Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Richard Benjamin

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

GGACP celebrates the 40th anniversary of the classic comedy "My Favorite Year" (released October 8, 1982) by revisiting this memorable interview with the film's director, actor-director Richard Benjamin. In this episode, Richard looks back on his six-decade career in Hollywood and recalls memories of working with Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Clint Eastwood, Mike Nichols and Orson Welles. Also, James Mason pulls a fast one, Walter Matthau plays the ponies, George Burns orders the soup and Johnny Guitar meets Lawrence of Arabia. PLUS: "He & She"! The genius of Michael Crichton! The brilliance of Buck Henry! Richard pursues Albert Finney! And Gilbert sings the theme from “Goodbye Columbus”! 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 this is gilbert godfrey and i'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast, where once again, recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Furtarosa.

Our guest this week is an accomplished director of film and television and one of the most versatile and recognizable actors of the last six decades. You've seen him on TV shows like Mad About You, Titus, Ray Donovan, Saturday Night Live, Children's Hospital, the Buck Henry-created series Quark, and the situation comedy He and She, co-starring his longtime spouse, Paul Apprentice. His film work includes memorable roles in Catch-22, Goodbye Columbus, Westworld, The Last of Sheila, Diary of a Mad Housewife, The Sunshine Boys, House Calls, Love at First Bite, The Last Married Couple in America, and Disconstructing Harry. Or Deconstructing Harry. Oh, Disconstructing.

He's been celebrated for his work behind the camera directing popular features such as Racing with the Moon, City Heat, Mermaids, Little Nikita, The Money Pit, and a film we've discussed at length on this very podcast, My Favorite Year. In a long and prolific career he's worked with and alongside George Burns, Sidney Poitier, Mike Nichols, Walter Matthau, Peter O'Toole, Mel Brooks, Sean Penn, Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, Neil Simon, Steven Spielberg, Shirley MacLaine, and Tom Hanks, to just name a few. And if that wasn't impressive enough, he also joins a select group of our guests to have met the legendary Buster Keaton. Please welcome to the podcast one of our favorite actors and a man who once turned me down for a part in the film My Stepmother is an Alien.

The multi-talented Richard Benjamin. Thank you, Gilbert. When did that happen? When did I turn you down? Yes, I actually went out and auditioned. I think I flew to L.A. What was the matter with me? Yeah.

What was the part? What was wrong with me? Were you the stepmother of the alien? Which one were you? Yeah. I think I was one of those parts like the best friend of somebody. Probably Dan Aykroyd's best friend yeah well i apologize for that yeah yeah i don't know if i accept that although it's not gonna although it's not gonna change anything

but just just so i can throw this in i did see a review of my stepmother as an alien, which said, not as terrible as most people say it is. Those are always, I love those. Those are my favorite kind because there's nothing in there that you can hold on to. If I go to Paula and say, look, there's there's a positive well it's not quite positive richard we were talking before we turned the mics on and you are a new yorker like us you're from you're from the upper west side i am we're coming to you from west 45th street right now and you oh great you were telling us you went way back with one of our recent guests tony roberts tony roberts yeah we've been friends for a long time. We met at school at Northwestern, and I went to the High School of Performing Arts right near

you on 46th Street. It's now combined with another school, but it was pretty amazing. You did indeed. Your parents weren't in the business, but Gilbert finds this interesting, and I did too. We both realized you had an uncle in Vaudeville. Well, I had an uncle in Vaudeville well I had an uncle in vaudeville named Joe Browning and when I was working with George Burns in the Sunshine Boys he would ask me to go to lunch every single day and at MGM and he would uh we would walk between these two giant sound stages and he would always say kid you want to have lunch with me and you know this was like a dream come true George Burns is saying kid, you want to have lunch with me? And, you know, this was like a dream come true. George Burns is saying, hey, kid, you want to have lunch with me?

And we'd walk along those stages and he'd tell me this joke that he told me every single day, the same joke every day for three months. And I laughed every single time. He ordered the same thing from the same waitress every single day. And it looked to me like this waitress had been there since silent movies. And she said,

oh, hello, Mr. Burns. Hello, Helen. How are you? Fine. I would like some soup. Yes, Mr. Burns. And I would like it to be hot. Yes, Mr. Burns.

Do you know how hot I would like it? No, Mr. Burns. I would like it so hot that you can't carry it. And I laughed every single day for three months because it was him. But I said, do you know my uncle? He said, why? I said, he was in Vaudeville.

He said, what was his name? And I said, Joe Browning. He said, well, he said, he was in Vaudeville. He said, what was his name? And I said, Joe Browning. He said, well, he said, your uncle was a headliner, and Gracie and I were on the bill with him, and he was a headliner, and we were down on the bill, and he said, I know his act. I said, you know his act? He said, yeah, you want to hear it?

And he did my uncle's act sitting there in the commissary at MGM. That's great. And then later, when I, well, later I found a recording in Argentina of my uncle doing his act. Somebody, in fact, it was my son-in-law said, well, have you ever looked him up? And I said, no. He said, well, why don't you? There's an internet now. And I said, oh yeah. So I punched his name in and there was a recording in an archive in Argentina of my uncle. And I got it and got it transferred because it was on like an old 78 or something. And I got it and got it transferred because it was on like an old 78 or something. And I got it transferred and out at a place in Culver City.

And my wife and I in the parking lot put this thing into the, you know, CD player of the car. And sitting there in that parking lot, I'm hearing my uncle's act. And about two miles away, it was the act that George Burns did for me at MGM. You know, it's just completely amazing. That is cool. And another actor, another great star from the Sunshine Boys. What do you remember about Walter Matthau? Oh, Walter.

Walter, well, for one thing, he was a godfather of our daughter. Walter, besides being a great actor, Walter was the most wonderful man, the most lovely person you could possibly be with. And I learned a great deal from him, not only about acting and stuff, but how to be a person. And Charlie is his son. And before we had kids, I saw how Walter and Carol were with their son, Charlie. They just loved him so much that he couldn't stand it anymore.

And I said to Paula, that's the way we're going to be. We're going to be like that. And that is what we did. Oh, and you decided to becomeula that's the way we're gonna be we're gonna be like that and that is what we did oh and you decided to become parents because you were inspired by well it wasn't the only thing well i mean yeah but it was part of the it was part of it and seeing what unconditional love does to a kid you know and we decided well we'll just have to be that way. Yeah. A great, great man. Gilbert does a pretty fair Walter Matthau impression.

Yeah? You want to give a little Walter Matthau for Richard? It's not the Belasco Theater, it's the Murasco Theater. Just say, knock, knock, knock. Great. You also have to, as long as we're talking about math, you should really tell that that story is wonderful about you and Walter doing house calls and you asking him if he was going to do any prep for his character. Oh, yeah, yeah.

So we're doctors. And I said, well, we have to, you know, we're operating on people. We're surgeons. And he said, yeah. So I said, we have to, you know, we're operating on people. We're surgeons. And he said, yeah. So I said, we have to see an operation. He said, what for? So I said, because we have to know how to handle the scalpel. We have to know what it looks like, you know,

when real doctors are operating. He said, let me ask you something. Do you think that people, I'm Walter Matthau, you know, do you think that people are going to think I became a doctor to be in this movie? I said, I don't know, but I'm telling you that we have to go see an operation. Well, he had a good friend, a heart surgeon, and he said, all right, we're going to go out there and watch an operation is that what you want to do I said yeah so we go out to this place which is not far actually from Hollywood

Park which I later found out which is why he knew so well where this was. And we get there, and they're saying, okay, you people have to suit up, and gets all the sterilized things. And he said, I'm not doing this. I said, what? He says, no, I'm not doing that. He said, I don't think you should do it either. I said, come on, we have to do this. He said, no, you go in there.

I got to make a phone call. we have to do these and now you go in there uh i gotta make a phone call um and what i hear him as he's i'm suiting up and he's making a phone call and it's something about an exactor in the third race and it's something about the fourth race pick this one i said what's he doing? He's making a bed or something. Anyway, I go inside, and they say, have you ever seen an operation before? And I said, no, no, no. And they said, well, you might want to sit down. And I said, no, no, no, no. I have to observe this. I have to see what this is like.

over this person and doctor makes a an incision straight down or the guy's chest almost to his navel now the next thing that i remember is i see linoleum i'm lying flat out on the floor i don't see any of that i just see the floor And this nurse comes over to me and she rolls me over and she says, so what was this, your first opening? And I said, you know, I was confused. I said, well, I've opened on Broadway and I've opened in some shows. No, no, no. Was this the first time you've seen anything? I said, yeah. She said, we told you to sit down. So then she says, well, maybe you better lie here for a few minutes because we do have a patient here that's under anesthesia. We have some work to do and you probably don't want to see the closing. So afterwards they take me out in a wheelchair because I can't even stand after what I've seen

me out in a wheelchair because I can't even stand after what I've seen. And they wheel me out there and Walter is standing there and he's still on the phone. And he said, what the hell happened to you? So I said, well, I watched part of it. He said, so you didn't learn anything, right? I said, no, I don't think so. And he said, you didn't learn anything. And I made $3,000 on the phone here. Oh, that hurts and art carney was in house calls with you all right yes what was art carney like i don't we haven't had too many we've done 170 of these things i don't think we've had too many people that have worked with art carney if anybody we were trying to get joyce randolph yeah we worked real hard to get joyce randolph to come on she's here she's local but yes that'd be good we were trying to get joyce randolph yeah we worked real hard to get joyce randolph to come on she's here she's local but yes that'd be good as yet have unconvinced have not convinced

her yeah lovely guy um you know it's you know when you know working with these people who you've seen all your life i mean our carny was newt the waiter on the Maury Amsterdam show. Golden Goose or whatever that was. It was called Silver something one time. It was called the Golden something. I can't remember. Yeah, but, you know, in very early Dumont television, W.A.V-D, and working with all these people, at first, you know, you're kind of in awe because you've grown up with these people. But terrific, you know, professional, hardworking guy, but lovely to be around and stuff.

I've met mostly great people. Very few of the other kind there's a short list and i won't tell you who's on that list but it's it's short but mostly it's people like you were saying like mathau and carney and george burns and you know i've been pretty lucky that way well you're a movie you were a movie fan you were a kid who grew up on the upper west side as we were talking about you had your two neighborhood theaters what was one the 81st street rko 81st street and lowes 83rd right and there was another theater the beacon theater which is now the beacon you know oh the beacon theater was a movie theater it was a movie wow i didn't know that did you know that yeah

that's cool stuff yeah it was a movie theater and i was in there as a little kid all the time they had even a little a stage show before the movie uh and I'd be in there all all day long on Saturday uh and there was another one on 77th street that became I think a supermarket or something but that yeah that's where I grew up and so later in life and I'm doing research for this episode I watched The Last of Sheila with my with with my wife uh which was great and I'm doing research for this episode, I watched The Last of Sheila with my wife, which was great. And I'm saying because I'm starting to get a sense of Richard's appreciation of these people. And you're doing these scenes with James Mason. And he must have been one of those pinch me kind of people. Like, what am I doing here with James Mason?

You bet. And we had this big scene at the end of the movie and and james james when all the women diane cannon and rachel welch and joan hackett right and we were on this great cast we were on this boat um uh and the interior was a set but of course the exterior is a real boat. And James, you know, had a very dry sense of humor, and we'd be out at sea, and he said, you know, all the women are on board, can't you feel it? And so he said to me,

do you want to have a cup of tea in the lounge on the boat? And I said, sure, yeah, okay, that'd be great. I mean, I get to sit down with you. And he's talking to me about a lot of different things. And then I said, this sounds familiar, this conversation. I said, holy crap, this is tomorrow's scene i said we're rehearsing he slipped into it and it became a rehearsal that's well it was amazing because unlike most of the time you know you're working with an actor and you know when that actor's mouth stops you talk he talks then you talk but here it was completely real and even though i knew all the lines and stuff i didn't

have to think about any of them because we were in this kind of zone of some kind of real thing and then the next day we did the scene and it was like magical you know working with him so i thought you know he is probably certainly one of the greatest movie actors that ever was uh and i mean you think about lolita and a whole oh yeah no question you know odd man out oh man the list goes on yeah the list goes on and so that was pretty magic that was one of the greatest acting experiences I ever had in a movie. It's a terrific. You know that movie, Gilbert? The Last of Sheila? Oh, yeah.

Written by Tony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, of all people. Yeah. And, you know, it's a great, because Stephen and Tony, who had these, played these games all through New York. I don't know if you know that they had these treasure hunts all through New York and scavenger hunt-like things and breaking up everybody in teams and stuff. And they used the city as the clues. And people would be out there in cabs and subways and stuff, and you'd go, there's a lady holding a torch for you and you think oh it's the statue of liberty and you'd zoom out to there and there'd be a clue out

there it was all over the city it was amazing so they wanted to create something that you could actually in the last of sheila you can play the game you can actually figure it out and they didn't want to have one of these things you know where the guy or the the the detective at the end rounds everybody up and says this is what must have happened because you couldn't have been here and you could the answer to the last of Sheila is in the title yeah it starts immediately and you can actually play the game uh along with the people in the movie I gotta tell our listeners to check that movie out if you haven't seen it. It's a lot of fun. And what was Raquel Welch like to work with?

Oh, I know where you're going. What was she like? She was good. You know, she was fine. And we had a bomb scare there, and we didn't know it, but we had bodyguards, and we had people following us because there was some kind of group that targeted the movie and the people in it and stuff. But for a while, we didn't even know that and so people were following and i didn't

i thought people when i i didn't know anyone was you know being security for us i i never saw them or anything but i saw people following raquel and i thought well that's just i don't know of course sure why not follow raquel That's a good idea. But later I realized they were people that were concerned about our security and stuff. Wow. But she was great. She was great. Who were these people who were?

Well, it's interesting. It's interesting. I think it might have been Black September. I can't quite remember. Do you remember that group? No, I don't. Do have been Black September. I can't quite remember. Do you remember that group? No, I don't. Do you know Black September? No. That wasn't the one with Hirsch, was it?

No, you're thinking of the SLA, Patty Hirsch. No, no, no. I think it was. But the interesting thing is we had a partly Israeli crew, we had an is partly israeli crew and we thought this was all not fun but we didn't take it seriously and they came to us and said you have to pay attention to this you people don't realize how serious this is the israelis knew uh that there was no fooling around with this well you're in the south of france yeah we were in We were shooting in Nice and Cannes all through there. But everything was fine.

Terrific, fun movie. We'll be back to the show after these important messages. You'll flip for $4 pancakes at A&W. Wake up to a stack of three light and fluffy pancakes topped with syrup. Only $4 on now. Dine-in only until 11 a.m. at A&W's in Ontario. Gifting dad can sometimes hit the wrong note. Oh.

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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 gonna fly. New episodes Sundays. Watch free on CBC Gem. Gilbert and Frank They're the ones that you can thank And now back to the show. You know, Gilbert will appreciate this too.

First, I'm going to put you on the spot and make you do a little James Mason for Richard. Oh, yes. Good. We might as well entertain him while we've got him here. Congratulations, my dear. I seem to have made it just in time, haven't I? There's no need to be so formal. I know most of you on a first-name basis.

I've made a lot of money for you over the years. Well, I'm here because I need a job. I'm not just restricted to drama. I can do comedy as well. That's pretty damn good. What do you think, Richard? Great, Mr. Norman Maine. That's right.

There you go. Yes. He's a movie buff. Yeah, great. Excellent. Gosh, it's like he's here. But what I was getting to, and this will make Gilbert happy, is that one of- Ben, before I forget.

Uh-oh. You can't be Lear Fonsworth anymore. Oh, you do the modern day James Mason from Heaven Can Wait. Since you were a movie buff, Richard, and spending time in those theaters, one person you got to work with, I think first project the first project for the screen that you directed and you'll know where i'm going with this you did a you did a tv pilot version of uh where's papa i did yeah and who and gilbert will love this who was in the ruth gordon role was elsa lanchester oh geez the bride of frankenstein how about that? And it was amazing. Amazing.

I mean, when you think about the people, and you mentioned Buster Keaton before. Yeah, we'll ask about him too. The people that you run across and worked with and stuff. And she was fabulous. And Marvin Wirth produced that. And we made the pilot, and the pilot was pretty good. And he took it to ABC, was an ABC pilot. And he said, they thought it was great,

but they're not going to put it on. I said, why? And they said, because we think that mother is crazy. And I said, really? You think she's crazy because she's trying to kill her son at the beginning of the movie is that and they said we can't have any crazy mothers on abc so i said well tell them tell them she's eccentric so they said i told them she's eccentric they said we don't care we don't want any crazy

people so it didn't but it it it was good for me because I had something to show. Yeah. Yeah. What was she like? I mean, and again, is that a moment where you're saying, oh, here I'm a kid who grew up in these movie theaters and now I'm Tom directing The Bride of Frankenstein. Yeah.

I mean, it's an out-of-body kind of thing. You know, it's like little dreams coming true all the time. And yet you've got to make your day. You're working, you know and uh you know you're you're directing these people and you and it's it's like it is you know you're a little kid growing up in the west side of new york and you're telling elsa lanchester and sydney poitier and peter o'toole and other people what to do, you know? So how did that happen? How did it happen?

And you work with Woody Allen. Yeah. Tell us a little about Woody. Well, Paula made What's New Pussycat. Oh, yeah, with O'Toole. With O'Toole. In fact, it was Paula who suggested O'Toole to me for my favorite year. In fact, it was Paula who suggested O'Toole to me for my favorite year.

And so she knew Woody, and they're still very good friends. And so then I got a call. He asked me to be in, you know, Deconstructing Harry. And it's so amazing because everybody, you only get your scenes. You don't get the whole script. He sends you your scenes and then nobody supposedly has a, but Judy Davis, who I work with, and all the other people in that movie, we just give each other all of our scenes. So we finally put together a script.

So we knew what it was. Did he know you were doing that? He didn't care. Oh, he didn't care. He didn't care. He doesn't care about any of that thing. And when we start to work, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, when we start to work, he said, you can say those words that I wrote or you can say anything you want.

So we all said, you know what? We're going to say just what you wrote, okay? Because that's funny enough as far as we're concerned. And he doesn't say very much, but it's a misnomer about him to think that he's aloof at all. He loves to laugh and you see him laughing off camera. And he's aloof at all. He loves to laugh, and you see him laughing off camera, and he's funny on the set, and it's a delightful kind of experience. And now with my favorite year,

I mean, the premise takes place like the making of the Sid Caesar show. Yeah. But the Peter O'Toole character, tell us where that originally comes from that came from this is so crazy so michael greskoff has a script that he coming to Chicago in 1880 and a cub reporter trying to keep him from, a drunken gunfighter and a cub reporter's got to keep him sober

for some kind of thing in 1880. So Mel says, I don't want to do that. Let's do this. So it becomes my favorite year. Oh, but he took the basic conceit of it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So then, and you're absolutely right. There were no real guest stars on your show of shows. There was nobody like that, but Norman Lear, I believe told Mel that Errol Flynn was on the Martha Ray show. Oh, yes.

And he'd been on it quite a few times. Not always, let me say, steady on his feet. And she said that, and Norman told Mel that it was incredible because just to get him on the set and get him going was just an amazing bit of work. Plus, he also had the most gorgeous silk shirts he'd ever seen in his life. That kind of character. So that's how that character got melded into the show of shows because as i say they didn't really have guest stars like that right yeah and then norman wrote that script yeah

our pal norman steinberg has been on that only norman wrote that script i don't know if he he told us yep you know i'm telling you and whatever you, I won't go into it too much on that screen. In those credits, you know, it's one of those hideous things. But I know, because I was there, that it's only Norman who wrote that script, with some fabulous jokes also from Mel. Oh, it's just hilarious. And what was Peter O'Toole like to work with? Oh, it's just hilarious.

What was Peter O'Toole like to work with? O'Toole was, he was like, I mean, a consummate, it was like a thoroughbred. It was like working with a racehorse that was in top condition, which he was then, and you just had to come up to his game because his game was pretty amazing. I don't ever think I ever made more than three takes with him because it would be like howitzers, you know, shelling ships or he'd be on one side of one, and then bang, he'd hit the thing

right in the middle. And so Mark, Mark Lynn Baker, you know, really, really stayed up with him. And we did one very long scene with a long take I did on top of this roof when he falls off of the building and, you know, and it's the whole front part of that scene is really, really long. It's like a farce play. And after we did that, and he hadn't said much about Mark in the shooting before that, and he came up to me and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, I like the lad. You've chosen well. I mean, that's the way he spoke.

I mean, that was high praise, high praise for Mark. And he was just, you know, at the top of his game in there. He also took out jokes. Oh, he did? Yeah, he would take. We, Norman, after he was cast, after we cast him, we worked on it some more, and we put more jokes in there and everything.

And then when we were going to shoot the first thing we shot, which was in Central Park, he came to me. It was, you know, the sun wasn't up yet. And he said, there's funny stuff here, but suppose I told a real story about me. Suppose I told something real, which maybe is about me and maybe isn't. And I said, sure. And after that, if we're not crazy about that, we'll do the other stuff. He said, yes, absolutely.

other stuff he said yes absolutely but and so he weaved this story about where he came from and everything kind of you know as a little playlet or something and afterwards and i said then he said so do you want to do the jokes and i said we're just fine we'll be moving on now. But he was so sensitive to the underlying parts of that character that he didn't want to make it just silly or something. He was very wise about that. So and in other places, he found jokes. You don't think of Peter O'Toole as a comedy guy. You think of Lion and Winter and Lawrence of Arabia. Well, yeah, and when I first had to actually direct him, which was that morning in the park, this is an amazing thing.

Here's something amazing. So we've got about a half hour until the sun's coming up, and I have a rehearsal with them with he and Mark and I can hear on headphones you know them saying the dialogue because they're far away and you know it's kind of dragging and it's a little slow and I thought okay this is the first shot of of the movie it's my first directing of a movie and it's my first shot in a movie. And it turns out, as I say to myself, okay, you are now going to direct Peter O'Toole. That's the job here. They've got to be faster and actually funnier.

So I'm starting to walk up this path in Central Park where I grew up practically. And as I'm starting up there I'm seeing so let's see Lawrence of Arabia, Lord Jim, the one with Catherine Hepburn, Lion and Winter, that's who I'm going to be talking to in a minute and telling them what to do. So I get up there and I'm doing this little kind of dance. I said, you know, it's good. Everything's good. It's really good. Because you know when a director says that, they want something else. So I said, you know, I think if we just, you want it faster and funnier, am I right? So I said, you got it.

I said, oh, this is easy. Directing is easy. But then just before we're about to shoot, a figure comes up over the rocks there where we are by the lake there where we were, a huge imposing man and a giant beard. There's nobody in the park. I mean, it's still night. And I look and I said, is that Sterling Hayden? I love that.

Is that Sterling Hayden? I love that. It's Sterling Hayden at 4.30 a.m. I'm about to start shooting this movie. I said, it's becoming, you know, magical in crazy ways. And he comes up to me and he said, I said, Mr. Hay said yes I said what are you doing here so he said well I did this movie John Brown's Body and I played John Brown and I had a long dialogue scene, which I thought I was pretty good at. And they called me last night, and they want to loop it. They say there's something not quite right with the sound.

They want me to redo it. And I'm taking a walk here to think if I should do that or say no, because I think it's one of the best things I've ever done. And that's why I'm out here thinking it over. You know, this is madness in a fabulous kind of way. Had you met him before? No, no. I'm looking.

Down there is the lion in winter and Lawrence of Arabia up here is Jack Ripper from strange love. And you know what I mean? Johnny guitar. You know what I mean? What the heck? You know, he's going. Who else is in the park? That's great that he was in the dark.

Yeah. And then he said to me, is that the way he put it? Is that the O'Toole down there? So I said, yes. He said, I wouldn't mind an introduction. I said, I'd be happy to. And he said, are you directing this? And I said, yes, I am.

He said, well, you're doing this with a great deal of equanimity. An interesting man with an interesting life, Sterling Hayes. Yeah. And for those listeners who don't know him, just remembering the Godfather. Sure. I've searched a million of these books. McCluskey. Yeah. Also was sought for the role of Quint in Jaws before.

Oh, yes. Is that right? And wound up not getting it for, I don't know the exact reason. Well, he had the right background for that. Sure, right. And he was a whaler, you know. Yeah. By the way, that cast in my favorite year, the supporting cast,

I mean, the great Joe Bologna, Selma Diamond. We love, Gilbert and I love Bill Macy. Oh, yes. Bill's great. We're not married to it? It's the whole, everything about that movie is just, is golden, Richard. You have a lot to be proud of. Oh, thank you. Thank you. And you

sought Albert Finney originally. That's another funny twist. They had offered it to him, and they said he's up in Sausalito, and here I am. You know, I get to make a movie at MGM if he says yes. And I went up there, and he said, convince him to do it. And there's a very short list of people, and if he doesn't do it, you know, I don't know. We don't know um we don't know and i went up there and and he was on i lived on a houseboat he was making a movie shoot the moon oh sure yeah and he had done two movies before and you know actors know actors and i thought he's not doing this he's

not doing this i can tell we have nice lunch together and then finally you know I get around to the question I said so will you do the movie he said you know I really like the script but uh I have to go back to the stage I've made three movies here uh I only they'll pay me a hundred pounds a week on the west end but I've got to go back to the theater. So I said, well, you know, sorry. And then I called from the airport, and I called, I think, Mike Gruskoff, and I said, he's not going to do it.

And I called Paula, and Paula said, what about Peter? And when I got back down there, I called Michael back before, and I said, would they do it with O'Toole? And he said, well, he's the only other person on the list. Oh, wow. So when I landed back, he said, they will if you can find him. So that was the next deal, to actually find him, which we did. What's weird to me is like, or just like, it's nice to hear that Peter O'Toole is totally professional when he's working.

Because all you hear about him is like, you know, he's a wild drunk. Well, first of all, he couldn't drink at all. He had had part of his stomach taken out before that movie, and he literally couldn't drink anything. When we got to Brooklyn, where we had this sequence when he goes to visit Lainey Kazan. Also great. Rocky Carroca. Rocky Carroca, who was a coroner, by the way, not an actor.

He was a coroner in Los Angeles. And we go out to Brooklyn, and I'm getting all these people and extras and people because they know Alan Swan is arriving. And so I'm getting them to yell out the window as the car comes. Alan Swan, we love you. Apartment 3B loves you and all that. And then I hear on the track, Lawrence, Lawrence, Lawrence from Arabia.

And some other people who are not extras and have nothing to do with the movie see Peter O'Toole. So the other people are yelling Alan Swan. They're yelling not Lawrence of Arabia, but Lawrence from Arabia. Yeah. Lou Jacoby's great, too. Oh, Lou. I mean, there's just every performance, no matter how small.

Oh, yeah. Tell us about Lou Jacoby. I always loved him. Great. You know, again, these people, I mean, they're, you know, Woody says, Alan says, there are funny people and not funny people. And that's all there is to it. There's no discussion about it. There's no talking about it.

You know, any of those comedy kind of discussions of what's funny and isn't funny. And, I mean, Gilbert, nobody knows that better than you. And he's just funny. They see things in a funny way. And it's real close to tragedy, but it's not. And Lou, just every, you know, intonation, everything comes at it from that place. And just another delightful person to be around

and to work with. I mean, it was my first movie, and I kept thinking, is it always going to be like this? You know? Well, a lot of times it was, but sometimes it wasn't. Tonight, I predict, we'll get it on

the first take. We always get it on the first take. We have to. You do? Sure. This is live television. Live. Live. What does live mean? It means at the exact moment you're cavorting and leaping around that stage over there, 20 million people are seeing it.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Mr. Swan, you're white. You mean it all goes into the camera lens and then just spills out into people's houses? Yeah. Why does nobody have the goodness to explain this to me before? It's nothing to worry about, Mr. Swan. Our audiences are great.

Audience? What audience? You knew there was an audience. What did you think those seats were for? I haven't performed in front of an audience for 28 years. Audience? I played a butler. I had one line! I forgot it.

Don't worry. This is going to be easy. For you, maybe. Not for me. I'm not an actor! I'm a movie star! It's funny, too, because it's one of those things where you see O'Toole now, and as much as I love Albert Finney and admire him, I can those things where you see O'Toole now and as much

as I love Albert Finney and admire him I can't see anybody with Peter O'Toole no me either yeah and inhabits the thing he does through and through and through and Marklin Baker also also great yeah and he was the Mark was the very first person that I saw for that part uh Ellen Chenoweth was our casting director, and everybody said as soon as they read the script, and I didn't know who he was, and they said, get Mark Lynn Baker. So he's the first person I saw,

and they said, well, cast him. And I said, this is my first movie. I can't cast the first person I see. I have to see other people. So I did. I saw hundreds of other people, and then I cast Mark so first instinct yeah was right could we talk a little bit about Westworld sure since it's since it's the remake is is out there and it's been and it's been in the news yeah I mean and I've I've read interviews with

you and you said this is the only way that a guy like me is going to wind up in a western yeah yeah yeah i just read um sherry crichton michael's wife just sent me michael's new book which he started to write right after westworld um dragon teeth which is fabulous. And I just read and I was like spending time with Michael again, who he, you know, there are a few people who are the smartest people you've ever met. So it was Michael, Mike Nichols, and a few other people. And when you're in the room with them, you think you're smart too, because you got to stay up with them. And all of a sudden, you're real smart. As soon as they leave the room, you're not as smart as you were. That's interesting. And Michael, I got that script. I got that.

Sue Mengers was our agent. And Paula and I were in New York. And Sue called, and she said, said honey because it's the way she talked the legendary sue mengers wow yes honey um there's this movie and i think you'll be great and it's uh uh michael crichton and it's i don't know it's something of western but i don't know it's science something or other i don't know uh but you science something or other. I don't know. Uh, but you should do it. I said, well, let me send it to me, uh, to read it. And she said, I'll send it to you. You can read it, but I already told them that you do it. Uh, oh really?

Yeah. But fortunately it, it was that thing of a kid from the west side of New York who's going to be riding horses, being chased by Yul Brynner, and firing a six gun. And Yul is another fabulous person. I mean, it's amazing just going through all of this. He taught me how to shoot and not blink. Oh, as you fire the gun. Yes. He said, I don't care. He said, you look at big Western stars.

Because even though there are blanks in there, there's a big sound and a big charge goes out of there. In fact, little wads of paper fly out of there. So he said, I'm going to teach you big western stars you watch any of these movies and you'll see them blink when they fire these guns which by the way now is all i look for when i see any kind of western but he took me out behind uh in the back lot of mgm with a with a gun and he would put one cartridge in there and spin it. And you'd pull the trigger and you'd blink because you think it's going to go off. And then I do it again and you blink. But after a little while, it's not going off. And then when one goes off, you've actually trained yourself not to blink. And I don't blink in that movie, which is one of my favorite things

and greatest attributes in working in movies that you will not see me blink. And the other thing he said, do not let them see you get on the horse. Did you lie about being able to ride a horse? Me? Yeah. No, I actually could ride. Oh, okay i but it is like that thing can you oh yeah sure yeah i saw that interview yeah yeah yeah no i i heard us an interview with edward g robinson who was constantly firing guns in his movies and they said he was scared of guns and he would blink yeah uh he said don't let them photograph you uh big western stars start to get on they put their foot in the stirrup and then you make them cut away and then you settle into the saddle but you do not because those horses are big, you know,

so it's like you're scrambling up and climbing and stuff. Don't let them show you doing that. I learned a lot. Did he wear his costume from The Magnificent Seven? Did he have the same? Yeah, yeah. I don't know if it was the one, but it certainly was meant to be that. That is a truly wild motion picture.

Yeah. I never forgot it. I never forgot anything about that movie. It really made an impression on me. Yeah, no, I saw it. Thank you. I saw it not too long ago, and I actually, you know, there was a festival, a screening, and we were,

Paula and I were out. I said, no, I don't want to see it. I'll wait till after because there's going to be a Q&A. And she said, no, these people know every line in these movies, you know, and you'll get asked something and you won't know what they're talking about. So I went in to see it, and it holds up very well. Very well. It's menacing.

I mean, there's a real sense of terror. It is scary, yeah. And we, of course, have to have a Buster Keaton story. Well, the Buster Keaton story for me is a sad story because I was so young that I didn't know the whole thing. Do you know? I didn't know. Paula made this. Her first movie was Where the Boys Are, and George Wells wrote the script, and he had a boat out in the marina and he asked Paula and

if she'd like to come out to the boat and she said yes and I'd like to bring my well were we married I don't think we were married and my boyfriend with oh yeah sure and Buster Keaton was on the boat we were chatting with him and I half knew if i only knew then what i know now you know that this genius that's who i was talking to but those there have been a lot of things like that if i had only known everything we were met ginger rogers when we were real young and then later i see all of this stuff you know and uh with the uh, with the stare and everything. And it's like, you don't know, you're too young and you're all involved with yourself and everything. And, but, uh, boy, I would have loved to ask them, uh, so many things.

I did meet Stan Laurel. Yeah. I was just going to ask you about that. Did meet Stan Laurel. Uh, I think I have this story right that Jerry Lewis put he and his wife, Laurel and his wife, up in an apartment on Ocean. Oh, the one in Santa Monica. That's right. Yeah. That's right. God, you're vast knowledge.

I spend a lot of time reading about this stuff, Richard. We also had Chuck McCann on the show who knew go to that apartment oh so yeah and I think it was Jerry Lewis who saw them to that and it's interesting because my uncle Joe Browning that we talked about a while ago in the Beacon Hotel over the Beacon Theater that's where he and my Aunt Frances lived and in the middle of that small they they had a one bedroom, you know, kind of suite was a trunk. And it had JB with the letters intertwined. And it was like, have trunk, will travel. Those people were ready to go. You know, they were just waiting for the phone call. And when my friend Jerry Ziesmer was doing a treatise i think at ucla on laurel

and hardy and he said i'm going out to interview stan laurel do you want to come yeah uh so we went out and there's a buzzer down you know how you buzz in and he hit the buzzer and then you heard hello you know come right up you know and i said my god it's stan floor and in the middle of that little apartment was that same kind of trunk with sl you know intertwined i mean it was like he's ready to go he's ready to go out there um that's great yeah they said he was like an easy person to get he was in the phone book oh really dan laurel yeah that's how chuck mccann got got to him i think he picked up the phone when he was a kid and called him yeah when he was a young man and then you see go ahead sorry no i was i was also I heard Jerry Lewis wanted Stan Laurel to be his advisor. He made movies. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah. I just want to ask, too, about the Sunshine Boys and just to bring it back a little bit to your to your uncle. First of all, I did a little research on your on your uncle and Joe Browning. Did he have a partner named Al Levanvan did he did he work with another guy i know i i don't know that i saw him at the palace when i was five years old in new york my parents came i was in my little pajamas and robe and stuff and they said get dressed get dressed. We're going to see Uncle Joe. I don't know what the heck they were talking about. And they took me down behind the screen. There was a movie on before the show.

I had no idea what any of this was. And you can see through the screen because it's porous. So I saw all these people looking up. I don't know what the movie was, but they're all looking up in this direction. They're all looking at me, you know, but they can't see me. And then they get me around and take me to a seat, And he comes out with a minister's collar, his two front teeth blacked out and a round hat. And he was solo.

So the, he had no partner then. I don't know if he ever, I'll send, I'll send you the research I found. It's interesting. Oh, I'd love to see it.

Yeah. I'd love to see it. Well, what was the act? What did he do? He did. It's hard to, the, the, the, the it. Yeah, I'd love to see it. Well, what was the act? What did he do? He did. It's hard. What I heard, what George Burns told me and what I heard on the record, that I remember.

I think he did something very similar. He sang and he told jokes about marriage. They were marriage jokes or something. But I had no concept what this was because it's uncle joe but for some reason his teeth are blacked out or he doesn't have any as far as i knew he didn't have teeth at that time and he's talking and these people are laughing and what what is this what's what's are these his friends or what? But, yeah. You're like Groucho.

You had an uncle in vaudeville. Yeah. And a hardscrabble life. I mean, we had, I don't know if you've read Cliff Nesterov's book, The Comedians, which is a great read about, we recommend it to you. But there's a whole section in the book about vaudevillians and what they went through. The Marx Brothers. I mean, not an easy life at all oh no no no i mean traveling all over and eight shows uh well four shows a day or something like that you know and unscrupulous managers and people stealing their money and yeah no you know no theatrical unions to protect them. Yeah, yeah. Like they said, they had rat-infested dressing rooms.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and also, and I think he was on The Sullivan Show, my uncle, I think. But here are these people playing the Keith Circuit or wherever, doing the same act for 20 years, 30 years and everything. One shot on the Sullivan Show and that's it. It's over. What else you got? So when the Sunshine Boys was presented to you,

you had a soft spot for this kind of story. Is it Smith and Dale that the boys are supposedly based on? Because I hear different things. I know Gallagher and Sheen didn't like each other either. No, no, it's Smith and Dale. And Joe Smith, I came to one of our sets in New Jersey. He was staying at a home up there in New Jersey near Englewood or something. And he came there one day.

Yeah, no, it uh Smith and Dale because that whole sketch is so much like the Cronkite sketch and stuff uh yeah that must have been a fun movie to make just to be I know you said Math has spent a lot of time in his trailer but just be when when George and I went to lunch he stayed he never went out. Yeah. And he played classical music there, and he stayed there during lunch. Yeah. But just to be with those two guys. Oh, man. It was the best.

It was really the best. Yeah. You put down the variety and listen to me? I left three clients sitting in my office so I could come over here. That makes four of us not awake. How's the children? Oh. Since when are you interested in my children? You could come over here. That makes four of us out of work. How's the children? Oh, since when are you interested in my children? You haven't seen them in a year.

You don't even remember their names. Millie and Sidney. Amanda and Michael. What's the matter? You didn't like Millie and Sidney? You forgot, so you made something up. You forget everything, like buying fresh food. Listen, ABC... Do they know who I am?

What a great star I was. Who? Amanda and, and, and, uh, Chipkiff. Amanda and Michael. They're three years old, Uncle Willie. They don't remember Vaudeville. Abe. Why is it I only get aggravated when I come over here to see you? You want to meet you someplace else? Is that supposed to be funny? I don't think that's funny, Uncle Willie. Have you had a sense of humor you're thinking was funny? I don't think that's funny, Uncle Willie. If you had a sense of humor, you'd think it was funny. I have a terrific sense of humor. Like your father,

he laughed once in 1932. We're winding down, Richard, but we've got to ask you a little bit about Catch-22. Yeah. And you're talking about meeting larger-than-life figures. What about Orson Welles?

Well, so Welles, here's a story. So we were told not to talk to him. No one is to talk to him. And don't look right at him. Don't catch his eye and don't look at him. Really, Yeah. You're all young actors at this point. I mean, it's you and Balaban

and Arkin. Balaban and Arkin and John Voight and Marty Sheen, Peter Bonner, Charlie Grodin, Paula, yeah, everybody. So, yeah. Don't talk a cast. Yeah, everybody. So, yeah. Don't talk to him.

So, really? Okay. So, he never, he had this, he played General Dreidel. He had this uniform made for him because he was of some size. And he never, we only saw him in that uniform. We never saw him any other way so they bring him to the set with the set was in the middle of the desert near a runway that they built um in weimars and they put him in a chair and put an umbrella over him, and we're about 20 or 30 feet away,

and we're sitting under umbrellas, and there he is, you know? But we're not allowed to talk to him. Okay. After that lunch of that day, the assistant director comes over to us and says, Mr. Wells is very upset. Why? We said, well, nobody will talk to him. And he said, what are you talking about? We were told never to talk to him, not even look at him. Who told you that? I don't know, some assistant or somebody. And everybody said, yeah, we were all told that. Well, we don't know where that

came from. So right away, we all picked up our chairs and motored over right and surrounded him. And then it just took off. I mean, these stories were unbelievable and amazing kinds of stories. And then he told a story, a long story, about Leland Hayward, the producer. An amazing, convoluted, complex story which probably had some sexual parts of it or something. And it was funny and outrageous. And he finished the story what he didn't know is about a foot and a half away was brooke hayward leland hayward's daughter oh god who was going with buck henry at the time was there and she said oh mr wells Mr. Wells, I'm Brooke Hayward, Leland Hayward's daughter, and I think that story is not true at all. And he said, you know, you may be right.

How is it? I heard he was acting out a little bit, that he was giving other actors line readings and things like that uh he was doing he was doing things and and mike was very respectful and all of that uh mike said before he came he said now i may be a little different for a few days while he's here but then i'll be back to who i really am oh that's once he's gone but he would do things like, but Mike was respectful and humored him, and he would say things like, well, if that's the lens you're going to use and I'm in the foreground like this and you're over here,

won't I be out of focus? No, no, no. So there was a little of that going on. But Peter Bogdanovich was there interviewing him for a book or something, and we used to see them. These are all, you know, in Catch-22, there are these crazy kind of visions. Well, it became the being there was like these crazy visions. So off in the distance, we'd see Peter Vyodanovich under a parasol way in the distance interviewing a man in a general's uniform. And then he was gone.

So then his part finished. And then they found out they needed to make a shot. You wouldn't see his face or anything, but they needed to make a shot. You wouldn't see his face or anything, but they needed to make a shot. So Mike said, go get the uniform and get me a double because I got to just do this. You won't see him. Don't worry about it. And the costume coordinator said, well, we don't have the uniform. And there was no double. He said, what do you mean you don't have the uniform. And there was no double.

He said, what do you mean you don't have the uniform? He said, Mr. Wells left with the uniform. Bizarre. How bizarre. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. You were also, and this was, I think it's funny, it's around the time of The Graduate that these type movies were coming out.

You were in Goodbye Columbus. Oh, a favorite. A favorite. Oh, thanks. Yeah. No, movies were changing. You know, movies, they were getting to be about real people in real situations, and they had, you know, something to say about society and stuff.

Yeah, that was fortunate for me because, you know, before that, movies had, you know, Cary Grant and Clark Gable and, you know, people like that. Well, the right person at the right time. Yeah. So much timing the right time. Yeah. So much timing in the business. Yeah. What can you tell us about either Klugman or Jack Guilford? Oh, yeah.

Either Jack. Both of them. Again, you know, Jack Guilford, he lived on the Upper West Side. He lived near us. Also great. What was that? Was it a popcorn commercial what was that oh the cracker jack yes crack yes everybody remembers him yeah so so great uh and yeah he and his uh wife were down there on in wymas and um and klug you know, again, so you see 12 angry men filled with these fabulous people, Klugman and Jack Warden and, you know, these great people.

And then you're doing scenes with these people. So it's a dream. All of it's kind of a dream. But a delightful person. And, again, all professional, hardworking, but easy, uh, all good people. And,

um, and I knew when I saw Allie for the first time, I said, this is a, this, this girl's Allie McGraw, Allie McGraw. You can just tell just because I believe that it's who you are.

I think, I mean, I've tried to cast for who the person is, what's inside, what's their soul. I think that's what the camera reads. I think it sees who anybody is. It's like a laser. It goes right through them. And with her, she's such a genuine soul, Ali, that that, uh, it just comes through, I think. What did you mean?

I found a quote, Richard, if I can ask you, you make, make you believe in making films for the right reasons. Well, yeah, I mean, Phil Gersh was our, was our agent and Phil used to, was Bogart's agent for one. And he always said, just try and do good things and see what happens after that. You know, it's tough because sometimes you've got to, you know, pay the rent and you, it's hard to hold on to that in this business of doing something because you believe in it. But I have found that if I've done something for the wrong reason, it comes back to bite you. It, it, and it's harder when it's, you need to have the wind at your back. You need to sail along and being pushed by what you're committed to

and what you believe, especially if you're directing, because that's all there is. And if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, you know it, and every decision, every camera angle, everything about it is false because it's not for the right reason. And sometimes, I mean, sometimes you're wrong and you turn something down that, you know, turns out, but it's probably something you couldn't have done because you don't, you don't believe in it. It's too hard. I mean, making movies is hard, and everything conspires against you in every single way.

And you've got to cut through all of that and keep these blinders on because you think you know what this vision is, and nothing can dissuade you from it. But if you're doing it for the wrong reason and for the money or whatever, you know, you're open then. You're open to, you know, wherever it could go because you don't believe in it. So that's what I think I mean by that. And do you have a preference between acting and directing? What are you doing more of now, by the way? Well, I would like, I'm not doing enough right now to tell you the truth.

I mean, I've acted more recently, but I would like, I have a movie that I keep trying to get made. But, you know, we all know that story. I like, I love directing directing i always did from the very beginning it's what i did at school and stuff but how do you get to do it uh you know it's i can i can i can walk in and meet larry pierce and stanley jaffe uh the director and producer of goodbye columbus and somehow convinced them that they got to cast me in this movie. So, or I can go read for a play and get the job or don't get the job. And what, what are, what have I got? I've got, you know, just pair of shoes walking in there

and the script in my hand, but directing who's going to let you do that? You know, who's going to give you 15 or 20 million dollars to make a movie and with a cast and crew of 100 people, you know, so how to get to do that is really, really hard, but it is what I always wanted to do, and I did it at school. But when I came out of school, you know, I started to get work as an actor. I mean, it took a while, but I did. And our agent, Phil Gersh, who was basically a director's agent, asked me, so I know you want to do that. What are you doing about that? So he helped me get started in that, he and his son David.

Yeah, he handled Robert Wise and people like that, didn't he? Yes, he did. I also find it interesting that you not only went to directors for advice, but that you said that you learned something from a lot of these directors. You learned a little bit from Pierce and a little bit from Herbert Ross and a little bit from Mike Nichols. And from Clint. Yeah, and Clint.

And Clint Eastwood. Yeah, well, tell us that. Well, that's pretty great. I mean, Clint, I directed he in. Burt Reynolds. Burt Reynolds in City Heat. And Clint's, first of all, Clint on the set is, the crew loves him because the minute you say cut or something, he's picking up cable and stuff and he's moving stuff and you know, he's right, he's right in there. And he, what I learned

there is don't sweat it. Don't, don't sweat the, don't try to get for perfection, uh, at the expense of the good. Don't stay in the same setup. You know what happens. You get into a setup and you get comfortable in it and everything is set that way and you make the actors do it over and over again and you get little nuances, you get little differences and stuff like that. But mostly, I mean, I've even shot rehearsals

and the best stuff usually is right there at the beginning. But sometimes you have to do more. But he said, you're going to thank yourself later instead of staying there and doing all these takes in the same angle if you change it and get different angles. Because in cutting, that's where you're going to need the help. And instead of finding, well, that takes a little bit better than that take.

And also to move fast. He makes movies fast. And the crew loves it. The actors love it because of the energy of it. You don't get bogged down and so i learned a lot from him uh we and i we we there was a i did one scene and there was a huge scratch a giant scratch on the negative uh i mean now you know you could get rid of it but um and i said we have to reshoot that.

And he said, why? I said, well, look at that. I mean, we can't have that. He said, you know, this gets run through a projector two or three times. What do you think this is going to look like? You're going to have more scratches and stuff like that. He doesn't sweat any of that stuff. And he considers it all kind of an impression impressionistic thing it's like a mosaic you

know and it it comes together in a in a way that surprises you instead of sweating all this stuff and and trying to get perfection out of it so i learned a lot from him and i heard uh burt reynolds was injured and yeah he was he fell off uh he he he fell in his trailer or something and hurt his jaw uh and that uh you know we were really sailing along there pretty good the the first scene in that movie it it hadn't happened yet. And there's this fight scene, and it was a lot of fun and stuff and everything. But afterwards, it affected him. I mean, he got hurt. I mean, he worked through it. But, you know, he had that, I forget what you call it, but it is a jaw thing that affects you.

Oh, TMJ? Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think so. I had heard a story that they hit him with a chair that was supposed to be a collapsible chair, and they hit him with an actual chair. No, I love these stories. Maybe that wasn't Richard's movie. Maybe it wasn't something else.

No, it was in his trailer. No, it was in his trailer. He slipped or something in his trailer. No, nobody hit him with a chair that I know of. Yeah, because, I mean, for years after that movie, people were saying, oh, Burt Reynolds is dying. He's got some mystery illness. A fun movie, City Heat. You know, it's fun to watch those two guys,

those two big action stars yeah yeah yeah on the screen together yeah they uh yeah and they had known each other a long time and and stuff so yeah that was another one you know of saying look at this look what i'm doing right right how'd this happen i want to recommend to our on the subject of the movies you've directed too we've got about a million people a month listening to this show now, Richard. Oh, great. Which is a pleasant surprise to us because we started as a labor of love at Gilbert's Kitchen Table. Oh, that's great.

Three years ago, and now we're talking to Carl Reiner, and we just talked to Norman Lear and you. Oh, that's great. We had one guest whose name we won't mention, but he was already a little too old to be doing it. We don't talk about that one because we didn't use it. And I remember after we interviewed him, Frank and I were sitting in a pizza place together and I said, all right, we tried to do a podcast. All right, we tried to do a podcast, so. You know, we wanted to tell the history of show business, things that meant a lot to us, to talk about people like Elsa Lanchester

and to keep the memory of these people alive. That's nice. And we've done 170-something of them now. Is that right? Yeah, we've had Roger Corman here. We had Bruce Dern here. We made a picture with Julie Corman. Oh, Saturday the 14th.

Saturday the 14th. Yeah, you got some stories about that one. I'll bet. We'll wrap it up, but our fans are going to get on our case if we don't ask you one thing about Quark. Oh, Quark, yes. With the great Buck Henry. The great Buck Henry is right.

Quark, you know, there are a few people. It doesn't matter about the money or anything, but if they're doing something and it's like Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Woody Allen, Buck Henry, Neil Simon, there's a group. You got to get in there. Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, you got to say, anything for me in this area? And Buck is that. That Buck is that.

So I heard about that, and I called, and they said, well, whatever they – wherever they thought I was in the firmament of things. He said, we don't think we can afford you. I said, let's not concern ourselves about that. I read the thing, and I thought it was hilarious. So we actually made that pilot, and they picked it up. But we got fan mail from physicists, from actual physicists. Well, that thing about the black hole, you know, that's pretty close to what it should be,

even though we were collecting garbage in space. I'm going to just tell our listeners, if we weren't familiar with it, it was a sci-fi spoof about a garbage scowl. Yeah, yeah, he was a garbage collector in space. But you spoofed very intelligent sci-fi stuff. Yeah, but that's it. Like Kubrick. Yes, exactly. That was a garbage collector in space. But you spoofed very intelligent sci-fi stuff. Yeah, but that's it. Like Kubrick. Yes, exactly.

That's what you were after. And they said, people said, what is this? You know, should this be on Saturday morning or what is it? And, of course, there were only eight of them. And by that time, it was too late and NBC took it off but i mean you've got a place a a a a characters one character uh conrad janice is otto palindrome yeah he was fun well otto otto is a palindrome otto bob palindrome his middle name was a palindrome too. Oh, is that right? Yeah. And then he had another character, the head, who was only a head.

Right. And the two girls. Oh, Tim Thomerson. And Tim Thomerson, Gene, Gene, J-E-A-N. A funny guy. Yeah, really funny. Who would all of a sudden become a complete woman for a second and worry about his nails when we're supposed to be attacking aliens or something and uh and the two girls uh the barnstable girls right one one of them's real the other one's a clone and my character a quark is in love with one of them

but he doesn't know which one it is and it's i mean it's the kind of stuff that you just love it's a shame and you sometimes the of stuff that you just love. It's a shame sometimes the guests come on and they talk about these shows and Norman too we were talking with Norman Lear about Hot El Baltimore and some of his other things it's a different era you talk about timing there were only three

networks you had three shots at getting something like Quark getting a life for it today a show that intelligent and that offbeat you've got Amazon you've got Netflix it might have a life for it today a show that intelligent and that offbeat yeah you've got amazon you've got netflix it might have a life today that's right yeah yeah yeah how's buck doing you talk to him yeah so we see him all the time he's doing very well we want to get him on here oh that'd be great put a word in for us would you oh i will i will yeah um he's he's just uh great we saw him the other night, yeah.

When I send you the links about your uncle, I found an article in the New York Times. A friend of mine, Frank DiCaro, wrote a passionate article, an essay about Quark. Oh, really? About how wonderful Quark was. Yes, it's in the Times. Well, you know, there was a thing. Who did the DVD thing? Was it david kerr i can't remember anyway about three years ago two two three years ago he said this is what dvds were made for and he was talking about uh quark yeah shows like that yeah or mel show when things were

rotten yeah yeah you know shows with short-lived shows with great casts. Yeah. That didn't get the life they deserved. Yeah, yeah. And that other show that was Jerry Zucker's show, remember? Oh, Police Squad. Oh, yeah. Oh, God.

We're going to try to get Jerry or David on here to talk about that. Yeah, that would be good. Really good stuff. Yeah. So, Gil, anything good. Really good stuff. Yeah. So, Gil, anything else you want to ask this man before we let him get on with his life? This is really important for me. What's that?

And it's the only reason I agreed to do this interview. What is that? Goodbye, Columbus. The theme song was sung by the association. Right. You remember that, Richard? Yes. I do. Yes. Ahem. Uh-oh. Hello. You remember that, Richard? Yes. I do.

Yes. Uh-oh. Hello, life. Goodbye, Columbus. Yes, yes. Right. Got to say hello. It's a lucky day.

Kiss the moon goodbye and we're on our way. It's a lucky day because I found you. Going to build a new world around you Touch the sun and run It's a lucky day Hello life, goodbye Columbus I got a feeling that you're gonna hear from us You're gonna know that we're taking the world by surprise

Got that look in your eyes. It's a lucky day. Just for changing, leaving the world behind. Now you're torturing the men. Lucky day, walking a new road to clear your mind. It's a day for starting a new way. Tell everyone goodbye. It's a lucky day.

Oh, hello world. Goodbye, come on. Has anyone ever sung that to you in your career? Beg pardon? Has anyone ever sung that to you in your career, in all the interviews you've done? You know, let me think. I think it's the first time. time yeah i'm just trying to remember but i believe it is the first time

i wonder if it'll be the last it might be yeah there was there was an episode of quark called goodbye polumbus oh yeah which i found in my research. Richard Benjamin homage. Richard, there's so much we could do here. Oh, it's been, I really enjoy it, Frank. And Gilbert, I just think you're hysterical, by the way. I thought I should let you know that. Oh, thank you. Now, why didn't...

Oh, go ahead. Huh? Why didn't I cast you? You know I'm going to be thinking about this for a long time. You're going to give the guy the gilts. No, but what else were you going to say? You're going to say, Gilbert, you're fantastic, and I interrupt you. And things like that. I really have always thought you're just great.

Really, really funny. Oh, thank you. That's nice. See, the show has turned into an admiration society. Yes, yes. Norman Lear was saying that to him the other night, and he was sky high, Richard. Yeah. Well, it's true.

It's really true. And your thing of the aristocrats? Oh, yes. Brilliant. Completely brilliant. Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had a nice talk with your wife, and she seems very lovely.

She is. She's the reason this whole thing came to be. Of course, you don't have to live with her. Oh. I'm sure she's going to be very happy with that remote. I've done some things on television talking about Paula, and later people said, I don't think you can go home tonight. You guys were great just to bring up Paula too.

You guys and he and she, another show, if I may say, that I think would have a life today. Yeah, well, you know, we followed Green Acres. The first was Beverly Hillbillies and green acres and as we would our show would come on and at the end of green acres there was a little pig named arnold who danced oh yes arnold ziffle yeah and i said i said to paula you know i think these two shows that are so highly rated, I don't know if all those people who love this dancing pig are going to be coming over to us.

And, you know, our ratings just were not up to those two shows. But that city cosmopolitan thing quite, you know, hadn't quite happened yet. We were sort of at the start of that. Yeah, you were a little early. Like Gilbert was saying with Goodbye Columbus, kind of owing something to the graduate. I mean, true of that show, too. Yeah.

Because she was a working woman. That's right. Paula's character. Yeah. And we slept in the same bed. That too. If you look at the Dick Van Dyke show, they're not in the same bed.

You know, I'm not positive, but I think the first couple to sleep in the same bed were the Munsters. That may be so. Because I think they probably thought, well, the two Mun monsters we we can't

envision them having sex and chris hayward who created the monsters was one of the writers on he and she wow there's a little symmetry for you yes yes uh but we were before the monsters oh you were oh what was it what was he? And we weren't, we were real people. Well, the Munsters, I think, was 60, 64? 65? Oh, is that right? Then it was first. Then it was before us. I could be

totally wrong. No, you may be right, because I think it was in black and white, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. And our show was color, yeah. Jack Cassidy and Kenneth Mars. Jack. Two other. And Hamilton Camp. And our show was color, yeah. Jack Cassidy and Kenneth Mars. Jack. Two other. And Hamilton Camp.

And the late Hamilton Camp. Yeah, yeah. Two great. We had a great time. Yeah. Great time. So much to cover. So much to cover.

It's been a run. Yeah. This is so nice. It's like you said before about this is your life. This. Yeah. Without bringing in the school teachers and the awkward. Yes.

And the great show of shows when Sid Caesar did that, this is your life. Oh, yes. Oh, with Howard Morris. Uncle Goopy hanging on to us. Yeah, we talked to Carl about that, and he said it wasn't supposed to go on like nine and a half minutes. It was supposed to be a short bit

and Sid Caesar started doing this fighting people. First he made them chase him through the house. So brilliant. Anything coming up, Richard, that you want to plug or you want to throw out there? No, I don't know.

I would like something to come up, but I can't say exactly. Please give our best to your wife, who we're fans of. Oh, I will. And the last thing I'll say is look for a Simpsons episode called Itchy and Scratchy Land, if you don't know it, because it's a very funny, sophisticated parody of Westworld, of the original Westworld. Is that right?

Yeah. Has it been on yet? It's been on many times, yeah the original Westworld. Is that right? Yeah. Has it been on yet? It's been on many times, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, it aired years ago, but it's a classic episode, and it's very specifically an homage to the original Westworld. And is there a way to find it? I'll send it to you.

Oh, would you? Sure. That would be great. I'm going to send you some stuff about your uncle. Oh, great. Thank you. I appreciate it. This was a lot of fun for us. Oh, and you? Sure. Oh, that'd be great. And I'm going to send you some stuff about your uncle. Oh, great. Thank you. I appreciate it. This was a lot of fun for us.

Oh, and for me. And as our engineer told us before we were on the air, he said he wants to put together a montage of all the times that Frank and I have said to a guest, well, we barely scratched the surface. But it's true. I mean, we didn't get to Frank Perry. I wanted to ask you about Herbert Ross, but another time. Yeah, that would be great. This was a treat.

Thank you so much, Richard. And for me, too. Thank you, Frank. Thank you. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-hosthost Frank Santopadre and we've been talking to a man who wouldn't hire

me. But he seems to have no memory of it. But my stepmother was failing. But the great Richard Benjamin. Thank you, Richard. Thank you both. Thank you, Richard. Thank you both. Thank you so much. Thank you.

I really appreciate it.