Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Jamie Farr Encore

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

GGACP celebrates the birthday of veteran character actor Jamie Farr (b. July 1) with this ENCORE presentation of an entertaining interview from 2017. In this episode, Jamie looks back on 60+ years of showbiz memories, including sharing the big and small screen with legends Bob Hope, Doris Day, Sidney Poitier, Danny Kaye and Ed Wynn. Also, Jamie tours with Red Skelton, takes a class with Clint Eastwood, runs afoul of Joey Bishop and borrows a frock from Ginger Rogers. PLUS: “Murder Can Hurt You”! “Who’s Minding the Mint?”! The mad genius of Chuck Barris! Lenny Bruce inspires Klinger! And the greatest prime-time lineup in TV history!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if we told you you're already off to a great start, with so many ways to squeeze the most out of summer right here? From our largest shrimp skewers ever, to a Vietnamese-inspired dish ready in minutes, PC makes any culinary adventure an on-budget breeze. Embrace the summer vibes with Summer's Be Hard Cider, bursting with lovely aromas of apple. This light-bodied, fruity cider offers a crisp, clean finish, perfect for sunny days and warm nights.

Enjoy it well chilled or over ice. That's refreshing! That's Summersbee. Must be legal drinking age. Please drink responsibly, Carlsberg Canada Inc, Waterloo, Ontario. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer Frank Fertorosa. Our guest this week is one of the most likable, most recognized and most popular actors of the last

seven decades. He's been in iconic films like The Blackboard Jungle, Tora Tora Tora, the greatest story ever told, Heavy Traffic, Cannonball Run, Scrooge, The Gong Show Movie, and two favorites of this podcast, With Six You Get Egg Roll and Who's minding the mint. His memorable TV roles are too numerous to list but what the hell. My Three Sons, The Andy Griffith Show, The Flying Nun, Love American Style, I Dream of Genie, F-Troop, Get Smart, Barnaby Jones, The Night Stalker, Mad About You, and Family Guy to just name a few. And he's featured in a TV movie we've discussed at length on this show, Murder Can Hurt You. Along with his journey, he's shared the screen with a dazzling array of talents including Sydney Poitier, Doris Stay, Lucille Ball, Charlton Heston, Burt Reynolds, Dean Martin, Roger Moore, Danny

K, Sammy Davis Jr. and yes John MacGyver as well as our former guests, and this is just a few of them, Dick Van Dyke, John Biner, Jessica Walter, Carl Reiner, Marvin Kaplan and Marty Allen. But with all of his many appearances and achievements, he'll forever be beloved to audiences all over the world as the conniving but endearing Max Klinger on what many consider to be the greatest half-hour comedy in television history, MASH. Please welcome to the show a versatile actor who's played everything from a hippie to an apostle and a man red skeleton once called a doctor of comedy.

The pride of Toledo Ohio, Jamie Farr. Wow, I tell you, I didn't realize he did all this. You know what, Gilbert? Yeah? I'm too big for your show. I didn't realize he did all this. You know what, Gilbert? Yeah? I'm too big for your show. I shouldn't even be on this show. I didn't realize he did all those things. I haven't worked since then, but that's okay.

Jamie, welcome. Thank you, Frank. Thanks for being here. Now, we gotta go to the most important topic that we were discussing before we got on the air. What is that? Yeah. I don't even care about mesh. I do. I gotta go to the mailbox and see if a residual's in there. I haven't had any fresh money in a long time Gilbert. I gotta get the old residuals.

Yeah. What is it that you wanted to talk about? That you... residuals. Yeah, what is it that you wanted to talk about? That you... A quote from you is, Jews have been very good to you. They have indeed. As I told you before we before we actually went out in the air, you know, I have a lot of my Lebanese friends back in my hometown in Toledo and every time I go back to visit them they say, please say hello to our cousins in California. Because as you probably know, Abraham and Hagar, the Egyptian, had the first Arab, which was Ishmael. So we are cousins, my friend. There you go. Cousin Jamie.

Cousin Gilbert. This is cousin Jamila. Well, you know, all the people that helped me in this business, of course, were my first movie, as you know, was Blackboard Jungle. And Pandro S. Berman was the producer of that show. He had done all the big movies with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers at RKO and moved over to MGM and Richard Brooks, whose real name I think was Sax, who was from Philadelphia. And he was the screenplay writer from Ivan Hunter's book, Blackboard Jungle, and also the director of the movie. And so I actually auditioned, took a screen test, and won the part. My first agent was Burt Marx, who was Sam Marx's brother.

Burt Marx was an agent. He handled Tom Drake and a few other actors at MGM. And of course, Samuel Marx had produced National Velvet and discovered Elizabeth Taylor and did a lot of the other things at MGM. Weren't you also repped at one point by the legendary Meyer Mishkin? Oh, Meyer was my favorite. Meyer attended my wife's. Also Marvin Kaplan's agent.

Yes, Marvin Kaplan, that great story. Marvin goes in to see Meyer. Meyer was a tiny, short little man. He had a very high voice, and he talked like this. And Marvin Kaplan, I hope the audience knows who Marvin is. We had him on this show. Oh, he was wonderful. Marvin came into it and he goes,

Maya, you know, I haven't been waking lately. And Maya says, well, Marvin, you're special. And Marvin looked at him and he says, Maya, nobody should be this special. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Now, when you first got the part as Max Klinger on MASH, was that written like just as a one shot? It was, yeah. There was just about five or six lines on the show. I think the title of the show was Chief Surgeon Who? And Larry Gelbart had created this character.

It came from a story that he had read about, oh, I can't think of the wonderful comedian. Oh, Lenny Bruce. Lenny Bruce. Lenny Bruce, yeah. Who was in the Coast Guard, yeah. And they usually, they had Dress of the Day, which was either your, you know,

your class A uniforms or your fatigues. Well, when they said dress of the day, he showed up wearing a dress trying to get out of the Coast Guard. Larry Gelbert had read that. And so he said, hey, let's create this character, which was a one-day thing that I came on. And he made the characters named Klinger after a childhood friend of his that he had in Chicago. He lived in Chicago. And Larry Gelbart's father was Harry Gelbart.

And he was a hair cutter, a barber in Beverly Hills to all the comedians. The Ritz brothers, Milton Berle, and Danny Thomas. And Danny Thomas was Lebanese. He came from the city of Toledo, Ohio. Danny's real name was Amos Jacob. And he took what Danny did was take his youngest brother's name Danny and his oldest brother's name Thomas and put the two names together to become Danny Thomas. So, Larry decided, hey, well, let me tell you the back story of this. So, Harry Gelbart's telling Danny Thomas that his son, Larry Gelbart, who's a student at Fairfax High School here in Los Angeles,

which is the Jewish high school in the area there, and he says, my son is a wonderful writer, comedy writer. You got to read some of his material. So Danny says, all right, let me see some of it. And Danny liked it and he bought the material from Larry Gelbart, who was a student. He had a high school student at Fairfax High and that's why I think the payback was for to make me, Klinger, Lebanese to pay back Danny Thomas for buying the material that he had sold him when he was in high school. Anyway there was only a few lines they didn't know how to play it and the gentleman who was directing it, E.W. Swackhammer was his name. And he, I'd worked for him at Columbia Studio Screen Gems.

I forgot the TV show. And Gene Reynolds, they had, they told me they didn't know how this character was to be played. When I walked into the trailer where they had this wax uniform hanging up and the high heels, I thought I was dressing with an actress. He says, no, no, those are yours because I hadn't seen the script. I didn't know what I was doing. And I only got the script when I came out dressed in this wax outfit with the Women's

Army Corps. That's what that stands for, WAC, Women's Army Corps. And these huge high heels and like hairy bow legs and everybody on the set was laughing. And so they said, here's the lines. So then Gene and Larry left. Gene Reynolds, the producer, and Larry Gilbert, the creator of the character and the producer of the show left. And E.W. Swackhammer had me playing it gay.

And so I did the first scenes that way and I didn't know what I was doing, you know, with the show. And I left and I went home and the next day I get a phone call from my agent. He says, Jamie, don't get upset now, but they want you to come back. They really can't have this character played like that. So I said, oh, I let Gene down. I let Larry down. I came back in. He said, well, how would you play this, Jamie? How would you play it? I said, well, Why don't you play him straight and let everybody else make comments about him that this is his uniform That he has let him have a cigar and let him talk

I said nobody's ever played a character in a woman's dress before where he's played it straight. Usually it's the Amy which I the the movie that they did that Shoot, I can't think of all the names of it. What's it? Once In Love With Amy. Oh, Charlie's Aunt. Charlie's Aunt, thank you. And I can't remember the name, but I can't sing either.

At any rate, so any of the shows, you know, Jack Benny, if he dressed up, everybody would talk in a falsetto, some like it hot. Some like it hot, yeah. They all did it. But this way, guys wear in a dress and he played it absolutely straight. They said, well, try it. So I did it. They apparently liked it because I did six more shows that first year.

And the second year when they got picked up, I did 12 shows of the 20-some shows that we did. And then the third years when they put me under contract. Did you have any idea what a gold mine that would turn into for you? No, I had none whatsoever. You know, you knew that the show was going to be canceled after the first year. You knew that, didn't you? That was on Sunday night opposite the wonderful world of Disney, and our ratings were just terrible. I think we were number 59 out of 65 shows.

And Bill Paley, who was the chairman of the network, was going to cancel the show. And his wife, Babe Paley, said, no, no, don't cancel it. It's a great show. We just need to move it to another time spot. So he says, OK, let's try it. And that's when Bill Paley moved, the greatest night in the history of television.

Oh yeah, Saturday night. Saturday night lineup on CBS that had all in the family, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, and the Carol Burnett show. Nobody went out. The tickets for Broadway theater went down, restaurants went down in terms of people going out to eat. And they also, beside the Nielsen rating,

would know when the commercials went on how many people were watching television because the water level when they went to use the bathroom would drop in all the cities. So that was another Nielsen rating. And correct me if I'm wrong, Jamie, but Klinger also had a little bit of Yossarian in him, too, from Catch-22. Yes, exactly right. Yes, wrong, Jamie, but Klinger also had a little bit of Yossarian in him, too, from Catch 22. Yes, exactly right.

Yes, indeed he did. Right. Well, you know what I used to like to think of is that I was kind of the visual part of what verbally Hawkeye, Trapper John, and BJ would say in the show. I was the visual placard, you know, the anti-war personality. I would parade around showing my distaste for being there,

while these guys spoke eloquently about not wanting to be there. Did they give you clothes that were worn by famous stars? Oh, yes, most certainly. We're Betty Grable, Alice Faye, Dame May Whitty. Here's one of my favorite stories. I love it. One of the outfits I had on was one that Ginger Rogers

had worn in one of the movies that she had done. And it was a scene that I had done with Kelly Nakahara, Nurse Kelly on the show. And we did something like, I was supposed to be Ginger Rogers, and she was supposed to be Fred Astaire. We were doing cheek to cheek. Well, the show aired, and a couple of weeks later, I'm in the 20th Century Fox commissary

where we shot the show at 20th Century Fox and Ginger Rogers was there doing a love boat for Aaron Spelling. And she saw me and came over to the table. She said, you know, Jamie, I saw you in one of my outfits that I wore with Fred Astaire. And she said, you know, that dress looked a hell of a lot better on you than it did on me.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha somebody biting him on the neck? Biting who? I was biting you! No you weren't you were biting me! Klinger what are you doing in here? Just bowing a little your shampoo major. It's war time we all gotta help each other. No we don't! You get out of here you pervert! Pervert? Who bit who major? Now I have to ask you about a movie that I saw as a kid, and I've talked about a number of times on the show. And that was Who's Minding the Mint. Oh, yeah. Howard Morris.

I thought you were going to go to Blackboard Jungle. I was going to say, yeah. Who's Minding the Mint is late in my career. Blackboard Jungle is the first one. Rock Around the Clock, Bill Haley, the Cabas. Yeah, Who's Minding the Mitt was a very, very funny movie. And I think Leonard Malton said it's really one of the secret movies that are out there

that people don't realize. What a great cast. Jim Hutton, Dorothy Provine, Walter Brennan, Victor Buono, Milton Berle, Jack Guilford, Joey Bishop. It was just a wonderful, wonderful cast and how he liked me very much and I hadn't been working and he said I think Jamie can play this part. It's Italian. He'll have to speak authentic Italian and he went to the head of the studio and he brought me to him and he says, I swear, if Jamie says he can talk Italian and he says he can do it,

believe me, he can do it. So the guy said, oh, okay, give him the part. So that was the first time I got co-starring Billing in any movie that I had done. And I still remember some of the dialogue. Devi fare qualcosa non messo sul camion della spazzatura. Deve la poteria. That means I thought that they were policemen, but it was really a garbage truck.

Oh, yes. Spazzatura in Italian is a garbage truck. That is a fun movie. Yes, I spoke all Italian in the movie. And I worked with Milton. I've worked with Milton so many times. All the comics you mentioned. I've worked with Milton Burl, Karl Reiner, all the comics you mentioned. I've worked with Milton, Burl, Carl Reiner,

Danny Kay, Red Skelton, Bob Hope. The Bob Hope special that we did was, he's having a big Super Bowl party at his house and he invites all the comedians, the Ritz brothers, Don Rickles, Marty Allen, and everybody to see the Super Bowl. No, no, that's a different one. No, this is a different one.

So the gag is that Milton, Burl, and I show up at the party wearing the same dress. That was the gag. You met, you and Howard Morris were friends for a long time. And do I have this right? You met him on the Danny Kay show? The Danny Kay show? The first year Harvey Korman and I were the two second bananas with Danny Kay. We had all the Sid Caesar writers.

We had the Herbie Baker, Sheldon Keller, Mel Tolkien, and I was the Howie Morris character and Harvey Corman was the Carl Reiner character. We did so many takeoffs. It was one of the fun times I've had doing any of the shows. And the guest stars that we had on, Art Carney and Glynnis John and the, I won't try to think of Terry, we had John Mills, Terry Thomas. Sure. Yeah. We had some great, one of the sketches we did, we did a parody on the Great Escape,

and Harvey and I were the two Nazis in the thing. Harvey was like the auto-premature, and I was this German sergeant, and I had this helmet on, and the only thing that stopped the helmet from going on to my shoulders was my nose. I mean, that's how big the helmet was. And so I would be blowing the whistle into, you know, I always blow the whistle and Harvey would go, not in my ear, you'll be in a schnitzel. He says, okay, your escaping days are over. We have a barbed wire fence, machine guns out there, and land mines, and a great big mean doggy

in the yard. So your escaping days are over. And he turns out the lights and he goes, oh, and one more thing. He turns on the lights and everybody's gone. They've all escaped in the compound. Harvey's payoff line was he yells out the window, stick him, doggy, stick him. That is a great impression of Harvey Korman doing a German. And what was Harvey Korman like off camera?

Oh, he was an absolute delight. I know you saw Tim Conway and him breaking up all the time on the Carol Burnett Show, especially Harvey with Tim. But I used to break up with Harvey. We did so many takeoffs on that show. We did the one, we took and did a takeoff on the student prints called the student dentist. And it was, one of the songs was, it's great to be in Heidelberg.

What a wonderful place is Heidelberg. So how come we're not in Heidelberg? And it was, and we'd take Danny around on our shoulders and he'd be hitting these big lights that were all over the place. We did a takeoff on the three musketeers that was absolutely wonderful. And Danny was probably, of all the comedians that I worked with, his last name was Kaminsky, right?

Danny Kaminsky, I think. Anyway, he was probably the most talented. Sing, dance, did all the shtick and sketches and everything else. And he was really an absolute brilliant performer. There's a part in the book about Danny Kaye, though, that he was, if I may say, he was a little threatened by Art Carney.

You talk about him. Well, of course, he was famous for upstaging people. Yeah, exactly. He actually, he wasn't very friendly to Howie Morris either, nor to Glennis Johns, who was his co-star in one of the great movies, comedy movies of all time, The Court Jester, you know, with the mortar, with the pestle with the vessel, and the dragon with the flag and all that other stuff. But yeah, he wasn't very friendly to any of the people that were on the show and he was very demanding.

And so, yeah, he wasn't the most pleasant person. And I think part of his contract, he actually had the CBS built a penthouse apartment for him over the CBS studios on Beverly and Fairfax, and even put a Chinese kitchen in there because he was a great Chinese cook. And he was also a pilot. He could fly his own airplane. At that time, I also think he was one of the co-owners of the Seattle Mariners, the baseball team. He loved baseball. And so one of the deals in the contract that his wife Sylvia Fine couldn't be within a 10-mile radius

of CBS. They didn't want her anywhere around. That's interesting. Yeah. And you know who one of the writers were? It was Paul Mazursky who I had done Blackboard Jungle with. He and Larry Tucker were writing together. I think this was before they did The Monkeys. And they were two of the writers on the show. We had great writers and it was a wonderful first year. And I got let go because they decided they wanted to bring in a female star to be like, I guess, Imogene Coca and they brought in Joyce Van Patten. So I got let go. But I certainly enjoyed all those sketches that we did. It was a wonderful year of comedy. Well, now we're going to destroy whatever entertainment

value was in the show by breaking for a commercial. OK, let's get to Blackboard Jungle. Yeah, we jump around here, Jamie. I don't remember it. I took the screen test. I didn't take it with Glenn Ford. I took it with James Drury. James Drury was a sort of semi-contract player at MGM at that time. He later did the Virginian, as you know. And I won the part. And I got

the role in Blackboard Jungle playing Santini. He was the, you know, not quite all there. He was very slow witted and so forth. And of course, that was Paul Mazursky's first movie, Vic Morrow's first movie, John Ehrman's first movie, who later became a big director. Yep. I think he did Roots and then also did some feature films. That was Sidney's probably maybe his second or third movie that he did. I'm trying to think of that was Rafael Campos's first movie. Vic Morrow too. Yeah, Vic Morrow of course.

And so did the movie and they, Rock Around the Clock had been on a record that they had done, that Bill Haley had done, but it was the B side of the record and it had never really gone anywhere. The other side was, and so Richard Brooks went to Glenn's house and he asked Peter Ford, who was a teenager then, he says, I picked some of these songs out, which one do you think I should use for the opening of the show? And Peter Ford picked Rock Around the Clock, Bill Haley in the Comets.

And that's what brought Rock and Roll in. It wasn't Elvis Presley. It was Rock Around the Clock from the movie Blackboard Jungle. And the kids, when that movie started in the theater at the Low State in New York, got up in the aisles and started dancing to the music. And that's what made Bill Haley in the comments and brought in Rock and Roll.

All because Glenn Ford's son picked it out. Picked it out, right. And so now I'm living in a small apartment. I only made like 350 bucks for the week. And I think I worked four weeks on the show. And I couldn't get another job then. And I needed some work. I needed to get work. And I wasn't getting any. And Jackie Joseph, the actress, her mom, Bell Joseph, worked for a chinchilla farm in Burbank.

And Jackie's mom was so good to everybody. The guys that hadn't made it yet was James Colburn and Robert Vaughn. We were all hungry actors. We could always find food at Jackie's house because of Belle. She was a bookkeeper there. And I said, Belle, I really need a job. I don't have a job. I've got to get some money to pay my rent and everything else. She said, Jamie, the only thing they got at the chinchilla farm is you'd have to clean out the droppings in the chinchilla dropping pants and be a janitor. So I said, I'll take it. So here I do Blackboard Jungle, right? I go see myself at the Pantages Theater, and now I'm working at a chinchilla farm cleaning chinchilla droppings. But here's the great story of this. I was also taking acting lessons from Jack Coslin. He had a theater on Cole Avenue.

And in that class was Clint Eastwood, who was cleaning swimming pools at the time. This is long before he got Raw Hyde or any of the other shows. Nick Adams, Irish McCullough, who later went on to do Sheena the Jungle Queen and of course Nick you know did the Rebel and did a lot of other movie Rebel Without a Cause and a lot of other but we were all in that in that same class together and every time I see Clint I always say hey Clint whatever the hell happened to you

you used to clean swimming pools. And Richard Brooks was an intimidating figure wasn't he? Oh yeah he he was the perfect Neanderthal man. He had a butch haircut. And it'd be cold out. He'd have a seersucker shirt on. And he smoked a pipe. And he had corduroy pants on. And he would talk to everybody.

If he didn't like what you were doing, he'd say, get my gun. I want to shoot this man. I want to shoot him. Give me my gun. Ha ha ha. You know Richard Brooks, don't you? Oh yeah. In Cold Blood. Yeah, yeah.

And he did that one with. Stay with the money. Richard Gere. Oh, I'm looking for Mr. Goodball. Yeah, but I think he wrote Key Largo. He did Lord Jim. He did Lord Jim. Lord Jim, sure.

He did the other movie, the one he did with Rock Hudson in Sidney Poitier, the one that did with Rock Hudson and Sydney Poitier Oh takes place in Africa the Yeah, oh he also did the last hunt with with Robert Taylor right Lloyd Nolan and Stuart Granger He was a great director, but very intimidating We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. out of the last day, how about a 4 p.m. late check out? Just need a nice place to settle in? Enjoy your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together.

That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash ymx. Benefits vary by card, terms apply. At Air Miles, we help you collect more moments. So instead of scrolling through photos of friends on social media, you can spend more time dinnering with them. Mmm. How's that spicy enchilada? Oh, very flavorful.

Yodeling with them. Yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel-yodel- Bear! Run! Collect more moments with more ways to earn. AirMile Getting to one actor who you mentioned, who now sadly is just remembered as the guy who died tragically during Twilight Zone. Vic Morrow. You talk about Vic Morrow? What was Vic Morrow? Vic Morrow was always like a scary, tough guy in the movies. What was he like?

Yeah, he had that Marlon Brando, you know, actor studio thing. Vic was pretty much what you saw in the movie that he did. And he was a wonderful actor. I think he did a Western after that at MGM. MGM really liked him and started to use him. And later he did a series combat. Combat, sure. One of my buddies that I grew up with back in Toledo,

Greek kid by the name of George Fennedy, his wife, Catherine Matthews, and I were in kindergarten together back there. George Fennedy wound up producing combat and directing a lot of those because also his brother Andy Finity, who was also from the Toledo area, came out here and became a writer and producer, did the Rebel, did Rebel with Nick Adams, did Branded with Chuck Connors, and did the movie Chisholm. He wrote that and produced that with John Wayne.

So it was a lot of nepotism going on out here from our little neighborhood, North End neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio. What kind of guy was Vic? Vic was pretty much, he was very quiet. He didn't say very much. Of course, you know, on that set, you had to be quiet. I mean, Richard Bush was a stickler. If his camera was on you, he would make sure that your eye vision, looking into

the camera angle, that everybody cleared out all the way in the studio on the sound stage so that you couldn't see anybody. That way you were just seeing the actor playing the role that you were doing opposite. Glenn was a lot of fun actually. He was more fun. Sydney was pretty serious too and so was Missouri. Everybody was. I mean it was our first movie you know so I mean it wasn't Sydney's first movie but we were all very nervous and it was a hard-hitting movie you know it was that first time. Actually Louis B. Mayer didn't want to do it. It was Dory Sherry's project. Because, you know, Louis B. Meir liked doing all the musicals, and he didn't want to do that kind of film.

And actually, I think it was Claire Booth Luce, was that her name? She came out in Time Magazine or something and said, this is not respective of our school systems here in the United States. He got a lot of flack for doing that movie. You are now listening to Rock Around the Clock. This is the theme music from MGM's sensational new picture, Blackboard Jungle.

Many people said the story could not, must not, dared not be shown. The picture already has the movie and book world gasping. Blackboard Jungle deals with an explosive subject, the teenage terror in the schools. It is the frankest, the toughest, the most realistic film since On the Waterfront. It is fiction, but fiction torn from big city modern savagery. What an eclectic cast. I mean, Musserski and Portier and Louis Calharn. Louis Calharn, what a great actor. Oh, and Francis. And Francis and you and Mauro.

Margaret Hayes, Maggie Hayes. Oh, it was a wonderful cast, yeah. And as I said, there was a lot of people got their start in that movie. Years later, the Academy had a showing, a screening of it, the Academy of the Oscars, and they asked me to be the host of the evening. And I'm trying to think of it as the, it was Dory Sherry's nephew who was assistant director who later became a producer I think he did the movie Shaft with Richard Rowntree. Richard Rowntree yeah exactly I'm trying to remember his name he was a wonderful anyway he was there and I got to co-host the evening with Richard Brooks, Pandro S. Berman and that. Here I'm standing up, I had this small part in this movie

and now I had all the MASH cast there and they had a fresh print of the movie and they screened it at the Academy and it was really a thrill for me and I got some wonderful pictures of all of us. We, of course, had aged since that time. Glenn had aged and Anne Francis and Sydney wasn't there. Vic wasn't there. Paul Mazursky was there. And I think Rafael was there, Rafael Campos. It was a beautiful night, wonderful night. And you had, jumping around again, a great quote about Doris Day, if you remember it.

I don't remember. We did Doris Day's last movie with Six You Get Egg Roll. Bill Christopher, who later played Father Mulcahy in MASH, we were together as two hippies in that movie. That was Doris's last movie. Brian Keith, Barbara Hershey. Oh my goodness, it was wonderful. Was George Carlin turn up in that one?

George Carlin, that's right. George was, before he became the George Carlin that we all know. I have a memory of it. Stuff in your closet and stuff here all over the place. He was pretty much like a stand-up comic. And my wife Joy and I had just gotten married. It was 1963.

I forgot when we did with Six You Get Egg Rolled. But my house in Studio City was about a couple blocks from the studio where we shot. It was the Old Republic Studios. It's CBS Studios now on Radford. So at the end of the day shooting, if I wasn't working and George was, he'd pop by our house on Laurel Terrace Drive

in Studio City with a six pack of beer. And we'd sit there and talk. This is long before he became, you know, as famous as he became. Sure. And yeah, it was a lot of fun being with George Carlin and having a couple beers with him. Yeah, I remember the quote you said And yeah, it was a lot of fun being with George Carlin and having a couple beers with him.

Yeah, I remember the quote you said on a TV show about Doris Day was, if you didn't love Doris Day, there was something wrong with your heart. That's right. You know, we did a special for her. She's a wonderful animal lover. She has that hotel in Carmel where you can bring your animals at. And this was a documentary that they did and they came to my house and I said, I would love to talk about Doris Day. And I'm on the documentary, in the documentary, they released it. And I mean, who did, who can't remember in the man who knew too much

Kei Sarasara going through that? Of course. She factors into one of the stories in the book, Jamie, too, because you're talking about when you were making The Blackboard Jungle, there was a pinch-me moment of realizing I was a kid in Toledo watching Doris Day movies, and now I'm on the lot. Well, the MGM lot. Well, what it was is I was watching the Gene Kelly

singing in the rain movie at the Lowes Valentine in Toledo, Ohio, and a year later, I'm on the MGM lot making a movie, and there's Doris Day with Jimmy Cagney doing Love Me or Leave Me. I mean, let me tell you something. When we weren't shooting, I think we forgot the stage number that we were on. We might've been on stage 17 at the MGM lot.

We'd run all over the lot going to visit other areas. I saw Gene Kelly doing, let's see, the movie he did with Michael Kidd and Dan Daly. It's always fair weather. And we got on that soundstage to watch him. How exciting that was. I forgot. Might have been, was Minnelli the director of that? I'm not sure who directed that. I want to say it's Stanley Donnan. Stanley Donnan. You're absolutely right. Oh, can I tell you a story?

Yeah. I'm directing a MASH episode. I'm directing a MASH episode. First directing I had ever done, OK? I forgot what year it is. And who comes to visit Larry Yelbert but Stanley Donnan? Wow. And he's watching me direct. And I'm going, what?

How embarrassing this is. I got Stanley Donnan watching me direct the scene on a MASH episode. Oh my gosh. He's still with us. He lives about 20 blocks from here. What a great director. And of course, you know, he did a couple of those movies with, with Gene Kelly.

When Gene Kelly did, was alone out at Columbia, the one he did with Rita Hayworth and Phil Silvers and gosh, I love Phil Silvers. He was a great comic guy. I used to see him at the commissary all the time I never worked with them but he was just an absolutely brilliant comic. Did you talk to Phil Silvers? Oh yeah oh gosh yeah it was a lot of fun well you know we were so popular our show was when Harry Morgan and the rest of us would show up at the at the commissary Dolly Parton was

shooting nine to five. She came over to talk to Harry and me. She says, Mr. Farr, Mr. Morgan, I just want you to know I'm a big fan of you. Can you imagine Dolly Parton coming over and talk? Mr. Farr and Mr. Morgan? Oh my goodness. We had people coming over and talking to... Abe Lasvogel, who was the head of the William Morris office, he'd come into the commissary and he'd sit with Harry Morgan and me in the commissary and we weren't with, we weren't with the William Morris office and he'd pick up

the check. He just loved the show so much. Prince Charles came to the set and would watch us shoot. We had President Ford and Henry Kissinger on the lot and on the set. We actually got them to get into a baseball pool that we had and Henry Kissinger won and he's the one we had to convince to get into the pool. It was a five dollar pool and he won 50 bucks and we gave him the check. We sent it to him. We had so many big people, famous people come to our set to watch us shoot. It was really smart. Jumping around as we do, Jamie.

And for a minute, I'm just going to plug your book, which you wrote a while back. Just Far Fun. Okay. Can I tell you the title that was going to be? Go ahead. It was going to be So Far with Two R's So Good. And guess what? Burgess Meredith came out with his biography and he called it So Far with One R So Good. so I had to come up with another title they came up with just far I want

to I want to pay you a compliment if I may I read a lot of memoirs for this for this podcast and I've probably read a hundred we've had well 150 guests or something like that at this point your book is not only a page turner but I was telling Gil it's just full of Hollywood anecdotes like the Cecil B. DeMille story in the rock Ralph Bellamy story. I'll let you tell Gilbert the story about Ralph Bellamy doing the smoking, the tobacco. Oh, you're talking about when he did the Man Against Crime

in New York City. Yeah, he told me, he said, you know, the entire budget, I guess this was probably in the 50s, the entire budget was like $5,000. That included Ralph's salary as well. And they did it live. And so, well, can I tell you, before I tell you the one about the,

where it was for Camel Cigarettes, which was the sponsor of the show. Yeah, but let me go to another one that he tells the same, it's a man against crime. And so he's doing the show, and there's the wrap up at the end of the same, it's a man against crime. And so he's doing the show and the wrap up at the end of the show, Ralph's supposed to come into this hotel room to get the guy who's the murderer. But the guy who played the murderer forgot

that he was supposed to be in that scene and he wasn't in the room when Ralph opens the door into the hotel room to accuse him of the crime. So Ralph had to ad lib this. This is on the air. It's live. He goes, Oh, I know. I know you're outside. I know you're on the ledge. And he opens the window and he does the whole thing about saying, and I know you're the murderer and I know you're the guy who did this whole thing. And there's nobody there. The guy had gone home. Ralph had to cover it because the guy, he had to do both sides of the dialogue,

you know, to do the exposition on that. So that was one of the things that happened. The other one was at the end of the show, he always lit a Camel cigarette with a Zippo lighter. And he would take it. They didn't have the filters on it. It was just a tobacco. So at the end he lights this one cigarette and he takes a big deep drag on it and what happened,

some of the tobacco, loose tobacco got into the back of his throat. Now he's got to start talking to tell you that be sure to get, can we send them you know to our service. Well what happened, the tobacco got stuck, he can't cough, I mean it's a cigarette and they're doing it live. So as he goes on he has to read the dialogue as quickly as he could but as far as getting higher and higher and higher and higher he was talking like that shall be sure to start your show this week

well camel cigarettes uh... we are we into black but that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that a pros pro uh... yeah exactly you know he was uh... A pros pro. Yeah, exactly. He was a great actor. He was and of course he was dear friends with Harry Morgan. Can I tell you another Ralph Bellamy story?

Yes, please. I was just going to say they're all in the book. Yeah, well, he's doing one of the horror films, you know, like the Wolf Man with Claude Reigns. Oh, sure. And he's got this director that I think he was Hungarian. He had the pettis on and the boots on. George Wagner with two Gs. Could be. Yeah, it could have been. Anyway, they're not shooting right now.

And the director's talking, I think, to Evelyn Anchors. He's got the megaphone. And he's saying, all right, all right, now here's's the scene now and Ralph and Claude Rains are listening to this and he says now remember the wolf man is chasing your father through the woods the Frankenstein monster is after your mother and and and the and Dracula is after your boyfriend and I want to get the feeling in this shot. I want to get the feeling in this shot that you're fed up with it all. You're just fed up with it all.

That was his direction. Claude Raine and Ralph Bellamy, they said they almost fell into the water that was there at the thing when he heard him giving that direction. That you're fed up with it all. And I heard that for years after that, whenever Ralph Bellamy and Claude Rains would run into each other, they would, their greeting would always be to each other. So are you fed up yet? I don't know that could be it. You could be having me now my

friend, but maybe that's no no I read that that was Years after you know Young people I can't believe I'm saying young people today do not know the the the expression the Bellamy But all that Ralph Bellamy was always played the guy that didn't get it's right. Yeah Yeah, you know Cary Grant always won the, yeah. And his Girl Friday, that's one of the other movies that he did and then what was the one he did,

the Frank Capra one, oh shoot, I can't think of it. Bellamy? Yeah. Well he did a couple of the movies, where he played the guy that doesn't get the girl. So what happened after you... Just take us back. You know, we're jumping around like crazy here, but take us back to what happened after the Blackboard Jungle.

You're working on the chinchilla farm. Oh, I forgot. Yes, I'm still on the chinchilla farm. What was the next big turning point? I'm still making 50 bucks a week. I made 50 bucks a week when I was doing Mr. Roberts and 50 bucks a week when I was cleaning chinchilla dropping pads.

You see what? It's all show business, right? Why get out of show business? Was that around the time? What happened was that Craig Stevens, who I'd done Mr. Roberts with, was going to do a pilot at CBS with Alan Hale Jr., Richard Jekyll, and Lola Albright. And it was a Navy thing called the Mighty O. And there

was a character in it by the name of Schnarkle. He was a guy with a big nose that could smell anything. And they said, hey, I got just the guy for you. You know, I did Mr. Roberts with him, Jamie Farr. Well, at that time it was Jamil Farr. That was my name that I had before I changed it to Jamie Farr. And I changed it because everybody would call me Schlumiel. So I decided to change it to Jamie, then they called me Jaime, so you can't win.

So at any rate, so they brought me in. I got the part and actually Jack Prince, And then they called me Jaime, so you can't win. So at any rate, so they brought me in. I got the part. And actually, Jack Prince, who I had seen as a kid at the Paramount Theatre in Toledo, Ohio, he had this stubby K-roll of Nicely Nicely in the road company of Guys and Dolls, which Jack Jones' dad was doing, Alan Jones. Wow. Alan Alda's father, Robert Alda, was doing it on Broadway. And I got to see

Jack Prince and then here I am, he's playing Cookie to my snorkel in this pilot called The Mighty O. Well, the thing didn't sell, but Sherwood Schwartz, who is Red Skelton's head writer, saw the pilot and they were looking for some new characters for Red. And they said, hey, we don't have a service character for him. Why don't we have this Red Skelton play Cookie in the show and we'll bring this kid in and have him play Schnorkel to Red Skelton's Cookie. So what happened was I wound up, first I had to meet Red. The producer, Cecil Barker, took me up to Red's house. He had the old May Company mansion. The people, the May up to Red's house. He had the old May Company mansion. The people, the May family had owned it.

Red owned the house. And he drove me up there. I went through these iron gates. And Red opens the door. And he's got a tucan bird on his arm. And he's in a Japanese kimono. And he takes a look at my nose. And he says, when your mother was pregnant pregnant was she frightened by an anteater?

Now you are... Go ahead. You are also... Well anyway what happened was he took a liking to me and I did the show and I actually showed up in the show he finds a baby that he wants to adopt and it's a Korean baby and we stop in San Francisco to adopt the baby but they say you have to be married. So what they did is they dressed me up as his wife. So that was the first time he had done anything in drag like that and he brings me into Olin Suley who's the person who's got the adoption papers and I'm supposed to be convincing him that I'm Red's wife. Well, Red broke up.

It became a terrific relationship, and they kept bringing me back to do this Skelton show. I wrapped that one up fast for you. Now, you are also jumping all over the place. A regular on the Gong Show. Okay, the Gong Show. We like to jump decades here, Jamie. No, I know. Yeah.

Okay. What happened was we were up in San Francisco when they were starting to sell mash into syndication and Chuck Beres had just sold the nighttime version of The Gong Show with Gary Owens and we had heard about it nobody knew what the show was about and then they decided to try it on on the network with John John I can't think of his last name he did that's incredible I think John Davidson no not John John Barbara John Barber John Barber.

John Barber. John Barber was going to be the host of the daytime version on NBC. And Chuck was producing it. And the first three guests on the show was Joanne Worley, Jack Cassidy, and me. And they had Milton DeLug in the band. And Milton DeLug in the band were in these carny outfits.

They had the straw hats and these weird jackets on and that and John Barber was the host of the show and they I mean listen Jack Cassidy, Joanne Worley and Jamie Farr you know we're not Clifton Fadiman we're not people who are producers and the thing we're fellow actors and we're supposed to be making comments about the acts that they had on. John Barber was looking for another Mario Lanza. He didn't realize what the show was about and we weren't allowed to do anything. So we did the first couple of shows and then we took a break.

You know, they did five in a day. So Chuck comes into my dressing room. He says, Jamie, what's wrong with the show? I said, Chuck, you know, if you crap wrap it in a in a nice package I said first of all, why don't you get the guys out of the carny outfit and put them in tuxedos? Have like the Joanne Worley the lady on the panel be in a beautiful evening gown and the guys in Tuxedos and we watching a guy crack eggs on his head do the opposite way. He says yeah, you're right. What a great idea So but John Barber never got it eggs on his head, do the opposite way. He says, yeah, you're right. What a great idea.

But John Barber never got it. He never got what the show was about. And that's when Chuck took over and started doing his routine with the show. And it became, you know, crazy time. And so that's how that all happened. Later on, they kept trying to do the Gong show without Chuck and without our panel, but the panel got weirder than the people that they were bringing on. So they lost what the show was about, which was to have fun, the panel having fun with the characters. Go ahead, Gil. How did Chuck Barish used to introduce you?

Oh, various other ways. He'd do some nose jokes or whatever the heck it is. It was JP Morgan, who was the dangerous one. She was always like, yeah, you'd see me trying to fight her off at the gong with an act or something. I was a lot of times I would try to fight her up because she was trying to expose her bosom. I was just I was just going to ask about that.

And and and I and the time I wasn't there, she actually did it. And oh my goodness, Sanders in practices came out to the stage. It was usually Artie Johnson, JP, and me were the favors that they had. And then there was the famous popsicle twins that they had. Oh, you remember that one? Yeah. Where they erotically licked popsicles and the thing and oh my gosh the audience went crazy. I tell you, I think JP's famous line that she said on the show is that's how she got started in the business or something. I don't know. Because I think Chuck Barrett used to introduce you as he of large nose.

Probably, you know, all those kind of things that he did. One of the shows that we did, John Dorsey was the director of it and we could do anything on that show and get away with it. Artie and I and JP got tired of Chuck clapping his hands and telling those terrible jokes that he read off the cue cards. And this was spontaneous. We asked the prop people, do you have any duct tape and rope? And they said, yeah.

And so when we came out of commercial, we actually got up. Now, John Dorsey, the director, didn't know what we were going to do. And Chuck didn't know what we were going to do. We grabbed Chuck, tied him up, put duct tape on his mouth, and threw him backstage, and then took over the show. And I clapped my hands, Artie would read the cue cards, JP would do something else, and John Dorsey would cut back to Chuck trying to get out of the ropes and the duct tape.

That was all spontaneous. It was totally ad lib. It was really one of the funniest shows we've ever done. And what was Artie Johnson like to work with? Oh, Artie was a lot of fun. Yeah, and he's such a wonderful, the things that he did on Laugh-In, the dirty old man with the walnettos with Lily Tomlin,

all the other, the German character that he did. He was just, all those people on Laugh-In were just terrific. Actually, we got some of the writers from them later to come on to our mash, you know, John Rappaport and I think Jim Mulligan and a couple of other Laugh-In writers joined our group. They were wonderful comedians.

There's a story in the book about, is it Chuck Barris, that he scrawled something in a men's room? You know what I'm referring to? Stop me before I create again. Oh, okay, Okay, yeah. Because he was created because of all these shows that were pouring out of him? Yes, yes, yes. There was one time I was, I forgot where I was. I was in, I think I was in the, I was in Canada. I think it was with my wife, I was doing a stage show up there, and it was a day off, and my wife was visiting and we were out having lunch, and a woman who

had had too many drinks in the room, she loved mash, but she also loved the gong show, and she pulls her blouse down in front of my wife and everybody in there thinks she had too many drinks, and she said, would you sign my brassiere and I said ma'am I write bigger than that. Speaking since you brought up game shows you you not only were on so many game shows like Super Password and you were on the Magnificent even the Magnificent Marble Machine which we've talked about on this show. That was, Heder Quigley and Goodson Todd, and Seth Barris, all the big people in the game shows.

You did every game show. You did Stumpers, you did, which ones am I forgetting? You did Hollywood Squares, you did Match Game. Can I tell you, one day I actually did, I did 20 game shows in two days. Okay, I went to NBC to do Hollywood Squares. And yeah, I think Hollywood Squares was NBC. Yeah, anyway, I did those shows. And as I was coming out, you did five in a day, Ruthie Goldberg, who was the casting director

of the Gong Show said, Jamie, somebody didn't show up. Can you do five of the Gong Shows? She says, we got your tuxedo. So I said, okay. So I'd done five Hollywood Squares and then I'd done five Gong Shows. The next day I was supposed to do my five Gong Shows with them on Sunday. So I do my five Gong Shows. I'm coming out and somebody didn't show up at Hollywood Squares. So they said, would you do Hollywood Squares? I said, sure, I'll do what Vincent Price does. He used to bring a jacket, a blazer, and five different tie changes,

because, you know, a blazer looks like a blazer. So he didn't have to make the five changes. He would change his ties. So I said, okay, give me five ties. I'll put a blazer on. I did five Hollywood Squares. That's 20 game shows in two days I did. And you created some. I don't think people know that you created game shows in two days. I did and you you created some

I don't think people know that you created game shows You developed game shows for developed game shows with a friend of mine a wonderful wonderful actor Who actually was from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and went to high school with Leslie Nielsen and Robert Goulet His name was Eddie Carroll. He passed away He was my partner and the irony of it is later on he used to do the I do a one-man show of Jack Benny and he was wonderful at that so he did try to remember the title of of the show that he did and then Ironically enough later. I did the one-man

George Burns show that's right versus, you know, Jack Benny and George Burns were dear friends. Eddie Carroll, who's now Jack Benny, and now I'm doing George Burns say good night, Gracie. I had to talk and I had to cigar and I smacked my lips and I did all the things that George Burns did. And at the beginning of the show, he says, you know, I don't know where I am, but it feels like nothing's ever happened

here and nothing ever will. I'm in Buffalo. Was Jack Carter the host of one of your game show pilots? Yes, we did that in Palm Springs. Jack used to call my buddy a certain name. He'd call us two Jewish names that were not complimentary. What you said in the book. Jack was a funny man, but he was very, very difficult to get along with. Rest his soul. He was a very, very funny man. What was the two names? I'm trying to remember what they are.

I can't, I was probably Schmucko and you know, something. I get the impression from reading your book, Jamie, that you weren't wild about Joey Bishop either. Joey was kind of tough. He was... We've heard from other people. When we did the movie, yeah, when we did the movie, Who's Mining the Mint, Joey, of course, was one of the Rat Pack, worked with Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford. I had worked with Peter Lawford years before he was doing a TV series called Dear Phoebe. And that was one of my first jobs that I got in the industry, along with Blackboard Jungle. And it was, in those days, a lot of the shows were by one sponsor.

I think Campbell Soup was the sponsor of Dear Phoebe. And so, and then of course, you know, we worked with Dino and Sammy and everything else. And this is the movie where I had to speak Italian. And Howie wanted me to come into the room and he was going to have the camera just follow me from one person to the other to explain in Italian that the money has gone off, you know, and I need somebody. And Joey, of course, is my cousin. He's the one that brings me into the caper. And Joey's not in the room at the time.

He's trying to get some ink off of his face that he had gotten when they were trying to get money in the mint. And so I had to go to Victor Bono, Walter Brennan, Dorothy Provine, Jack Guilford, Milton Burrell, and everybody explaining to him. And finally, Joey comes out, and I finally, I have one line to Joey. And Joey comes to me, actually. And he comes to me, and I have ready to give my one line out,

because we're only doing this in one take. We're not doing any cover shots at all. And Joey stops the thing. He says, hey, you're standing in my key light so and now I have to do the whole thing all over again going to everybody everybody again and We get to Joey we come out to do the thing and again He stops the camera all I had was one line to him could they blow la policía and He stops it again. He was doing it on purpose and finally Howie Morris said, you know,

Joey, you're not working with the rat pack and he says, the next one I'm going to print, don't you dare, don't you dare cut this. So we got to the thing and I made sure that nobody was in anybody's key light or anything else and finally got the line out. But he really wasn't very nice at that point. That's a, those are kind of rest his soul. He passed on, but you know, those are cheap tricks that you do in the business when you don't care for somebody and you, you pull those, those stunts on, on people. Um, that's a really tough. It's, it's funny doing a show like this.

And I was just saying with Gilda, we've done probably 150, 160 guests, and the same people. Come on. We've heard from more than one person about Joey Bishop. We've heard from more than one person about Danny Kay being difficult. Johnny Carson, you read my story about Johnny Carson. The Carson stuff in your book, too, was a bit surprising. Did Danny Kay hit you in the hand during a sketch and almost

break your hand? Yes, there was a sketch. He did break my hand. It was a sketch. I think we were doing a sketch on Viva Zapata and he took his hat off. It had a big buckle on the thing. And he started, you know, how he used to hit somebody like that. And he hit my hand several times with the buckle. And at the time I didn't realize it, and this was in rehearsal. So they finally, they took me down to the CBS Nurses office like that. And what had happened is, yeah,

he had broken one of my knuckles on my hand. And I had to, and you know, I still did the show on the thing. Yeah, he wasn't very considerate. He was brilliant, a brilliant performer, absolutely brilliant. I would tell you that he was absolutely as an audience, he was one of my favorite performers. Everything he did, Sacred Life of Walter Mitty, Hans Christian Andersen, brilliant actor.

And sing, dance, did, you know, in White Christmas, look at the dancing steps that he did. Sure. Yeah, he was absolutely wonderful, but not very considerate. Yeah. That's what we hear that he didn't like other people getting the laugh. That's kind of what we heard. How could you dislike Art Carney? I mean, Art Carney is the sweetest man in the world. How could you dislike Art Carney? Right. This is impossible for me to believe. He was a sweet man. Tell us about, since we brought Marvin up, tell us about the Chicago

Teddy Bears. Oh that's Chicago Teddy Bears that originally was a high Avra back. Yeah. That was direct from F troop. F troop which is how I got my part on MASH because I played a stand-up comic Indian on that was Gene Reynolds directed. They gave me all of Henny Youngman's jokes, but they made him Indian's jokes. They said, take my wife, please, take my squaw, please, and all that kind of stuff. And Gene remembered me so that when Larry came up with this character, Clinger, Gene said, let's get Jamie to do the thing. But Hi was the producer and director of The Chicago Teddy Bears,

which was a comedy takeoff on the Untouchables. And that was a great cast. What a cast. Banner was in that. Art Metrano. Art Metrano was in it. Mickey Shaughnessy. Oh, Mike Mazzurkey.

Yes, Mike Mazzurkey. I'm trying to think of who the female lead was in that one. It was a terrific cast. Dean Jones. Dean Jones, of course. He was the star of the show. Yes. Anyway, the show sold and we went on Friday nights on CBS against some of the bigger shows that NBC had. But what happened was, oh gosh, Richard Thorpe, Jerry Thorpe's son. Richard Thorpe was a big director at MGM. Jerry Thorpe later did a lot of TV things and so he became the producer of the show and I think Bullock and Allen, Harvey Bullock and Ray Allen were the writers. They were big supporters of mine.

Whatever something was going on, they would write something for me in it. And for some reason, Art Metrano was a bit difficult on the show to work with. He was trying to really be the star of the show. I mean, he was the Frank Nitti character, but it was Dean Jones who was the star of the show. And there was a lot of problems on that show. It lasted I think only 10 shows. We were supposed to do 13 and we were getting killed in the ratings. But what an ambitious show. Yeah. And the production design and the, you know. Oh everything was great in that. Yeah. It's a shame it didn't go.

And Marvin. Dean was a sweetheart. He was a what? Dean passed away also. Yeah, recently. He's just a sweet sweet sweet man. Yeah. Anything else? Yeah Another actor I always loved was Jack Guilford Jack was the most wonderful actor. I mean Save the Tiger. Isn't he great in that? Oh, you like that movie Yeah, Jack of course was on Broadway, you know And the funny thing happened on the way to the Forum, which Larry Gelbert had written.

What a wonderful, wonderful comedian he was, and a wonderful actor. And of course, you know, he was blacklisted for many, many years because he was part of the gang in New York City that was accused of being a communist. So it was a pleasure working with Jack. He and his wife were two of the sweetest people. You couldn't find a nicer person in your lifetime than Jack Guilford. And Howie Morris respected him just as we all did on the show. Norman Maurer, who is the producer of that show,

was married to Moe Howard's daughter, Joanne. Oh yes, yes. Of the Three Stooges, yeah. And Moe was actually on the set a couple of times. And they actually, when they got their star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame, they invited me there and somebody did a book on the Three Stooges and they asked me to write the foreword to it. So I did, because I used to love them as a kid. I mean, they were violent, this could be, but absolutely funny. I got to know Moe, and I got to know, I didn't know Curly. I didn't know Shemp, but I got to know Larry, Larry Fine, because I was in New York when I was doing Guys and Dolls,

and he was living there, and his sister used to call me all the time. And I got to know, one of my favorite comedians was Joey Besser. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah, we love him. He was on the Joey Bishop show. Oh, I saw him in a movie, Hey Rookie, when I was a kid at the Little Neighborhood Theater

in Toledo, Ohio. And he was in the Army, and he was doing all those things, pinching the sergeant. Oh, I'll give you such a slap. I'll give you a, oh, for goodness sake, stop. And he'd give you a pinch or anything like that. You know how terrible Harry Cohen was to them. He was just miserable. Well, that's the famous Red Skelton line. You know, when Harry Cohen died, he had a thousand people at his funeral. And Red Skelton said, you see, you give the people what

they want and they'll show up. There's an odd story in the book about Red Skelton being a bit of a joker and projecting you know what I'm talking about? Yes, he used to rent a hotel room and he'd get porno films and show them against the wall in an alley and have to get the reaction from people walking by. Project them out the window. Out the window. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast, but first a word from our sponsor. I heard a story about Ritz-Skelton that during rehearsals he would get really obscene. Yes. It was the dirty hour and every executive at CPS would have the dirty hour. Yeah, I got the good fortune. I worked with Errol Flynn on that, Peter Lorry, George Raff, Boris Karloff, Jane Mansfield.

Gosh, I'm trying to remember all of them that I had the pleasure of working with on the show. It was a lot of fun. And of course, they all loved Red. He was one of the sweetest men and one of the most giving comedians ever. He wasn't like, you know, Joey Bishop or Johnny Carson or Danny Kay. He allowed you to get laughs on that on as was as did Jack Benny, you know I mean that Jack Benny always let Jack Benny was usually the brunt of the joke. So I Heard yes, I'm sorry like during the rehearsal. He'd be really obscene and disgusting Mm-hmm, and then when they were filming he was like kind of do like stuff that looks like you. Yeah. Yeah You're absolutely right.

He'd go right to the edge, you know, and he goes, no, I better not say that. And of course the audience would laugh. And the guys in the booth would be laughing. It was Seymour Burns was the director and Pappy Cunningham was the changer and Willie Dahl was the stage manager. And when Red passed away, Red was married three times. He was married to Edna, the first wife who got him the contract at MGM at NBC. They got divorced. Then he married Georgia Davis. Georgia Davis was, she had red hair. She was little red. He was big red and they had two

children, Valentina and Richard Skelton. And that's when Richard Skelton passed away at 12 years old of leukemia. And so I was with Red, and then I got drafted into the US Army and went to Korea and Japan after I'd been in New York City. And Red got me from the State Department and got me VIP status. And we flew on a United Nations

airplane from Tokyo, from Tachikawa, Japan to Seoul, Korea and entertained the troops all the way up to the 38th parallel. And when, what happened was when Red was leaving to go back to America, he said, you come and see me because when you try to get your career started again, it's going to be very difficult and I want to make sure that you're looked after. So Red left and went back and I'll tell you that story. Then what happened though, Georgia later, Georgia had committed suicide on the same day that Richard Skelton, their son passed away, so Red would only have one day of morning. And then red married Lothian. Uh, Lothian was the daughter of, uh, uh, Greg, uh, the great cinematographer

that did citizen, Greg Toland, Greg Toland, Lothian, Toland. And, uh, that was the person. So when red passed away, Lothian called me and she said, would you be one of the pallbearers for red? Red passed away, Lothian called me and she said, would you be one of the Paul Bearers for Red? And so I was Bob Hope, Milton Berle, me and Willie Dahl, the stage manager. I told him we were the Paul Bearers. He's buried at the same place that Jack Benny and George Burns are in Glendale at Forest

Lawn Cemetery in a crypt there. I should tell you the story. Actually when I got out of the army and started to try to get my career going I couldn't get it I couldn't get a job my dad passed away they were living in they had moved from Toledo to Arizona Phoenix Arizona so I was gonna have to quit and go home to support my mom we didn't have any money and I went to say goodbye to red at CBS and he says no no you're not going anywhere that's when you got the quote.

You're a doctor of comedy, just like I am. He pulled out some big hundred dollar bills, took some off. He says, send that home to your mom. He says, you're under contract to me as of right now. And I'll see you up at the house at Bel Air tomorrow morning. So that's what I was with Redd for a whole year. I did his show. Did the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas with them. I did all of the McKinsey Machine sound effects for all of his sketches that he did,

the little old man watching the parade and any of the other things, because he knew my comedy timing, I could do that for him. I actually wasn't on stage with him, but what I did is I was part of the production of the shows. We played the Chez Paris in Chicago, Fountain Blue Hotel in Miami Beach, the Moulin Rouge in Los Angeles. It was a great year I had with Red. I learned an awful lot from him.

Oh, and we can't leave out a TV movie we've discussed several times. I almost forgot. Murder Can Hurt You. That was Aaron Spelling. That was a take off on the one that Neil Simon had done. Oh, Murder By Death. With all the great stars. Yeah. We had Victor Buono was supposed to be a member of Ironsides. Oh, sure, sure. Yes.

And you and John Beiner was Starsky and Hutch. Yes, Starsky and Hutch. But Victor Bono's name was Ironsides with Raymond Burr. His name in the show was Iron Bottom. And Burt Young was Palumbo instead of Columbo. What a cast. And he had, when you open this closet, he had nothing but dirty raincoats in the closet.

And Marty Allen? Marty Allen was, he was Stavros. Oh, he was, right, he was Gavin McLeod's. Gavin McLeod, yeah, Gavin McLeod instead of Kojak was Nojak. Gavin McLeod's Gavin McLeod. Yeah, Gavin McLeod instead of Kojak was no Jack John Biner was a was Stutzky I think You were so I was so I was that ski. He was Trying to remember oh

Connie Stevens was Sergeant Pepper. Oh, she was Angie Dickinson. Sergeant Saul, Sergeant Saul. Yeah. Instead of Pepper. I'm trying to remember who else was in it. Tony Danson, I think was in it.

He was, instead of Beretta, he was something else. That was a lot of fun. Uh, that was a really funny, funny movie. I think you can pick it up on YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun. Come in, Rabbit 3.

Stutsky, Patch, where are you? You sure you dropped your sunglasses down there, Stutsky? I'm sure. There's plenty more where they came from. Whatever you say. Oh. I'm sure there's plenty more where they came from. Whatever you say. I think your Zinky's beeping. Oh! Get it, will you hatch? I'm wet. Oh, sure.

Hey, I'm wet too. Yeah, and not too bright. Hey, friend, throw me a Zinky, will ya? You're gonna kill yourself with this junk. Stop nagging, I'm trying to cut down. Wanna help me look for my Zinky? Haha! Sure.

You wanna talk about MASH or you want to tell us about Edwin? Oh, Edwin. I love Edwin. Yeah, people can find out about MASH, but Edwin was like the father to Red Skelton, that Red Skelton was like the father to me. And I love telling this story. There's a little boy, he's in Vincennes, Indiana, and he's selling newspapers. And he's really energetically selling these newspapers.

And a gentleman in a Homburg hat and a three-piece suit comes by. And he says, young man, he says, boy, you're really trying to sell these newspapers. Why are you trying to do that? He says, well, sir, he says, my favorite comedian is playing at the Pantheon Theater here in Vincennes, Indiana. And he says, if I sell all my papers, I'll have enough money to buy a ticket. The man says, well, he says, I'll be happy to do that.

Let me take all of those newspapers. Here's the money for it. And he says, incidentally, I know the stage door manager there. He said, I'm going to give you a little card, sign your name. He says, how would you like to meet Ed Winn backstage? Oh, he said, that would be just great, sir. He says, okay, you give that card. Good luck to you. So the little boy goes to the theater and he sees Ed Wynn on stage, who's the perfect fool, has the

glasses on and the thing and he's got, he's riding his piano bicycle across the thing. He's got his 11 foot pole that you wouldn't touch somebody with a 10 foot pole and doing all those kinds of gags. The little boy comes backstage after the show's over and he gives the car to the stage door manager. He says, oh yes. He says yes, Mr. Wynn's waiting for you. Go into the that dressing room over there with the star on it. So the little boy knocks on the door and the voice says come in and the little boy opens the door and there in front of the mirror taking off his

makeup is the man in the Homburg hat, three-piece suit who bought all the newspapers from him. It was Ed Winn. And the little boy is Richard Redskelton. That's how they met. And that's a true story. Wow. And later when Ed Winn got the part in Requiem for a Heavyweight on the Playhouse 90, Red was next door at the Red Skelton soundstage and had to go over and tell Ed that he could do that part in there because Ed was so frightened to death of trying to do a serious role in the thing.

And it was Red that went over, encouraged him to do the play. And I got to work with Ed on The Greatest Story Ever Told, so it was wonderful. And he gave me three words. He said, Jamie, when you're in this business, I'm going to give you three words. And you must live by these three words. I said, what are they, Mr. Winn? He says, save your money. You got to have go screw yourself money when somebody offers you a part and you don't want

to do it. Go screw yourself money. And can you a part and you don't want to do it. Have go screw yourself money. And can you do an Edwin imitation for us? Oh Edwin, no, it's the silliest thing I ever saw. He says, I used to, let me see, I would be making this thing. I'd put some salt in there and some pepper in there and I'd taste it. Oh, you know what? Needs more salt. Oh, you know what? It needs more pepper.

You know what? It needs more salt. You know what? It needs more pepper. He says,? It needs more salt. You know what? It needs more pepper. He says, what are you making? He says, salt and pepper. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha the money. Stay with the money. Stay with the money. And Steve McQueen gave you advice too that you didn't take. No, what was that? Don't forget to take your asshole pills. Oh, that was a, I might've been, was that Steve McQueen or was that Burt Reynolds? Okay, according to the book. Try to remember. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I work with so many people. You know, you have a conglomerate of people. Max von Sydow, who is Ingmar Bergman's great actor

in Sweden, and I'm working with him. Then I work with Milton Berle. And some of these. I mean, what a career. Not bad. To have the other people that you work with. William Holden. I did the first mini series, which was The Blue Night with Bill Holden.

And he's the one that actually helped me get my raise at 20th Century Fox. I wasn't making very much money at that time. And we were doing the show and he says, Jamie, he says, let me tell you something. We had a lot of problems with Harry Cohn at Columbia when Glenn Ford and I were there. He says, what you got to do, you got to just be careful that you don't hold a gun to them. And I thought, hey, what a great idea. So I got a prop gun from the MASH department.

And I went over to the guy, the money guy's name, his name was Beckman. I'm trying to remember his first name. And I kicked open the door where he was, and I held the gun at him. He said, listen, you S.O.B., this is the way the deal is going to go. And he says, and I held the gun at him. He said, listen, you S.O.B, this is the way the deal's going to go. And he says, you're crazy, you're crazy.

He ducked under the desk. Anyway, we met, and I got my raise from Mr. Beckman thing after William Holden told me what to do. Not bad for a kid from Toledo, Jamie, that you wind up working. You're in a John Wayne movie. You're working with Von Sydow. Every comedian, every major comedian. It's been a wonderful life.

Quoting James Stewart and Frank Capra. So yeah. And now listen, I'm with Gilbert and you. And let me tell you, may I say something to you? And I say this again from my heart. What an honor to be part of all the personalities that you have interviewed. Thank you for selecting me.

I do appreciate it. Oh, of course. Oh, thank you. You're the perfect guest, and we could talk about MASH forever. I've got cards on it here that we won't get to, and like you say, people can find out about MASH anywhere. Oh yeah, that's easy.

Tell us about your pal, William Christopher. Bill was absolutely one of the most wonderful people I have ever met and one of the brightest people. He would be on the set when we weren't shooting and he would be studying Homeric Greek. Can you imagine? We all said who the hell you gonna talk to? He was a great traveler. He loved, he and his wife, Barbara, uh, loved to travel. They've gone to practically every country in the world. Uh, Bill, uh, matter of fact, uh, uh, Barbara, his widow is, uh, going to be having a memorial for, uh, Bill in April. Uh, I don't want to date this podcast.

No, it'll, we'll put it up in plenty. It's ongoing. We're all want to date this podcast. No, we'll put it up in plenty of time. We're all going to be coming in. Alan will be coming in from New York and Loretta will be coming in from New York. And of course, Mike Farrell and I are out here in California. And those that are left, you know, we lost, the first one we lost was McLean Stevenson. Then I think we lost Larry Lindow, who was Major Burns. McLean was Henry Blake, Colonel Blake. We lost Harry Morgan. And Wayne Rogers last year. Wayne was the last one that left, yes, that we lost.

As a matter of fact, I was at Wayne's memorial, and at the memorial was another dear friend of mine who we just lost, Mike Connors. I just heard from his daughter and that they're having a memorial for Mike in March. Mike was a wonderful guy, just a delight. I met Mike when his name was Touch Connors and he was doing a show called Tightrope and it was over at CBS on the Skelton set that I met Mike when his name was Touch Connors and he was doing a show called Tightrope and it was over at CBS on the Skelton set that I met Mike. That has to be 1950s. And then we lost Bill. Bill had cancer. It wasn't cancer of his lungs, but it was cancer somewhere else and we thought it was in

remission and the cancer moved to his lungs and he was gone very very quickly. What a very sweet sweet man we all know. We call him our beloved Bill. Underrated actor and you guys toured in the odd couple together? Yes we did yeah he was he was Felix and I was Oscar naturally you know and we had a great time we did we did One Nighters bus and truck kind of thing that we did. It was, and Barbara would join us on the bus and then my wife, Joy, would come in and join us on the bus. And it, it was a lot of fun.

It was such a pleasure to work with him. And I can't let anybody leave who's worked with Milton Pearl. Uh-oh. Watch it, James. Do you know what I'm gonna ask you? No, I have not seen it. I did not see it. But I heard he just took out enough to win. Wait a minute. He worked with Forrest Tucker too.

Yeah, with Forrest Tucker. Yeah. These are all inside jokes, so let's keep them that way. Jamie, maybe we can... We'll zip it up now. Maybe we could sell a couple of books, because I tell you, the book is fun, just far fun, and it's... Well, you know, it's out of print. Oh, is it out of print? Well, I got it on Amazon pretty easily.

Yeah, but it is out of print, and I do have some here at the house, but I'm a big believer in my church. I'm Eastern Orthodox. Danny Thomas was a Maronite Catholic and I'm Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox, and we're building our new church. So what I thought as I take these books and do a thing that we're doing right now with an audience and then sell the books to them and all the proceeds go to our church.

You should. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. The book's not only fun and full of anecdotes, but it's inspirational because it's really the story of… The St. Jude story, yeah, that I have in there. Yeah, the St. Jude story, the Capra letter. We can't tell that, it's really the story of St. Jude's story. Yeah, that I have the St. Jude story the cap or the We can't tell that it's too long. There's there there's so much in there for anybody that that we didn't talk about Carl Reiner or Dick Van Dyke

That's why we got to have you back. Oh, yeah, okay We'll have you back with the deal. The book was inspiring as well as funny and it was really a pleasure pleasure to read thank you very very much and and again, I you know, I'm so honored to be a part of all the people that you've talked to. And I will turn, let's see, in July, July 1, I'll turn 83. So I've been in the business now for 64 years as a professional. Jamil, you've done good.

Yeah, thank you. Alan Aldis' first name is Alfonso. We used to call him Alfonso. They used to call me Jamil, you've done good. Yeah, thank you. Allen, all this first name is Alfonso. We used to call him Alfonso. They used to call me Jamil. Alfonso de Brutso. That's right. I should start wrapping up. This is Gilbert Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's

amazing colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopad Padre and our guest today has been the wonderful Jamie Farr. Thank you very much. Bye bye. The End