Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 249. David McCallum

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

The OTHER "Man from Uncle," TV icon David McCallum drops by the studio to talk about his days as a sex symbol and pop culture sensation, his lesser-known recording career, his star turn in a memorable "Outer Limits" episode and his roles in the film classics "A Night to Remember" and "The Great Escape." Also, David hosts "Hullabaloo," sings with Nancy Sinatra, cuts the rug with George Burns and shares a bill with Ray Charles and Ike & Tina Turner. PLUS: "Frankenstein: The True Story"! The durability of "Ducky" Mallard! The secret origin of Illya Kuriyakin! John Huston torments Montgomery Clift! And David remembers his friend and co-star Robert Vaughn! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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all over Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, go to clearbank.com slash podcast. That's C-L-E-A-R-B-A-N-C, it ends in a C, .com slash podcast to speak with your investment team. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and our engineer, Frank Bertarossa. That's him. Frank Berderosa.

That's him. And our guest this week is an author, musician, a recording artist, and one of the busiest, most respected, and recognized actors of the past 50 years. He might also be our coolest and most debonair... You take that one again. Debonair. He may also be our coolest and most debonair guest to date. Debonair. Debonair.

You've seen him in movies like A Night to Remember, Freud, Billy Bud, The Great Escape, Watcher in the Woods, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and Hear My Song, and in dozens of popular television shows, including The Outer Limits, Night Gallery, Heart to Heart, The A-Team, Murder, She Wrote, Babylon 5, Sex and the City, Jag, and as the medical examiner, Donald Ducky Mallard in the long-running CBS hit, NCIS.

But to Frank and me and a generation of kids who grew up in the 1960s, he'll forever be known as the sexy and mysterious Russian agent Ilya Kuryakin, and as in the iconic spy series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. In an acting career that began way back in the 1940s, he shared the big and small screen with Steve McQueen, Peter Ustinov, Betty Davis, Joan Crawford, Sidney Poitier, Claude Rains, George Burns, and James Mason, as well as podcast favorites John Carradine, Richard Liu, Cesar Romero, and Vincent Price. He's even worked with former podcast guests Lee Merriweather, Barbara Felden, and Richard Donner. Merriweather, Barbara Felden, and Richard Donner. Frank and I are excited to welcome to the show a performer who sang with Nancy Sinatra, lip-synced in the voice of Judy Garland,

and danced with the late Carol Channing, and a man who was once rescued from a horde of screaming fans by the Central Park Mounted Police, the talented and elegant David McCallum. Good evening. Good evening. I have a dream. I know that's a bad line coming from a lad from Glasgow, Scotland, but I have a dream that when I die,

I like to begin these occasions with death, I have a dream that I go in this enormous ballroom and every single one of the characters that I have played over my life is there. Right now, the only one who isn't there is Ducky Mallard because he and I still have an ongoing relationship. Right. But I'm walking around this room in this dream and these people come up to me and say,

Why the hell didn't you? And criticize the performance of playing them. Wow. It's a recurring dream, which is so odd, but I thought it was also a divine idea. Does it pertain to when you played real people, like Harold Bride in A Night to Remember, or also fictional characters?

I have no idea where it comes from. I know that in the early days of my life, I had a dream where I was on Shaftesbury Avenue in a theater, and I came out, and you walk, and you go through all the stuff in the dressing room theater and finally come out walking down, and I was hit by a cab, and that's when I would wake up, which is a typical, you know, you couldn't find the right makeup, the clothes. You're trying to find out if there's a name, at least. Is it a Shakespeare play?

I mean, what am I doing? You have that. And the lights, and it's already on, you're waiting to go on. You have the actor's nightmare. You don't know your lines. And then I played Arthur in Camelot, in the Lincolnshire Marriott Theatre.

And every night I sang the music and played that part. And from then on in, I never had that dream again. Whenever I got out in Shaftesbury Avenue and I was walking down Shaftesbury Avenue, the overture, the Camelot would start.

And I'd go on sleeping quite happily. So you don't have the typical actor's nightmare anymore. Camelot blew it away. Interesting. And can I say something? I first became familiar with you when I was a kid watching The Outer Limits. Yes. And from then on, no matter what I saw you in, I would always go, oh, it's the big head guy.

Yes. The sixth finger. The sixth finger. Written by Joe Stefano, as I remember. Psycho. who wrote Psycho yeah I mean when you when you think of the list

and I look at my hand and think well the number of people it's shaken with which it's shaken hands yeah

to keep my grammar proper but you know you missed off Sean Connery and Mae Britt and you know I mean there's I've worked with hundreds of people.

We could have kept going with those things. And I was asked to do a play reading once. I said, oh, and they sent me the script, and I sat down, we started to read the play up on the Upper East Side. And I suddenly realized I'd done the play and completely forgotten that I'd done it. Wow.

So many things wow and all of them wonderful I had one great clunker directed by the Queen of Soap Opera I can't remember her name and it was at ABC Agnes Nixon

live studios up here on 70 whatever it is and it was called The Screaming Skull The Screaming Skull and The Screaming Skull! And it went out at you know, whatever, and I thought, oh, thank God it's gone. It'll never come back again. But lo and behold

in this day and age, The Screaming Skull emerged. So only one clunker? Well, one that I really was embarrassed about. I mean, obviously, there are one or two when you have children and you're growing up and you have a mortgage and things. There are times when people say, we're sending you a script.

And you read the script and say, okay. I mean, there's no way out. Right, of course. The bills are coming next month and you've got to deal with it. How old are your grandchildren now, David? And do you show them any of the work? Oh, yeah. There are eight, and they go from 15 to...

He was just five. Eight grandchildren. Eight to five, yes. And in New York, I have six boys, all of them blonde, all of them looking exactly like me when I was that age. Wow. They don't look like me, but I mean, they have that same physiological

appearance. Back when you were nicknamed the blonde beetle? No, my nickname when I was young, I worked at the Glyndebourne Opera Company as a stage manager, because before I was an actor, I was a stage manager. I was a carpenter, a plumber, an electric an actor I was a stage manager. I was a carpenter, a plumber, an electrician. I did all of that. And Lister Welch, who was the real stage director of

the entire Glyndebourne Opera, said you have to learn to handle the flats, which is what the scenery was called. And so we went out on stage and he picked the biggest one he could find. It was completely empty. And he showed me how to pick it up and run with it and top it and then take two and tie them together and everything. And at the end of it he said, alright killer, that's enough for one afternoon.

And I said, killer? I was a very emaciated, thin, cave-chested, I was not in any way. And killer stuck for a while, but that's been my only nickname. That, and they call me the Duck Man. The Duck Man.

And Frank just mentioned you were called the Blonde Beetle. Did you know that? Were you aware of that during the heyday? Yeah, I'm sure. Yes, I am. Yes. The nicest one, they said, and Catherine, with whom I've been married for 52 years,

or we've been together for 52, I always get that statistic slightly wrong, but it's all right. It's quite a long time. Very early on in our association, there was a cartoon came out that said I was the greatest thing since peanut butter and jelly, which I have always felt.

If you're born in Glasgow, that's definitely a compliment. Yeah, because you were on, you know, the star of Man From Uncle, right around the, you know, the James Bond, Matt Helm, Flint period, when being a secret agent was the coolest thing in the world. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. What was that? In Like Flint. In Like Flint.

Yeah. Yeah. With James Coburn, who you worked with from The Great Escape. James, yes. Sure. Yes, yes, yes. And you became like this major sex symbol. Yes. And you became like this major sex symbol. Yes, when you're actually going about eating your toast in the morning,

you don't feel like a sex symbol. We wouldn't know. The whole thing is entirely from the outside in, not from the inside out. I don't think I have ever in my life felt like a sex symbol. But I do remember when I came to Macy's doing The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and it was a public appearance because I had several records with it. I had my own orchestra on Capitol Records with H.B. Barnum doing the arrangements and Dave Axelrod of course, the great Dave Axelrod. And we were going to do a public appearance and so I arrived

and we went into Macy's. It was quite a large crowd. And the police came and said, you're not, can't go near them. They'll tear you to pieces. It's an out-of-control mob of 14-year-old girls, which is somewhat of an oxymoron, but evidently that's what it was. Wow. And so they decided that they had to get me out of there. Well, we happened to be on the floor where executives are,

and at one end was an elevator into which you could drive a car. And so they backed one of New York's finest into the elevator backwards. They backed it in, yeah. And I got in the car, and we went down in the elevator they'd cleared Herald Square down there and so we were saying and he started the car

we got the lights going and everything flashing they opened the door and we flew out into the square and stalled right in the middle of the square and I'm sitting back comfortably he is sweating this poor man, and desperately trying to start the car. And I remember I turned to him,

and it was such a James Bond moment. I said, you know, if you turn off the lights and the siren, this baby might start. Which he did, and it did, and off we went. But it was an insane time. You mentioned being rescued from Central Park. Yeah, what happened with Central Park? I just went for a walk and was recognized, and a lot of people came around.

And how did the police come to be summoned? Well, they were there. Oh, they were already there. They probably saw that I was having a little trouble. I saw an interview with you, and you're talking about coming out of the house one day, and there was someone going through your trash. Yeah, that was in that place. What's it called?

California. Yes. There was a lady going, don't worry, don't worry. I'm just looking for souvenirs. Gilbert, does that happen to you? for souvenirs. Gilbert, does that happen to you?

The stories about you having to be rescued by screaming girls sounds like every man's fantasy. No, it's vicious.

The worst, one I was most frightened, and then I'll tell you one that's delightful, but the most frightening was in Louisiana, and I think at Louisiana State University, and I was finally rescued from a scene, and they put me in the ladies' room, and two big cops stood outside and wouldn't

let anybody into the ladies' room, And I'm in there, safe. But they forgot that there are windows at the back of the ladies' room. And these windows were pried open, and the girls started to climb in through the back windows. And I was backed up against one side of the door, and the cops were against the other. And I was beating on the door, screaming, open the door, open the door.

And I lost a few tufts of hair, which mercifully have still grown. They've grown back now. But, you know, that kind of thing is not, I believe the New York expression, it's not kosher. I read an interview with you, correct me if I'm wrong, you said your aunt took delight in the idea of you being a sex symbol that they thought was rather ridiculous. Your Scottish aunts. All those Scottish aunts have handed in their portfolios.

You'd have to wait for a little while before checking if that is true. I see. I see. That story, the rescue story and the one from Macy's, frightening. Yeah, Macy's. Was there a pleasant one? It was $25,000 worth of damage. $25,000 worth of damage. So it was kind of scary, the sex symbol thing.

Well, I was always protected, you know, but the delightful one was in Tokyo. And Catherine and I were walking down the street in Tokyo and it had got around that Ilya Koryakin was there, or whatever the Japanese is for Ilya Koryakin, which I don't know. And this sort of mob of young girls came charging down the street and Catherine and I looked around. There was no time to do anything. They were moving very fast. They got within 10 feet, stopped dead, and all bowed. Wow.

It was so gracious. That is a nice story. You knew, David, I want to go back. You knew from the age of eight you were talking about you were a stagehand before you were an actor. You knew very young that you wanted to do this with your life? Well, it was a little church hall in an institute in a girls' school

in Hampstead Garden Suburb in England. And I had been roped in by the, actually I went to him, the local electrician. And because I was so small, I would crawl through the attics of houses when he was rewiring them because he was too big to get through. And he taught me an awful lot about electrics. And he was the man who did the lighting

in the local amateur dramatic society. And Mr. Dyson, bless his heart, said, you know, would you like to act? And I introduced me to the people. And they did one of those evenings where there's a pianist, a comedian, a woman singing, probably ghastly sound, but she sang. And one of the things was one scene from a Shakespeare play. from a Shakespeare play. And it happened to be the one,

I think it's from King John, where the big burly jailer comes with a red hot poker and he's going to put out the eyes of the prince who pleads for his life. And at the end of the scene, the entire audience leapt to its feet. I mean, how could I miss? Oh, God.

What were you, eight? I must have been something around that. Eight or nine, yeah. I was young. Yeah. This little blonde boy with his burly person saying he's going to put out my eyes. I mean, I'm pleading.

Anyway, with all those people standing there, I thought, homework? No, not necessarily. Practicing my oboe? No, I don't need to practice the oboe. Who wants to sit in an orchestra anyway? I'm home. That's great.

And it was absolutely, in that moment, I was so relaxed and so happy. And one of the things about audiences that I've learned in my life is the warmth. They say, obviously, every audience is different when you're doing anything, particularly doing Amadeus with David Soussey. You're so aware of the audience each night. And in that moment, I realized that I'd made that contact.

I think it was more not what I had done, but more that contact. Interesting. That gave me a young boy who was very much a loner, A young boy who was very much a loner, very much a reader of books, very much in my own world of fantasy to a great extent. As far as academics were concerned, every report card I had does well but could do better. And I knew what was required of me, and that's what I did. And the subjects that I enjoyed, I did. what was required of me, and that's what I did.

And the subjects that I enjoyed, I did. And at the age of 15, I left school with a stamp of approval from the government. I think it's matriculated, they called it, and went to work. And apart from a couple of years in the army, I'm still at it. You never looked back. I never looked back. Your parents were musicians. Your father was a violinist in the Philharmonic? My father,

when I was born, toured all over Scotland, England, with Chrysler and Danny Melba, and they went and played the halls, as it was, and there were great and wonderful people that he

worked with. And then he great and wonderful people that he worked with. And then he became the leader of the Scottish Orchestra in about 1934, 5. And then in 1936, Henry Wood and Beecham, the two major conductors, one with the London Philharmonic, the other with the London Symphony Orchestra,

they both competed for Father's talent, and he ended up with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He was with that right up to the war. The BBC did a lot of programs in all of the factories and places during the war, and Father would go and do that. And then at the end of the war, and Father would go and do that. And then at the end of the war,

Jack Brimer, the clarinet player, decided to reform the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and ask Father to lead it. And he did that right up until, what, 78, I think, somewhere around that, because he had a feeling Beecham was about to retire and he wanted to leave before Beecham. Is it true your folks met in an orchestra pit?

It's a wonderful story and I ain't going to change it. Yes, they were. It's a little, I think it's called Haddington in Scotland and what is interesting is I mentioned

Haddington in NCIS. I mentioned something about, I can't remember exactly what it was. I got this wonderful fan letter and he said, I just have to write to you because you mentioned Haddington and the movie theater, the cinema that your father played in.

He said, I just want you to know that when I was very little I would go to that theater and sit in the front row, and I used to reach through to the pit where your father was and talk to him. Wow. And he encouraged me to buy a violin. And I just want to thank you, because I've enjoyed playing the violin all my life,

having sat in that theater. That's great. Your dad inspired him. Yeah, six degrees of separation. Were they playing a silent film? That was the story I read. That would be tight, yeah. And my mother worked in the same venue.

She also was in a ladies' orchestra, the photographer, which is phenomenal of that period with the clothes and everything, on a seaside town to boot. And they met, they married. And then mother really didn't play that much after that. Father was a great friend of Mantovani, so he did a lot of the Mantovani records.

And shortly before he died, he recorded Softly As I Leave You, which I thought was well placed. And you were in the movie Freud. Yes. With Montgomery Cliff. Because I remember that used to be on TV all the time. John Huston. And what was Montgomery Cliff like?

He became a very good friend. I love Monty. Monty was a dear, dear person and really sweet. But I was in a situation where you had a classic sadist-masochist relationship. John was a sadist, Monty was a masochist. And at one point in filming, there was a moment when the twins, Montgomery Clift and myself, in a dream sequence, are on a place with a lot of rocks, and the studio was covered in real rock. And I fall over a cliff,

pulling on the umbilical cord Monty along, who stumbles. And when we were shooting it, John had two grips on one end of the thing, dragging Monty over these rocks. Monty was covered in blood. His arms were swollen way up. And I walked off the set.

I said, I will not have anything to do with this. And I went in my dressing room and I said, that's it, I can't take this. And so it sort of stopped. Nobody was shooting anything. And there was a knock on my door, and Larry Parks came in. Larry Parks, wow. And Larry Parks was the one who persuaded me to go back.

I then discovered what Larry Parks did during the McCarthy hearings, and he was a very good one to send me in to say, to hell with your principles, come on back. So I went back, and John came over, and I said to him, John, who was much taller than I am, why, why are you doing this to him? And he put his arm around my shoulder and said, it's good for him, David.

It's good for him. Now that, to me, is a moment in my life that I will never forget. Wow. So a little bit later, I was in London. This was all taking place in Germany. And Monty came over, and we were on Walden Street and having dinner together. And he said, I escaped. I got away.

I got away from John, and he came over. And it was a moment there was a phone on the table and the phone rang and Maitre D said it's for you Mr. Clift and he picked it up and held it up like this and you could hear John's voice

saying hello Monty and tracked him down wow why do you think what was his motivation why do you think he thought it would be good for him was he trying to get him in character?

Just trying to get a performance, abuse a performance out of him? There's Freud and Jung, and there's no way I can... How strange. I can really follow that, but it was very strange. And there were things when Monty had colossal speeches in the big anti-theater as Freud, and he would do the speech perfectly. And John wouldn't print it, and they'd do it again. And I think they did it all day.

I don't know how many times he did. Wow. And so when the studio saw the rushes, realized they just said that Monty kept, you know, there's so many takes, Monty kept messing up. And we all actually, Roddy McDowell was the one when the court case came up.

I think somebody sued something for somebody, for something. And Roddy called and said, would you give testimony? I said, absolutely. This is ridiculous. But then when Monty finally, although I wasn't there, but I heard that Elizabeth Taylor, obviously his great friend, and Burton and others, Monty was having a hard time. Yeah.

And they got a movie for him. I think Brando had something to do with it too. And they asked Monty who he'd like to direct it. And he said, well, John, of course. Wow. About that. Yeah, it's quite a story. And I can say it now because they've all moved on.

Everyone's gone. I kept my mouth tightly shut. I was watching The Great Escape, speaking of everyone moving on, Gilbert and I were talking about The Great Escape and I was watching it last night again and you're the last of the Mohicans from that one too. Yeah, the local bar,

the little house we have out here on Atlantic Beach, they're having a screening of The Great Escape, and I said, why don't you make it a reunion of the entire class? Oh, they said, that's a great idea. And I said, where are we? They said, where are we? You're looking at it.

That's it. There must be a bit player. There is John. No, no, no. The guy who escapes with Charlie Bronson. Oh, yes. I forgot the actor's name. John, John Dent.

John, not John Dent. I'll look it up. I'm sorry, John. I should have remembered. All the stars. I mean, Garner and Coburn and your friend Donald Pleasence. If you have a moment to go back to death. Is there an obsession there, David?

I heard that. Well, I am a pathologist. That's true. When Donald Pleasence died, I called his wife because I knew him very well. And I said, I'm really sorry to hear about Donald. And she said, oh, David, it's so sad. He was in Germany.

He was over there in France. Oh, that was so awful. It was so awful. They just didn't know how. I mean, they didn't take care of him. Hold on a minute. I said, what is it? She said, hang on.

He's here. Donald's here. I said, what is it? She said, hang on, he's here, Donald's here. I'll call you back. And I thought, my God, she's gone completely bonkers. And it was such a strange moment. And then I discovered it was the coffin being delivered from Europe. Oh, God. Wow.

A little black comedy. He's here. Donald's here. Wow. You took part in a 50th anniversary event for The Great Escape in Nebraska in 2013. Yes. You went to Omaha I thought it was as you just described it it was in fact a way to get me there to do two and a half hours of signing photographs and autographs oh I see I see it's interesting to see the original print on a screen and the digitized versions are much better. What they do now

on a screen is so wonderful. The Blu-ray looks beautiful, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. And you and Garner became pals, too? Yes. Well, there was the three of us. There was Jim, myself, and Donald, because I knew Donald, and we just happened to be a group that ate together. Right, right, right. These things happen.

Right. And you said every, they quickly formed groups there and each one went on. Well, it's people that had known

each other before and it happens on every set. I mean, it's... Had you known Sir Richard before? He wasn't Sir Richard at that time.

Sir Richard, yes. I heard that when they said give him a knighthood they meant his brother David. But that may be apocryphal too. Right. But I think David Attenborough is,

I mean Richard Attenborough. No, David is phenomenal. Richard too. Richard's a lovely, dear person. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. Want visibly glowing skin in 14 days? With Nuole Indulgent Moisture Body Wash,

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Contact a licensed TD Insurance advisor to learn more. And one thing we have in common, I guess, is we both do a lot of voiceovers. And you said you had a great line about why you like doing voiceovers. I did? Oh, cartoon and video games. Yeah, you said that it's a great excuse to overact. Oh, yes, yes.

Well, you don't know any other way. That's mainly doing cartoons. Yeah. I've done a couple of cartoons, and, you know, you really can let loose if you want to. And you're sitting around with people making the most extraordinary noises. It's quite wonderful. Your grandchildren, do you show them those, the Batman cartoons and the Wonder Woman? They see them and say, I saw you on television today.

You were in Batman or Wonder Woman or something. That was your voice, wasn't it? I said, yeah, probably. But I got today the final version. In June, we were at Normandy at the beaches and i'd never been and katherine and i went there and it is an extraordinary experience to go to the beach which you know this table you know this vast space and the how the beaches you know my beach used to be what 50 yards long this one's half a mile out to sea.

And it was an interesting visit. And at the end, I was there actually to be the honorary spokesman for the World War II Foundation. And the foundation asked me, General Davis asked me if I would narrate the, there was a very famous moment in World War history, Pointe du Hoc, where they basically stormed the beaches on D-Day. They were really the people that made it possible to get up, to get rid of the guns that were going to be firing on Omaha. And I said, are you sure you want to go back to the wee lad from Glasgow to do you?

And he said, no, no, we really like to do it. And I got it today, the finished version, without the credits, but it is superb. Oh, good for you. And it's just such an honor to be able to have done that narration. Something to be proud of. Catherine and I work and have for many, many years with the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation. And they've raised

well over $100 million to send the children of Marines and the corpsmen who work with them to college to help them. And it is phenomenal. I did the 50th reunion as the emcee here at the Hilton, and I've done on the West Coast quite a bit.

I've done the emceeing evenings, and it is a great honor. So to be involved with the Marines and then to have been given the opportunity in a very slight way just to pay back, to be able to be a part of that yeah it's some questions from listeners i'll get to later but a couple of people wrote please thank david for all he's done for the for the marine corps which i will i will mention when we get to the listener questions we'll keep it up yeah good for you that's admirable what did your folks

think when when you told them you wanted to act i assume they had being a musician in mind for you yeah i i have already um been playing the oboe for a number of years with the Corongley player from the Royal Philharmonic, and Leonard Brain. And Leonard had got me to the point, I was in the senior orchestra for one day, totally lost in the orchestra. I was nowhere near.

I had not been practicing enough. And my father said, we really want you now when you finish school to go to Paris and we will pay to send you to the Paris Conservatoire to study the oboe.

And that's when I said, I really don't want to that. And he said, well, then you can pack up and leave and go find yourself a job. I mean, I really don't want to that. And he said, well, then you can pack up and leave and go find yourself a job. I mean, basically, that was not in quite such terms, but that was obviously what. And also, it's what I wanted to do.

And so, that was it. This was for, go ahead, Gil. Did your parents see your success? Did your parents see your success? My father thought it was a terrible idea to be an actor until my name was in 30-foot letters in Leicester Square. He came around. My mother's philosophy was very simple with children. You feed them, you cuddle them, you answer their questions, and you

leave them entirely alone. Let them work it out. You know, to a great extent, with homework, you know, people bring homework home when the kid and the father sit down and do the homework. No, the idea is the kid does it, goes to school the next day, and the teacher says, why didn't you finish it? He has to deal with that. Of course, of course. And my mother's philosophy was, leave them alone.

They'll be fine. What was the movie where your dad actually got to see an early British film? It was... You're making me remember. No, that's okay. You don't have to. No, that's okay. No, I think it was a thing called Robbery Under Arms.

Robbery Under Arms. With Peter Finch. Yeah, and Peter Cushing. And Peter, who I also became a very good friend over the years because I did another couple of things with Peter. And Peter and I once sat down and said, we're talking about collective nouns. Which Peter is this? Cushing? Peter Cushing. We're looking at when I was doing a thing called down and say we're talking about collective collective nouns which peter is this cushion

we're looking when i was doing a thing called i was shooting up children in a school it was great fun but peter said we were talking about col col um collective nouns you know and what he said there isn't really a good name for actors what What do you call a group of actors? So the next day he came in, he said, I've got it. And I said, what is it? He said, it's a grumble. A grumble. Perfect. A grumble of actors.

Was that the juvenile delinquency film, The Violent Playground? I watched some of that. It's on YouTube. It's sort of a blackboard jungle. You're a... Very dated. Yeah. Very dated. Yeah, but interesting.

I think with the Schmeisser, it was a weapon. Sort of an angry young man kind of a film that belongs to that genre. Well, what happened to me, I was in repertory at Oxford University

at the Oxford Playhouse. And there is quite a gay community at that time at Oxford. And all of those wonderful musicals, those Salad Days, all of that music. And if you know it, you'll know what I mean. It's very light and pastel shades on all the men wearing pink shirts and things. But there was a photographer, Kenny Parker, and he would photograph all the undergraduates or whatever you call them in that particular environment. And he said,

I want to do a picture. And he took a picture of me. It was exactly at the time of James Dean. And I have both of them on the wall, the Dean picture and the picture of me, it was exactly at the time of James Dean. And I have both of them on the wall, the Dean picture and the picture of me. I mean, he copied it. And that's the picture that went to Clive Donner, not Dick Donner, Clive Donner. And it was Clive Donner's first movie. It was called The Secret Place with Belinda Lee and other people, it doesn't matter but that imitation, that photograph in that James Dean era is what got me into movies

Interesting, because they thought you were And then years and years later I was in Italy doing a film called La Cattura with a lovely director, lovely man we had six feet of snow we were in Yugoslavia having a great time and I don't know if you know but when Belinda Lee

was living in America she was in a car driven across Nevada and she was dating an Italian count they ran right in the back of a truck and she was dating an Italian count and they ran right in the back of a truck and she was beheaded and there were photographs with

the top of her head at the side of the road and it was instant death of Belinda Lee and sitting in the snow with Paolo he said oh my god Nikos you worked with Belinda and I said well how do you know her he said I was the driver of that car.

Oh, my. Oh. Oh, my. Clearly, he ducked. Yes. But she was probably asleep. Terrible. But it's amazing to me how things, you know, come around six degrees of separation.

Oh, yeah, there's a lot of that. Sure. A lot of that. You know, when you do a show like this, we were telling you when you came in, we've had 250 guests. And the way people's stories overlap. Oh, that's interesting. We even get two different stories from the same story from two different perspectives of people that worked on the same film. What's the game called? Telephone, is it?

Yeah. That's a fascinating concept, the whole idea of Six Degrees. Gilbert wants to ask you those outer limits questions. Yes. If you remember anything about playing the minor, the rather tragic minor. Willem. Yeah, yeah.

And that lovely Jill Howarth. Right. Who died a few years ago, yeah. And Edward Mulher. And Edward Mulher, yes. Yeah. Known to American audiences most for the Ghost and Mrs. Muir

series. And didn't he do My Fair Lady on Broadway? He must have, because he's just perfect for Higgins. If he didn't, he should have. But I just want to ask you about the these are two questions from, remember our friend Gary Gerani, Gil?

Oh, yes. Gary Gerani did the audio commentaries for some of the Outer Limits releases, and he said, please ask David that he delivers some of the series' most elegant and poetic speeches, and given the swiftness of TV production at the time, was there any time for rehearsal? And did you work on that dialogue yourself? I came up with a couple of things. We were short. Yeah. And in one of the scenes on one day,

I was flicking through books. That's that very thing, you know, and you're reading the Encyclopedia Britannica in 20 seconds and all that. And one of them was a book of, actually of Bach, Bach Preludes. And I happened to see it. And I think in film, I don't know if you see that, the flicking, but the music impressed me slightly. And the

next day when I heard they were short, I said, well, he's seen the music, and why doesn't he sit down at a piano and play the piano? Right. That's a great scene. And so that was the scene that was added as a result of me seeing that little boy. That was one moment. But my... I can't remember the exact quote,

but my son still quotes my eldest son with Catherine. Your ignorance makes me ill. There's some scathing thing. It's great. He's yelling at the police. It's a credit to you as an actor that you managed to make that character and that absurd situation believable.

And sympathetic. When we were shooting the last scene, when there's the thing and she opens it up and there's Gwilombak. The chamber, yeah. And I said, you know, wouldn't it be more interesting if it was a rhesus monkey, you know, or something. And somebody suggested getting some ketchup

and just having a pool of ketchup on the chair. But, yeah. What I remember in that, it's this most highly advanced scientist and he invents a machine that could turn you into an advanced human. And when you see the machine, it's a lever that says forward and backward. Yes.

So you can make someone into a caveman if you want, or an advanced human. You know, I never thought of that. I'm such a sucker. I totally accepted it. At one point when David's in the chamber, when your character, Willem, is in the chamber, she's pushing it backward, and you see him growing hair. You see him going back to being a primitive man, and then she says, too far. And she starts to bring it forward again.

And you tell her beforehand now if you push the lever forward, I go forward. If you push the lever back, it's wild. Please, please, please. It's wild. And the early days of prosthetic makeup too

when you're walking around with an appliance on your head. I got there at 4 o'clock in the morning. It took until 8 to put it on, and I could work until 11, 12, and then it had to come off. It was so heavy. Yeah. But my father,

rather than saying, here I am in the flesh, he used to say, here I am in the bone, because he was somewhat, not cadaverous, but he had very, very strong bone formation, and he didn't eat a lot. And when I put that whole thing on, and it was all done, I thought, oh, my God, it's my father.

Wow. The cheekbones and the whole thing, it just so reminded me, not the bit at the top. Directed by James Goldstone, a little trivia, who directed a Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode. Yes, yes, yes. What was Rapid Vaughn like to work with? Wonderful. Creative. Simple.

Never a problem. And all of it covered over by the fact that he was studying either to write something or to make a political speech because he was very fond of the Kennedys and worked with them. And I think he was also at the university taking one of those letters that you get past your name that have eluded me in my life. Boy, you became a PhD. I became a PhD, exactly. And so he would very much come out on the set.

He always knew his words perfectly. Acting 101, which in many cases has gone by the board, which I'm horrified to see. But he was always prepared. And I love to choreograph scenes with the director. So I had worked out, you know, why don't I stand here, you stand there, you do this and that.

And he went along with it. We just, it was very copacetic and great. We had a good time. And Leo was wonderful. Leo G. Carroll. And then we had all these charming, lovely ladies that came by. All the innocence. You said a very nice thing about Robert when he passed.

It was very touching. You said that losing him was like losing a part of yourself. Yeah, it's true. Very sweet. It's true. You know, the older I get, the more people keep going. Here we go again. But, you know, one of the things I've noticed, if I go to somebody's funeral and people stand up and eulogize them, I sit there thinking, I didn't know anything about this. about this.

Why the hell didn't I know about all this about this person when they were alive? You know? Suddenly they have a military history, you know, highly decorated or something. Or they were, there's always a lot. That's interesting. You think you know someone well and yet there's parts of themselves they never reveal. And you find out when they've gone.

It's a mistake. It's a mistake. And there was one, well see this was this was Girl From Uncle, which you weren't on. No, I wasn't. And where they had Boris Karloff and Drag. Yes, what was it, Mother Muffin? Yes. Have you ever met Boris Karloff?

No. No. No, I knew, oh God, I've lost the name. You mentioned him. Vincent Price. Vincent Price. Yeah, yes. Yeah, Vincent Price had a house north of Malibu, an apartment, or maybe it was a house, I can't remember.

But he invited us all up there for dinner or lunch one Sunday, And I knew him quite well. Lovely man. He's a great villain. He's in one of the best uncle episodes. And speaking of cooks, I realized the other day that at some point in my life, I did a show with Danny Kay

and Danny Kay's dressing room. And we were with Danny Kay for a while. He was an obsessive cook. He cooked everything. Yeah, we heard that about him. Just quite wonderful, wonderful. I think he's in the, before we turned the mics on,

we were talking about Carol Channing, who you were in a variety show with, who we just lost at the age of 97. Carol was divine. I believe Danny Kaye was on that special. I think it was George Burns and Danny Kaye and you. I don't remember Danny Kaye was on that special. I think it was George Burns and Danny Kaye and you. I don't remember Danny Kaye being on that show. Maybe it was the Andy Williams one, but it was one or the other because I was watching them last night.

It's funny, Gilbert and I were laughing about the days of variety shows. Yes. When a hot actor like yourself at the time or Adam West would be invited onto these variety shows and mostly in character. Yes, I remember when the first Andy Williams show I did, they had the Tijuana Brass. Yeah. And we were doing ba-da-da-dum, bum-ba-da-dum, boom-boom.

The boom-boom, you didn't realize it, but that was me back then. Oh, really? With a sombrero and a mustache, a long mustache, good old clothes, and this great big drum, and I was boom, boom.

And then they'd pull me out of the, you know, with Uncle Agent in disguise. Yeah. I was explaining to Gilbert today in the Andy Williams special, you pull out a device that Kuriakun is working on

which allows you to simulate anyone else's voice. Oh, that's that one with Judy. on, which allows you to simulate anyone else's voice. Oh, that's that one with Judy. Yeah, and suddenly you're singing the man that got away in Judy Garland's voice doing a duet with Andy Williams, and it's surreal. I have to get that movie.

You look game for anything by that. And there's a wonderful piece of tape, Hullabaloo. Yeah. When I hosted Hullabaloo in 007, and I'm singing and dancing away, it's just quite amazing. Yeah.

Who is this guy? I've heard you say that. You look back at this stuff, and you don't. Well, doing Julius Caesar in Central Park. Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine. Now you can't imagine, looking back. Barbara Felton said back then, and it's funny to mention Barbara Felton because she was.

Another spy show. Yeah, another secret agent. Right. And she said because she was known at the time, every week she was doing another variety show. Yeah. Yeah. I have to try and remember. I'm sure I did others well well we'll get back to uncle but since you brought up music I have to ask you too about the big TNT show isn't that

wonderful how the hell did you get involved with that list of names up I have it here somewhere let me find it it's on one of my cards. Oh, it was Ray Charles and Joan Baez and where is that? And I get the same billing. Yeah. You were the master of ceremonies.

I was? Oh, I didn't know that. I knew I had the band. It was Ray Charles. It was the Ronettes. It was the Byrds. Ike and Tina Turner. Ike and Tina Turner. That's Charles. It was the Ronettes. It was the Byrds. Ike and Tina Turner. Ike and Tina Turner, that's right. And David McCallum. Oh, oh.

Needless to say, my children have the poster somewhere in the house. That's wild. It's called Cheeky. Yeah. Now, I know you had a music career, but how did you get involved with that? Yeah. Now, I know you had a music career, but how did you get involved with that? Well, when the Man From U.N.C.L.E. was a big success, they came and said, we want you to sing.

That simple. And we'll sing a song and we'll release it. And I said, I don't really want to sing, but I'd like to write an orchestration. so what I thought I would do was to take not electronic just straight woodwind and take a quartet of oboe basically oboe coranglais

and four french horns to do a string section but use four french horns and take the top 40 of the time and make it rather Mozartian drawing room. You know, it's a sound I've never heard.

I'd love to do it one day, if there's anybody listening. You never know. But at the same time, I was then given to David Axelrod. I met Peggy Lee and Lou Rawls and all the people he was working with. And he said, let's use H.P. Barnum, who was at that time doing the arrangements for the Supremes. So here I am with this glitterati of the music business. I'm not going to say I want to do Mozart and stuff.

I kept my mouth shut. Go with the flow. So when I went in the studio the first time, and I think it was satisfaction, and, you know, they blew the studio down. I mean, it was nothing like what I had imagined. I can imagine. But everybody was saying, oh, this is so cool and so great.

And I'm thinking, well, go with the flow, as you say. It's great when we do research into the guest's career and the little surprises. And I knew a lot about you. I knew the Titanic movie. I knew The Great Escape, of course, Uncle. And I knew you had a music. I knew you'd cut a couple of albums. I did not know you conducted the orchestra at the big TNT show at the old Moulin Rouge

in Hollywood. And it's just, I found the card. It's Ray Charles, Joan Baez, backed by Phil Spector on piano. Roger Miller, King of the Rose. Ronettes, Donovan, the birds, Ike and Tina Turner. How about that?

And David McCallum. And David McCallum, And David McCallum, ladies and gentlemen, conducting the orchestra. And there's also that clip, speaking of music, of you singing with Nancy Sinatra where you sing Trouble.

Yeah, I think I wrote the song. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, I still get little checks from ASCAP for things like that. Yes, but there's another moment of talking of conducting orchestras. I did a thing called Mother Love, which we haven't mentioned for

British television. And as part of it, I play a traveling worldwide conductor. And they said at one point, we need you to conduct an orchestra. I said, fine. A small quintet or something. And then they said, today's the, we need you to conduct an orchestra. I said, fine, you know, a small quintet or something.

And then they said, today's the day. And I'd worked with a conductor. I know how to conduct. I mean, my father taught me all about that. Sure. And he told me all the things that conductors do that they don't like. And he told me when the band goes on automatic pilot, which I thought was a wonderful line for a symphony orchestra.

And they said, today's the day. And I went down to the hall, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra was there. And I did a piece of Mozart, which I used the Beecham recording of the Hafner Symphony. It's very specific tempos. And then in the rehearsal, I did the Prokofiev classical symphony. So I conducted both of these, one in mufti and the other in full

you know, white tie and tails. And when it was all over, somebody said, you know, your father would have been proud of you. And I thought that was such a nice thing to say, because they all knew him when he was in the orchestra. And I turned to the principal cello and said, you know, I did what I could. And he said, you're better than what we usually get. Wow, nice. Which I have lived on ever since.

What a nice surprise. I don't know if it was the cellist. I won't attribute it to anybody. I heard them say that conductors is like an egotist dream. Well, when you stand there in front of 70 people and you

lift your hand up in the air and you bring it down in a single beat, particularly if you're doing Beethoven's Fifth, because that's what you have to do. One of the harder ones to start. But, you know, I've sat in the pit with Vittorio Gui, with, oh, so many, many conductors over my lifetime, and watched Beecham a lot. There's something on the other end of that, which is quite extraordinary to me, is when you have 70 or more musicians, and when it starts, it's as if there's one person there.

If you listen to a great, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, you've got to remember it's 70 people. And if you listen, the precision. And I remember watching with the Royal Philharmonic, the woodwind section. They could tune their minds and their instruments to a quarter of a note. I can hear a note and a half note,

and it was a little out of tune. But they could actually hear something out of tune that I could not hear at all. And the dexterity of which they played those instruments as a team, it's immaculate. I know I'm in awe of that kind of ability myself. It's why it's wonderful to watch golf.

I mean, I've been on a tee at Riviera and watched those quite short guys hit the ball 365 yards. How do they do it? It's just watching expert people do the thing they do. It's such a pleasure. And a couple of years ago, the movie Baby Driver came out and a David McCallum composition turned up on the soundtrack.

Do you know what I'm referring to? I think that was written by David Axelrod. It's on my album. Oh, is that The Edge? Yes, David wrote that. Okay, but from your album. But it's on the album and I take credit, all the credit. Life is tough enough.

I stand corrected. Gil, what do you want to ask this man about? You want to ask about... I want to ask... Go ahead. It's the Frankenstein movie. We have to ask you about the Frankenstein, the true story. The true story.

The prettiest Frankenstein ever. Michael have to ask you about the Frankenstein The True Story. The True Story. The prettiest Frankenstein ever. Michael Sarazin. Yeah. With you as the mad doctor. Yeah. Henry Clervel.

Clavel. Clavel. Anyway. I haven't seen it in years. Is it Clavel? The only thing that I really remember

about that is I think who directed Midway, the first one? Oh, gosh. Anyway. This director?

Jack Smite? Jack Smite. Yeah. Anyway, Jack Smite directed that. Yeah, no way to treat a lady. We love him. Oh, yes. He was a lovely man, and I said, we've got to find something.

So I went to the prop department at the studio we were working in. I found a parabolic mirror, which was about that big, you know, a good three feet in diameter. And if you held it up, the distortion of your own face was quite extraordinary. And I thought it was perfect. And there's one scene where I walk around the room with some speech that needed a little something, and there is this face in the mirror. That's all. And the other thing I love,

in order to have a hospital somewhere, the St. Mary's Hospital in London, which had been closed up, the attic, since the mid-1800s, they decided to go and see what was up there. And there was the hospital exactly as they just closed it up beds, everything

Wow, frozen in time and they blew the dust off and that's where we shot a lot of the stuff in the hospital and there's one point I think it was in Frankenstein where I saw a leg off That sounds right

I haven't seen it in a few years I got a tin can on the ground, and I got a piece of wood and a saw, and I put the guy on the bed. You never actually saw what I was doing, but I actually cut through the wood, and when it fell off, it fell into the bucket with a clonk,

and it's exactly in the movie as we did it. It's a very interesting revisionist take on the Frankenstein story. I'm sure. And it's like they tried to bake the Frankenstein story and the Bride of Frankenstein into the movie, because Dr. Polidori, the Mason character. Oh, yeah. That's another very good friend. James Mason.

James Mason, yes. character. Oh yeah, that's another very good friend. James Mason. Yes, and when I was at Glyndebourne, the Aberts were the directors, and years and years later, when James was living in Malibu, he called me up one night, I'd like to come over and have dinner, and I went over, and the younger Abert was there, and he was telling me all about me when he saw me as a young assistant stage manager, property master at Glyndebourne. Oh, wow. And he said, I remember you doing this and doing that, doing that. It was a really nice moment to be sort of reminded of those moments.

Why don't you favor David with a little bit of your impression because I think he'll get a kick out of it. From this point on, you won't have any memories of Joe Pendleton or Leo Fonsworth. It's your destiny, Joe. What do you think? Great.

Pretty good, huh? Brando, huh? Yeah, this is Richard Burton. I could have been a contender. I want to talk about A Night to Remember, too, but I'm just going to ask you about some of these people because I found this interesting, too. We talked about all the people that showed up on The Man from UNCLE,

and you said that someone asked you in an interview, were you starstruck by people like Joan Crawford and George Sanders? And you said all of them. I mean, when I was in my early teens, my father would take us to the local Odeon cinema. And if he came, we sat upstairs in the front. And if we went on our own, we went downstairs in the front, which is dreadful, because it's a big screen. But with Father, it was fabulous. And I watched, you know, all of those people,

and particularly all the gangsters, Mazurski, and Cianello, and all those incredible people. And on The Man from Uncle, they all came by. They all showed up. And I didn't have a um an autograph an autograph i heard you say that you regretted not having an autograph book and you know um

george sanders had the conversation with bob and i one night one day when we were working that he was going to kill himself when he got to a certain age wow and he. Because he didn't want to grow old. And when Joan Crawford came along and there were roses everywhere and it was the wrong color because I think it was the Coca-Cola. Wasn't she? Oh, yes. Yeah. It was all of that.

And the assistant director said, get the girl. I said, Daryl, don't say that. Why didn't you say get Miss Crawford? I don't think get the girl is the rightaryl don't say that why didn't you say get miss crawford because i don't think get the girl is the right thing to say this week and oh just so many many many elsa lanchester elsa lanchester vincent price george sanders joan crawford oh and um himself uh oh uh jack oh Jack Palance Jack Palance Leonard Nimoy wonderful guy

wonderful oh Leonard yeah tell us about Jack Palance he's exactly the way he was

the real deal the real deal yeah it's like Keenan Wynn and who was that wild one

the drunks all the great drunks. Oh, you worked with Rip Torn, there's one. Really? I didn't know that. Yeah, what was Kenan Wynne like? Kenan was dear. I was in Florida with him doing Around the World Under the Sea, which has the Lurin most wonderful posters.

There was a moment when the sound man came to me on NCIS and said, I found this poster, and he showed it to me on his computer, and it was the big one of Around the World Under the Sea, but I think in Italian. And so he gave me the number, and I called the people, and they said, it's just been bought. Sorry.

And then at the end of that week um they said we have some there's a birthday of somebody in on the set and i smelled a rat i didn't know what it was but i went down and the whole crew and everybody from the offices was down and mark harman presented me with that poster he Oh, how nice. He was the one that bought it and gave it to me. How lovely. And I still have it. Oh, it's still up there.

Yeah, George Sanders, Herbert Lom, Maurice Evans, John Carradine. These were some of the people that you worked with on Uncle. Tell us about John Carradine. What a roster of people. Gosh, I can't tell you about anybody. You know, we worked together. Anthony Hopkins said it beautifully.

They said, well, how do you prepare and all that? And he said, well, you know, I've been doing this for rather a long time. I sort of read the script and then I learn my lines and I try to look my best and I go along and I do the bit.

I mean, it's a simple description of something which some people can make so complicated. Was Ilya Kuryakin named after a prostitute in the film? I hope so. Never? If so, I have to meet the gentleman. You had not heard that before? I've never heard that before. Okay, it may not be true.

What was Ilya's middle name? Oh. I have no idea. Isn't that interesting? Nikovich. Nikovich. Love that. I saw on a trivia site, and I hope it's true, we'll have to double check,

but that Ilya was the prostitute in the film Never on Sunday. Wow, Melina McCurry. Either Norman Felton or Sam... Melina McCurry? Yeah, Melina McCurry. Very good. I guess Norman Felton or Sam Rolfe saw that and liked the name. That's the story that I read. Could be BS.

As this entire evening has been a... None of it's true? None of it's true. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Navigating adulting isn't always easy.

You're not just working. You're working late. And dinner dates are all, what's your five-year plan? And you're thinking, paying off the bill for this fancy pants meal probably. So when you need to break free from responsibility and experience something that feels more you, reach for Kraft Dinner. Because when you're starved for moments that bring you back to who you really are and what you really love, that's when it's be kd when you gotta do you it's gotta be kd shop now this episode is brought to you by fx's the bear on disney plus in season three car me and his crew are aiming for the ultimate restaurant accolade a michelin star with golden globe and Emmy wins, the show starring Jeremy Allen White, Io Debrey

and Maddie Matheson is ready to heat up screens once again. All new episodes of FX's The Bear are streaming June 27, only on Disney+. Let me ask you about playing Harold Bright in A Night to Remember, which my wife and I watched and Gilbert and I were talking about it. I think it's

the best movie about Titanic, personally. It's a wonderful movie and it's a compendium or commendium, whatever the word is, of all the actors who were working in London at that time. They're all in there. Kenneth Moore and Alec McCow and Desmond Llewellyn. Everybody

turns up in there. Yes, and if you haven't seen it, you should watch it because historically it's a wonderful document. I had a little tiny red car in those days and i drove out to the studio the first time i was called and at pinewood you have the studios and then at the back there's a back lot which is you know fields but they built the whole center section of the Titanic at a 40, well, 35 degree angle. And I don't know, I have to work on the angle. Anyway, and it was all lit up and you come around

the corner and there it is as if it's sinking. It was at night. So it looked as if it was sinking into the ground. It was an image I have in mind. You know, you have those images. Sure. Stay with you forever. And then I did the whole thing. When we were in Ryslip Lido in the water, never for more than five minutes, it was only 10 degrees warmer than it was in the Atlantic. So it was very, very cold. And they had nurses and things to try and keep us warm and everything. And I learned years later that Harold McBride was so upset, or I don't know why.

He was a telegraph operator just to bring our listeners up to speed. SOS was sent, because after that it was CQD, come quick distress. And they sent out SOS. But he went to Scotland, to a crofter's cottage, way in the north of Scotland, and became a recluse. And the only reason I knew it was, there was a little note in the paper that said he died. Being that it was based on the true story

of the Titanic and that you were freezing water, was there like emotional problems with the actors after that? Any of them get really upset? If they did, they kept it from me.

I never knew of anybody who had suffered. No, it's a job of work, and they take great care of you. Some survivors did come to the premiere. Oh, I went to all, yeah. We had reunions of all the survivors. The same with the Colditz story that I did,

which was all about the escapes from this prisoner of war camp. The survivors of that used to go to the, there's a pub just by King's Cross, and we'd all meet there, and we'd all go, and kept going. It was like my mother used to play in a quintet, and then she played in a quartet,

and then she played in a trio, and then it was her and the pianist, and finally it was unaccompanied Bach. I mean, this is the way these things happen. I think the last survivor died a few years ago. What was your opinion on the current Titanic film? I've never watched it all the way through. I've tried to watch it,

but to me it seemed to be more of a and I'm not saying the word denigrating it more of a soap opera it's more about sort of a love story between a man and a woman rather than a documentary about what happened to the ship and having the images and remembering and meeting all the people that I met

it just I'm not good at it. Was it the largest British production of the decade, I believe? And the biggest film that the rank organization had made to date? Well, yeah, just building that set must have been tremendous. Yeah, yeah. And then another boat picture I did was Billy Budd. Oh, sure. I'll ask you about Billy Budd

with Ustinov and Melvin Douglas and all those people. My favorite thing about that movie was the cameraman who operated the whole movie. Whenever the ship was going this way, he went up and down that way. Whenever it went this way, whenever you're shooting, you know, whatever the angle, he actually, with the wheels on my head, would do the, if you watch the movie,

Oh, interesting. Whatever that direction that ship is going, you're aware of it. It was a superlative piece of operating. I have a question about Billy Budd, actually, from one of our listeners. This is from Luke. He says it was an actor's film. What was the environment like? Was there sharing and generosity among the actors, or was it competitive?

I've never in my life been in a place where actors were competitive. That's good to hear. I wouldn't know. That's good to hear. But what I know was we were in Alicante, and we had Peter, and we had the boat. And there wasn't really any way you could get off the boat because it was a tea clipper, and it was empty inside. But there was a boat hanging off the back, the dinghy off the back, and I climbed down there. And it was very hot. And we had five layers of clothes. So I went way to a little local

tailor. And I had him make dickies out of everything. So I wore a t-shirt and the shirt and then my entire wardrobe had a zipper so I could take it off and put it on and I was fully dressed without having to go through layers and I've dropped down into the boat at the back and it became my little dressing room back there I had my own space oh that's great because for the first couple of weeks when Ustinov was telling his stories, and we were all in hysterics, because he's one of the funniest men you'll ever work with, by the time you got to the third week, you were just beginning to edge away.

One story too many. Then it got to the point where you had to escape no matter what. But I also had the great pleasure of meeting Robert Ryan. What an actor. And I told Mark Harmon, you know, and Mark felt that it was a great compliment to him. I said that Mark reminded me very much of Robert Ryan. Wow.

But what a wonderful, wonderful actor and such a gentleman. And Robert Ryan was always like the meanest person in the movie, his characters. So he was an opposite of that? Oh, he was a charming, fully, he was a gentleman. I mean, that's the easiest way to say it. A little like Borgnine, who always played bruisers and was actually a gentle soul.

Yeah, everyone liked him. Yeah. And so you say every one of the actors you've worked with has been a pro. Like, not... There have been a couple of actresses who I would suggest that they take up other work. Does the screaming skull play into this? No, no, no. No, no, no. It was Dick Cavett's wife who was in there. Oh, Carrie Nye. Carrie Nye. take up other work. Does the screaming skull play into this? No, no, no.

No, no, no. It was Dick Cavett's wife who was in there. Oh, Carrie Nye. Dick Cavett was in that very chair a week ago. Good man. Yeah.

He still has the actor's nightmare, by the way. He has the talk show host's nightmare where the guest is there and he doesn't have the cards and he has no questions

and he's totally unprepared, which is interesting. Yes. Yeah. Here's another question for you from a fan. This is from Beverly Carr, who is a big fan of yours. Does Mr. McCallum have a favorite classical composer or piece of music? There are too many.

Too many to pick you know you got to start with Mozart and then you would move on to Haydn obviously and Papa Haydn and then growing up I went through a phase of Mahler Bruckner I have the same attitude towards Beethoven that Glenn Gould had.

I saw an interview with Glenn Gould once who was explaining all what he did on the piano with Bach. And he said, Beethoven. And then he gave all these illustrations of... It was very funny. There's a little heaviness sometimes. But I was property master at Glyndebourne, and we did Mozart and Così fan tutte.

So it begins with Mozart for you. Yes, I would say Mozart. J.D. Mack says, what is the story behind David's rather bizarre 1966 single, My Carousel? Is there a story there? My Carousel. We're going back too far maybe here with some of these.

There is a single out there. The B side, I think, was communication? No, that was the A side. Oh, that was the A side. So I've got it backwards. Communication is wonderful. It's a takeoff of Leader of the Pack. Oh, okay.

I have to hear it then. It's a satire of Leader of the Pack. I have to hear it. Om, om, om. Oh, okay. I have to hear it then. It's a satire of Leader of the Pack. I have to hear it. Um, um, um.

I'm not going to sing it. Where am I going? Where am I in this world? I mean, there's all sorts of wonderful sort of silly lines that I wrote. And they put all these women, we love you the whole day through and all that. I've had a checkered career. I'm just going to read a couple quickly of these names.

Steve McQueen, James Mason, Monty Clift, we talked about. James Garner, Richard Dreyfuss, Claude Rains. You were in the Greatest Story Ever Told. I never was in the same. Never in a scene with him.

Sir Richard Attenborough, Roddy McDowell. Yeah, Roddy was a good friend for quite a long time. And Roddy was wonderful because he kept up a correspondence. He wrote to everybody. And they all wrote back. And that was his life with these letters.

We've heard so many sweet things about him among the 200 people that we've interviewed. And Betty Davis. Betty Davis, yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Do you remember anything about him? Well, Watcher in the Woods was a movie which was neither science fiction nor the other. And the movie sort of went in one direction

and then at the end suddenly twisted around and went science fiction. And I never felt that the two came together. But it was an interesting project. You worked with both Betty Davis and Joan Crawford. Yes. Yeah.

And George Sanders. And the great George Sanders. And, what's his name? Sean Connery. And Sean Connery. Yeah, what was that called? Hell Drivers. Yes.

Directed by someone who was blacklisted during, again, the McCarthy era. Oh, gosh. Yeah. You know, I found it interesting. Cy Enfield. What's that? Cy Enfield. Cy Enfield.

Yeah. I found it fascinating that Robert Vaughn wrote a book about the blacklist, about the Hollywood blacklist. Yeah. That was one of his interests. One of his books, yes. Yeah. Yes. What an interesting man.

That was one of his interests. One of his books, yes. Yeah. Yes. What an interesting man. And I think that just pops a memory in my head. With George Sanders, I think his suicide note was, I'm tired of living in this cesspool, or I'm bored.

I'm bored. I'm bored. Something like that. Someone else had the cesspool one, but I'm just bored. Well, I have no intention of committing suicide. I'm glad, David. But I have known people very close who have. And it is an extraordinarily interesting subject in many ways. The means, how it happens, and

obviously who it happens to, but at the same time, you know, what's wonderful over the years is depression. We've come to grips with that so much more than we used to. And I've also been very aware, getting back

to the Marines, the number of suicides you get within the military, which is a terrible problem. But it's, being a pathologist for 16 years, virtual, virtual pathologist. Ducky Mallard. I mean, I know how to cut them up and dice them and all that and prep them. But at the same time, when it comes to the lab and all, you know, getting on a microscope, which is how you find out how the actual death occurred and everything, unless it's obvious.

I've studied that, but I wouldn't be able to do it. Have you been present for autopsies or performed them? Oh, yes. Yeah. Not performed them, no. But you've been... Don't touch, but I've been, yes, fully gowned and clothed. Fascinating.

And what is caused like the suicide among Marines? I don't know what it is, but I think depression, PTSD has a lot to do with it. They're getting a handle on it. There are societies and, you know, when I go to the Marine Corps functions very often and people come and talk to me and give me their card and very often it's a foundation or an association that deals with

PTSD and is there to help and that now is tremendous my wife's father was Tinian Iwo Jima's I mean, he went right through the Pacific. And then her brother was killed at Da Nang, so we have that involvement with the Marine Corps. But back then, you know, you came back from wars, World War II even,

and, you know, there were no organizations at all to support these people. And, you know, you arrive back, you've been on Wall Street before you left or you've been in college and you went to work. You sucked it up and went to work with devastating psychological effects. And nowadays, I think that whole thing has changed.

I think now they're all very, very aware of what it does to people. I just want to get this in. Buddy Spencer, one of our listeners, says, I'm a big uncle and NCIS fan, but I do want to thank David for his support of the Marine Corps and the USO. He's a veteran as well. So I wanted to get that out there. You're doing good things, David, for people.

Yeah, well, for people. Yeah, well, we had a big family gathering not long ago at Christmas. No, Thanksgiving. I was asked to say a few words and I ended what I said with a very simple thing. I said, just every night before you go to bed, say to yourself, what have I done today to help somebody

or more than one person? I mean, just do something for somebody else, and your life will take on a whole new meaning. That's a great way to live. The only way. Gilbert, what else do you have for this man? By the way, I just want to bring up, too, Death of a Dream. I want to bring up, since we talked about Titanic,

and we were talking about your voiceovers and your narration, you've narrated that wonderful Titanic documentary, which people should see. I'd forgotten. It's very good. It's very good. It's the best, I think it's

the best documentary. And there's my documentary when I played Beethoven and actually did it in the voice of Beethoven. Did you? I don't know if it was on ABC or one of those ways. What was the name of that? No idea. Oh, okay.

Did you have trouble in the beginning because of your Scottish accent? I went to a man called Rupert Bruce Lockhart who was the singing coach of Covent Garden because my father was in the pit at Covent Garden, so he'd met a lot of people, and he introduced me to Rupert Bruce Lockhart, because I had a Glasgow accent, which occasionally I can turn on one day,

but my mother said, oh, please don't do that. Anyway, he taught me, he eliminated my Scottish accent, and we did it using the French language. And I had to learn reams of Racine and things in order to speak French. And then go from French to English without, it's more the cadence than the vowels and consonants. Did Russians ever get in touch with you and say you sound nothing like a Russian?

No, I was censored in Pravda. Really? Yeah, there was something about American television in this. It's also, you can't quite get a handle on, I guess it's part of Ilya's mystery, is he Georgian, is he Ukrainian, is he Russian? There's a little bit of everything thrown in there yeah in the very very beginning there were one or two references as to who he was and i talked to sam rolf and it

was a conscious decision to never reveal anything about him at all great idea because i said then everybody can have their own image. That was smart. Yeah. And he's part gypsy too, I think. He's very comfortable around... Plays the violin. Yeah. Enigmatic was the word that they used to describe that character. Yeah.

David, this was fun. We thank you for schlepping in the cold and taking a stroll down memory lane with us. What a pleasure. And you know, all I'm thinking is that when this is all over and my son Peter and Sophie, my daughter, I mean, they can get a copy of this and have it for posterity and how I wish I could have my father sit down and do it. I met everybody in the world.

Of course. To be able to sit down and just talk about the past well to that end will you will you write a book or or well i wrote a book but it's how you wrote a novel and uh it did very well and i'm trying to write a second one at the moment which is not easy because i set the the bar too high with the first one and um we'll see i meant would you write a memoir or an autobiography about all of these the only thing i could do is if someone came along and said i want to write your memoir with you and and do what we've literally done here i have a book with a a year from when i was born in 33

right through until a few years from now. And whenever I find a letter or anything, it's in the book. So I have a sort of crazy diary of my life to help me remember things. And so using that as a basis, someone could say, you know, I'd like to just sit down

and just talk through. But I wouldn't want to sit down and write my own. No. It would not be an autobiography. Okay. If anyone's listening, again. This is it. This is my biography, guys.

This podcast. Known as the Gottfried Frank Janger. Yeah, that's it. Now, earlier today, my wife was on the phone with you, and I got on the phone, and I just remember I say, Hi, David, it's Gilbert Gottfried, and you said, Oh, did you have a good lunch?

Yes. Yes. I was wondering where that came from. Well, it was 3 o'clock. Yes. You was wondering where that came from. Well, it was three o'clock. Yes. He assumed. You had a warm sound in your voice. Oh, nice.

A little bit of a lilt. I think it was a cabernet I could smell. And I had just come from a wonderful lunch with the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation. So I thought, well, if I've had a good lunch, I'm sure you have too. And I don't know you. I don't know anything about you. What am I going to say?

Yeah, right. He's just getting on the phone with a stranger. Are you wearing clean underwear today? Were you familiar with Gilbert's work as a stand-up? You're better off. Yeah. You're far better off. Here's a quote, David.

You said, I never wanted to be famous. I just wanted to earn enough money to have a nice life and enjoy acting. And you've accomplished that. Well, I got a few projects. A few cards left to play. A few projects, yeah. You saw military contracts and companies that I've sort of become involved with and people working in

cryptocurrency and various other things, which I think is the future by a tremendous amount, particularly cryptocurrency. I think it's just a matter of time before we worldwide rid ourselves of all these little bits of paper and coins. And at the same time, the whole business of military procurements, and I've been quite interested in that and involved in that.

So I keep going off at tangents. Yes, you're a man of many interests. Yeah, and enjoying every single one of them. And I love to cook, too. You love to cook as well? I love to eat. Then maybe do a cookbook. And throw in some anecdotes.

About Vincent Price and Jack Collins. No, and Danny Kaye. And Danny Kaye, yeah. Cooks I've known. Yeah. This was fun for us. Thank you for doing it. Yeah.

I hope you had fun. Well, I've been talking about me. What could be more of a pleasure? You're staying on at NCIS for a while. 16 years now? Well, yes, 16 years. Good heavens. I was just talking to the writers the last couple of days

about what I'm going to be doing, the three shows that I'm about to go out and do on the 28th of January. And they've got some very interesting ideas. And I said, you know, Ducky's not getting old. He's like me. He's interested. He's vibrant. He's, you know.

So I don't want any of this heading towards walking around with a walker. You know, and doing this. Make him exciting. Make something happen for him you still enjoy playing him yeah I enjoy

playing him he's not coming in and saying he's been cut open it's an autopsy it's this this this and this I mean come up

with some interesting things make him a character that people want to become interested in and I said he's not alone I mean the guy's been

retired basically for a year or so. He would have some friends, and they would be involved in his life. So I'm hoping in some way that can be brought into it. So if you guys are listening, let's... Any chance for Gilbert and I to play a cadaver on the show? Like a small part? When you're naked on that steel in a cold,

that autopsy room is very beautifully air conditioned. You will freeze your ass off. Sure. Thank you, David. This was a kick.

And so, that. So, as the sun sets, we say farewell. Remember those movies? Oh, sure. Oh, sure.

Gilly? Yeah, so this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and the man who will forever be known to me as the big head guy from Outer Limits. Gwilym. I want to thank Chris DeRose, too, for helping with our research. And for Frank Verderosa, our engineer, for booking David. Well, I've known Frank for a very long time.

I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, it's all right. And he's a great guy. He is. I thank him for inviting me here tonight. Thanks, David. We thank you, David McCall guy. He is. I thank him for inviting me here tonight. Thanks, David. We thank you, David McCown. A pleasure. Thank you. I'm Frank Santapadre,

with audio production by Frank Verderosa. Web and social media is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to John Fodiatis, John Murray, and Paul Rayburn. Thank you.