Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Tales of Hollywood with Sandy Helberg

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

GGACP celebrates the birthday of veteran character actor and friend of the podcast Sandy Helberg (born May 28) by revisiting this wide-ranging and wildly amusing interview from 2019. In this episode, Sandy regales Gilbert and Frank with stories about Groucho Marx, Freddy Mercury, Laurence Olivier, Frank Sinatra and Ringo Starr and shares memories of appearing in "High Anxiety," "Spaceballs" and "History of the World." Also, Broderick Crawford hits the sauce, Humphrey Bogart patrols the coast, Art Metrano plays Leonardo da Vinci and Jerry Van Dyke (sort of) foils a holdup. PLUS: The genius of Lorenzo Music! Albert Einstein on ice! “Terror in the Wax Museum”! And Gilbert and Sandy co-star in “Meet Wally Sparks”! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TV comics, movie stars, hit singles and some toys. Trivia and dirty jokes, an evening with the boys. 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. here's another Gilbert and Franks, here's another Gilbert and Franks. Colossal classic. Here we go once, two, one, two, three, two.

Gilbert and Franks, colossal obsessions. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and I'm here with my co-host Frank Santopadre, and this is another edition of Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions. colossal obsessions. And we're talking to the man who wanted to be Sid Bernstein in Beverly Hills Cop 2. Sandy Helberg is here. Sandy Helberg. Sandy, character actor extraordinaire.

Yes. Welcome. Thank you, thank you. Character actor, like I said, they told me I was too Jewish to play him. I actually... You auditioned for Beverly Hills Cop 2 and a part of Sidney Bernstein. That's right.

And they told me I was too Jewish. And then I go see the movie and the rabbi here is playing the part. If they're doing a new fiddler on the roof, if they tell me I'm too Jewish, then I will quit the business. They really told John. Who directed that picture? Martin Brest. They told you you're too Jewish. No, no. The second one. The guy killed himself.

Tony Scott. Yeah. Jumped off a bridge. I know, and nobody knows exactly what was going on with him. Yeah. He just took a dive. That was the sound he made. When he hit the wall. By the way.

Now, I heard that the part of Sidney Bernstein, maybe they would have changed the name. Right. But they had originally asked, while he was still welcome in Hollywood, they had originally asked Roberto Benigni. Oh, my God. That's weird. How is Roberto Benigni going to play Sidney Bernstein? Yeah, yeah. He doesn't even speak English.

Yeah. He was someone who wore out his welcome really fast. Too Jewish. Too Jewish. You know, when he climbed over the chairs to get his Oscar, they said, this guy's out. Yeah. And you were so great in that part. You really made that your own.

See? This is why I keep Frank around. He reminds you of all these. I thought you had a nice Sandy Helberg quality. Yeah. In that part. By the way, you're also, speaking of Helberg-Godfrey Productions, you're also both in Meet Wally Sparks. Yes.

Oh, my God. Yes. That was a brilliant film. It was. Nobody was directing the movie. Yeah. What's his name was directing it? His friend.

Oh, the comedian. Harry Basil. Yes, yes. Harry Basil. Can't believe I know that. But the original director was a TV director. I'd worked with Peter Baldwin. Yeah, oh, I worked with Peter Baldwin. Yeah, and he

just hired me. I didn't have to read, and I go there and Peter's sitting in the corner on a chair reading a magazine. I said, hey, how you doing? He said, go over and talk to the director, and it was Harry. So one can assume that Rodney used his muscle to get the original director pushed out for his buddy. Yeah, and Peter still took sole credit,

which I think was a mistake. Did Harry Basil also direct Back by Midnight? I think he did a Dangerfield picture or two. I was in Back by Midnight. I know that. That Back by Midnight made meet Wally Sparks look like Citizen Kane. That's how it happened.

Yeah. Oh, my God. But no, I haven't even, I'm saying that just from acting it out. I've never seen the movie. I'd be scared to. We had Ed Begley on the show.

You know Ed. Yeah. And Ed was in it too and they discussed how neither of them have ever seen it. I don't think Harry Badgley has seen it. You know, I don't think he saw it when he was in it, too, and they discussed how neither of them have ever seen it. I don't think Harry Badgley has seen it.

I don't think he saw it when he was making it. Good guy, Peter Baldwin, by the way. I worked on a sitcom with him. Last year, I think we lost him. Yeah, I worked on a couple episodes of New Heart. Quite a resume. New Heart with him. He started out as an actor.

He's great looking. I wrote on a very forgettable sitcom he directed. Which was that? Good Man. Oh, let's not go there. Rodney Dangerfield is one of those people that, like, I mean, I love to see the old guys around, but, boy, I wish he had retired earlier.

Yeah, you think so? He would go on, like, The Tonight Show when Jay Leno was the host. Uh-huh. And it's like, you know, you remember how great he was on Carson. He would be like a mile a minute. He didn't have any conversation. Yeah.

Johnny said, how's your health? And he would do 20 minutes. Yeah, you've got to take care of your health, Johnny. He said, I'm alright now. It was tough. And he would come out, do a set, and then sit down on the paddle, and that was another set. Right, right, right. But then it just looked like, you know, he would come on, and it looked like he didn't, you know, just, can he get through the sentence?

Yeah, yeah. I ran into him years ago at Musso's with Richard Lewis. Yeah. And I said hello to Richard and Rodney, and Rodney's eating. I said, what are you eating there? And he had a plate of herring. Yeah. He said, I'm eating my heritage here.

And he was eating the thing, and he should have quit then. Yeah. Maybe the drugs took their toll. I think they did. After a while. But Sandy has had a fascinating career, Gilbert, in addition to being beaten out by you. I've been beaten by a lot of people.

He's in Spaceballs, very memorably. He's in High Anxiety, Chevy Chase's Modern Problems. He's one of the disciples in History of the World. Wow. With John Hurt playing Jesus. And he's in the original Gopher from the Love Boat pilot movie. Oh. Too Jewish.

Too Jewish. After they saw me standing next to Dick Van Patten and Cloris Leachman. What happened? Cloris Leachman gave you a hard time? She gave me a very hard time because she and Tom... Bosley. Bosley. Yeah, Tom Bosley.

They played a husband and wife on The Love Boat. And I had some scenes with her. And every time they yelled cut, she'd turn around and go over to the director and point to me and say, My son is much better than he is. Her son had read from the part. Oh, God. Every scene. You know, he would have been so much better on that part, you know.

But, you know what? That's heartbreaking because we love Cloris Leach. Yeah, I do, too. I think she's a great actress. Just, you know, it was my first job. Yeah, I do too. I think she's a great actress. Just, you know, it was my first job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was Dick Van Patten

was in the captain's role. No, Dick Van Patten played the doctor. Oh, he played the doctor. He was in Bernie Coppell's part. Oh, yes. And the captain was an Australian guy.

An unknown actor. An unknown, still unknown. Yeah. The girl is an unknown from New York and still unknown. Yeah. The girl is an unknown from New York. Right. And still unknown. Teddy Wilson.

Teddy Wilson from, yeah, he was on it. That's my mama. Yes. Yes. I think so, too. He was great. Playing Isaac. Isaac, the bartender.

And there were other characters. There was a couple, married couple. They were the ship entertainment. It was Dick Stahl and his wife. Richard Stahl. Oh, wife. Richard Stahl. Oh, yes, yes. He would always pop up on The Odd Couple. Right.

Yes. Right. Yes, funny guy. So they cut them out, you know, those characters out, the entertainment couple. And, you know, so we did a two-hour pilot. We sailed around Ensenada. And we came back, and they did a two-hour pilot. We sailed around Ensenada. And we came back, and they didn't pick up the pilot.

And so I went off to do another show. A year later, they're going to do another pilot. And I was obligated to the Lorenzo and Henrietta music show. Oh, you know, he worked for Lorenzo Music. Oh, wow. Count on the doorman. Yes. Also a terrific comedy writer. He is.

That's what he was. He had seen The Groundlings. The next day he calls me and I answer, and it's Carlton the Doorman. Yeah. Hello, Sandy. Hi. I'm telling my wife Carlton is, you know. And he was also what?

Garfield. Garfield. Garfield. Garfield. Garfield. Garfield. Garfield. Garfield.

Garfield. Garfield. Garfield. Garfield. Garfield. Garfield. Yes. Yes.

The voice of Garfield. So he hired me and Richard Lewis as a writer and Murphy Dunn and a whole bunch of people. Funny guys. They were all funny guys. The show was terrible. It was abominable. I got to tell you one Richard Lewis story. Go.

We had him on here. Oh, did you? Yeah. So he was just writing on the show at that time. And we had this guy, I think I mentioned him, Ira Miller, who Mel Brooks used to use all the time. Oh, no, actually, it was, Jesus, I can't remember. Cliff Arquette's son. David Arquette.

No, no, not that. Lewis. Yes, Lewis Arquette was one of the writers. Yeah, the father. Rosanna's father. So Richard, you know, not that. Louis. Yes, Louis Arquette was one of the writers. Yeah, the father. Rosanna's father. So Richard was nervous. So Murphy and I take Richard out of the writer's room, and Arquette takes the doorknob off, and there's a hole,

and he sticks his dick through the hole. I love it already. And so Murphy and I are bringing Richard, who's, you know, and we wouldn't let him

see the door. We said, okay, there. And we said, Richard, just open the door. And he grabs

his dick and looks at it and runs screaming into the bathroom and stands there for ten minutes with boiling water. His hands were swollen.

Whose dick was it? It was Louis Arquette's dick, yes. From the Waltons. Yes, we entertained ourselves. The show sucked, but we did sketches like police blimp. We were two cops up in a blimp. I love it. And then we would have these high-speed chases, and we're going.

Funny cross. It was. They paid a fortune for the blimp. They used it twice, and I think Lorenzo was buried in it. Now, Gilbert will appreciate this, Sandy. We talked on the phone. And this is fun. His first movie, Gilbert, Sandy's first movie, co-starred John Carradine.

And who else? Broderick Crawford. And who else? Elsa Lanchester. Elsa Lanchester. Jeez. Louis Hayward. Yep.

Patrick Knowles. You know these names? Yes. Patrick Knowles. Patrick Knowles was in The Wolfman. Correct. Patrick Knowles you know these names? yes Patrick Knowles who was in the Wolfman yes Patrick Knowles who else

Lanchester Louis Hayward yeah so I started out working for the company as a PA so they were doing these really bad

B horror movies and I begged the producer let me just I just want to get my SAG card so so that's that was the first movie I acted in. But as the PA, I hung out on the set,

and Broderick Crawford would show up. Oh, Ray Milland. Oh, Ray Milland. Ray Milland. Bury the lead. So Broderick Crawford showed up shit-faced every day to work. And Ray Milland was the ultimate professional.

In spite of winning an Oscar for playing a drunk. Right. And so he'd be waiting, Ray Milland, and they'd bring Roger Crawford, and he couldn't walk sometimes, and his face was bruised. So they wanted to get the scene to get Ray Milland out, and he can't stand up, so

Roger Crawford, he had a cane, his character, so they propped him up on the cane and sort of leaned him on it and he just was leaning on the cane.

They yell action. He opens his mouth. The cane slips and Broderick Crawford is falling for like three sound stages. He just doesn't fall down. You know, he's knocking sets down.

Four grips are following him. And finally, like, outside of the sound stage, he goes down with five guys. Fantastic. And they said, send him home. So then, as the PA,

when the movie was over, I had to take him to Universal to do a radio interview. And I pick him up, and he was living in a motel on Vine off of Melrose. And I go up and he's got five empty gin bottles like the milkman

outside the door. I knock on the door and it's pitch, I mean so black it took the vision out of my eye. I'd never seen anything so dark. And he said, I had a Fiat, which was this big. And he comes down the stairs, and I literally had to stuff him in the car and get in the car.

Wow. He's breathing, and the windows are steamed up. And he was talking, not to me, but he was talking to someone. Stuffing a drunk Broderick Crawford into a Fiat. We got to Universal. He did the interview perfectly. Like, you know, sober. Then the interview's over, and then he's shit-faced again.

Let's stuff for a drink on the way back to the motel. Sure, whatever you want, Brod. And he said if I ever had any scenes i wanted to rehearse i should call them you know and about that i didn't yeah baby sat for a for a bombed broderick crawford yeah i once read an interview with this guy who directed a movie called big house usa that was a prison breakout movie. And he said that the cast was Broderick Crawford, Lon Chaney Jr.

and Ralph Meeker. And he goes, I don't want to tell you the drinking going on. I can imagine. And Chaney Jr. took a backseat to no one. As far as the boozing. Oh, man. Well, he, you know, did you ever see his movie where he played J. Edgar Hoover?

Yeah, Larry Cohen movie. Right. We had Larry Cohen on the show. J. Edgar Hoover, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, he was, in his day, a terrific actor. Yeah. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast after this.

What was that crazy thing you told me about Carradine and Bogart? Oh, John Carradine was also in the same movie with Ray Milland. Yeah. So, again, I would say... What was it called? The Terror of the Wax Museum? Terror in the Wax Museum.

The Wax Museum. Sounds good to me. They hired all these mimes to play wax figures. Oh, jeez. And so these shots were always quick because you don't want to see a guy go like this. Yeah, or blink. So I would sit there and I would talk to John Carradine, who was very arthritic. So he's telling these stories.

He was like the first one to get into sailing. He had a big sailboat and he says he got everyone bogart into sailing and dick powell and so uh during world war ii um i had a friend also whose father was dick powell and his mother was joan blondell wow and so they had what they called the newport navy. And all those guys, Bogart and Dick Powell, and they'd go out in their boats at night and sail along the coast, making sure the Japanese do not invade Newport Beach. Started their own navy. And they're all shit-faced, and they're shooting guns. Shooting guns.

He said as a kid, my friend, he would see just guns going off, you know, and they just kept shooting out towards the ocean to make sure. And my friend, who was Dick Powell's, he was on a yacht with his father, mother, Bogart, and Lauren Bacall. Wow. And he was a teenager, and he was staring at Lauren Bacall's ass. And she turned around and looked at him. She said, you get enough? And he turned red and he was so embarrassed.

But he grew up in the golden era and he became a producer. Did you interact much with Elsa Lanchester and Carradine? Yeah, we used to go out and we would have a threesome. Uh-huh, great. John's fingers were so crooked, sometimes it felt okay. Not bad. No, no, it was okay. I could go to lunch with him.

Now, they just would work and there was also a very famous Japanese actress, I can't remember. Okay. There was nobody under 70 in that movie. Right, you were a kid. I was a kid, I played't remember. Okay. There was nobody under 70 in that movie. Right. Except me. You were a kid.

I was a kid. I played an English newspaper guy. I love that. And so, yeah, it was amazing. But at that time also at Paramount, when I was there as a PA, they were shooting Godfather II and Chinatown, and I had my bike, and I'd go from soundstage to soundstage. Good time to be there. It was.

And Frank Sinatra did his comeback special at Paramount. And it was on the stage across from where I had my little office. Security all over, but I'd been there. So I went in the Happy Day soundstage and worked my way into the Frank Sinatra soundstage. Love it. He and Gene Kelly are singing and dancing, and they're doing The Lady is a Tramp.

And so Gene Kelly's dancing, and Frank is singing, and Frank goes, that's why the lady is, that's why the, he says, are there any ladies here? No, no ladies. That's why the lady is a cunt. Doom, doom, doom. And Gene Kelly just went, well, Frank, that's not how you're going to do it, is it? He said, no.

I thought, come back. Yeah, so that's what he did. Frank could be a little vulgar. Well, ask me a pharaoh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like this story, too. And Gilbert will also appreciate this one, which is the— By the way, Sandy knew Pat McCormick, but we'll talk about that.

We'll save that. Sandy and I worked on a project with Pat McCormick, which you didn't know about me. That's right. But he also knew Jack Riley. Jack Riley. Who's come up on this show a bunch. Yes, right. But he also knew Jack Riley. Jack Riley. Who's come up on this show a bunch. Yes, yes. He introduced me to Mel Brooks.

Oh. Actually, he set me up. He came to see the Groundlings, and he lived down the street from us, and he said to me after the show, he said, would you like to meet Mel Brooks? I said, no. No, I think I'm going to the dentist.

I thought he was kidding. He said, no, I'll really set going to the dentist. I thought he was kidding. He said, no, I'll really set up a meeting. I think you're funny. Mel will like you. And so I go in to meet. And again, it was like Groucho, another icon. So his office is like the size of Madison Square Garden. I go in the door.

It takes me 10 minutes to walk from the door to his desk, and I'm walking, and I'm walking, and I'm sweating, and Mel's just sitting there. He's watching me. He's watching me, and I finally get there, and he says, took you long enough. Sit down, and so we start to talk, and I made him laugh, and I got up said I'm gonna go he said where are you going why are you going I said I made Mel Brooks laugh I'm gonna quit that's it I'm gonna quit show business that's what I have a picture of me and Groucho and so he sits me down and we talk and he says you know I like you I was gonna give you a small part now I'm going to give you a bigger small part. And so... Was the first one High Anxiety?

High Anxiety. And I had the scene with him and Madeline Kahn, who was great. And then I never had to audition. He would just call me. And for the second one was what? History of the World. History of the World.

So I come in and I'm going to play Einstein. And they do a two and a half hour makeup on me and mustache and and i had to sing and i don't sing at all at all i can't even say a song title in tune so he's they're having me sing and mel was playing hitler and this other guy was playing freud and the scene was ice skating. We were going to ice skate. And so I come in, and I'm going to sing the song, and the musical conductor, John Morris, is singing in my ear, and I'm still singing. Also, Jackie Mason was there to sing.

Oh, my God. He was there to sing. His song was, I'm sitting flicking chickens, and I'm going through the pickings. All of a sudden, the guys back down the walls. And he sang worse than I did. Unbelievable. But Einstein didn't make the cut.

No. So he cut the whole skating thing. So he calls me again. He says, I want you to do The Last Supper. And that was with John Hurt. Yes. Played Jesus. And I was the first one when he comes in, Mel.

And Art Metrano was in that scene. Oh, we had him on here. Yes. Really? How was he doing? Art was Da Vinci. Yes. He was Da Vinci.

He did The Last Supper. He was painting The Last Supper. And my pictures. Yes. I show that to my kids. They don't know Jesus. They don't know The Last Supper. They don't know that to my kids. They don't know Jesus. They don't know the last supper, you know. They don't know Art Mitrano.

They don't know John Hurt. So, you know, we did it. It was a lot of fun. Then afterwards, we go back to the dressing room, and John Hurt is just like a wooden curtain between his dressing room and mine. And he taps on the thing, and I say, yes. He says, would you care to come over taps on the thing and I say, yes. He says,

would you care to come over and have a drink? I said, sure. And I opened the curtain and like an avalanche of empty booze bottles. See, we have this connection with booze. I'm not an alcoholic. I know. But I was ankle deep in empty booze bottles. Almost every story we talked about on the phone

involves some form of abuse. Of self-abuse. And we sat there till like midnight till the security threw us out and drank. And again, to me, it's like, oh, I'm sitting here with John Hurt. And we're both drunk and they're throwing us out of Fox. Getting blotto with Jesus. Yes. Speaking of Brits, tell Gilbert the Ringo story because that one's also fun.

And then the Laurence Olivier, which I didn't tell you the tail end of that. Tell me. My wife cast this movie The Jazz Singer with Neil Diamond. Oh, yes.

Gilbert does a bit about it. And what's... Lucy Arnaz. Lucy Arnaz. And Laurence Olivier as the father. Who has the classic line, I have no son. Very good.

That is very good. So he brings a, not an acting coach, but a woman to help him run his lines. And so my wife and I go to the hotel, and we're sitting with that woman talking, and out of the bar comes Hume Cronin, William Holden, and Laurence Olivier. Man. Shitface. I mean, shitface.

They're like weaving, walking behind each other, weaving. And I'm just, I can't believe it. As William Holden walked by, I said, watch your head, don't fall down. Oh, I'm sorry. You kid, you kid. I kid. So anyway, so a tradition in the movies

is the casting director calls the actors for their first call. My wife had to call Laurence Olivier. I'm on the phone upstairs. And she calls me and goes, hello. And he was staying at a hotel. She says, what do I call you, Lord Olivier, Mr. Olivier? She just called me Larry.

And I thought, she's not going to call him Larry. She says, well, Larry, I have your call here. It's 8.30 a.m. Stage 4 scenes 10 through 12. He says, okay. What soundstage? She says, 12. What studio, Goldwyn? What scenes? This went on for 15 minutes. What soundstage?

12. Oh my God. Oh my God. And my wife said, I'll make sure the AD and the woman drove him back and forth, but he just, what scenes? Oh, what movie?

Yes. Is this where I do the soliloquy? You know, you're not my son. Oh, I remember the way he said that line. I don't have, he was amazing just to watch, but he was doing it for the money. Yeah.

He did. Oh, absolutely. He needs to work. He made a bunch of those for the money. Neil Diamond. And Sean he did for the money. Oh, the one named Ray Harryhausen. The Clash of the Titans. What was his name?

Harry Hamlin. He was cashing a lot of checks then, Sir Larry. He was walking around the toga. Well, he had kids now. Even though he was 87, he finally had kids. And you don't make a lot in the theater. Absolutely. But either tell Gil, and they're both fun, the Ringo story.

But you've got to tell him the Jerry Van Dyke story. I'll tell him it. Because that may be my favorite. And the Lucille Ball story. And we'll get to that one. So which story was I going to tell you now? Well, I think Gilbert will appreciate the Ringo one. Well, as a kid growing up, I had a huge nose.

And I had it fixed, but it did grow back. But as I'm being wheeled into the surgery, the nurse says, why are you getting your nose fixed? You look like Ringo Starr. And I thought, oh, God, you know. Jump ahead, 1979, I had a half-hour show on CBS as an actor. And so Cher and this other woman, every Tuesday would rent out a giant roller rink,

and it was for celebrities, De Niro, Mick Jagger. And because I had a show on, I went. And so, and I'm looking, there's, oh my God, a Ringo Starr, you know. And every week he was there and every week he was drunk. So I'm sitting there, I'm taking my skates off and I look up and Ringo's looking at me and he's walking towards me and he sits down right next to me and puts his arm around me and says, you know,

I'm a big fan of yours. I thought, the show hasn't even been on yet. How could he be a big fan? He says, I listen to all of your songs. I don't sound like Ringo. That's all right.

It's close enough. It's more like Ringo after he lived in Israel. It's like the actor from the Bad Beatles cartoon. But it's pretty good. So he says to me, yes, I like some of your songs.

I said, I'm not, I don't, I'm not. I said, I know who you think I am. He said, aren't you Stephen Bishop? I said, no, I'm not Stephen Bishop. And he was so disappointed. He said, he said, really? He said, no, I'm not Stephen Bishop. And he was so disappointed. He said, really? He said, you should tell them you're Stephen Bishop because you get lots of free things.

And so he was schvitzing, and he smelled from booze. I took my handkerchief out, and I gave it to him, and he wiped himself down, gave me back the handkerchief, and I have it sealed in a plastic bag. And we may take some DNA out of there. Get that one up on eBay. Yes, I wish I, you know. More drunkenness.

Yes, Ringo will get much less money than Paul. But anyway, that's the way it worked out. The Jerry Van Dyke story also struck me. This is every actor's nightmare. It was like when I, you know, just did the pilot for Love Boat but didn't come back and do this series. So Jerry Van Dyke, his friend was Sheldon Bull, which is a writer. He wrote the old Bob Newhart show and created. So he created the Newhart show.

And he calls Jerry. He says, I wrote a part in for you. It's yours. You don't have to audition. It's yours. The innkeeper. Yes, the innkeeper.

Tom Poston. So he says, he calls him a week later. He says, you know, CBS just wants you to come in just to meet. And Jerry Van Dyke is, no,

I hate those meetings. They never liked me. He says, you don't have to read. to come in just to meet. And Jerry Van Dyke is, no, I hate those meetings. They never liked me. He says, you don't have to read. Just come in, meet the CBS people, say hello, and that's it. He goes in. He meets them. He leaves. That night, Sheldon Bull calls and says, I'm sorry, Jerry.

You know, Bob wants Tom Poston. And Jerry Van Dyke goes berserk. I mean, crazy. He says, I knew I shouldn't have gone in. And so his, he goes furniture shopping with his wife after this,

and he's out of his mind. They go into this antique furniture store on Ventura Boulevard in walk two guys with guns, and they're going to rob the furniture store of the cash because it was high-end stuff. And they yell, everyone on the floor, everyone down. And Jerry Van Dyke says, I'm not getting on the floor. Go ahead, shoot me. I lost a series. They recast me.

And the gunmen start to back out. He says, go ahead. And they run down the street, And he says, please kill me. I don't want to live anymore. And then finally Sheldon Bull put him in coach. That was also his show. Isn't that great? But, you know, there's so many people.

You know, there were like 10 guys who were going to play the part in Jerry Seinfeld, the Jason. Oh, the George Costanza part. Oh, yeah, I think Paul Schaefer. Paul Schaefer. Yeah. Really? I didn't know that. Yes.

But all these actors, they all, I had it, and then I didn't have it. You know? Well, you got to work for Mel Brooks. Gilbert didn't even make it because they replaced him with who?

Oh, yeah. I auditioned for Life Stinks. So did the movie. Yeah. And I got, of course, the classic Hollywood thing.

You're who we want. You're it. And then it turns out I didn't get it and I said well who did they get? Billy Barty Billy Barty

oh my god I lost out to a famous midget Billy Barty story fire away in the groundlings I did this character named Jackie Moldave, and he was like Jerry Lewis. I wore a tuxedo and a cigarette and brought

people up on stage and insulted them. So they were doing a benefit at the Santa Monica Civic for animals, you know, Betty White's thing. And they told me Billy Barty was going to do the show. I said, okay. So I'm out there doing some shtick, and out of nowhere, Billy Barty was going to do the show. I said, okay. So I'm out there doing some shtick,

and out of nowhere, Billy Barty comes running out on stage, and he says, that's enough. Get off of here. Come on. But he's kidding, and I say, no, get out of here. He throws himself on the floor, grabs me by the knees, throws me down on the floor, and the two of us are rolling around, and I'm in a tuxedo. We're rolling around on the floor. And the two of us are rolling around.

And I'm in a tuxedo. We're rolling around on the floor. And this was unrehearsed, you know. And I don't know. Then we both got up and I started, I picked him up and I thanked, you know, did the old thank you for the award. Right, right, right. But there aren't a lot of people that I know that have ever wrestled with Billy Barty. Actual midget wrestling.

Yeah, and he was a strong little guy. He'd grab you by the nuts, and he would not let go because that's about— Did you ever actually meet him, Gilbert? No. Okay. No, never. He just says, you look disgusted. I could have gotten into a fight with him.

That's the easy part. According to that Peter Dinklage movie, Billy Barty punched out Herbie Villachess. Good Lord. Good Lord. Well, tell us about meeting Groucho and the infamous Aaron Fleming. Okay. So, first, I went to see that concert at Carnegie Hall. Oh, yeah.

We just had Dick Cavett here. Yeah. And it was heartbreaking. Oh, yeah. You know, there was an intermission that was like a half hour long. So, you were both there as kids? Yeah. You were kids? Yeah. You were there?

Yes. He was there too. I didn't know. You didn't say hello to him. That's funny. I don't remember seeing you there. So the lights come up, and he's standing there on stage groucho, and there was a guy lying on the floor running a mic cable up his pant leg.

And this is in front of the audience. And so then when i went to la i got into a workshop uh at 20th century fox and aaron fleming was in the class it was an improvisational workshop and i didn't know who she was and she would come and she was sort of attractive and then one night she shows up to class with Groucho. This is in a workshop and he comes in. It took him 20 minutes to get from the door to the seat, but the way you did it. So the teacher says, I don't know. Do you want to work?

He says, I'll only work with the girls. I don't want to work with any men. She says, go ahead. And he gets up on stage and there's a table and a chair and he sits there. men. She says, go ahead. And he gets up on stage and there's a table and a chair and he sits there. He says, okay, I'm a Hollywood producer and you're coming into audition for a movie. And so the first girl gets up and she's talking to him and he takes his pencil and throws it across the stage. He says, look, sweetheart, would you get that for me? And she bends over and that's what he wanted to do is look at the ass. He had every girl come up on stage.

He'd throw the pen. They'd bend over, and he'd say, thank you, we'll call you next. And that was the entire class. And then I met him, and I have my picture taken with him somewhere in storage. I was in this movie. Sheila Levine is dead and living in New York. You know that picture, Gil? Yes.

And so she brings Groucho to the set. And again, the first thing I did was get him and Groucho in the headlock and have pictures taken of me. I figured if he doesn't survive the headlock, I got the pictures. Sure. So I say, you know, I saw you at Carnegie Hall. And he did that line. He looked at me squinted.

He said, funny, I don't remember seeing you there. I was thrilled. That's great. You know, he did it. And then a friend of mine had the poster. And this rock and roll guy, they had named an album, two albums, one A Night at the Opera and the other one

A Day at the Races. Oh, yes. Yeah. Nice segue. Yes. Well, he gave me the poster off his wall for the Groucho Carnegie Hall poster.

Well, since you became friendly with the members of Queen. Yes. And I think, and this is the only podcast in the world where the name midget, the word midget is acceptable.

I won't allow any other word. But Sandy mentioned something to me about lavish queen parties. You want to take it from there? Yeah. One of them, the drummer for Queen moved in next door to me. Roger Taylor. Roger Taylor. And we've been friends for like 40 years.

And the debauchery that would go on with these guys the parties they had you know so they had a birthday party for freddie it was so i don't know if there is a word debauched he didn't want me to come he was embarrassed i said that's okay what they it was drugs and booze and drugs and booze. They had midgets with silver trays of cocaine on their heads. Jeez. What's wrong? With a little chin strap so it didn't fall off.

And they would walk around. And they just wore a thong or something. Hang on a minute. Midgets in thongs with bowls filled with coke and chins strapped to their heads. Right. This is like out of Caligula. It was? Yeah.

And they would walk around. Over here. And you'd see the midgets going back into the kitchen with an empty platter, and they'd come out with another pile of cocaine on their head. Another gig you lost to Billy Barty. Imagine who you might have met at that party. Wow. I thought you'd appreciate that.

I wrote down midgets with coke on their heads. I'm sorry. I mean. I know what pleases my co-host. They talked about that on 60 Minutes. Coke on the

heads. Coke on the heads. They left it out of the movie. They should have put that

in the movie, you know, Bohemian Rhapsody. But they were just, and just, you know. You got to

write a book with some of these stories and the stuff you were telling me on the phone. So one time, quickly, my friend Roger, they're doing a show in San Francisco at the Cow Palace.

So he flies in a private jet, me, my wife, and his wife, who live next door to us, up to San Francisco. And we see the concert, and it's unbelievable. It's amazing. And we go down, my wife and I and Roger and his wife, and we get into his limo and the garage door opens and it comes up from underground and out of nowhere

girls are jumping out of the bushes onto the limo. They're on the roof and they're on the hood and the driver looks around and says, what should I do? And Roger says, oh, if you drive fast enough, they'll fall off. One of them hung on to the 405 until we were lost in town.

That happens to you, Gil. And you just would see them fall off the top and peel off the hood. Women leap onto your Uber, Gilbert, when you're doing a gig in Cincinnati. Yeah, when I'm doing giggles. So, yeah, so, you know, we went to... You have been an eyewitness to a lot of very strange... Behaviors. Well, yes, I mean, and as I said, debauchery is a good word

because it's a recurring theme with these people. Well, the debauchery, I told you the thing with Mick Jagger at the roller skating. Yes, yes. So Mick Jagger went to the roller skating too. And so I go into the bathroom and I go into a thing. I close, lock it because I don't, I like my privacy. And I hear someone else come in and I'm looking through the thing and it's Mick Jagger and two other Yeah. And I hear someone else come in, and I'm looking through the thing, and it's Mick Jagger and two other guys.

And I'm in the toilet with the door locked, trapped. He takes out a bottle this big with cocaine, and he doesn't let them. He throws, he anoints them like this. Oh, jeez. And the coke is flying around the room, and they're just doing it and doing it. And I thought, I got to get out of here.

So I've been in there 15 minutes. They don't know I'm in there. So suddenly I throw open the door. And as cool as I thought I was, I look like a narc next to these guys. And I walk out and I'm like ankle deep in Coke. And I wanted to show them how cool I was. I open my pocket and I take out this tiny little bottle. And they're looking at me like, you know,

and I thought, fuck this. And I put it back in my pocket and scoop up some and that was it. But every week, there were just amazing people at that. Incredible days of Hollywood. Days gone by. Those days are not around anymore. No, and a lot of those people are not around anymore either.

Take us out on the, and you know, we'll have you back another time, Sandy, and cover things that we haven't covered, because there's a lot more stuff. But, I do know that Gilbert's going to appreciate the Lucille Ball stuff. I figured. I like it already. No midgets full of coke. I figured that. I like it already. Alright. No midgets full of coke.

No. My wife cast the jazz singer and they had so many, at one point Barry Manilow was going to do it. Sounds right. Yeah, and then they thought who are they going to get as the other leading man? So they wound up hiring

Neil and after seeing dozens of women, the director settled on, not settled as the other leading man. So they wound up hiring Neil. And after seeing dozens of women, the director settled on, not settled, but he wanted Lucy Arnaz. And we became friends, you know. And so Lucy goes back to New York and we don't see her for a while. My wife and I are having a baby

and we're at Cedars. And she just, my wife just gave birth having a baby, and we're at Cedars, and my wife just gave birth, and we're in the recovery room, and there's a curtain we hear on the other side, a voice that sounds familiar. And I take a peek in the curtain. It's Lucy Arnaz. She's laying on the bed in the recovery room next to us. And I pull open the curtain. We say, what are you doing here?

What are you doing? She said, she just had a baby two hours ago. And we said, well, we just had a baby, a boy. We say, what's your baby's name? She says, Simon. What is your baby's name? Simon. And for five years, I used to have Simon and Simon parties. And when she'd come to LA, she'd stay with her mother. She'd call us, invite us over to swim. And the first time we went, we went up to the front door, knocked on the... I mean, her house was completely open from

the street. You could see the house. And Lucille Ball opens the door. And we're just all standing there looking at her. I mean, our kid didn't know who she was. She invites us in. All the curtains are closed. It's dark. Not as dark as Broderick Crawford's room, but it's pretty dark, you know.

Shag carpeting, and she's playing, I forgot the game with a guy. Backgammon. Backgammon, yes. She's playing backgammon, and we're out in the back swimming and doing this stuff. And so now we're going to leave, and we came in the front door, and we start to go out the back swimming and doing this stuff. And so now we're going to leave. And we had, we came in the front door and we start to go out the back door. She says, Lucille Ball says,

no, no, you have to go out the same door you came in. And this is a thing she had. And so we had to go around and go out the back door. So then, uh, so after we had the baby,

there's a knock at the door in the, I'm sorry, I'm jumping. In the hospital room, I say, come in, and it's Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Oh. And again, I'm this guy from Ohio. And the two of them, I thought, we brought them back together? You know, and they came into the room, and she says, I want to see this other Simon. And she looks at our baby, and we we talk to them and my ears are ringing.

I can't believe Lucille Ball is here. So one of the swim parties, I didn't swim. I sat in the living room in the dark with Gary Morton. And, you know, he was her. Sure. Yeah. So he's just wearing a terrycloth bathrobe. Nothing else.

Oh. And he's sitting there with his legs spread. And I'm looking. You don't. And it looked like, I mean, his schlong. It looked like a dead a cobra laying on the floor I swear

his schlong just sort of made a circle back up to his groin area and you know and he's talking to me and he's leaning

and he's got his legs spread I don't know where to look I keep looking oh and then as I left, I said, now I know why Lucy... Showbiz. Showbiz story. Here's Lucy and here's Gary.

And here's the snake. We gotta wrap, Sandy. I'm sorry because I gotta get these people out of here. I understand. But we will do another one. Yeah, we need to do... We know where to find you. You can come on Skype. You know, we left out all the really funny Holocaust material. No, my parents were Holocaust survivors.

Yeah, I told Gilbert. You'll come and tell us about it. I'm laughing already. It's six million laughs, let me tell you. And Gary Morton showed up. That's right. With his schwanger. It puts the ha-ha in Holocaust.

You're in L.A. You'll go to the studio. We'll get you on Skype, and we'll do another one. It sounds good. Okay, buddy. I enjoy this. Thank you so much. This has been Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions,

and we've been talking to the man who lost the Sidney Bernstein pardon. And I wound up the Jew doing it in Beverly Hills Cop too, but he did get to a party with midgets and thongs with coke on their heads. And I got to see

Gary Morton's schlong. Yes. That's more than I've done. Thank you, Sandy. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Bye.