Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Dick Cavett and Robert Bader

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

GGACP celebrates "Boxing" Day by revisiting this 2020 conversation about legendary heavyweight Muhammad Ali with TV icon Dick Cavett and author Robert Bader (writer-director of the HBO documentary "Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes.") In this episode, Dick reflects on his friendship with "The Greatest" while the boys look back at Groucho's memorable appearances on “The Dick Cavett Show” and look ahead to the upcoming PBS doc, “Groucho & Cavett.” Also, Johnny Carson disses Jerry Lewis, Zeppo misses Chico’s wedding, Cary Grant romances Amelia Earhart and Danny Kaye zings the Duchess of Windsor. PLUS: Orson Welles meets the Fuhrer! The lost novel of Truman Capote! The triumphant return of Richard Loo! And James Mason stars in “The Honeymooners”!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Colossal Classic Hi, I'm Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we're recording at Sirius XM. We're pleased to have two guests on the show this week, both making return visits. Robert Bader is a writer, editor, producer, archivist, author, with numerous television and documentary credits including Dick Cavett's Vietnam, Dick Cavett's Watergate, You Bet Your Life, The Lost Episodes, and The Dawn of Sound, How Movies Learn to Talk. He's also the producer of the Marx Brothers TV Collection and the editor of the book Groucho Mox and other short stories and tell-tales.

And, as discussed on this very show, he's also the author of the exhaustively researched and vastly impressive history of the Mox Brothers' live performances, four of the three Musketeers, the Mocks Brothers on stage. Dick Cavett returns to the show for the fourth time. He's a writer, comedian, bestselling author, Emmy-winning talk show host, and one of the most admired pop culture icons of the last half century. In a long and very illustrious career, he's acted in feature films, TV shows, and Broadway stage production, hosted various specials and narrated documentaries,

and as the host of various incarnations of The Dick Cavett Show, conducted unforgettable interviews interviews with such influential figures including Woody Allen, Bob Hope, John Lennon, Lawrence Olivier, Salvador Dali, May West, Betty Davis, Orson Welles and of course his friend and comedy hero Groucho Marx, just to name a few. Their latest project is the documentary Ali and Cavet, The Tale of the Tapes, which can be seen on HBO on February 11. Please welcome back two of our most entertaining and knowledgeable guests and two men who can tell you if Harpo really was stooping Emilia Earhart. Dick Cavett and Robert Bader.

Well, do we have any time left? Now let's start with the Em, Hardin, Harpo. Were they fucking? I'm sorry Gilbert, I wasn't listening. Could you run through that again? Okay. Hi, this is Gilbert Guy. Let me help you with Amelia.

That is buried on something like page 380 something as a footnote in this huge book, but you found your favorite thing in the book. Yeah, yeah. I found the most important part of it. What was that great photo of them? Yes, there's more than one great photo of them. I believe it to be true. So Harpo was fucking Amelia Earhart.

Not just Harpo apparently. She got around. Really? Who of the famous people Well, I don't like to drop names, but you know his initials might be Carrie Grant Wow Or Marlena Dietrich Wow you're breaking news buddy Have a comment on this well Amelia was never on the show. I just had a question How do we how do we know all these things?

That's a whole other show. Yeah, Amelia Earhart went up and went down, apparently. Yeah, there's a long sort of bit of history about it. But Amelia married a guy named George Putnamnam who was famous from Putnam's publishers And he moved to Hollywood because she would only marry him if they moved to Hollywood He got a job at Paramount got her a studio pass, and she just loved hanging out with movie stars And she fucked all of them well that could be yeah. I think she missed Fanny Arbuckle I should say one thing. The people who guard her legacy are extremely protective of it. Her papers are at the University Library.

So we got a lawsuit waiting for us. The Purdue University Library has her papers. They're very, very careful about who they let see anything. So I'm going to recommend that you go there and they give you full access. Yes. Oh, okay. Now, Robert, I got to ask you a question that has nothing to do with anything else being discussed on this episode. Now, I know you're a Marx Brothers expert, but right before I left the house, they had on Stan and Ollie. And I'd like to know, with your whatever knowledge you have of Laurel and Hardy, how accurate was that film? I'll let you know after I've seen it. You haven't seen it?

Well, they painted Hal Roach in a pretty bad light. I have to say something. Groucho used to love to tell this crazy story about being in New York City in a blizzard or something, and he's trying to get a cab, and a cop comes over to help him, and he recognizes him, and he goes, I just have one question to ask you.

And Groucho says, sure. He goes, why aren't there more Lord of the Lost Heart movies on television? Oh, jeez! Ha ha ha! That's maybe the one thing Groucho couldn't answer. Oh, jeez! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I thought I was I knew I'd be disappointed because when people play famous people they're never quite right right this was Perfection really just great what about they put they painted Hal Roach who I under we know that Hal Roach was cozying up to Mussolini, but they did they painted him in a rather on floor a flattering light in that film Yeah, well they have a lot of unflattering light

that film. Yeah, well they have a lot of unflattering light in the movie business. But you liked it, you liked the performances. Very much, yeah. And the script, I thought it was a really good movie and I was sure it wouldn't be any better than, what was the dreadful famous person played so dreadfully a few years ago? Strangely enough, Rod Steiger's W.C. Fields was rather good. Valerie Perrine was in that one. W.C. Fields and me. Did you feel a story of the movie Stan and Ollie was accurate to the way their lives were? I don't know enough to know for sure. I'd love to have one more chance to meet Stan Laurel and ask him about the film. Maybe in my dreams. But he told me that one time I met him at his apartment.

Behind him was the Pacific Ocean. What's that last drive called in California? Ocean Drive? Yeah, Ocean Drive. Oh yeah. And it was so interesting to see this man of many years ago framed against the Atlantic Ocean. And I asked him what he, if he saw Babe, as he was called, Hardy often, and he said, I can do him, but I think it will become a tedious, but maybe approximately. He said, well, the last time I saw Dave, maybe it was Christmas. And I went over to his apartment and Lucille, was that his name, opened the door.

There was Dave and the Christmas tree. And I had taken him a very nice present and it was obvious that he hadn't gotten one for me which I guess was provided in keeping with their relationship. It's kind of sad. Yeah and they looked under the tree and he saw this gorgeous expensive famous bottle of brandy. I think it came from a museum or something. I said, bought it a thousand dollars worth of it. And he picked it up and he said he handed it out to me and he said, you know you can never find this brand in the liquor store these days and put it back under the tree. So that was something about them that was true.

Now would you say that Stan and Ollie's relationship was at least better than Martin and Lewis's? It's a strange comparison. They occurred at different times in our lives of course. And they were two born performers. Jerry, of course, had done some performing. Hard to say. I think they were brilliantly, perfectly matched by sheer accident, as things often happen. And the fact that they didn't make a lot of point of seeing each other off camera doesn't

bother me. I have a friend who's a fanatical fan of theirs, and he got to meet Stan. And then one day he drove to the Hillcrest Country Club and they said, oh you just missed Oliver Hardy, you just drove off in that car. And then Hardy died, or as we say passed, but he both passed and died. And he never got over that fact that he missed meeting Babe Hardy by almost inches. I'd love to have met him. You came close to meeting Groucho as a kid and missed him by a few minutes.

Yes, that's right. What an idiot savant you are. He's teeing it up for you, Gil. I was out in Hollywood. I didn't live here, obviously, and I didn't live there either. I didn't live in Hollywood, but my dad and I were out visiting some relatives of his. And I went to Farmers Market, of course. I was about twelve years old, maybe.

And I went up to a chicken leg stand to buy a chicken leg. And the lady said, hey kid, you should have been here. Your Groucho Mucks was standing right where you are now. Oh, I thought, oh no. I knew who Groucho Mucks was, for those who just arrived on this planet, and I couldn't bear it. I couldn't eat my chicken leg. I just said Groucho Marx was right here, and now he's out in that sea of people somewhere.

My one chance to meet him. Fortunately, years later, I met him wholesale for years and was a friend of his and went to things with him and he'd come to see me and we really became good. And he was on my show a number of times. And by the way, Mr. Bader, who was introduced earlier, had the good sense to notice that I had so many guest appearances with Groucho on my old show that why not put them into a special? He has. That's going to be the next project after... After the...

Oh, exciting! ...the Ali's. It's a scoop. He's just announced it. Yeah. How many were there? There were five? Seven. Seven appearances. He appeared on the Morning Show twice which were all pretty much erased by ABC but we've been able to get all of one and most of another so there is a half-inch open reel video format from the

60s and one of the other guests on that Groucho show from 68 was Frank Buxton whose name you may know. We just lost him not long ago. He was a director of The Odd Couple and Morgan Meehan. He was very successful as a director. Animation voices too. Yeah and he was a good stand-up comic and he made a half-inch open reel video of the show and it was on a 60 minute tape and it was a 90 minute show so he just paused whenever Glen Campbell was about to sing. So that's missing from the tape. And then the other one there's a kinescope which is a film made off of television of portions of that show so we have enough representation of all seven of the shows. That's great. I just

watched the 69 and the 71. I assume both of those were ABC shows yeah yeah yeah 69 shows the tour it's great Groucho show it's just an hour of solid Groucho he's fantastic through the whole show and the 71 show is kind of when Groucho started to get a little odd behaviorally he gets political in that 71 show too he takes him yeah take some shots at Nixon and LBJ. Yeah, he'd also previously been visited by the Secret Service because in an interview with some counter-culture magazine

called The Realist, maybe seven or eight months before that show, he said that it would be a great help to America if someone would have the good sense to assassinate Nixon. And they put this 81-year-old guy on the enemies list and visited him to kind of make sure he wasn't a real threat. Fascinating.

I was stunned to see a shot of Groucho at the table at the McCarthy blacklisting hearings. Well, he was in the committee for the First Amendment. He was in that, he had joined up with that organization that John Houston helped found. When Groucho Session with Senator McCarthy, he said, well, those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others. Wasn't he, weren't the feds watching You Bet Your Life at one point? The jokes aside, the true facts of that story are that they threatened to take his show away if they didn't fire the bandleader, a guy named Jerry Fielding. Yeah, that's a tragic story.

And they did fire Jerry Fielding and years later, Groucho said it was the biggest regret of his life. And Jerry Fielding and Groucho had a strange relationship for many years. And Fielding did actually attend Groucho's 85th birthday party and they sort of reconciled but he was told he was gonna lose the show if he didn't get rid of him. Wow. That's the way they did it. That's the way they operated. Wow, wow, wow. Yeah, watching that 69 show it's just it's great. I mean there's the lady of the tattooed lady and he's still in his in his in full command of his powers. Yeah, I would say that was probably really close to the beginning of the last of his prime. Yeah, I love when Dick talks with us, he goes, he captured the last of Groucho's greatness is the phrase I think

he used. That was just the way to put it. That show, it's all on display. He tells the Greta Garbo elevator story, which is fun. Oh yes, yes. With the hat. He asked me if I ever met Garbo and he said, yeah, she was a nice woman and she had big feet but she was a very nice woman. And big feet didn't disillusion me about her. They were in an elevator, I think in the MGM building. Yeah, she got in in front of him. And, she got in. She got in front of him. Right.

And they're facing in, and they were close. And she's wearing a wide hat, he said. And I took hold of the back rim of her hat, and I pushed it straight up in the air. So the hat went down over her face. And she turned around, and she was furious. And I said, I'm sorry. I thought you were a fellow

I knew from New Jersey. And she was like, no, I'm not. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow.

I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow.

I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. I'm not a fellow. that he did with you. Oh really? And well when he was already starting to lose it. With the golf cap with the three balls on and the bird. Yes, and the turtleneck shirt and the ill-fitting jacket.

If you saw all of those that you saw in order you would see it a little failing with each one. Yeah. And there's a couple of them that are, after he started to have minor strokes and he starts to slur a little bit, in some strange way, Muhammad Ali and Groucho Marx have the same experience going through their Dick Cavichow appearances. Nice segue.

How'd you like that? Well, that was smooth. I thought you'd like that, Frank. I did that for you. I remember him singing, down below, down below, sat the devil talking to his son, who wanted to go up above. Up above. He said, it's getting too warm for me down here and so and so I'm going up a night where

I can have some fun and the devil says you stay up down here where you belong. The folks who live above you, they don't know right from wrong. To say, to share their kings, they've all gone off to war. And not a one of them knows what they're fighting for. Dick are you having a flashback? You're going to release that as a single. Yeah we're putting it on the back of a cereal box. I know everyone listening would love to hear you do that again. Let's not. You know the funny thing. By the way do you know who wrote that? Irving Berlin. And I think I think

they said on the show that Irving Berlin was really embarrassed by that song and that's why Groucho, whenever Irving Berlin was around, would sing that. Berlin supposedly said, whenever you have the urge to sing that song, get in touch with me and I'll give you $100 every time you don't sing it. That's a good idea. Now, I remember a Stan Laurel story. I'm wondering if you may have even said it or if someone said it on this show. But I heard that, you know, Jerry Lewis wanted Stan Laurel to work in his company with him,

his production company. Yes, as an idea man at least or something. Yeah, yeah yeah he did. By the time I met him he of course wasn't really seeing anybody. He could still go out to restaurants and he wasn't in feeble or anything but Jerry Lewis came and visited him in the hospital and in a note he sent to me he said Jerry Lewis came around and I gave me quite a lift and I showed that to Johnny because he was a great fan of morals particularly and he said isn't that something imagine that jackass bouncing around your hospital room. You took it sentimentally.

We'll come back to the Marxists, but let's talk about the Ali documentary. Since Robert did that ever so subtle segue. It wasn't subtle. No, I loved it. Gilbert and I both watched it. Absolutely fascinating. And Dick, it's sweet that you guys actually forged a friendship. I know, of all people, if anybody said, you know, people said, you'll make a lot of famous

new friends doing that show. I made maybe three out of 1500, whatever it was, because you knew them from the, you know, you knew them from the show. You don't go out and have a hamburger and bowling next day together with Lucille Ball or whoever it is. But Ali, as he continued to come on, and it was impossible not to be taken with him when you first met him, but I realized this guy is becoming my best friend. We like each other in a way that there are male friendships that are harmless. That's what we really had. You liked him from the get-go, didn't you?

Yeah, right away. You just knew something was... He had such... A phrase came to me, in fact, that day. I remember when Woody Allen was writing for his first day at work at the Sid Caesar Show. And he said, when Sid walked into the room for the first time, it was like seeing a god and it is true about said

Caesar and it was equally if not more true about Ali. You were lifted into another world when he was there and he was funny and he was intelligent and just fun to be around. First time I ever saw him was thanks to Jerry Lewis. I was working for Jerry Lewis on that Jerry Lewis two-hour show. Oh yeah. The ill-fated one on Jerry Lewis theater. I just want to remind Dick that he once told me that working on that show was the television equivalent to being a passenger on the Titanic. I would never say a thing like that. I didn't think you were going to, so I said it for you. Yeah, it was. You could feel it.

You were all thinking, well, we're going down scantily. Band's still playing. But Jerry was really great on many of them. Others he pissed away so scandalously that it was just horrible to look at. But does anyone remember what I was... Oh, my first look at the great one, not Gleason, but they said Ali is here. We were at the Jerry Lewis Theater, which was the formerly El Capitan.

Yeah. Yeah. Legendary old Hollywood theater near Hollywood and Vine. And they had altered it slightly. They had taken the floor out and put Jerry's face in the floor and stones. And there was Jerry Lewis Theater, of course. And I said, I gotta see Ali.

And I left my office and I ran downstairs and went out into the lobby. And there was a group of people on the sidewalk, 10 or 12, and a fight going on, verbal, real fight between Muhammad Ali and a man who was in the crowd out there. And I thought, this is weird. I don't want to be totally disillusioned.

And Ali just said some violent things and walked off. And in a moment he was out of camera range, knowing the medium as he did, he just laughed. And you saw what a good actor he was. He would over talk to the guy he was supposedly fighting with. But that instinct of knowing, they always say Henry Fonda never missed his mark when making a movie. He knew just where he was. Ali did too.

Always knew where the camera was. Yeah. Did Howard Cosell, I heard he was really pissed off at Ali until the later years. Well there's that one wonderful bit where they're sort of arguing on camera and Ali's sort of getting closer and leaning over him a little and Poor Howard says you're gonna pull my two pay off aren't you he wasn't going to but he got credit for it

But I think they ended up friends I hope I think Howard Cosell was one of the guys near the end of Ali's career who was like Imported him not to fight anymore especially Holmes. Yeah Yeah. And nobody wanted to see that. Right. Right. Except maybe Ali and the people who he was paying. Um, I think Cosell and Cavett, Cavett actually might've done it first. He was the guy telling him, you've got to retire. It's enough. You can't take this anymore. And you know, he would make jokes about it and continue to fight.

But Cosell also sort of turned around on boxing and sort of wanted to ban it at certain points. Like Cosell later in his career was speaking about how boxing should be outlawed probably because of what happened to Ali. Yeah well Dick in the documentary at various points I mean you said you describe it as the sweet science and you said it can be artistic but it's also brutal and punishing and barbaric. And like football players who sit around carving a piece of cheese all day or something, they're just lost in everything. It's a violent sport.

It's a tough, brutal sport. The head is destroyed by it. There are probably as many boxers who have become, it's a boxing term, tomato cans. Yeah, they used to use the term punch drunk in the old days before we knew what CTE was. The Sweet Science is the name of the greatest book on boxing. That's just a fact, not an opinion. By A.J. Liebling.

And it's a killer and the sweet science he relates it to the early early histories of boxing and Can you believe they fought with no gloves at one point? There was bare knuckle boxing no bear sure sure sure sure and I Remember to like when you said punch drunk. It reminded me like growing up every comedian did like their punch drunk fighter character. You know, like, ah, that guy. Red Skelton.

Yeah. Well, Slapsy Maxy Rosenbloom had an acting career. Oh my God, yeah. Where he basically played that guy. Yeah. He was that guy. And he was that guy. Yeah.

I never was taken with boxing at all. I was kind of fun to listen to on the radio, but not great. But when somebody asked me, you're going to have a Leon, do you know heavyweight boxing? And I was lucky enough to think to say my knowledge of heavyweight fighting starts with Lewis and Khan when I was in high school, all the way up to the marriage of Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgman. I love that line.

Which was apparently a good one. When the film played at festivals, that was one of the huge audience laugh times. It's a great laugh. And I was thinking of the March Brothers, because they did a night at the opera, and they tested scenes. They left enough room for the laughs. I didn't leave enough room for that laugh. I didn't think it was going to be that enormous,

but that's a huge laugh in the film. You're dealing with a pro there. Think of the people who don't know who any of the people we've mentioned are. They're probably not listening to this show if they don't. They're hoping Gilbert sings another Irving Berlin classic. At this point. Dick, did you get pushback? I mean angry mail? Either, I mean because you were you were giving a forum to this man who was refusing to serve and...

It's a shock when you get your first hate letter. I got one last week. No, but seriously folks, who gets credit for saying but seriously folks? Some comic but yeah One day Well, I used to see the hate letters that poured in to Jack Parr when I worked for him the hate letters that poured into Joey Bishop that came into anybody Joey Bishop that came into anybody. There are people out there whose hate is their center of their life apparently. But Ali was so polarizing particularly at

that particularly at that time. And it might have been either that I had had Ali on and he had the subject of his voiding the draft, denying, refusing to go, angered a large number of people who know whom they're gonna vote for in the next election. And it's just ironic, isn't it? I felt kind of sorry, I hate to say this, and besmirch your show with it, but I felt kind of sorry for Donald Trump the other day.

Ladies and gentlemen, everyone has left this room. Dick Cavett making headlines. Look, he's a human, he's going through hell, and I thought maybe if say Gilbert and I put a little money together went to Tiffany's and had made a set of nice gold heel spurs with his monogram on it. You know I'm gonna hide your make America great again hat if you keep this up. I love that that was all a long setup.

You clip things around here, don't you? Get that long. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. I never, I wrote a lot of nasty tweets about him. I can't remember many of them but there was one somebody told me an employee at the White House who disliked him, which could be almost anybody who ever met him, they saw that this leg landed on his desk. It was to me quite harmless but it was imagine Donald Trump's library you'd have to subtle yeah Robert what stood out at you killed everybody in this room what what's what jumped out at you when you went through all the Ali shows there were a couple of things that were really different about Ali's multiple appearances than other people who'd made multiple appearances.

How so? There's a progression of two things. Their relationship becomes warm and friendly as it had not been in the earlier appearances because Kavett lets him come on and say his piece about basically the nation of Islam which they never mentioned by name on the show but he's sort of preaching it and his refusal to go into the army and you know one of the early shows Cavett says so how do you stand on going to jail you know that's kind of where those first interviews were and then it sort of progresses into

a friendship. It's fascinating to watch. But what's also happening is as they become friends, you could see Ali is deteriorating in a little manner of his speaking. He seems a little bit heavier and slower. And it's sort of sad in a way to see by the time he's appearing on the show in like 78 and 79, he is not looking like a professional athlete anymore, yet he's still fighting. And that's sort of what Dick was trying to get through to him in that 1978

show after Leon Spinks had beaten him and become the new champion. Dick is pretty much begging him to retire and he's making jokes out of it. And that's when I really started to see what the friendship meant to Cabotot because he's not doing that as a television host to be provocative he's trying to tell his friend to quit that's fascinating yeah it's very touching actually I wish he had everybody does was he did he need money that badly was he trying to just stay in the public eye was he both because there was an engine he was feeding there were many many people. The entourage. There's a lot of people making a living on Muhammad Ali. There's a sports writer in the film who's wonderful named Michael Marley.

He used to write for the New York Post for many years and Marley says he never saw anybody with a hand in Ali's pocket pushing him towards retirement. That's interesting. It's fascinating too what you're saying the early shows sticks a little he almost puts you a little bit on the defensive because he's talking about the white race being inherently evil yeah and that's that's early in the game before and it's when he's when he's also at his most defensive and you can see the the trust over the course of these interviews building between these two guys it becomes the whole thing becomes less contentious. You're making me want to see this special. The Dick Cavett show was a big change for Ali going on shows

because he had been greeted less warmly elsewhere. I believe it was David Susskind who just called him a phony and Jerry Lewis even in the show where he would just be being on a funny comic show, calls him a blowhard and says he's not really what he says he is. He didn't go on these shows and get a totally fair shake because there was a large part of the country that just hated him for what he was standing up for. Luckily he survived all that. Not just survived, he turned it around. I mean, this guy went from half the country

hating him to everybody loving him by the time, you know, it's all over. I mean, he's a venerable beloved figure. Now nobody ever thinks or talks about him not go. Now everybody says he was right about Vietnam. You know, then you couldn't find, you know, 10 people to say he was right. Sure. And he was courageous at the time what I remember with him like with a lot of these celebrities where they the friends and family go out in public to say oh he's just as quick and he's just as woody as ever and you know if you sat with him and you haven't lost and bit of it. Yeah. Yeah How did you find Frazier? I mean you get the sense that you liked Joe Frazier, too You had him on the show. I was very fond of for many times and I knew he could be trouble

He was a Tragic man in many ways he there was the thought of course always in his mind and any other fighters. If it weren't for Ali, I would... It's like what Jack Nicholson said about Brando. When Brando dies, every actor moves up one. Wow. And true a bit about a boxer too. Fraser, you could feel nasty feelings in him quite clearly sitting with him.

There was even a scary moment, it's in the documentary, where Muhammad having a great time irking Fraser, said, he called him Roy, but called him boy and B as in boy, B-O-Y. And Fraser took hold of the arm of the chair as I recall and started to get up, at least that was the sense of what happened. And of course, Ali said, I said, Roy, I said, Roy. Yeah, that's a funny moment in the doc. Yeah, but Frasier in that show seems like he's not in on the joke.

He's angry and he is tired of Ali painting him as the Uncle Tom figure that he liked to paint him as. And Frasier was deeply hurt by it. And at the end of his life, Frasier was pretty bitter about it. He was. People would ask him about Ali's condition when Ali could barely speak and he was pretty much incapacitated and Frazier would just say good for him. You know it's kind of a horrible end for Frazier to be that bitter. Was it hard Dick when he came on he came on after defeats he came on after Norton broke his jaw. Yeah. He came

on after the first Frazier fight when his face blew up. Was it hard to see your friend going through that? Good word for it. Yeah, I hadn't seen him before the show. I just came down as the show started and said hello. And it wasn't until he sat down that I noticed how swollen it was. If you had a hand to your cheek, only there was no hand there was the cheek and he was sad and what he says you see it on documentaries that I'm just so broke down and fired it you're the only one no

other show called me you're the only one and then I got the award of my life dick you my main man yeah that's sweet's sweet. You know, the crazy thing about that is this shows you how much Ali really liked him because he could have gotten on any show anywhere after that fight and the only one he went on was a Dick Cavett show. Every show would have killed to get him and it's not true that he was the only one who invited him. He was the only one that we would do. You guys are practically a comedy team at certain points. I mean, when you went to the training facility in Pennsylvania and he's giving you shit about

watching Carson over your show. Well, that was... You knew how to gaslight you too. He was so hard to say, I can't even use this word, he was so cute. You can say it about him at times and so funny in a cute ornery childish way. We were going through his cabin on his training camp. He had a theme of old west architecture and he had learned that word antique not just recently obviously but it seemed like it because he would say Dick I want to see my old

antique pump this is my old antique chair this is my old antique table this is my old antique whatever and I it was at that point that I said what do you do when you're in here he said said, well, I have television. But I like to watch talk shows, you know, like there's Johnny Carson. And he almost slipped it past me. And he was so pleased at his joke. Did you know Sonny Liston? No, I have thought that I must have met him once

in a group of fighters at somebody's party somewhere in Long Island. He may have been there, that's the most I can say. But I remember that Liston fight, my God. Well the one where he was down in the first minute, wasn't it? Yeah. I know Bob Hope said, I arrived late and listened sat down before I did. Was that the one with the phantom punch?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. You had Floyd Patterson, you had Joe Lewis. I mean, for a guy that wasn't a boxing fan, you had all of these people on the show. Yeah, I don't know how I got so lucky. You know, the lead up to the Ali-Frasier fight, boxers were all over the place telling how they thought Ali had no chance and that was what Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson both pretty

much said on the Cabot show. And of course to Ali's great happiness, Cosell predicted that he would not have a chance in that fight either. Right. You know he loved when people would predict that he was gonna lose. He just loved it. Right, right, right. We bounce around a lot, we'll come back to Ali, but since you brought up Joey Bishop in passing before, I think Gilbert and I have been trying to solve this

or get an answer to this question for months and months. Oh yeah? Why was Joey Bishop so disliked? Because that seems to be, did you like him? Because Joey Bishop. Joey disliked because that seems to be... did you like him? Joey Disliked? Well, uh, bless my heart, I've never heard anything like that. I don't know, I guess he was kind of a pig. In 300 shows we haven't heard a kind word about that.

There's like two. There's Joey Bishop and Danny Kay. Have not heard anything positive. Never anything. We even heard at least two or three good things about Jerry Lewis. Oh, God, yes. But those are from Jerry. Yeah, yeah, of course. But Danny Kay and Joey Bishop, nothing. I know, and Danny Kay was the greatest thing in the world to me as a kid, you know, the court jester and the flagging with the dragon

and the callous from the palace and all that stuff. And I just thought he was fabulous. The English still do. They worship Danny. There was a comic on Sullivan or Knight, it was from England. He said, you know we have three classes in England. We have the lower class, the working class, and those who have met Danny Kay.

And it's that way there. He was just a god over there. One night, there is another unpleasant person. Are you watching The Crown at all? You're old enough to know the phrase the Duchess of Windsor. She was not the most delightful person apparently. He came out of his dressing room and he's playing London and they said, you know, you've got that party tonight. And he said, oh God, I forgot where is it? And so and so hotels or went to the ballroom there. And there was

the royal family, all the royal heads of the theater, the great actors, the comedians, everybody was there in tuxedos and tiaras and the women. And just elegant, elegant, quintessence of elegant crowd. And Danny Kay had an ill-fitting brown suit that he'd worn to the theater. The Duchess of Winder noticed and said, well, still trying to be terribly funny, Mr. Kay. And he looked at her and said, and you too, ma'am. People applauded.

She went home in tears. Do you have a separate email address for the lawsuit to come in? Sure, sure, we don't worry about that. You know, we keep hearing nice things about Benny, Dick, of course, who you knew. And everyone has loving, wonderful, warm things to say about Jack Benny, and not too many nice things to say about Kay or Bishop. It seems to be a recurring theme. I wrote for both Jerry and Bishop, but Bishop on the Sinatra. And I never had any trouble with him. Really? One of his writers decided

to cash it in when he left office. You went into the stars office from Jack Parr on and Johnny and you laid your monologue on their desk and you left. Fred my friend Fred went in to Joey with whom he had worked for some time and had had it and he just took the monologue right past Mr. Bishop and placed it in the wastebasket himself and left. Now you shouldn't, you shouldn't tamper with, I'd say, comedy writers. Is anyone here old enough to remember Robert Q. Lewis? Sure. Oh yeah. Sure.

He was always substitute for Arthur Godfrey and he had a funny kind of look in glasses and he happened to have stigmata, what are what is it you call those things when people smallpox victims still have them on their face. Sort of a little crater. He had scarring. Yeah, that kind of scarring. And he had it, but he had, I think, nose putty or something sort of putty knifed over it so it didn't show on television. But it was apparently not pleasant to look at in real life. Anyway, he was nasty to some writer for the fourth or fifth time. Ordered him to his office. He went down, he said, I'm leaving. Why? Because like, I can't even say it, I just had a nephew,

I'm leaving. And he went to the door, paused for a moment and said, Bob, Lewis, what's par for your right cheek? The things that stay with you. Jackie Gleason was hard on Ryder. Yes, that's what we heard. And he in that same moment said, I'm not waiting any longer, I've waited for an hour, I'm sick of Jackie, tell him I'm leaving, I'm not waiting any longer I've read for an hour I'm sick of Jackie tell him I'm leaving I'm going home you know Jackie Gleason was abandoned by his yes father as a kid but anyway so the guy is still doing what if mr. Gleason

comes out and finds that you're not here waiting and the guy said tell him his dad dropped by. No! Oh! Vengeful comedy writers. There must be others. Oh jeez. Dave, tell them, I can't remember who the writer was, the guy that had the great line about Paul Keyes.

Tell them who your friend Paul Keyes was. Oh yeah. Was he a writer for Nixon? Paul Keyes? Speech writer? Yeah, yeah. that was one of his best credits He was well I wasn't gonna mention it but what I was gonna actually say was People ask you who's the worst person you ever worked with in show business and Stanley K. Which sometimes be it and so a couple others and There was a man who was Jack Parr's head writer.

He was nasty and I knew it. Mr. Woody Allen said, you're going to meet one of the worst people in the world when you start work tomorrow with the Jack Parr Show. I met him. He was a glad-handing, knifing, gossipy, anyway, this guy. When I talk about him in public and I've said just that much, I say I don't want to say his name, of course, but his initials are Paul Keyes. Now I heard Gleason, aside from the writers hating him I've heard

other bad things. Jackie Gleason. Name two. Strangling people's pets. Yeah did you know Gleason at all? Who? Jackie Gleason. Oh, you know Gleason? He was on the show. Yeah, I did a couple of shows with him. He loved doing them. They were done at his great house in Florida. And I got along fine with him. I used to sneak into his show before I ever met him, when I was just making rounds as

an out of work actor in New York and I saw that Gleason studio and I went and got a CBS envelope a big one and I went in and I said to the doorman how's it going today and he saw my CBS envelope he let me in. Watching Gleason rehearse was wonderful I'll bet. He knew everybody's lines. If anybody went up as they say went blank he would tell them what the line was. Not nasty. What a guy. I said to somebody once, what was it about Gleason as a fine, fine actor? They said he's one of the handful of actors in the world who never makes a false move. He was a good dramatic actor. Yeah. Yeah.

This is something I learned from watching, from doing research and watching old Dick Cavett shows and Bader will know what I'm talking about, that Orson Wells met Hitler as a child. I'm gonna have to look that up. Somebody referred to that in an article and they did on a show of mine. Talk about having met Hitler. He claimed he met FDR. He claimed he met Churchill. Was this a tall tale, Robert? I think Wells had to give Dick his money's worth because we can tell this now but Orson would not appear on your show for scale. Oh, shh. Don't, well, you can, the statute of limitations is over this.

Tell them what you had to do to get this guy to keep. I don't know if the statute of limitations has been out on this, or the various unions and guilds, but I thought Orson Welles is going to be on the show. I will see him in person. I will touch the hem of his garment. Mm-hmm. He did a few. Yeah.

He did several, yeah. But he said, my producer said, we aren't necessarily going to have Orson, I'm afraid. The scale on the show was something like 360 at the end for the gesture. He wanted a little more. He wanted 5,000. Wow.

And it was determined that we didn't dare give it to him. Anybody found out, all those people that appeared for scale, the unions. To this day, I don't actually know if he got all of the 5,000, but he got a hefty increase in what everybody else in the business got. And he was certainly worth it, boy. Was Austin Wells at that point, was he still interested in show business or had he given up on it? He had kind of... Well, there are several classically known pissed-away careers.

Brando's, Orson Welles, others who, for some reason, eventually, toward the end, just didn't honor their talent, didn't do stuff that was worthy of them, did junk. And Fred Orson was one of those people. I don't know much more about it. God knows he was brilliant. He always had unfinished projects he was looking to raise money for. There was always something going on in his career,

but he just seemed more committed to picking up some quick cash on the Dean Martin roast or something like that. By the way, on the Groucho Capote episode, Dick turns to Capote and says, when are we going to see that new novel Answered Prayers, which he never finished. That's right. He said it will be my posthumous novel, jokingly. Did it ever, ever appear? No, no.

It was an accident. I know what happened. A big excerpt appeared in something like maybe Vanity Fair and that named enough people that he didn't dare offend I see highest level the Paley family and people in show business and They hated him it ruined his life It was a big decline from that point watching him and Groucho together on that 71 show is a treat

yeah, well that had a special aspect to it because He Groucho decided to join in with the several guests and drone Groucho St. Christophe Cheney said to Truman Asked fund out of it was not married and offered proposed marriage. Yes. That is awkward. This is an interesting thing, I mean I told this, I knew one of Johnny's ex-wives pretty well,

I knew Joanne Carson, the second former Mrs. Carson. And she told me that when Cavett and Carson were both doing the show in New York, there was a lot of competition for guests, and Truman was really a Carson guest. But Joanne was best friends with the guy and when Joanne and Johnny got divorced Truman stayed friends with Joanne and Johnny was pissed off so Cavett got custody of Truman in the divorce. That's fascinating. He was my little boy.

And speaking of the Mocks brothers. That's a great transition. I love that one. Yeah. Here comes something. No, I, and speaking of people who a lot of people dislike. Now, I heard a lot of people had nothing but bad things to say about Zepo. Zepo was a very complex guy and I've been becoming great friends with one of his sons the last few years. And Zepo was just a difficult guy because I think he always got the short end of the stick from his brothers. You know, when he came into the act they were already famous. Or she were telling me outside they would never make him a full partner.

They never made him a full partner in the business they kept him on salary and he was determined to quit and while their parents were alive he could never pull it off because they insisted he stay. He was bitter about that forever he proved to them that he could be successful on his own by becoming a very successful agent made a lot of money in business was an inventor had a lot of patents but he was always out to prove that he was as good as he could be to them. And he was also a really hardcore gambler, and more so than Chico.

And Chico's daughter, who I know Gilbert Newmaxine, he used to creep her out by calling her up and doing Old Man Groucho on the phone. We established that, yes. So she explained to me the difference. Chico loved to gamble because he liked to have action. Zepo liked to gamble because he wanted to take your house. Wow. He was just a ruthless gambler and he was out to get people when he gambled.

And his son even told me that he was kind of like that. Fascinating. It was all about being very competitive. He spent his whole life trying to prove to his brothers that he was good and worthy and he probably overcompensated. And Chico was pretty much his role model as his father figure, which made him like a junior gangster. And there's a great story about when Chico got married for the second time in 1958, Zepa was going to be his best man, but he couldn't attend the wedding because he was subpoenaed in a federal racketeering case in Indiana and he was in court. Right I like I like the Gummo story too where they call him up.

Was it somebody the IRS was looking for Chico? Oh yeah they said we can't find Chico and Gummo said well you're not looking too odd he's either on on a broader horse. That's a good title for a biographer. A broader horse. It's also sad speaking of not paying or paying scale, Dick, it breaks my heart to realize that Zepo never came on the Cavett show because he wanted more money. I called him and people said Zepo's got stories that make all the other Marx Brothers stories pale by comparison. And I called him in Vegas and we had a lovely chat, animated and so on and he said but what do I want to come do television for?

I got my house down here and I've got my boat and I got my friends, I got card games, I got everything I need. What do I want to come to New York and I wonder if we offer Zepo $5,000. Is it too late? He might have told you he met Hitler. The first time I think I ever heard the name Groucho Marx uttered was by my father Who was just the right age for when Marx Brothers first moved came out? It would come to town and he said you always thought that people laughed so hard they fell out of their seats it was true in those days he would just

And I said the main one is named Groucho Marx. So then I read a book about him. I said, do you remember you're the first person to ever say the name Groucho Marx to me? He said, well you said that once Groucho walking down a street in Hollywood and a woman came up and said, ooh Mr. Marx, tell me, are you Zepo or Harpo? Was about to ask you the same question I Get it. I go. I remember I just had a flashback. I was working with you Dick and We were we went we were staying at the same hotel

Yeah, and I remember I just started doing my old senile Groucho imitation. Right. And I chased you down the hallway. You were like rushing back to your room. And I started following you the whole time doing the senile Groucho. And when you got back to your room, I then called up from the phone in the hallway. And when you answered, I just like,

I remember Nunnally Johnson. Nunnally Johnson. Yes, sir. That's what makes it. How do you dare admit these things? Yes. Yes. Nunnally Johnson. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast, but first a word from our sponsor.

You have a memory of this, Dick? Of him stalking you? Nunnally Johnson? No, Gilbert. Oh, yes. Even today I suddenly I'll turn quickly and see if Gilbert is behind me going, my brother Chekov, he does his scene out of Groucho. I've missed him with rocks every time I've tried to.

Speaking of Gilbert impressions, you interviewing James Mason on the Cavett show you said was a turning point show for you. You remember saying this? About the fact that when it first broke into just going notes question notes question. Yeah, that you said that show you remember that that show was a kind of a turning and half of this is a cheap segue into Gilbert doing is James Mason impression. But you said that was kind of a turning point, and half of this is a cheap segue into Gilbert doing his James Mason impression, but you said that was kind of a turning point where Jack Parr's advice kicked in for you. Jack Parr, to my amazement, called me on the telephone in my apartment about three weeks before I started doing 90-minute show on ABC, and he said, kid kid when you do this show let me give you some advice don't do

interviews and I did a silent take over the phone you know what do I do sing to them or read Beowulf to them or what do I do and he said no no don't interviews. That's Q&A and who's your favorite this. And it's just facts. It's just boring. Make it a conversation. And of course, that's it. I mean. And that was the show.

I had learned that with James Mason. I think it was the first time it really happened. Did you choose to do James Mason as Ralph Crampton? Ah yes! With Richard Burton as Norton? Yeah! Go lay a little of it on Dick. And and okay let me see if I still remember this. Check your memory book. Okay. Oh yeah I used to do you know the, the honeymooners, the motion picture. James Mason as Ralph Crampton. Alice Norton and I are going bowling. It's the raccoon lodge is having

a big bowling tournament and then we're going bowling tonight. Isn't that right, Norton? Yes, Ralphie boy. And then, and Jack Nicholson as Alice. You're not fucking going bowling Ralph. Do you know? Wish you guys could see Dick's face.

I can sort of do certain actors from hearing Gilbert do them. Uh-huh. Yeah The only time I've ever done one that he did was I Was watching the television tonight that James Mason's commercial for what wine Thunderbird? Oh, yes Yes, he did the bird commercial. He's in a dinner jacket in the Caribbean somewhere in a moonlit patio with his glass, like Orson Wells did in his commercial for... His was Almaden, wasn't it? Orson Wells for like Almaden, I think was the line. I just remember that commercial.

It was one of the... Where Orson Wells was totally... Oh yeah, that's a great one. That's on YouTube. Oh, the French! seeing these people they always a little table their little glass and James Mason this is a joke it must be a sketch I've tuned into no it's James Mason doing Thunderbird one he must have had a couple of alimony's piled up.

And there he was, elegant James Mason. And I decided this next time I saw it, clearly he wrote the last line himself. Because he held up the glass of Thunderbird and said, and I have to tune Gilbert into my larynx now. I promise you, you've never tasted anything quite like it. I remember James Mason, I'm wondering if it was on your show that another connection with Hitler that James Mason saw some of Hitler's paintings.

That rings a faint bell. Wow. And whoever it was may have been you who said, and how would you rate his paintings? And James Mason said, if you walk through Greenwich Village in New York on any weekend you'll see quite a number of Hitlers on the street. Gilbert you're impressing me. Yeah, it was not a bad painter. It's an odd thing to say in public.

He was an architect student and some of his paintings for architecture are very, very good straightforward paintings of a street or something. And there are some people in them, but they're weirdly distorted. Ah! Just for consistency's sake, give us a little bit of your Richard Lew, which you did on our very first podcast. That's good. I've told you never, never to bring that up. When I was in the village, I had an act and I did my act and the first time I

did it I said you know you got another show tonight. I said I got I just got through my first act. You need a second show and I did a couple more jokes and then I hit upon something. I'd been thinking that day how much I loved the actor Richard Liu, whose face you would instantly recognize from Back to Baton and First Jank into Tokyo and 30 World War II. He played Evil Japanese Colonel or whatever. But his voice is quite recognizable. he's Colonel or whatever. But his voice is quite recognizable. And I found I could do it. So my second act for this paralyzed audience in the village was 15 minutes of talking about Richard Lew like this, which put the dog to sleep. Who lay on the floor at this club.

But then I gave him my thrill. I said, I know you will recognize this voice and the face will come to you. Unless you're six years old. And I said, I'd say to somebody, you'd be Dana Andrews and you say to me, because he and all his men had been captured by Richard Lou. Can he do Dana Andrews? No, not really. That's my famous, that's what all the audience comes to see.

It'll have to be David Brenner. Yeah. I know. Setting up Richard Lou. That would be really impressive. It's only the content of the line which is you'll never get any of my men to talk Colonel Mitsubi. You're going to torture them. Okay, you'll never get any of my men to talk Colonel Mitsubi.

They put Richard Lew as a surprise to me on my show. Everybody had a secret and I couldn't imagine. And they said, they just handed me, we had a guest fall out and they just handed me who's coming on. And I introduced him breathlessly, and the band of course went, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong,

bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, And he walked over and said, Mr. Cavett, we have reason to believe that you came from an aircraft carrier of the Hornet variety. I just got some goose flesh now. You know, Dana Andrews was on that show about when Dick was in Los Angeles doing a play a few years ago, and I set this up for him, I set up the tape of that show, and I said, sit down, look at this,

and his mind was just completely blown from seeing Richard Lew and doing Richard Lew to Richard Lew. Yeah, fantastic. What a lovely man, wrote me thank you notes. Had him on a couple times, but I still get goose-flesh when he comes on the screen. His voice, I remember, to get it, I've had him on a couple times, but I still get goose flash when he comes on the screen. His voice, I remember to get it, I thought, this will sound crazy. It's a little bit up where Katherine Hepburn's voice is.

Hello, it's up in there. So I must remind you, that's a little bit of that. I'm slightly hoarse at the moment. Dick does on our very first show. He was of that time period like World War II when they would hire the Chinese actors. Yes, that's the irony. To be evil Japanese. While they were murdering his family back home he was playing them on the screen. Yeah. Dick, did I read somewhere that you had an uncanny ability to recognize character actors

on the street? Does this mean anything to you? I seem to. And that's amazing to me, but it was amazing to me that other people didn't. Right. When I first came to New York, I just walked the streets looking for famous people. I saw just about everybody. Do you do a little John Carradine?

Well, I would say, look don't you recognize Eduardo Cianelli? I would recognize him in a minute. Did you see Henry Armada? You would in a second. We've made 150 movies. I saw you at the 92nd Street Y with Alec Baldwin and you and you told a John Wayne story and in telling the John Wayne story you did a little bit of John Carradine. Did I? Yes you did, which I think Gilbert would appreciate. A bit of John Carradine? Oh, I wormed my way onto the location of the shootest John Wayne's last film, Western. Yeah, that's the one. As I walked over there, where all the old buildings

were and the old streetcar and they go, and there was a chair with John Carradine's name and as if by magic, he came kind of walking by, he had a lot of arthritis, but he'd sat down and he was just sitting there and I thought, I must have something to say to John Carradine. And the Duke came by, to naive people, that's John Wayne. The Duke came by, hey Duke. And Carradine, as the Duke passed his chair, John, John, we looked at him and said,

Hey John, and Carradine said, Hey, hello Duke, what is this? Is this number four? Number seven. I can't decide. Movies they'd made together. But I don't think I hit John Carradine just now, so I'm gonna ask you to do it. I can't do John Carradine. Hello Duke, it was Weather or Hoseforth.

Close enough. You know Frank, I do this for you, but I can turn any conversation back to the March Brothers like that. Cool, do it. The bit that... Because I got questions here for you from some fans. The John Carradine role in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex sex the Woody Allen film was written for Groucho and Wow, did you know that Gil? Was written for Groucho and Groucho at that point was a little bit past remembering lines and doing that sort of work He just wasn't up to it. Well Aaron's in it Yeah, Aaron's part of the deal. I think that was part of the deal actually, right?

It was conceived for Groucho and Carradine had to come into it I think that might have been part of the deal. I think that was part of the deal, actually. It was conceived for Groucho and Carradine had to come into it. I think Lon Chaney Jr. went up for that part. Because there was an audition I read about. There was a Lon Chaney Jr. audition for Woody Allen. Well, I'm pretty sure Aaron got the gig because Groucho agreed to do it. And then Groucho had to pull out and Aaron stayed.

Here's a quick Marks Brothers question for you, the expert, from listener Mike Herman. For Robert Bader, what is true and untrue about the unmade film A Day at the United Nations? That is the Billy Wilder project. What's true is it was a treatment that was written and at that point in their career, nobody could get insurance on Chico because he was very sick and near death. And I don't think it was ever seriously on the radar for them to actually do it. I think they were listening.

Interesting. I think Groucho really didn't want to do the Marx Brothers anymore. Even past the late 40s, Groucho didn't want to do the Marx Brothers anymore. And Harpo had plenty of money. And the oft repeated phrase altogether, you know, Chico needed the money. Steve White asks, hey Robert Vader, did Groucho ever get any money from that Vlasic Pickle company for the likeness of the Stork mascot?

Yes, that was a license that I believe still exists to this day. So if they run those commercials, I do believe they pay them. And Pat Harrington did the voice of the stork in those, but Groucho was paid. Good stuff. Rich Nolan, go ahead. Oh, what was the story of how it was very strange in the movie, Story of Mankind,

that it was the Mocks brothers and but separate actors. It took a particular genius from Irving Allen to get the three of them and not have them appear together. Yes. That's strange. But I also think it was Rauchos desire not to work with them at that point as the Marx brothers. Yeah.

Here's one for Megan Reinhart for you, Dick. What was it actually like being in the room with Aaron Fleming? Did she ever rise to the level of elder abuse or were there those close enough to protect Groucho? Go to hell. Oh, I'm sorry. I confused her with someone else. I confused her with the woman who wrote to me from Waco, Texas, was it Martha? Yeah. Waco turns out to be one of the world capitals of hate mail and I remember knowing that when I worked for Jack Parr and other my Secretary tried to hide a note and I said, okay, let me see it. I Might have had a Leon or I might have had Jane Fonda on or somebody else who might have spoken about Vietnam or something that of nature

Waco, Texas dear dick have it you little saw thot off faggot communist shrimp. Communist shrimp. There was a return address I wrote back I'm not thot off. Isn't that right? So could you answer his question about Aaron Fleming? You want to answer the question about Aaron Fleming or you want to skip it? What was it like to be in her company? Was it unsettling in some way? Yes, I got along with Aaron Fleming which sort of apparently put me in a rare category but she was controversial but the way she treated

Groucho, those who a few people liked her and said she at least got him out of bed and he'd get things and he did Carnegie Hall and she got him to do this and that. In that sense she was good. She was also suffering with a load of mental personality problems that plagued her and there was a sad life. Yeah, she did come to a very sad end. She wound up being homeless, I think. She wound up being homeless and then wound up shooting herself. Yeah.

Here's one for Bader before we get out of here because these guys have to go to Stephen Colbert's show. Peter Blitstein, what was the most surprising thing you discovered about the Marxists in writing for the three musketeers? You know the blacklisting in their early career was really revelatory because it explained so much about why they continued to play well on this show I could say it shitholes after they were famous and They forced the business of vaudeville to let them back in because they were making so much money for the renegade theater circuits

That was kind of a big surprise because I never really put that together until I really dug deep in but yeah The fact the fact that they got blacklisted twice, which is perfect because they're the Marx brothers, they should do things to get themselves blacklisted. But that was the real story for me that surprised me. Very interesting. It is surprising. Mr. Blitstein also has one last question for Dick Cavett, why in God's name did you ever agree to be Gilbert's first guest on this podcast? It's a long story. You lost a bet. Gilbert's first guest on this podcast. It's a long story. You lost a bet.

He took me out the night before and threatened to reveal what we did that night. And he still threatens it. Before you guys get out of here, tell us about the documentary. It's going to be on HBO. Yeah. February 11th. It premieres on February 11th. And I'll just say this.

I decided that this film needed to be made after reading these two blog pieces Dick wrote about Ali for the New York Times. And looking at the shows and just reading those two pieces, I said, this needs to be a movie, because it's kind of the weirdest buddy picture you'll ever see. It's wonderful. Yeah, and I want to recommend Cavett's Watergate as well, which is terrific and strangely timelier than ever.

You know, there's so many topics within the archive of the Dick Cavett Show that are film-worthy that I got to keep making them. So we're going to look forward to a Cavett one? I mean, excuse me, a Groucho one? I'm working on Cavett and Groucho, nearly done, yeah. And that'll be really a fun film for a large part of the family. I saw some of it and it's terrific. You know the night he proposed marriage to Drew McCampote,

he was wearing that fabulous golf hat that hired Bill and had two little golfers knitted on it and three little knitted golf balls and as I remember it and maybe this was off-camera, Groucho in pursuing the idea of marrying Truman, Truman said, I can never marry a man who's got three balls on his hat. Nobody heard the three balls on his hat part. Three balls gets the laugh. I didn't know what they were laughing at. We could talk to you guys forever.

Well, didn't we? Gil, what do you think? Here's one last one. I'm going to squeeze it in. Did Groucho turn down being in a Fellini movie? Allegedly, I don't know for a fact that that was really offered to him. I think Aaron said that. And I think Aaron said it at the Cannes Film Festival.

So maybe that's why she said it. We have one minute, can Dick tell the Tallulah Bankhead story to go out on? Oh my God, which one? The Chico one. Chico meets Tallulah. Chico wanted desperately to meet Tallulah Bankhead. And when she first came to America, she was the star of the world. Political family from the South, dazzling big name actress, she was wanted on every

Life magazine cover and such things. She was it. And Chico wanted to meet her. Groucho got them together somewhere, a party or something, and said to Miss Bankhead, this is my brother Chico, Chico, Miss Tallulah Bankhead, and he said, I want to fuck you Miss Bankhead. She said to her eternal credit, and so you shall, you old-fashioned boy. Hahahaha! Never get tired of hearing that one. Yeah, that's a good one. What do you think, Gil? Okay, this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadri.

We've been talking to an expert on old things Marxian Robert Bader and we've also been talking to Dick Harvick. Now, Dick is an abbreviation of Richard Like if you don't want to say Richard Now some people would just call him by his last name In that case they would use the word Mr. In front of it and say Excuse me, Mr. in front of it and say excuse me Mr. Cavett can I have your autograph? And Mr. Cavett would sometimes when they'd speak to him would recognize his own name and would respond to them because that's what people do when most people have a name that the other people call them. Some people do have an address, and an address is a place where people live. So if I were to say to someone,

what's your address? Dick, you could stop him any time. Oh my God. I don't need to put up with this sort of thing. I think he went until he kills over and dies. I've gotta get across town, but you're still wonderful. Thank you gentlemen. Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, say have you met Lydia? Lydia the tattooed lady. She has eyes that men adore so, and a torso even more so.

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