Club Random with Bill Maher - Richard Dreyfuss | Club Random with Bill Maher

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

Bill Maher and Richard Dreyfuss on: how the Me Too movement started with the big fish, Mafia wives and looking the other way, the time Bill passed out and why, Richard’s first line in a movie, why R...ichard passed on Jaws – TWICE, and Richard’s Close Encounter with the Queen of England. 

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Club and no. How are you? How are you? Well, it's been a long time. Yeah. Do you remember the show we did together? Which one, the funny it only 200? Or my doing your show?
Starting point is 00:00:13 1987. Yeah. Your show about the Constitution. Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen it at all? I saw it in 1987. I mean, since then, no.
Starting point is 00:00:22 Have you? Yeah, shit. A lot. What do you like Norman Desmond? You're running it in your library every night? I'm ready. I'm ready for my close-in. Uh, Jimil. But, no, I'm, there's a whole story about that story.
Starting point is 00:00:38 Well, people I know what we're talking about, so I'm going to tell them, like, in the 20th anniversary of the Constitution, which, which of course was 1787. Kids, I mean, kids that they don't even know 1776, but kids out there, that's when America declared it's independence, but it took an 11 more years before we had a constitution and Richard wanted to do a so celebrating that because the Constitution is kind of a big deal. And for some reason,
Starting point is 00:01:07 me, a young kid up in coming comic, new to Hollywood, was, I can't remember what I did in that show. I remember it was you, were a huge movie star who wanted to do a show about the Constitution, and I was a young comic who would do anything. So I was like thrilled beyond. The show opens with you. Really? And it is carried for the first 15 minutes, maybe, by you and Jeff's, Jeff, Jeff Tamber. Who's that? But Jeffery Tamber?
Starting point is 00:01:42 Yeah. Was in that? Yeah. Was that that? Yeah. Holy, bro. I never realized how much of this of the show itself, you don't know about, because they, they, I said to them. I was being sued. I was not being sued.
Starting point is 00:02:01 I was suing them or I was trying to know. Disney. Disney? Yeah. What day do you do? We said to them, they called us first and said, we know that we're going to be talking about Owing Richard something in and around, some hundreds of thousands of dollars. And on that following Monday morning, they called, the same lady called and said,
Starting point is 00:02:30 okay, so we're gonna start with us knowing that we owe you at least $5,000. For what? What did we do? I still don't understand the gist of this story. Well, what did we do wrong? I did 11 films for them. Okay, but now they're suing you.
Starting point is 00:02:50 No, no, no. I was gonna sue them. And it was the same thing that always happens with when you do 11 films, you know, they just, they take the bringer. Right. Yeah, you have to, okay, now I see you. Okay, so you have to sue people in Hollywood.
Starting point is 00:03:08 That is true to get your money. They do have ways of, even movies, was it coming to America? Some movie like that, which made $125 million, which at the time was, you know, today would be like, I don't know, closer to a billion. It was a giant hit. And they somehow found a way to hide all the money.
Starting point is 00:03:27 Right. Like, well, we didn't really make that money. I don't know where it went. Somebody paid for that swimming pool, but I guess it wasn't that money. And someone paid for your yacht. Yeah. But that's how you know you've really made it is when you have to sue for your money. I mean, until then, you're just a snorer.
Starting point is 00:03:44 You know, you're just, you're So, it's good that you had that long stretch where your top dog and got to sue the studios. By the way, who hasn't had a beef with Disney? They fired me in 2001, with their own ABC. I was never really bitter about it. I was shocked that a show called Politically Incorrect could stay on a Disney property for almost six years. That to me was, it was like the Roman Empire. It's not that it fell.
Starting point is 00:04:15 It's like how long it lasted. Yeah. So I didn't, I understood where they were coming from. And, you know, I never, ever took any of those corporate feuds, or made a corporate food. I knew that a lot of corporate heads at the time didn't like me. And, you know, they weren't completely wrong.
Starting point is 00:04:37 I was like 40 and still like, you know, I don't know, they wanted me to be married and, you know, they are much more comfortable with that type. They didn't like seeing pictures of me out at nightclubs at 4 in the morning. Because I was doing a show that was like, you know, political and not issues. I mean, people took a jersey. Why they can't take, they learned to take seriously. Somebody who still wanted to be in a nightclub and I don't know why.
Starting point is 00:05:02 Anywhere everybody wouldn't. But yeah, they, I could tell they didn't, weren't crazy about me, but nobody ever did anything terrible. It's fucking show business. We're so lucky to be in it at the end. Right at the moment when things that were not serious became deadly serious,
Starting point is 00:05:25 like the me-to-moving. Yes, okay. Deadly serious. Like? Like the Me Too movement. Yes, okay. And that became Deadly serious. So. Yeah, I mean, it was always Deadly serious. Nobody ever talked about it, but I mean, it is amazing how quickly that cascaded from Harvey Weinstein, you know, which is interesting when you look back because sometimes when people are solving crimes,
Starting point is 00:05:46 they certainly in movies because you have to roll it out in for 22 hours, but you know, they start with the low level criminals and work their way up to the big fish. You know, you don't get to have your ultimate fight with the big bad guy at the beginning. You got to go through all his henchmen, then you got to kill his number one henchmen. That's always like Gary Bucy. And then you get to kill the big, big bad guy who's the problem.
Starting point is 00:06:14 But in this one, they went right for Harvey Weinstein. We killed the bad, we killed the baddest dude right at the beginning of the movie. And then I think even Bill Cosby was soon after that. So that was like, then we got, you know, they bagged like what's the talk about him for a second. Bill Cosby, did you know him? Sure I did. How did you come to know him? Well, first it was because I knew him, my partner, Judith, was a very old friend of theirs as a couple. Okay. But I also knew something else, which was, if you look back at that decade.
Starting point is 00:06:55 Which decade are we talking about this 70s? 70s. Okay. And I- Which is when his nefarious, well, I guess even the 60s, I mean, it is amazing that he was doing it and getting away with it, not just year after year, but decade after decade. Yeah, and here's the funny thing.
Starting point is 00:07:13 Ray people in bell bottoms, and he raped them in spanks. I mean, he was probably America's worst serial rapist ever. Certainly. Well, I have my- was probably America's worst serial rapist ever. Well, I am. I am. Well, maybe Harvey was working. I'm feeling about all of that is that he was the most prominent of the upper level guys who dated
Starting point is 00:07:42 beautiful girls. And at that moment, really, there was no difference between him and what he did with his girls. But he was married. Yeah, he was married. OK, well, you're not supposed to date when you're married.
Starting point is 00:07:57 I've heard. I heard they get mad. Women, they get mad at these little things you do. You know, like you, you know, let them walk ahead of you going into the restaurant. I'm sorry. I was trying to help, you know, and not telling them that you're married little things. It just bugged them, women. But, but really, I mean, he was leading this double life. And I, I, what do we think of the wife that she could not have not known, right? She knew and didn't care. And well, no, it wasn't that she didn't care. It was that
Starting point is 00:08:34 they went on doing that and what was important about the couple, the couple under scrutiny, The couple, the couple under scrutiny, was they had to work that out between the two of them. But what was completely overlooked and, you know, they were... Stopped under the rug? Huh? Stopped under the rug? No, it was that the real deal was that people just ignored it if the wife did not make a stink. So interesting, yes, you're right. The wife has a big role to play. They call them mafia wives.
Starting point is 00:09:21 Yeah. And by the way, the real story was that they did know it was part of the dating system. Okay, it's Hollywood, it's the 70s. People are doing quailudes. Men, women. Right. No one was holding a gun to the head of women. Generally, Bill Cosby and rapists accepted.
Starting point is 00:09:43 But people were just parting. They went to disc's. It was kind of a fun, crazy time. Plus, movie star. You know, a girl, oh, wow, I can do a coilude with Richard Dreifest, the movie star. Yes, that's going to happen. Now, listen, this is you, you and I are about eight years different in age. So this is like one of those things where I never was in the Kuelud time and I certainly wasn't a movie star. Okay, I didn't smoke pot before I went to college.
Starting point is 00:10:14 I did Kuelud's one time in my life. I was in New York, my first year in New York, I was 22 or 3. My friends came over and I have a very low idle anyway. Like, I love drugs that get me up. Like, pot is an up drug for me. I don't know why. Cocaine was the reverse, how ridiculous is that? Okay.
Starting point is 00:10:34 So, like, we took quail eggs. Oh, great. We're going to take, this is like Ford dumb guys. This is my apartment on 8th Avenue, over a bus stop, 55th and 8th in New York City. Okay. in 1979. We take the quayload, we're in my apartment, we're drinking, of course, because that's brilliant when you took a quayload. We finally, okay, now we're fucked up enough, I don't know what we're going to do, probably get robbed. We go out, we leave, we walk down the three flights
Starting point is 00:10:59 of stairs and we get on the street, I go two blocks and pass out. Like, I remember being on the hood of a ham. Just like Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboys, I'm literally passed out. And then they took, they peeled me off, they brought me, thank God, we're only two blocks from my apartment. Took me back to my apartment, three idiot guy friends, put me on the bed, and I woke up 14 hours later
Starting point is 00:11:28 with the door open. And no date. No date. I was lucky to be alive. 14 hours later, it just put me to sleep like and the door was open and no one had come in and robbed or killed me, which showed you how desirable that That studio apartment was ten people will be came in. They just looked around and left like it
Starting point is 00:11:53 They were browsing at a candle shop That's what my parents did so I don't have my parents came to the door of my apartment and They were gonna take me out to lunch and the door opened and they stood there and then they closed the door and left and never stepped in. And because they just went, oh no, no, no. So, and then we just all imitated one another. You know, I did 11 films. I was always one way or another, fucked up and... Really? I mean, working on the set?
Starting point is 00:12:39 No, no, I was at my apartment. My parents were going to take me out to lunch. They stopped. They took one look at how messy my apartment was. Close the door and never mentioned it again. And they were, as parents, completely appalled that I was that filthy dirty. And just, I'm not talking about.
Starting point is 00:13:06 You're just a slump. Is that you're a slump? Oh, right. Does it bug your wife? Is that good? It did. Until I found the right one. Oh, because she's also a slump.
Starting point is 00:13:18 No, she's a very strict. Oh, so she keeps you in line. Yeah. But that was the extent of it. And then what happened for me was I started to get invited up to the playboy mansion. Of course. And the movie star, right? What happens? And that I wasn't quite yet a movie star. Well, George certainly made you that was that moment. It was that was the adjustment. That was the new term of endearment, I guess. Terms of endearment was 1982. So...
Starting point is 00:14:05 Joaz was 1975. So... I know my movie dates. This was us finding out what were the right dates, what were the right movies? Did I... had I made it or was I just about going to make it? And I was at that turn of my life. And yeah. Where you're not quite sure that you're sure. No, because you're in the graduate in 1967. That's eight years before George. Right. And lots of
Starting point is 00:14:35 people, this is how iconic you are. Lots of people know that one line you have. Yeah. Check all the cops and they don't know I'm gonna call the cop. I did the best film and the worst film of 1967 Well, we know the graduate was the best one was the worst See, I'm surprised you don't know that the worst film of 1967. I don't know McKenna's gold Who the fuck remembers what with the worst film of Valley of the dog Valley of the remember what with the worst film of the valley of the doll valley of the dolls. Valley of the dolls was not the worst film because I was 11 when it came out and soon was masturbating to it. And you responded to Miss Ohara. Miss Ohara. Miss Ohara. That was the worst line in the worst film ever made.
Starting point is 00:15:29 And you said that? Yeah. See, who's in Valley the Dolls? I had to be. How do you do? Who was the... How do you do? Okay, but how do you do handsome actress never like made my like adolescent masturbation
Starting point is 00:15:42 list? Who else? Who else could I have been whacking it to? There must have been, I know there was, oh yeah, Jacqueline Bissett. Jacqueline Bissett, exactly. Yeah. And with an English accent, which usually is such a boner killer. It's just something about that accent that doesn't go. And so what she did and that was a big, hot turn on. Who else?
Starting point is 00:16:12 There was somebody else who was like, even, Jacklyn Bissett is classy. And there's a whole raft of women who never made it past grade B. So that doesn't matter to a masturbator. We are not judging you. Actually, it didn't matter to anybody because that judgment would be made based on that film. What film was it? What film are you in in that year? Okay. So, I... You were in, but you were already in films, I was plainly masturbating. What do you think about when you masturbate? Isn't that the ultimate question I could tell you what really a person is about? What do you think about when you masturbate with your drivers?
Starting point is 00:17:00 I never thought about my mother. Oh, well, I hope not. your driver's. I never thought about my mother. I never thought that if I had thought of my mother, I would be thinking incestuous thoughts. That never occurred to me. And yet, incestuous thoughts was the engine that drove my masturbation. Really? Yes. Incestuous with who? Who crossed that street for you? Yeah. Chiring minds want to know. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:34 I mean, you brought it up. But like, if it's not your mother, how many people could it be? I mean, you're sister. In the early years, I thought about very little else. Not grandma. Who am I thinking of? Who am I thinking? I'm asking, who are you thinking of?
Starting point is 00:17:55 Because you know, clearing minds, what I did. Well, I mean, you do know that porn today is like dominated almost by incest porn. Like if you go on porn hub, like it's the same videos that we've been looking at for years. It's some, check, hopefully a hot one, although obviously beauty's in the eye. But there are many beautiful porn stars who in another era could have been movie stars
Starting point is 00:18:24 if they didn't always take a bunch of jizz in the face. Which is like not something that the studio, uh, certainly not in Mr. Mayor's day, uh, looked kindly on. Although, of course, they did it in private. Anyway, well, they did it. But they did it for Mr. Mayor, only in a private collection. Oh, yeah. I mean, those guys guys and those guys were worse or as bad as the Cosby's. Oh yeah. And that what they got away with, like in those days of the studios. When you read Shirley Temple's book, Shirley Temple. Shirley Temple. When you read her book, you can read between the lines of an enormous scandal? Well, a scandal that never unscandalized.
Starting point is 00:19:13 She was abused. Oh, yeah. I'm sure. I mean, that's basically what she was. He made as much as they could of a never acknowledged ongoing sin. It's not that she was abused in the sense that bad behavior on the part of Louis B. Mayor, it's that that was the done thing to every young Judy Judy Garland, I'm sure, you know, I mean, yeah, they were just, I mean, men, ridiculous without guardrails. And are just out of instinct?
Starting point is 00:19:53 They invented the American small town perfect place. Andy Hardy. Right. Yeah. And who was not in Andy Hardy? It was Mickey Roni as Andy Hardy. It was Judy Roni. It was the Jew. It was the black man and it was. We're not in it. Of course not. No, no, that was it's so
Starting point is 00:20:14 funny in Neil Gaplers book. I think this is what he said. I mean, that's such a great book about it's called How the Jews Invented Hollywood. And he talks about an industry completely dominated by Jews making movies for a Protestant America and feeding back the Protestant dream to them. You know, the Jews took over Hollywood, they invented Hollywood and they didn't say, oh, let's show America the shuttle that we came from in Russia. No, they themselves loved that they were in this new and better place. Right. Where they weren't being chased by Cossacks, they were getting sucked off by Starlets.
Starting point is 00:20:57 I mean, you know, you ever hear of the Chochinsky riots? The Chochinsky riots? No. I'm probably mispronouncing that. Where are they? The Chowchinsky riots were a decade-long Kassak-Drew. Oh, sure.
Starting point is 00:21:20 The worst thing that had ever happened to the Jews in Russia, the worst thing that had ever happened to the Jews in Russia. The worst thing that had ever happened to them until the Holocaust. But there were many pogroms. This is probably just the worst. But that's what, of course, and it was exactly that. It was. It was the show Fiddle Run the Roof is about.
Starting point is 00:21:40 Fiddle Run the Roof is the Kossacks are always coming so I want to written man. That's right. And that was the worst thing you could ever bring up. And it was the worst thing that had ever happened to any Jews anywhere. Until the Holocaust, it was the talk of the town. It was the most... Right. ...morto-wound. Well, the trial that you share a name with. Yes. But that was ten years later. The driver's trial.
Starting point is 00:22:14 Yeah. That was in the 1890s. Correct. And this happened in... 1880s. In the 1880s. Yeah. And it was a bad time for the Jews in Russia. It was.
Starting point is 00:22:28 It really was. Yeah, it was not a good place. I mean, there was never really a good time, but... Do you know that when we hear the phrase, the Pale of Settlement? Yeah, sure. Well, that was a... A Boy's Town of the Cholchinsky riots. It was, the contacts were basically given free reign to kill and murder anyone they wanted.
Starting point is 00:22:58 But getting back to my masturbation, who else was in Valley? Well, who else was in Valley of the dolls? Come on, I can almost picture it. Like, who's the guy? Not the guy. Not the guy. I wasn't masturbating about the guys. Weirdo. I was, you're fucking your sister.
Starting point is 00:23:19 What do you, when I even ask about that? Did you ever, did you have a sister? Yes. Did you ever give did you have a sister? Yes. Did you ever give her what we called a movie, a movie actor kiss? No. Oh God. Please, I love my sister.
Starting point is 00:23:34 Did she ever ask you? No, we didn't even like each other when we were kids. We were always like, what? Of course not. Yes. No. You stopped that hostility. We're not under a white flag,
Starting point is 00:23:46 and you literally said, you want to do a movie star kiss? We're not weirdo. We're not weirdos like you. We were just normal people who grew up in New Jersey and we didn't have memories. I lived in Queens. So it's the same thing.
Starting point is 00:24:01 Yeah, Queens. I'll say. I live 20 blocks away from Trump and his family. And I was 10, 15 streets away from what's his name, who I played also, what's his name? Alexander Haye, Security and Exchange Commission. And I played them both. I mean, I played people of that world. Right.
Starting point is 00:24:37 And so I had a kind of unique perspective. I was the villain that fucked over the Jews from the stock market, and billions were lost to this one guy. What's his name? name. So anyway, the thing was that the 60s, the 1860s were given over to those riots and those deaths. And it was the biggest thing that had ever happened to Jews. But they still shouldn't have been so mean to Marilyn Monroe. Did you see that movie with Anna Diarmus? I loved it. I thought the performance was amazing.
Starting point is 00:25:34 I thought, first of all, she, with no accent, she, just like British people, can do our accent and Australians, of course, perfectly. Whereas we Americans, I've seen struggle when they're doing a British accent or some other accent and like every once in a while, they'll lapse out of it for one word and it's like a clam when you're watching a band, you know, a bad nut. Oh, God. But they never, what?
Starting point is 00:26:02 But they never miss the, the brits when they do our accent. And when she did Marilyn Monroe, I mean, she, first of all, I just thought, I did not, I thought the movie was legubrious. Like really, there was no joy in Marilyn's life. It was just one bad fucking day after another. I get it. She was fragile and men abused her. And along the way, there had to be, you know, I get it. She was fragile and men abused her and along the way
Starting point is 00:26:25 there had to be one sunny day. And also, like, do I know that these things happened the way they did? I mean, to say the least, you could not be worse to her than the men were. John Emejio slugs her, Louis B. Mayer, like rapes her with that even smiling at were. John Emejio, Slugser, Louis B. Mayer, like, rapes are with that even, like, smiling at her. John F. Kennedy, that scene, that was awful. So, I mean, I stupidly watched that, like, when I watched TV before I got a bed, but I try not to watch things are disturbing. I found that so disturbing. It did disturb my sleep that night.
Starting point is 00:27:08 You were thinking about your sister, but I mean, it was just, the people haven't seen it. I mean, she goes to see Kennedy. She's brought to him, you know, like, you know, like, like, Baylor and bring her to my tent. And he's been, and it was unfairly drawn. That scene. Well, we don't know what Jack Kennedy was like in bed with Marilyn Monroe, but the scene was he's in bed.
Starting point is 00:27:31 He's in bed. Now, he had a bad back. He's got his shirt off. We don't see really under the, it looks like he's probably naked with his, just presidents and ex-presidents don't have any hair on their chests. You know, it's just, it's like, why he didn't, not in any movie that I've ever seen. I never paid that close attention to that aspect of movie, it's about Kennedy, but I'm going to rewatch.
Starting point is 00:27:57 Anyway, so they bring her in. The secret service guy is sitting like right outside the door, so he knows everything that's going on. Kennedy's on the phone. Doesn't get off the phone. Just kind of nods and waves to her while he's talking on the phone, like indicating for her to just start blowing him, which she does.
Starting point is 00:28:17 And then they have this close up of the dick in her mouth. And it's just, if the filmmaker was looking to move me, he did. I'll give you that. I just wish I hadn't watched it before bed. And I just hoped John F. Kennedy wasn't that bad because it was just, it was worse than a lot of violence and it was a kind of, that is a kind of, I mean, they overused the kind of violence
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Starting point is 00:31:03 My aunt sits down on an airplane and sitting next to her is this young guy and he says, hi, Dustin often. And she says, Marilyn, try this. And my aunt dined out on that story for years and cause, it's Dustin often.
Starting point is 00:31:24 He said he introduced himself as if I didn't know that he was Dustin Hoffman and I said he doesn't. He does not know that he's Dustin Hoffman. And at that time, especially, what are you talking about? He doesn't know he's Dustin Hoffman. He's very, took me 15 years to know that I was richer drafts. Oh, I don't buy that. Come on. Are you serious? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:31:51 What do you mean to like to realize that let's go back to 1975. Jaws, if people weren't alive, was like one of those things that's beyond a specific art form, it was a cultural phenomenon. It changed the movie industry forever. blockbusters in the summer. Wait a minute, but you're acting as if you're talking about the guy as if he already knows the end of the plot. And let me tell you, we did.
Starting point is 00:32:18 Okay, but even if you don't know the end of the plot, you know in 1975 where you're the lead in like one of the biggest movies ever, that's not a bad thing. No, it's not. Okay. But you don't know that you're going through it until later. But you know you're a star because people are gathering like where you go, like they
Starting point is 00:32:39 did for Jesus. They gather, you know, they talk about followers. I mean, seriously, you don't know you're going through that at that moment. Why? What are you in a bubble? What are you in a, in a, in a space suit?
Starting point is 00:32:53 What are you talking about? You don't know. You walk into a restaurant and people turn their heads and look at you. You don't realize that? I'll tell you, exactly that. This is what you, the woman is walking toward you and she passes you and as she passes, she, your mother or your sister is behind you and wait and you just fucked her and and she says
Starting point is 00:33:27 Wow, that was something and you say what? because she did not Act out that That's the truth is until he she passed and here's how it works Well, that may have happened one time wait a minute. It's more than that. It's far more than that. You're she's walking down the street and while she's in front of you, she's acting studiously indifferent. But the moment she passes you, she goes,
Starting point is 00:34:02 passes you, she goes, that's what happens after she's turned. I can't believe that all the years and decades where you were a movie star, this is what happened every single time. I think that could have had, yes, that happened sometimes. And not only did it happen every single time, that's why you are not a lucky guy. I mean, that's true.
Starting point is 00:34:28 But out grew us like crazy. And for every great review that you got, where they indicated that you were part of this new step that you've taken and you're, you didn't read those things. Why? Well, I remember reading about, I overheard Diane Cannon telling a story on Carrie Grant. And you know what she was married to. Yes. When Diane cannon was a young
Starting point is 00:35:06 starlet she married and she said aging but still devin and she said quote you know what he does on a Sunday afternoon he lies down on the living room floor and he actually reads his old reviews. Wow. Carrie Grant? Yeah. She said that. Yeah. Wow.
Starting point is 00:35:30 Now, I'm at the home of Mike Meshio and his mother, and his mother was a star. His mother was in a night at the opera. She was a young singer. The Marx Brothers. Yeah. Wow. But he had to read those on a Sunday afternoon, you know.
Starting point is 00:35:51 That is pathetic. I'll give you that. And I'll tell you something else, that when he wrote his memoirs, he wrote on the cover of the memoir, everyone wanted to be Carrie Grant, even I wanted to be carry grand. Well, now that's just what a girl says.
Starting point is 00:36:09 It doesn't make it true. That's what she says. She was bitter, bitter about our marriage. By the way, Diane Cannon may have been in Valley of the Dolls. Wait, I'm getting a masturbation flat back. I don't know if it's about Valley of the Dolls, but Deva Diane Cannon was definitely whack material. Oh my gosh.
Starting point is 00:36:32 She was in, remember the last of Sheila, the movie, her boss, you know, you know, wrote that. It's a genius movie written by Stephen Sondheim. I'm not kidding. Stephen Sondheim wrote the movie that became like the template for how you do a crime thriller. He was the first one to do that where he shows the scene, and then the people are talking about it later,
Starting point is 00:37:01 and he re-shows it from a different point of view. It's every CSI. It's everything. That was the first one to do it. It was 1974, I think, and it's James, you know, James Toustonda. He was in like Flint, James Coburn, who was bad. He was a bad man. I love James Coburn, right? Was it any fucking mind? mind who the guys James Coburn was like the star who gets killed and then Reckel Welch. Oh, talk about spank of vision. Okay. Diane Cannon, Richard Benjamin, James James Mason. James miss you know, yeah. Yeah. A few reds. Roddy McDowell
Starting point is 00:37:46 It's great. It's awesome. I recommended highly highly I Have the best James Mason story bar none you have the only James Mason story Go ahead now. I'm curious I never thought it'd go ahead. Now I'm curious. Okay. I'm invited to London to see the Royal Command performance of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Okay.
Starting point is 00:38:15 And you still don't know your movie star? Right. Okay. So we're in that pattern. No, I actually did know by that moment. I was. But that was 1978. There was only three years after Charles.
Starting point is 00:38:24 Right. Well, did you live. There was only three years after Charles. Right. Did you live every second of those three years? No, you said for the first 10, 15 years, you didn't know you were a writer of it. Well, it was a thing that came and went. And, and did. And you, you have to start listening, or else. I will be up quiz and you'll fit.
Starting point is 00:38:41 I'm listening, but I, you know, came and went. I don't know. When just looking. When just looking of England invites you'll fit. I'm listening, but you know, came and went. I don't know. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. When just looking. from the airport and the driver says, what brings you to London? Thatty. And I said, it's a command performance for close encounters of the third kind. And I've been invited because I'm in the film.
Starting point is 00:39:22 And I had never seen horizontal tears until that minute. What is on me? I mean that he went, his tears went bump. Oh, no, I've never seen, wow, that is, and this because of the movie or because he don't see the movie. He'd seen the movie and it blew his mouth. He hadn't seen it.
Starting point is 00:39:44 Oh, he just liked you. Oh, but he probably saw you and other things. No, no, no, that was, but what happened? What's the one where the, I remember it was like iconic. Everyone was doing this impression. It was really John Belushi's impression. But everybody's doing John Belushi's impression of you with, I do not like the panties on the lot. Do you remember that when everyone was doing that? I do not like the panties on the lot. It was like all over 1978. So where they took you was to the,
Starting point is 00:40:17 what are the two hotels that are next door to one another? Doorchester and the bar. But. Bar? Yeah. I'm not saying it the bar, but the door just is lovely. Not cheap and Richard Harris lived it one of them. Oh, and that's the doorchester. Yes.
Starting point is 00:40:34 All right. So the bar has a pool table. The bar. Not the bar. I'm not the, but the most famous hotel in London. I can't remember the name. Well, so I go up to the suite with my girlfriend. And I am met by the most excited, nervous, twitchy staff of the hotel because they're going to take my measurements, send it off to the tailor so that I can look as I should. A parallel that you have to wear to get dishonor, like tails or something.
Starting point is 00:41:19 Exactly. Right. So. And then they send someone from the palace who gives you very strict Protocol protocol. Yes, don't turn your back on the queen. Don't turn your back and also don't say anything Until she says something right and If she far she far and we all and all of this if she farts. And we all. And all of this thing built into the evening. And so that when she raises her hand, you raise your hand like a say on this. And you say, not man and not mum, but man.
Starting point is 00:42:05 Oh, geez. It's off to remember. So where did this take place? In the suite at the next... Oh, I thought the hotel was just... Queen came to the hotel? No, no. The Queen's representative.
Starting point is 00:42:17 Oh, I see. But you met the Queen somewhere at the event itself. You'll see. I'll tell you the story. Okay. And she is, I'm told that only the people who are invited, whose name is on the invitation, are the ones that meet literally the queen. So you are also told not to say anything unless she says something first.
Starting point is 00:42:47 Right. That's a big one. Yeah, big one. Right. So, I practice man, I practice shutting up, I practice all this stuff, and I turn to my girlfriend and I say, not me, I'm not making these rules. And she says, well, I just have to put up a purpose because she wasn't named in the invitation. Oh, it just was plus one.
Starting point is 00:43:12 So, it wasn't even plus one. It just said, with your drivers. And so... But you must have told them that you were bringing a plus one, right? You didn't ask, you just to say... I didn't ask, and I... really. Yeah. I didn't ask. How long were you into this relationship, man? This is a year, a year. So you know each other. Fuck yeah. Yeah. Okay. And this was like and she was a big deal. Right. And this is, I mean, this is like a Mrs. Barbie's dream date,
Starting point is 00:43:43 you know, as opposed to what? Bowling. You're going to take you to meet the Queen. She's just been, thank you. Is that a, this girl was bitching about that? I'll bring you into the, you know, into the inner circle. You're better without her because first of all, you should have been grateful. It's a bitching to you. You have to say that you're happy that you're been invited and you'll be okay with it and hold it over my head. Chooses one, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, two, three, three, two, two, three, two, three, two, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, two, three, three, two, three, two, three, three, two, three, two, three, three, three, two, three, two, three, two girl who was the picture of perfect innocence and beauty and Puerto Rican Catholic.
Starting point is 00:44:27 Your girlfriend? Yeah, she was great. And innocence, you say? Oh yeah. It's been her effect when her father found out that she was dating me, meaning a Jew. He forced her to break up. Really? That's what broke you up? Well, that's the first one. Because you're a Jew?
Starting point is 00:44:54 Yeah. He was a Catholic cab driver. What if you had just offered to be only Jewish? But not really a Jew. Just this the other day. Someone did that the other day. Is that you? The oldest joke in the world, Jewish. It is.
Starting point is 00:45:10 So anyway, her name was... Well, that's a story worthy of telling. That's a tale like a modern... You're right. You know, Romeo and Juliet, you're... And I heard her. I heard her. I heard her. But she her? I heard her.
Starting point is 00:45:25 But she's the one that broke up with you because of a Jew. Well, her father. Her father broke us up. Okay, but she was a sentient adult. She could have defied her father. She was a very pure, 19-year-old Puerto Rican innocent. How old were you? I was 37. You know, there's a lot of people because people are haters or like, how ridiculous,
Starting point is 00:45:57 you know, whatever works. The Woody Allen, who's never had a sex scandal. Oh wait, bad example. It's like, whatever works. Woody Allen made that movie. Larry David played Woody Allen. The most accurate, I thought, Woody, you know, what would you call it? Hologram, whatever it is or facsimile,
Starting point is 00:46:19 because a lot of people wrote lots of movies where he, somebody else, assayed the said the, the thankless task of talking like Woody Allen. You know, I mean, lots of good actors tried it and it didn't often come out well, but Larry David was perfect on the idea of whatever works. You know, I mean, obviously with the appropriate legal strictures, you don't want children involved, but 19 is not a child. And women and men
Starting point is 00:46:47 they just mature at crazily different speeds. Okay, men are you're barely mature at 37. If you were at all, a woman can be very mature by 20. We're just at different places. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it. No, I mean what I mean is, but it is true. And also people are not their numbers. People are not their, are not numbers. They are humans. Where does it start? Where does what start?
Starting point is 00:47:15 The misunderstanding that turns into betrayal, that turns into hatred. Your sister. No, everything starts with her. No, I'll tell you where. Where? When it's still cowboys and Indians. And you're right.
Starting point is 00:47:30 Yes, I believe you're right. Boys lie like crazy. Women, girls don't. They talk to the pack. And the pack tells them what you just went through is the betrayal. And now we're going to tell you exactly how to respond. And they do not only do they do it, but for the next 12 years they do it.
Starting point is 00:47:53 And a lot of people say, well, it's space aliens and they come and take your kid for 12 years. When they took my daughter, when they took my daughter. Who took the aliens? When they took my daughter. Oh, really? Yeah. What do you think happens to kids when they're 12 years old? There's a kidnap and they take you to another planet and they're replaced by an Android and an Android.
Starting point is 00:48:20 Who's a lot harder to deal with? With a myth, with a fucking painful myth. And when they do that, they are the same person, but they're not and don't let them fool you, dad. That's not my sister. That is not my sister. Yes, it is.
Starting point is 00:48:41 No, it isn't. Yes, it is. And I'm telling you, they are trained. And the difference between boys and girls is real simple. Boys are so embarrassed by sexual problems that they treat one another only through the vocabulary of cartoons. Webos, hey, look at them, Webos. Hey, that's all that vocabulary. And girls are mechanical engineers, and they say, they know exactly how wide and how thick and how,
Starting point is 00:49:18 just this and how they like it like such and such. And they- Talking about their like, like, the size of a dick. Dick. I thought that, but I didn't want to, I didn't want to assume that you're only thinking about it. They're feeling. Dicks. Okay. So that's true.
Starting point is 00:49:37 That is absolutely. But they're not thinking about dicks at that young age when the boys are watching rabbit cartoons. Right? Well, that depends on your point of view because I think they are talking about Dicks. Really, before 10, that night, I mean, if I was gonna call it, I would say yes.
Starting point is 00:49:56 I would, you know what, I'm sure eight year old girls have heard the song What As Pussy. And I'm sure that prompted a number of questions. And, you know, and mom, what's a What Aspussy? And, you know, don't ask your father, he doesn't know. I mean, I don't know. But, yes, I think I think today's kids are exposed to so much that you're probably right, that they, they, they, by, and what's on the phone, the internet, I mean, they perforced must know like things
Starting point is 00:50:29 that I was just clueless about at that age. You know, I mean, one thing I am very grateful for is my very innocent upbringing. I'm sure there are many ways it could have been better, it certainly could have been more diverse and lots of things that it wasn't back in the 1960s, New Jersey suburbs. But, you know, no drug issues really in the school. No, not even divorce, no racial issues, no, just it was just very, very leave it to be for, very innocent. And it wasn't.
Starting point is 00:51:07 Everybody should be so lucky, you know, as to not when you're young, and you have enough to deal with just with the normal adolescent stuff of, oh my God, now I do have a dick, and why I'd love to put it somewhere, but I don't know how to, you know, talk to a guy. And I don't know why I wanna put it somewhere. I know why. I somewhere, but I don't know how to, you know, talk to a person. And I don't know why I want to put it somewhere. I know why.
Starting point is 00:51:26 I mean, not at first. I remember when I was first masturbating. I did not know like what I was doing, but I remember in the back of my mind, it was like, this could be hurting me. And then the front of my mind was like, I don't really care. It just feels good.
Starting point is 00:51:43 How bad could this be for me? And I was drinking off in the dark. I wasn't, I wasn't like afraid to look. I was rubbing my dick against the stuffed animal that I slept with since I was two. Poor crazy. I'm telling you. And cowards.
Starting point is 00:51:58 We are cowards. Women at least talked to one another like mechanical engineers, but boys don't. You must know different women than I do. They don't look you in the eye when they see you on the street, and they're all mechanical engineers. I don't, I think Space Aliens did come. I think they took you. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:52:21 I don't know any women who are mechanical engineers, although I know many brilliant women. But you do know that when your daughter is, let's say, no, 18 or 19. Well, I don't have one, thank God, but yes. Well, hypothetically. What happens in normal families is normal. Is that? Your daughter will call you when she's 22 and she's going to say, Dad, do you remember those years when I didn't credit you with having any brains and that you were only my dad and that you basically knew nothing and I didn't have to respect you at all.
Starting point is 00:53:07 Do you remember that? And you say, yeah, yeah, I do. And then you hit her with your Oscar. And he says, well, I just realized I was wrong. Yes. And she, and she then says, anyway, so at Thanksgiving, do you want to come to my house? And I went, hold it, hold it. Hold it. You're not going to get away with this that quickly, because you put me through the tortures of the dam. And I don't know whether to throw you out of plate glass window or kiss you. I would say be. you out of plate glass window or kiss you. I would say B. And but the impulse not to is big, big, really big.
Starting point is 00:53:53 Kids, I mean, look, you're talking with a guy who never had kids and I was sort of like made fun of that for a while. No, married, you know, kids and now I just get nothing but high fives from people. Because people just, I mean, kids are horrible. They're, they didn't use to be, but parents lost control. And of course, kids are feral. They're the kids in the Lord of the Flies. They're awful. So you have to, if you can't like, civilize them or you won't civilize them, they become intolerable. And they have become intolerable. So I mean, like, I know everybody thinks their kids are different.
Starting point is 00:54:27 It's somehow it's everybody else's kids. And yet... And let me tell you that when you have this second conversation when they're 22, they've just only recently been delivered back to the planet Earth. Oh, good. And that's when you say, Emily, I just want you to know that I lived through every minute
Starting point is 00:54:51 of those 10 years. And that doesn't allow me to forgive you that quickly because I don't. Well, I mean, there's two ways to look at it. And again, you're talking to somebody from the outside who doesn't really get a vote in this. But it seems to me, if you choose to be a parent, and I assume you chose, you are signing a deal that says you're going to have to put up
Starting point is 00:55:16 with a monster for 10 years. Yes. So having signed that deal of your free will, I agree to live with a monster from the ages of 12 to 22, whatever it is. Then when they do it, I mean, you can't like hold a grudge when it's over. I think it should just be happy that it's over.
Starting point is 00:55:36 Well, yes, but just as you describe, nothing is that neat, so that there are hold holdovers and there are months that go by where you forget that you've already forgiven her. Do your kids watch your movies? Or is this the age when they're just starting to get back into it? Oh, see, that's, isn't that great that we have cellular for you? For the rest of us too. It's like, I mean, not just you,
Starting point is 00:56:05 but definitely you. I've contributed a great body of entertainment. And I don't care about anything else. I like entertainment. Entertainment, yes. Do I like it better when it's intellectually nutritious? Yes. But all what's the three stooges to?
Starting point is 00:56:19 Just, and so your movies were entertaining because they were smart and they grabbed you, and they, but they were never forgot to be entertaining. I don't think a kid appreciates that, you know, at a certain point. And the fact that you're the dad overrides that. Maybe they secretly like, wow, my dad is fucking Richard Dreyfus,
Starting point is 00:56:38 but it's like they can't because there's these other forces. And then you get to this other A. It's like you say you get reolivered back to earth and now You know now you're probably in for some great times, but you know You got to let a let go the like you know you you were a monster for 10 years. Yeah, that's what happens when you let the alien on The spaceship, okay, we always say don't let the alien on don't let the microscopic Don't follow the cat. Don't follow the cat. What's that?
Starting point is 00:57:06 That's in Alien. That's that scene. Don't follow the cat. Don't follow the cat. Jesus. Oh, jean. Are there any movies like that that you could have been in even whether you wish you were in from that era that you were
Starting point is 00:57:21 like, you know, like you could have been in Alien you kidding me? Like you could have been in alien. That was 1979. I could have been in jaws. You weren't jawed. I turned it down twice. Well, that was dumb. You're lucky that they fucking, and that's, oh my God.
Starting point is 00:57:36 I ended up in it, but only because. But why you? Why do you think? I mean, like, why was I picked? Yeah, like, there's great actors. You're one of them, but why did they, I mean,... Why was I picked? Yeah, like some... There's great actors. You're one of them. But why did they... I mean, they could have... Who... I mean, everybody was...
Starting point is 00:57:50 Well, I think it was... I was finally picked because I reminded Stephen of Stephen. Oh, that's so interesting. Did you see Fablement? No, not yet. No? No. I won't tell him. You're like it. I mean, it's not for everybody, but it's so, you know,
Starting point is 00:58:10 he's never made a movie like that, where it says, I mean, you're still on good terms with him, I hope. Yeah. Okay. Well, then you'll like it, you know, and it certainly speaks to the anti-semitism, especially in the second half that's going on around today. I mean, you know, he got some of that real punch in the nose because you were in ju stuff. What? Really? Yeah. You didn't know that?
Starting point is 00:58:34 No. Spielberg. The director. Big Joe. I am in MGM Northfield Park Center stage, the Hard Rock, Northfield Ohio, Saturday, May 20, 21, the Mystic Lake Casino and Prior Lake Minnesota, Saturday, June 3, the Met Philadelphia, Sunday, June 4, the Win Creek Event Center and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. And you have a book.
Starting point is 00:58:59 Could I, oh, and you sign it for me, thank you very much. One thought scares me. We teach our children what we wish them to know. We don't teach our children what we don't wish them to know. So I know you are someone who thinks seriously about stuff. So I'm going to read this. I was thrilled when you asked me in 1987 to help you figure out this crazy country of ours and be quite interested to see where you are here all these years later. You're still great to talk to. I thank you for that. I have to. Are you kidding me? We haven't talked about the most important thing. We'll for real. Well, let me tell you something. This book represents
Starting point is 00:59:48 six years of a 50-year obsession and I figured out and I'm not kidding, I figured out what was wrong and what what what that wrongness was and it was at our feet and and all the time it was right in front of us and we didn't see it. And that's why I quit and went to Oxford, I went because I knew the answer to the biggest problem America faced. And I ain't kidding. Well, let's not give it away. I see these commercials on TV or sometimes on the computer. And it's like, do you want something that grows because you get sort of grab grass and make your dick card and I'm like, yes, I do. And it's like, and then they just never say it.
Starting point is 01:00:51 You have to like, the confirm rumors are going for like a half hour and then you got to send away to someplace. So that's where you have to get the book to point out that answer. Thank you for doing this. I'm telling you, it was great to see you again. Clip. Rando.
Starting point is 01:01:07 What I should do right now is take this look and point. Shut it up my ass.

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