Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 79. Steve Stoliar

Episode Date: November 30, 2015

Marx Brothers fanatics Gilbert and Frank sit down for a fascinating conversation with Groucho's personal assistant and archivist (and author of the memoir, "Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho's House") Steve Stoliar, who shares fond memories of the man himself, as well as brothers Gummo, Zeppo and famous houseguests George Burns, Liza Minnelli and Mae West. Also, Marvin Hamlisch grouses, Groucho takes in an Alice Cooper concert, Zeppo heads south of the border and Steve rescues "Animal Crackers." PLUS: Claude Rains! S.J. Perelman! The "Israeli Chico Marx"! Bob Hope roasts Danny Thomas! And Erin Fleming turns down Woody Allen! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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19 plus. Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to connexontario.ca. 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+. Don't forget to follow us on our Facebook page, Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing, colossal podcast. On Twitter, at RealGilbertACP. And on Instagram, Gilbert Podfried. P-O-D-F-R-I-E-D. You see, it's kind of a pun on the last name. Ah, never mind. 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 TV writer, documentary filmmaker, and author with credits that include Simon and Simon, Murder, She Wrote, and Sliders. He's written and produced documentaries on everyone from Elvis to Shemp Howard, and as a voice artist, has contributed to animated specials including Frosty Returns and You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown. In 1974, when he was just 19 years old, he went to work for the legendary Groucho Marx, an experience he writes about in his book Raised Eyebrows, My Years Inside Groucho's House, soon to be a major motion picture directed by filmmaker Rob Zombie. Welcome to the show, Steve Stolyar. Thank you. A pleasure to be here. Thanks, Steve. Thanks

for doing it. Sure. Well, it's nice to speak to you from beyond the grave. I was under the impression that I was going to be speaking with Arthur Godfrey. And I don't hear anyone playing a ukulele or anything remotely resembling a ukulele. How are you? How are you? That's Arthur Godfrey. Did you realize that a lot of the pictures we did was because Chico needed the money? Oh, that's our catchphrase.

Chico needed a lot more than just money, but Harpo and I couldn't provide those specific services. Hello. This is surreal. Dueling Grouchos. It's surreal. Dueling Grouchos. It's surreal. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. I've got to tell you, I care about the ecology, but not about the Jews. I want to save the whales, but I don't care about any of the Jews surviving. Thank you, Arthur Gottfried. I never heard you do Arthur Gottfried.

I never heard you do Arthur Gottfried. That's pretty damn good. There's a big demand for that. Yeah, well, the kids go crazy. The kids go crazy for that, and they stop me on the street corner to ask me to do my Bennett Surf impression. appearing on Broadway in a play involving a small child or a citrus fruit of some sort. There's a big demand for that. How's your

Percy Helton? Not as good as his Percy Kilbride. Oh, well. We'll have dueling Percys sometime. No, I specialize in my John MacGyver. You got a good strong back? Joe Buck, you're going to need it, boy. Get on your knees and pray.

I want quiet here. Quiet. Everything is just too noisy. When I was a child, I liked to eat brownies because cookies were too noisy. All the greats. How's your John Carradine? I took the brain of a lesbian and put it into the body of a man from the telephone company and they call me mad that's wonderful everything you wanted to know about sex that's it and you know i think

lon cheney jr auditioned for that part woody allen himself told me that cheney auditioned for that. He said Cheney Cheney said, I have cancer. And then what he said to me, that's his specialty. And he said that Cheney was said he was only good until three in the afternoon. And what he had to tell him, I'm sorry, but I can't work under those circumstances. And, you know, I think Carradine made a better mad scientist. Oh, yeah. Cheney, of course, was fine in Mice and Men. Well, Lenny will have a little farm and I get to tend him. Yes, Lenny, you'll get to tend him.

But at least we're sticking to the point, which is Groucho Marx. And that's the important thing. Well, speaking of everything you always want to know about sex. I don't like this place, George. Come on, George. Let's move out of here. Lenny, remember what I told you. If anything goes bad, you remember where to go and hide, don't you, Lenny? Right behind the bushes by the pond.

That's it. If anything goes bad, you wait there for me. Hey, you tell me again how we'll have a farm with rabbits. Oh, now, Lenny, we've been through that a hundred times. I'm tired of telling you about the rabbis as a rabbit. They're just like priests, only they're for the Jews. Tell me about the Jews, George. Well, of course, they did something terrible 2,000 years ago. And they've been persecuted mercilessly since then.

Tell me again how they killed Christ. Well, they said there was this fellow named Pilates. You've probably seen some of his shops around town. And then there were 30 pieces of silver, and Judas betrayed Christ with a kiss. No tongues. Good heavens.

What are we doing here? It's like the old show, The Copycats. Oh, yes. Well, you had mentioned everything you always want to know about sex, so I was going to say there's a segue since the infamous Aaron Fleming. We sidetracked ourselves. Yes, Aaron Fleming was in the scene in which Tony Randall is in the control room of the erection.

Can I say erection on your podcast? No, say hard dick. Yeah. Say hard dick. Yeah. I think that was what soldiers had in their backpack during World War I. It was called hard dick. Say big throbbing cock. I don't like the term erection. That sounds like a British escape.

I could be located at three big throbbing cock mort upon the nose London. Wow. Located at three big throbbing cock Wart upon the nose London Wow Wait what were we talking Oh oh Aaron Fleming Aaron Fleming was in that And then she was supposed to be in Love and Death She was going to play that countess

That Woody seduces But Aaron According to Aaron She stormed off the set because Woody wouldn't agree to allow her character to have children. And Aaron was obsessed with wanting a child. So she came back from Europe, you know, thinking we would admire how she stood up to that Woody Allen. And, you know, she essentially screwed herself out of what would have been a plum role for her and probably the only other significant role she had, except that she was in Hercules in New York starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arnold Stang. Yes.

That's where Arnold Stang talks like this. Arnold Strong. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a voice like this. They Strong, they built. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a voice like this. They dubbed it in. Then you can see Aaron running around saying, No, Zeus. No, you must not do this to Hercules.

Show mercy, Zeus. It rocketed her from local to worldwide obscurity. Now, the only thing that people seem to agree when they talk about Erin Fleming is that she was

nuts. Well, well, Tell me how Erin Fleming was nuts, George. Well, she was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. You wouldn't understand words like that.

She was a very volatile human being, and I was only 19 years old when I got the job and had never had to work with anyone like that. And she could be, you know, the sweetest person in the world one day and then just a bat out of hell the next day. And you never were quite sure what was going to set her off. There would be something that you would think, oh, no, when Aaron hears about this, she's going to be hell on wheels and she would laugh it off. And then there would be something else completely innocuous. And she would just have a colossal shit fit and throw things and break things and scream and slam doors.

But the Aaron Fleming subject is a complicated one because she came along at a time in Groucho's life when his family was not particularly interested in looking after him. He had recently been divorced for the third time and was just kind of rattling around in his house up in Beverly Hills doing occasional, doing the Dick Cavett show and game shows and different guest spots. And Aaron came along initially as his secretary and picked him up and dusted him off and thrust him out into the spotlight, which neatly split his friends because half of them thought it was wonderful that Groucho should hear that kind of adulation from the baby boomers at that point in his life. And then the other part of his friends who felt that Groucho was too frail

to have a spotlight thrown on him. And so, you know, as they say, the color of truth is gray. She extended his life, but made it a much, much rockier road than it needed to have been because of her volatile personality. That's the short answer to your question. And now the first day you were working for Groucho, you were 19 years old, a nervous little kid, and he had just had a stroke then. Actually, it wasn't the first day, but it was only a few weeks after I was working inside his house and that authorities weren't going to grab me by the collar and say, we're very sorry, young man, but terrible mistake has been made. And I, I, I leapt up the steps and rang the bell and, uh, the maid answered and said, please be very quiet.

Mr. Marks has had a stroke. And I thought, oh no, this is, this is it. The pumpkin, you know, that had turned into a coach is going to switch back into a pumpkin. And I went down the hall expecting to see him lying on his bed, unable to move and unable to speak. And instead, he was sitting on his bed, propped up, reading the newspaper, wearing PJs and his mucklucks. And he said, is the ambulance here yet? And I said, no, it figures. And it was just, I mean, it was so matter of fact, the way he just approached, like, well, here's my latest stroke, and I'm sure there'll be more.

And he did bounce back from that and lived almost another three years. But at the time, it was pretty scary because I thought that this dream job that I had, and I used to have dreams about meeting Groucho, and then would wake up terribly frustrated that it was only a dream. So when I was able to meet him, I said, Groucho, I'm very happy to be meeting you after all this time. And he said, well, you should be.

And Aaron Fleming said said this is steve he's the young man who's trying to get animal crackers re-released and groucho said did you get it and i said not yet but we're working on it and he said you better or i'll fire you and i said well i didn't realize i was working for you how much money are you paying me? And he said, a little less than nothing. So that was before I had the job. But that was how we met was trying to get Animal Crackers off the shelf Marx Brothers movie I ever saw, or I have it on DVD, or I watched it last Thursday. Because when we were growing up, it was the great missing link in the Marx Brothers dozen films because it had been made for Paramount in 1930. And then when the Paramount films were sold to Universal in the late 50s, it was included, but the rights had expired and reverted back to the original authors. And MCA didn't think there was any money to be had by clearing the rights and reissuing this lost Marx Brothers film. But all of my friends were Marx Brothers fanatics and

wanted to see it. So I started this petition drive at UCLA to put pressure on Universal to clear the rights. And that's when Groucho came to campus. And I sat side by side, you know, pinching myself and firmly convinced that this was it, that I would never get to see him again. But I should be grateful that there he was talking to me and all these newsmen. And then the film came out and broke the box office record at the UA Westwood that had been set by French Connection. And then the film came out and broke the box office record at the UA Westwood that had been set by French Connection. And that was colossally gratifying. And then I had, there were two summer jobs for 1974. Both of them fell through, for which I remain eternally grateful. And I thought I had nothing to lose. so I called Erin Fleming, and I said, is there anything at all that you think could need doing?

And she said, well, actually, I had been Groucho's secretary, but now I'm his manager. We need someone to handle the fan mail and to organize all of his memorabilia that's going to be donated to the Smithsonian. And in my mind's eye, it's like a Tex Avery cartoon where I'm showing up on the doorstep before she hangs up the phone. It wasn't quite like that. I initially thought I'd be working in some Wilshire Boulevard office building

and maybe he'd come in twice a month or something. And she said, oh, no, dear'd come in twice a month or something. And she said, oh, no, dear, you'll work right inside the house. There's a room that you could use as an office and you can come and go as you please and make your own hours. And I thought, and they're giving me money to do this, to wade ankle deep in Groucho's memorabilia from vaudeville and Broadwayway and hollywood and to sit and have lunch with with george burns and steve allen and and jack lemon and maury risk and nat parent got to meet sj perilman all these just extraordinary personages i i remember i sawackers at a theater in New York when it first came out. Right.

There was a re-premiere. They had two re-premieres. One was in Westwood, and the other was in New York, where Groucho was almost trampled to death by the crowds that showed up to greet him, which on the one hand was very gratifying, and on the other hand is kind of scary when you're in your 80s and frail. Oh, yeah. When was that, Steve, when the movies were released? 1974 for Animal Crackers? Yeah. And I saw Groucho at Radio City.

Really? Yeah. And I remember they bring out – oh, they brought out a violin to him and uh and they said it was like jack benny's violin and he steps on it that way was that the carnegie hall show oh yeah carnegie hall i meant right carnegie hall and it was they bring out Jack Benny's violin, it's supposed to be. And he drops it on the ground, steps on it and goes, I've had enough of Jack Benny and so has this violin. Was that the Hamlisch show that you saw, Gilbert?

Yes. Was it Marvin Hamlisch and he would come out and sing Captain Spaulding? Yes, yes, yes. And now this brings us to another topic. Yes. You were not crazy about composer Marvin Hamlisch. I was crazy about the work that he did and the music that he generated but there was a charity event uh where groucho performed and it was it was called a day at the races and it was at some country club out here in

la and i got to go because i was part of the household and hamlish came out and sat down at the piano and said, I'm going to auction off my performance. And he was waiting for this flood of big ticket bids to come in for the thrill of hearing him play, you know, the way we were, whatever it was. And $50, $75, and $100. And $50, $75, and $100. And it didn't get very high at all. And he was so upset that he rejected the winning bid and said, I'll play this for nothing, but I don't want your $100.

And I remember sitting there thinking, it isn't your hundred dollars. It's going to go to whatever the charity is that's putting this on. So even though you're not getting what you thought you were worth, shouldn't you be grateful for anything? But, you know, I guess anyway, as a kid that impressed me or it rubbed me the wrong way that he was rejecting this money that was supposed to be for charity because it wasn't what he thought his performance was worth. And there's a group of people that it's funny to think now are like the young kids over at Groucho's house. Like Sally Kellerman and Elliot Gould. George Segal, all these people it was sort of like a Robert Altman film mostly because half of them

had been in Robert Altman films most of them were Aaron Fleming's friends but she brought them into Groucho's circle and she also she was enough of a savvy business woman that she realized the value of having

him photographed with then current big stars like Elton John. And he became friendly with Alice Cooper. I didn't get to meet Alice there, but I think Groucho got a big kick out of him, just the outrageousness of his performance and said something like, you know, you're going to bring vaudeville back single handedly or something like that. So it was but I was always drawn to Groucho's circle of friends that they it seemed to me they were more down to earth. They were more comfortable with having had their fame or whatever.

They're, you know, the writers and directors, people like that. And even I mean, when when George Burns came to lunch, I was very nervous, and I got the door, and he just breezed in and said, Hi, you want to live a long time? Become an actor. You live to be an old man like Groucho and me. All right, let's eat.

They sat down at the lunch table, and because I was always welcome at the lunch table, it was very egalitarian. It wasn't like the help had to eat in the kitchen. So no matter who was coming over, I was welcome at the table. And so I just sat there with both ears open constantly and then would sometimes run into the next room and jot down notes, which went into my book, Raised Eyebrows. notes which went into my book raised eyebrows and it was just astonishing you know that watching you know groucho and george remember it was at the gaiety theater in chicago because uh i think chico was banging the daughter of the man i wasn't the gaiety theater that was bf case

theater in milwaukee because it was around the corner from the candy store where Harpo bought all the jelly beans. And I would just be sitting there thinking, I can't believe this is going. And I remember at the end of lunch, Burns took out a cigar and pushed it into the holder

and he said, I never smoke expensive cigars. All I care about is if it fits the holder milton burrell pays two dollars a piece for his cigars if i paid that much i'd go to bed with it before i smoke tell us about when may west came over steve as long as we're talking about oh that that reminds me of something when you said may west. I was once talking to Alice Cooper, and he said that Groucho and Mae West both attended one of his concerts together. He took her as a date. I never heard that.

That's great. I'm sure we'll be inconspicuous. Nobody's going to... Look, someone's dressed up as Groucho Marx and Mae West coming to see Alice. I hadn't heard that, but it's certainly possible. He said he was the only person who knew them there. That's terrific. Like the audience had no idea Groucho and Mae West.

Well, Mae West came up and saw him sometime. One night she came over, and Aaron Fleming was very nervous about it. And she said, Groucho, promise me you're going to be on your best behavior, which is the best way to get – and anyone with a sense of humor when you tell them that is looking for ways to be, you know, a – Oh, yes. I'm familiar with it. Yeah. with a sense of humor when you tell them that is looking for ways to be you know a oh yes so i'm familiar with it yeah so i've gotten in trouble a lot of times for being warned whatever right whatever don't don't throw me in the briar patch or don't touch the wet paint or whatever the thing yes well in this case she admonished Groucho to not ask anything that would be embarrassing or put her on the spot.

So she walks in, and the first thing he says is, what do you hear from Bill Fields? Now, if you know, she and W.C. Fields made My Little Chickadee, and as legend and apparently the truth had it, they hated each other. Fields and West hated each other. They didn't speak to each other. They communicated by sending notes through an intermediary. So probably one of the worst things Groucho could have done was to say, what do you hear from Bill Fields? And she just said, in your dreams, Groucho, in your dreams.

And then just a few minutes after that, he said, didn't they throw you in the pokey once? Which was she had been jailed because her play Sex was deemed to be obscene. And she was temporarily arrested and put in jail. So inside of about 10 minutes, he had put her on the spot asking about WC3 and that I was arrested for indecency. But it didn't throw her and it was fine. Aaron really was the only one that felt agitated at all. And then Harpo's son Bill was there playing the piano and he played Frankie and Johnny and Mae West did this reciting of a bawdy poem she had wrote called The Pleasure Man and it was just a remarkable evening I mean it

was just like this Jurassic Park of Paramount comedy the king and queen of early 30s Paramount comedy in the same room with me and that was you know, one of dozens of experiences I had there. It was like at Groucho's parties, it seemed like he and every one of his guests performed. He loved to perform. He never stopped performing. Sometimes the guests would decline, which I sort of, as with Hamlisch, I sort of held it against them because I thought, how much is it really asking of you? At his 85th birthday party, Liza Minnelli was there with her then-husband Jack Haley Jr. And I remember sitting there thinking, wow, Dorothy's daughter married the Tin Man's son. This is very strange.

Yes. That always struck me as strange. Yeah. And Bill Marks, Harpo's son, started doing the introduction to Cabaret, and she shook her head, and he tried it again, and she just shook her head, and so they moved on. She didn't want to get up and sing. But sometimes people did or told jokes.

I remember Bob Hope came by on his way to a Danny Thomas. Now, I'm going to say Danny Thomas and I'm going to try to finish. You know the show, huh, Steve? No, I know the truth. truth. Anyway, Bob Pope showed up on his way to some charity event in honor of Long John.

Oh, now you've gone and done this. Tell me about Danny Thomas. He was what we call a coprophile. Not like a cop a penny, Lenny. It's quite different, although both are brown. And he had a glass coffee table.

It didn't end there, but I'm going to stop talking about this. Okay. Anyway, Bob. He's not taking the bait. No, but Danny Thomas. Anyway. this okay anyway he's not taking the bait no but but danny thomas anyway oh dear okay wipe that shit-eating grin off your face all right all right kids okay all right now you're not going to behave or we're not going to see mickey mouse we're going to turn right around and go back to the motel.

So you two, you stop it now. All right. All right. Bob Hope came by and we thought, you know, this is really great because he's going to talk about what it's been like knowing Groucho for all those years. And so, you know, he was there in a tuxedo because he was really essentially on his way to the Danny Thomas event. And he looked at Groucho, said, this is a man who's been making me laugh for years. And I'm sorry, I got it backward. Groucho said, this is a man who's been making me laugh.

And Hope said, you don't have to say that, Groucho. And Groucho said, if you weren't here, I wouldn't say it. have to say that, Groucho. And Groucho said, if you weren't here, I wouldn't say it. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he said, you know, the thing about Danny Thomas is he's so religious, he has stained glass bifocals. And I remember sitting there thinking, he's testing out his Danny Thomas material on us before going to the testimonial. He has this crowded house in honor of Groucho's 85th birthday. They've worked together off and on since the late 30s, probably. And he's trying out his Danny Thomas material on us. So that was what stood out from that was a little bit of banter. And then that Danny Thomas, he's's so religious he has stained glass bifocals

and oh and i i we got a little sidetracked but when a little yeah just a tad when groucho had that stroke and you were sitting there how did uh aaron react ah funny you should ask yes yeah well so groucho and his nurse and i were tending to him and getting him whatever he wanted and this happened to have uh taken place on aaron's birthday and there was going to be a birthday party that evening instead she came in to the bedroom she assessed the situation saw groucho lying there waiting for the ambulance and Steve and Nurse Julie looking up, smiling at her, kind of braving it out during this difficult moment. And she turned around and screamed, oh, and then we heard a door slam and she didn't come out of her office at his house until the gurney had taken him away to to cedars then she came out of her office and came over and i'm saying you know do you think he'll be okay And her point of view was, do I think he'll be okay? He only did this to get

attention. He only did this to upstage me because I'm having a birthday party and now we can't have. And I said, Aaron, are you saying that you think he had this stroke on purpose? And she looked at me like, duh, like, of course he had this on purpose. And her her entire focus was on how his obviously unscheduled minor stroke had stolen the thunder for what was going to be her birthday party. So that's an example of what it was like trying to deal with someone who saw things through that bent prism of logic. And and you had you were going out with a girl. Well. Yeah, at that time, who was like, I don't know, like about 20.

Yes, Linda. Yeah. And you split up, you two split. And then what happened then? She and I were going to go out on a date, and it was on a night when Zeppo and Gummo were coming up from Palm Springs. They were the two extant Marx brothers in addition to Groucho. Never got to meet Harpo or Chico, I'm sorry. Never got to pay for any of Chico's bills or bail him out financially or any of it.

bills are bailing them out financially or any other way and and uh and i wanted to meet i wanted to to have dinner with zeppo and gummo but i said to aaron i have a date and aaron said well bring her and i thought oh this appealed to my wicked sense of humor because linda was this very composed in the book i said she was unflappable and I was determined that she be flapped. So I picked her up and she said, where are we going for dinner? And I said, it's a little out of the way place. And we go wending our way through Truesdale Gates up Hillcrest. And she said, I don't want to do this. And I thought, well, we're going to do it. And she was a very attractive, she was 19, blonde hair, blue eyes, great personality. And Zeppo sort of became smitten with her over dinner. And then some weeks... And how old was Zeppo? He was all of 74.

Incredible. for. Incredible. And so she and I split up and I thought he's a guy that's been around the track once or twice. Maybe he has some advice for the love Lauren. So I had gotten a couple of pictures that I wanted him to sign. And in my cover letter, I said, you know, by the way, Linda and I split up if you have any words of advice or whatever, I'd appreciate it. I get a long distance call from the Tamarisk Country Club. Steve at Zeppo mocks. Fine. Listen, I hope I'm not stepping on your toes, but do you think that Linda would go out with me? I thought, this is really weird. I'm calling up to see if he can soothe my ruffled feathers. And he's hitting on. And I said, well, I don't know.

I mean, she got a kick out of you because I'd never want to do anything that you wouldn't approve of. You understand that? No, no. Well, let me ask her. OK. Only if it's all right. So I called her up and she too thought it was kind of strange, charming, you know, it's like, sure, what the heck? I mean, and they, let me see. He took her to dinner in San Diego and then a high lie game in Tijuana.

Of course, as anyone, that's anyone's standard first date in Los Angeles. High lie with Zeppo. Dinner in los angeles high lie with zepo san diego high lie in tijuana and then the next time i saw him he said i want you to know i never even kissed a good night steve she's very very nice but really all she did was talk about herself and then i saw her on campus at at UCLA and she said, Zeppa was very nice. All he did was talk about himself. So they only went out once. But after that, anytime I'd be at a party and Zeppa was up from Palm Springs, he would introduce me to people saying,

this is Steve. He and I dated the same girl, but he got further with her than I did. And you saw Aaron Fleming, you saw her naked one time. I don't understand why only these prurient things are. Well, welcome to the show, Steve. We could be talking about the way the humor of the Marx Brothers transcended vaudeville, Broadway, radio. We'll come back to that. No.

All right. I did. Erin, as I said, she was a very strange creature. And there was one day when she said, I'm going to go sunbathing. I'm going to go floating in the pool. And I'm not going to be wearing anything. I don't want anyone to peek. All right.

Is that clear? It's like, all right. So before she went outside, she went around the living room and opened up all of the drapes across the big giant windows that faced the pool, then put the raft in the pool and took off her bathing suit and was lying. You know, since then, I've been thinking, unfortunately, not face down in the pool, not like William Holden in Sunset Boulevard. He was lying face down. And I, you know, the truth is, I never was really drawn to her that way. She just, she had a coldness and a shrillness and something that just didn't make me crave her in that way. However, it was, you know, notable that she said, don't anybody peek, and then took off all her clothes and opened up all the windows so that she was on display for,

you know, a half hour floating in the pool. I see that you're dumbstruck by this. Yes. Now, here's another story, and eventually I'll talk about Groucho Marx. Yeah. I know where you're going with this one. This, I heard a story like Groucho's nurse or cook or something said something, aaron got became enraged

and she said oh are you a man oh yeah that was terry terry mccord was a wonderful nurse his nurses were wonderful they had his best interests at heart and it was a very difficult balancing act for them and for me because we were trying to look after him and provide the best care we could. But she controlled the household. And so it was off with their heads if she got any sense of disrespect. So Groucho, this was a couple of years after that other incident with the stroke, he had another small stroke. And Terry had said, don't you think we better call the doctor? You know, an outrageous request. This man has had a stroke.

Shouldn't we call the doctor? And Aaron had just flew into a rage and said, oh, you're in charge. You're going to wear the pants? You're the man of the house? And she unzipped her, you don't really want me to tell the man of the house. And she unzipped her. You don't really want me to tell the rest of the story. Go right ahead. But now a word from our alternates.

She unzipped. She had on a jumpsuit and she unzipped it and started fondling her pubic hair and saying, come on, Terry. I know you want to fuck me. You think you're the man here. Show me what a man you are. Fuck me. And Terry, you know, understandably ran out of the house in tears. And then after, you know, after Aaron had won that round, she then picked up the phone and called the doctor and had an ambulance come. But it was just that that was the thing about Aaron was she I don't think she ever really accepted Groucho's mortality. I don't I don't mean death. I mean, the fact that he wasn't a superhero. I think she thought that if she

yelled loud enough and and, you know, rattled him, it would shake the rust off of his brain and he would stop being an 86 year old man with with bad arteries who had had, you know, strokes and a heart attack. And it would send his blood pressure soaring when she would be on the rampage. And it broke our hearts to watch this. And now, you know, there's people now that say, well, I don't understand why you didn't interfere. Why didn't you call someone? And it's very easy that that kind of Monday morning quarterbacking because

his son Arthur had had a lifelong estrangement off and on with his dad. They'd have good years and bad years. But that had been going on long before Aaron came on the scene and started alienating his old time friends and family. So calling Arthur and saying Aaron Fleming is volatile and unpredictable, according to Aaron, if Arthur was in charge of Groucho, he would have put him in an old folks home and Groucho was terrified of that. I don't want to go into one of those places like with Sheikman. So we thought, well, if we call Arthur and he somehow uses whatever influence he has and then just puts Groucho in a home, what have we accomplished? So it was a very delicate, difficult balancing act to try to stay true to, you know, my love and devotion was always aimed at Groucho. My love and devotion was always aimed at Groucho, but there was this dragon guarding this fellow, and you wanted to stay on her good side. I don't really know how I did it. There was an attempted coup in late 74 where we were going to remove her and substitute this other nurse named Connie, who was young and attractive, but who cared about Groucho and had a medical background so she would know how to treat him right instead of sending his blood pressure through the roof. And the whole thing backfired.

And the night before it did, my phone, oh man, my phone rang in the middle of the night at UCLA. night at UCLA and I hear this familiar breathy voice saying, I understand you're in on a plot to get rid of me. And I thought, here is this woman who is paranoid. And every now and again, paranoids are right. They are out to get them. And this was one of those cases. And I don't know how she found out. And more than that, I don't know how in the out and more than that I don't know how in the world I talked my way out of it because she was absolutely right the household was conspiring and meeting behind her back

to try to ease out Aaron and ease Connie in and then bring in some of the friends who had been alienated while Aaron was in charge and the whole thing exploded and Aaron was in stronger control than ever until towards the end when there was this huge battle over Groucho between

Arthur's forces and Aaron that ended up making a lot of headlines at the time and um she Aaron hired in her paranoia she hired two private detectives to comb the house to see if there were any, she thought that there were electronic surveillance devices. I'm sure Arthur has had the house bugged. I'm sure he's had the telephones bugged. So they used the sophisticated electronic sweeping equipment and came in and said, we haven't found evidence of any kind of surveillance. However, we did find this. And they gave her these two baggies of syringes and traces of pills and and that they found in the storm drain in front of Groucho's house. And one of the detectives said, what should we do with this? And of course, what any,

you know, responsible person would do, she said, bury it in the backyard. So they, instead of burying it, they went to the sheriff's department and said, we are conflicted here. This woman hired us to, to check out the house and we found this. And instead of explaining what it was or saying she didn't know what it was. And in fact, I don't know that anyone ever found out that they were necessarily from Groucho's house because they could have washed down from another house. But she had said, strange being in the middle of this because I would know about it from being at Groucho's house, but all of a sudden all my friends are picking up the L.A. Times and reading these headlines, you know, nurse claims Aaron Fleming drugs Groucho, legendary comedian at the mercy of, you know,

it's like, oh man, it's like the shit had hit the fan and and you mentioned arthur sheikman the great writer and we should mention his wife uh gloria stewart yeah gloria stewart the old woman from titanic who tells the story of Titanic, and to some of our fans, best known as Claude Rains' girlfriend in The Invisible Man. I could rule the world with an army of invisible men. Yes. That funny little hat. I always liked it. Did you know that Claude Rains was a cockney and that beautiful voice was a put on?

Oh, wow. That's interesting. I learned that for Dick Cavett told me that, that Claude Rains was born a cockney and that was an affectation in his career. Now, when you say he was a cockney, did that mean he liked to get shit on under a glass coffee table? Hey, how about that Danny Thomas? Isn't he something? You know, Steve, since we're talking about Sheikman... Hey, what's the poop on Danny Thomas? And I heard

that's why Claude Rains wanted to be invisible. Jesus. Oh, God. Because people would see him and go, there's Claude Rains. He likes to get shit on. And then Bob Dylan wrote, it's a Claude Rains gonna fall. A friend of mine, Dennis Castanaris, wrote a song called,

it's a Claude Rains gonna fall. And it was a complete parody that 11 people will appreciate. That's funny. We'll come back to Aaron because there's plenty more Aaron stuff, Steve. But tell us, since you mentioned Sheikman coming up to the house and a lot of the Marx Brothers writers,

Maury Riskind and you met Nat Perrin. Nat Perrin was wonderful. Nat Perrin was one of Groucho's oldest friends. He co-wrote Monkey Business and Duck Soup. And he figures prominently, if you've ever read the Groucho letters, there's a lot of to and fro from Nat Perrin, whom he called the deacon. I had told Nat that I was a huge fan of George Gershwin. And Nat said that when he was a kid, when he was a teenager, he was a huge fan of Gershwin's and that he had actually snuck into Eolian Hall in 1924, the night that George Gershwin debuted the Rhapsody in Blue. He snuck in the back way.

And I just I was just in awe of this guy. I think he was like 17 years old, but he was such a Gershwin fan. He wanted to be there for that. years old, but he was such a Gershwin fan. He wanted to be there for that. And he said, he said, then Groucho, Groucho brought me out to Hollywood in 1931 and he took me to a party and there's George Gershwin at the keys. And he brings me over and he says, George, this is Nat Perrin. He's the only person I've ever met that can whistle the entire Rhapsody in Blue. And Nat thought he was going to be put on the spot to have to stand there and whistle for 17 minutes.

But luckily, you know, Gershwin just kind of said, well, that's, you know, thank you. Very nice and I'm very flattered or something. And he was off the hook. But for a while, Nat was worried that he'd have to whistle Rhapsody in Blue. Now, was Nat the one, I forget now, who's the one who was victimized by the House of Un-American Activities?

That was actually that wasn't one of the writers. That was Jerry Fielding, who was the original. He was the original band leader on You Bet Your Life. OK. And he ended up having a fine career after that. He wrote a lot of film and TV scores. He scored a lot of Sam Peckinpah films and a lot of TV shows. And when I was working with Hector Arcee on a book about You Bet Your Life that Groucho also co-wrote, and we interviewed Jerry Fielding about that. And he said something, it put things into perspective.

He said, people look at, but look at us, the people who are blacklisted as heroes. He said, I look at kids today who are getting their skulls cracked with billy clubs and getting thrown in prison for anti-war protests and things like that. He said, all we did was lose our job. The guys today are the real heroes. It's interesting because everyone venerates the blacklisted people because of what they had to go through. But I mean, he had he

ended up working in Vegas after that, where they didn't have the blacklist and ended up pulling himself back. And I think Groucho ended up regretting not having interfered. But it was that whole Red Scare period of the 50s when I think pressure was put on Groucho from from the sponsor that, you know, we've heard Jerry Fielding is a communist. And by the way, Fielding freely admitted that he was a communist. It wasn't just, again, it wasn't paranoia. He really was, but he wasn't trying to overthrow NBC or Hollywood by conducting the You Bet Your Life Orchestra in a sinister way. But Groucho, he caved to the pressure. And I think there was a rumor that they were trying to work their way up to him because he had been a lifelong liberal, a lifelong Democrat. And in those days, you couldn't help but rub shoulders with people who

were socialists and communists. And again, they weren't out to overthrow the government. But when McCarthyism kicked in, anyone was under suspicion that had hung out with those kind of people. Who else was at the House, Steve, from the group of writers? I mean, you mentioned Nat Perrin, Maury Riskin. Perelman was there? Perelman was there, yeah. And I was very nervous about meeting him because he was, you know, a legendary misanthrope. But I had such great admiration for him.

And again, I wasn't planning on, I didn't think I'd be there to meet him because he was coming back. He was coming over for dinner and I thought I would be gone by then. And Aaron said, oh, Steve, why don't you stay and meet Sid? I'm sure he'd be thrilled to meet you. And I thought I really should go home and change or something. I was in my usual tennis shoes, faded jeans and t-shirt. And Perelman shows up impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit with some woman with a floor-length mink coat and two other people just with the ritziest outfits you've ever seen. And there I am standing there saying, it's such an honor to meet you. And I'm thinking, he's probably thinking, who is this schmuck? But what happened was later on in the evening, some of the people were trying to figure out which were Perelman lines from his films.

One of them said, oh, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. Wasn't that yours, Sid? No, that wasn't mine. Oh, vaccinated with a phonograph needle. You wrote that, didn't you, Sid? No, that was I didn't write. Then I said, the professor is waxing Roth. He turned around and he looked at me and he said, that was one of mine.

From Horse Feathers. Yeah. And after dinner, Perelman took out a cigarette and he said to Groucho, by the way, do you, by the way, incidentally, this is a dead on S.J. Perelman. You get a lot of requests for that one too? Oh yeah. The people stop me on the street. They're not asking me to do my Bennett surf impression. And they're saying, can you do that? And so he took out a cigarette and he said, by the way, Groucho, do you mind if I smoke? And Groucho said, I don't care if you burn. That was good, Groucho.

Let's try it for timing now. And then I went back to my office and Perelman went to use the restroom later on. And I stopped him on his way back and showed him the groucho had had an early draft of horse feathers. And I said, have you seen this lately? And he said, no. And he started thumbing through it. And we started talking about the Algonquin Roundtable and Robert Benchley and all this. And he's advising me I should be a playwright because the writer has more control than in television and all this. And he's advising me, I should be a playwright because you, the writer has more control than in television and all this stuff. And I start hearing people saying, where's Sid?

What happened to Sid? Is he sick? Is he okay? And it's like, gee, I had managed to corner S.J. Perelman for like 20 minutes talking about the round table. So there were these, you know, these nuggets of gold, uh, that meant the world to me at the time. And then on reflection, realizing how fortunate I was. And the good thing for me was that since I was such a fanatic, I knew who all these people were. I don't know if you've had the experience of meeting someone and then years later someone explains to you why they were important. And you go, oh man, I wish I'd known that I would have asked them this or I would have told them this. In this case, when I would meet someone, my brain would, it's like my brain was a Rolodex that would flip to their card. Ah, Nat Perrin, okay, monkey business and duck soup. And you mentioned Gloria Stewart. The only time I wasn't able to

retrieve the significance of a person was when Arthur Sheikman's wife would come over to lunch because Groucho only referred, you know, Gloria Sheikman is coming for lunch. She's Arthur's wife. And I didn't realize that she was, in fact, Gloria Stewart until after I'd stopped working there because I would love to have asked her about working with Karloff and James Whale, working with Buzz Beaver. Oh, that's right. She's in the old dark house, isn't she? Yes. Yeah. Ernest Thessinger.

Ernest Thessinger. It is my only weakness. Now, you also said in the book that S.J. Perlman started playing with his pubic hair. Now, cut that out. It playing with his pubic hair. Now cut that out. It wasn't his pubic hair. It was someone else's that he brought with him. He kept it for emergency purposes. What about Zeppo and Gummo?

We touched a little bit about Zeppo. Gummo, who did not perform, was not a performing Marx brother, but you read about him and people say he was funny. He was funny. Groucho had a tall, slender, blonde cook named Robin, and when Zeppo and Gummo were there for dinner, all the Marx brothers were fairly short. And Chico was short of money, but I don't have to tell you.

So Zeppo came out of the kitchen and sat down. He said, Robin said she'd marry me, but I don't know. I think she's too tall for me. And Groucho said, what part of it do you want? And Zeppo said, well, I'll take as high up as I can reach. And Gummo said, what do you want with her feet it's like a great surreal joke the idea that he was so short that as high up as he could reach would have been her feet so that's actually a very rare thing people have stories about the other brothers and you know there's that legend that

off-screen zeppa was the funniest oh sure he really did light up a room when he walked wasn't there a case where um i think groucho was sick and when he has appendicitis yeah and zeppo took over for him yeah when animal crackers was a broad Broadway show before it was a film, and then it toured, and there was, at one point, Groucho got an appendicitis and had to be hospitalized. So Zeppo pinch hit for him a couple of nights, and the report that came back was that he matched Groucho laugh for laugh on all the lines and people did not realize that that was not Groucho Marx in front of them I guess Zeppo's role in the play wasn't substantial enough that anyone was saying I don't understand where's the guy that where's Zeppo but Groucho ended up

coming back to the show before his doctor would like him to have because he felt a little bit threatened by the fact that his kid brother was able to was able to sub for him and nobody was the wiser and i um i remember hearing oh um i i spoke to like maxine marks about three times and she had told me that when she was a little girl, she watched them a bunch of times, and it was unimportant to watch the Marx Brothers. Chico's daughter, we should point out, that you're talking about. And she ran outside and was playing while they were on stage,

and afterwards, Chico said to her, did you catch it? And she goes, what? And Chico and Harpo switched characters on stage. Oh, right, right. And she missed it because she was out playing. Yes. Told that story.

She was great. She was a character. And she had those sad eyes and that sideways smile. And she would smile and look at you. And it was eerie because it was like Chico and Drag was looking at you. Yes. She looked, the only thing missing was the hat. Yeah.

And I remember my greatest moment with her was she mentioned Al Sheehan, the Marx Brothers' uncle. Right. And who was a great vaudevillian. Gallagher al sheehan the mox brothers uncle right and who was a great vaudeville gallagher and sheen and yeah and i said to her when she mentioned al sheehan i went absolutely mr gallagher and she grabbed my hand shook it and she said positively mr sheen ah what a great moment i i felt like it was like i was in a time machine yeah i went back it's hard to describe what what a great feeling that and that boy that was a great this part one of the lyrics of the song was uh a baby born as black as ink weighed a half a pound i think how could anything be so dark and be so light? Can you imagine releasing that today?

No, no. And I heard that Gallagher and Sheen, they were being sued at one point. That I think Ziegfeld said, we need them for this show, and they backed out. And Gallagher and Sheen went to court to prove they were a terrible, untalented team that were completely worthless.

I never heard that story. It's great. Yes, they had to go prove they were awful and didn't have a shred of talent. In order to win, they had to go prove they were awful and didn't have a shred of talent. In order to win, they had to lose. Yes. Did he watch the old films? Did he put them on, Steve? Did you guys sit and reminisce?

It was a great, yeah. It's sort of like in Ed Wood when Martin Landau and Johnny Depp are sitting there watching White Zombie and he's talking to him about it. It was like that with sitting with Groucho watching it because he'd be telling you behind the scenes stories. Or You Bet Your Life had been re-syndicated in the 70s. And so he would watch that. It was on 11 o'clock each night and he would be watching it and he would get he would get upset when the contestants wouldn't get it he'd say they should have known that that was an easy question there's no excuse for not knowing that but he would and

there was one time he came to the lunch table and he he just he seemed irritated and he just said, whatever made Bazell think he could direct? And now Eddie Bazell had directed At the Circus and Go West, which are two of the weakest March Brothers films. But the idea that it was as if Groucho had just come from the set of Go West and was angry all over again, that Bazell, who had been a vaudevillian years earlier and then became a sort of contract director at MGM. And then I had an experience with Bazell that was one of those cases where sometimes you don't phrase something right and it comes out wrong. At the time, I'd become friends with Eleanor Powell, the tap dancer from MGM musicals, and Bazell had directed a couple of her films.

So he was at one of Groucho's parties. I mean, obviously Groucho's resentment at the job Bazell did didn't preclude not inviting him to some of his parties. So I went over and I started talking to Bazell. And I said, you know, I've seen all the pictures you did with her except for Honolulu. That's a hard picture to see. And he said, well, you know, back then pictures were different

and audiences were different. And I realized that he thought I meant it's a hard film to watch. And I thought, oh, my God, he thought, who is this little shit walks up to me and says, I'm so pleased to meet you. I can't sit through your movies. So I bent over backwards to explain to him that I meant, no, it's a hard movie to find, to see. But I felt terrible that he misinterpreted that. And he said something that Groucho answered. I forget.

He said something about Groucho as an actor. Oh, oh, that was Sam Wood was the director on A Day at the Races. And after one take, Sam Wood said, I can't make an actor out of Marx. And Groucho said, nor a director out of Wood. I mean, Sam Wood was not known for being a skilled comedy director. Now, this is very important. Uh-oh.

Eleanor Powell, I think her son son starred in the movie The Beast Within. Eleanor Powell was married. Eleanor Powell was married to Glenn Ford. She said she had her pick of anyone on the entire tree at MGM and she got stuck with the lemon. It did not. He was not the most faithful husband, but they did have a son named Peter Ford and I guess if he was in that film, that's

who it would be. Is that who you're thinking of? Glenn Ford's son? Oh. Peter Ford? Oh, hmm. We'll have to look up the beast within. We'll put our staff on that. Did he talk other specifics? I know he was raging about Bazell, which is funny, Steve, but did have to look up the beast within. We'll put our staff on that. Did he talk other specifics? I know he was raging about Bazell, which is funny, Steve, but did he talk about Margaret Dumont?

Did he talk about, you know, Edgar Kennedy? Did he reminisce about specific people that he'd worked with? Is it true that Groucho once said, I used to have Margaret Dumont take a shit on me when I lied when I lied underneath

a coffee table that I borrowed from Danny Thomas oh it's jump the shark again it's absolutely not true it was not a coffee table it It was a settee. There you go. I'm glad to set the record straight after all these years.

Selma Todd wants shit on me. Hot toddy. But she put a tablecloth, so it killed the whole point. She was very formal that way. We should point out to our listeners who don't know this that we're looking at Steve on Skype, and he's turning several different shades. Please pick one you like. We have Moe. He's a Macintosh. I think Fuchsia's coming up in have Moe. He sees a Macintosh.

I think Fuchsia's coming up in a minute. Not a Macintosh. No. Matt Pendleton once took a shit on me while I was sleeping in my trailer.

Oh, Lord. Sig Ruman. I was just going to ask about Sig Ruman. Well, I'll answer that. Sig Ruman would eat a lot of German sausage, and then he would shit on me. Gilbert, I don't want you to hold back. You can ask me anything. Really, go ahead. I have no shame. We were talking about Groucho,

I think. Did he ever comment on Skidoo? Something that Gilbert and I love to talk about on this show. No, no. He did not comment on Skidoo. I think it became more of a cult favorite after he was gone. And so there was nothing there.

But, you know, it was fun. It was it was fun watching him deal with interviewers when they would come out and ask him about, you know, asking about the films and the old days and stuff. And he really he did not suffer fools gladly. And it used to frustrate me because I would think, you know, if I were if I got the assignment to come interview Groucho, I would do my homework and I would know the answers to a lot of these things. But to them, it was just an assignment. I go out to 1083 Hillcrest and talk to Groucho about this. And I remember, well, I mean, one guy said, what are you doing with your time? And Groucho said, I'm wasting it talking to you. That didn't make it into the guy's piece.

And another guy said, how has filmmaking changed since the days when you and your brothers, and Groucho said, they didn't used to have toilets near the sound stages,

but all that's changed now. And the guy said, really? How has it changed? And Groucho just looked at him and said, people don't piss anymore. Like, what do you think it meant? It meant that now they have restrooms near the sound stage. So it was great fun. And, of course, these things never made it into the guy's finished pieces

because it reflected poorly on them. Now, Groucho, I mean, this is weird. It's a case of the Marx Brothers meet the Bowery Boys. I know what you're going to say. Oh, yeah. Kay Gorsy, who had been married to Leo Gorsy of the Dead End Kids, East Side Kids, Bowery Boys, depending on which incarnation. And they had a horribly abusive, alcoholic, knock-down, drag-out marriage. So she divorced Leo Gorsy.

She actually was the friend of Groucho's older daughter, Miriam, and they had gone to school together. And Miriam brought Kay over after school one day, and Groucho and Kay hit it off. And then Miriam said, it's soon Kay would come over and go right past my bedroom and go into my dad's room. And so Kay and Groucho got married and they begat Melinda, who was Groucho's last child born in the mid-late 40s. But yes, there is the Leo Gorsi connection. Which is a Paul Williams song. The Leo Gossett Connection. I wish. One day we'll find it, the Leo Gossett Connection.

Oh, heavens. Now, is it true? No. That Hans Hall would come over Groucho's house and go, oh, oh, I'm going to take a shit on you. Oh, stop it. I'm detecting a fixation here that is not in evidence when you talk to Lorraine Newman. Thanks for listening, Steve. So to wrap it, let's at least explain what became of Erin and what became of the conservatorship when her team went up against Arthur's team in court.

And you were called in to give a deposition. I ended up giving a three day deposition, which was really scary because it was in this century city high rise and I'd never done it before. And still, I remember the the attorney said, have you ever been deposed before? And I said, I've never even been elected, which which wasn't bad considering I was trying not to wet my pants. considering I was trying not to wet my pants. And at one point, I remember at one point, Aaron's lawyer was trying to make the case that Groucho loved Aaron deeply. And I was trying to explain the difference between loving and being in love. And he said, well, I'm trying to understand the distinction here. And he sets up this hypothesis. He said, suppose you and I go out, we go to a bar and we're having a few beers. And he spends all this time. And I said, well, that really that couldn't happen.

I said, why not? He said, why not? And I said, I don't really like beer. And he blew up and he said, Mr. Stollier, if you would quit ad-libbing, we might actually finish this. And I said, are you implying that I should prepare my answers ahead of time? That was the only time I got there. It reminded me of Robert Benchley's Take the Witness, where he imagines himself being this brilliant, clever

guy on the witness stand and then falling apart in reality. But anyway, yes, so I did a deposition. Aaron ended up losing, and Nat Perrin was Groucho's conservator temporarily, and then because poor Nat was being whipsawed by Aaron Fleming on the one hand and then Arthur on the other, he was getting calls day and night. I was actually in charge of the house on weekends and staying there, having to referee these two factions. It was an incredible responsibility, but I was happy to do it for Groucho. And Erin was in court. Her craziness was coming out. She was. She was sued by the B of A for having, you know, taken advantage of Groucho financially. And there was a scene where the bailiff was trying to check her purse as she went into the courtroom. And she was screaming, give me back my purse. Give me my purse, you bitch, you bitch. And the judge is gaveling her into silence. And then Aaron's attorney, who was, he was sort of like, his name was Mr. Sab my client is not really in a position where she can answer.

And the judge said, do you think you're going to be able to testify, Ms. Fleming? And Aaron said, I'm fine. You may have a problem, Your Honor. This is not the best way to get on the good side of a judge who's trying to decide the case. You can see the footage of that on YouTube. You can see the clips from the trial. And you, there was a great line Groucho said really in his last days. Oh, yeah. He was, see, when I would keep thinking as he was fading out, I would think, well, I guess the wordplay is gone. But that dates back to when I first saw him in 72. It was one man show at the Dorothy Chandler and he was so old and frail. And I thought, well, I'm sure he only has a few months to live. And then I ended up working for him for the last three years of his life. And it was always very reassuring when he would twist a line and hand it back to you. He always he kept up with what was happening in Hollywood with the trade papers. And he came to the lunch table one day

and he said, wonderful bunch of mail you brought me nothing but requests for money. And I said, but you got a variety, didn't you? And he said, yes,, nothing but requests for money. And I said, but you got a variety, didn't you? And he said, yes, a variety of requests for money, which is very gratifying. The nurse. Yeah, go ahead. But when so even towards the end, when he was drifting in and out of lucidity, he was in the hospital, you know, on his deathbed, sleeping, and the nurse came by and woke him up. He said, what do you want? And she said, I'm here to see if you have a temperature. And he said, don't be silly. Everyone has a temperature. And he fell back asleep. He 98.6.

That's great. And so even to the end. And what had what I mean, Erin fell to a horrible end. Yes, she did. She was in and out of psych units. People would say, you know, her her lucidity was contingent on whether she was on her meds or not, because she really was. She really was schizophrenic. She was you know, it isn't just I'm not just, you know, throwing labels out saying she was a schizophrenic. She was, you know, it isn't just, I'm not just, you know, throwing labels out saying she was a crazy woman, but she was a crazy woman.

She was homeless for a while. She was in and out of psych units. And then... Wasn't she telling people that Laurence Olivier was her father at one point? And she was signing letters, Aaron Fleming, Gucccioni implying that she had married penthouse publisher bob guccioni yeah she ran into she ran into uh um larry gilbert's

wife wasn't gilbert's wife yeah and and was talking about the pacific design center and said that was designed by my father you know which in and of itself is already off the charts. You know who my father was, don't you? And Pat Gelbart said, no. And she said, why, Laurence Olivier, of course. And it's like someone you would think would walk around with their hand in their shirt like Napoleon, but she really wasn't. So sadly, in August of 2003, she killed herself. I don't know how she had a gun staying in the board and care facility she was living in, almost directly under the Hollywood sign. It sounds hokey, and it sounds like I'm exaggerating it to make it more dramatic.

But here's this woman who wanted to be a famous actress. Then she hitched her wagon to Groucho's star and sort of carefully built bridges and then set fire to them and spiraled downward after he died and ended up killing herself in the shadow of the Hollywood sign. I've got to tell you, Steve, you see those YouTube clips,

the ones specifically of her on The Cavett Show. Gil, have you seen this? Oh, my God. When Groucho brings her out, she's chastising Dick for leaving her in the lurch in a play or something. But you could see the poor thing. You could see that she's kind of unhinged even then. And that was years before she got bad. But the day that she lost the court case, Ted Koppel had her on Nightline. And it's one of the most surreal things. I mean, he's trying to ask serious questions and she's got this wild look in her face.

And he's, you know, oh, Aaron, you've been hit with a $500,000 fee. Do you have that kind of money? I was going to borrow it from you, Ted. But seriously, Aaron, I was going to put it on my MasterCard, Ted. But seriously, Aaron, I was going to put it on my MasterCard, Ted. Well, and she kept trying to turn it over to poor Mr. Sabi, her attorney. He would say, what's next for you, Aaron? Well, my attorney, Mr. Sabi. Well, I'd love to talk to Mr. Sabi under other circumstances, but I'm trying. And it was just this, she had this wild look in her eyes and, and the cameras pushing in and she's saying, you know, I know that I'll be completely exonerated because there's no truth to any of it. And this was after the jury had come in with their

verdict against her. So, you know, a very troubled woman, very sad. And I have compassion for people that have psychological problems problems but don't put them in charge of a frail old man and you know that that's where my loyalty ends is watching the the verbal and emotional abuse that she inflicted on him even as she lengthened his life and and you left out one important part of the story. That's where the next take... Now you see your left, you're screwing it up. You should be straight. Croucho said... Yes, what did he

say? Tell me, tell me. You know, Ted Koppel likes to come over the house and shit on me. Now that part's true. Yes, see?

See, I'm ashamed of you for leaving it out. So Steve, Groucho finally passes away in August, and for the first time in his career, he has bad timing because he passes away in the same week as Elvis. I will never forgive Elvis Presley for dying when he did. He died three days before Groucho died. I remember.

And of course, it ended up being something along the lines of, and this just handed to us, comedian Groucho Marx of the legendary Marx Brothers has died today at the age of 86. We'll have more continuing coverage on the death of Elvis Presley after these messages. And didn't I heard? Well, I mean, they both worshipped him. So both Dick Cavett and Woody Allen. Yeah, they wrote letters to Time magazine that to the effect of was it our imagination or was there short shrift given to the death of Mr. Marx compared to Elvis? I mean, you know, it would be silly to try to diminish Presley's importance in pop culture.

But the point I make in Raised Eyebrows is that there were other kings on other thrones and it was too bad. on other thrones, and it was too bad, really, yes, as Frank said, for the first time, Groucho's timing was lousy because people were still reverberating from the idea that the king had left the building in a big way. There was that one late-night tribute, was it on ABC? There was a tribute to Groucho. They put together some of Cabot's old clips. Right. And that was very shortly after.

And, you know, I had started corresponding with Cabot at the time, and I was worried that just because now that Groucho was gone, the pipeline to Groucho's house was severed, and there would be no reason for dick to stay in touch with me and instead he called me from new york a couple days after groucho died and he said uh listen i hope just because groucho's gone we're not going to lose touch and by the way i've shown some of your letters to woody and he says they're very well written. And I had to empty the urine out of my shoes, the one, two punch. And we, you know, we stayed friends and he, excuse me, he hired me to write

for him, uh, to come to New York in 82. And I had many zany adventures with Dick Cavett in Manhattan before moving back to LA. Well, he's the best. He was our first guest on this show. He was great. That was a great show. And I'm glad that once these things are done, they exist and can be tapped into again for future reference. And there's a sweet section of the book, and you just have to tell us too, in 2009, you and a couple of comedy writers, actually one that I know, Guy Nicolucci, you went back. Mike Rowe was the other one. Mike Rowe, we know nicolucci you went back mike mike row was the mike row we know mike too you went back to the old house and it was uh it was kind of it was a very dreamlike surreal experience because the place had been very heavily reworked uh not just cosmetically

but structurally uh and i it was very strange walking through the house i felt like like a blind psychic walking down a hallway and i would gesture with my hand and say that wall wasn't there this was a door that wall was a room and it was very very strange to to be back in this it was and it wasn't the same house. And I felt like I felt like Rod Taylor in the time machine. It's like I was occupying the same space in a different time with different surroundings that had all been changed over the years. It must have been sad. It was just it was it wasn't sad so much as just strange. It wasn't wonderful and it wasn't sad. It really was like a dream, or like I was a ghost haunting an old house.

Oh, we should sing together. Uh-oh. Hello, I must be going. Hello. Now, don't make the mistake of singing, Hello, I must be garing and bringing the Nazis in. So why don't you each sing a part separately? Okay.

Hello, I must be going. I cannot say I came to say I must be going. I'm glad I came, but just the same. I must be going I'll stay a week or two I'll stay the summer through But I am telling you I must be going

Fantastic. This will be available only on 8 track from Kate's Hell Steve this was great thank you was my book mentioned at all we did it in the intro let's get the plug in for god's sake the book is

Steve Stolyar and the book is. Steve Stolyar. And the book. And the book is Raised Eyebrows. My Years Inside Groucho's House. We were having so much fun, we forgot to give you the plug. And what's the status of the movie, by the way? The status of the movie is I wrote the initial draft of the screenplay. And Oren Moverman is polishing it, and it's in pre-production, and Rob Zombie is going to be directing it.

I mean, it's a whole separate story, but I guess we're out of time, as they say. But how he and I came together as the strangest Hollywood couple since Ernest Borgnine proposed to Ethel Berman. If only I knew somebody that could do a convincing old groucho, Steve. I could recommend him for the part. Yeah, well, yeah. You know, I often thought that Gilbert would make a great Oscar Levant. Do you want to know something? This is so weird.

Do you want to know something? This is so weird. Of all people, when I was on Saturday Night Live, I think Gene Domanian said to me that I should star in, like, the Oscar LeVant story. So once every 35 years, someone comes up. Yes, exactly. That's it. And is it true that Groucho said...

Oh, no. It's not. No, it's not. Okay. We've been talking to Steve Stolyar, the author of Raised Eyebrows, My Years Inside Groucho's House. Soon to be a major motion picture. raised eyebrows my years inside Groucho's house. Soon to be a major motion picture. And I'm Gilbert Gottfried.

This is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. A.K.A. Fenneman. Yes. This is so funny. Frank said to me when we started this, he said, well, I'm pretty much your George Fenneman. Not George Fienement. No, that was Groucho's nickname. Fenneman was a great guy.

And you could do a lot worse than being Gilbert's George Fenneman. You could have been Gilbert's Don Wilson. I'll count my blessings. Steve, thanks. Can I tell you, I mean, I know we've gone over. Can I tell you what Don... Kavit told me that when Don Wilson was on his PBS show, he wanted to strangle him

because Wilson would tell long stories that would all end with, and as you could imagine, Jack made great comic capital of that. And he had no punchlines, only lengthy setups. Steve, you're a great mimic. Thank you. Let us know when you're in New York. I'd love to hear you're Frank Nelson.

Oh, would you? Thanks for doing the show. Thank you, Steve. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on. We'll talk to you soon. All right. Bye-bye.