Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 33. James Karen

Episode Date: January 11, 2015

Character actor extraordinaire James Karen has appeared in over 80 movies, over 100 television shows and a staggering 5,000 TV commercials. In a career spanning nearly 7 decades (!), he's worked with Frederic March, Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Gene Hackman, Steven Spielberg, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford and Will Smith, to name but a few. Gilbert and Frank phoned James one recent Saturday night to cover a VERY wide range of topics, including his film debut in the immortal "Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster," his years-long friendship with the legendary Buster Keaton and his experience sharing a townhouse with Marlon Brando, Wally Cox and Maureen Stapleton. Also, James "sells" Craig T. Nelson a haunted house, a Boy Scout uniform leads to an acting career and a controversial "Jeffersons" episode nearly torpedoes a plum TV pitchman gig. PLUS: James parties with Clark Gable and Louis B. Mayer! Gilbert gets a one-cent residual check! Moe Howard recites from "The Tempest"! And James teaches a teenaged Michael Douglas to drive! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by FX's The Bear on Disney+. In Season 3, Carmi 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+. You know, a few years ago, I was doing a movie called Jack and the Beanstalk, where I spent a month walking around in a gigantic, smelly goose outfit because I have a lot of self-respect. But it had a great cast.

back but it had a great cast it had like christopher lloyd katie seagal wallace sean uh chevy chase chloe grace moretz uh amazing group of people and one of the people i met there and i'll be talking about it later i've gone detail, was an actor named James Caron, who I didn't know by name, but I saw him and did that take of, oh, that guy. And before we were doing, Frank and I were getting ready to do this podcast, we decided to brush up a little on it. And it's shocking the amount of movies, TV shows, and commercials he's worked on and a ridiculous amount of stars

that he's worked with. So we'll be talking to the actor James Caron. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. Our guest this week is a veteran character actor who began his career in the 1940s and hasn't worked since. God. Take two.

I'm hanging up right now. It was- You got a word like stopped? Yeah. You guessed it. Frank, I don't know you well enough to ask you to interrupt, but interrupt him and tell him stop. It's written on the card, James, I assure you.

Thank you. Okay. We'll do it again. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. Our guest this week is a veteran character actor who began his career in the 1940s and hasn't stopped working since. He's been in over 80 films, including The China Syndrome, All the President's Men, Poltergeist, Nixon, Wall Street, and the Pursuit of Happiness,

and over a hundred TV shows, including Hawaii Five-0, The Rockford Files, MASH, Dallas, Cheers, Family Ties, Seinfeld, and American Dad. an American dad, and along the way he's worked with everyone from Marlon Brando to Will Smith to the Three Stooges. He's also found time to appear in a record-breaking 5,000 television commercials. I'm exhausted from just listening all of it. Please welcome my pal, James Caron. Hello, Frank. Hi, James. How are you? He's snubbing him already. Welcome to the show.

Thank you. He left out the most important person in my life. Yes. Buster Keaton. I was going to get to that. Oh, okay. I'll wait. Forget it.

Strike that. No, no, I don't care. You're getting on my nerves already. Okay, my first question. Are you dead? Oh, still first question. Are you dead? Oh, still? Yeah. No, I'm really not dead.

We feed our doggie Thrive. Oh, he's very much alive. Oh, full of Vim and Vig. Are any of you boys old enough to remember that? Sounds familiar. Now, did you do that commercial, or you just remember it? Just remember it. Yes.

It was just one of my favorites because I don't know if it should show a dead dog. The dog just rolls over. Okay. the dog just rolls over okay since you brought up his name uh tell us about legendary silent screen comedian buster keaton well uh you know uh i started going to movies very early. First of all, I was young. But I started to read very early in my life. And my father, who had gone to work when he was six years old, never learned to read or write. And this was a problem for him going to silent movies. So he began to take me to silent movies to read the subtitles. And I saw all these great movies really before I should have been seeing them.

I was fortunate to see Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, all those great people in silent movies. And Keaton was my favorite. He was my idol. I used to go around imitating him, just walking into a room with my hands clasped in front of my face with absolutely no expression on my face. My father would say, Get that goddamn stone face out of here.

I don't know why you do that. So I just loved Keaton's work. And I really didn't understand all his problems in the early 30s. But I still like the movies he was doing, the five movies that he did at MGM, which he did not, of course. So I'd heard that,

and you know, he worked every day of his life. He was born in 1895 into a vaudeville family, and he worked from the time he was three years old. And tell us how he got the name Buster, James, for our listeners who don't know. Because he was a baby, really, at two years old, and the family was in a boarding house. They were with a medicine show, and I hope someone will explain to. They were with a medicine show, and I hope someone will explain to the young people what a medicine show was, and traveling, and Harry Houdini was in the show doing his magic act.

And they sold medicine, phony medicine, in between the acts of the show. There was always a fake doctor there. But at any rate, Buster started down a flight of stairs and fell down the stairs, a long flight, banging, rolling, falling, head over tail. And when he got to the bottom of the stairway, picked himself up and walked into the dining room. And Houdini looked at him and said, boy, that kid is some buster. And that's how he got his name. His name was Joseph Francis Keaton, the same as his father, Joe Keaton. And until then, he was called Joe Jr. But the name

stuck with him and the family liked it. And that became Buster's name in vaudeville and he was very very successful in the family he really was the star of the family act as it was a rough act the father was a very rough performer who drank and Buster was often thrown and when he got boisterous or bothered the father on stage in the act, the old man would pick him up and throw him into the wings or against the backdrop, and when the old man was really drunk, he threw him into the audience. Wow. And Buster had a little suitcase

handle sewn into the back of his shirt, his coat rather his little coat, he wore grown-ups clothing, he wore the same makeup as his father a beard, a derby hat he carried a cigar when he was five years old and the old man

would just pick him up by the handle and throw him. Can I say rude words? Sure. Okay. Of course. Because Buster said, the old man wasn't too bad, though. When he was going to throw me into an audience, he'd say, tighten up your asshole, Buster.

Wow. Oh, man. Unbelievable. And so he was your childhood idol, and then you got to meet him and work with him and befriend him. Well, yes. He befriended me. I was the most fortunate one. I was producing in summer stock in the 50s, and summer stock then was a big thing.

They had star packages. A company would go out to, there were maybe, there were maybe 20 big stock companies, you know, up in Westport, the Cape, all through Pennsylvania, New England,

and they would have, a star would have a company and would travel with the company and go from one theater to another during the summer. stage manager who would go to the next company, the next theater where they were playing, and have them line up the scenery, and if they had to pick up a couple of other people, small parts, he would rehearse them so that you went in, the star and his company of five or six people, would come in on Sunday, rehearse Sunday night and open on Monday so they wouldn't miss a week's pay. It worked very well. And the stock company managers, the managers of these theaters,

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

Everybody thought he was dead right. He wasn't. He was working at the Cirque Madrone in Paris. He worked there on and off for years doing his act. He had a bad fallout in Hollywood. I don't want to go into it. It's just so complicated and so painful because of MGM, and they ruined him. He went there in 1929 as one of the most famous people in the world, Chaplain, Buster, and Lloyd were the three most famous people in the world.

And five years later, he was unemployable. They didn't know how to use him, and they didn't know how to work with him. So what happened was I heard that he was still working and everything. So I went before the committee and said, Would you guys be interested in using Buster Keaton? And a lot of them said, Yeah, yeah. It would be wonderful if he could get a right play for him and stuff. So I said, well, let me check.

So I knew a guy named Rudy Blesch. I called Buster. I said to Blesch, can I have Buster's telephone number? I really would like to get in touch with him. He said, well, he said, no, he said, it wouldn't be right for me to give you his phone number. And I said, Rudy, you owe me $350. Give me a phone number and I'll absolve the debt.

And he said, oh, sure. So I called Buster. I called Buster and said, would you like to be in a play? Yeah. I said, well, is there any play you'd like to? Yeah. What would you like to be in a play? Yeah. I said, well, is there any play you'd like to? Yeah. What would you like to do? I'd like to do Merton and the Movies.

I said, let me read it. So we read it. And he said, how'd you get in touch with me? I said, well, I paid Rudy Bless $350 to get your number. He said, hey, should have looked in the phone book. I'm in the phone book, which he was always. He never was out of the phone book in Los Angeles. He always wanted to be reached.

Now, I know you said you didn't want to talk about it, but that made me more fascinated. What were some of the things between MGM and Buster Keaton? Well, if anybody wants to, they can look at a documentary I did for Turner Classic Movies. It's called So Funny It Hurts. Okay. it hurts okay now now then you you moved when when you finally got into films uh it was it was through a a classic film you were lucky enough to do can you tell us it was in new york i i i i never went out to california but i went out a couple of times did things i went out with with buster and i used to go out and we we do things at nbc uh old routines and uh but i would always come back i never felt comfortable in los angeles

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

in a movie that I did with him. Sam Beckett wrote a movie script and we did it under the Brooklyn Bridge in the summer of 1964. And I was putting Buster on the plane and he said, I said something about, can I have one of your hats plane. And he said, I said something about,

can I have one of your hats someday? And I remember he was telling you those days you walked out on the tarmac with people. And he was up in the room and he said, hey, I forgot. And he pulled a hat out from under his coat and sailed it like a

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

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

But actually, it's a classic, cheap, horror, science fiction film shot in 1964 in Puerto Rico for $67,000. It was produced by a guy who had passion pits, outdoor movie theaters, up in New England, and he needed stuff to fill it. Now, that's a funny term you use.

Passion pits? Yeah, passion pitch. That's what we always called them when I was growing up. Was it drive-in theater? Yeah, because it was used for... The last reason people went to those was to watch the movie. Well, I don't know about that. It depended what position you took.

We should point out, James, though, that before you did Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster, which was your first film, you were a Broadway actor. You were a stage actor. Oh, yes. And before... Yes, I was in the theater. Go back to the beginning for a second. Is it true that you were convinced to go into acting by a U.S. congress well he was then the head of the wilkes-barre little theater dan flood a wonderful

wonderful man he'd been an actor and he had a lifetime membership in equity actors equity association which he was very proud of and he uh uh he did a lot of stock those days. Every city had a stock company across the country. And he did a lot of stock and stuff. And I think he was an ambitious man, and he didn't see himself making a lot of money in what he was doing, although he was a wonderful actor. And he went to law school. He may have gone to law school before he became an actor, I don't know, but somehow he became a well-known lawyer in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where I'm from.

And he later, of course, ran for Congress. I think he was in Congress 32 years. Something like that, yeah. He was a very powerful head of the Armed Forces Financing Committee or something like that. I mean, everybody was kissing his butt. And he was a nice, nice gentleman. Whenever I played Washington, he and his wife Catherine would have a party for the cast opening night. It was a lovely thing. And he saw something in you and urged you to go into acting?

It wasn't that. I had a Boy Scout uniform. The school, the theater, I was on my way home. I had to pass the Wilkes-Barre Little Theater, which was a wonderful theater group, really good actors. And I was walking home from school. I was about 12 or 13 years old. And I see this guy leaned out the window of this beautiful building, and he said, hey, you, kid. I said, yes. He said, are you a Boy Scout? I said, yes, sir. He said, you got a Boy Scout uniform?

I said, yes, sir. He said, you want to be in a play? I said, yes, sir, I would like to. A little disturbing. He said, go home and ask your parents if it's okay for you to be in a play. Dan Flood wants you in a play. The play was front page. And in the front page, as most people know, I don't know whether I don't know whether you will know, Gilbert,

but because you're not too well educated. The play, front page, they capture, Billy Johnson, the reporter, captures a killer who's escaped, and he puts him in his, he's in the prison, the night the guy's going to be executed, so they have a press room. So he finds the guy, puts him in the roll-top desk, and then they call a gangster, Diamond Louie, and say, Louie, go out and get a strong armed guard. We've got to move this death to the newspaper office. So Diamond Louie comes back about two pages later in the script,

and he walks in and he says, this is all I could find. He's got a Boy Scout. It's a big laugh. So I got the laugh and I was hooked. Hooked for life. So just that uniform got you a career in showbiz. That and a great deal of talent, Gilbert. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast after this.

Now, getting to another maybe less than classic, Frankenstein, no, that we already spoke about, Hercules in New York. You promised you would never mention that. What do you remember about that one, James? That was a lot of fun. Yeah, and Arnold Stang. Arnold Stang and don't forget Arnold Strong.

That's right, Arnold Strong. You know who Arnold Strong was? Of course. That drove Arnold Stang crazy. How could they do that? Like you, Gilbert. How could they do that? Like you, Gilbert. How could they do that? They changed his name

from Schwarzenegger to Strong and it looks like Arnold Stang and he's got billing over me. Arnold Strong and Arnold Stang. What was the deal with that? Was it Schwarzenegger couldn't speak any English and they looped him.

No, actually, they made a mistake. They've now released it. The picture gets released every so often, along with Frankenstein meets the Space Monsters. Those are two of my biggies. They thought that his language could not be understood, and they got somebody else to do his voice, and it came out. And it wasn't very good. But when they put his voice back on, it worked better.

It's funny. When I saw the movie, it sounded like a Godzilla film. Bad dubbing? Yeah, like, I am Hercules. I think you must have seen it with the dubbed version. Oh, yes, yes. It was so obviously not coming out of his mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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

Well, Charlie was a great gentleman, and he had very respectful of me. And I'd be in his dressing room, we'd be rehearsing lines or something, or he'd come to my dressing room to rehearse lines. And he'd always say, Mr. Karen, would you like to have a line of Coke? I'd say, no, no, no, Charlie. Mr. Karen, would you object if I took a line of Coke? He was always very gentlemanly about it, but I thought he was wonderful in it. In Wall Street, yeah. Did he ever offer you a hooker?

Nobody ever had to offer me a hooker. I was always good hooker, liner, and sinker. No, no, no. Did he offer you one, Gilbert? No, no. I was very pissed off. Then why are you asking me? I mean, you're making me the slob.

No, I was just hoping someone else was. He wasn't treating someone else nicer than me. Now, and when you mention hooker, liner sinker that was a robert woolsey wheeler and woolsey there you go as a reference and then sinker see it it sounded to me like and i'm sure they must have used it too or at least in a sign in a movie, and that's, of course, our favorites, the Three Stooges. You worked with the Three Stooges. They're favorites of mine. They were lovely men.

The three of them were... I worked... The original Curly Joe was gone. I worked with Joe Dorita. Oh, yeah. No, it was the original Curly Howard. Yeah, it was Curly Howard, then Shemp, then Joe Bessa, and then the last... They called him Curly Joe.

Yeah, Curly Joe Dorita. Well, no, they called Curly Howard Curly Joe, too. They did? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Okay. Do you want to look that up? Would you like some time out? Yeah, yeah. We got our staff on there.

Anyway, but you worked with them. Tell us that experience. Well, I was in a Broadway show, and the show closed, and I was going into another one immediately. One was a Pinter play called, I can't remember the name of it, Marvelous Play, Birthday Party. You know, I'm 91 years old, so don't expect me to come up with all these. It's okay. So the birthday party closed, and Albie, whom I had worked for a lot, I did a lot of work, a lot of Albie's plays, was replacing somebody in everything in the garden.

And he said, we're going to replace him in in in two weeks uh we want to do it i said well i've got an offer to go out and work with the three stooges and he said how long i said a week he said do it come back and we'll get you into the show so i flew to sausalito. It was for an insurance company. I don't want to mention their name here because they never paid me well. But it was a big insurance company. I just can't think of their name. It's many years later. This was 1967. It's many years later.

This was 1967. So I flew out to Sausalito, and I go on the set in the morning. It was on a hill overlooking the water, and the idea was that I was selling metropolitan life insurance or metropolitan home insurance to a man and a woman who had moved into this house, and there was work being done by the three stooges on the house. The guy's trying to keep me out of the door. No, no, I don't need insurance, and they're working away. So that's the beginning.

So I come on the set, and they're sitting there in their way. So that's the beginning. So I come on the set, and they're sitting there in their chairs, and I hear Aha! Here comes Mr. Broadway! Hey, Mr. Broadway, come over and sit down! It was Mo. And I walked over. He said, this is Larry, and this is Joe Dorita. He plays Curly Joe now.

And I'm very nice, lovely. And we shot for almost a week there. And he said, you know, he said, Mr. Broadway, you know, he says, the greatest year of my life. I said no 1936 I said really 1936 how come what happened that year he said I've seen two Hamlets in 36 that's Howard and I've seen Johnny Gielgud They both was doing the Hamlet that year. He was an absolute nut on Shakespeare. Wow. Moe Howard, this is?

Pardon? Oh, Larry Fudd. Yeah, yeah, Moe. Moe. Moe. Moe was a Shakespeare. Fascinating. Wow.

That I didn't know. He knew. He knew. He'd say, start something. I'd say, our something. I'd say, our revels now are ended. He'd say, these are our actors. It's all kind of gone into thin air. And like the bakelite fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers,

the gorgeous palaces itself, all which it inherits shall destroy. He knew all the great speeches. destroy he knew all the great speeches so you know it's a it's amazing wow that they never had mo do that on isn't that amazing the variety shows yeah yeah the crowd would have gone nuts you know he told me the story of how he they loved each other by the way they had worked together for 42 years at that point and they just loved each other mo would the way. They had worked together for 42 years at that point, and they just loved each other. Mo would pull a hammer back, and he'd say, Larry, darling, I'm pulling the hammer back! So everything, they warned each

other all the time of what they were going to do. He said to me, I said, you've been working together 42 years? He said, well, yeah. He said, I was working with my brother first for Ted Healy. It was Ted Healy and the two Stooges, or Ted Healy and his Stooges. Right. And they were standing in the wings one night, waiting to go on. And those days, they'd have a curtain in the front to mask the changes in the scenery behind the curtain.

And, you know, between acts. And so the curtain was down. And to cover the time, Larry was out there playing the violin. He was a very serious violinist and hoped to be in Carnegie Hall someday. And Ted Healy, who was a wild man, was watching, and he said, Look at that son of a bitch. He thinks he's so good. Look at him. He thinks he's great. He said to the other two stooges, he said, go out and turn him upside down and bang his head on the floor.

And he ran out, they turned him upside down, began to bang his head on the floor, and he continued to play. Upside down. He's sawing away at the violin. The audience is falling apart. And he said, Jesus. So they came off stage, and he turns to Larry and he says, how much are you making a week?

Larry said, 45. He said, do you want to be a stooge? I'll pay you 75. Larry said, sure. And that's how he got in the act from edward albee to joe derita that's that's range james oh thanks very much edward's my favorite playwright he's a marvelous man he's just i didn't who's afraid of virginia wolf and it's just my favorite play of all times. And you did 20 Broadway productions. Do I have that right?

Over 20. I don't know how many, but a lot of them. I was in a lot of flops for a while. I once had a bad year. I was on 45th. And each one was a flop, lasted about two weeks. And I'd walk into the theater and the stagehands would cry out, No, no!

No, get him out of here! I just had bad luck one year. But Albie is just, he directed, I've done plays of his that he directed, and he's just a great, great playwright and a great director. And still with us. Now, I remember you telling me when you did Any Given Sunday. Yes. Well, Cameron Diaz. Loved her.

Yes. Now, can you tell us the story you told me? No. Tell us the story you told me. No. You're cheap. You're crass, vulgar, and vaudevillian. Yes.

And I think you ought to just watch yourself because somebody's going to knock you off. One can hope, James. Can I tell the Cameron Diaz story? You're going back to that? Yes. Leave Cameron out of this. I don't want her name on your lips even. How about Cameron Mitchell?

Your class killed me. Now you had a chain of very successful commercials where you were the spokesman. Well, I was very lucky. I was in a play with Barry Nelson called Goodbye Again. The play in the play, I'm a drunk who at one point says, I am a Republican. I have always been a Republican. My father before me was a Republican and I will always vote for the Republican party. I think I read it better those days than I did just now. One night a guy came backstage with his wife, and he said,

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

He said, you see, you lost the bet. And he turns to me and he said, I'm starting a supermarket chain, and I need a spokesman. And if you can convince my wife you're a Republican, I want you for my spokesman. It turned out to be a 27-year job from 1969 until 1997. Is that 29 years? Something like that. Pathmark, right? Did we say Pathmark Supermarkets?

Pathmark Supermarkets. They were wonderful to work for. We had a glorious time. They were generous. It certainly rescued my miserable life in flops. Now, but you also got in trouble with them. They were a little, yeah. Can you tell us about that?

Well, they had every right to. I mean, it wasn't them. What happened was I was on, I got a call to do a Jefferson's. And it was an idea that Norman Lear had that it wasn't just rednecks who are haters. There's a lot of white-collar hate. that there's a lot of white-collar hate. And it was in the apartment building where Jefferson lived,

and I was an owner of the co-op owner, and I was incensed that we had a black person in the building. And a lovely man. I was a lovely man to my wife. I never kicked the dog or anything. And charming man. But he ran a little cell to get... And he had a meeting, a Ku Klux Klan meeting.

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

And he pulls me back, and I come out of it, and I'm on the stretcher. They're hauling me out, and my son turns to me and says, points to Jefferson, Sherman Helmsley, and he says, there's the man who saved your life. And I look at him, and I said, you should have let me die. And it was a shocking thing. Shocking. And people were really incensed that Mr. Pathmark would say that. And a lot of our black employees were upset.

So, Sherman and... played Mrs. Hemsley. Oh, uh, Isabel Sanford. Isabel, wonderful woman. They posed for pictures with me, holding, hugging me and everything. And for the newspapers and, and also for the advertising age papers, uh papers and got me out of the trouble. I remember that episode. I think in the beginning of it, Sherman Helmsley gets mugged.

And so he's very concerned with crime in the neighborhood. And when he goes to this meeting and you're yelling, we have to get rid of these undesirables, he's going, that's right. We're not safe among these people who are coming into our area. And he goes, I'm behind you. coming into our area, and he goes, I'm behind you. And it was interesting. On the curtain call, the audience was largely black. It was done in front of an audience, three-camera show,

and they began to boo and scream at me. And again, Sherman and wasn't that awful? I can't remember her name isabel isabel sanford i knew her well i'm blanking uh maybe i'll stop drinking i'm drinking jameson irish whiskey maybe they'll send me a case good luck so so uh they um they they came out and uh i because i had to be escorted out of the theater wow by them but you know i'll tell you something and i and i hate to say something nice to you james yeah uh this This shows what a fine actor you really are. Well, no, I just wanted my paycheck.

Well, let me back it up a minute. Pathmark had a problem with this episode because you were playing a racist. Yeah, sure. Oh, sure. We had another problem when I destroyed Little House on the Prairie. Oh, when you were the land baron. Yeah.

Yeah. And you know what that was about. That was interesting. He was one of the great guys I've ever worked with, by the way. Michael Landon was just a wonder to be with. And he was a great director. He hardly ever said anything to you unless you were really on the downside.

And he'd just come over and say, you know what, forget about what you're doing. Try something like this or give you something. He was wonderful. But he was incensed. After eight years of this great success, a grateful management, NBC, decided that the show was starting to run down

and they were working up a new show, a western, that would work in his sets. The sets were up in Simi Valley. It was just a wonder. They built the town there. Yeah, Walnut Grove. Walnut Grove. And so he was really hurt and he said you know i can't stand the idea of

other another family of people living in my in my town well he had the right when the show ended ended to do a two-hour movie for the last show. And so he wrote a show in which a land baron comes in. He's bought up the town, the land, and he has a town meeting. And he says, I just want you to know that everything is going to be the same except that you work for me now. And the town has another meeting, and they decide, no. No, they're going to move on to other land, and they're going to destroy the town. And he spent a week blowing up all the buildings in that town. It was just wonderful. Just wonderful.

NBC couldn't stop him. You've been in some controversial TV shows, James. You were also in the infamous Seinfeld episode, the one episode that is not in the syndication package. Oh, yes, it is. I get a check for it all the time. Do you? Yeah, sure. puerto rican day

parade episode they said they said they would never rerun that we were told we were told that we've got some bad information again we were told that it's it's not in the syndication package because maybe not in the states maybe it is uh internationally i don't know but i get a check regularly oh good for you oh and and... They've honed it down. The check you mean? Well, you know, over the years, stuff goes down. That's the funny thing about residuals. Everyone thinks it's so magical.

And I have a residual check hanging in my bathroom that I framed for a penny. That much? Yeah. What did you get it for? What was the job that got you a penny residual check? I did a voice in the classic film, Mom and Dad Save the Earth. Oh, the John Lovitz, Terry Garthing. Yes.

And I don't even know if they use the voice. And so I have it in a frame with a Chinese fortune that says your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded. Oh, that's great. That's great. I should do. I've got one zero. No money. The agent said, what can you take as an agent's fee from nothing?

Now, let's talk before I forget of where we met. We met in a smoky set. We met on a movie called Jack and the Beanstalk, produced by a very, very nice man. And do you remember? Yes. I think you were talking. I was a giant goose. I was walking around literally in a goose outfit.

I was really embarrassed for you. I didn't know you too well. Now that I know you well, I'm not embarrassed at all. Exactly the right thing for you. For a month, I was walking around in this goose outfit, waddling around in it. walking around in this goose outfit, waddling around in it. And I used to have these two wardrobe girls who would put the outfit on me because it was impossible to pull the legs and everything. But the director I was talking to, and he said he knew I was a movie and TV buff,

and he said, Ben, we've got an actor here you're gonna you're gonna get along with him because he's known everyone and the funny thing is when they said James James Karen James Cagney James Cagney they couldn't get James Cagney, so they got you. So when they said James Cagney, at first the name, it was one of those, you're one of those classic, oh, that guy actors. Yes, yes, yes. Because I didn't get the name, and the minute you walked in the door, that was the words I went, oh, that guy. And never spoke to me again.

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

Everybody at the party immediately recognized your face. Even these days? Yes. Absolutely. Everybody there. Oh, that guy. And what's funny, and this is also a testament to your acting, is that so many of the movies that when I was looking up what you've done, I said, I saw that and

I don't remember him being in it. And it's because you just wore that character. Or that I got cut down and cut down by some goddamn director. I'm so little

left that I'm just I'm cutting room floor. I'm the face on the cutting room floor. Oh, and before I forget. Sad, very sad. Tell me the Clark Gable story. Oh, there's a great story about Gable. Yes. And an agent.

It was when Gable went, after he'd come out as Rhett Butler in the great southern picture. Gone with the Wind. Written by Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind. He was just, you know, the hottest item. I think he was the hottest item in the world as an actor and the story is that he called Abe Lasvogel

and William Morris that's a famous name he had an appointment and Lasvogel said anytime, come in anytime, you don't need an appointment just walk in, come in so he comes in sits down with last fogel and he's talking to last fogel and he says i i want you to know how much i admire you mr last fogel i know a lot of the people that you represent and he said i'm not happy with my representation and i'm wondering if you would take me on Mr. Lasvogel. Lasvogel just fell apart. He said I would be honored, honored, honored to represent you. Of course I would. I'm happy. Well anything will do anything for

you. Yes please come with us with William Morris office. Hey, but I, Last Fogel, will watch every second of your career. Gable stood up and said, that's fine, Mr. Last Fogel. He said, I just want you to know one thing. I don't believe in paying

10% to an agent. And Last Fogel, ah, here comes it. Gable said, I believe that an agent works harder for an actor if he gets 20%. Is that okay? Glasswell said, well, if you insist, Mr. Gable, yes. Of course, anything that you want. Gable says, all right, Mr. Last Fogel. He starts for the door.

Open the door, he turns around, he says, by the way, Mr. Last Fogel, you're not Jewish, are you? It was a long pause. Last Fogel said, not necessarily, Mr. Gable. That's great. None of that is true. None of that is true. I once went to a party, opening night of Streetcar Named Desire in Los Angeles. It was the first great Hollywood party I was ever to, ever attended.

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

Tony Quinn, and Mary Welsh, who played Stella. So we drove out together to the house in Beverly Hills, and it was something. I mean, everybody in Hollywood was there because it was Louis B. Mayer's daughter. And she had been treated badly by Davidid o'selznick who ran off with jennifer jones and every everybody was knocking themselves out to to let her know they loved her and it was right after the wedding of of rita hayworth and and and who did she marry?

Come on. Orson Welles. Orson Welles. For what? No, but after that. Oh, God. The prince or... Oh, what was his name? Ali Khan?

Ali Khan. Thank you very much. And everybody had just come back. Well, not everybody, but Hedda Hopper and the Fat Lady. Luella Parsons. Thank you. God, what would I do without you, Frank?

I got a book sitting here. You know, you're no good at all. I can't remember your name. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yes. Gilbert. Yes. Gilbert.

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

to see all these people. I remember I was standing, I found myself standing next to Louis B. Mayer, who was in front of a painting of himself about seven feet high. He was knocked. And I said, he had paintings, all marvelous paintings by Grandma Moses. he had paintings all over marvelous paintings by grandma moses and i said i love these paintings of grandma moses he said yeah my decorator paints good now now luella parsons and hedda harper were like they hated each other yeah and they were both the queens of gossip. They owned it. They were so powerful, they could make or break your career if you behaved badly to them.

So, like, actors and producers would, like, bow down to them like royalty back then. At parties, I heard. Gable fed her all night. Wow. Yeah, it her all night. Wow. Yeah, it was very strange to me. It was a good party, though. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor.

Now, can we just go through a list of a tiny group of people that you worked with? Okay, like Frederick March. I loved working with him. He was a great actor and a great guy. I did Enemy of the People, an Arthur Miller play, out of Arthur Miller's adaptation of a Nibsen play. Wonderful, wonderful man. A lot of fun.

Great ladies' man. And Lauren Bacall. Go on, keep going. No, that's not it. She and I became good friends. It was tough for me to work with her when i worked with her we did cactus flower together because jason robards she was married to jason the marriage was ending and jason was my best friend and she took it out on me occasionally and jason i i but we really, she was suffering.

He was tough to be married to. And she was tough to be married to. But it was, as it turned out, we really did become good friends later on after the show was over. And Jeff Bridges? He's a honey. he's a honey he's a honey jeff is a lovely lovely honey man yeah he's terrific i did uh jagged edge with him i like that picture very much yeah i do too he was marvelous in it and you were in uh by the way i didn't mean to knock Betty because she was having a tough time with Jason. And he was not an easy, he was never home.

And you were in a great film. Oh, geez. Which? Gene Hackman. Oh, I never sang for my father. I never sang for my father. Yes, I did that when I was in New York. I had a small part.

Gene was a good friend of mine. We both lived up in Nyack for a while and used to commute to the theater together. I think he's one of my favorite actors. Gene Hackman. I think he's one of my favorite actors. Gene Hackman. Also in that play, in that screenplay, was Melvin Douglas, who was so brilliant. He would have won an Academy Award except they cut a scene, which we did,

because they didn't realize that the people in the scene were in an old person's nursing home, and they were in bad shape. They were in a hallway in wheelchairs, and they were drooling. And the guy who went around getting clearances had them sign papers, and they were not entitled to sign them they were committed and committed and they were their children didn't want the picture didn't want you to see them in that shape and it was the I'm showing him around this place saying and you know it's it's really a very nice place

and he didn't want to go but the children wanted to put him in this home. And I said, you know, we have a lot of Christmas. We have decorations. And I'm the manager of this nursing home. And people are grabbing him and, you know, grabbing him and pulling at him. And he finally turns to me. He grabs me and he slams me against the wall, lifted me up, and slammed me against the wall,

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

It was Gil Tate's first picture. Yeah, I like that picture. And you worked with both Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman and all the president's men. I also worked with Bob. I knew Bob Redford for a long time and dusty hoffman was in uh a play called a cook for mr general that i did uh he he he had he had a no speaking part he was like an extra in it and he created a character in this prison camp that was so extraordinary

you couldn't take your eyes off him uh redford i knew for when he was first starting out he was in iceman cometh production of the jason made jason's career. And he played the young boy, almost an impossible part to play well. I've never seen it played well, except by him, the boy whose mother, I think he's killed his mother. And he's talking to the anarchist about it. Just an impossible part to play. And what was Al Pacino like? I like Al. I've known him.

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

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

Yes, yes, the Christmas Carol, NBC, 64, it was only shown once because the government hated it so. Sterling Hayden played a major industrialist, selling arms and things like that, as Scrooge, and not caring about anybody else, and he's taken on trips. This is blowing my mind. Sterling Hayden and Ben Gazzara in a modern retake on Christmas Carol. Wow. Why don't we know about this? And Eva Marie Saint. Wow. Oh my God. What a cast. And Steve Lawrence was marvelous in it.

And Peter Sellers. Whoa! We have to find this. Well, it was on last night. Now, you weren't... I was knocked out by it. It should be shown. It really should be shown. It's a terrific thing. And Ben,

I've known Ben since I knew Ben. I met Ben when he was about 17 years old. We were doing an illegal production at the actor's studio of Catcher in the Rye.

Ben was a kid, and we used him exactly, the guy with the green teeth. And just, it was a wonderful production, which we, because Ann wanted it, we were doing it at midnight. A lot of us who were in Broadway shows got together and decided to do it. And it was actually, I think, Ben told me recently, before he died,

he said, I told you something you never knew. I found the material and took it to the studio. They kind of screwed me out of playing the lead, but because Ann wanted to film it. Catcher in the Rye. Yes. That's interesting. We were doing these performances at midnight, and a huge cast, Barbara Baxley, Joe Van Fleet, Gene Sachs.

God, it was Joe Van Fleet. There's a name you don't hear too often, Gilbert. Oh, and you worked at least twice uh once in china syndrome and another in streets of san francisco and wall street michael douglas yeah michael douglas yes he was a little boy his mother when she divorced kirk married my best friend Bill Darrod who was in my class at the neighborhood playoffs I met him in 1940 he was my lifelong friend and when she divorced Kirk and married

Bill they lived in Westport and he lived with them in the winter, of course, with his brother Joel. And I taught Michael to drive. That's great stuff. I had a Mark IV Jaguar, 1948 Jaguar, which he fell in love with. It was a great car. And how was he to work with because because now it seems three times you worked with him at least michael is wonderful to work with he's michael's michael's uh you know

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

How could he not like you, James? You're a charmer. It's easy if you are a man as powerful as Kirk, who who I don't know. I know that

at one point, Joel was kind of running away and came to live with me in New York. My wife, Alba, and I had a beautiful apartment on 57th Street, and Joel moved in for a while. I think Kirk was headed it. He'd never been very nice to me. Well, now you mentioned,

I just want to go back a step. He's a great actor. He's a great producer. He's everything, but he's not a great friend to me. Well, you mentioned Ilya Kazan, so let's just take one step back and ask about Kazan and Brando, who's the one name we left out. I love Marlon.

I just loved him. He was, you know, when Marlon, when Streetcar was such a hit, and Marlon wanted to have an affair

with Billy Holiday. He was nuts about Billy Holiday. So she was, 52nd Street was the jazz street. Sure. And Billy was playing there.

And Marlon rented a house on 57 West 52nd Street that could be near her. He knew that he had a better chance if he lived near a place where she might stop by for a drink. And it was a big house. It was like 25 feet wide, 60 feet deep. And he only wanted the parlor floor. So he said, you know, anybody who wants to move in can move in.

You know, I'm just there. I've rented the house. I don't need it. And a bunch of us move in. You know, I'm just there. I've rented the house. I don't need it. And a bunch of us moved in. Mary Welsh, who later played Stella. Maureen Stapleton. A crazy

architect friend of his. I can't remember his name. He blew out the back of the house one time in an explosion. He was fooling around with something. It's like that if you can't take it with you. Yes. Yeah, the fireworks. Yeah, blowing up the basement.

That's right. So you all lived in this apartment? You and Maureen Stapleton? We all lived in the house. In the house, excuse me. We all had rooms. Wow. And Wally Cox was there.

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

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

got to him. But not Billie Holiday. But if Marlon wanted to come home, he went into a house on 53rd Street. You know, they were all brownstones, old brownstones. A lot of them were actors' homes, boarding houses for actors. And right across from the Museum of Modern Art, because the rehearsal club was across the street, a place for young women, young actresses to live. So Marlon would walk in the front door of, say, 44 West 53rd Street, walk through the house, go out the back way across and jump over a couple of fences and get to 37 and come in the back way now you the marlon brando story uh reminds me you worked with one of brando's co-stars rod steiger in a play we don't talk ill of the dead

so you won't tell and i worked i worked with Marlon's sister all my life. I loved her, Jocelyn Brando, who created the role of the nurse, the only female part in Mr. Roberts. She was a darling, darling woman. I loved her. And Aub and I were in Europe when she died. And when we came home, we found the most marvelous letter

I've ever received from her. And she wrote it the day before she died, telling us what we meant to her. That's a nice story. Isn't it time to get off the phone? Oh, pretty soon. You had enough of us james say what have you had enough of us no i'm just uh i need another drink i'm

now now we've already discussed brando frederick march Hackman, and Dustin Hoffman. Now let's get, you worked with Scott Baio in Charles, Scott Baio in Charles in Charge. Boy, that runs the gamut. From Brando to Baio. Oh, he's a great kid. He's a great kid. He directed some of those Charles in Charges. I did a lot of them.

He directed some of those Charles and Charges. I did a lot of them. Burton, who produced it, was a friend of mine. I did a lot of them. I loved working with Scott. And also the other kid. Oh, Willie Ames. Willie Ames.

Who? Willie Ames. Say it again. Me and frank screaming out the aims and williams yeah you darling boy i i don't know what's happened to him i worry about him he didn't know how to protect himself oh uh scott bio had a father, Mario. Yeah. Mario, who really was tough and protected him. But Scott was a great director. I loved being directed by him. We had a lot of fun.

Oh, that's, wow. So while we're on the subject of some of those shows, real quick, James, and we'll wrap it up. But Gilbert and I printed out your, we told you before we got on the air, your IMDb pages. Insane. And it's just, I just want to really quickly, if you'll indulge me for a second, read off some of these.

I never turned a job down. Maybe a last anecdote or something will pop into your head, but this is what I was reading to Gilbert and Dara when I got here. Car 54, where are you? All my children, Starsky & Hutch, The Waltons, Streets of San Francisco, Bionic Woman, Macmillan & Wife, Police Woman, Hawaii Five-0, The Rockford Files,

One Day at a Time, Lou Grant, Trapper John M.D., MASH, Dallas, Quincy, The Jeffersons, Amazing Stories, 227, Webster, Moonlighting, Cheers, Dynasty, Little House on the Prairie, Family Ties, Highway to Heaven, Murphy Brown, MacGyver, The Golden Girls, Sledgehammer, Coach, Larry Sanders Show. I loved you on that show. Oh, I loved doing that show. He was great to work with.

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

And bang, it was in the script. You know, it was... And he loved lines like that. And tell me one of my favorite shows, Car 54, Where Are You? You know, I can barely remember doing that. Earlier in your career. That was a long time ago.

And I don't think I had much of a part. Oh, okay. I think the thing was called, there was a parrot in it. 1962, according to our sources. We should mention two things I have to get to. Well, obviously, you were in Poltergeist, but you were in two of the Return of the Living Dead movies. Well, the first one was just a wonderful film.

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

Toby Hooper, who was one of my favorite directors, was supposed to direct it, but he hadn't hired me. But then he got caught up in Life Force in London. They were way behind, and they couldn't wait. They had the money, and they had to go. So they let Dan direct it. And it was a wild run. Yeah, they did two of those.

Yeah, well, they did more than that. They did three or four. I did the first two. You were Frank. That was your character's name. The first one. Yeah. What about the second one?

Don't remember. It had nothing. We should point out to our listeners, too, that these pictures had nothing to do with George Romero's version. Nothing. We were spoofed. We spoofed George Romero's and he was lovely about it, by the way. He was charming about it.

They were great fun to do. And in one of the films, you set yourself on fire. I think it's in the first one. You become a zombie. I cremated myself. You cremated yourself. Yeah, because I didn't want to.

I'll tell you why. Because the last ten minutes of the picture, they had me running around in the rain, and I didn't want to do it. So I went to the director in the morning, and I said, Listen, I've got a great idea. How about if I cremate myself, that I don't want to be a zombie anymore? And he said, Oh, how would you do that? And he said, oh, how would you do that? And I said, well, I'm in the scene where the guy lights up the crematorium machine.

I said, all you got to do is go back and just one shot of me with Tommy against the wall. It can be any wall. And I say, that's not so tough. I could do that for christ's sake and i said then you show me going in and it's a very good scene and oh the music in it is wonderful burn baby burn oh yeah did you told me a story you were doing a movie hard bodies Bodies. I'm terribly sorry. Out of respect for my own self-respect and my wife who's in it, I will not discuss Hard Bodies. That's where he draws the line.

It was the best 12 weeks of our lives. We were in Greece. Just tell us how you got the extras, that story. Well, we were shot, a lot of them were shot on the beaches in Greece. And at one point early on, we noticed that there were a lot of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish girls on the beach next to us where we were shooting, and they were all there, topless.

And they were quite beautiful, absolutely gorgeous girls. So me being the eldest person on the set, I was elected to go over. I didn't want to go over. I didn't want to talk to those girls. But being a professional. I went over and said, listen, ladies, we're shooting a movie over here. Yeah, we see that. How would you like to, would you want to move over to our beach and not sit here?

Move over to our, well, we don't have to put no clothes on. We don't know. We want to get the raise. We don't want no marks. I said, no, no, no, no. Not have to put anything on. Just come over. Fly on our beach and you get 15 bucks a week, a day.

Oh, yeah, that's good. We're cleaning bilge and boat for less than that. So they moved over to our beach, and we have the most beautiful extras you've ever seen nude. It was a wonderful shoot shoot and they were great girls. A lot of them still write to us. We still correspond with number 11 and

number 12. And we didn't even bother with. So, James Caron bordering on porn producer. That's right. Now, James, we're going to

start wrapping it up. Thank God, I'm tired. Elderly gentleman, for Christ's sake. I'm hacking my whole shadow there. James, your career has run the gamut. From A to B. I don't think there's another person alive who's worked with both Buster Keaton and Willie Ames. Pretty sure that covers it.

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

He left me a cigar box with his hammer, a special hammer for opening crates. He worked in the produce market. And his pipe, that's all he left me. So I showed it to Willie, and he just loved it. He just loved it. And how did I start this story? I can't remember. Something about Buster Keaton, him loving Buster Keaton.

Oh, and he saw the hat. Buster's hat. And he went absolutely crazy. He just loved him. And you hat, Buster's hat, and he went absolutely crazy. He just loved him. And you won the Buster Award. Yes, I did. Thank you. Thank you. I did.

We have the Buster Keaton Annual. They're over 20 years now in Iola, Kansas, where Buster was born, outside of here about eight miles away in peakway they were on a split week and his mother stopped in peakway which was really a small town doesn't even exist anymore just the railroad station which is, too. And she had the baby in a house with a midwife. Father went on, and she joined the act three days later. And your family was, like, struggling, weren't they? Struggling for air? No, money-wise.

Yes, of course. i live through the depression yes uh my father had been very wealthy and lost everything my father had been a bootlegger and had made a great deal of money and a great deal of whiskey and had made a great deal of money and a great deal of whiskey and gin and something, a whiskey, gin, and I guess he made wine. He was a great bootlegger. Everybody loved him. Everybody liked his stuff. And when Prohibition ended, by that time he had lost everything in the stock market in 29 because he didn't understand it. But everybody went into the market because they didn't... Nobody understood

it, but all these guys who couldn't read or write were making money in the stock market, not understanding. Of course, when the market broke, they were all broke. And my father, the prohibition ended, and my father went to work as a laborer in the produce market. It's a real journey, James. I mean, here you are as a child taking your father to movie theaters to learn, to read subtitles, and you go on to make 80 films over 80 films in your career i'm sorry my father didn't see any of them yeah nor my mother what would they have thought pardon what would they have thought i mean would they have been absolutely amazed that you both my mother and father were delighted i was becoming an actor because that would mean I would go to Hollywood and have a big house

and a swimming pool sunken, onyx. Now, so both your parents never really got to see your success. No. No, my father saw me on television. My mother died young. My father saw me on television, and I was on a soap, and he got confused.

He was elderly and got confused, and he thought it was real, and he thought everybody knew that I was a bad guy. He called me, and I went to see him, and he said, everybody knows you're going to go to jail. Wow. He goes, boy, you've got to stop this. Everybody knows.

I felt so bad. There was no way I could clear it up. I felt so bad, there was no way I could clear it up. Now, did you have any experience with the House of Un-American Activities? Oh, yes. I tell you the truth, I cannot go into that. It's just too far. Everything is too painful, and I just don't want to go into it it has to do with my first wife and i just don't want to go into it gilbert oh okay very painful very painful uh many friends and uh it's ugly it's awful it was a bad bad time and

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

one of the greatest of the Oh That Guy actors, who has a ridiculous, ridiculous resume. I have a memory. Yeah, that too. That too, yes. Of movies. You remembered the address of Brando's place on 52nd Street. Wow.

We're going to go over there now. Yeah, movies, television. I bet it's down. 37 West 52nd. Oh, Skyscraper's there now. Oh, that's too bad. Toots Shore was right nearby. Wow.

And I only wish we had been recording this. I'm kind of happy that you weren't. It makes you look really lousy. Anyway, we've been talking to the great actor, James Caron. I'm Gilbert Gottfried here with my co-host Frank Santopadre and this has been Gilbert Gottfried's

amazing colossal podcast goodnight Dara goodnight Dara James thanks for doing this it was a real treat pleasure I hope we meet Frank I hope so I would love that you want to meet me ever again? No, I never want to see you again, Gilbert.

Goodbye. Thanks, James. And good night to you from Hollywood. This is Cecil B. DeMille. Good night to you from Hollywood. That's great. Thank you, James. Good night, gentlemen from Hollywood. That's great. Thank you, James. Good night, gentlemen.

Thank you.