Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 223. Jonathan Lynn

Episode Date: September 3, 2018

Gilbert and Frank welcome actor-writer-director Jonathan Lynn, who weighs in on a number of topics, including his collaborations with Jerome Robbins and Tennessee Williams, sharing the stage with future Pythons John Cleese and Graham Chapman and the challenges of directing the cult/classic comedies "Clue" and "My Cousin Vinny." Also, Ed Sullivan loses his cool, Zero Mostel cracks wise, Steve Martin takes a crack at "Bilko" and Jonathan fights (and wins) for Marisa Tomei. Plus: Fred Gwynne! In praise of Austin Pendleton! Chaplin comes to tea! Peter O'Toole goes Hollywood! And the truth behind the Orson Welles frozen peas ad! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. Hi, I'm Rosanna Arquette, and you're here gilbert godfrey's amazing colossal podcast Hi, I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Furtarosa. Our guest this week is a true renaissance man. He's an actor, producer, best-selling author, and the writer, director, and creator of long-running TV series, critically acclaimed stage productions,

and popular feature films. While still in college, he joined the Cambridge Circus Review and was soon performing alongside future comedy icons John Cleese and Graham Chapman. And at the tender age of 21, made his Broadway debut and his television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, a broadcast seen by an impressive 70 million people. As an actor, he appeared in the original London production of Fiddler on the Roof, as well as British series such as Doctor in the House and Twice a Fortnite,

with future Python, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. He also scripted dozens of hours of television comedy, along with writing partner Anthony Jay. partner, Anthony Jay, created the much-beloved BBC series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. He directed dozens of award-winning stage productions, including Anna Christie, Arms and the Man, Three Men on a Horse, and The Glass Menagerie, earning the approval of Tennessee Williams himself. He's also directed 10 feature films, including Clue, The Whole Nine Yards, The Distinguished Gentleman, Greedy, Nuns on the Run, Sergeant bilko trial and error and of course one of the most successful and off-quoted comedies of the last 50 years my cousin vinnie his new novel is called

samaritans a satirical look at the state of the U.S. healthcare system, which the London Times called a book George Orwell would be proud of. Please welcome a comedy giant on both sides of the pond and a man who claims there's no such thing as bad taste when it comes to comedy. He obviously has never seen me. The multi-talented Jonathan Lynn. Hello. Hi. I'm not sure that I should stay after all that.

I'm not sure I can live up to that tremendous introduction. You've done a lot of stuff, Jonathan. I have. I've done a lot of stuff. You're a prolific fellow. Well, it keeps you off the streets. Well, I'll say. I think one of the things that Gilbert would like to get out of the way, if I may, Gilbert.

Yes. I think he was fascinated by the fact that you once played Adolf Hitler. Yes. Well, I did. It was actually shortly after I played Motel the Tailor and Fiddler on the Roof, which all my family were very proud of because I'm Jewish. And it was an enormous hit. And then shortly after that, I was cast as Hitler

in a play called The Comedy of the Changing Years at the Royal Court Theatre, and none of them came to see that. It was a very difficult part to play because there was a scene, a four-minute-long speech in German, which I didn't speak. So I had to learn it. I had had it translated for me, of course,

but it was his will that he dictated in the bunker before he died. And I had to memorize this four minutes of German. And at the Royal Court, it's the kind of place where the audience would understand it, some members of the audience. So that was a big feat of learning. That took me about six weeks to learn. So the audience would know if you were mispronouncing every word? Well, some of them would.

I mean, most of them would be like me and wouldn't know at all. But there would be some people there, yes, who spoke German. Yes, it's a very educated audience at the royal court theater safe to say the family didn't approve well i don't know if they approved or not they just kind of averted their eyes he didn't show up that the real problem i had was that um it was about hitler's last days and uh so he was dying and he was a drug addict, and he was in terrible shape. And, of course, I didn't present him in a good light. But, on the other hand, you have to believe in the character that you're playing.

And I was really soundly criticized by Milton Shulman, who was the Jewish critic of the evening stands at the time, who accused me of giving a sympathetic performance. critic of the evening stands at the time, would accuse me of giving a sympathetic performance. I think that kept the family away. So Hitler was not a popular person in your household. No, he wasn't. Not in yours, I expect, either.

But didn't you play Hitler in that Highway to Hell movie? Yeah. Okay, so you have both something in common. We both played movie? Yeah. Okay, so you have something in common. We both played Hitler. Yeah. In that movie, the credits are funny. Gilbert Gottfried as Hitler, more than the scene. I see.

The scene wasn't funny at all. In 220 guests, I believe John is the first person, other than yourself, to portray the Fuhrer. It's a thrill. Now if we can only get Anthony Hopkins on. Right. Or, yeah. Who's the guy in Downfall? Bruno Gans?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And Moe from the Three Scenes. Exactly. Of course. And all the people in the producers. That's right. And I got to get my most important subject out of the way, too.

Where you come from in England, Beth, you were the only Jewish boy. Well, as far as I know, yes. My father, who was very perceptive about politics, they're not about much else, think um realized in 1936 um oh excuse me my phone just rang and i've got to turn it i love that it's the morricone yeah oh good to bear sorry about that um my father was very perceptive about politics. And in 1936, he realized there was going to be a war with Germany, which most people in Britain were being rather ostrich-like about and pretending that there wasn't.

And then this went on until the late 30s, well after the Munich Agreement with Chamberlain and everything. Anyway, he knew there was going to be a war. There were only two people apparently who seemed to know, my father and Mr. Churchill, but nobody took any notice of my father. They didn't take much notice of Mr. Churchill at the time. So he moved his family to Bath,

which he thought was a nice small town. He was a doctor in a nice small town where he could practice, and he wouldn't be bombed. And I say we, I wasn't born yet. But in fact, I was born during a bombing raid, and the house was not exactly hit. There was a direct hit for the house next door and a lot of damage in our house.

So he miscalculated. So I'm afraid he miscalculated. What he didn't know is that the Admiralty had moved to Bath and they were planning D-Day there. So they'd moved out of London too. So anyway, that's why we happen to be in Bath. And it's a very waspy area. And a number of Jewish refugees arrived from Germany and Austria and Czechoslovakia slightly before the war and afterwards. But they were all older and didn't seem to have kids. So, yes, I think I was probably the only Jewish boy in the town, certainly the only one at my school. Interesting.

Yeah. And you were not the only Jewish boy in Coney Island. No. His dad ran a hardware store. Yeah? Yeah, we lived upstairs from a hardware store. Yeah? Yeah, we lived upstairs from the hardware store. Yeah. Yeah.

My dad lived above his, what we call the surgery, what you call an office here. But by the time I was born, they'd moved to a little house in a slightly more posh area of the town. I get the sense from reading about you, Jonathan, that your parents, did they want a political career for you? They seemed to encourage that, at least when you got to school. They paid for you to join the debate society. Yeah, Cambridge, yeah. My father was a political junkie. And so I grew up really listening to the news all the time.

I mean, the 9 o'clock news on the way to school and the car and the and you know and the one o'clock news at lunchtime if if it was the holidays and and the six o'clock news and then the nine o'clock news he was obsessed with it so i knew a lot about it and then um my uncle who you mentioned before the broadcast, was a famous Israeli diplomat and politician. And he had been secretary of the... The legendary Abba Iban. Yes. And he had been the secretary of what's called the Union of Cambridge,

which isn't a trade union. It's a debating society. It's the debating society. And they wanted me to be equally successful there. But I went along. I joined. And they actually bought me a membership, which I hadn't particularly wanted.

And I went along and I saw all these 20-year-olds. They were all making these puerile and very pompous speeches. And I thought, these people think that they're on the front bench of the Conservative Party in the cabinet, you know. And 20 years later, they were. It was horrifying.

Disturbing. Disturbing and unchanged. But you realized that you could make a bigger contribution to society. I realized that what I had to do was make fun of them. Right. So it kind of scared you when you saw, like, this is who are important people.

Yes, this is what they were like 20 years ago, and these are going to be the important people who run the country in 20 years. Gosh, what a horrible thought. And, you know, one of them became leader of the Tory party and another one was in the cabinet. And they were just as pompous and self-important in government as they were when they were 20 years old at Cambridge.

But they gave you a gift. They inspired you to be funny. They inspired me with contempt and the desire to ridicule them on every possible occasion. It's funny because if you don't experience that, it's just like people in showbiz. I used to think if someone was in show business, they were talented. You just assumed it. Wouldn't be. Right.

And if you saw a politician, you'd go, well, they have to be really intelligent people. Yes. Absolutely not. Were you a comedy fan? I think they're a rarity. Were you a comedy fan as a kid or was this sort of the turning point? I was. I watched, there were some great TV comedy shows in England when I was a kid.

There were some great comedians who your audience here probably wouldn't know, like Tony Hancock and Tommy Cooper and various other people who were wonderful. And I also watched, every week I watched the Phil Silver show, and I watched I Married Joan with Joan Davis. Oh, so American shows were coming over on the BBC. Oh, yes. And, oh, you know, Lucy. I Love Lucy. I Love Lucy was on. I didn't see that as often. For some reason, that wasn't on quite as much. Jack Benny, did you get Burns in it?

Oh, Jack Benny. I never missed Jack Benny. Wonderful. I later saw him at the Palladium. But alone among my school friends, when I say school friends, they weren't really friends. School acquaintances. Uh-huh. I knew who wrote

all these programs. I actually read the credits. Oh, you're a credit reader. I saw that Phil Silver's show was written by Neil Simon and Woody Allen and I remembered their names and the court jester, which I thought was the funniest thing

I'd ever seen in my life. Oh, the Danny Kaye picture? Danny Kaye. And that was written by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank and I remembered those names. I didn't know who they were but I thought,

you know, these people are funny and I thought, how you do that how do what is how can you actually just be funny on command and it was a great mystery to me and I thought I've got to try and figure that out one day so you this is where I don't understand you but you went to law school I did okay well my parents didn't want me to be an actor or anything like that you know i mean my son the doctor right now i refuse to be a doctor and they say a lawyer is a jewish boy who can't stand the sight of blood and and i you know so i studied law but then when i left cambridge that the week i left i was offered uh this incredible

job um as an actor on broadway so with the cambridge uh well yes the this was a review that had been done at cambridge with john cleese and graham chapman and some other people who you might not know here a lot oh you know and Timbrook Taylor. Yeah, sure. Well, anyway, they were all in it. And I was in the band, and it was taken to the West End of London. It was such a success. It got such good reviews at Cambridge. That's a bit like the Second City happened here, or Nicholson May from Chicago. In those days, it seemed that if you were sufficiently funny as a student you get into the west end and that's what happened

um and um i was in the band um and then after three months i had to leave the band to go back to cambridge because i was a year behind all of those guys i see and the week i graduated i got a phone call saying do you want to come to broadway with cambridge circus and i said well they won't allow me to. There's a musician's union. They said, no, in the cast. So, sure.

Suddenly you're an actor on the Broadway stage. Yeah. I mean, I'd done some acting at university, you know, but suddenly I was an actor. trivia experts out there who was going to be on my last season of Saturday Night Live as the host was Graham Chapman. Gilbert was in the replacement cast after the original SNL

cast. They were mercifully fired before. He was in the replacement cast that replaced Aykroyd and Chevy and killed the original seven. He was hopeless. But Chapman replaced Aykroyd and Chevy. Oh, right. The original seven. He was hopeless. But Chapman was supposed to host, and he didn't do it? He didn't do it, or he didn't show up?

He went there. We sort of did some mini rehearsals, trying to pick bits for him to do. And then he was there for a day. Next day, we found out the producer was fired and in a few days, the rest of us fired. Showbiz. But Graham might not have been very good at that anyway because he was very good at doing his own material,

but he wasn't adaptable. He had his own persona and he just did what he did. And also, he was very drunk most of the time. I loved your description in the book, in Comedy Rules. It could have only helped. We want to plug one of Jonathan's books, which I read, is terrific, Comedy Rules. And you were talking about Chapman and Cleese and how they collaborated, how they wrote together. That Cleese would sit there doing all the typing and all the work, and the Chapman would show up what, hungover?

Well, John said that his typewriter were in a very businesslike fashion, and he would go very slowly and meticulously because that's what he's like, and he might spend a lot of time on a comma. And Graham would arrive late and then he didn't really do anything. He would lie on the floor, stare at the ceiling and bark. And look at Playboy

because at that time he was trying to pretend that he was straight. And none of us guessed that he wasn't. And I said to John one day, why do you do this when you're doing almost all the work? And he said, because every two or three days, Graham comes up with an idea or a line that is so funny that it's worth it. Oh, believable. Wow. Worth the trouble.

Yeah. That's great. They were very good friends. You met them at a party, at a cabaret? Well, that was at Cambridge. We were all in this comedy club called the Footlights Club. And, yeah, I was at some... Well, I was playing in the band, I think, at some party.

The jazz band. Yeah. Yeah. And I was told there was a cabaret. I was new at Cambridge. And I was told there was a cabaret. And I thought cabaret meant, you know, topless girls. And so I was looking forward to it.

And then on came these two very tall young men um and uh and they were very funny and i thought where do they get these comedians from and it turned out they were students um one of them was cleese who was a also a law student and one was graham chap, who was a medical student and who did, in fact, subsequently become a doctor. That's right. So they were both meant to be a lawyer and a doctor. Well, a lot of us were meant to be other things. I mean, I was meant to be a lawyer. Timbrook Taylor, who we mentioned, was meant to be a lawyer.

He was a law student. Stephen Frears, the director, the film director. He has a degree in law. Was Tony Hendra hanging around too? Tony Hendra was hanging around. That describes it really. Okay. And he wasn't a law student.

I don't know what he studied. But what a talented group. Were you and all of these people meant to be lawyers and doctors, were your families like really disappointed that you were? I think so. I think they didn't really quite understand why, you know. And 20 years later, after I'd had quite a lot of success in my career, I did a play that flopped.

It was on for one night, I think, and it was killed by the critics. And my mother phoned and said, you know, you can still go back to the law. At this point, you directed feature films. Yes, yes, yes. That's great. Norman Lear told us a story that he called his mother to tell her that he was one of the first five inductees into the Television Hall of Fame, along with Lucille Ball and Milton Berle and William Paley,

and he was just in this rarefied company, this rare company. And he called her and he gave her the news, and she said, well, if that's what they want to do, it could be a Jewish mother thing. It could be. Well, Mel Brooks said when he was working for Sid Caesar, and Sid Caesar was the number one show in the world, that his mother was calling him every day saying, so, you still have the job there?

They don't know? You still have the job? Well, my mother wasn't like that. She loved the theater. When she grew up in the east end of London, well, in Kennington, she was very, they weren't very well well off but she saved up all her pocket money and went to the old Vic theater which was just down the road and she told me she

saw John Gielgud's Hamlet 26 times oh that must have been almost every performance Wow and she was a fanatical theatergoer. She didn't disapprove. She just thought it's a dog's life. You know, the odds are so much against you, and it's so hard to make a living, and why inflict this on yourself? So she wasn't against the notion, and she was very encouraging. You should have something to fall back on.

Yeah, she should have something to fall back on. Even at that stage. I've heard that story so many times of people who were like in poverty, but they would save up their pennies for either a movie or live shows. Like it was entertainment was important. Warms your heart. Well, she really loved it. And so I was brought up from the age of about four or five.

I was taken to the theater every few weeks. There was a very good theater in Bristol, which had a lot of wonderful actors appearing there at one time or another. Peter O'Toole was the most outstanding, but most of the great actors in England played there at one time or another. Peter O'Toole was the most outstanding, but there was, most of the great actors in England played there at one time or another. So, and I saw, you know, a whole lot of good stuff. By the time I was grown up, I was really, I knew a lot about it.

Had you seen Gielgud and Olivier and Ralph Richardson and these people? Did you see them on stage? Oh yes, all of them, yes. Some of the great British actors? Peter O'Toole as well? Peter O'Toole, I think, was the greatest of them all. Imagine that. The problem was that,

of course, he went into films and hardly went back to the theater from the age of about 30. Yeah. But I saw him on stage a lot for two and a half years at Bristol. Then I saw him at Stratford-on-Avon playing Petruchio

in The Taming of the Shrew and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. It was only in his 20s. He was absolutely great. How about that? And then in a play in London called The Long and the Short and the Tall, which was a wonderful anti-war play. And then he went into movies and he changed his face.

I mean, he used to have a sort of a long pointed sort of lumpy nose and I mean, he looked tough. And they turned him into this pretty person. Matinee idol. And I mean, I thought he was great in Lawrence of Arabia and some other films, but he was never as good as he

was on the stage. How about that? That's so funny because he was always, you know very pretty looking not when i first saw him interesting and he was a better actor than those other actors legendary well better it's a matter of taste but i mean i i really loved what he did he wasn't better than gilgud he was different yeah he wasn't better than olivier i mean all these all these people brought something very different to it um you know guinness i mean i i saw all of them they were wonderful what a gift um to have been able to see all of them yes in their prime yeah um and they were great but i i just i think i saw i think what peter o'toole had was a sort of versatility

which you got a glimpse of in a film called my favorite year which we were talking about when you see what a really funny person he was which you don't see in most of his buildings um and uh and of course that was true of olivia i mean olivia was a great comic actor i think better a comedy than. And I can't think of a lot of comedies on screen. He's funny in Sleuth. He didn't do any comedies on screen. He did a lot on stage. Yeah.

Yeah, I can't think of too many comedies on screen that he was in. I think of him playing, you know, the heavy and marathon man. Yeah. Those kinds of things. And Wuthering Heights. Well, you know, one of his great Shakespeare films, Richard III, he's both malevolent and extremely funny. It's a film that's not shown much anymore, but it's a great performance.

I have never seen it, but now I will. Well, I want to get the chronology of this too, Jonathan. How long had you been in the company before they told you that you were going to New York? In what company? Working with the... I hadn't been. You weren't in at all. Well, I'd been in the York. In what company? In the, working with the, I hadn't been. You weren't in at all. Well,

I'd been, I'd been in the band. In the band. But, I mean, we were all in the same club, and I was junior to them. They'd seen me in some funny sketches,

I think. I was in the first sketch, that Eric Idle ever wrote. He, we were in the same college at Cambridge, and he said to me one day, do you want to try and, you know, there was a college drama show coming up.

He said, do you want to try and do a funny sketch? Do you want to write one with me? And I said, no, I can't write. I've never written anything. And he said, well, I'll have a go. So he wrote this sketch, and it was quite funny. The Buckingham Palace Guard sketch? Yes. How did you know that oh i know things

i don't remember it i just remember that's what it was and uh so we did that and it went very well and then eric and i um actually i didn't really write much with him but um he always writes by himself and uh i mean even in the monty python group he always wrote by himself you know they split up into did you find that sketch years later and give it to him as i did yeah i did i found it about 25 years later at the bottom of a drawer and i framed it and sent it to him for his birthday that's great so you aside from gilliam you knew them all for years gilliam being the American. Well, I knew Gilliam. Oh, you knew Gilliam too?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, he was in London doing Monty Python. Oh, that's right. Of course. I meant to ask before, is John Cleese a funny person in real life? He can be. Like most comedians, he's funny when he's in the moon,

when he chooses to be, when he turns it on. He's also the moon, when he chooses to be, when he turns it on. He's also extremely serious, which again I think is true of most comedians. But yes, he can be very funny, certainly. You said in your book that all comedians and funny people are angry. I think that's true. I think they're not always angry when they get to my age. But yes, I think comedy attacks institutions. It attacks, criticism of life by ridicule. You know, we set out to make fun of everything, you know, the government, the politics,

the army, the church, the whatever. And we do it because, I think, because we're all angry about something, and I think everybody is angry from their childhood. Sorry to be sort of psychological about it. But I think everyone suffers from some sort of primitive murderous rage as a child, either with their parents or with their siblings. And they can't show it because as a child you

have to be good in quotes so you repress it and um then as you grow up you an outlet for anger is comedy absolutely um and i think one of the ways and and i think what happens is that what you do as a comedy writer or a comedian is, in a way, is that you tell the truth. You know, Joan Rivers said that, let me see if I can get what she said precisely. She said, I make people laugh just by saying what everybody's thinking. And I think that's true. And I think that the audience, when they watch something funny and they laugh, they're owning up. They're saying that by laughing, they're saying, I did that, or I thought that, or I wish I'd done

that if I'd thought of it, or I wish I'd said that or sometimes more aggressively you said that you've done that that's interesting I'm contemptuous of you for doing that um and that's that's why comedy language is all about killing yeah interesting you know as we all know comedians when they talk about their audience doing an act, they say, I killed them. It went well. I slayed them. I knocked them dead. And if it goes badly, they say, I died. Do you agree with this, Gilbert, this anger notion? That most funny people are...

So you agree with the idea that comics are basically a little damaged? Oh, I would say very damaged. Hasn't that been our experience, Gil? Both yours and mine? Yes, I think so. But I think as life goes on, they sometimes mellow, either through success or therapy

or a good relationship or something. But the problem is that when you're funny, it's a great outlet for anger, but it's not a cure. You're still angry. And it's a funny, well, with any creative outlet, And it's a funny – well, with any creative outlet, it's always a scary thing like people who will either go to analysis or give up drugs and alcohol. Are they destroying what's their creativity? I don't think so.

Do you? I mean I've known a number of dry drunks who are still funny. I don't think psychoanalysis – I think it helps you understand yourself better. I think success is a greater threat to funny, in my opinion. Yes, because then you're out there on the tennis court all day or flying around in your private jet, you know, can't be bothered. I mean, what happens with people who are very, some people who are very successful, they stop bothering. But it doesn't happen to the best people.

The best people remain funny and angry one way or another, I think, permanently. And it's funny to think that, I always think this, going back to old entertainment, like people don't realize, like when they watch Charlie Chaplin now or the Marx Brothers, just how rebellious they were. Very, very. I mean, Chaplin, because he's always got this veneer of sentiment and pathos

because he was always trying to make himself appealing. I mean, that's the other thing. You know, it's like the problem with being angry and showing it. This is why comedy is such a useful outlet for disguising your anger. If you're angry and you show it, you're not funny anymore. And you want to be liked by an audience. All comedians and comedy you want to be liked by an audience all comedians and and comedy writers want audience approval you know so i mean you know that saying if a if a tree falls in the forest and

there's no one there did it really fall well henny youngman's version of that was if a husband's alone in the forest. Is he still wrong? Great joke. Great joke. But, you know, the problem is you do want to be liked. So it's a balance that you have to find. I find that the funniest people like Chaplin, like Groucho, who was an angry man, that there's a connection there. The comedians that I've always enjoyed over the years when I've done some digging,

I always find that there's a lot of dysfunction and a lot of terrible childhoods in the case of someone like Chaplin. Groucho's childhood, too. But also, there's anger. All of their jokes are angry. I mean, all of the Marx Brothers' jokes are angry. Yeah.

Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, these are angry people. Yeah, they're angry people. Yeah. That's why they're funny. I agree. I agree. Because they're saying things that other people don't or won't say. I agree.

Or do. Tell us about... Yeah, I mean when Groucho was a member of the Hillcrest Country Club, you know, that was the club that he famously said, I won't, I don't want to join a club that would have me as a member. Well, he was offered to join another club. I think it was Bel Air, but I'm not sure. And they said, but you can't go in the swimming pool. That's because he was Jewish, right?

He said, you can't go to the swimming pool. He said, well, my daughter's only half Jewish. Can she wade in up to her knees? I mean, very funny, but it's an angry joke. I mean, it's a really angry joke. And now while Gilbert heads into the nutmeg kitchen to steal more Perrier, a word from our sponsor. Baseball is finally back.

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Tell Gilbert this one thing that I know he'll love. The Sullivan show that you did. Yeah. You were 21. Yeah. You come to New York. The show did not last on Broadway. No.

By the way, the Times Review is still online. I was reading it today. Very interesting. The Times Review was the only one that wasn't good enough, but the Times was the only paper that really counted. We got five great reviews out of six. 1964. But we were totally unknown.

I mean, you know. Right. Totally unknown. It's fascinating now to see it in this context. There are clips from the sketches online, too, on YouTube. I know. That must be terribly embarrassing. Well, it's just audio. Oh, right.

But it's English for beginners. Right. cleese the courtroom sketch and it's fascinating oh yeah that was really funny yeah fascinating some of those sketches were really funny but but the night that you did sullivan was in some way a famous sullivan night it was it was the night that he had the famous fight with jackie mason how about that Gil? Wow. Jonathan was there. That was the alleged finger. Yes well I saw it I mean I was right there I'd just been on and well what happened was at the dress rehearsal the animals were on the rock group and it was only a few weeks after the Beatles or maybe a few months I don't know after the Beatles were on and he always Ed Sullivan always tried to put a British rock group on and that meant that the audience was full of screaming teenage girls aged about 14 or 15 and there was a dress rehearsal

with an audience in the afternoon and Jackie Mason had top billing and so he went on last and he was given you know whatever it was 10 or 12 minutes he tried, none of his jokes worked with his audience. So he got, he kept, he just kept trying and kept going on, and he went on and on, and finally he stopped. And Sullivan and the producers said to him, well, you can't, you know, you've got to keep the time tonight. And there were a lot of big people on the show van johnson was on the show he sang he was doing a show at the copacabana i think it was and he sang go from ipanema van johnson um geez but he didn't know the lyrics and there's a there's a line in it,

Go off Miponema so fair and gentle. And the prop man, who was obviously Jewish, had written so fair and Gentile, and he sang it. That's funny. And so he was sort of, he was demoted, as it were. He was told he couldn't, because this was a big night. LBJ was going to address the nation from 8 30 to 8 45 so there was a 15 crucial 15 minute period on the east coast where nobody would see the show

and that was everyone wanted to avoid that 15 minutes and of course we were put right in the middle of that 15 minutes because we were unknown but we were funny at the dress rehearsal or moderately so so we were given a spot just before LBJ. Van Johnson was told he was going to be on in the middle of LBJ's speech, so he walked out, he put on his fedora and left, and his agent hurried after him saying, you can't behave like this to Ed Sullivan. So he came back and he was given,

he was told, you know, I'll introduce you at 8.12, but actually you've got to sing at 8.40. And Joan Sutherland was on, the great opera singer. She was doing the mad scene from Lucia de Mamoor, which lasts 18 minutes, but they'd cut her down to four minutes. And how did I get on to all this? The Sullivan thing you were watching. Oh, Jackie Mason.

I'm sorry if I'm going on too long. No, it's all right. It's interesting. So Jackie Mason went on that night, and he still, his material just wasn't working. And what happened was, because he was sort of partially ad lib, and he started a joke,

and he was thrown because he got a two-finger sign from the stage manager so it threw him and he started the gag all over again he got to the same point and he got a one-finger sign whereupon he said to the stage manager add a finger to you but he didn't make an obscene gesture if he did it wasn't on screen i couldn't see um well he they cut him off because that was considered an obscene remark and then there was this tremendous fight afterwards which i think i'd made worse because ed sullivan had told me to tap him lightly on the head with my tambourine when i went off at the end of the song I was doing. But I was a bit nervous, so I really bashed him. And he looked a bit cross-eyed for a second and wobbled.

And so I think maybe he was in a bad temper anyway. But then he was in a terrible rage with Jackie Mason. And they shouted and screamed at each other. And a torrent of filthy language from Ed Sullivan, who was this sort of super Catholic Mr. Nice Guy, you know, language you wouldn't credit. And then, although I didn't see it, I gather he threw Jackie Mason down a flight of stairs. Wow.

The next day, they sued each other and everything, as you know. And Jackie Mason didn't work on television for 15 years. This story's been told on this show several times, but never by an eyewitness. Oh, well, it was, yeah. I don't, I mean, I think it was just a nervous response when he got a one-minute finger sign. How about that, Gil? Boy. Yeah, because I remember I've seen it, and he doesn't give the finger.

He's just going, you can't see it. He said a finger for you and a finger for you. Yeah, yeah. This one's giving me this finger, this one's giving me that finger. Yeah, wasn't it? Is that what he said? I don't remember. Something like that.

Something like that. And anyway, but Sullivan went nuts. Yeah, and he didn't work for a long time. I think it was about 15 years on television. Yeah, how about that? That was such the power of Ed Sullivan. Yes. Yeah. So you went back, this was the big New York debut in the States. Yes. You went back to the UK and what? Well, they all wanted to be comedians. I see. And I didn't. I wanted to be an actor. I had a very inflated idea of what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I

was going to be the next Alec Guinness or something. So I got a job in, and I was lucky. I immediately got work in regional theaters. And, yes, I went back and I became an actor. And then you started acting and writing for television. No, that was much later. Oh, it was much later. Well, I mean, I was two mean, two or three years later,

I was in Fiddler on the Roof. Right. Original London cast? Original London cast with Jerome Robbins directing me. That was a tough experience because, you know, he was a genius, but he wasn't really a nice guy. Jerome Robbins. Yeah.

I mean, he may have been nice to some people, but anyway, I was really bad during the previews because he hadn't been there and I'd been directed by an assistant who kept telling me to play it. They kept showing me what Austin Pendleton did in the original New York production. I see.

I subsequently became great friends with Austin. He plays the stuttering lawyer in My Cousin Vinny. But I'm nothing like him as an actor. So I tried to do what I was told. Anyway, Robbins arrived in time for the first preview. And I was terrible. And the first rehearsal next morning, predictably, was 10 o'clock for me and all my scenes.

And so he said, why are you doing that we we started and i did so he said why are you doing that and i said i've been told to he said really and i said yeah so he said well all right let's start again let's do it differently so he was he directed me very well at one point he wasn't happy with the fact i was being too self-effacing. And he said, you know, look, you want to marry Tzitel. He always had a really big smile on his face when he was going to be truly unpleasant. He smiled from ear to ear. He said, he grinned at me and he said, you want to marry Tzitel. she wants to marry you look at her rosemary she's a beautiful girl she wants to marry you so somehow we have to find some way

to turn you into an attractive human being and you're a kid at this point. I was 23. 23. The great Jerome Robbins putting you through your paces. Yeah. And then some. Well, then I got better after that, and he stopped smiling at me, which was a good sign.

Unlike with most people. Was it Robbins who worked with Zero years later? Yes. Or Jack Guilford? No, he worked with Zero much earlier. Oh, okay. Zero had been asked to name names to the House of Representatives activities committee,

as you probably know, and refused. Yes, we had Josh here, his son. Right. And then Robbins was asked to name names, and he did. He had also been, I suppose suppose a communist or whatever would pass for a communist in those days he was asked name names so zero and robbins did not speak well they were doing a funny thing happened on the way the forum out of town and it wasn't working and how prince

the producer said the only person that i know who can fix this and make it work is Jerry Robbins. Do you mind if I get him in to work on the show and redirect it? And it was Jack Guilford that told me this story. And Jack Guilford said, he was so proud of this, he said, Zero said, I won't have dinner with him but i will work with him we on the left have no blacklist that's powerful so they did work together and then and of course it was a huge hit and um and then they worked together on fiddler, not very warmly apparently.

I didn't do it with Zero. I did it in London with Topple. Oh, interesting. Did Zero have some crack about when he entered the room and he shook Robin's hand for the first time? Yes. Well, it was Jack Guilford that told me this story. He was in the cast of Forum. When it was Jack Guilford that told me this story,

he was in the cast of Forum, and he said they never referred to this whole history between them of Robbins naming names to the House Un-American Activities Committee, except one time when Robbins arrived for his first day of rehearsal, and Zero said, Hello, loose lips. I love that. said hello liz lips mustel struck me as the kind of guy that could hold a grudge apparently yeah i mean not unreasonably of not unreasonably in this case no not at all and so both of them were blacklisted both zero and jack for Guilford. Jack Guilford too. Jack Guilford was too.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And. It was a tragic time. Oh, God. And I met a lot of these guys in London because I knew a writer

who was the first president of the Screenwriters Guild called Donald Ogden Stewart. He won the Oscar for Philadelphia Story. Terrific writer. Terrific writer. Terrific writer. Holiday. Holiday, yes. Life with Father.

Yes. Lots of great movies. And he was asked to name names in 1954 when he had a play on the road in New Haven coming into Broadway, and he refused and just got up and left America, moved to London and lived in Hampstead but never worked again, which made him very angry, which he just covered

with a lot of good jokes. But at his house, and I got to, I knew him, I was still 22, 23, and he was in his 70s. I was still 22, 23. He was in his 70s. And at his house every Sunday afternoon, he and his wife Ella Winter would have expatriate Americans over for tea. So I met Ring Lardner and Waldo Salt and Chaplin once. Wow.

And all kinds of people there. And one of them said, I can't remember which one said, I think it was Dalton Trumbo said talking about this whole un-American activities thing we were all victims. He was talking about the people who named names and the people who didn't.

You know, he took a very he took a very wide view of it. And so that was, it was interesting. So I knew a whole lot about those people and their history. So when I came to write the screenplay of Clue, and I had to set it in a period of American history, you know, a country house thriller.

Right. Parody of a country house thriller. Right. Parody of a country house thriller like Agatha Christie had to be period. So I said in the 50s because I knew all about that period of American history from all of these writers that I'd met when I was young.

Yeah, that's interesting. Well, you also had to make the story work. So you're looking for a way to give them aliases. I had to find a story, yeah. But I chose that period because it was the period of American history I actually knew something about because I'd met all of these writers and Jack Guilford and everybody. I knew them all. How did you find Chaplin to be before we talk about him?

Well, he was just very old and pleasant. I think Paul Newman said of that era, he said, it's very easy now to say what you would have done then. Well, I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right. And when all those people opposed

Ilya Kazan getting that honorary Oscar, it was interesting that some people, notably liberal politics like Warren Beatty, supported him. It worked with him. It worked with him. Yeah. He thought he was a great director. And, you know, nobody knows what the pressures were. You know, and nobody knows what the pressures were.

Kazan's autobiography is very interesting because he says he never named anybody who they didn't know the names of already. He just gave them names that they knew. So it didn't make any difference. But for some reason he was picked out as the ultimate bad guy. I got a question about Clue, Jonathan. I was just going to tell you another thing. I was talking to Orson Welles about this. Yeah, tell us about that.

I was acting for Orson Welles. And I asked him about that whole period. And I said, where were you in all that? And he said, well, I was never a communist like all those guys. I was a liberal. And I said, would you refuse to talk to kazan or any of those people he said no i think it's childish not to say good morning to people interesting which i thought was rather wise yeah yeah wells was good to you by the way very good to me i had the best time That's nice

You worked with him for about three months About three months On a project that didn't materialize Well it never was finished I see I mean there were lots of dailies It was one of his eleven uncompleted films Were there eleven?

I think there's eleven Yeah he was constantly starting movies And either running out of money. It wasn't the other side of the wind. It wasn't the other side of the wind, though he was doing bits of that on the side. We had Bogdanovich here. Oh, right, yes. He was doing bits of that on the side.

This was called Orson's Bag. Orson's Bag. And it was a CBS TV special, and he did some— I was hired because he wanted to do some sketches. It was the mid-'60s. He wanted to do a sketch of swinging London, and I was to be a tailor. And Charles Gray, you know Charles Gray? He was the bad guy in Goldfinger.

Yeah, right. Gold, yeah. And we were to be tailors, and Orson was to be an American customer in Savile Row in the swinging 60s. And then, oh, there were various other sketches. Oh, there was a scene in a London club when I was a 100-year-old butler. I was 25. And he played, there were three elderly Brits, and he played all of them apparently, though I never saw his performance in that.

And then there was a bit of The Merchant of Venice, all of Shylock's scenes. But yes, he ran out of money because CBS, he spent all of CBS's money, and he hadn't anywhere near finished it. And then, like with all his other projects, he hustled around trying to make some money from his commercials. So,

you know, from Sherry and Birdseye. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Birdseye piece. Oh, sure. It's a classic.

Yeah, it's a classic. It's a classic. He told me how that came about, why he was so rude to them. They made him audition. And they said, it was for a voiceover, and they said, surely, he said,

surely to God somebody in that little agency of yours knows what I sound like. About that. I never heard this. And they said, well, we've got to audition. So he auditioned for them, and of course he got the job. And then they said, will you come to our studio on Water Street? He said, no, I'm in Europe filming.

You'll have to come to me. So he said, so I made them bring their little tape recorder for the George Sank Hotel in Paris. We do a meet at 11 o'clock on a Tuesday. And I checked out at 10 and went to Venice. They arrived and I wasn't there. So they found out where I was and they followed me to Venice. And just before they got there, I checked out and went to Vienna.

I made them chase me around Europe for 10 days with their shitty little tape recorder. Yeah, I remember. That's the one where he says, show me how to emphasize in in July and I'll go down on you. That's right. It's wonderful. You've heard, of course. I've got it.

Oh, you've got it. It's a wonderful artifact. And then there's that drunken Paul Maison There's the other one where he's had a couple of sips of, that's on YouTube. He's had a couple of drinks.

I've seen that. I'll send it to you. He's got a high-pitched voice all over the set. He's had a couple of drinks and by the seventh or eighth take, he's in his cups.

And I gotta ask you, I mean, the thing about him is he was very funny. People don't know that about him. I'm sure he was. But in real life, he was extremely funny.

Now, I gotta, can't let you get away without this one. You claim there's no such a thing as bad taste when it comes to comedy. Yes. You want me to elaborate on this? Oh, yes. Have you seen Gilbert S Act, by the way? I've heard about it. Okay.

Well, I think all comedy, by definition, is in bad taste because it's going to offend somebody. If it doesn't offend anybody, it's probably not doing its job. So the question is, so the question is the question so since I think there's since I think all comedy is in arguably in bad taste

there's no such thing as good taste I think in comedy so what the question is a different question is it funny or isn't it funny if it's funny it's not in bad taste

if it makes people laugh it's not in bad taste if it doesn people laugh it's not in bad taste if it doesn't make people laugh then it is in bad taste usually um you know carl reiner had the best definition of funny that i ever heard you know he said if you put it up on the screen in front of an audience of 400 people and they laugh it's funny if you put it up on the screen and they don't laugh it's not funny and i think that's right uh so now that doesn't mean that everybody finds everything funny everyone's taste is different um so for instance if i go and see a show and i don't think it's funny but the rest of the audience does if the

rest of the audience is laughing I don't come out of there and say it wasn't funny I come out and say I didn't find it funny which is slightly different it's interesting but I think all comedy by definition is what we talked about before it's going to upset or going to offend or going to criticize somebody. And it always runs the risk of being a bad taste. Because its job is to tear things down. Its job is to tear things down. Sometimes you go too far and you go into not funny.

Gilbert wouldn't know. Gil, did you ever go too far? No. Never got in trouble for that. I do one question about clue since we're we're moving along quickly this is actually from a listener johnny caps uh clue was not initially a success and yet it's become a classic uh especially among young people who discover it year after year why does jonathan think young audiences what does jon Jonathan think young audiences see in Clue that older audiences didn't? Well, I don't think

it's quite that simple. I think older audiences didn't see it at all. Uh-huh. Multiple endings didn't help? Well, we opened with these multiple endings, which everyone,

all the producers, it was my first film, so I didn't know any better. All the producers said it would be a great idea because, you know, only because Clue can work, the game could work out in lots of different ways, so they thought multiple endings was a great idea.

They asked me to write it with multiple endings. I wasn't going to direct it at that point. So I said yes, and I wrote four. And it was very difficult to write because you have to, you know, trying to write a suspense or a thriller, even if it's a parody of that, where logically all four explanations at the end make sense. Right. It's quite difficult to engineer because people can go back and look at the film and say, well, that didn't make sense. So they've all got to make sense. well i realized during the making of the film rather during the editing of the film that if we didn't put them all together no one would see that that was ingenious

um which was really the point of it uh they thought that if we have three or four different endings out there in different movie theaters people would go three or four times well no what happened was they thought i don't know which to go to so they didn't go or maybe they thought if these filmmakers don't know how to end the film why should i go and see it so anyway for whatever reason they didn't go and it didn't get very good reviews so most people didn't see it it did no business so then what happened was i think that people, you know, with the dearth of what to show on afternoon television over the years,

TV companies showed it in the middle of the afternoon, and children watched it. And they thought it was absolutely great. And they kept watching it. And as they grew up, they still thought it was great. Because the jokes are not really kids' jokes you can appreciate as a kid but there are lots of grown-up jokes so what happened was a whole generation of people watched the film by default as it were on television and then kept watching it and it became a lot of people's big favorite

it's a it's got a big following. It's got a huge following. Yeah, yeah. Of course, I'm as surprised as the next man. Right. Anybody else want a whiskey? Yeah. All right, look.

Pay attention, everybody. Wadsworth, am I right in thinking there is nobody else in this house? No. Then there is someone else in this house? No. Then there is someone else in this house. No, sorry, I said no meaning yes. No meaning yes? Look, I want a straight answer. Is there someone else or isn't there yes or no?

Um, no. No, there is or no, there isn't? Yes. Please! Don't you think we should get that man out of the house before he finds out what's been going on here? Yeah! How can we throw him outside in this weather? If we let him stay in the house, he may get suspicious.

If we throw him out, he may get even more suspicious. If I were him, I'd be suspicious already. Oh, who cares? That guy doesn't matter. Let him stay locked up for another half an hour. The police will be here by then, and there are two dead bodies in the study. Shh! Well, there is still some confusion as to whether or not there's anybody else in this house.

I told you there isn't. There isn't any confusion, or there isn't anybody else? Either. Or both. Just give me a clear answer. Certainly. What was the question? Is there anybody else in the house? No!

Watch it the other night, and I tell you, that cast, I mean, in some ways it's a once-in-a-lifetime cast to have Martin Mullin and McKean and your friend Tim Curry and Madeline, of course. Madeline was so wonderful. She was so great. But I didn't know it was a once-in-a-lifetime cast. I'd come over from England.

I didn't know who any of them were except Madeline Kahn, who I'd seen in Mel Brooks' films. And Curry you had history with. And Tim Curry I'd been to school with. But for the rest, I didn't know them. And they were just people who their agent suggested, and they read the script and wanted to be in it, and they came in for meetings the way people do.

And I thought these people would be good i didn't know they were iconic characters or maybe they weren't in those days i don't know um but it turned out that there were good choices it's fun it's fun i watched it again the other night oh good yeah and it's nice isn't it nice and gratifying to have to see a film grow an audience over the years it's extraordinary something like it's a wonderful life did not do very well upon initial release and then gained a reputation it happens quite often which is my main reason for preferring to do films and plays because if a play doesn't work it it's dead it's over that's it it's gone forever yeah the film doesn't work the first time out,

that just could mean that the critics who are, after all, that's just a few people's opinions and they're as often wrong as right. They didn't like it. They put people off. People didn't go. But it's still there. And over the years, people do get a chance to see it again

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talked about in England you saw Sergeant Bilko with Phil Silvers and you were a fan. Yes. And then years later you would make Sergeant Bilko into a film. Yes.

Jonathan is staring. I'm telling our listeners the look on Jonathan's face. Yeah, he's not helping me. He's staring at Gilbert. You're really going to bring up Sergeant Bilko. Well, I don't think Sergeant Bilko, the movie, a lot of people liked it, but I don't think it works., the movie, a lot of people liked it, but I don't think it works. I'm not happy with it.

And for a whole variety of reasons. Phil Silvers was so great. And although Steve Martin is an absolutely brilliant comedian, I'm not sure that really it was his part. He wanted to do it completely differently and bring his own qualities to it, which he did, and he had some very funny scenes in it. I was still imagining Phil Silver's,

so I don't think we were quite together on it. We never got the script to work before we started shooting, so every Saturday, we shot Monday to Friday, every Saturday Steve and I would meet and write some new stuff for the following week, which actually is some of the best stuff in the movie, I think. But the big mistake with it was that it was a really bad marketing idea.

When the Silver Show was on, when Sajiboko was first on, it was right after the Korean War. It was not long after World War II. Nearly every man in America had been in the army or in the military in some form, and they understood it and they knew it and they got all the jokes and it all meant something to them.

And, you know, you have to do movies about things that people understand that are interesting to them. When we made Sergeant Bilko, it was 20-something or 30 years after the Vietnam War. There was no more draft. Maybe 300,000 people in the whole of America were serving in the military.

It was a foreign country to them. The context had changed. The context had changed, and it's recognition that makes people laugh. And there wasn't any recognition about anything military for most of the audience. Still good performances um still good performances very good performances steve is very funny phil hartman's funny phil hartman's wonderful dan akroyd's always good yeah i mean yeah they were good good performances and some very funny scenes

but i never thought we got the script quite right hartman's funny in your other picture too and greedy yeah ph Phil was great. Yeah. He was one of the funniest people I've ever worked with. What a loss. What a loss. Let's talk quickly about a film that does work as we wind down. Well, some people think Bilko works.

I mean, I'm just telling you what I think. In your opinion, my cousin Vinnie. Yeah. People love that one. And interesting, too, as I was telling Gilbert, as a lawyer, you're proud of the fact that it works from a legal perspective as well. I am. It's legally accurate.

It is legally accurate, and it's very nice that the most enthusiastic people about the film are trial lawyers and judges. I mean, I've been to talk at a couple of conventions of federal judges. And, you know, I guess law schools apparently use it for teaching evidence and for teaching, you know, for teaching about how to do things in court, which is really very nice.

Now, I don't take all the credit for that. Dale Lorna wrote the script, and he'd researched it very well. I did add some stuff, obviously. But the main thing I'm pleased with is not, although I love the fact that it's legally accurate, I'm really pleased with it. It breaks a lot of Hollywood rules.

The biggest rule is there's no bad guy. Most people think that Hollywood comedies, I mean, there's always a bad guy. And I get sort of bored when the bad guy comes on because I think, oh, I see how this works. Vinny doesn't have a bad guy. No, the closest thing you've got is Lane Smith's prosecutor. Well, yeah, but he's not a bad guy.

He's just doing his job. He's just doing his job. He's happy to share. He's not withholding evidence. Yeah. He's, uh, the judge is strict and stern, but he's fair. Um, the problem is that Vinnie and the two boys are up against the system. And, uh, I love the fact that it doesn't have the traditional bad guy in the movie. I think it's not necessary. It's so funny.

So many movies I watch where whatever kind of line of work, and I'm always going, something rings so false. Yeah. And even when they're dealing with show business, which they should know. Yes. It's something so false about it in movies. Very often.

And, and with Vinnie, I took great pains to get everything legally correct. I said Dale Lawner had done a lot, but I,

I was after all running it. And, but it's also an example of, of how to make an angry film attractive to people. I mean, actually, what that film was about is capital punishment. Actually saying... I was just going to say that.

Yeah, these two boys would have been fried if they didn't have a peculiarly belligerent, aggressive lawyer, Vinnie. And, you you know for me one of the most important things about the film was it says you know

you can't execute people there's no going back on that it's a comedy that's about something well I think all good comedies

are about something I think that was the problem with Sergio Pilko it's not really about anything it's got a lot of funny scenes

I've heard you say that about when you tackle a project. For you, it's got to be. It's got to be about something. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was. Yeah.

And Frank and I were talking earlier and laughing about this is where that scene, and it's like in all the commercials and everyone remembers. Oh, it's iconic. Yeah. Which scene? Two Utes. Yeah. Two Utes. Yeah. Two Utes? Well, that was real dialogue between Joe Pesci and me.

You were smart enough to use it. What happened was we were sitting in the Mayflower Hotel in New York. We were sort of working on the script a bit. And he said to me, there's these two Utes. And I said, what? And he said, two youths. And I said, what's a youth? What?

What? And he said, two youths. And I thought, that's got to go in. So I just put it in. Wonderful. Wonderful. And that's like the most famous part of that movie. What a gift.

Everyone remembers you. What was we talking about? For me, the funniest scene is Austin Pendleton as the stuttering lawyer, which I think, I mean, I was crying with laughter behind the camera. Oh, he was terrific. I was praying that I wouldn't put him off and that he wouldn't hear me and that the sound wouldn't pick up my desperate attempts to muffle my laughter. So funny.

Even in Greedy, you give him that little scene where he's the hotel clerk with Michael J. Fox's jacket. And he steals that scene. He does. In two minutes. He's wonderful. We love him. We'd love to have him here.

They didn't want Marisa Tomei. No. But she wasn't a star. They thought they needed a star. They offered it to lots of stars, mostly against my wishes and without telling me because that's what studios do.

And fortunately, they all said no. And then I started holding auditions as screen test. Well, Marisa Tomei came in. She hadn't been suggested um i went over to see a film not a very good film actually it was being made by john landis called oscar and she had a tiny part in it and i thought and i watched one scene and i thought she's funny and um so i said

to john who is that he said she's called marissa Tomei. I said, can I see some footage of her? And he said, yes. So we went over to the cutting room and I saw some footage. I went back and I said to my casting director, can we see Marissa Tomei for this? Mona Lisa Vito. He said, well, she's not right for it. I said, why not? He said, well,

William Morris has suggested everybody they've got on their list and they haven't suggested her, so she's not right. So I don't have that kind of touching faith in agents. So I said, let's get her in. So she came in and did a wonderful reading, and then we had to do a screen test. Fox insisted that we do a screen test of our three top contenders.

So I did a screen test of the three women and marissa was undoubtedly the best and completely right for the part and uh i thought i know there's going to be trouble over this they don't know who she is so i took the tape over to joe pesci's caravan where he was filming something else and um said what do you what do you think of these three and he said well it's got to be that one what's her name i said marissa he said it's got to be her so i sent the tape over to fox and they selected a different woman unbelievable so so then i went to a very long meeting a very long protracted argument in which i said it's got to be marissa tomei she's the one she's right for it she sounds like she's from brooklyn she looks italian she's

the real thing and they said no we want so and so the other one their favorite so finally i produced my trump card and i said well joe pesci says it's got to be marissa tomei and i could see them thinking oh god we don't want to have a fight with Joe Pesci. So they said, all right, well, it's your movie. You do what you want. Wow. And talk about being vindicated. Yeah.

Bit of luck, that. Yeah. What about these pants I got on? You think they're okay? Oh. Imagine you're a deer. You're prancing along. You get thirsty.

You spot a little brook. You put your little deer lips down to the cool, clear water. Bam! A fucking bullet rips off part of your head. Your brains are laying on the ground in little bloody pieces. Now I ask you, would you give a fuck what kind of pants a son of a bitch who shot you was wearing? And then that started the rumor. Oh, that ridiculous rumor that she didn't really win.

The rumor that she wasn't the best actress, but Jack Palance was drunk that night. Yeah. And read the wrong name. I know. I saw people, a lot of people said that. There's no reason for saying it. No. And she was absolutely great.

But she was the complete outsider. You know, all the others were much more famous. All of them, I think, except one were American. Judy Davis was nominated. I think she's a very famous Australian actress at the time. And I thought Marissa would win all the time. Because, well, for a very simple reason. It opened in March.

By the time it got round to the Oscars the following February or whenever it was, everyone I ever spoke to said, Who's that wonderful woman? Everyone had seen it by then. Everyone had seen it. Everyone said, Who is that girl? So I thought, who's that wonderful woman? Everyone had seen it by then. Everyone had seen it. Everyone said, who is that girl? So I thought, she's got a good chance. Comedy rules, in your book, you're talking about how often comedies are disrespected

by the Oscars. So it's certainly nice to see somebody winning for a comedic performance. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Go on. In getting back to that subject of movies that bomb and then do well, I mean, Fort Fairlane was one of those,

bombed horribly and picked up a tremendous cult following. And I think had it not bombed, they were considering Andrew Dice Clay to be the lawyer to play Vinny. Had you heard that or is that a rumor? I'd heard that, but when I was offered it, Joe Pesci was attached. Okay. Oh, okay. So there you go.

So I don't know if that was true or not. I don't think so. Because it was originally going to be done with Danny DeVito. And Danny DeVito was going to star in it and direct it. And then, for some point during the development, he went off it, as people do. And

CAA immediately produced their other small Italian. Love it. Fantastic. tell us quickly about Fred Gwynn something about working with Fred Gwynn Fred was just great

I loved Fred he was so intelligent and so helpful he was a wonderful man he was really funny you know he was also a very good artist he wrote children's books he illustrated them Harvard educated as well yeah man he was really funny you know he was also a very good artist he wrote children's

books he illustrated them educated as well yeah and he was just he was just a delight um and i wanted him to be in my next film in the distinguished gentleman um and um he said are you shooting in baltimore he lived in balt I said, no, we shot some of the distinguished gentlemen in Baltimore for government buildings, but no, we're shooting in Georgia. He said, no. What a shame. He and Pesci were such a wonderful Mutt & Jeff team,

I could have watched ten more movies with just the two of them going face to face. Yes. And Distinguished Gentlemen. They had the same sort of relationship off screen as they had on screen. Yes. Yeah. I want to recommend Distinguished Gentlemen too.

It's funny because Frank Gwynn, for years I think he was like really embarrassed by being Herman Munster. And yet he lives on. And I love him. And it was funny because on the opening day, his first shot, I think he thought, that's what I wanted, because that's what everyone wanted from him. And he did his first few lines of the judge like Herman Munster, and I was absolutely horrified.

And so I called a coffee break, sent everyone off the set, and sat down with Fred and said, Fred, that's not what's happening here. And he said, oh, I thought that's what you wanted. And I said, no, definitely not. I want you to, you know, act it. He had range. It wasn't a problem for him.

He just assumed. He was so tired of Herman Munster, but he just assumed that's what everybody hired him for. Poor man. And great in the role. I must say, the way you cast your films, and I was watching Distinguished Gentleman this week too, and that cast too,

and Joe Don Baker and Garner and Cheryl Lee Ralph. James Garner was such a gentleman. He was quite elderly, and we took pains to not ask him to the set not call him in the morning if we weren't going to use him till later in the day because it's not fair so we called him at seven o'clock in the morning and then the weather changed and it was clear we couldn't use him till noon or so so i went to him went to his trailer to apologize, and he wasn't there. And I found him having coffee on the set with the electricians.

And I said, I'm really sorry we're not going to get to you until later in the day. I'm sorry we called you so early. He said, that's fine. I act for fun. I get paid for waiting. How about that? That's great That's great

Another very well cast movie Thank you By the way And another movie of yours That's about something Yes It's about lobbyists Absolutely

And it's about Campaign finance reform Yes It's all come true It's all come true Yeah Eddie Murphy was great in that film Gilbert's old friend

Oh yeah Yeah They were on SNL together I loved working with Eddie Oh yeah True. It's all come true. Yeah. Eddie Murphy was great in that film. Gilbert's old friend. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They were on SNL together. I loved working with Eddie. Oh, yeah. And we worked together in Beverly Hills Cop 2. Oh, right. Yeah.

Yeah. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and also a shout out to the late, great Lane Smith, since we're talking about both of those movies. Yeah. Vinnie and Distinguished

Gentleman. Let's ask you quick, I also want to recommend to our listeners Greedy, which is a lot of fun. And you're in it.

I'm very proud of Greedy. That was another one that didn't do well at the box office when it opened. You should be.

Well, Michael Fox had done three previous, his three previous films had flopped. So the studio decided to try and disguise the fact had done three previous his three previous films had flopped so the the studio decided to try and disguise

the fact that he was in it so his name was very small on the on the on the one sheet

and you know they didn't really and he was very very good in it the cast is great it opens with a Durante tribute yeah the cast

the cast is great yeah Michael was extraordinary I didnante tribute. Yeah, the cast is great. Yeah, Hartman. Michael was extraordinary. I didn't know at the time he'd already been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and he kept it from me,

which made it very hard some days because he found some moves that would be relatively simple for a 32-year-old actor. He found

inexplicably hard. I couldn't understand why. So, he was having trouble physically. Oh, yes. But I didn't know why. So he was having trouble physically. Oh, yes. But I didn't know that. He disguised it very, very well.

The scene where he and Kirk Douglas reenact the Durante dance from his childhood on the stairwell is wonderful. That took a lot of takes because he couldn't get it right. Although it was not very difficult. And I couldn't understand

why he couldn't. Until afterwards when he told me he had Parkinson's. He was extraordinarily brave, and such a true professional. Nice to see you in that film, by the way, and kind of the old Eric Bloor role. Yes, that was it. I thought it was the Eric Bloor role. I wouldn't have cast myself, but Laurel Ganson, Babalu Mandel heard me read the part in auditions for other actors. And they said,

why don't you play it? I thought, okay, if they want me to. You know, they were the writers. And I thought, if they want me to, sure. I wouldn't have suggested it. And how was Kirk Douglas Stewart?

Oh, he was great. In his 70s then? He was about 75, I think. Yeah, yeah. Good comic performance. And he was wonderful. These old school actors are different from young actors. His first take was always perfect.

He would do two or three takes, and after that he kind of got a bit bored because he'd done it. He was used to delivering right away. Young other actors in the scenes would take several takes to get it right by which time kirk was kind of lost interested i'd imagine um old school but but he was he was great and very very funny i mean i'd i'd never i'd never seen him being funny in a movie but in real life he was a really funny man full of great stories about hollywood in the past i'll bet i'll bet i have to recommend that to our listeners too to watch greedy a lot of people have seen clue but yeah i like i'm very pleased it's fun and it's got a nice Eric von Stroheim in joke in the characters' names.

Yes. Mick Teague. And a great cast. Great cast. A supporting cast. And Ed Begley was here. Ed Begley, he was terrific. Oh, yes.

He's so good. Yeah. And let's plug the book. Let's plug Samaritans, your new novel. Okay. Which is about, because you're a political guy,

and it's about the healthcare system or or the collapse of the health care system. Yes. Well, of course, I mean, it's a funny book, I think. In fact, I know it's funny, but it's also scary. I decided to write a book about a hospital in Washington, D.C. that's beset by rising costs and poor management, like most hospitals. And they decide to hire the CEO of the head of the hotel operations side of a Vegas casino to be the new CEO of the hospital because he understands about beds occupied,

check-in and check-out, dinner served, and has absolutely no interest in healthcare. But he really understands how to turn a building into a profitable institution. And that's what he does in the course of the book. And what was so strange was I was halfway through writing it when I read that Gary Loveman, who was at that time CEO of Caesars Palace that was going bankrupt, was hired to be head of Aetna's healthcare division. Wow. Life imitating art? Yes.

Yeah. Absolutely extraordinary. So, you know, the book is about how the business school model doesn't work for everything, including health care. You know, that it's not everything can be about profit and loss. Some things have to be about actually caring for human beings. It's not a view that's fashionable in Washington right now. Yeah. I mean, your writing's been compared to Jonathan Swift, Evelyn Waugh, even Shaw.

Not bad company. Very flattering, yes. Yeah. Sounds also like it would make, I haven't read it yet, and I promise to, that it sounds like it would make a good black comedy. Maybe like Arthur Hitler's The Hospital. I can't say much about this, but there is a negotiation going on. Oh, wonderful. To make it into a TV series, which I think would be perfect for it.

And you are the man who wrote Doctor in the House, so you... Yes, but I wouldn't be the showrunner. I'm too old to be a showrunner, I think. You know, the hours are impossible. I would just be an executive producer and be consulted about things. I would like that. So are you planning any other films? I've been consulted about things. I would like that. So are you planning any other films?

Yes, I have two films that I've written that both have producers and are seeking funds. Wonderful. But we'll see. Okay. You're still going, Jonathan. Oh, yes. It's been a long journey, and you're still plugging. There's nothing.

That's what I do. I mean, you know what I mean. That's what I do. I get up in the morning, and I go to my desk, unless I'm shooting something or directing a play, and I write something because that's an addiction, really. I think it's a habit. It's admirable. Well, it's not really. It's just... It's just to get out of it. Just to have something to do. Yes, exactly.

I don't play golf. What else do you do at my age? I want to thank, too, our mutual pal, Rick Unger, for introducing us and helping make this interview happen. Oh, well, yes, it's good. We love Rick. Yes, absolutely. And it's been fantastic.

There's so much that we didn't get to because it's been such a long career. I mean, we barely touched on Clue. I'm talking too much. No, no, there's so much there. And this, we have to use our cliche, we barely scrape the surface. Well, you're a fun guest to research. I mean, we didn't get into, of course, your iconic series, Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister and all that other stuff, but come back and we'll do

another one. I'll be happy to. It's been great fun. Thank you. Talk about David Lean and Hitchcock and Wilder and your favorite movies. Sure. And Gilbert will tell you his insane theory about Sunset Boulevard. Oh, can I hear it now? Okay, yeah, let's hear it now. Okay.

This is a story I heard recently. I mean, about, I don't know, a year hear it now. Okay. This is a story I heard recently. I mean, about, I don't know, a year or two ago. That, according to this story, women back then, rich women in crazy Hollywood, would buy chimps. Hollywood were would buy chimps and and in the movie she has a funeral for a chimp that she's in love with and according to where he's going with this shit no I don't according to this story these trip these chimps were trained to perform cunnilingus on these old rich women. I would have thought that would be very dangerous. I mean, chimps are quite a hostile animal.

They're vicious animals. These women must have been absolutely nuts. It must have been the excitement and the danger that maybe... It stems from this notion that Wilder supposedly, if you believe this, gave Gloria Swanson a direction. Yeah, he said to her, he goes, remember, you are fucking the chimp. Allegedly, that was the direction he gave her.

And we'll never know we'll never know we'll never know is he diamonds gone they're all gone Brackett I guess Brackett wrote that one but so

this is called the um the cunnilingus chimps we've nicknamed on the show yeah they were the lost Ed Sullivan act the cunnilingus chimps

but see reason to have you back well I I'm more to talk about The Lost Ed Sullivan Act. The Cunnilingus Chimps. But see, reason to have you back. Well, I enjoy that. And more to talk about. When you're more educated on the Cunnilingus Chimps, we'll have you back. Oh, well, I still have more to learn about them. Okay. And I also want to plug your comedy rules book, which we've touched on here, but which was just a lot of fun. Oh, good. And valuable to myself as a comedy writer. I think to anybody that wants to be in comedy.

Oh, good. It's lessons learned over your career, over a lifetime of having done this. Yes, it is. It was just, it was, somebody asked me to write a book about the rules of comedy. And I said, I can't do it. There aren't any. And then I was teaching at AFI and I realized that what I was saying to the students was something like the rules of comedy so I phoned the publisher back and said I can't write about the rules of comedy but I can write about my

rules of comedy so that's what it is and then they said that's not I said they said how long is it going to be and I said oh, oh, 10 pages maybe. You know, like Elmer Leonard's book about the 10 rules of writing. And they said, no, no, it's got to be a book. It's got to be a whole book. Can you fill it out with stories about how you found these rules? So that's how the book. Yeah, it's filled with great stories.

Can you share some of them? Like William Goldman's book, really. Adventures in the Screen Trade. It reads like that. Yes. Rules plus anecdotes. Well, that's a great compliment. Rules plus anecdotes. Yes.

Can you tell us just a handful of these rules? Oh, gosh. I wrote it some years ago. Well, we mentioned, too, you said that all comedy people, all comedians were angry people. And that there's no such thing as bad taste. And the third one that stuck with me was that all comics fear the audience. Well, that's right. That's why they have to kill them.

It's kill or be killed, right? Yes. Here's a man who goes up every night, every week in front of a live audience. That's kill or be killed. Yeah. Yeah. You've just got to kill them. You know, it's not enough.

A draw is not a suitable outcome. It's not satisfactory for anybody. It's a wonderful read, and I can't wait to read Samaritan's. Good. I hope you enjoy it. I hope it turns into a series. Okay. Good, I hope you enjoy it I hope it turns into a series

Okay, so this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast With my co-host Frank Santopadre And we have been talking to the great Jonathan Lynn Jonathan, this was fun and entertaining And educational too Well, thank you very much It was fun for me

As was doing the research You guys are fun to talk to. Thanks. So to our listeners, read Comedy Rules, see Greedy, and Distinguished Gentleman. And I know they've seen it other ways. And learn about cunnilingus chimps. That's not in any of my writing. Just want to make that clear.

That's Gilbert. Thank you, Jonathan. I'm not a stranger, believe true love is dead. But I'll tell you something, brother, when you're dealing with your feelings, it's tough to keep a level head. Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast is produced by Dara Gottfried and Frank Santapadre, with audio production by Frank Bertarossa. Web and social media is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley-Seals.

Special audio contributions by John Beach. Thank you. Well, no matter who you are, if you're a peasant or a store There's a need for love in every man And he found it pretty soon underneath the southern moon When she finally made him understand That every man's got his pride and he'll try to run and hide From emotions that his heart has felt So he gave her love a chance That's when he found romance in the heart of the Bible.

There's a lot of good people that are lying astray that believe true love is dead. But I'll tell you something, brother, when you're dealing with the feeling, it's tough to keep a level head. And it's hard to imagine how the flames of passion will burn until your soul will melt. And it'll spread like a cancer, but you're gonna have to answer to your heart in the Bible. Amen, brother.