Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - James Karen Encore

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

GGACP celebrates the birthday of the late, great character actor James Karen (b. November 28, 1923) with this ENCORE of a memorable interview from 2015. In this episode, James talks about spending seven decades on the big and small screen, befriending the legendary Buster Keaton, sharing a house with Marlon Brando and Wally Cox and working with Jane Fonda, James Garner, Gene Hackman, Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg (just to name a few). Also, James "sells" Craig T. Nelson a haunted house, Clark Gable parties with Louis B. Mayer, a Boy Scout uniform leads to an acting career and a controversial "Jeffersons" episode nearly sinks a plum TV pitchman gig. PLUS: "Return of the Living Dead"! "Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster"! Gilbert gets a one-cent residual check! Moe Howard recites from "The Tempest"! And James teaches Michael Douglas to drive! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your teen requested a ride, but this time not from you. It's through their Uber teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your teen to your Uber account today. Gifting dad can sometimes hit the wrong note. Oh. Oh, instead gift the Glenlivet, the single malt whiskey that started it all for a balanced flavor and smooth

finish. Just sit back and listen to the music. This single malt scotch whiskey is guaranteed to impress dad this father's day. The Glenlivet. Live original. Please enjoy our products responsibly. You know, a few years ago, I was doing a movie called Jack and the Beanstalk, where I spent a month walking around in a gigantic, smelly goose outfit because I have a lot of self-respect.

But it had a great cast. It had like Christopher Lloyd, Katie Segal, Wallace Shawn, Chevy Chase, Chloe Grace Moretz, amazing group of people. And one of the people I met there, and I'll be talking about it later, going into detail, was an actor named James Caron, who I didn't know by name, but I saw him and did that take of, oh, that guy. And before we were doing, Frank and I were getting ready to do this podcast. We decided to brush up a little on it, and it's shocking the amount of movies, TV shows, and commercials he's worked on, and a ridiculous amount of stars that he's worked with. So we'll be talking to the actor James Caron.

Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. Our guest this week is a veteran character actor who began his career in the 1940s and hasn't worked since. God. Take two. I'm hanging up right now. You got a word like stopped? Yeah. You guessed it.

Frank, I don't know you well enough to ask you to interrupt, but interrupt him and tell him stop. It's written on the card, James, I assure you. Thank you. We'll do it again. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host Frank

Santopadre. Our guest this week is a veteran character actor who began his career in the 1940s and hasn't stopped working since. He's been in over 80 films including The China Syndrome, All the President's Men, Poltergeist, Nixon, Wall Street, and The Pursuit of Happiness, and over 100 TV shows, including Hawaii Five-0, The Rockford Files, MASH, Dallas, Cheers, Family Ties, Seinfeld, and American Dad. Family Ties, Seinfeld, and American Dad. And along the way, he's worked with everyone from Marlon Brando to Will Smith to the Three Stooges. He's also found time to appear in a record-breaking 5,000 television commercials. I'm exhausted from just listening all of it. Please welcome my pal, James Caron. Hello, Frank.

Hi, James. How are you? He's snubbing him already. Welcome to the show. Thank you. He left out the most important person in my life. Yes. Buster Keaton. I was going to get to that. Oh, okay.

I'll wait. Forget it. Strike that. No, no, I don't care. You're getting on my nerves already. Okay, my first question. Are you dead? Oh, still?

Yeah. No, I'm really not dead. We feed our doggy Thrive. Oh, he's very much alive. Oh, full of Vim and Vig. Are any of you boys old enough to remember that? Sounds familiar. Now, did you do that commercial or you just remember it?

Just remember it. Yes. It was just one of my favorites because I don't think it should show a dead dog. The dog just rolls over. Okay. Since you brought up his name, tell us about legendary silent screen comedian Buster Keaton. Well, you know, I started going to movies very early. First of all, I was young, but I started to read very early in my life. And my father, who had gone to work when he was six years old, never learned to read or write.

And this was a problem for him going to silent movies. So he began to take me to silent movies to read the subtitles. And I saw all these great movies really before I should have been seeing them. I was fortunate to see Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, them. I was fortunate to see Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, all those great people in silent movies. And Keaton was my favorite. He was my idol. I used to go around imitating him, just walking into a room with my hands clasped in front of my face with absolutely no expression on my face. in front of my face with absolutely no expression on my face. My father would say, get that goddamn stone face out of here. I don't know why you do that.

So I just loved Keaton's work. And I really didn't understand all his problems in the early 30s, but I still like the movies he was doing, the five movies that he did at MGM, which he did not, of course. So I'd heard that, and you know, he worked every day of his life. He was born in 1895 into a vaudeville family, and he worked from the time he was three years old. Tell us how he got the name Buster, James, for our listeners who don't know. Because he was a baby, really, at two years old. And the family was in a boarding house.

They were with a medicine show, and I hope someone will explain to the young people what a medicine show was, and traveling, and Harry Houdini was in the show doing his magic act. And they sold medicine, phony medicine, in between the acts of the show. There was always a fake doctor there. But at any rate, Buster started down a flight of stairs and fell down the stairs, a long flight, banging, rolling, falling, head over tail.

And when he got to the bottom of the stairway, picked himself up and walked into the dining room. And Houdini looked at him and said, boy, that kid is some buster. And that's how he got his name. His name was Joseph Francis Keaton, the same as his father, Joe Keaton. And until then, he was called Joe Jr.

But the name stuck with him, and the family liked it, and that became Buster's name in vaudeville. And he was very, very successful in the family. He really was the star of the family act. It was a rough act. The father was a very rough performer who drank, And Buster was often thrown, and when he got boisterous or bothered the father on stage in the act, the old man would pick him up and throw him into the wings or against the back drop. And when the old man was really drunk, he threw him into the audience. Wow. he threw him into the audience wow and buster had a little a suitcase handle sewn into the back of his shirt his coat rather his little coat he wore grown-ups clothing he wore the same makeup

as his father a beard and a derby hat he carried a cigar when he was five years old and the old man would just pick him up by the handle and throw him. Can I say rude words? Sure. Okay. Of course. Because Buster said, the old man wasn't too bad, though. When he was going to throw me into an audience, he'd say, tighten up your asshole, Buster.

Wow. Oh, boss. Wow. Oh, man. Unbelievable. And so he was your childhood idol, and then you got to meet him and work with him and befriend him. Well, yes. He befriended me. I was the most fortunate one.

I was producing in summer stock in the 50s. And summer stock then the 50s. And summer stock then was a big thing. They had star packages. A company would go out to, there were maybe, there were maybe 20 big stock companies, you know, up in Westport, the Cape, all through Pennsylvania, New England, and they would have a star would have a company and would travel with the company

and go from one theater to another during the summer. And they would usually send an advanced person, like an advanced stage manager, who would go to the next company, the next theater where they were playing, and have them line up the scenery, and if they had to pick up a couple of other people, small parts, he would rehearse them, so that you went in, the star and his company of five or six people would come in on sunday rehearsed sunday night and open on monday so they wouldn't miss a week's pay it worked very well and uh what there was a the stock company managers the managers of these theaters, would have meetings early in, oh, maybe March,

and people like me would go to them and say, what do you think of doing this or that? I've got, how would, would you be interested in Celeste's Home this summer, or would you be interested in some other... These were people who had Broadway shows and still pretty good names. And I'd heard that Buster was looking for work as always. He never stopped working.

Everybody thought he was dead right. But he wasn't. He was working at the Cirque Madrone in Paris. He worked there on and off for years doing his act. He had a bad fallout in Hollywood. I don't want to go into it. It's just so complicated and so painful because of MGM. They ruined him. painful because of MGM and they ruined him. He went there in 1929 as one of the most famous people in the world, Chaplin, Buster, and Lloyd were the three most famous people in the world. And five years later, he was unemployable. They didn't know how to use him, and they didn't know how to work with him. So what happened was I heard that he was still working and everything. So I went before the committee and said, would you guys be interested in using Buster Keaton? And a lot of them said, yeah, yeah,

it would be wonderful if he could get a right play for him and stuff. So I said, well, let me check. So I knew a guy named Rudy Blesch. I called Buster. I said to Blesch, can I have Buster's telephone number? I really would like to get in touch with him. He said, well, he said, no, he said it wouldn't be right for me to give you his phone number. And I said, Rudy, get in touch with him. He said, well, he said, no, he said it wouldn't be right for me to give you his phone number.

And I said, Rudy, you owe me $350. Give me a phone number and I'll absolve the debt. And he said, oh, sure. So I called Buster. I called Buster and said, would you like to be in a play? Yeah. I said, well, is there any play you'd like to? Yeah.

What would you like to do? I'd like to do Merton of the Movies. I said, let me read it. So we read it. And he said, how'd you get in touch with me? I said, well, I paid Rudy Bless $350 to get your number. He said, hey, should have looked in the phone book. I'm in the phone book, which he was always.

He never was out of the phone book in Los Angeles. He always wanted to be reached. Now, I know you said you didn't want to talk about it, but that made me more fascinated. What were some of the things uh between mgm and buster keaton well if anybody wants to they can look at a documentary i did for turner classic movies it's called so funny. Okay. Now, then you moved. When you finally got into films, it was through a classic film you were lucky enough to do.

Can you tell us? It was in New York. I never went out to California, but I went out a couple of times, did things. I went out with Buster. I used to go out and we'd do things at NBC, old routines. But I would always come back. I never felt comfortable in Los Angeles.

I never could get centered. I remember I went over to your house and you have a tradition. Let you in my house? Yeah, believe it or not. I must have been drinking. So I went into your house and you have a tradition of like, I don't know if it's all your guests or just celebrity guests, to have their picture taken wearing Buster Keaton's hat. It was the last hat he wore in a movie that I did with him. Sam Beckett wrote a movie script,

and we did it under the Brooklyn Bridge in the summer of 1964. And I was putting Buster on the plane, and he said, I said something about, can I have one of your hats someday? And I remember he was telling me, those days you walk out on the tarmac with people. And he was up in the morning, he said, hey, I forgot, and he pulled a hat out from under his coat

and sailed it like a boomerang. And yes, that's the hat I have. It's the hat he wore in the picture. Who has worn that hat at your house? Besides Gilbert. Yeah, besides me. Well, a girl named Mary Smith, and then there was a carpenter who came in. Mary Smith, and then there was a carpenter who came in.

Now, tell us the name of your first film. Oh, Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster. Haven't you seen it? It's a classic. I did. Well, my wife has never seen it all. She's tried for years to see it. She gets through the second reel and goes to sleep. shot in 1964 in Puerto Rico for $67,000.

It was produced by a guy who had passion pits, outdoor movie theaters up in New England, and he needed stuff to fill it. Now, that's a funny term you use. Passion pitch? Yeah, passion pitch. That's what we always called him when I was growing up. Was it drive-in theater? Yeah, because it was used for...

The last reason people went to those was to watch the movie. Well, I don't know about that. It depended what position you took. We should point out, James, though, that before you did Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster, which was your first film, you were a Broadway actor. You were a stage actor. Oh, yes. And before...

Yes, I was in the theater. Go back to the beginning for a second. Is it true that you were convinced to go into acting by a U.S. congressman well he was then the head of the Wilkes-Barre Little Theater Dan Flood, a wonderful wonderful man he'd been an actor

and he had a lifetime membership in Actors Equity Association which he was very proud of and he he did a lot of stock those days. Every city had a stock company across the country. And he did a lot of stock and stuff. And I think he was an ambitious man,

and he didn't see himself making a lot of money in what he was doing, although he was a wonderful actor. and he went to law school. He may have gone to law school before he became an actor, I don't know, but somehow he became a well-known lawyer in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where I'm from, and he later, of course, ran for Congress. I think he was in Congress 32 years. Something like that, yeah. He was a very powerful head of the Armed Forces Financing Committee or something like that.

I mean, everybody was kissing his butt. And he was a nice, nice gentleman. Whenever I played Washington, he and his wife Catherine would have a party for the cast opening night. It was a lovely thing. And he saw something in you and urged you to go into acting? Well, other than that, I had a Boy Scout uniform. The school, the theater, I was on my way home. I had to pass the Wilkes-Barre Little Theater,

which was a wonderful theater group, really good actors. And I was walking home from school. I was about 12 or 13 years old. And I see this guy leaned out the window of this beautiful building. And he said, hey, you, kid. I said, yes. He said, are you a Boy Scout? I said, yes, sir.

He said, you got a Boy Scout uniform? I said, yes, sir. He said, you want to be in a play? I said, yes, sir, I would like to. A little disturbing. He said, go home and ask your parents if it's okay for you to be in a play. Dan Flood wants you in a play. The play was front page.

And in the front page, as most people know, I don't know whether I don't know whether you will know Gilbert, but because you're not too well educated the play front page they capture Billy Johnson, the reporter, captures

a killer who's escaped and he puts him in his he's in the prison. It's the night the guy's going to be executed, so they have a press room. So he finds the guy, puts him in the roll-top desk. Yeah, sure. And then they call a gangster, Diamond Louie, and say, Louie, go out and get a strong armed guard.

We've got to move this death to the newspaper office. So Diamond Louie comes back about two pages later in the script, and he walks in and he says, this is all I could find, find he's got a boy scout it's a big laugh so i got the laugh and i was hooked hooked for life so just that uniform got you a career in showbiz i have that and a great deal of talent We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Hear that, Cotopounder fans? That silence is two friends enjoying the new creamy parmesan and bacon Cotopounder at McDonald's. Because adding crispy bacon and creamy parmesan sauce to our 100% Canadian beef

makes it impossible to have a conversation. Try the new creamy parmesan and bacon quarter pounder today and discover how words are so unnecessary for a limited time only at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. What happens when 20 extremely athletic Canadians who thrive on competition and won't settle for less than number one find themselves on a team?

Taking on jaw-dropping obstacles all across Canada is one thing. Working together on a team with some pretty big personalities is another. It's a new season of Canada's Ultimate Challenge and sparks are going to fly. New episodes Sundays. Watch free on CBC Gem. Now, getting to another maybe less than classic, Frankenstein, no, that we already spoke about,

Hercules in New York. You promised you would never mention that. Hercules in New York. You promised you would never mention that. What do you remember about that one, James? That was a lot of fun. Yeah, and Arnold Stang. Arnold Stang and don't forget Arnold Strong. That's right, Arnold Strong.

You know who Arnold Strong was? Of course. That drove Arnold Stang crazy. How could they do that? Like you, Gilbert. How could they do that? They changed his name from Schwarzenegger to Strong. And it looks like Arnold Stang. And he's got billing over me.

Arnold Strong and Arnold Stang. What was the deal with that? It was that Schwarzenegger couldn't speak any English, and they looped him. No, actually, they made a mistake. They've now released it. The picture gets released every so often, along with Frankenstein meets the Space Monsters. Those are two of my biggies. the space monsters those are two of my biggies they they uh they uh they thought that his language could not be understood and they got somebody else to to do his voice and it came out and it

wasn't very good but when they put his voice back on it worked better it it's funny uh when when i saw the movie it sounded sounded like a Godzilla film. Bad dubbing? Yeah, like, I am Hercules. I think you must have seen it with the dubbed version. Oh, yes, yes. It was so obviously not coming out of his mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Coming out of his mouth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now, jumping ahead to another one, just recently, I did an episode of Anger Management with Charlie Sheen. And you worked with Charlie Sheen in Wall Street. I love Charlie. I love Charlie. I like him very much, too. And tell me the story you told me about Charlie Sheen. About his habit? Oh, yes.

One of many. Well, Charlie was a great gentleman. And he had very respectful of me. And I'd be in his dressing room. We'd be rehearsing lines or something, or he'd come to my dressing room to rehearse lines. And he'd always say, Mr. Karen, would you like to have a line of Coke? I'd say, no, no, no, Charlie. I don't do that.

Mr. Karen, would you object if I took a line of Coke? He was always very gentlemanly about it, but I thought he was wonderful in it. In Wall Street, yeah. Did he ever offer you a hooker? Nobody ever had to offer me a hooker. I was always good hooker, liner, and sinker. No, no, no. Did he offer you one, Gilbert?

No, no, I was very pissed off. Then why are you asking me? I mean, you're making me the slob. No, I was just hoping someone else was. He wasn't treating someone else nicer than me. I was just hoping someone else was, he wasn't treating someone else nicer than me. Now, and when you mention hooker, liner, and sinker. That was a Robert Woolsey, Wheeler and Woolsey. Wheeler and Woolsey, there you go, as a reference. Hooker, liner, and sinker.

See, it sounded to me like, and I'm sure they must have used it too too or at least in a sign in a movie and that's of course our favorites the three stooges you worked with the three stooges they're they're favorites of mine they were lovely men the three of them were i worked i the original curlyly Joe was gone. I worked with Joe Dorita. Oh, yeah. No, it was the original Curly Howard. Yeah, it was Curly Howard, then Shemp, then Joe Bessa, and then the last... They called him Curly Joe. Yeah, Curly Joe Dorita.

Well, no, they called Curly Howard Curly Joe, too. They did? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Okay. Do you want to look that up, or would you like some time? Yeah, yeah. We got our staff on that. Anyway, so, but you worked with them, and tell us that experience.

Well, I was in a Broadway show, and the show closed, and I was going into another one immediately. One was a Pinter play called, oh, God, I can't remember the name of it, a marvelous play, Birthday Party. You know, I'm 91 years old, so don't expect me to come up with all these names. It's okay. So the Birthday Party closed, and Albie, whom I had worked for a lot, I did a lot of work on a lot of Albie's plays, was replacing somebody in everything in the garden. And he said, we're going to replace everything in the garden.

And he said, we're going to replace him in two weeks. Will you want to do it? And I said, well, I've got an offer to go out and work with the Three Stooges. And he said, how long? I said, a week. He said, do it, come back, and we'll get you into the show. So I flew to Sausalito. It was for an insurance company. I don't want to mention their name here because they never paid me well.

But it was a big insurance company. I just can't think of their name. It's many years later. This was 1967. So I flew out to Sausalito and I go on the set in the morning. It was on a hill overlooking the water. And the idea was that I was selling metropolitan life insurance a metropolitan home insurance to a man and a woman who had moved into this house and there was work being done by the three stooges on the house so the guys trying to keep me out of the door no no i don't need insurance and And they're working away. So that's the beginning.

So I come on the set and they're sitting there in their chairs. And I hear, aha, here comes Mr. Broadway. Hey, Mr. Broadway, come over and sit down it was Mo and I walked over and he said this is Larry and this is Joe Dorita he plays Curly Joe now and I'm very nice lovely and we shot for almost a week there and he said you know he said Mr. Broadway,

you know, he says, the greatest year of my life. I said, no. 1936. I said, really? 1936? How come? What happened that year?

He said, I've seen two Hamlets in 36. I've seen Les Howard and I've seen Johnny Gielgud. They both was doing the Hamlet that year. He was an absolute nut on Shakespeare. Wow. Moe Howard, this is? Or Larry Fudd. Yeah.

Which one? Moe. Moe was his Shakespeare. Fascinating. Wow. He knew, he'd say, start something. I'd say, start something. And I'd say, our revels now are ended. He'd say, these are our actors. It's all kind of gone into thin air.

And like the banquet fabric of his vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces itself, all which it inherits shall destroy. He knew all the great speeches. So, you know, it's amazing that they never had Moe do that on any of the variety shows. Yeah, yeah. The crowd would have gone nuts. You know, he told me the story of how they loved each other, by the way. They had worked together for 42 years at that point, and they just loved each other.

Mo would pull a hammer back, and he'd say, Larry, darling, I'm pulling the hammer back. So everything, they warned each other all the time of what they were going to do. He said to me, I said, you've been working together 42 years? He said, well, yeah. He said, I was working with my brother first for Ted Healy. It was Ted Healy and the two Stooges, or Ted Healy and his Stooges. Right. or Ted Healy and his stooges. Right.

And they were standing in the wings one night, waiting to go on, and those days they'd have a curtain in the front to mask the changes in the scenery behind the curtain, and, you know, between acts. And so the curtain was down, and to cover the time, Larry was out there playing the violin. He was a very serious violinist and hoped to be in Carnegie Hall someday. And Ted Healy, who was a wild man, was watching, and he said, Look at that son of a bitch. He thinks he's so good that son of a bitch he thinks he's so good

look at him he thinks he's great he said to the two other the other two the two stooges he said go out and turn him

upside down and bang his head on the floor and he ran out they turned him upside down began to bang his head on the floor and he continued to play

upside down he's sawing away at the violin the audience is falling apart and he continued to play. Tied down. He's sawing away at the violin. The audience is falling apart. And he said, Jesus. So they came off stage, and he turns to Larry and he says, how much are you making a week?

Larry said, 45. He said, do you want to be a stooge? I'll pay you 75. Larry said, sure. And that's how he got in the act. From Edward Albee to Joe Derita. That's range, James. Oh, thanks very much. Edward's my favorite playwright.

He's a marvelous man. I didn't Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and it's just my favorite playwright. He's a marvelous man. He's just, I didn't, who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? And it's just my favorite play of all times. And you did 20 Broadway productions. Do I have that right? Over 20. I don't know how many, but a lot of them. I was in a lot of flops for a while. I once had a bad year.

I was on 45th Street. I once had a bad year. I was on 45th Street. I played the Booth, the Plymouth, the Golden, and one other theater on 45th. Each one was a flop. It lasted about two weeks. I'd walk into the theater, and the stagehands would cry out, No, no! No, get him out of here!

I just had bad luck one year. But Albie is just, he directed, I've done plays of his that he directed, and he's just a great, great playwright and a great director. And still with us. Now, I remember you telling me when you did Any Given Sunday. Yes. Well, you, Cameron Diaz. Loved her.

Yes. Now, can you tell us the story you told me? No. You're cheap. You're crass, vulgar, and vaudevillian. Yes. And I think you ought to just watch yourself because somebody's going to knock you off. One can hope, James.

Can I tell the Cameron Diaz story? You going back to that? Yes. Leave Cameron out of this. I don't want her name on your lips, even. How about Cameron Mitchell? way out of your class, Gilder. Now, you had a chain of very successful commercials where you were the spokesman.

Well, I was very lucky. I was in a play with Barry Nelson called Goodbye Again. The play in the play, I'm a drunk who at one point says, I am a Republican. I have always been a Republican. My father before me was a Republican, and I will always vote for the Republican Party. I think I read it better those days than I did just now. And one night a guy came backstage with his wife and he said, forgive us for interrupting you. He's

in the dressing room. He asked to see me and they sent him up. And he said, my wife and I have a bet. Are you a Republican? I said, no, I am not a Republican. I never will be. And he turned to his wife and he said, uh-huh. He said, you see, you lost the bet.

And he turns to me and he said, I'm starting a supermarket chain and I need a spokesman. And if you can convince your wife, my wife, you're a Republican, I want you for my spokesman. It turned out to be a 27-year job from 1969 until 1997.

Is that 29 years? Something like that. Pathmark, right? Did we say Pathmark Supermarkets? Pathmark Supermarkets. They were wonderful to work for. We had a glorious time. They were generous.

generous it uh it certainly uh rescued my miserable life in flops now but you also got in trouble with them they were a little yeah can you tell us how they had every right to i mean it was It wasn't them. What happened was I got a call to do a Jefferson's, and it was an idea that Norman Lear had that it wasn't just rednecks who are haters, that there's a lot of white-collar hate. And it was in the apartment building where Jefferson lived. And I was an owner of the co-op owner, and I was incensed that we had a black person in the building.

And a lovely man. I was a lovely man to my wife. I didn't ever kick the dog or anything. And charming man. But he ran a little cell to get, and he had a meeting, a Ku Klux Klan meeting. and he had a meeting, a Ku Klux Klan meeting. And in the meeting, I'm yelling at Jefferson,

you're in the wrong meeting. This is about you. And I suddenly have a heart attack, keel over, and I'm down. And nobody knows how to do CPR except Jefferson. I never saw this episode of the Jefferson. I saw this one. And he leans over and starts kissing, giving me the kiss, you know, the breath thing. CPR. Mouth-to-mouth?

Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, CPR. And he pulls me back, and I come out of it, and I'm on the stretcher. They're hauling me out, and my son turns to me and says, points to Jefferson, Sherman Helmsley, and he says, there's the man who saved your life. And I look at him, and I said, you should have let me die. And it was a shocking thing. Shocking.

And people were really incensed that Mr. Passmark would say that. And a lot of our black employees were upset. So Sherman and Mrs. Hemsley. Oh, Isabel Sanford. Isabel, wonderful woman. They posed for pictures with me, holding, hugging me and everything, and for the newspapers and also for the advertising age papers

uh and got me out of the trouble i remember that episode i think in the beginning of it uh sherman helmsley gets mugged and so he's very concerned with crime in the neighborhood. And when he goes to this meeting and you're yelling, we have to get rid of these undesirables, he's going, that's right. We're not safe among these people who are coming into our area. And he goes, I'm behind you. And it was interesting, on the curtain call, the audience was largely black. It was done in front of an audience, three-camera show. And they began to boo and scream at me.

And they began to boo and scream at me. And again, Sherman and, wasn't that awful? I can't remember her name. Isabel. Isabel Sanford. I knew her well. I'm blanking. Maybe I ought to stop drinking.

I'm drinking Jameson Irish whiskey. Maybe they'll send me a case. Good luck. So they came out because I had to be escorted out of the theater. Wow. By them. But, you know, I'll tell you something, and I hate to say something nice to you, James. This shows what a fine actor you really are.

Well, no, I just wanted my paycheck. Well, let me back it up a minute. Pathmark had a problem with this episode because you were playing a racist. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Oh, sure. Because you were playing a racist. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Oh, sure. We had another problem when I destroyed Little House on the Prairie. Oh, when you were the land baron. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what that was about. That was interesting. He was one of the great guys I've ever worked with by the way Michael Landon was just a wonder

to be with and he was a great director he hardly ever said anything to you unless you were really on the downside and he'd just come over and say you know what forget about what you're doing try something like this

or give you something. He was wonderful. But he was incensed. After eight years of this great success, a grateful management, NBC, decided that the show was starting to run down, and they were working up a new show, a western, that would work in his sets.

The sets were up in Simi Valley. It was just a wonder. They built the town there. Yeah, Walnut Grove. Walnut Grove. Walnut Grove. And so he was really hurt. And he said, you know, I can't stand the idea of another family of people living in my town. Well, he had the right, when the show ended, to do a two-hour movie for the last show

and so he wrote a show in which a land baron comes in he's bought up the town the land and he has a town meeting and he says, I just want you to know that everything is going to be the same except that you work for me now. And the town has another meeting and they decide no. No, they're going to move on to other land

and they're going to destroy the town. And he spent a week blowing up all the buildings in that town. It was just wonderful, just wonderful. NBC couldn't stop him. You've been in some controversial TV shows, James. You were also in the infamous Seinfeld episode, the one episode that is not in the syndication package. Oh, yes, it is. I get a check for it all the time. Do youeld episode, the one episode that is not in the syndication package. Oh, yes, it is.

I get a check for it all the time. Do you? Yeah, sure. The Puerto Rican Day Parade episode? Oh, yeah. They said they would never rerun that one again. We were told that we got some bad information again. We were told that it's not in the syndication package because maybe not in the States.

Maybe it is internationally. I don't know, but I get a check regularly. Oh, good for you oh and and before much they've honed it down the check you mean well you know it is really over the years and stuff goes down that's the funny thing about residuals everyone thinks it's so magical and i get i have a residual check hanging in my bathroom that I framed for a penny. That much, huh? Yeah.

What did you get it for? What was the job that got you a penny residual check? I did a voice in the classic film, Mom and Dad Save the Earth. Oh, the John Lovitz, Terry Garth. Yes. And I don't even know if they use the voice. So I have it in a frame with a Chinese fortune that says, your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded.

Oh, that's great. That's great. I've got one, zero. No money. The agent said, what can you take as an agent's fee from nothing? Now, let's talk before I forget of where we met. We met in a smoky set.

We met on a movie called Jack and the Beanstalk, produced by a very, very nice man. And do you remember? Yes. I think you were talking. I was a giant goose. I was walking around literally in a goose outfit. I was really embarrassed for you. I didn't know you too well.

Now that I know you well, I'm not embarrassed at all. Exactly the right thing for you. For a month, I was walking around in this goose outfit, waddling around in it. And I used to have these two wardrobe girls who would put the outfit on me because it was impossible to pull the legs and everything. But the director I was talking to, and he said he knew I was a movie and TV buff. And he said, Ben, we've got an actor here. You're going to get along with him because he's known everyone.

And the funny thing is when they said James Cagney, they couldn't get James Cagney, so they got you. So when they said James Cagney, at first the name, it was one of those, you're one of those classic, oh, that guy actors. Yes, yes, yes. Because I didn't get the name, and the minute you walked in the door, that was the words I went, oh, that guy.

And never spoke to me again. Yes. You walked in the door. That was the words. I went, oh, that guy. And never spoke to me again. Yes. But you're one of those actors that, you know, Frank and I were at a party yesterday. And we mentioned your name. And people are going, oh, I don't know. And then we'd find your name on the phone and show a picture. And they'd all go, oh, him. Everybody at the party immediately recognized your face.

Even these days? Yes. Absolutely. Everybody there. Oh, that guy. And what's funny, and this is also a testament to your acting, is that so many of the movies that when I was looking up what you've done, I said, I saw that and I don't remember him being in it. And it's because you just wore that character.

Or that I got cut down and cut down by some goddamn director. I'm so little left that I'm just, you know, I'm cutting room floor. The face on the cutting room floor. Oh, and before I forget. Sad, very sad. Tell me the Clark Gable story. Oh, there's a great story Clark Gable story. Oh, there's a great story about Gable. Yes.

And an agent. It was when Gable went after he'd come out as Rhett Butler in the great southern picture. Gone with the Wind. Written by Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind.

He was just, you know, he was the hottest item. I think he was the hottest item in the world as an actor. And the story is that he called Abe Lasvogel and William Morris. That's a famous name. And he asked for an appointment and Las Fogles said, anytime, come in anytime. You don't need an appointment. Just walk in. Come in. So he comes in, sits down with Las Fogles and he's talking to Las Fogles and he says, I want you to know how much I

admire you, Mr. Las Fogles. I know a lot of the people that you represent. And he said, I'm not happy with my representation, and I'm wondering if you would take me on, Mr. Lasfogel. Lasfogel just fell apart. He said, I would be honored, honored, honored to represent you. Of course I would. I'm happy. Well, anything will do anything for you. Of course I would. I'm happy. Anything will do anything for you. Yes, please come with us

with William Morris office. Hey, but I, Abbas Lastfogel, will watch every second of your career. Gable stood up and said, that's fine, Mr. Lastfogel. He said, I just want you to know one thing. I don't believe in paying 10% to an agent.

And Glasswell, ah, here comes it. Gable said, I believe that an agent works harder for an actor if he gets 20%. Is that okay? Glasswell said, well, if you insist, Mr. Gable, yes. Of course, anything that you want. He goes, all right, Mr. Last Fogel. He starts for the door. He turns around and he says,

by the way, Mr. Last Fogel, you're not Jewish, are you? It was a long pause. Last Fogel said, not necessarily, Mr. Gable. That's great. None of that is true. None of that is true. I once went to a party, opening night of a streetcar named Desire in Los Angeles.

It was the first great Hollywood party I was ever to, ever attended. Streetcar was produced by Louis B. Mayer's daughter, Irene Selznick. And the opening night party was at, I still have the telegram, by the way, about a 50-word telegram from Louis B. Mayer asking me to attend. Would I attend? So I went out to the party. We played downtown at the Biltmore Theater, and the Biltmore Hotel is gone now. This is 1949. And I drove out with Tony Quinn and Mary Welsh, who played the Stella.

So we drove out together to the house in Beverly Hills. And it was something. I mean, everybody in Hollywood was there because it was Louis B. Mayer's daughter. Hollywood was there because it was Louis B. Mayer's daughter. And she had been treated badly by David O. Selznick, who ran off with Jennifer Jones. And everybody was knocking themselves out to let her know they loved her. And it was right after the wedding of Rita Hayworth and who did she marry? Orson Welles. Orson Welles. For what? No, after that. Oh, God. The prince. Oh, what was his name?

Ali Khan? Ali Khan, thank you very much. And everybody had just come back. Well, not everybody, but Hedda Hopper and the fat lady. Luella Parsons. Thank you. God, what would I do without you, Frank? I've got a book sitting here. You know, you're no good at all. I can't remember your name. Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes.

Gilbert. Thank you. At any rate, it was just wonderful because I saw Gable, you know, coming over, bring plates over to her. And she's saying, you know, the food here, can't compare to the food at Ali Khan's and Rita's wedding. She was really a terrible, terrible slob. It was wonderful to see all these people. I remember I was standing,

I found myself standing next to, to Louis V. Mayer, who was in front of a painting of himself about seven feet high. He was not. And I said, he had paintings, all marvelous paintings by Grandma Moses. And I said, I love these paintings of Grandma Moses.

He said, yeah, my decorator paints good. Now, Luella Parsons and Hedda Harper were like... They hated each other. Yeah, and they were both the queens of gossip. They owned it. They were so powerful, they could make or break your career if you behaved badly to them. So, like, actors and producers would, like, bow down to them like royalty back then. At parties, I heard. gable fed her all night wow

yeah that was very strange to me it was a good party though we will return to gilbert godfrey's amazing colossal podcast but first a word from our sponsor now can we just go through a list of a tiny group of people that you uh worked for worked with um okay like frederick march i loved working with him he was a great actor and a great guy i did uh Enemy of the People, an Arthur Miller play, out of Arthur Miller's adaptation of a Nibsen play. Wonderful, wonderful man. A lot of fun. Great ladies' man.

And Lauren Bacall. Go on. Keep going. No, that's not she and I became good friends it was tough for me to work with her when I worked with her we did cactus flower together because Jason Robards

she was married to Jason the marriage was ending and Jason was my best friend and she took it out on me occasionally and Jason I but we really, she was suffering. He was tough to be married to.

And she was tough to be married to. But it was, as it turned out, we really did become good friends later on after the show was over. And Jeff Bridges? He's a honey. He's a honey. Jeff is a lovely, lovely honey man. Yeah, he's terrific. I did Jagged Edge with him.

I like that picture very much. Yeah, I do, too. He was marvelous in it. And you were in... By the way, I didn't mean to knock Betty, because I... Oh, yeah. She was having a tough time with Jason, and he was not an easy... He was never home. And you were in a great film.

My... Oh, what? Oh, geez. Which? Gene Hackman. Oh, I. Which? Gene Hackman. Oh, I never sang for my father. I never sang for my father. Yes, I did that when I was in New York.

I had a small part. Gene was a good friend of mine. We both lived up in Nyack for a while and used to commute to the theater together. I think he's one of my favorite actors Gene Hackman also in that play in that screenplay was Melvin Douglas who was so brilliant he would have won an academy award except they cut a scene which we did because because they didn't realize that the people in the scene were in an old person's nursing home, and they were in bad shape.

They were in a hallway in wheelchairs, and they were drooling. And the guy who went around getting clearances had them sign papers, and they were not entitled to sign them. They had been committed. And their children didn't want the picture, didn't want people to see them in that shape. And I'm showing him around this place saying, you know, it's really a very nice place and he didn't want to go, but the children wanted to put him in this home.

And I say, you know, we have a lot of Christmas. We have decorations and I'm the manager of this nursing home and people are grabbing him and grabbing him and pulling at him and he finally turns to me and he grabs me and grabbing him and pulling at him. And he finally turns to me. He grabs me and he slams me against the wall,

lifted me up and slammed me against the wall and said, I'm not like them! And he ran out. Ran out, just dropped me and ran out. And I've always thought if that scene had been in, he would have gotten the Academy Award for that. Not because of me, but just because of the power of that and what he did with it. It's a good picture, very good.

It was Gil Tate's first picture. Yeah, I like that picture. And you worked with both Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman and all the president's men. I also worked with Bob. I knew Bob Redford for a long time. And Dustin Hoffman was in a play called A Cook for Mr. General that I did. He he he had he had a no speaking part. He had a no-speaking part.

He was like an extra in it, and he created a character in this prison camp that was so extraordinary, you couldn't take your eyes off him. Redford, I knew when he was first starting out, he was in Iceman Cometh, a production that Jason made Made Jason Robards career, and he played the young boy almost an impossible part to play well.

I've never seen it played well except by him, the boy whose mother, I think he's killed his mother, and he's talking to the anarchist about it. Just an impossible part to play. And what was Al Pacino like? I like Al. I've known him.

I knew him when he was a young man, when he was first starting out. And I did Any Given Sunday with him. I like Al. He's a terrific actor, and he's very professional. He doesn't waste too much time chewing the rag. He works hard all the time. But I like him. I respect him, and he's warm and he's huggable.

Like Gilbert. Ben Gazzara is one of my favorites. Oh, go ahead. I saw Ben last night at a thing on Turner Classic Movies. It was a takeoff late at night last night. It was a takeoff, and they were doing Christmas carols. This was a takeoff on the Christmas carol, Modern, put on NBC. Not the Christmas carol. Yes, yes on the Christmas Carol, modern, put on NBC. Not the Christmas Carol.

Yes, yes, the Christmas Carol. NBC, 64. It was only shown once because the government hated it so. Sterling Hayden played a major industrialist selling arms and things like that. industrialist selling arms and things like that to scrooge and not caring about anybody else and he's taken on trips uh this is blowing my mind a bit sterling hayden and ben gazzara in a modern retake on christmas carol wow and and why don't we know about this? And Eva Marie Saint. Wow. Oh, my God.

What a cast. And Steve Lawrence was marvelous in it. And Peter Sellers. Whoa. We have to find this. Well, it was on last night. Now, you weren't. I was knocked out by it.

It should be shown. It really should be shown. It really should be shown. It's a terrific thing. And Ben, I've known Ben since I knew Ben. I met Ben when he was about 17 years old. We were doing an illegal production at the actor's studio of Catcher in the Rye. And Ben was a kid, and we used him exactly,

the guy with the green teeth. And just, it was a wonderful production, which we, because Ann wanted it, we were doing it at midnight. A lot of us who were in Broadway shows got together and decided to do it. And it was actually, I think, Ben said, told me recently, before he died, he said, I'll tell you something you never knew. I found them, I decided, I found the material and took it to the studio.

They kind of screwed me out of playing the lead, but because Ann wanted to film it. Catcher in the Rye. Yes. That's interesting. We were doing these performances at midnight, and a huge cast of Barbara Baxley, Joe Van Fleet, Gene Sachs. God, it was Joe Van Fleet.

There's a name you don't hear too often gilbert oh and and you worked at least twice uh once in china syndrome and another in streets of san francisco and wall street michael douglas yeah michael douglas yes and wall street he was a little boy his mother when she divorced Kirk, married my best friend, Bill Darrod, who was in my class at the neighborhood playhouse. I met him in 1940. He was my lifelong friend. And, uh, um, no, I, and when, when, when she divorced Kirk and went married, Mike married Bill, they lived in Westport. And he lived with them in the winter, of course, with his brother Joel.

And I taught Michael to drive. That's great stuff. I had a Mark IV Jaguar, 1948 Jaguar, which he fell in love with. It was a great car. And how was he to work with? Because now it seems three times you worked with him at least. Michael is wonderful to work with. He's Michael's Michael's, you know, he's an absolutely pure actor who knows how to conduct his business life.

He's just smart. Listen, he learned from his father. His father's one of the smartest men in the business. His father was one of the first people, first actors to have a business, have his own studio, his own company, Berner Productions. Did you know Kirk Douglas at all? Yeah, Kirk doesn't like me. No?

How could he not like you, James? You're a charmer. It's easy if you are a man as powerful as Kirk, who who I don't know. I know that when at one point Joel was kind of running away and came to live with me in New York,

my wife Alba and I had a beautiful apartment on 57th Street, and Joel moved in for a while. I think Kirk was headed it. He'd never been very nice to me. Well, now you mentioned, I just want to go back a step. He's a great actor. He's a great producer. He's everything, but he's not a great friend to me.

You mentioned Ilya Kazan, so let's just take one step back and ask about Kazan and Brando, who's the one name we left out. I loved Marlon. I just loved him. You know, when Streetcar was such a hit, Marlon wanted to have an affair with Billie Holiday. He was nuts about Billie Holiday. So 52nd Street was the Jazz Street. Sure. And Billie was playing there.

And Marlon rented a house on 37 West 52nd Street that could be near her. He knew that he knew that he had a better chance if he lived near a place where she might stop by for a drink.

And it was a big house. It was like 25 feet wide, 60 feet deep. And he only wanted the parlor floor. So he said, you know, anybody who wants to move in can move in. You know, I'm just there. I've rented the house. I don't need it. And a bunch of us moved in. Mary Welsh, who later played Stella, Maureen Stapleton, a crazy architect friend of his, I can't remember his name. He blew out the back of the house one time in an explosion. He was fooling around with something. I like that if you can't take it with you.

Yes. Yeah, the fireworks. Yeah, blowing up the basement. That's right. He was in the basement apartment. You all lived in this apartment? You and Maureen Stapleton? We all lived in the house. In the house, excuse me. We all had in the house. In the house, excuse me. We all had rooms. Wow.

And Wally Cox was there. And it was wonderful. I knew nothing about drugs. I'm a drinking man. And it was marvelous because Wally and Marlon put a tent in his living room. And they used to go in there and smoke peyote. And the smell of it was entrancing. But the house was extraordinary

because you cannot imagine what it was like with Marlon. He could not enter the front of the house. There were 30 women on the stoop. It was a big, tall stoop to the parlor floor. They were lined up. Everybody, every woman in America was trying to get to Marlon, and most of them got to him.

But not Billie Holiday. But if Marlon wanted to come home, he went into a house on 53rd Street. You know, they were all brownstones, old brownstones. And a lot of them were actors' homes, boarding houses for actors. And right across from the Museum of Modern Art, because the rehearsal club was across the street, a place for young women young actresses to live so they're all so marlon would walk in the front door of say 44 west 53rd

street walk through the house go out the back way across and jump over a couple of fences and get to 37 and come in the back way. Now, the Marlon Brando story reminds me you worked with one of Brando's co-stars, Rod Steiger, in a play. We don't talk ill of the dead. So you won't tell anyone. I worked with Marlon's sister all my life. I loved her. Jocelyn Brando, who created the role of the nurse, the only female part in Mr. Roberts.

She was a darling, darling woman. I loved her. And Alba and I were in Europe when she died. And when we came home, we found the most marvelous letter I've ever received from her. And she wrote it the day before she died, telling us what we meant to her. That's a nice story.

Isn't it time to get off the phone oh pretty soon you had enough of us James say what have you had enough of us no I'm just I need another drink I'm now we've already discussed Brando

Frederick March Gene Hack, and Dustin Hoffman. Now, let's get, you worked with Scott Baio in Charles in Charge. Boy, that runs the gamut. From Brando to Baio. Oh, he's a great kid. He's a great kid. He directed some of those Charles and Charges. I did a lot of them.

Burton, who produced it, was a friend of mine. And I did a lot of them. And I loved working with Scott. And also the other kid. Oh, Willie Ames. Oh, Willie Ames. Willie Ames. Who? Willie Ames.

Say it again. Me and Frank screaming out. Willie Ames in stereo. Willie Ames, yeah. He's a darling boy. I don't know what's happened to him. I worry about him. He didn't know how to protect himself.

Scott Bio had a father, Mario. Yeah. Mario, who really was tough and protected him. But Scott was a great director. I loved being directed by him. We had a lot of fun. Oh, that's, wow. So while we're on the subject of some of those shows,

real quick, James, and we'll wrap it up. But Gilbert and I printed out your, we told you before, we got on the air, your IMDb pages. Insane. And it's just, I just want to really quickly, if you'll indulge me for a second, read off some of these. I never turned a job down. Maybe a last anecdote or something will pop into your head. But this is what I was reading to Gilbert and Dara when I got here. Car 54, where are you?

All my children, Starsky and Hutch, the Waltons, Streets of San Francisco, Bionic Woman, Macmillan and Wife, Police Woman, Hawaii Five-0, The Rockford Files, One Day at a Time, Lou Grant, Trapper John M.D., MASH, Dallas, Quincy, The Jeffersons, Amazing Stories, 227, Webster, Moonlighting, Cheers, Dynasty, Little House on the Prairie, Family Ties, Highway to Heaven, Murphy Brown, MacGyver, The Golden Girls, Sledgehammer. Coach, Larry Sanders' show, I loved you on that show. Oh, I loved doing that show.

He was great to work with. You know, it really wasn't a script. There was a commedia dell'arte arrangement of ideas. And I remember once we were playing a scene where we have a meeting. He wanted to have a meeting, and he wanted it at the bottom of a stairwell. And I walked down to the bottom of the stairwell. It was a real stairwell in the place. And I turned to him and I said,

smells like urine here. And bang, it was in the script. He loved lines like that. And tell me one of my favorite shows, Car 54, where are you? You know, I can barely remember doing that. Earlier in your career. That was a long time ago. And I don't think I had much of a part.

Oh, okay. I think the thing was called, there was a parrot in it. 1962, according to our sources. We should mention two things I have to get to. Well, obviously, you were in Poltergeist, but you were in two of the Return of the Living Dead movies. Well, the first one was just a wonderful film. It has real legs.

I still, most of the mail I get is about Return of the Living Dead. The one that was... Dan O'Bannon? Pardon? Dan O'Bannon. Dan O'Bannon wrote it and directed it. Toby Hooper, who was one of my favorite directors, was supposed to direct it and hired me.

But then he got caught up in Life Force in London. They were way behind and they couldn't wait. They had the money and they had to go. So they let Dan direct it. And it was a wild run. Yeah, they did two of those. Yeah, well, they did more than that. They did three or four.

I did the first two. You were Frank. That was your character's name. The first one. Yeah. What about the second one? Don't remember. We should point out to our listeners, too, That was your character's name. The first one. Yeah. What about the second one? Don't remember. It had nothing.

We should point out to our listeners, too, that these pictures had nothing to do with George Romero's version. Nothing. We were spoofed. Right. We spoofed George Romero's, and he was lovely about it, by the way. He was charming about it, and they were great fun to do. And in one of the films, you set yourself on fire. I think it's in the first one.

You become a zombie. I cremated myself. You cremated yourself. Yeah, because I didn't want to. I'll tell you why. Because the last ten minutes of the picture, they had me running around in the rain, and I didn't want to do it. So I went to the director in the morning, and I said, listen, I've got a great idea. How about if I cremate myself, that I don't want to be a zombie anymore?

And he said, oh, how would you do that? And I said, well, I'm in the scene where the guy lights up the crematorium machine. I said, all you got to do is go back and just one shot of me with Tommy against the wall. It can be any wall. And I say, that's not so tough. I could do that for Christ's sake.

And I said, then you show me going in. And it's a very good scene. The music in it is wonderful. Burn, baby, burn. Oh, yeah. You told me a story. You were doing a movie, Hard Bodies. I'm terribly sorry.

Out of respect for my own self-respect and my wife who's in it, I will not discuss Hard Bodies. That's where he draws the line. It was the best 12 weeks of our lives. We're in Greece. Just tell us how you got the extras, that story. Well, we were shot, a lot of them were shot on the beaches in Greece. And at one point, early on,

we noticed that there were a lot of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish girls on the beach next to us where we were shooting. And they were all there, topless. And they were quite beautiful, absolutely gorgeous girls. So me being the eldest person on the set, I was elected to go over. I didn't want to go over. I didn't want to talk to those girls. But being a professional. I went over and said, listen, ladies, we're shooting a movie over here.

Yeah, we see that. How would you like to, would you want to move over to our beach and not sit here? Move over to our, well, we don't have to put no clothes on. We don't know. We want to get the raise. We don't want no marks. I said, no, no, no, no. Not have to put anything on.

Just come over. Fly on our beach and you get 15 bucks a week, a day. Oh, yeah, that's good. We're cleaning Belgian boat for less than that. So they moved over to our beach, and we have the most beautiful extras you've ever seen, nude. extras you've ever seen nude. It was a wonderful shoot, and they were great girls.

A lot of them still write to us. We still correspond with number 11 and number 12. I love that. Under 10 we didn't even bother with. So James Caron bordering on porn producer. That's right. Now, James, we're going to start wrapping it up. Hey, God, I'm tired.

Can I have some more James? Elderly gentleman, for Christ's sake. I'm hacking my whole shit out of this. James, your career has run the gamut. I don't know. From A to B. I don't think there's another person alive who's worked with both Buster Keaton and Willie Ames. Pretty sure that covers it.

Willie Ames loved Buster Keaton. Did he? He loved him. There you go. He brought me a present. He was a pipe smoker. And I showed him my father's pipe. I told him about my father's pipe. My father had a great pipe, which I owned, which he left me with his hammer from work.

That's all he had. He left me a cigar box with his hammer, a special hammer for opening crates. He worked in the produce market and his pipe. That's all he left me. So I showed it to Willie and he just loved it. He just loved it. And how did I start this story? I can't remember. Something about Buster Keaton, him loving Buster Keaton. Oh, and he saw the hat. Buster's hat. And he went absolutely crazy. He just loved him. And you won the Buster Award. Yes, I did.

Thank you. Thank you. I did. There's the Buster Keaton annual. They're over 20 years now in Iola, Kansas, where Buster was born, outside of here, about eight miles away, in Pequay.

They were on a split week, and his mother stopped in Pequay, which was really a small town, doesn't even exist anymore, just the railroad station, which is dead too. And she had the baby in a house with a midwife. Father went on, and she joined the act three days later. And your family was, like, struggling, weren't they?

Struggling for air? No, money-wise. Yes, of course. I lived through the Depression. Yes. My father had been very wealthy and lost everything. My father had been a bootlegger and had made a great deal of money and a great deal of whiskey

and gin and something, a whiskey, gin, and I guess he made wine. And he was a great bootlegger. Everybody loved him. Everybody liked his stuff. And when Prohibition ended,

by that time, he had lost everything in the stock market of 29 because he didn't understand it. But everybody went into the market because they didn't. Nobody understood it, but all these guys who couldn't read or write were making money in the stock market, not understanding. And, of course course when the market broke they were all broke and uh my father the prohibition ended and my father went to work as a laborer in the produce market it's a real journey james i mean here you are as a child taking your father to movie theaters to learn to to read subtitles, and you go on to make 80 films, over 80 films in your career.

I'm sorry my father didn't see any of them. Yeah. Nor my mother. What would they have thought? Pardon? What would they have thought? I mean, would they have been absolutely amazed that you... Both my mother and father were delighted I was becoming an actor because that would mean I would go to Hollywood

and have a big house and a swimming pool sunken onyx. Now, so both your parents never really got to see your success. No. No, my father saw me on television. My mother died young. My father saw me on television, and I was on a soap, and he got confused. He was elderly and got confused, and he thought it was real, and he thought everybody knew that I was a bad guy.

He called me, and I went to see him, and he said, Everybody knows you're going to go to jail. Wow. He goes, Boy, you've got to stop this. Everybody knows. He just didn't. I felt so bad. There was no way I could clear it up.

Now, did you have any experience with the House of Un-American Activities? Oh, yes. I tell you the truth, I cannot go into that. It's just too far. Everything is too painful, and I just don't want to go into it. It has to do with my first wife, and I just don't want to go into it, Gilbert. Oh, okay. It's very painful, very painful.

I have many friends, and it's ugly. It's awful. friends, and it's ugly, it's awful, and it was a bad, bad time, and a lot of friends were hurt, and a lot of people, a lot of friendships ended. It's so ugly, and I just don't want to go into it in a casual way on this one. And heaven knows this interview's been painful enough, James. Listen, knowing Gilbert is a chore. Tell me about it.

Well, thank you. We've been talking to the great James Caron, one of the greatest of the Oh That Guy actors who has a ridiculous ridiculous resume

of a memory that too of movies you remembered the address of Brando's place on 52nd Street we're going to go over there now yeah movies television I bet it's down 37 West 52nd.

Oh, Skyscraper's there now. Oh, that's too bad. Toots Shore was right nearby. And I only wish we had been recording this. I'm kind of happy that you weren't. It makes you look really lousy. Anyway, we've been talking to the great actor, James Caron. I'm Gilbert Gottfried, here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre.

And this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. Good night, Dara. Good night, Dara. James, thanks for doing this. It was a real treat. Pleasure. I hope we meet, Frank. It was a real treat. Pleasure. I hope we meet, Frank. I hope so. I would love that. You want to meet me ever again?

No, I never want to see you again, Gilbert. Goodbye. Thanks, James. And good night to you from Hollywood. This is Cecil B. DeMille. Good night to you from Hollywood. That's great.

Thank you, James. Good night, gentlemen. Thank you.