process that requires two eyes? You know, they could have hired, you know. Right.

Didn't Fritz Lang have one eye? Yeah, but they didn't tell him to do a 3D movie. That's that sketch that Dudley Moore and Peter Cooke used to do about the one-legged Tarzan. Derek and Clive. No, the one-legged Tarzan. Oh, yeah, the Cooke and Moore sketch. Right, right. Of all the one-legged Tarzans,, you're the Cook and Moore sketch, right. Of all the one-legged Tarzans, you're at the very top of our list, sir.

Yeah, because it's 3D. You've got it all over a Tarzan with no legs. In 3D, it's basically tricking both your eyes. Absolutely, absolutely. And so with one eye in... He never, at the rushes, he got no rush. Yeah. You're also, and this came up briefly last time,

you're a fan of the hammer-fic pictures. I am. I very much. Gilbert is not. But I think Neil doesn't care about them at all. Yeah, I never got into the hammer ones. I think, first of all, I'm kind of a, I love horror films, but I also love period. I love the things that are said in period, because you go to another world.

I love atmosphere. I love things British, obviously, Mystery of Edwin Drew and other things that I've written or said in England. And I loved the basic team that was created and which continued for years of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. And in Horror of Frankenstein, Peter Cushing is Victor Frankenstein.

Christopher Lee is the monster. In Dracula, Peter Cushing is Van Helsing. Christopher Lee's the monster. In Dracula, Peter Cushing is Van Helsing, and Christopher Lee is Dracula. And it continued like that. There was always a role for, there was a, even in Hound of the Baskervilles, Peter Cushing was Sherlock Holmes, and Christopher Lee was Henry Baskerville.

He wasn't Watson. So I loved that, and I also loved the fact that they went and they bought themselves a little manor in, I think, I think it was called Bray Studios. I don't know where it was. It was outside of London. And that manor is in every, the first 15 movies. That's the castle, Vaskerville Hall, and they just find different ways to dress it.

And it looks real and authentic. And they just filmed everything in that one little kind of building and use the forest outside of the the manor was you know, you were either in Germany or Bavaria or So I really like the films all the acting was terrific because it was all great British act, of course, of course and You look at the some of the films that were made Judyy-dench crops up in them, you know, like age 23 So I I really loved them They were classy when horror movies were when I this is concurrent with movies Like I was a I married a monster from outer space. I was a teenage werewolf

Low budget Roger Corman type productions, which I later came to really appreciate low budget Roger Corman type productions, which I later came to really appreciate. But I knew that horror movies were always kind of schlocky and cheap and here was these opulent. Yeah, they're sumptuous. Yeah, they really are in color. I heard with Christopher Lee, he was so egotistical about the toupee he wore, he would never take it off,

even when they were making him up as the mummy of Frankenstein where they'd have to slot makeup all over his head. He'd keep the toupee on. I had, I did a show with Stacey Keech called Solitary Confinement and the makeup man on that show, who also did hair, told me that Charlton Heston, that he did the wigs for a movie. Oh, what was it called? It was a Chinese, The Warlords or something. I think it may have been called The Warlord.

OK. And Charlton Heston was playing a Chinese warlord, and he had to be bald. And he said that he said, you know, you're Good casting. He said you're going to have to, he said, Charlton Heston was known throughout Hollywood for owning the cheapest

Who pays that you could get and and he said, you know, mr Heston you're gonna be bald in this and he's kind of just trying to nuance it gently into the conversation and he said yes I know you have to make a bald wig and The guy made a bald wig and he came in to put it on Heston and he said so we'll just you'll root You'll remove you'll remove the What you'll remove what you? He wouldn't take off his toupee to put the ball. He not only made them make a bald wig when he could have been but in

Just like your story the the bald wig went over the toupee, and he acted with the toupee underneath the bald wig. I swear to God. I love that one. So Christopher Lee wouldn't take the toupee off? No. And Charlton Heston wouldn't take the toupee off? No, exactly.

Yeah. Fascinating. Why don't you like the hammer pictures, Gil? I don't know. I just never quite... Because you're a universal classic pure Yeah, fell in love with the universal ones. Yeah, even Got a love for the monogram ones. I realized they were low-budget schlock

But I never saw a scene in a monogram movie that didn't take place in an office with a file cabinet with a file cabinet. That's funny. Charlie Chan's in there. You know, later they took over the franchise from 20th Century Fox, Roland Winters. And it's all offices with filing cabinets. It's just, I don't know.

You guys were talking Chan in the hallway before we started. Never been played by an Asian, by a Chinese actor. Ridiculous. He was played by Warner Olin first for a, and Olin was brilliant. And he was found eventually wandering the streets of LA. He was a severe alcoholic. But he had, he was intoxicated apparently most of the time he played the role and it worked perfectly because he always seemed to be speaking a second language.

It was, he got, he got, a noble horse find answer to true killer. And you'd say it sounds good to me. Sydney Toller was the second one? Sydney Toller was the second. And then the third was, and that was sad. Sydney Toller played him for 20th Century Fox.

And the films were pretty good. Sydney Toller was not, to me, Warner Oland. But then it ran out so Sydney told her bought the rights and then made his own continued playing Charlie Chan at Monogram and then Roland Winters came in for the last six you know someone told me that and and if it's true and J. Carroll Nash by the way played him on TV oh Oh, wow. The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, Irishman J. Carol Nash.

And someone told me, and it would make perfect sense if it was true, that the Charlie Chan movies got a very big Chinese following. For real. Because you know, now you look at it, look how offensive, but then you go, he's this brilliant Chinese guy solving crime, why wouldn't they? They tried to do a spinoff for TV and they used Ross Martin as Charlie Chen. They made it, it was like a 90 minute,

you know, it looked like sort of Charlie Chen wandered into the Brady Bunch, you know, he had number one son was cute and touring with the Partridge family or something. I remember Sellers sending him up in Murder by Death too. Yeah, Sidney Wang. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I guess, so something weird about saying,

well, he's a brilliant hero and he's being presented as an Asian, except he's being played by a Swedish guy. So I'm seeing my people now. You know, those are my... Well, Karloff, they had Karloff playing an Asian detective in an Asian series. Oh yeah, Dr. Wong.

Mr. Wong, Mr. Wong. Mr. Wong, detective. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Anything but hire an Asian actor. To play these roles. I even saw Bela Lugosi in Asian makeup. Really?

Yeah. That sounds familiar. Was he in a serial? Was that a serial? It might have been a serial. It was some serial where he was like a... I think Captain Crunch. That sounds familiar. You're also a fan of the old, what you call the old dark house films.

Yeah. Which is like the Bob Hope pictures, the skeleton pictures. Yeah, my favorite sentence in any movie, there's certain things that I know automatically, I'm gonna have a good time. Like if I'm going to see a stage comedy, if when the curtain goes up, I see nine doors, I'm in for a great evening.

And if there's a dumb waiter, Right, noise is off. Yeah, so they're gonna go in there, they're gonna come around here, oh, there's a Murphy bed that's gonna come down. Oh, yes, yes. And there's the dumb waiter, and he's gonna escape through there. Okay, so this is prime entertainment for me.

So my favorite sentence to hear in a movie is, I'm afraid the bridge is washed out. We'll have to stay the night. The second I see that bridge collapse, I'm saying, yeah. There's one with Kay Kaiser, who's like the Lawrence Welk of the big band era, The second I see that bridge collapse, I'm saying, yeah. There's one with Kay Kaiser, who's like the Lawrence Welk of the big band era, called You'll Find Out.

Oh, You'll Find Out, sure. Oh my god, yeah, with Legosi, Laurie, and Carlisle. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and they had that device where you could hold a mic to your neck and it would make the voices sing, hello, Ross Street, like that. You're looking at me completely blank. You'll take my word for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, I remember. Remember the picture. I remember hearing those voices. So when the bridge washes out in that movie, I'm saying, oh, Kate Kaiser and Lugosi and- What could go wrong? And Peter Rowe, what could go- And if you remember a real what the fuck ending,

Kate Kaiser comes out at the end and he goes, uh, Bailagosi, Boris Koloff, and P. DeLorey aren't villains. They're just three nice cops. They broke the fourth wall. Completely undercut. For no reason. Completely undercut. The College of Musical Knowledge, right?

K. Kiser? K. Kiser, if that's right, you're wrong. Yeah. That was his catchphrase. That's right. What were the host ones, the hope ones? There was Ghost Breakers? Oh, two of the greatest films ever made.

Ghost Breakers with Willie Best playing as Butler. Willie Best. And the wonderful Paul Ed Goddard being the love interest. Oh, no, Mrs. Chaplin. And Anthony Quinn in that in like 1939 yikes they're going to Cuba Cuba the island of Cuba where there's the castle I forget the name of it just for the moment terrific terrific film and followed hard upon by the cat in the canary which was which was again Paul had got it right and and

it's if it's not I'm sorry the bridge is washed out you'll have to stay the night it's will assemble to read the will oh yes during the storm right he's left it to the last one who served you know this great stuff I remember I think it's Ghost Breakers where he's walk... Bob Hope is walking with Willie Bess through the garden and they see this woman in a long gown, like a zombie looking woman walk past. And Bob Hope says to Willie Bess, he goes, she's just trying to scare us.

And Willie Bess goes, well, she's wasting her time cause we scared already. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha This is not me getting a laugh. There was an actor who for his whole career his name was Steppen Fetchit. Sure. Yes. Steppen Fetchit. Willie Best's name before he used his name was Eat and Sleep. Eat and Sleep. Wow.

Eat and Sleep. Incredible. That's the Hollywood we had. Incredible. And Willie Best by the way was brilliant. He was, he made any film. Did you know that Milton Berle did an old dark house movie called Whispering Ghosts?

Do you know that one, Gil? No. With Willie Best as a sidekick. And Red Skelton did three, Whistling in the Dark, Whistling in Dixie, and Whistling in Brooklyn, the three Whistling movies. Avon Costello did a great radio one. Not Hold That Ghost, the other one.

The radio one, I'm blank now. Hold That Ghost. Hold That Ghost and I'll think of it. Did they make it into a feature? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Hit the ice, no, not hit the ice. What's the one with Joan Daye?

A haunted house picture? Yeah, yeah. There's Hold That Ghost and. He did. What's there was there's hold that ghost and, um, he did, uh, he did. What's the one with the money's in the moose's head? That's it. That's the one. Yeah. Moose and Matson.

Oh, Chuck is in that one too. I'll think of it in a second. Um, but, uh, yeah. What about a movie like murder? He says with Fred, Fred McMurray, which I love Marjorie Maine, Marjorie Maine and Porter hall. Yeah. Would you call that a, uh that an old Dark House movie?

Absolutely, it just happens to be hillbillies who are growing in the dark. But it's spooky. And by the way, well, it has that, it had the clue, the big clue in Murder, see? I love that movie. I love it too. And it's been very hard to find it.

It is hard to find, I talked to Robert Osborne about it. They run it sometimes. The big clue in it is there's a girl who's touched in the head, just a little touched in the head, and she goes around singing on horse flyses in combi. That's it. And that's the clue. And they actually met a reference. They're at an organ in this Hillbilly home and they say, I saw in Ghostbreakers where playing the notes caused a door to open. Correct. So they try to replicate it.

So they're referencing their own paramount picture from about four years earlier. The thing I love is when Bob Hope is in Ghostbreakers, he's on the deck of the ship with Paul Ed Goddard, and they're looking out over San Juan Harbor in Cuba. A tugboat goes by and it's all very nice, and you see the castle and all like that. And now Scared Stiff is made some 15 years later.

And Dean Martin's out on deck with Elizabeth Scott. I was just gonna ask you about Scared Stiff, it's funny. It's a remake. And they split up the character, they dealt, we were talking earlier about it. They gave some of the Willie Best material to Jerry. They took some of the Willie Best material to Jerry they made took some of the Dean some of the Bob Hope material to Jerry they let where Bob's you know Bob was the only guy Bob

Hope was could play a leading man and a coward in the same movie he could be sort of suave and debonair and when it came down to it he'd do what's right but also be completely cowardly so they were able to take that split personality and deal it partly to Dean Martin partly to Jerry Jerry Lewis, adding the really best stuff. But they're standing on the deck and I'm looking and they're looking at, and the same piece of film that was in Ghostbreakers of San Juan Harbor with the tugboat going by in the castle. They just went to the library and hauled it up. It was a black and white movie and used it to recycle.

Who's going to know? Yeah, exactly. I, it always, I've spoken about this before with Bob Hope in his later movies. In the movies, he became that awful Bob Hope reading the cute cards guy like that. There was even one with Bing Crosby where Bob Bob Hope, which stand there like that, and he's doing that kind of delivery, looking at the words on the... They shouldn't have, I mean, they shouldn't have been,

forget they shouldn't have been in show, but at that point, I mean, they really should have hung up that, but Bob Hope, the Bob Hope, that's, you know, it was when they would, and his writers were all as old as he was. Yes, of course. So they're saying, we're gonna get Bob in a hippie outfit Oh, yes, and and Margaret's gonna come in and he'll say something about if I had strings like that on my guitar

You know something and and it would be like men completely out of touch with any 30 years out of sync with I I would watch that where they'd have you know Bob Hope and Lucille Ball either as hippies or rock stars With Beetlewigs. Yes, yes And you go oh my god, they have no idea what they're writing about. They're gonna be called the grasshoppers Yeah Well that was that Michael Michael McKeon said that the ultimate oxymoron is Bob Hope special Michael Michael McKeon said that the ultimate oxymoron is Bob Hope special Well sitcoms were doing it then with during Beatlemania every sitcom had a band dig Van Dyke show right Which otherwise was one of the best written shows that will ever be on television and brilliant, right?

But they had Chad and Jeremy Chad and Jeremy showed up on on Batman did they yes Chad and Jeremy on once. Chad and Jeremy showed up on Batman. Did they? Yes. It would always be like, well, the so-and-so's are in town. The so-and-so.

The mosquitoes showed up on Gilligan's Island. Yes. And they can't stay at a regular hotel. They'll have to stay with you. And the Standells stayed in the Munsters' house. They stayed with the Munsters. You'll notice that whenever in those shows they have the Standells or whoever playing their solid body guitars, there are no guitar chords.

They're never plugged into any. They're just strumming them like it's acoustic. What I remember was Al Lewis with the steam coming out of his ears. Oh yes. While the Standells are covering, I want to hold your hand on the Munsters, which is very strange. And one thing that has nothing to do with it, but it also shows a weird thing, was in The Partridge Family,

when Danny Partridge makes friends with the Black Panthers. Yeah, that was strange, too. Was Richard Pryor in that episode? Yeah, Pryor was in that. And you wrote a Partridge family hit. I wrote a Partridge family hit, and I loved it because it was Kay Medford, who had played on Broadway. She was really well-known.

And she was playing like a Jewish mother to the Partridge family. She was going to watch out for them be the sort of the nanny. And she keeps ruining a recording session. So they'd say, Echo Valley 26801, take one. And they'd start and play the intro, we grew up together. And she'd be doing something, that's not right.

He doesn't have that, fix his hat. And they'd say, okay, Echo Valley 26801, take two. And they just plugged the name of the tune continually through the show I was very grateful to her. We remember her from the Dean Martin show. Absolutely. Kay Medford and Luja Kobe. Who booked that? I Mean, I know what I'm saying is that was an odd booking. Yes Dean Martin show Let's get Luja Kobe and Kay Medford to be a nice old Jewish couple while the gold diggers and and and and John Biner It wasn't nipsey cutting his hair? Didn't they have Nipsey Russell as a recurring barber?

Oh my god. On the Dean Martin show. Bless your heart for writing that Partridge Family song by the way one of my favorites. Oh thanks, thank you. And you also work with Will Jordan which we were gonna bring up last time because we had Will in here and he's on one of your first records. On my first album I thought thought that, or in 1974, what a really good idea for a singer-songwriter

trying to make a name for himself and trying to express the depth of his soul and the sensitivity of all his feelings and his life experience. It would be good to end the record with a 10-minute radio show. It's very ambitious. Well, I just, I didn't know if they'd ever...

I had this contract to make this first album, and it was called Widescreen, and every... I knew that this might be the only album I ever made. This is like five albums before it was... escaped the Pina Colada song. And so I tried to make every cut something intent... And so the instrumentation on every cut is different. And I did a song about a saxophone player in 1940 who never gets

to take a solo and I reassembled the Glenn Miller Orchestra and wrote a chart for using all the old big band themes and then did a I was using sound effects on one song I had Allison Platon come in and do dialogue with me as we're I would I it was a song about a who tries to pick up a girl while taking her to a Mets baseball game and when they play the Star Spangled Banner he starts singing, won't you come home with me? I have a room you should see with a warm waterbed and a pillow for your head. And then I thought when we get to the instrumental section, no, no sax solo, let's just have

these two people talk. And Alice Platon came in and what kind of wine is this? Oh, that's red wine. And so I ended this I ended the entire album with a basically a it wasn't a spoof. It wasn't a comedy thing. I just tried to emulate the Sam Spade detective show that Howard Duff did in the 50s. Now what commercial was Alice Platen in? She was the Alka Seltzer stuffed dumplings. Yes, that's her.

The honeymoon couple, and she's cooked the first meal. And he doesn't want her to hear that he's having to put. She was a lampoon person. She was indeed. She did a great Mick Jagger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was on Lemmings or one of those things. She was in Lemmings with Chevy Chasen and John Belushi.

She was really great. And she did a musical on Broadway called Henry Sweet Henry. And she was really talented and really funny, not with us anymore, and missed. And so I decided that at the end of this thing, I would do this kind of show that I don't always have to sing a song.

Maybe I'll do something with music. I had a huge orchestra underscoring the dialogue and we did a kind of a Sam Spade detective you know Humphrey Bogart kind of thing and I assembled Will Jordan to play Peter Laurie he played a character named Carl Suez he's very good and and Thayer David Thayer David. Thayer David. Oh my god! Remember him? Yeah, Dark Shadows.

Dark Shadows. I had him being Sydney Greenstreet. Oh, yeah. Oh, perfect. Oh, yes, sir, you are a character. And Allison Steele was Lauren Bacall, the nightbird on WNEF. Oh, wow. So she had that perfect...

You gotta listen to it, Gil. You'll love it. Yeah. She stormed off, leaving the heavy perfume of lavender permeating the fog around me. I was alone. Listen to it Gil, you are far from being alone. What's all this? Ah, my old companion from Istanbul. We meet again, Mr. G. And I believe for the same purpose. I hate to interrupt a reunion, but... Oh, forgive me, Mr. Holmes, sir.

My name is Carl Suez, and I have been representing a competitive bidder for the legendary Kaiser statuette. Well, then let's talk about the statue. You can't say you are a character. Well then by all means, let's talk about the statue. And oh by the way, the announcer for the radio show was Ed Hurley. Fantastic. So, uh... Ed Hurley, little old me.

Someone told me that Thayer David, when he was doing Dark Shadows, and they brought it up to him. They said, sometimes in scenes, we would see you turn your head away from the camera. And he said, he thought the show was so fucking stupid. It was an embarrassment. Sometimes Sometimes he starts cracking up. And he would have to turn his face away from the camera in the middle of the scene.

Will Jordan was here. He was sitting in that chair. He's also in the opening of Broadway Danny Rose. Broadway Danny Rose. He was here. You couldn't get him to do impressions. Well, you know, the point that you were making though, Gil, is really interesting, which is that it takes one

impressionist to crack the character. And then once that person gets it, then everybody does an impression of them. In other words, I don't think anyone was doing, no one could do Carson. People wanted to do Carson and they couldn't do it. And I can't remember if Rich Little finally cracked it or whether it was, I think it may have been John Beiner

who cracked it and then Rich Little took it from him. They both did it. But, yeah, so Will Jordan, there was no, what Will Jordan told me, I don't know if he's ever said that to you, is that Ed Sullivan started acting like his impression. Oh yeah, yes, yes. Oh yeah, he did tell us.

Yeah, there I am in the studio and he's saying, he's a cool guy by the way, sunglasses. We love him, he was here. He lives a couple of blocks from here. Really, and until, there was no such thing as an Ed Sullivan impression and then this man came out and did this thing. Right, right.

And Sullivan went with it, you know. Do a little of your Sidney Green Street for Rupert, he'll love it. Oh. Mm-hmm. I enjoy talking to a man who enjoys to talk. I distrust closed-mouthed men. They usually are hiding something.

Mm-hmm. You are a character, sir. That is... That's fucking great. And in Casablanca, he says, well, right now it would take a miracle to get out of Casablanca, and the Germans have outlawed miracles. That's great. That's so great.

I love him in Across the Pacific, too. I love that show. Oh, yeah. That's, if you've just seen Maltese Falcon, and you, I'm saying this to your listeners as a public service. Go ahead. If you've just seen Maltese Falcon and you wish to God there was more, the film they made right after it is called Across the Pacific, and it's got almost the same cast.

Yeah. It's got Mary Astor. Mary Astor's in there. Who's being described as the girl you wrote home to Mother about or something like that, which is, she was a little too old for that, but she's wonderful in it, and there's a guy being the stand-in for Peter Laurie, playing like Yokohama Joe, and there's a guy named Sam.

His name is Rick. Oh wow. In the mall. Interesting. Humphrey Bogart's name is Rick, and they need ice water, bring ice water, and the guy who wrote, Kandu, Kandu, there's a guy and he's Asian, and his name is Sam, so you had Rick and Sam talking back and forth And they need ice water, bring ice water. And the guy who wrote, can do, can do.

There's a guy and he's Asian and his name is Sam. So he had Rick and Sam talking back and forth to each other before Casablanca was ever made. And I heard when Casablanca came out, Dooley Wilson, everyone wanted to hire him. And they would hire him for clubs and appearances. And Dooley Wilson would say, oh, well, can I talk to the piano player? and they would hire him for clubs and appearances, and Dooley Wilson would say, oh, well, can I talk to the piano player?

And they'd say, well, we thought you played the piano, and he couldn't, he sang, but he couldn't play the piano. It's amazing, people just make that assumption. We could go so many places with you, Rupert, you're such a fun guest to talk to. Also in Maltese Falcon. Where could we go? No, it was you. You who ruined it.

Kevin to found out how valuable it was. He's got those voices down, doesn't he? He really does. I love when he says something like, I wish that when Laurie says something about, I wish the story you had invented had been a little bit easier. It was hard to these they've obviously been beaten in the police at police headquarters after this. Great, great move. And I don't know why, it's not like really a joke line. But, you know, in the middle of Bogard, Naster, and everybody changing their stories around in front of the cops, and then Peter Laurie

has on his overcoat and he picks up his cane, he's walking away, and one of the cops goes, where do you think you're going? And he goes, I'm not going anywhere. It's getting quite late Does he scoop up some change? It's one and you know, that's an amazing movie because so little happens outside of a bunch of rooms and yes There are like Laurie bunch of rooms. And there are like Laurie, first Bogart gets a business card from Laurie that he sniffs like it's perfume. Yes, that's right. And then...

Shoo him in, shoo him in. Yeah, and then Laurie is like rubbing the cane against his mouth, you know, and it was like they're going as far as they can go to say he was gay. Yeah, and I believe in the novel, Wilmer is definitely like a trick of a personal possession of Guttman. Interesting. Oh, interesting. Things they couldn't do at that point. And one line in Maltese Falcon that I thought, if I made the commercial for Maltese Falcon, it would have just been this line. And that's like Sydney Green oh, he's going to turn in Wilma.

You know, the job. Elijah Cook. Yeah. He's going to turn in Wilma and he goes, yes, I love Wilma like he's my own son. But if you lose a son, it's possible to get another one. But there's only one Maltese falter. Yeah, yeah. And I thought, that could have been the commercial. Powerful.

Right there. Let me throw before we- It wasn't bad enough that he was Elisha Cooke. He had to be Elisha Cooke Jr. Junior. Yes. And he has the tagline in House on Haunted Hill, doesn't he? I believe he does.

He turns to the camera and says, and then they'll be coming for you. Oh yes. At the end, right? Yes. Yes. I love him in Kubrick's The Killing. I believe he does. He turns to the camera and says, and then they'll be coming for you. Oh, yes! At the end, right? Yes, yes. I love him in Kubrick's The Killing. Oh, yes. Yeah.

He was a good actor. Yeah, very good. He did the Jerry Lewis show once. When Jerry Lewis had a Saturday night show that was going to be the big, big show, it was like a two hour... We've talked about it here. Oh, that one. When they put the tiles, his face on the tiles.

With no script involved. They came, and he said to them, what are you playing? And Elisha Cooke Jr. was a guest on the show. I script involved. They came and he said, what are you playing in Elisha Cooke Jr. was a guest on the show. I remember this now. He said, what are you playing? He said, I like always a pimp. And no one had ever said the word pimp on TV before. It was really cool. I'm gonna give you guys a wild card here. As I said, we could ask Rupert almost anything. He's that kind of guest. Do you want to talk about Ray Harryhausen movies or obscure Karloff pictures from the 30s and 40s? Oh, both are fascinating.

Yeah. I wrote down a couple of Karloff pictures. Well, we've already channeled one, which was when he played Mr. Wong, Detective. Mr. Wong, but what about- Which was part of, go ahead, please. No, The Man They Could Not Hang from 1939. Did these mean anything to you?

Yeah. These I've never seen it. When I was a kid, that was one of those movies that would be showing pretty much constantly. I think it's like they tried to kill him, but he lived through it, and then he held the entire jury hostage, and he was going to kill all of them. Strangely, There's three There's there's a the man they could not hang in 39 and in 1940 There's before I hang with Edward van Sloan, right? Wow, and the man with nine lives and it sounds like they were all of a yeah, they know Yeah, there's you know

shock theater You probably don't even well, you must know Zach. You know what it is, we had Zachary here. You've had Zachary. And they had a package that they released, Universal sold like 55 films to TV. And they were always all billed as horror movies. But a lot of them were really borderline films about, execution's gone wrong and so the gangsters get the body

and they bring him back and all like that. I don't think I've ever seen those three. Interesting. There's a bunch, and in the universal world, there's also like some inner sanctum mysteries with Lon Chaney. Yeah, who had a big dick? We established that.

For those of you tuning in. dick. For those of you tuning in, just updating you on this important news for you. Those inner sanctum movies were horror. They were really bad. Yeah. They were really bad. But Karloff did, what was it, there was one, oh damn it, it's escaped me now. I happen to love The Black Cat. I love The Black Cat. Yeah, we talked about The Black Cat. The Black Cat is just... It's kinky. It's very kinky.

It is. There's all kinds of things going on. To our listeners who don't know it, please watch The Black Cat. It's like, the whole movie was done in a dream state. It's bizarro. The story makes no sense. No sense whatsoever the sets themselves there's like One scene where the door slides open the other scene where the door comes out

Yeah, and it doesn't matter. It's so it's not watching anything to watch you can't take your eyes off it There are some Carla films that I never hear anyone talking about that I were terrific at the very end of the 40s. There was one called The Strange Door. I don't have that on my list. And another called The Black Castle. I think he was in that. Black Castle.

But Strange Door is really interesting. Did The Black Castle have Janey also? You know, I can't tell you. I know it had Richard Green in it. The movie starts, it's almost like Sunset Boulevard. The movie starts with Richard Green in a state of paralysis and he says, why are you all thinking I'm dead? I'm not.

It's a period piece, by the way. But it's really good stuff. Did you ever see him in Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper on Thriller? No. He did. Thriller was... Do you know Thriller? I know some Thriller episodes.

There's a fabulous will you're available? There's a William Shatner episode where the beginning of the overacting and stopping at random moments It's laying the groundwork for the gotta find it Yeah, and Karloff would always do the speech at the beginning is great and go and this one's bound to be a And this one's bound to be a thriller. He was great with that. He had a TV series called Inspector March of Scotland Yard filmed in England. What about Tower of London with him and Rathbone? That's very early and Vincent Price.

39. Yes he is. He plays the Duke of Clarence. The Devil Commands. You know this one? No. Edward Demetrius directed it, one of the Hollywood 10. Invisible Ray with Legosi.

Oh, yeah, that was, I remember they were destroying these statues on a building when they kill a person. And I think the Invisible Ray later got remade into that chainy one that was like where he's Dynamite Dan, the electric man, where he's, they light him up. What happened to me was as a boy, I was not, these were, all these films were in this package

on Shock Theater, and they're all universal, but a lot of them are like, they're not, they're not C films in terms of the effort that went into them, but they're not see films in terms of the effort that went into them. Sure. But they're, they're really just, you know, like heist movies and stuff. Yes. And what happened, I was not allowed to watch Shock Theater because it was both bad and

it was too late and, you know, I was 24 at the time. But no. Is this in Jersey? No, this is when I was growing up in Nanyu at New York. Okay. And I was not allowed to watch the show, but I would read the blurb in TV Guide. You know, a man, a freeze, the frozen ghost. Oh yes.

And I'd read the blurb, a man creates suspended animation with his friends and then performs scientific experiments. The movie that I would make up in my mind his friends and then performs scientific experiments. The movie that I would make up in my mind while I was not watching Shock Theater was so terrifying to me. I was terrified of the movies that I spun

out of the TV guide synopsis. If I had seen the movie, it wouldn't have scared me at all. What about Black Room, where he played twin brothers? Oh yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen any of these. I really have to go on a Karloff ticket. That's period, Black Room's period.

That's one where he's got ruffles at his wrists and all. And getting back to Black Cat for a minute, I remember this one line where a suitcase, they're all on a train together and a suitcase falls and the girl screams, because it almost hits her and Lugosi catches it and she goes oh I was so frightened and Lugosi goes it is better to be frightened than crushed. Isn't that the one where the guy says it's just a bunch of supernatural baloney and Legosi? Oh, yes

supernatural perhaps Baloney perhaps Help me with this one, let's get so you've got ghost of Frankenstein Which is Gilbert loves that one Bella Legosi is We had on, I was demanding she do the show, Janet Ann Gallo. We had the little girl. Who was the little girl. That's wonderful.

I'll send it to you. I'll send you the link. That's wonderful. Okay, so there are two things about Lugosi and the Frankenstein world. I haven't seen it in centuries, but help me. In Ghost of Frankenstein, was there not the implication that Igor's brain was put into the body of the Frankenstein monster? It does happen

in Ghost. I think they tried having the Frankenstein monster speak with an Hungarian accent? Okay, okay. The next movie, because at the end of Ghost of Frankenstein, Cheney's the monster and Igor's brain is put into Cheney's head. And then he goes blind because it's not the same blood type. And then so for Frankenstein meets the Wolfman, it was supposed to be that the monster is still blind, but he's able to speak, like they were continuing that. Isn't he frozen at the beginning? Oh, yes. They're in this wonderful ice cave at the beginning, right?

And so what happens was that's where Legosi came up with that stretched arms because he's supposed to be blind. So what people don't realize is that stereotype image of Frankenstein with the straight arms lurching is Lugosi and it's because he doesn't he can't see where he's going. That's cool. And that's so amazing. And there are scenes where Legosi's mouth is moving. But but somewhere in the middle of the movie, they decide now this isn't working. And they make no mention of the blindness or that he could speak. And I was under the impression that the not speaking part of it

was because he just couldn't get rid of his accent and certainly the Franks but but might make sense if it's Igor's brain Yeah, but it's and it's like the Legosi Gets blamed for giving a horrible performance. Yeah, so much so not fair. Yeah. Yeah He gave horrible performances enough He's great as Igor. It's one of his finest hours. Igor proves what a great stage actor Legosi probably was. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

There's this one scene in Ghost of Frankenstein, he meets up with Sir Cedric Hardwick, and he wants him to operate on him. And Cedric Hardwick's one of the sons of Frankenstein, and he says, no, I have a good life here. I have a family, the respect of the community and a respectable practice. And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that, would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that,

would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that, would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that, would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that, would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that,

would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that, would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that, would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that, would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that,

would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that, would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that, would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that, would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that, would you? And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn'tanny. I didn't know you had quite this arsenal of these guys. Gilbert, I'm told your car is a few minutes away, so we're gonna wrap up with Rupert,

but I'm gonna ask him a couple of questions quickly from the fans. This is Grill the Guest, Rupert, and you're getting grilled. Laura Pinto, I loved Rupert's show. Thanks for having him back. Thanks for mentioning Ron Dante. I'm a friend of his, and I was also friends with Sal Detroit. Sal Detroit who played the famous riff of Everybody's Talking at Me.

Everybody's talking at me. Who played on all my sessions and was masterful. Yes, she says thank you for remembering and acknowledging. Great guy. Acknowledging him. And my question is, what are you working on? What's coming? The projects. I'm working on my third novel for Simon and Schuster

called The McMaster's Guide to Homicide, Murder Your Employer. It's volume one. It's a self-help. I'm not, this is not a joke. It's a self-help series for murders. I love it. It's about a college you go to in 1950, so to learn how to commit really elegant and perfect murders.

And it's like the best college you could ever hope to go to, except you're studying how to kill people. A great idea. And working on a new adaptation of Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, not a musical, just a straight stage play. I have a play called Kennedy Reagan Not a musical just straight stage play. I have a play called Kennedy Reagan

about a Meeting between John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office in 1981 in a universe where John F Kennedy survived Dallas Wow and they're going to run against each other because Kennedy never served a second term because of his injuries in Dallas and Reagan's been shot at now and he's brought in Kennedy and then what that's a fun what-if yeah well it is a fun what-if and musical we're gonna musical about Andy Warhol and a musical adaptation with produced in part by Ron Dante of name that tune a musical book musical story based on the name that I'm glad you and Ron are doing and my ice cream truck route is I was gonna say you need to find some things to do. Yeah. Cherry vanilla is the flavor this week. Here's one more quick

from John Suntry's he wants to know remember when I love Rupert's AMC TV show about the golden age of radio which we still haven't managed to talk about in two episodes with you we'll get to it in a future one. Will it ever come to DVD or will it stream anywhere where can we find it? AMC has is trying to do a George Orwell thing. They're trying to make this series never having existed. They went out and said that Mad Men was their first TV series and it wasn't.

AMC's first TV series was remember when we did 56 episodes. The critics loved it as much as they loved Mad Men. But then they changed their image and they don't want to have anyone knowing that there was ever this not in your face period 1939 setting radio TV series no laugh track no commercials and And the kind of humor that that you'd find in screwball comedies of that period. I loved writing it I wrote almost every episode. I also did the musical underscore. We had amazing guests. We had Phil Bosco and Oh Eddie Bracken. Eddie Bracken, Mickey Rooney. Just incredible people and it was a I get a letter every day from somebody saying when is it coming out on DVD and

They are adamantly saying they have no plans to ever let it be seen. That's a shame a beloved show it is a beloved show. Everything I can see. And the New York Times did an article last year about this injustice, and I can only hope there's a new administration someday that doesn't think that this show that, I feel like, who's the guy, Ub Iwerks? Ub Iwerks. Yeah, yeah, Ub Iwerks.

Yeah, who did all the, he did a lot of early Disney stuff. And then they pretended he never existed. Oswald the Rabbit didn't exist, Alice in Cartoonland. And I feel like that. It's like they want their history to start with Mad Men. So when we, who worked in the field very hard and for very little money to do this really wonderful series, we're just non-people at the moment.

That's a shame. Sorry, oh, do I have an edge about it? Oh, gee. Oh. Can you tell us the Mickey Rooney story real quick? Oh, just no. I wrote a wonderful thing for Mickey, a little piece where he shows up as a,

they keep talking about this Mr. Hardy who's gonna show up and it turns out to be of course, Auntie Hardy grown up. And he came in and he said, I'll give you one minute. And then he said anything he wanted to say. And he just said ad libbed lines, he didn't know what the plot was, nothing. He was a little happy that day. Ha he said, I'm Mickey Ruhling, I'm just gonna say things, okay?

He said things like he's getting paid, and he did it with his witty, and I had to then write lines that would be, I had to write setup lines that would make the lines he said funny punch lines, but they were just stream of consciousness stuff, yeah. So like backwards jokes. Backwards jokes, yes, it's always funny. lines but they were just stream of consciousness. Wow. So like backwards jokes. Now I heard

Mickey Rooney, he'd be doing these shows out of town and it was like expected and it was a thing he did. He would go to the hallway phone and call his wife to tell her how much he loves her and while he was doing that he'd be like fucking one of the chorus girls against the wall or having her blow him and this was one of these things like the whole crew goes, hey come on Mickey's doing it again. And he'd be on the phone with his lovely wife. Yes. And say hey I'm Mickey Rooney.

Well you know there was a lot of debate in Hollywood about Lon Chaney versus Mickey Rooney. What a bigger game. A pro does a callback. As a professional. It was actually between Chaney or George Zilko. Hey your wife's pissed we got to put you in a cab. Oh, okay. I have to start leaving because I got to promote my documentary, Gilbert, which is a documentary of my life. But anyway, this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast and with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we and and Rupert Rupert Holmes we have to have you back my god cuz this this didn't feel like an interview at all this is like three like scary nerds who know way too much about

movies they shouldn't the good news Gil, is that absolutely no one is listening. That's true too. I want to say to the one person out there, we know who you are and we love you and you're dear to us. We got listeners buddy. I know you do. We could get you back every week. We'll talk about Ray Harryhausen next time. This was a lot of fun.

This felt like just sitting around. Will you be our Tony Randall? Would you come in every week? I would love it. I'm not holding you to it, but I just I was hoping we could do something like this where it wasn't about me and then I did this. I I just thought we could talk about it. And I have a feeling you could have, it didn't have to be about anything at all. We all have all these connections. Absolutely. You know, sorry, I failed you on the early car walk though.

It starts flying off in all different directions. We could bring back Quad. Yes. I promise to get to the Gerard D'Amiano story next time. We should. Next time. Yeah, that's a,'Amiano story next time. Oh yeah, we should. Next time. Yeah, that's good. We should do that.

Okay, you got it brother. Gilbert Gottfried's amazing Colossal Podcast is produced by Dara Gottfried and Frank Santapadre with audio production by Frank Verderosa. Web and social media is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to Paul Rayburn, John Murray, John Fotiatis, and Nutmeg Creative. Especially Sam Giovancho and Daniel Farrell for their assistance. Echo Valley 26809 I gotta call that number one more time Cause I just got to know

You're still mine Hello operator Get me Echo Valley 26809. You have reached a disconnected number. I should have called it number Liffle Valley 26809