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

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

GGACP salutes the new PBS documentary "Groucho and Cavett" with this ENCORE of a 2020 interview with legendary TV personality Dick Cavett and author-producer (and the documentary's writer-director) Robert Bader. In this episode, Dick and Robert weigh in on a variety of topics while looking back at Groucho Marx's numerous appearances on "The Dick Cavett Show." 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! James Mason stars in "The Honeymooners"! And Dick reflects on his friendship with Muhammad Ali! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Peloton has everything you need to help you get going. Get a head start on summer with Peloton and choose a flexible payment plan that works for you at onepeloton.ca. Once is never good enough for something so fantastic. So here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Colossal classic. hi i'm gilbert godfrey this is gilbert godfrey's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and we're recording at SiriusXM. 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 Marx and other short stories and telltales. And as discussed on this very show, he's also the author of the exhaustively researched and vastly impressive history of the Marx Brothers' live performances, four of the three musketeers, the Marx Brothers on stage. Dick Cavett returns to the show for the fourth time. He's a writer, comedian, best-selling 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 with such influential figures, including Woody Allen, Bob Hope, John Lennon, Lawrence Olivier, Salvador Dali, Mae 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 Kavid, The Tale of the Tapes, which can be seen on HBO on February 11th. Please welcome back two of our most entertaining and knowledgeable guests

and two men who can tell you if Harpo really was stooping Amelia Earhart. Dick Cavett and Robert Bader.

Do we have any time left? Now let's start with the Amelia Earhart and Harpo. Were they fucking? I'm sorry Gilbert, I wasn't listening. Could you run through that again? Okay. Hi! This is Gilbert.

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. 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? What other famous people?

Well, I don't like to drop names, but his initials might be Cary Grant. Wow. Cary Grant? Or Marlena Dietrich. Wow. You're breaking news, buddy. Dick, you have a comment on this? Well, hmm?

Amelia was never on the show. No, I just had a question here. Dick, don't show fuck to Amelia Earhart. How do we know all these things? That's fascinating stuff. 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 Putnam, 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 Fatty Arbuckle. I should say one thing. The people who guard her legacy are extremely protective of it. Her papers are at the University Library. Oh, good. So we've got a lawsuit waiting for us.

The Purdue University Library has her papers. They're very, very careful about who they'll 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've 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 mox brothers uh expert but uh right before i left the house they had on stan and ollie oh yeah and i'd like to know with your whatever knowledge you have of laurel and hardy uh 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, just have one question to ask you and groucho says sure he goes why aren't there more laurel and hardy movies on television oh gee

that's maybe the one thing groucho couldn't answer you have your one chance to ask groucho one question that's hilarious well dick dick knew Laurel, so I'd be curious. Did you see the Stan and Ollie movie, Dick? Yes, I did. I saw it about a month ago, and I knew I'd be disappointed because when people play famous people, they're never quite right. Right. This was perfection. Really?

Just great. But they painted Hal Roach, who I understand. Well, we know that Hal Roach was cozying up to Mussolini. But they painted him in a rather unflattering light in that film. Yeah, well, they have a lot of unflattering light in the movie. But you liked it. You liked the performances. Very much, yeah.

And the script, I thought it was a really, 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. Yes, 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 many years ago framed against the Atlantic Ocean. And I asked him if he saw Babe, as he was called, Hardy often.

And he said, I can do him, but I think it will become tedious, but maybe approximately. He said, well, the last time I saw Babe, it was Christmas. And I went over to his apartment, and Lucille, was that his name, opened the door, and there was a 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. That's kind of sad. Yeah. And he 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. $1,000 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 table. 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 the 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. 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 Farmer's Market, of course.

I was about 12 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 Marx was standing right where you are now. Oh. I thought, oh, you should have been here. Your Groucho Marx was standing right where you are now. Oh. I thought, oh, no. I knew who Groucho Marx was, for those that just arrived on this planet. And I couldn't bear it. I couldn't eat my chicken leg.

I just thought, 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... 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 shows that why not put them into a special

he has that's going to be the next project after. After. Oh, exciting. 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 that's great half inch open reel video format from the 60s and one of the other guests on that groucho show from 68 was frank buxton who's oh wow you may know his we just lost him not long ago frank buxton yeah and he was

um a director of the odd couple and morgan sure 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. Uh-huh. 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. Yes. Yeah. The 69 show is the tour de force 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's starting 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 and and yeah he'd also previously been visited by the secret service because in an interview with some counterculture magazine called the realist um 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 had joined up with that organization that John Houston helped found. When Groucho sessioned with Senator McCarthy, he said, well, those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others.

are my principles and if you don't like them i have others wasn't he wasn't 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 band leader a guy named jerry fielding yeah that's tragic story 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 going to 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 great. I mean, there's Lydia the Tattooed wow. Yeah. Watching that 69 show, it's great. I mean, there's Lydia the Tattooed Lady. And he's still 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 about this. 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 this way. He tells the Greta Garbo elevator story, which is fun. Oh, yes, yes. Yeah, with the hat. I asked him if he ever met Garbo, and he said, yes. 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. She got in front of him. Right. And they're facing in, and they were closed. 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. Cleveland. Whatever it was. It's funny i became the most fascinated with groucho from watching the shows that he did with

you oh really and and well when he was already starting to lose it with a golf cap with the with the three balls on the bird turtleneck shirt and the ill-fitting jacket. If you saw all of those that you saw in order, you would see 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 Cavett show appearances.

Nice segue. How'd you like that? I thought it was smooth. I thought you'd like that, Frank. I did that for you. We'll get to it. 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 nice 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 share their clings, 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, I hope. 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.

By the way, do you know who wrote that? Irving Berlin. 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 this show yeah 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 a hundred dollars every time you don't see it that's a good idea now i i remember a stan laurel story i'm wondering if you may have even said it or 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, 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 enfeebled 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 of Laurels particularly and he said isn't that something imagine that jackass bouncing around your because he was a great fan of Laurel's particularly. And he said, isn't that something? Imagine that jackass bouncing around your hospital room.

He took it sentimentally. We'll come back to the Marxist, but let's talk about the Ollie 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 1,500, whatever it was. Because 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 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 Sid 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 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 at the 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. You could feel it. You were all thinking, well, we're going down steadily. Band is 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 talking about? 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 formerly El Capitan. 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've got to 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 the 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 went over and talked to the guy he was supposedly fighting with. But that instinct of knowing,

they always say Henry Fonda never missed his mark in making a movie. He was 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

toward the later years. Well, there's he was really pissed off at Ali toward 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 going to pull my toupee off, aren't you? He wasn't going to, but he got credit for it. But I think they ended up friends, I hope hope i think howard cosell was one of the guys near the end of ollie's career who was like imploring him not to fight anymore especially holmes yeah nobody wanted to see that right right except maybe uh ollie and the people who he was

paying um i think cosell and cavett cavett actually might have 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. I agree.

Probably because of what happened to Ali. Yeah. 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. Yeah. And punishing and barbaric. And like football players who sit around

carving a piece of cheese all day or something and have just lost everything. It's a violent sport. Yeah. It's a tough, brutal sport. The head is destroyed by 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 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 just a fact, not an opinion. By A.J. Liebling. Yeah. And it's a killer. And the Sweet Science, he relates it to the early, early histories of boxing. Can you believe they fought with no gloves at one point? There was bare-knuckle boxing. Professional bare-knuckle fighting. Sure, sure. gloves at one point there was bare knuckle boxing sure sure sure and i i remember too like when you said punch drunk it reminded me like growing up every comedian did like their

punch drunk fighter character you know like that guy red skelton yeah yeah well slapsy maxi rosenblum had an acting career oh my god he basically played that guy. Red Skelton. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Slapsy Maxie Rosenblum had an acting career. Oh, my God, yeah. He basically played that guy. Yeah. He was that guy. And he was that guy. Yeah.

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 Ali on, do you know heavyweight boxing? Somebody asked me, you're going to have Ali on, 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 Borg. I love that line. Which was apparently a good one apparently When the film played at festivals

That was one of the huge audience laughs It's a great laugh I was thinking of the March Brothers 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 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 sees another irving berlin class at this point dick did you get pushback uh i mean angry mail either i mean because you were you were giving a forum to this man who was yeah 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 into Jack Parr when I worked for him. The hate letters that poured into Joey Bishop that came into anybody. There are people out there whose hate is the center of their life, apparently. But Ali was so polarizing, particularly at that time. particularly at that time.

And it might have been either that I had had a Lee on, and he had the subject of avoiding the draft, denying, refusing to go, angered a large number of people who know whom they're going to 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. I just thought, look, there'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. I'm going to 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?

You get that long. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast after this. Gifting Dad can sometimes hit the wrong note. Oh. Instead, gift the Glenlivet, the single malt whiskey that started it all, for a balanced flavor and smooth finish.

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Only $4 on now. Dine-in only until 11 a.m. at A&W's in Ontario. I never, I wrote a lot of nasty tweets about him. I can't remember many of them but there is 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 um 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 Cavett 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.

Yeah. 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 now. He's making jokes out of it. And that's when I really started to see what the friendship meant to cabot 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 was very touching actually i wish he had everybody does um 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 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 who used to write for the new york post for many years and um marley says he never saw anybody with a hand in ali's pocket pushing him towards retirement yeah 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 pushing him towards retirement. Yeah, it's interesting. It's fascinating, too, what you're saying. The early shows, 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 early in the game. Yeah. When he's also at his most defensive. And you can see the trust over the course of these interviews building between these two guys.

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 they would just be being on a funny comic show, calls him a blowhard and says he's not really what he says he is. You know, 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. Lucky he survived all that. Not just survived, he turned it around.

all that um not just he turned it around i mean yeah 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 uh where they the friends and family uh go out in public to say oh he's just as quick and he's just as witty as ever and you know if you sat with him and uh you haven't lost a bit of it yeah yeah how did you find frazier i mean you you get the sense that you you liked joe frazier too you had him on the show i was very fond of many times and i knew he could be trouble um he was a

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, called him Boy, 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. 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? It was hard. Good word for it. 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 as if you had a hand to your cheek, only there was no hand there. It was the cheek.

And he was sad. And what he he says you can see it on documentary is oh dick i'm just a little broke down fighter 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're my main man yeah that'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 the dick cabot show every show would have killed to get him and it's not true that he was the only one invited it was the only one ali would do yeah you guys are practically a comedy team at certain points i mean when you went when you went to the the training facility in pennsylvania and he's giving 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 anyone would use this word he was so cute you can say it about him at times and so funny in a cute ornery childish way and we were going through his cabin on his training camp he had a theme of old west architecture and he 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 there's 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, well, I have television. But, you know, I like to watch talk shows,

you know, like 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. You had Floyd Patterson. You had Joe Louis.

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 uh you know the lead up to the ali fraser fight boxers were all over the place telling how they thought ali had no chance and that was what joe lewis and sugar ray robinson both pretty much said on the cabot show and of course to ali's great happiness cosel predicted that he would not have a chance in that fight either right you know he loved when people would predict that he was going to 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 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's that seems to be you did you like him because the joey joey the sarcasm my heart i've never heard anything like that i don't know i guess he was kind of a pig in in 300 shows we haven't heard a kind word about it Not on the air. Yeah. There's like two. There's Joey Bishop and Danny Kaye. Have not heard anything positive. Never anything. We even heard at least two or three good things about Jerry Lewis. Oh, God, yeah.

But those are from Jerry. Yeah, yeah, of course. But Danny Kaye and Joey Bishop, nothing. I know, and Danny Kaye 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 one night who 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 Kaye. And it's that way there. He was just a god over there. One night, here's another unpleasant person. Are you watching The Crown at all?

You're old enough to know the phrase of the Duchess of Windsor. She was not the most delightful person, apparently. He came out of his dressing room and he was 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 Kaye had an ill-fitting brown suit that he'd worn to the theater. The Duchess of Windor noticed and said, Well, still trying to be terribly funny, Mr. Kaye. And he looked at her and said, And you too, ma'am. People applauded and said goodbye. She went home in tears.

Do you have a separate email address for the lawsuits that 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 Tonight Show,

and I never had any trouble with him. Really? Okay. One of his writers decided to cash it in when I left off his... You went into the Star's office from Jack Parr 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, went right past Mr. Bishop and placed it in the wastebasket himself and left. Now, you shouldn't tamper with, I'd say, comedy writers. Does anyone here old enough to remember Robert Q. Lewis? Sure. Oh, yeah. Sure. He was always a substitute for Arthur Godfrey. He had a funny kind of look in glasses.

He happened to have stigmata. What is it we call those things? 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 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 right. Yes, that's what we heard. And he, in that same moment, said, I'm not waiting any longer. I've ridden for an hour. I'm sick of Jackie. Tell him I'm leaving. I'm not waiting any longer. I've waited 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 father as a kid. But anyway, so the guy, what if Mr. Gleason comes out and finds that you're not here waiting?

The guy said, tell him his dad dropped by vengeful comedy writers there must be others oh jeez tell them i can't remember who the writer was the guy that had the great line about paul keys and tell them who your friend paul keys was oh yeah was he writers writer for nixon paul keys speech writer yeah yeah that was one of his best credits um he was uh well i wasn't going to mention it but what i was going to actually say was people ask you who's the worst person you ever worked with in show business and Stanney Kaye would sometimes be it and a couple others. And there was a man who was Jack Parr's head writer. And 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. And 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 about Jackie Gleason. Name two. Strangling people's pets. Did you know Gleason at all? Who?

Jackie Gleason. Oh, yeah. 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 the 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 and 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. Here's... What a... 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. This is something I learned from doing research and watching old Dick Cavett shows, and Bader will know what I'm talking about, that Orson Welles met Hitler as a child?

I'm going to 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? Yeah. 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. Well, the statuteson would not appear on your show for scale. Oh. Well, the statute of limitations is up on this. Tell them what you had to do to get this guy. I don't know if the statute of limitations has been up on this, 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. He did a few. Yeah. He did several, yeah. 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 per guest or something. He wanted a little more. He wanted 5,000. Wow. And it was determined that we didn't dare give it to him because if 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 than 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? 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 Freda 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. He said it'll be my posthumous novel, jokingly. Did it ever, ever appear? No, no.

And 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. The highest level of 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 Groucho decided to join in with several guests. And Groucho said, he said to Truman, I found out he was not married and offered proposed marriage. Yes. That's awkward. You know, this is an interesting thing because, I mean, I told this to Dick. 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 Mox brothers. That's a great transition. I love that one. Here comes something. 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 Zeppo. Zeppo was a very complex guy, and I've been becoming great friends with one of his sons the last few years. And Zeppo 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 was 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 knew Maxine, 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 zeppo 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 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, Zeppo 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 the Gummo story too Where they call him Was it somebody in the IRS was looking for Chico And they called They said we can't find Chico

And Gummo said well you're not looking too hard He's either on a broad or a horse That's a good title for either on a broad or a horse. That's a good title for a biography. Yeah, a broad or a horse. It's also sad, speaking of not paying or paying scale, Dick, it breaks my heart to realize that Zeppo never came on the Cavett Show because he wanted more money. I called him, and people said,

Zeppo's got stories that make all the other Marx Brothers stories pale by comparison. I bet he did. 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 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 uh i wonder if we offered zeppo five thousand dollars is it too late

he might have told you he met hitler the first time i 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 movie 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. People would just slur. And I said, the main one is named Groucho Marx and so then I read a book about him but I said do you remember you're the first person to ever say the name Groucho Marx to me where and he said well you said that once Groucho walking down a street in Hollywood and a woman came up and said oh Mr. Marx tell me are you Zeppo or harpo and groucho said well i was about to ask you the same question i get it go ahead i remember i just had a flashback i was working with you uh dick and um

we were we went we were staying at the same hotel yeah 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. 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 uh i remember nunnally johnson that's what makes it how do you dare admit these things? Yes.

Nunnally Johnson. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. The Scorebet app here with trusted stats and real-time sports news. Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well, statistically speaking. Nah, no more statistically speaking. I want hot takes.

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Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to connexontario.ca. What happens when 20 extremely athletic Canadians who thrive on competition and won't settle for less than number one find themselves on a team? Taking on jaw-dropping obstacles all across Canada is one thing. Working together on a team with some pretty big personalities is another. It's a new season of Canada's Ultimate Challenge.

And sparks are going to fly. New episode Sundays. Watch free on CBC Channel. You have a memory of this, Dick? Of him stalking you? Nunnally Johnson? No, Gilbert. Oh, Gilbert.

Oh, yes. Even today, I suddenly turn quickly and see if Gilbert is behind me. My brother, Chico. And he does his scene out of the ground show. I've missed him with rocks every time I've tried. Speaking of Gilbert impressions, you interviewing James Mason on The Cabot Show, you said was a turning point show for you.

Do 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 uh segue into gilbert doing his james mason impression but you said that was kind of a turning point where jack parr's advice jack kicked in for my amazement called me on the telephone in my apartment about three weeks before i started doing 90 minute show on And he said, 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 do interviews. That's Q and A and who's your favorite this. It's just facts. It's just boring. Make it a conversation.

And, of course, that's it. And that was the show. I had learned that with James Mason. I think it was the first time it really happened. Did you use to do James Mason as Ralph Cramden? Ah, yes. With Richard Burton as Norton. Yeah.

Go ahead, lay a little of it on, Dick. And, okay, let me see if I still remember this. Check your memory book. Okay. Oh, yeah, I used to do, you know, 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 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, James Mason's commercial for what wine? Thunderbird wine. Oh, yes.

Yes, he did Thunderbird commercial. He's in a dinner jacket in the Caribbean somewhere on a moonlit patio with his glass, like Orson Welles did in his commercial. Yes. His was Almaden, wasn't it? Geez. He what? Orson Welles for, like, Almaden, I think, was the line.

I just remember that commercial. It was one of the... Where Orson Welles was totally... Oh, yeah. That's a great one. That's on YouTube. Oh, the French! Seeing these people,

they always had a little table, their little glass, and James Mason, I had to scan. This is a joke. It must be a sketch I've tuned into. No, it's James Mason doing Thunderbird 1. He must have had a couple of alimonies 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. That's hilarious. I remember James Mason,

I'm wondering if it was on your show, 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 streets.

Gilbert, you're impressing me. Hitler was not a bad painter. That'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! Dick, just for consistency's sake, give us a little bit of your Richard Liu, 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 God 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 Yank into Tokyo

and 30, World War II, and he played evil Japanese 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 Liu like this. It almost 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 be Dana Andrews and you say to me, because he and all his men

had been captured by Richard Liu. Can he do Dana Andrews? No, not really. That's my favorite. That's what all the audience comes to see. It'll have to be David Brenner setting up Richard Liu. 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. I must remind you, Captain, that a chain is no stronger than its weakest strength. Weakest strength.

They put Richard Liu as a surprise to me on my show. Everybody had a secret, and I couldn't imagine. Oh, that's great. 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, 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, bong, b 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 Liu and doing Richard Liu to Richard Liu. Yeah. Fantastic. What a lovely man. He wrote me thank you notes. I 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 thought, this will sound crazy. It's a little bit up where Katharine Hepburn's voice is.

Hello. It's up in there. So, I must remind you, Katharine, that's a little bit of that. I'm slightly hoarse at the moment. Dick is on our very first show. He was of that time period, like World War II, when they would hire the Chinese actors to be evil Japanese. While they were murdering his family back home, he was playing them on the screen. 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 didn't that's so 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? Eduardo Cianelli. I would recognize him in a minute. Did you see Henry Armetta? You would in a second. He's made 150 movies.

I saw you at the 92nd Street Y with Alec Baldwin, 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, 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 there was a chair with John Carradine's name, and by magic, he came kind of walking by. He had a lot of arthritis, but he 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 Wendt. The Duke came by. Hey, Duke! And Carradine, as the Duke passed his chair, John Wayne 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 going to ask you to do him. I can't do John Carradine. Hello, Duke. It was Weather or Horse Force. Close enough. You know, Frank, I do this for you, but I can turn any conversation back to the Marx 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, the Woody Allen film, was written for Groucho. What? Wow. Did you know that, Gil?

Oh, no. It was written for Groucho, and Groucho at that point was a little bit past remembering lines and doing that sort of work, and he just wasn't up to it. Well, Aaron's in it. Yeah. I think that might have been part of the deal. Aaron Fleming's in the movie. I think that was part of the deal actually right right it was conceived for

groucho and carried you had to come into it i i think lon chaney jr went up for that part because there was an audition i read about yeah there were a lon chaney jr audition for woody allen well i'm pretty sure erin got the gig because groucho agreed to do it. And then Groucho had to pull out, and Aaron stayed. Here's a quick Marx 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 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. What was the story of how it was very strange in the movie Story of Mankind that it was the Marx Brothers 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 Groucho's 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 Erin 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. My secretary tried to hide a note.

And I said, okay, let me see it. I might have had Ali on, or I might have had Jane Fonda on, or somebody else who might have spoken about Vietnam, or something of that nature. Waco, Texas. Dear Dick Cavett, you little soded-off faggot communist shrimp.

Communist shrimp. There was a return address I wrote back, I'm not sawed-off. Isn't that right? So could you answer his question about Aaron Fleming? Do you want to answer

the question about Aaron Fleming or do you want to answer the question about Aaron Fleming or do 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

with 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 uh suffering with a load

of mental personality problems that plagued her. And it was a sad life. Yeah, she did come to a very sad end. She wound up being homeless, I think. She did?

Yeah, she wound up being homeless and then wound up shooting herself. Yeah, yeah. Here's one for Bader before we get out of here because these guys have to go to a Stephen Colbert show. Peter Blitstein, what was the most surprising thing you discovered about the Marxists

in writing four of 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 that they got blacklisted twice which is perfect because they're the March Brothers they should get do things to get themselves blacklisted but that was you know the real story for me that surprised me very interesting surprising Mr. Blitzstein 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. 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.

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've 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 March. I saw some of it, and it's terrific. You know, the night he proposed marriage to Truman Capote, he was wearing that fabulous golf hat that Quentin Bill and I had two little golfers knitted on it and three little knitted golf balls. 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.

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 means Tallulah. Oh, yeah. Chico wanted desperately to meet Tallulah Bankhead. 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 party or something and said Miss Bankhead this is my brother Chico Chico Miss Tallulah Bankhead and he said

I want to fuck you Miss Bankhead and she said to her eternal credit and so you shall you old-fashioned boy. 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 Santopadre. We've been talking to expert expert on old things marxian robert bader and we've also don't do it to me now dick is an abbreviation of Richard. Like, if you don't want to say Richard, you say Dick.

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. Cabot, can I have your autograph? And Mr. Cabot 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, they think that other people call them.

Some people also 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 got to get across town.

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