Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - "Deconstructing the Rat Pack" with Rick Lertzman

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

Entertainment historian and bestselling author RICK LERTZMAN ("The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney") discusses his new book, "Deconstructing the Rat Pack: Joey, the Mob, and the Summit" and joins Gilbert and Frank for a fascinating conversation about the heyday of nightclubs, the glory days of Las Vegas and the cultural impact of Frank, Dean, Sammy, Joey and Peter. Also, Uncle Miltie whips it out (again), Sammy Davis blows through a fortune, Pat McCormick tanks "The Joey Bishop Show" and Jerry Lewis runs afoul of Sam "Momo" Giancana. PLUS: Sheldon Leonard! Louis Prima inspires Ol' Blue Eyes! Don Adams "borrows" from Bob Newhart! Rick hangs with Moe Howard (and Bud Abbott)! And the unknown reason behind Dean and Jerry's split? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Speed, strength, stamina. Whatever goal you're working toward. New Balance has the running shoes, clothes, and accessories to push your run further and help you run your way. Find yours at newbalance.ca slash running. New Balance, run your way. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. In the heydays of Las Vegas and the

nightclub era, nobody defined cool quite like the Rat Pack. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop were more than entertainers. They were members of showbiz royalty who lived fast, partied hard, and left a lasting mark on American culture. film Ocean's Eleven debuted in theaters, showcasing both the Rat Pack itself and the romanticized modern version of Vegas. Here to commemorate that anniversary and tell us about the Rat Pack's enduring impact is impact on is someone who is a leading authority of the show of biz and he

What was that? On the business of show. Okay. Here to commemorate the last anniversary I was hoping I could get by that and nobody would notice it, but obviously not.

Here to commemorate that anniversary and tell us all about the Rat Pack's enduring impact is a leading authority of all the business of show. He's a respected film and TV journalist and the author of the best-selling books, The Life and Times of Peter Falk, and the Dr. Feelgood Casebook are currently being developed as a Warner Brothers HBO Max television series by Tom Fontana and Montana, and podcast guest Larry, Barry Levinson. He's also the author of an upcoming Simon & Schuster published biography of Jerry Lewis. And if that wasn't enough to intrigue you people, people. He's met Mae West, visited Bud Abbott, and stayed at the home of Moe Howard.

Do tell. Now, please welcome to the show the author of a terrific new book, Deconstructing the Rat Pack, the Mob, and the Summit, Rick Lertzman. Hi, Gilbert, how are youzman. Hi, Gilbert.

How are you? Hi, Frank. Rick, Barry Levinson's not going to like the fact that you called him Larry Bevinson. You're on the shit list. And I should tell you, Rick, that you could also be hired out for parties as a Rob Reiner lookalike. He does look a little like Rob Reiner. That's fine. You call me Meathead.

He's handsomer than Rob Reiner. Welcome, Rick. Well, thanks, Frank. Now, on this podcast, we have actually had people say kind words about Jerry Lewis. But never one has had a kind word on Joey Bishop. Not a one. Through my whole experience, it's almost unanimous. I've never heard kind words about Joey Bishop. On the day he died, one of my good friends, a great writer named Rocky Kalish,

started sending me Joey Bishop death stories. And I said, too soon. And he didn't care. And everybody had these great Joey Bishop dead jokes. And that's how beloved he was. And according to the book, everyone says, you know, Sinatra and the mob. But Joey Bishop had bigger mob connections. Yeah, that was surprising.

Joey was, he started in the El Dumpo in Cleveland, Ohio, and he worked for guys like Moe Dalitz and a lot of the guys who went to Vegas who were from the Cleveland mob. So Joey was one of the guys. He was a street guy from South Philly. He was involved. He played golf. Mickey Cone was his golfing buddy in Los Angeles.

He was the only one to testify at a murder trial for Mickey Cone. Mickey murdered a guy at Rondelli's Restaurant in Sherman Oaks. Right. And Joey was the only one who testified at the trial, the murder trial for Mickey Cone. The murder that supposedly inspired Puzo to write a scene for The Godfather. The scene with the shot out in the restaurant, that was at Rondelli's, and if you ever see pictures of it, it's very, very similar. Amazing.

And, oh, what was it? Jesus. Oh, just go ahead. The other thing that's fascinating, where's that barking dog coming from? That is Bailey, my dog. Oh, okay. Okay, Bailey. The other thing that's fascinating, too, and Gilbert mentions the mob, Bill Persky told us a story, too, that you corroborate in the book,

which was the story of the night a club was held up. I can't remember the club. And Joey was on stage. When a woman customer got a crack in the jaw, it's a terrifying story. And Joey was there, stayed calm, you know, because Joey knew the mob clubs. And Joey was at a club when Frank Costello, Frank Joey told me the story, took a knife and stuck it in someone's hand. Joey watched it, didn't say a word. Police came to him the next day.

He never mentioned it. He said, I never saw anything. And that's what they loved about Joey. He kept his nose clean. And, you know, everybody worked for the mob in those days. If you worked in the clubs, if you worked at Copacabana, you worked for Jack and Trotter or Julie Podell. It was a Frank Costello club. If you worked at Chez Paris in Chicago, if you worked at any of the clubs, they were all mobbed up. But Joey, the difference was Joey was friends with a lot of these guys. And one time, Joey Bishop was on stage and he started doing jokes about a guy named, I think, Game Boy.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right. And they were about ready to drag him into the men's room and kill him. And of all people, Barnard Gorsy, Louis Dombrowski, the candy shop owner from the Bowery Boys, intervened and said, uh-oh, he doesn't know. All four foot five of Bernard Gorsy did it. And Bernard Gorsy was back in Abby's Irish Rose back in the 20s. He was even in The Great Dictator. But he was there with Joey.

Saved Joey's life, did he? How did he manage that? You know, these guys watched out for Joey. Joey, you know, they knew about Game Boy. And, you know, they watched out for Joey because Joey was one of them. I love these nicknames. Tell us, too, we'll talk a lot more about the mob, but tell us, you were telling me on the phone, that one of the first people you broached about this, or one of the first times you broached this, I should say,

hey, I might be interested in writing a book about Joey Bishop. Was with whom? I knew Rocky Kalish, who was a good friend of Sheldon Leonard's. And I wanted to meet Sheldon Leonard because he's one of the great guys, great producers. You know, he had that tough look, but he was a graduate of Syracuse University. Hardly what he looked like.

Always played Mafioso. Mafioso, or he always played the tough guy. He did it with Jack Benny. Go Your Money or Your Life, that was Sheldon Leonard. Sheldon, we went to lunch, and I really wanted to meet Frank Sinatra. And I said, could I meet? Because, you know, he still was friends with him.

He was in Guys and Dolls with him, and he knew him. Sure. And he said, no, no, no, you can't get to Frank. I said, how about Joey Bishop? And he gave me this look on his face. He goes, what the hell would you want to meet that mashugana? Hilarious. And he had hired a kid named Gary Marshall.

And Gary Marshall and his partner, his name was Fred Freeman and Sheldon put Gary Marshall in because Gary and Fred had written jokes for Joey Bishop on the Jack Parr show so he brought them in to kind of be with Joey because he brought in

Harry Crane and Milt Josephsburg all these great writers and Gary was there. And the first thing Fred Freeman got in an argument with Joey, he said, Joey, it's my prerogative to do that. And he always had called Fred Freeman college boy. So he grabbed Fred Freeman and slugged him in the mouth and said, don't you ever fucking use that word prerogative with me.

Because he thought he was calling him some kind of name. He didn't know what the word prerogative meant. He had no idea use that word prerogative with me. Because he thought he was calling him some kind of name. He didn't know what the word prerogative meant. He had no idea what the word prerogative meant. Oh, jeez. So Fred Freeman packed his bags up and said, I'm not doing this, Gary. I'm going back to New York. So Fred left. Gary said, this is my chance, my school, to learn from Sheldon Leonard and be part of it.

He made a deal with Sheldon Leonard. He teamed up with a guy named Jerry. Jerry. Jerry. Jerry. Jerry Belson. And he eventually wrote Dick Van Dyke. But part of the deal with Dick Van Dyke is he had to stay with Joey.

How about that? And here's a story I brought up a couple of times on the podcast. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin were out getting drunk together, and they were being really loud. And next door, at the table next door, was a guy who was the chairman of Hunt's Foods. And he asked them if they could hold it down a little. Do you know this story, Rick? No, I don't. Oh, Jesus.

And then they said, Dean and Frank just beat the shit out of this guy. And he even crashed through a glass table. So he wound up in horrible shape and he never pressed charges. Well, you know, Frank, I always heard was really strong with a lot of guys behind them, guys like Jilly Rizzo and other guys like Jilly Rizzo. And I had a cousin named Carl Cohn, and he was the president of the Sands Hotel, six foot five. He was an ex-Golden Glove boxer. I mean, he looked like, you know, one of those, like Mike Mazursky, or one of those guys, you know, big. Oh yeah, Mike Mazurky. Yeah, Mike Mazurky. So he just, you couldn't budge this guy.

And he was a smart, savvy business person, but he was a mobbed up guy. So Joey was in, this is in 67. So Frank is in, coming out and he's drunk. He's throwing chips around. He's harassing dealers. He's pushing people around. They call Carl in. Carl comes down to the casino floor and Carl said, you know, Frank, cool it. Just cool it. Get some coffee, take them back to the room, Joey. And this is the time Howard Hughes is taking over the hotel. So Joey, Frank doesn't listen to him. Frank takes a punch at Carl and Carl catches it in his hand. And he goes, Joey, I mean, Frank, don't. So he turns his head and Frank catches him square in the jaw. And it's like a movie. He didn't budge.

He just looked at him, pulled back and hit Frank square in the mouth. Caps flew all over. A couple of his teeth flew all over. And that was the end of Frank at the Sands Hotel. Wow. Carl Cohen was your cousin, as you said, and a very interesting character. Carl was, you know, these were Jewish mobsters, so they were more businesslike than we would imagine. They were like, you know, Carl was like, could put his arm around you and schmooze you. The gamblers loved him. Everybody loved Carl, and he was there at the El Rancho. Then he went to Desert Inn and he moved and he moved to Jack and Trotter to the Copa room in, in, uh, at the Sands. And he was there and he stayed actually

with Howard Hughes. Howard Hughes kept him on after, uh, he bought it out from the mob. Wow. Who, who else were at these lunches, by the way? You told me, and I was telling Gilbert on the phone, some that you attended over the years, because your research and your existence in this world goes way back to the 70s. And you've been having lunches with showbiz people for decades. And who was at some of these lunches in addition to the Sheldon Leonards of the world? I used to go to a lunch of these Alta Cocker Jewish writers and performers. And it was Donna Cantor filmed it. It was a documentary called Lunch.

And it was every week for 25 years. And it was guys like Sid Caesar was at a lot of lunches, and Mel Brooks, and Carl Re reiner and arthur hiller and monty hall and erv brecker who was like one erv brecker who wrote for the marksman so did hal canter and hal canter was her and uh rocky kalish and it was a group and you couldn't you just would be a fly in the wall and listen to these stories hal canter told this story when he met Jolson, you know, sitting in the backyard naked, and he was writing, I think he was writing for the Ed Wynn show. And, you know, they had some great stories you just would listen to, and it takes you back to that part of show business that I was fascinated with.

Yeah. Tell Gilbert what you told me about Caesar, your observation about Caesar. Sid would never talk as Sid Caesar. He would sit at a table, and if Mel was there or Carl, they'd say, they'd answer it as the professor, and he'd answer it in this German dialect. Never as Sid Caesar. As Sid Caesar, it was the most introverted guy that I've ever seen. But the minute he got into character, it was a different person. There you go, Gil, corroborating what we've heard. I had heard that also about Peter Sellers, that if he wasn't in character, he didn't exist. You know, I interviewed Blake Edwards years ago, and Blake Edwards said that Peter used to have a

conversation with his mother on the set, except his mother was dead. So Peter used to have this conversation before he went to film, and Blake said he would have a conversation with his mother. So you've heard so many stories about Peter Sellers, and each one is more twisted. Each one is more twisted. So you're sitting there with Mel and Carl and the great Hal Cantor and Milt Josephsburg, all these luminary. You told me a friend, Arnie Kogan, would show up and Pat McCormick, another guy we love. Were you able to turn on a tape recorder or was that verboten?

I actually did turn it on a couple of times and Gary Owens was there, who was such a great guy. Gary Owens. These were like Yarmie's Army get-togethers. Yeah, Gary was such a great guy. Gary told great Sinatra stories. He was one of the best raconteurs of that. Great stuff. Now, when they did that TV movie about the Rat Pack with Ray Liotta and Don Cheadle and Joe Mantegna. Joe Mantegna. Yes.

I remember watching the scene where they pick up Sammy and go, we'd like to thank the nsaepcp for giving us the award and they go zoom in for a close-up on don sheedle's face with tears swelling up in his eyes like he just can't take the cruelty. You know, the funny thing is, those scenes, like you thought it was ad lib from Dean or something like that. A guy named Don Sherman, who was, his daughter is Amy Sherman Palladino, who wrote Mrs. Maisel. Oh, yeah, sure, sure. Don Sherman used to write all of Joey's material. And Don wrote the whole Rat Pack act pack act i mean it was so tight you would see the eight o'clock show you'd go to 12 you'd think you'd see this more loose ad lib

it was the same show it was the same show every night there was like very little change because it was it was very it wasn't it wasn't an ad Lebec. It was, Don Sherman wrote it, and I think that they had Gary Marshall and Fred Freeman that also contributed some dialogue to it. Great. Amy Sherman Palladino hired you, Gilbert. Gilbert's in the pilot of Mrs. Maisel. Yes.

A show that is, I believe, a valentine to her dad, to that world. Because Don was a friend of Lenny Bruce, and Don was a friend of a lot of the comics. And Don was around until about two, three years ago. And you can always get great stories from Don Sherman. Wish we knew about him. I'm going to put in a little self-promotion here. Luke Kirby, who plays Lenny Bruce on that show, is a listener to this very podcast, which he told the New York Times.

He does a great job. Yeah, great job. So shout out to Luke Kirby. Yeah, terrific Lenny Bruce imitation. We wish we'd gotten Don Sherman. You know, you've got to help us. You've got to tell us, Rick, who's still around, who we can talk to from those legendary lunches.

I take up all the Alta Cockers from that era. Did you meet Harry Crane? Was Harry Crane gone? No, Harry Crane was gone. I never met Harry Crane. Another guy whose reputation precedes him. You know, a guy named Irv Brecker who wrote The Life of Riley. And he actually wrote

The Life of Riley for Groucho, he told us. He actually had written it. Groucho was so bad in the part that he replaced him on radio with William Bendix, and then William Bendix eventually took it over again from Gleason on television. Yeah, yeah.

Our mutual friend Drew Friedman, I think, met Irv Brecker a bunch of times. Irv was a great guy, funny guy. And they actually filmed an episode. I don't know that it was ever shown, but they filmed an episode with Lon Chaney Jr. as Riley. That's just terrifying. Okay, so go ahead. It was the Mice and Men episode.

Yeah, Rick. It was the Mice and Men episode. Yeah, sure. So you tell Sheldon Leonard at one of these legendary lunches that you're hatching a book about the Rat Pack, mostly told as Joey's story, which we should say. The book definitely takes that angle, takes that approach. I eventually got to meet Joey. He lived in this, not a great condo, but a condo in a gated community called Lido Isle in Newport Beach. And behind it, he had a boat at that time called Son of a Gun 2. And it was like one of the condos like my grandmother had.

You had that older person smell in there. It was kind of stale. And Joey had on the third floor of his condo a study, and it was a shrine to the Rat Pack. And it was pictures of him, because he was the emcee for the inaugural gala, Joey Bishop. So that was the high point of his life. So I'd walk in he goes i'm not gonna fucking talk about anything about the fucking rat pack no rat pack no right you know into that in that south philly uh toughness and eventually that's all he wanted

to talk about was his i'm so bizarre i'm the glue of the wheel i'm the spoke and you know it going through my mind i'm going yeah yeah you're the spoke it's frank dean spoke. And, you know, going through my mind, I'm going, yeah, yeah, you're the spoke. It's Frank Dean and Sammy, and you're the spoke of the wheel. But, you know, he was funny in his own way. He got that street kind of smart-ass attitude. But, you know, he was He was very bitter, really a bitter guy. And there was a really disturbing story about how his mother got a scar on her face. Oh, yeah. And as a Jew, they attacked her. They were in Brooklyn at the time. They eventually moved to South Philly. And they attacked her, and

she had a scar for the rest of her life. Jesus. How did you know that, Gilbert? I didn't even see that in the book. Yeah, well, if it has to do with Jews. I don't give a fuck about the red bag. I saw the word

Julia. Joey, safe to say that Joey burned a lot of bridges and his career was effectively over by the time he reached his 50s, his early 50s. He was 50, he was

1970, the Joey Bishop show had just ended on ABC and that basically was the end of Joey. Joey had one more renaissance. Mickey Rooney was appearing in Sugar Babies on Broadway. And Mickey had to go do a film called Bill for Barry Morrow on television. And so they needed a replacement. And we interviewed terry allen kramer who produced it with donald trump was one of the backers of sugar babies wow we interviewed

donald trump for that too and so so mickey so they they brought in joey bishop the problem is mickey could sing could dance came from burlesque new shtickick. Joey couldn't sing. He couldn't dance. You know, he couldn't really do much of anything. So they went from sellout performances in Sugar Babies to half-filled, quarter-filled. Eventually, Joey had a three-month contract, was tossed out, and they brought in Rip Taylor to replace him. Wow.

And so Joey ended up, as you say in the book opening for people like lola falana and his career had kind of come full circle because that's how he started was opening for people yeah he wasn't he wasn't a headliner he was joy was an opening act because what frank liked about him is he didn't suck the air out he you know you know he wouldn't bring a buddy hackett or a a Don Rickles to open for him because Frank wanted it just warm enough for him to come out and do a show. And that's where he had Pat Henry and people like that.

And Tom Dreeson did it for years. And so, you know, he had people that were just good enough. And Jody was a journeyman comic at best. And there was a journeyman comic at best. And there was, it's funny because you said there was that one guy who wrote all of the Rat Pack stuff. Don Sherman. Yeah, Don Sherman. And I had always heard it must have been started by Joey Bishop.

Joey Bishop, I think, used to say that he wrote all the bits they did. Yeah, Joey always seemed, he was on Jack Power, and he was always glib and had libs. Of course, down by his side, he had Gary Marshall and Frank Freeman,

Fred Freeman, or Don Sherman. So Joey always had writers. But, you know, a lot of the great comics, Red Skeleton, a lot of them, never admitted that they had writers. It's like it was off the top of their head that they were so brilliant that they didn't need writers, and Joey was one of them. So Joey did a game show in the late 50s.

He did that, and he never admitted that he had writers. In fact, when he did his talk show where Johnny had like 12 or 14 writers in the late 60s, Joey had two or three. You know, reading the book, he has contempt for a lot of people, but he really had contempt for his writers. You read about how Gleason hated his writers and other people. Joey, really, is right up there.

Yeah, no, I mean, Joey had a writer named Milt Josephsburg, who was, this guy had written, and he had written for Jack Benny for years, and Jack loved him, and he was a smaller guy, you know, nice, quiet guy, and Milt was writing for Joey. One of the episodes, Joey was his, Joey played himself and his

twin cousin, his duplicate cousin, and during the week, Joey's getting madder and madder and madder. Finally, he goes up to Josephsburg and starts shaking him and really pushing him around. And he goes, why did you write all this fucking stuff for my cousin? And really, Gary Marshall, everybody had to pull him off of Josephsburg, who was shaken up because he's used to Jack Benny.

Billy Persky and Sam Denhoff also wrote for Joey's, because they were in that family they were in that Danny Thomas Sheldon Leonard family and they got stuck writing a couple episodes of the Bishop show Persky doesn't have a damn nice thing to say about

Joey Bishop not a nice word and I heard there's this famous story with Hope and Crosby where they're watching the writers are watching one of their films and say oh wait a minute i think they used one of our lines and i was supposed to show that they uh hope and crosby would think on their feet. And that's what was... But then I heard they didn't use the movie writers' lines

because they had their own writers. They had their own personal. Larry Gelbart was a writer for Bob Hope. I mean, Bob Hope had some of the best writers over the years. And he made sure. He kept his big catalog of jokes, and there's still catalog somewhere. I'll say in defense of Hope,

he didn't really hide the fact that he had writers, and he didn't have open contempt for them the way someone like Leeson did, or Joe, or Skelton. Yeah, Skelton. Sherwood Schwartz one time told me the nightmare of working for a Red Skelton. You know, how they just,

they really did not like the writers. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing Colossal podcast after this. Baseball is finally back. Get in on Major League action and swing for the fences with BetMGM, after this. All things baseball. BetMGM.com for Ts and Cs. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Gambling problem? Call Conax Ontario at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. A fresh voice can speak to you and open your ears and your mind to new views and new perspectives.

The call of the wild, a crescendo of culture. Listen as a chorus of fresh voices moves you, taking you to greater heights. Add your voice to the mix and let fresh answer back with perfect harmony in pure Michigan. Keep it fresh at michigan.org. This is neither here nor there, but speaking of people that we've never heard a kind word about, what do you know about Danny Kaye? Oh, yes. I knew Harvey Korman and Jamie Farr,

who worked as the... We heard Jamie's version, yes. They were part of the ensemble cast, and I did a commercial with Jamie and with Harvey Korman. And the stories about Danny Kaye, all week he'd work. And if he heard your line score on the night of the actual filming, he'd make sure he'd step on your lines. He'd do anything so you didn't get the laugh.

Of course, he... Yeah, Bernie Coppola told us that, too. He destroyed his own show, but that's Danny Kaye. Yeah. So you set out to write this book. Sheldon Leonard tells you you're crazy, but you find your way to Joey Bishop. Did you tell Joey at any point that he was going to be the focus of this Rat Pack book? Or did that only dawn on you later that that's where you were going to take it?

Yeah, it only dawned on me later. I just wanted to meet Joey, interview him. I did a couple of magazine pieces. But, you know, there's a lot of people, other journalists who would go, have the same experience. Michael Starr, who writes for the New York Post, wrote a book on Joey, and he had the same experience going, you know, I talked to Michael, same experience going to his house.

Ed Barker, a writer down in Dallas, everybody had the same experience going to Joey and visiting him. Joey was bitter, bitter, bitter. He was the guy, he's forgotten. When they made the Rat Pack movie on HBO we were talking about earlier, Joey was the... Our friend Bobby Slayton. Yeah, and I talked to Bobby,

and Joey was not consulted consulted and he was angry about it. They never asked him. They didn't even ask him to the premiere. Bobby Slayton actually asked him and he refused to go because they just had forgot about him. He got on the phone with Bobby and threatened to beat him up or some

crazy shit? He must have been 80 years old. Bobby was both doing a radio show in Chicago. That's right. And Bobby was on the radio show and he didn't know Joey was listening in. And Bobby started saying,

well, I heard that Joey was quite the ladies' man. You know, he liked the girls. And Joey was known as his family man. You know, he's married to Sylvia. And Joey got into this, on radio, was threatening to kill him. And then later, Bobby called up and apologized and said he made amends with Joey. Yeah, I think he did. And what is this one you get arguments about?

What was Frank Sinatra's upbringing like? Frank, you know, grew up in Hoboken. He was a spoiled. Frank was never the street guy. Frank was a spoiled kid, you know, from his mother, Dolly. You know, his father had a bar, his father was a fireman, and Frank had, you know, was given everything he needed to really, he was never the tough street kid that Joey was was you know joey was a tough street kid frank was uh very driven very smart every every everything i've ever heard about frank is that he knew business he was savvy he had the best advisors around him and and that and in the end it paid off for frank because frank you know here's dean, here's Sammy, who ends up totally broke, and Frank ends

up with, you know, and Dean end up very successful. Yeah, what happened? I've heard those stories about Sammy Davis Jr., penniless. Sammy had sold himself to a lot, he had sold parts of himself off, you know, to pay back, he had taxes, he had, you know, Sammy would go himself off, you know, to pay back. He had taxes. He had, you know, Sammy would go into store. You know, Sammy bought things. He would buy. You'd see him at Caesar's Palace. He'd be buying every watch and every ring. And he had no sense of money, but he had no management to really rein him in.

And, you know, you look at him and you look at even Jerry Lewis, you know, who really made a lot of money, but didn't end up as successful as Dean or as Frank. Yeah, Rooney's another guy that ended up without any money. Mickey Rooney, I talked to Sean Levy, who directed The Night at the Museum, all of them, and he did part three. Three weeks before Mickey died, he was paid $250,000 for Night at the Museum Part 3. When he died three weeks later, he had $15,000 in his account and could not pay for his funeral. How did he blow through to $200,000 in three weeks? Well, there was some elder abuse and some other strange things going on with Mickey, wasn't there? Well, yeah. Mickey loved the idea.

Suspected. It wasn't true because I got to know Jan with Mickey, wasn't there? Well, yeah. Mickey loved the actor. Suspected. It wasn't true because I got to know Jan Rudy. Oh, not true? It wasn't true. Mickey thought it was a great new career that he could get into as Elder Abuse. And he'd be the representative for Elder Abuse at 94. Oh, my God in heaven. So Mickey had a new career Elder Abuse. Oh, my God in heaven.

We'll come back to Mickey and we'll come back to Joey, but let's talk about the formation of the Rat Pack, which has a couple of different interesting origin stories. The Rat Pack started in Hombly Hills. It was Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart and David Niven, Mickey Rooney, and Frank Sinatra. And it was a group of loose friends, and they would all go around. Judy and Sid Loft.

Judy and Sid Loft. And they call themselves the Freeloaders Club, I think. They did. And Lauren Bacall told James Bacon, the writer, you know, they look like a pack of rats. And Bacon gave them the moniker Rat Pack. So when Bogart died, it kind of broke apart, and Frank was dating Lauren Bacall, and Frank had his own buddies.

Frank had the writer, Jimmy Van Heusen. He had a bunch of his own buddies. It wasn't Frank, it wasn't Dean and Sammy and Joey. It was he had his own buddies. Frank, Frank, Las Vegas was skewering very old.

The performers were Jimmy Durante and Tony Martin and Sid Cherise, and it really wasn't drawing the gamblers. So Frank was given 9% of the Sands Hotel by Frank Costello owned it with Momo Giancana had a piece of it and Moe Dalitz. So he was given 9% to draw the crowd in. And they had this great publicist named Al Freeman. And they had seen the Danny Thomas Show in 58 do a couple shows, the first two shows of the year, from the Sands Hotel. And their bookings and everything went way up.

So Freeman came up with the idea is to really, all they were getting were the Los Angeles visitors, and they wanted people from New York and Chicago and Philly and everybody to come to Vegas and make it an adult playground. So they came up with the idea to use Frank as the centerpiece, and Freeman said, who would you bring in with you? Well, Frank had watched Louis Prima and Keely Smith and this guy named Sam Butera, who did this amazing lounge act at the Sahara. Everybody came down to see it. It was the most loose show. Louis Prima was wild. Keely Smith was like Cher with this stoic face, and Butera had played the sax, and Frank loved that show. So he said,

I want to do a loose show like that. And he had just worked with Dean Martin in Some Come Running. And he really wanted to work with Dean. Dean wasn't thrilled because Dean had already had a partner. He didn't want to be partnered up. He didn't want another team. He didn't want a team.

But Frank said, do it with me. They wanted to work together. Sammy had been in an accident, had lost an eye. So Frank actually helped him nurse him back to health. Sammy had to learn his balance again to dance and to get back on stage. And so he wanted to work with those three. Joey fell into it because Joey was Frank's opening act. And then there was a guy named Peter Lawford who Frank hated his guts.

And Frank had worked with him in the 50s. And I wrote about it in Mickey Rooney. Peter was known as the gossip of MGM. He would run around and talk to all the starlets and have all. He was the gossip coordinator. And he had done it to Mickey with Ava Gardner. And he did the same with Frank. He told those tales to Ava Gardner about Frank. And they almost broke up. Frank went after him at a party. So they didn't talk for years, but Frank loved the idea that Peter was now married to Patricia Kennedy. And

Frank had the idea he could become, he had done everything else in the business, but being a president-maker really intrigued him. So Peter had this script that he was shopping around. This guy named George Clayton Johnson, who was a— I have to stop you about George Clayton Johnson, not to interrupt you, but Gilbert, George Clayton Johnson wrote some of our favorite Twilight Zone episodes. Oh! Like Kick the Can and A Game of Pool. Yes, with Jack Klugman. Correct.

He wrote Logan's Run as well. But at that time, George Clayton Johnson was just the gas station attendant. And George Clayton Johnson, in World War II, ran a black market unit where they did all kinds of games and crap. And his idea, he thought of, was to bring back his old unit from World War II and do a Vegas heist. So his script was called Ocean's Eleven. Peter thought he could be the star of it and was shopping around. He had Joe Kennedy's money now, so he was shopping around the script. Could sell it, took it to Frank Sinatra, who loved it.

So Frank took the script. And what did Frank famously say when they pitched him the script idea? I forgot. What was the word? He said, forget the script. Let's do the job. That's right. Exactly. Let's pull off the job. Because it was so perfect the way they had it. So Frank takes it to Jack Warner.

Jack Warner loves it. Frank gets the idea, what better than to shoot it in Las Vegas when he's doing this great event? And not only that, as he told Jack Warner, and Jack being the cheap Jew he was, let's shoot it at the Sands and we'll be free. And that's magic words to Jack Warner. Free. So they gave him carte blanche, but of course

they couldn't just do it at the Sands because if you step on the wrong toes in Las Vegas, it's going to be Godfather Part 3. So they put in the Sahara and the Desert Inn and the El Rancho. And they put them all, all the casinos were included.

So it was kumbaya for all the boys in the mob. But the Sands was the centerpiece. So the day they announced that Frank, Dean, and Sammy were going to appear, the Sands had about 240 rooms. They had 37,000 requests for a reservation. So they spread it all over Las Vegas. And as word built in January, the tickets were $7 a piece. They had two shows, 8 and 12. And so, I mean, you couldn't get a ticket.

And everybody came. Marilyn Monroe and, at that time, Arthur Miller't get a ticket. It was, and everybody came. Marilyn Monroe and at that time, Arthur Miller and Cary Grant. Everybody wanted to be in Las Vegas and be seen. But behind the scenes, they had a guy named Joe Kennedy who wanted to use his Peter Lawford because he did not want his son, John Kennedy,

to look like, you know, John and Kennedy and Richard Nixon were nearly the same age. But, you know, Nixon was this very stodgy, old, old school guy. And he wanted his son to be tan and good looking and hip and appeal to a younger generation and have that energy. So he said, what better place than to do it in front of the Rat Pack. So he got Peter Lawford to set it up that from the stage, Frank would introduce Jack Kennedy for three days in a row at all the shows.

And the cameras were there, they were all filming it, and they started calling him the Jack Pack, that they were behind Jack Kennedy. The Jack Pack. And then also, Kennedy went to his friends, Dalitz and Giancana and everybody, and he goes, I want donations. Because they were all afraid that Vegas could get closed down.

So he said, if my son becomes president, I guarantee you, you'll never have a problem. Everything will be fine. Just get us the money. And so they put in a million dollars in cash. just get us the money. And so they put in a million dollars in cash. And Sammy and Peter, they went back to Carl Cohn's suite, and there was the million dollars in cash, and they saw it. Your cousin. And it went back with Jack Kennedy with a, he had it handcuffed to him as he left this bag and took it back to his father. He was the bag man.

Everybody's got an angle, Gilbert. This is a fascinating story because the Kennedys want something out of Sinatra. Sinatra wants to be a kingmaker, and he wants the glamour of Camelot because Frank's had a sketchy part of his career at this stage of the game. The casinos, the mob is all too happy to have a future president who's going to look the other way on their dirty dealings.

And the problem was, Joe Kennedy had a stroke when John became president, and there's Bobby Kennedy as the Attorney General looking at Sam Giancana and go, you giggle like a little girl. And that's one thing you don't do

to Sam Giancana, is tell him you giggle like a little girl. And that's one thing you don't do to Sam Giancana, is tell him you giggle like a little girl. We could do a whole other episode about what that may have led to or may not have led to. But if in fact, you know, Momo and those people did have something to do with the JFK assassination, which is certainly a theory. Right. It connects to this story in the sense that JFK's assassination is sort of the unofficial end of the Rat Pack in that era. It took the wind out of the sails because here was this misogynistic group. You know, you watch Ocean's Eleven, you cringe at some of the scenes. Of course. You know, Ring-a-ding-ding and the way he treats Angie Dickinson and Shirley MacLaine.

Yeah, yeah. It's hard to watch now. It's hard to watch, but you kind of love it because it's of that era. And that era went out when Jack Kennedy was assassinated in November of 63. It's not a great movie either, but it's great to see Vegas.

It's great to see that period. Right. It's a fun see that period. Right. It's a fun movie to watch. A lot of great supporting actors in there and Richard Connsey. Cesar Romero. Oh, yes. Do you

know if that film had a citrus budget, Rick? Also, Norman Fell, who Gilbert wouldn't call for years. years yes he gave me his number but i was just so intimidated i thought what if i call him and he goes yeah yeah what do you want yeah people don't realize that it didn't it you know it burned brightly the the whole rat pack phenomenon but it didn't last long. It lasted. It started in February of 60 years ago, February of 1960.

We should say that. This episode's also in honor of that anniversary as well as the anniversary of Ocean's Eleven. So it's 60 years ago, and it was 28 days. They went back in March and filmed the rest of Ocean's Eleven on stages at Warner Brothers. And then in April, they went to the Fountain Blue and did a week, or ten days at the Fountain Blue, where they did a special with Elvis Presley,

where Elvis and Frank kind of shook hands and buried the hatchet and sang together and, you know, passing of the torch and all that. They did the Los angeles uh in in the democratic convention in 19 june of 1960 so they were there dean reluctantly because dean didn't care about jack kennedy didn't care about politics but dean was there everybody was there august they had a world premiere in vegas and did a few gigs

and basically you know they did, they did Ocean's Eleven. Sargent's Three was the last time they all appeared together the next year. And that was it. And then Kennedy was killed while they were in production for Robin and the Seven Hoods. Yeah, and Robin and the Seven Hoods was, you know, Peter was gone. Joey Bishop was gone and replaced by, Guy Gisborne by Peter Fogg. That's right. And there was that time when

Sammy Davis Jr. was married to or living with, was that Kim Novak? May Britt, by this point. He did date Kim Novak and then he went with May Britt and that was during that whole period.

They had a call from Joe Kennedy that they didn't want Sammy at the inauguration because he was about to marry Mae Britt. And they stopped him, actually, from marrying Mae Britt before the inauguration. He didn't get married until after. Okay, so this is what Gilbert's talking about is dramatized in the Rat Pack HBO movie. Where most of the movie, most of that storyline is built around that. You know, Ray Liotta's Sinatra throwing a fit because JFK decided not to stay at Sinatra's place. And they make it seem like it's all about Sammy and Mae Britt. But it was more complicated than that.

At that time, Frank and Dean were getting a part of the Calneva Lodge with Sam Giancana from Chicago. And there was a lot of... about the licensing, there was a lot of mishegossin in the news about all this going on, and Joe Kennedy did not want his son to fly to Palm Springs to meet with John Kennedy because he had all that baggage. Now it was public about the rackets. So Joe Kennedy went to his son-in-law and said, you bring Frank the news that you can't fly, that you're going to go to Bing Crosby's house. Well, first place, Bing Crosby was a Republican. And second is that Frank had built this heliport.

He had built all these rooms. He was going to come to his house, and it was going to be the White House West Coast. And Frank was going to get that honor. This is what Frank was building toward. Frank wanted to be that kingmaker. And when Peter made that call that was the end of peter falk because frank not only slammed the phone peter lawford peter lawford you mean peter lawford i mean yeah and peter when he made that call peter lawford dreaded

this and he said the next the next voice you hear and bam and that was the end of peter lawford and frank went out and actually tried to blackball Peter Lawford. And he said, he can't be used. He's not reliable. He does a lot of drugs. He did everything. And he gave him insurance problems. And Peter was unhirable for quite a while.

I may be remembering that story wrong, the Rat Pack movie, and I'm just attributing that their unease was about Sammy's relationship with Mae Britt. But I know they were worried about Southern Democrats perceiving JFK as being okay with the idea of interracial marriage, that that was a factor. No, you remembered right because sammy was not allowed at the inauguration and right frank frank really another shonda yeah for yeah frank had a choice to whether to to be at the inauguration or to stand up for his friend sammy and he made the choice that sammy he told sammy that they didn't want him at the inauguration, which tore at Sammy's heart. Because here's Sammy who was out as part of the jackpack, pushing him the whole time.

And because of his pending marriage to Mae Britt, that killed him. That really tore at Sammy. Tell you another story about Sammy. Sammy went to swim in the pool at the Sands Hotel during this whole thing. Oh, yes. That's in the book. And they had a floating crap game at their end. So they have all these gamblers who are there.

Sammy jumps into the pool. And then someone reported it. These guys said, you know, Sammy jumped into the pool. They had to drain the pool and clean it and refill it. And Sammy was told, don't you ever, told by Carl Cohn, never, never go in the pool. They call them the good old days, but they really weren't in many ways. Go ahead, Gil. It's funny that Kennedy, who was the good guy in the story, and Nixon, the bad guy,

Nixon invited Sammy Davis to the White House. Yeah, and then Sammy brought his gun to the White House and then showed Nixon his gun, and Sammy was, you know... And, of course, John Kennedy went to Bing Crosby, who was as Republican as you get. And then somehow Bing winds up replacing Peter Lawford in Robin and the Seven Hoods. Yeah, quite a coincidence.

But the two people were replaced. Joey was replaced by Peter Falk as Guy Gisborne. Peter Falk. Peter Falk. And Sammy was replaced. And Peter was replaced by Bing Crosby, who was the person that they flew to. So you told us how Peter fell out with Frank. How did Joey fall out with Frank?

Joey was always remarkable to me because Joey had worked 25 years. He worked all these bus clubs around the country. He finally hit it big, you know, and he gets this very swelled head now. He has his own situation, comedy, and he gets really carried away with himself. So Frank is going through, Frank had his son that was kidnapped in 63 in December. He was going through all this personal turmoil. And in 64, Frank, who owns part of the Cal Neva Lodge in the summer, said, Joey, I want you to fill in for me. So when Frank asked you that favor, and he's done all this for you,

Frank expects you to go, okay, I'll be there in one minute. I'll do whatever you want. Joey said, well, I want a plane. I want $50,000. And he started giving him all these perks he wanted. Like Gilbert does. He wasn't taking any candy or anything. He just...

No Perrier. But he never saw this. And Frank, someone who told me, was with him. His face was red. And that was the end. That was the end of Joey Bishop. I mean, almost, you know, they did a Tonight Show later on with Dean and Frank came on the Tonight Show once. But they really never reconciled.

And Joey was left out of the Rat Pack. And there was a guy, an important guy at one point in Frank Sinatra's career. I think his name was Brad Dexter. He had saved Frank Sinatra from drowning. Is Brad Dexter the Manchurian candidate? Do I have this guy right? Yeah, he might be. Where did he save his life?

Go ahead. I'm sorry, Gilbert. No, he was at the beach, I think, and he started drowning and this guy jumped into the water and saved him. Joey sent him a telegram and said, Dear Frank, I thought you could walk on water.

And Joey had hoped that this would bring him back. Nothing brought Joey back. But I'll tell you a story about Joey. One time I went to Joey's house. Joey brought out a check from Frank Sinatra. And it was a blank check from the Sinatra account. And there was nothing on it. It was just signed Frank Sinatra.

And he said Frank gave him the check because Frank had heard that Joey was despondent and behind on his taxes, and that he needed money. And this was back in the 80s. And he sent over the check to Joey to help him. Joey didn't need it. Joey actually, because Ed Hoekstra had made him a lot of money, didn't need the money, but Joey was really touched by that.

So that's the only time I ever heard, you know, Frank making an attempt with Joey again. I stand corrected. He was in Run Silent, Run Deep and The Magnificent Seven, Brad Dexter. Yeah. And I heard Brad Dexter, who you think Frank would just owe every breath he has, just turned on Frank Sinatra, just turned on him. I mean, that's, you know, you don't, someone said if you had Frank as a friend,

you didn't need another friend. Because Frank was loyal to a fault, but you just didn't screw with Frank. Can I ask you some questions from listeners, my friend Rick? Absolutely. David, I'm going to fuck up this name, David Waroftig, Waroftig, W-A-R-H-A-F-T-I-G. I'm sure it was a combination of things, of course, but what really broke up Dean and Jerry finally? My late mom's crazy theory was that their wives didn't get along. I could say.

I'm going to tell you this. Might be one theory. I'm going to tell you the theory that we're going to have in our book, which is coming up, The Clown That Cried. Oh, I know where you're going. Where am I going? I'm going to Frank. Dean was challenged by Jerry on a sexuality. He felt Jerry was coming on to him and he felt very uncomfortable

with Jerry showing him so much love and crowding him. And there was a sexuality question in this as well. A bisexuality question. Yes, I've heard that. and there was a challenge to dean you know in a lot of ways and dean felt very uncomfortable a lot of it was the wives were behind it patty was like did not like genie and didn't like what she he had left betty but uh one of the theories is that there was a question that Jerry was, you know, making overtures to Dean in the wrong way that Dean felt. Oh, geez.

We direct your attention to a book by our friend Rupert Holmes called Where the Truth Lies. Really? Which was made into a movie, which is loosely based on a Martin and Lewis team. And was that the one with... Made into a movie with Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon. Because, you know, when you think... Colin Firth, I think.

Yeah, when you think of Jerry Lewis, the first person you think of is Kevin Bacon. Six degrees of Jerry Lewis. So he thought Jerry Lewis was coming on to him? He thought Jerry Lewis was coming on to him in every way possible. And he felt very crowded. Jerry was very needy in a lot of ways. And so there was a lot of questions of people who were very close to them. And this is in our book. I mean, we don't know for certain, but we know that it played a factor in the breakup,

in the eventual breakup. I mean, there was actually, there's a lot of reasons, but that's one of them. Fascinating. Well, Jerry's, you know, you read that Jerry's titanic ego had something to do with it. Was it a story about Dean cut out of a picture on a magazine cover? You know, Jerry cut Dean out of everything from scripts and cutting down his part to even Jerry singing more in films. Jerry wanted more of a singing part in the films. singing part in the films. So Jerry, you know, in so many ways,

was a megalomaniac, an egomaniac that was beyond control. Well, we'll have you back when you do the Jerry Lewis book. Obviously, a lot more bodies to bury. And you were a guest at Moe Howard's

house? Yes. My great-uncle Carl Ertzman had a store, and it was near Los Feliz where Larry Fine lived. And he would extend credit. Larry Fine was always in hock. He was a gambler. So my uncle used to let it slide. And by doing that, any guests from Cleveland would come in and they'd be treated like a god at Gower Gulch where they shot the shorts with Jules White.

So, you know, he made my uncle a big man bringing people in. So my father comes in in 1949 and he thinks he said you're going to be big stars and they take him up to gower gulch my father goes my god it's these guys who do shorts you know they're they're five four foot eleven and and and and my father was like you know this this is the stars i'm going to meet the three stooges so i heard the story and i was thrilled to death. So I called my great uncle, Carl Ertzman, and he set it up that I got to stay with Moe and Helen Howard. They live in North Hollywood. And I stayed there for five days. And I got to know Moe. And I had a million questions because I was a huge Stooges fan. So Moe took me up, and and Mo drove this gigantic Fleetwood Brougham Cadillac and Mo was maybe

four foot ten if that at the time I mean with and he didn't have any assist you see him driving and he's looking over the wheel and so we go up to the motion picture home and Larry finds there and Larry's in a wheelchair and they but they into an argument. And Mo actually calls him. He says, they're arguing about some point they were talking about. And he goes, you're just a knucklehead, a lame, a nincompoop. And I wish I had a cell phone. So at the same time that Larry's there, Bud Abbott is in the motion picture home.

This is in 73. And he had a stroke. And he was getting physical rehab. And Mo said, let's go pay a visit to Bud Abbott. And I'm going, oh, of course. I mean, this is, you know, it's heaven to me. So I went up and there was Bud Abbott. And this is 73. He's about 75 years old.

Very frail. And I got a chance to talk to Bud Abbott. He's 73. He's about 75 years old. Very frail. And I got a chance to talk to Bud Abbott. Moe stood behind, and he was in awe of Bud Abbott. I mean, he looked at Bud Abbott like he was a god. And I said, well, why do you, when I was driving back, why do you think, you know, why do you treat him? Because the Three Stooges are as great as Abbott and Costello. He goes, no, no, boy, chick, no, no, no, no, no, no. They were making a million dollars a year.

We made $25,000 a year. He goes, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's the greatest straight man, bar none. He said, you know, he was the best. And Mo actually told me that I asked him if, when they were playing Atlantic City, if Curly was ever, and she said, no, no, Curly, I asked him if he was copied, and I said, who's Curly's person?

And he goes, Hugh Herbert was Curly's inspiration for a lot of what he did. So I got to learn a lot, i and i ended up knowing joan his daughter and uh norm mauer who was his son-in-law and i and i have known him for a minute you know joan's still around and known them for many years you walked among giants my friend oh it was for a 17 year old kid it was like it was a dream to to really to just stay with Moe Howard and learn about that incredible memorabilia that I saw and I learned. I love that he went and called a post-stroke Larry Fine a nincompoop. At least he didn't put his head in a letterpress. He was in a wheelchair. I thought he was going to actually hit him.

And I was waiting for it. I was going to turn a flamethrower on the back of his head. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. Are you, Dave, a claims-free, hybrid-driving university grad who signed up online? Well, Dave, this jingle's for you. Who says with TD Insurance? Because he's a claims rehabbing, driving university grad

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Ready for you 1800 tequila believes that taste is more than just a detail it's everything taste changes the game it attracts all the attention taste elevates everyday moments into extraordinary experiences savor the best taste in tequila 1800 taste is everything please enjoy responsibly what uh and i will will i want to ask you about some of the other legends and icons you have crossed paths with but uh what is this about dean saving jerry's life from Albert Anastasia? Saving him from Albert Anastasia? Better known for Murder Incorporated.

Well, Jerry had always a lot of problems. I don't know the exact story about Albert Anastasia, but I knew that Jerry had a secretary, and she was the same person that was Sam Giancana's girlfriend. Judy... Not Judith Exner. Judith Exner. Judith Exner Campbell.

Who was also with JFK. Who was with JFK. And Judith Campbell Exner was Jerry's secretary at Paramount. And Jerry, as per Jerry, was sticking his hands down her pants. And she said, stop, stop, stop. And Jerry would not stop.

So she went back and told Momo. And the next day, these guys came to Jerry's office at Paramount and put him up against the wall. Started shaking him. Really, Jerry's head, and Jerry never went near Judith Campbell Exner again, ever. But he had done this, there was a good friend of mine, Karen Kramer, who's named Karen Sharp, who had actually appeared with Abbott and Costello on the TV show. She was Stanley Kramer's widow.

She's still out there and great. And she said she worked with Jerry Lewis in a film, and Jerry would just never stop sticking his hands down her pants. And because she would cooperate, he would work her extra overtime. He would do everything to torture her. What a guy,erry wow shades of guy marks and abby dalton by the way uh getting back go ahead i heard that you know there was that famous story that uh when gene when dean and jerry split up they didn't speak for another 20 years.

And I heard they did speak. They actually appeared together different times. In fact, Jerry did a Dean Martin, one of his shows, because Jerry was shooting an NBC, his variety show. And from what I know, Greg Garrison cut that out of the episode. So they had spoke over the years. We heard that, Gil. Yeah, see, that's what gets me. It's like if you had the Dean Martin show with a guest appearance by Jerry Lewis, that would be bigger than the Beatles reunion.

So why would he have? Maybe a Dean's request. He had he had he had a great producer, Jerry, named Bob Finkel. And Bob had produced like half of, you know, Dinah Shore's show and the Eddie Fisher show and then Andy Williams and Circus of the Stars and People's Choice. And Jerry came to him in 67, said, I have a new show at NBC. I want you to produce it. And Bob said, no jerry it's not going to work it's not going to work because bob had produced him on the colgate comedy hour with with dean and jerry said i promise you i will behave myself and this was

in las vegas and bob said no no no no no jerry said here and he took him he took a tube of lipstick in his dressing room and backwards he wrote, I will behave, Jerry Lewis. And then he took a Polaroid, because it was shot backwards, and gave it to Bob. He said, here, here's your contract. Jeez. How about that? Now, he wasn't a producer on Jerry's ill-fated late-night talk show where they gave him the theater, the Jerry Lewis Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

That was like a three-hour non-scripted show. I think Dick Cavett was a writer on that show. Dick Cavett was a writer. Perry Cross was one of the producers of the show. Perry had left The Tonight Show, and they built this mammoth eventually the hollywood palace they built this incredible theater to jerry's and it was different levels and you know and jerry was not meant to be jerry had done good in this night show in in short times but jerry was not great at something like that because it had to be jerry had to be the center of attention here's another question which

i think we answered. Kevin McDonough said, I've written that most of the live shows, Rat Pack shows were scripted by Joey Bishop, down to the last detail. We now know that is not true. No. It was, although Joey, Joey would have liked people to believe that. Andrew Leposha says, most of the members of the Rat Pack I heard were considered for the Jerry Lewis role in The King of Comedy. I don't know anything about that. No, no, no, no. The only...

Carson was considered. Yeah, no. Jerry did a great job for The King of Comedy. It was a perfect part for him. He really was great in it. Gilbert and I introduced that movie down at the film forum. part for him. He really was great in it. Gilbert and I introduced that movie down at the film forum. Gregory Ward, of all the biopics or impersonations of the various Rat Packers, which actor or impressionist came the closest to their subject? Question for both of you

and your opinions. Would we say Sammy Petrillo's impersonation of Jerry? Hold on. Jerry wasn't in the Rat Pack. That's a cheat. Mantegna did a good job. We'll say our friend, our mutual friend Joe Mantegna did a good job with Dean. Joe kind of had Dean's essence and Dina Martin loves him. Joe's just

such a great guy. He's a mensch. He is. We love Joe. This is absolutely true. I'm not making this up as a match. He is. We love Joe. This is absolutely true. I'm not making this up as a joke. I was looking up on the book about Frank and Dean. And then, as anyone who knows me, what fascinates me, I typed in Frank Sinatra Jews.

You've been using Jugal again, the Jugal word search. Yes, and according to this, now you can't trust what the internet tells you, according to this, Frank Sinatra liked the Jews. He probably did. I mean,

as far as I know, he worked with a lot of jews you know he liked jewish mobsters he liked yes moe dalitz and carl cone and uh and billy weinberger and and the such now you got to interview the legendary infamous moe dalitz moe dalitz how do you approach a guy like that for an interview? I didn't approach him. I knew him from Cleveland. We had a family member named Max, a man named Max Diamond, who was infamous in Cleveland and put the Teamsters in Las Vegas.

I had no idea you were so mobbed up, Rick. I wasn't mobbed up. You know, we were a Jew family. Please don't hurt us. Part of my family business, we had to work with guys who were in the business. And these were Jewish mobsters. These were guys who really were business-oriented. And they went to Las Vegas.

And it was guys like mo daylitz mickey cone came from cleveland uh maxi diamond who brought bill presser and jackie presser and the teamster money to las vegas carl cone um so i got to know a lot of these guys and mo daylitz was one of them so um i approached carl co of mo daylitz uh in Las Vegas, and I said, could I have a sit-down? And I didn't know where it would lead or eventually, but he gave me the inclination of how the Rat Pack was created. You know, Mo created Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas. He was part of the Convention Center. He really was part of the history of building Las Vegas, and he was a visionary, as a lot

of these guys were. You know, I didn't know Benny Siegel, but Benny Siegel, you know, was a visionary with the Flamingo Hotel. Bugsy, yeah. Yeah, a visionary, and look what it got him. Yes. Look how he ended up. Gilbert, you could have been a Jewish mobster. One little turn in life different. You know? And I saw a clip. I saw a clip of Dean and Jerry where Jerry surprises him in Vegas.

And he wields out a cake for Dean Martin's birthday. And then Jerry Lewis says, so why did we split up? And Dean Martin says, well, we split up because I'm a Jew and you're a Dago. You know, we all read Nick Tosh's book, Rick, and he claims, and it's an interesting read in a lot of ways, but he claims that Dean didn't admire Sinatra, that really it was the other way around. Yeah, I heard that when Sinatra saw Martin and Lewis, he said, the day goes lousy, the little Jew is great. You had to admire Dean because Dean went his own way. Dean didn't follow Frank.

You know, when Frank said you'd be at the inaugural, Dean wasn't there. Dean didn't care. Went home, yeah. When Dean didn't want to play in the late 80s when he was doing the reunion tour, when Dean was done, Dean was done. He didn't care what Frank said. It was over. Dean, you know, did what he wanted.

You know, Dina Martin told me this great story. Dean Martin was having a party at his house. And Jeannie's having this big party. It's 8 o'clock. Dean goes up at his house. And Genie's having this big party. It's 8 o'clock. Dean goes up to his room, changes into his pajamas, and he loved to watch Westerns, and he turned a Western on. So at about 9.30, this party's still going on like crazy. Dean calls the Beverly Hills police and reports the party and gets it raided.

I mean, that's Dean Martin. His own family. His own family. courts the party and gets it raided. I mean, that's D. Martin. His own family. Hilarious story. You know, we should say that we were going to have Dina on this show. We put it up on Patreon, and Dina was having technical difficulties, and she wasn't in the studio, and there was a mic issue. But, well, we're going to try to have Dina and one of the Sinatra

daughters next year. They're wonderful. We'll do a Frank Dean episode. But Rat Pack aside, we've got to ask you about some of these other wonderful people. By the way, reading about Joey's talk show and Joey's sitcom,

it's interesting to read how many other comics dislike Joey, too. Like Shecky. Shecky has nothing nice to say about him. Or Gilbert. Buddy Hackett has nothing nice to say about Joey. And I assume you interviewed both men? I interviewed both men. Jack Carter hated him.

Jack Carter hated everybody. Jack Carter hated everybody. Jack Carter hated everybody, yeah. You know, Jan Murray liked him, I think. Jan Murray was a sweet man. Jan Murray was a nice man. His son Howard's a great guy. Yes, we know Howard on Facebook.

There were a lot of comics who just did not like... Joey was part of that Beverly Hills Jewish comic. They moved out from Englewood and from New York. So he was part of that enclave of a lot of Jewish comics. Yeah, Hackett too. Yeah, Buddy Hackett. And Sandy Hackett tells great stories about it.

And Sandy was very close to Joey, even in the end. Right, right. He does the Rat Pack show. He plays Joey. And so, you know, Joey burns so many bridges. When we talk about the Joey Bishop show, I got to talk to Abby Dalton, and she had never gone on record about the Joey Bishop show. A couple of weeks ago.

And her daughter, Kathleen Kinmen, was nice enough to put that she had worked on the book as her last project. I asked Abby all these questions. First, she didn't like Joe Besser, which was... I was shocked. She called him a

dumpling. She said he was a nice, fat little dumpling, but she goes, he had a one-note thing, you know, don't touch me. She said it was the same thing every show, and there was no variation. I think he was always stinky. Yeah, he just didn't dress in his little Lord Fonleroy outfit. But, you know, and Mary Treen was the same. He never surrounded himself with people.

He had Guy Marks who was an okay comic. He did a great imitation. But Guy Marks was... A good bogey. Guy Marks was known for two things. He was known to be a little bit like Milton Berle in certain areas.

Okay. Yes, we know that and guy marks was known to be the biggest uh piece of shit when it came to working on sets and he did it in different shows that he burned he burned a lot of bridges so when abby was working on the show guy was trying to stick his hands down her pants before she hit the set. He was grabbing her. And Abby, who was married and, in fact, was pregnant, went to Sheldon Leonard and Danny Thomas. And, you know, they fired Guy right away.

And then all the rumors became that Joey was jealous of Guy's talent. And that's why he got fired. But it was Abby Dalton who did it. So Abby was told it was for a change joey wasn't threatened by somebody's talent if you ever watch the show abby was the concept of the show is they want the second concept was they wanted to turn abby dalton into mary tyler moore so they so abby said they sent her over to the set of dick van dyke, and Persky and Denhoff took her over, and so

she's watching the show, and she's supposed to take notes and bring it to her part as Joey's wife. So she comes back over, and Sheldon goes, what did you get out of that? She goes, first place, I can't be Mary Tyler Moore, because she plays

against Dick Van Dyke, who can sing, who can dance, who can act, who has charisma. I've got the old stone-faced Joey Bishop. The frown prince of comedy. The frown prince. And so Abby said her words were, yes, dear, no, dear. And then she had a smile of Joe Besser, she said. That was her last name. Yeah, they didn't write her anything.

Unfortunately, that wasn't much of a part. No, and she had been nominated for the Emmy Award for Hennessy with Jackie Cooper before that. Yeah, yeah. We just lost her and we just lost Miltie's nephew Warren Berlinger, who also had

no love whatsoever for Joey Bishop. Leave something to the book. People have to get the book to hear Warren Berlinger, who also had no love whatsoever for Joey Bishop. And is it... Leave something to the book. People have to get the book to hear these... to read these wonderful stories. I'll tell you quickly that Warren Berlinger and Marlo Thomas, who played Joey's sister

in the first version... Yeah, it wasn't nice to Marlo either. No, he had words about Marlo. They had a dartboard in their dressing room where they threw it at Joey's head. So, you know, Warren and Marlowe were not fans of Joey, as were very few people. Can you see my Gilbert dartboard if I tilt the computer screen a little bit? Go ahead, Gil.

Now, I heard Mo actually was smart with his money. Mo? Mo Howard or Mo Daylitz? No, Mo Howard. Mo lived in a beautiful home in North Hollywood. He had lived in Toluca Lake before that. He was the only one. Larry was a compulsive.

Larry was at the track 24-7. He had a lot of girlfriends. He was a big partier, Larry. Curly was... Joan told me he was a savant. He really had no reality in life. He just never... He was not a normal...

He was great in comedy, but he just was not a normal person. Shemp did okay. His son had gas stations. But Moe was the most successful and invested well and ended up owning a lot of the properties. The problem was, in the end, it was Joe Dorita

who ended up with control of his family, of the three stewards. That, to me, is insane. Because Joe Dorita was like, oh, we need, well, this guy's bald and fat. So we'll hire him. I'll tell a quick Joe Dorita story. I went to Joe Dorita's house. Joe lived in North Hollywood.

And I was greeted by Joe Dorita in his underwear with his sack of balls hanging out from his underwear. Swear to God. Weary, tidy whities. And I went back, and he sat in his chair, in his recliner, with everything hanging out and watching him, watching Joe Dorita. And I'm going, please, I want to leave. I don't want to stay. That's a beautiful tale, Rick.

Tell us about some of these other legendary characters. And we could talk to you about the Rat Pack and the Stooges and these people till the end of time. But tell us about some of the wonderful people whose names have appeared on this show. Jack Carter, you said, never had a nice thing to say about anybody. No. What was your experience with Jack Carter? Jack was, you know, everything, you know, Jack was, at the time I met him, was very angry that they had cut him off of the episode. He was supposed to be the father of the King of Queens. And they had actually shot the pilot episode with Jack Carter. But when Jerry Stiller became available, out went Jack Carter. And this was Jack's, you know,

reclaimed to fame that he was going to come back. So Jack grumbled about that for about an hour. He didn't like anybody. No. We heard Jack Carter. We had him booked here and he passed away, I told you. What about Hackett? What was your experience of Buddy?

Love Buddy Hackett, one of the funniest guys. Just, you know, I met him with Hugh O'Brien one time for lunch, who was one of his good friends. Sure, they were in Fireman Saved My Child. But they remain great friends, and Buddy is such a great guy. Sandy Hackett has a great story, if you ask him, about Moe Dalitz with Buddy Hackett. I think he might have told us that story. Buddy didn't pull his piece out on you? No, never pulled his piece.

But Buddy was always, when I met him, he was always really one of the funniest guys, smart guy, very sharp guy. What about Pat McCormick? Who had something to do with the Bishop Show? Pat McCormick did. He was the guy who the Bishop show. Pat McCormick did. He was the guy who destroyed the Bishop show, according to the writers. They had hired him and they had hired Jack Riley to write for the show.

Who Gilbert worked with, right, Gil? Yes, I worked with him on The Tonight Show. They used to hire him to be that killer, Well, that cult leader. The cult leader. The doomsday cult. Well, Jack and Pat McCormick were from Cleveland, and Pat was... Right. You never knew what Pat was going to do. And he was a writer on the Joey Bishop talk show, and he made changes, and the changes ended up with Joey out the door. Did you spend a lot of time with Pat McCormick? Or a little bit of time? Would he come to those lunches?

He wouldn't come to those lunches, but he had a group called Yarmie's Army. Sure. Did you go to any of those? I'd gone with the group of Yarmie's Army, which was Don Adams' brother. So he had a lot of group of ex-Clevelanders were part of it.

Jack Riley and Pat McCormick and Gary Owens was there at times. Did you meet Bill Dana? Oh, Bill Dana was one of the great guys. Lovely man. He set up this great interview at Emerson University that later became the Archive of Television. University that later became the Archive of Television. And Bill, who was, you know, people think of him as Jose Jimenez, as a Jewish guy from Boston who was absolutely one of the most brilliant writer, performer, really could do it all, wrote for Steve Allen for a long time. We tried so hard to get Bill Dana here.

I know. And finally he agreed. And I spoke to him on the phone. and I remember thinking, oh, this guy's going to be great on the show. Oh, he's great. Bill was one of the funny and great stories, and he was a good friend of Don Adams as well, and his brother wrote the theme song for Get Smart. His brother Irving. Correct. What was the story about Don Adams stealing a bit from Bob Newhart? I got a chance to interview Bob for a book, Bob Finkel, I was working with. And Bob told the story.

I can't believe how many people were slandering in this episode. Bob worked as a, he worked first in the Unemployment Bureau, and then he eventually worked in radio in Chicago. Didn't do a lot of live performances. And he had a skit he did, which was an air traffic controller. And he had Bill, actually Bill Daley was working at that same station. And Bob read this routine, and Don Adams was there, heard the routine, took that same routine, and did it on, it was either Ed Sullivan or some variety show he appeared on, maybe even The Tonight Show. And it was word for word.

And Bob said, if someone's going to do my stuff, it's going to be me. And that's pushed Bob really more into performing. Wow. So he turned a negative into something very positive. Absolutely. Wow, so he turned a negative into something very positive. Yeah, absolutely. What's the crazy story, and I promised Gilbert, because let's get to what the listeners of this podcast really tune in for,

and that's big penis stories. Yeah. You told me a story, a crazy story, that involves the chairman of the board. Let me see if I have this right. Uncle Miltie and... Hunts Hall. And Hunts Hall. Forgive me. Ah, yes.

I went blank. We opened with Louis Dombrowski, so we'll bring it full circle. What the hell is this crazy story? Mickey Rooney had a manager. His name was Maurice Duke, Mo Duke. And Mo Duke was a harmonica player who became this super agent. He was four foot ten. He had two, he had polio. So he had two crutches that he would walk with on his arm. And he became, he was, everybody loved him. Frank loved him. Everybody loved him.

And he really brought Mickey back to fame. One of the guys he managed was Hunts Hall. And Hunts was appearing with Gabe Dell. This is about 51, 52. And they were in New York doing an act in New York. And Hunts wanted to go on Uncle Miltie's show. And every time Moe Duke would approach Milton Berle, he goes, no, no, he can't remember his lines. He doesn't know what he, you know, I don't trust him. He's undependable.

I don't trust him. He's undependable. And he finally found out that Milk didn't want him on the show because Hunts was rumored to have a bigger dick than Milton Berle. So Mo Duke, and this is from Mo Duke and his daughter Freddie Duke

who made a documentary about her father called Fucked Up. And it's out there. Okay, we'll find it. Mo Duke hatched a plan in new york frank was there and he was staying at the essex house he went to see frank at danny's hideaway and he told frank the story and frank was in stitches frank said really he goes no no no he he won't do it he goes come to a party tonight milt will be be there, and I'll take care of the rest. So they came to this party, and it was evening where Hoy Palloy of New York,

Moss Hart, Kitty Carlisle, George Kaufman, all the playwrights and everybody from that era. I think Cole Porter was there. So they're all at this party, and all of a sudden, here comes Mo Duke with his crutches and Hunts Hall. You know, Hunts and Kitty Carlyle is just a great image. Yeah. So Hunts Hall comes in, and to Mo Duke, Frank said, I heard, Milt, the story that you won't hire Hunts Hall because Hunts has a bigger cock than you have. And Milt goes, no, no, no, no. We have other things.

And he doesn't, you know. And he goes, if he does, would you confirm, would you do a bet with us that Hunts appears in your show if he does? And Milt, Milt was not afraid of anybody except he was always in fear of Frank. He always was in awe of Frank and he wouldn't say no. So they dropped

their shorts and Moe Duke... They couldn't even go into the men's room to do this? They did this in front of everybody at the party at Frank's suite

at the Essex... It was at the Essex house. And in front of everybody at the party and there's Kitty Carlisle and Boss Hart and everybody looking on, Mo Duke pulls out his cane, measures Milt, then he measures Hunts Hall. He marks it off with magic marker. And at the end, Hunts Hall wins. Milt screams, it's not fair, it's not fair. You measured me from the,

you measured me from my anus to the end of my ball, and you gave him an easier measuring. And in the end, Hunt's Hall did appear on the 1952 Milton Berle show. Oh, God. Jeez.

So at no point did Cole Porter and George S. Kaufman measure? I heard George couldn't measure, but... The guy measured it with his cane, Gilbert. Yes. Let's plug your books, Rick. This is an hour and a half of craziness. I think, Gilbert, we've slandered more people on this show than in any previous episode. Absolutely.

I think you broke the record. I think you broke Cliff Nesteroff's record. Now, who gets the liability for this? You know, the Rooney book from Simon & Schuster was a New York Times bestseller. We could do, I mean, the Rooney stories, we could do an hour and a half with you just on Rooney stories. But the Jerry Lewis book is coming. When can we expect that? It's going to be out next summer, and it's going to be comprehensive.

It's called The Clown That Cried. The Clown That Cried. It's going to be good, bad. I mean, we have interviews with Steven Spielberg and with Martin Screamer. People love him. Leonard Malt to be good, bad. I mean, we have interviews with Steven Spielberg and with Martin Screamer. People love him. Leonard Maltin absolutely adores him. And there's people... Leonard will never talk to us again after this.

And there's people who claim that Jerry's, you know, like Bill Richmond's wife, claims that Jerry stole everything he did. Yeah. Gilbert, by the way, the penis jealousy is the reason you never got to work with Tom Jones. Everything old is new again. Well, I think I can use some of this episode, Rick.

And now, Rick. Rick, I think the one we could definitely use is Jerry Lewis was a homo, and he was coming on to Dean Martin. And almost killed by Momo. Yeah. Why don't you just write a book? You must be tempted just to write a book about your mob knowledge and your mob relationships and all of these great, wonderful characters that you interviewed. They were fascinating, especially the minds that really created Las Vegas.

When you talked to them, they had a real vision. And they were some great marketing geniuses that really put Vegas on the map. And really, it was the Rat Pack who put them on the map in 1960. But also psychotic. I mean, Gilbert, we've had a lot of guests who worked for the mob, like Tony Sandler, people who worked in Vegas who were sort of nostalgic about working in the old Vegas under mob rule. But I'm maybe 30, 40 pages into your book, and Shecky is saying,

yeah, but these people were psychotic. You'd look at them the wrong way, and they'd beat you to a pulp. And there's a crazy story about that. The Greenbaum or Greenstein, the guy who... Gus Greenbaum, who... Gus Greenbaum and his wife.

Mickey Rooney, because he didn't show up and owed money, Gus Greenbaum was blamed. Mickey Rooney, because he didn't show up and owed money, Gus Greenbaum was blamed to Mickey Rooney. Him and his wife, their heads were cut off and put in a trunk. And many blame that. And that's in our Mickey Rooney book. Many blame that to Mickey. Or what happened to Joey Lewis, Gilbert?

Oh, my God. Where they cut his tongue. They went so deep cutting his throat that they practically cut his tongue off. Yeah, not so nostalgic. No, I mean. Not so warm and fuzzy. No, but it's a weird mix in Las Vegas and how it was created. Yeah, you've got to do a book just about Vegas.

I mean, you've probably got 10, 20 more books than you just from the people you've interviewed. The fun part of doing a book is the research and interviewing and talking to people. I love the old character actors. I got a chance to interview a lot of character actors. I even interviewed Chris McIntyre, who was from The Three Stooges. Wow. And Sid Fields. You interviewed Sid Fields?

I interviewed, I went. You buried the lead. I interviewed Sid at the Silver Slipper with Hank Henry. And I got to meet, and it was meet, I really wanted to meet Sid Fields because I love the original Abner Costello show. And Sid Fields told how he used to write. He wrote with

Leonard Stern. The great Leonard Stern. On the radio show. And then he later wrote at Universal, too, for Abner Costello with Leonard Stern. What a guest Leonard Stern would have been on this show. Better known as the creator of Get Smart.

And the Honeymooners. And the Honeymooners with Marvin Marks. We want to thank our pal Jeff Abraham for setting this up. We love these stories. We can't get enough of them.

I appreciate it. Jeff's such a great guy, and I appreciate Jeff's help. Oh, Jeff's wonderful. And Jeff and Bert's book was a screamer. Absolutely. Yeah. All right, Gil.

Yes. I'm going to call my attorney. I don't know what you're going to do. Well, this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And the guy who says Jerry Lewis was a big homo. And that's why Dean Martin didn't want to be around him in sharing the same dressing room. Rick Lertzman. Rick said a lot of things.

Rick said a lot of things tonight. I'll end with this. The writers interviewed for the book referred to Joey Bishop as three things, generally speaking. Prick, asshole, and son of a bitch. Oh, jeez. Poor Joey.

Poor Joey. Poor Joey. He was a son of a gun. Son of a gun. Rick, this was a blast, and we'll get a lot of feedback on this one. And so, everybody, get the book. Tell us again the title, Rick, because I don't have your intro in front of me. It's Deconstructing the Rat Pack. Joey, the Mob, and the book. Tell us again the title, Rick, because I don't have your intro in front of me. It's Deconstructing the Rat Pack, Joey, the Mob, and the Summit.

And it's available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, anywhere you can get books. It's in Kindle or book. Anywhere books are still sold. Yes. And if you're a fan of this podcast, Gilbert, this is the book to read. of this podcast, Gilbert, this is the book to read. And if you're a fan of mob stories

or stories of old Vegas or sitcoms or the nightclub era, just an absolute page-turner. And we can't wait for the Jerry book and come back and slander some more people.

I'm going into hiding until then. Are you going to the mattresses? This was a blast. Thank you, Rick. Thank you. Thank you, Rick. Happy New Year.

Thank you, Frank. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Not stars like L.B. Mayers are we But just a simple band Who roams about the land Dispensing falder of frivolity Mere folk who give distraction are we Mere folk who give distraction are we Oh, shut up, Sam.

But just a crazy group That never ceases to troop Around the map of little Italy Well, here we go back to the home country again We open in Venice, we next play Verona Then on to Cremona, lots of laughs in Cremona, hey boy Our next jump in Parma, that dopey, mopey menace Then Mantua, then Padua, then we open again.

Where? We open in Venice. We next play Verona, then on to Crona. Lots of bars, Pink Ramona. Our next jump in Parma, that fearless, cheerless menace. Then Mantua, then Padua. Then we open again. Where? We open in Venice.

We next play Verona. Then on to Cremona. Lots of money in Cremona. Our next jump in Parma. That dingy, smingy menace. Then Mantua, then Padua. And we open again. Where?

We open in Venice. We next play Verona. Then on to Pomona. Lots of quail in Pomona. Our next jump in Parma. That heartless, heartless menace. Then Mantua, then Padua. Then we open again.

Where? Well, let me see now. I got a map. Let's pick out someplace. Yeah, well, just don't take it too far down the line there. Oh, well, let's take the first canyon out of here. Matter of fact, if we hurry, we can beat the tab. Of course, the sheriff's out there waiting for us.

Goodbye, boys. Get out, get out, get out, get out.