Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Rewind: Episode #1: Dick Cavett

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

In the debut episode of GGACP, comedian, author and talk show icon Dick Cavett drops by Gilbert’s Manhattan apartment to sip Merlot and share personal memories of Groucho Marx, Johnny Carson and John Lennon, among others. Dick also talks about the time a guest dropped dead on his set (yes, it happened) AND favors Gilbert and Frank with some dead-on impersonations of his favorite obscure character actors! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Please play responsibly. Now there might be some people out there who don't know who Dick have it is. So let me tell you, when I was growing up, he was on TV, the time. And there was the Carson Show and Merv Griffin and people like that. And they were always fun. But you knew Dick Cavett would have people different than what the other guys got. You know, he would have like Groucho Maltz, Catherine Hepburn, John Lennon. He had like, you know, the greatest authors. He'd have like Richard Burton on. And it was like an amazing thing. And he was like an amazing thing. And so recently, Dick Cavett came over to my apartment and we recorded an

interview where he talks about Groucho Marx and Johnny Carson and he does impressions of these little known character actors. So, if you think you know who Dick Cavett was before this interview, well, take it from me. You don't know Dick. You're listening to the amazing colossal podcast with Gilbert Gottfried. I'm Gilbert Gottfried, and I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santoprod. See, I still can't say. You'll get it out. You'll get it out eventually.

Sanopadre. Well done. You're kidding, of course. One time in the middle of a show, I said, I'm here with my co-host and dear friend. Frank and I had to lean over and go, what's your last name? Yeah, yeah. Well, you meet so many

Santa Padres over the years. Who the hell can keep them straight? I, I will. You can be forgiven. So, anyway. Oh, could I make one problem clear? My earphones are so fucking loud that I'm busy.

That's better. That's better. That's better. Thank you, thank you, thank you, sir. Okay. Can you say loud on this show? Okay. Well, we're here.

We're still here. Some of us are. Since the Shirley Temple. Well, we were discussing how Shirley Temple, and when Shirley Temple died, that she was supposedly discovered by Harpo, but she was a child. The story goes. The Harpo discovered Shirley. I saw her walk, no, Alfred Harpo.

On the story of the Jersey Harpo's. Yes, that's the same. The story goes that Harpo saw her on the set of horse feathers. He saw her parents walking past with her and wanted to adopt her. Just thought she was the most beautiful child. This could be. My friend Robert Bader, who's got an essential book coming out eventually about the brothers, would be able to, would know that for sure.

See, I'm too young. All of us here to have seen Shirley Temple in her day. And then as an adult, I don't think her movies played Grand Island, Nebraska, perhaps. But then later, I saw The Pedophiles Dream Shirley Temple in just about everything. Can you say that on the Gottfried show? Yeah, yeah. Because, well, I usually shy away from that type of stuff, but still, I should introduce our guest. That would be a good idea.

I'm dying to know. When I remember years ago, there was like Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin, and it's like, what's the matter? By chewing your cracker is... Oh, that's fine. That's the least problem with this show. There was Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin, all both enjoyable. But then there was another show

that would get these people on that you'd never see with Carson or Merv Griffin, and there would be like these actors that had never appeared, and that was our guest. Dick Cabot. That was the Dick Cabot show. I'm told this all the time.

You know, I never set out to get people nobody ever got, and yet it happened. I've never been entirely sure why. I do know that I got a lot of big people before having Miss Catherine Hepburn on, but after that, it became in a way the show to do for people like that. Now, you had,

Catherine Hepburn, Betty Davis, Groucho Marx, John and Yoko, who would never be on a talk show. Yeah, that was their first time to come on after the breakup. They wanted to come on something. They wanted to meet me. I went over to the St. Regis, and there they were on the bed. Nothing's salacious here. They were just, they were working. John had a lot of work laid out on the bed.

and they had just finished shooting a bit with Fred Astaire by a handheld 16mm, if that's technically possible, for a movie John made, which I was then put in as I was there, standing among a line of man and one whispered to me, and I told this something to that one, and so I never saw this film, but I was in it. And then I remember the first time John made me laugh, and he was so accessible.

Did you ever made him? No. He was so easy. He felt like, as you did in the same way with Groucho Marx, the minute you met him, you was your friend, and you talked easily, and there was no awkwardness, and not many people have that. And anyway, John had that. And then I said, well, why me?

And he said, well, you've got the only halfway intelligent talk show. I said, why would you want to be on a halfway-intosh? And like you, he laughed. And we were sort of hit it off from that point on, yeah. But the other day, a radio guy said, you've got a box set of DVDs out. This is a certain, no way resembles a plug. You've got several out.

But the one called Hollywood Grace, he said, who's on that? And I thought, well, you should tell me. And I had a copy of it there. And I figured, let's see, we got Catherine Hepman, Betty Davis, Fred Astaire, Groucho Marx, Kirk Douglas, Frank Capra. and Mel Brooks, Lucille Ball, Robert Mitchum, Marlon Brando, Alfred Hitchcock, and Orson Well.

And as I looked at it, I thought, we gave away way too much here. That's a lot. One box, the whole show is there. Sadly, in its way, Rosengarden's great witty musical play-ons and offs because the music rights are so complicated and had to be excised largely. But like when I had the great Jan Morris on, the British soldier who became James Morris, who became Jan Morris after being James Morris and father of four and Queen's Royal Fusoliers or whatever. She was very hesitant to come on about her book, Conundrum, about her sex change.

And I winced as she came out, because I had been. warned she might haul out leave um and rosengarden played there'll be some changes made that's clever she didn't catch it and she was there for 90 enthralling minutes now can you tell us this is a story i heard that about your report cards in school i found a bunch of my old report cards if this is what you are yes not only referring but alluding to And every one of them, since in those days a school teacher was an old, pardon me, an unmarried lady, Miss Gables and Miss Fuchs and Miss Wilson and Miss Cross and Ms. So I'm so, Graham, and every one of them in my grade school years had written as if they had conspired. Oh, and Dick has to learn to be more considerative.

others and the other comment that was at least three out of five that I dredged up Dick must learn to control his talking you know how evil it is to talk the old bag I remember like back then when TV used to have like

old movies and everything 24 hours Late show. Oh, yes. Sure. A million dollar movie. Yeah. Did he, de, de, de, de, de, the musical clack.

Yeah. That's right, yeah. That's right. And I, you know, so I fell in love with all the Marks Brothers movies. And then I remember I would watch Groucho pop up on your show. Yeah. Where he'd wear like a little, you know, a golf cap. A golf cap.

The hat with a bird on it. Yes. and a turtleneck. And a couple of balls. Yes, a couple of balls with clown faces on him. And he would get into these long talks with you where it would be like... When we were doing motion pictures, and these were pictures where there was motion going on.

And they were talking pictures because these were pictures where people were shock. That's uncanny. You should hear his gumbo. You have one of the best years in show business, by the way, as you know. The first time I ever saw you, I don't know if it was your Claude Raines that knocked me out so, or somebody else.

But I know, and I won't lord it over you, as far as I know, you have never mastered my specialty. Oh. Richard Lou. Oh, okay. Want to hear Richard Liu? Yes, this will take you back. Richard Liu, by those who don't know,

was a Chinese actor who specialized in evil Japanese generals. He was all the nasty Japs in movies. Oh, yes. Irony of course, of it, well, it's all right to say that. The New York Times Japs bomb Pearl Harbor. Truly.

But it sounds funny now. It's a documentary that I said. See, I get in trouble with the Japanese. I get some issues there. I am of the Japanese. I've been queer for Japan since I was about five years old. I got all the books out of the Grand Island Public Library. And now my Japanese spoken is good enough.

This is frightfully thing to brag about that I can fool Japanese on the phone. Now, so you're Richard Liu. Richard, yeah, as you were launching. into saying, and I interrupted you, Chinese actor who ironically played all the evil Japanese who were murdering and raping his people at that time in the

world during World War II movies. The Chinese were sort of getting revenge on the Japanese in movies by playing evil Japanese. Bad as they could. Just like Jewish actors who escaped from Europe were playing Nazis.

That's right. Everybody, from Walter Slezak to Helmut Dantin. Who else played Nazis? Slazac, by the way, you remember him, of course. He used to be always in a Wehrmach, not Wehrmach, but Schutstaffel, you know. A Japanese, a German colonel, a German, had him on an early show, and I had just come back from Germany, and I had just come back from Austria. And I said, you know, when I was over there and you cross the border and the money,

you get the wrong money and and I sometimes I didn't know if I was in Germany or if I was in Austria or what and what's the difference between being in Austria or being a German anyway I said and he said oh don't you know I said no what's the difference in Germans and Austrians

the difference is that the Germans were Nazis takes a beat I think for the He filled it in and said, and the Austrians are. But the interesting thing about that is, it's true. There was another actor, Oscar something. Oscar Werner?

Oscar Hamulka. Oscar Karl Weiss. Oscar. No, no. He was in a Twilight Zone episode, Welcome to Death's Head, where he played a Nazi officer revisiting a camp. Are you sure his name was Austin? to look this one up. I think, I think so.

It couldn't have been my very favorite actor of all time. Which one? Akeem Tameroff? Yeah. Oh, God, don't let me blank on his full name. On game day, pain can hit hard and fast. Like the headache you get when your favorite team and your fantasy team both lose.

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Can you look up the Twilight Zone? Sure, we'll get Darrow right on that. And then look up our crack staff is working on as we speak because he was a German Jew and he specialized Nazi office. So would you do your Richard Lewis? Not Oscar Hamulka. No, no. No. I saw him on Broadway in Roshomone.

Oh my God. So there was Homolka as a Japanese who made wigs and I can still hear what did it matter that they cut off the head. They were dead anyway And I saw Oscar Homolko in 79th and Park

Now for people out there Rushaman That became a That was first to play I think And then a Japanese Currasawa movie Yeah

And it became a very popular sitcom Roshamon The sitcom? Yeah It's been no Oh you mean the format The format

It became very popular on sitcoms where they'd have a sitcom where a character would go, oh, that was the worst evening of my life, and then each one would tell. You'd see someone else's view of that evening. Yeah, they did. It was a famous all in the family. All in the family, the odd

couple. I'm told by our staff by the way. I'm each to Kurosawa. Oscar Beregi? Yes, Oscar Beregey. There you go. Is that the guy? Yeah, I believe you. He's not working on Richard Lou. People are going to be calling you up. If we don't come up with the first name of Von Saivis.

The switchboard is lighting up. It's totally sidetrack. Say again. Oh, wait. We got footage. And so I'm playing the bitter end. And I'm, there's a rumor that my career will soar and that I will move to the village gate. If I get a second show.

A phenomenon nobody warned me about it. The same audience stayed at the bitter end again. and you and Woody and whoever and Cosby and unknowns like Joan Rivers and one somebody called Rodney Dangerfeld who was introduced to as one. Had to have a second show. And terrified, I went on to the exact same audience

and I managed to fill out 15 minutes by all but doing Richard Liu telling them how much I loved him telling them what movies is in Purple Heart first yank into Tokyo Purple Heart was the best and I don't look like him so you'll have to close your eyes

anyway so I'll finally I managed to kill almost a whole show worth and if you wouldn't mind playing this little playlet with me all you have to say over it is from the Purple Heart where they tortured some B-29 prisoners from the Doolittle raids captured.

All you have to say is you'll never get any of my men to talk, Colonel Mitsubi. And I'll go into Richard Lou if I can hit it. If I don't hit it, we'll take it out. Okay. You'll never get any of my men to talk, Captain Missoubi. Colonel. Oh, Colonel.

You'll never get it. I'm off now. You'll never get any of my men to talk, Colonel Musubi. I must remind you, Captain, that a chain is no stronger than that's weak-ass rank. Wow. God, the whole audience, person. Unfortunately, there are 200 people here. I got him on the show.

I had him on my show. They put him on as a surprise way early. Well, out in California. It's one of the shows the morons erased. Yes. For the Let's Make a Deal episodes. For Let's Make a Deal. You're a homework, bugger.

I had a surprise guest every day, El Capitan Theater, out before the curtain and won, the beautiful curtain closed. And here's today's Hollywood guest. the curtains open slightly in the band and there stood Richard Lou and just now Richard fucking Blue

he said I got the show I left out something he sat down and he had seen me do him on the Johnny Carson Tonight show and he said

Mr. Cabin, we have reason to believe that there came from an aircraft carrier of the fornet variety. And I died. That's great. Change postcards and things. I remember

he said that in a movie. Yeah. I remember, because I always remember aircraft carrier. Of an aircraft carrier. Yeah, and Oh, God, he made a lot of films. What's the one on a

mountaintop in Hong Kong with Bill Holden and everybody that's one of his later film? But Burma Row, the Purple Heart is the one to see. It's a very fine film. Dana Andrews, Sam Levine, a whole company of

flyers who, as in fact happened, but they do little raids over Tokyo. They went going, knowing they didn't have enough fuel to get back. And many, a couple crashed and others landed in occupied China. Oh, and you like dialects and you have the ear

that's required. In the Purple Heart, the plane crashes. They survived. And Dana Andrews and some of the other crew members are picked up by a corrupt

Chinese overlord, presumably an ally, right? And his son played by Key Liu. The actor playing the Chinese Overlord had an exaggerated accent, and Keeluk couldn't do one for shit. And you got the following. I was just going to ask you to do a little Key Luke.

Yeah, Key Luke was the number one son. You know him from number one son. In the Charlie Chan. Google it folks. And old white actors playing Charlie Chan, and Key Luke was his son. They never let an Asian play Charlie. No. So you heard,

Hello, gentlemen. My name is Gen Chuling, governor of Kunwan Province. And this is my son, Moy. Hello, gentlemen.

Watch for it. Dick, let me ask you about something we just alluded to this. some of the great late-night Cavett episodes that were foolishly taped over by ABC. No late-night ones. Oh, wasn't the late-night ones? It was the daytime Dick Cavett show, which in fact I'd have to be reminded was called the Morning Show at first. And then they did me the twin honor of changing it to the Dick Cavett Show

and also using the tapes to tape Let's Make a Deal on illegally, like something Richard Nixon would do. were there some great ones that were lost yes i can't think about it i don't know if you want to reveal the interior of your apartment of the got free department but behind me is a stunning canvas of groucho marks and really good so uh there was a show sorry to bring the room down show with groucho and his dear friend harry ruby The great Harry Ruby. Oh, this songwriter. We were talking about that.

We did a medley of, you know, words and the songs he wrote. And he was the funniest, most lovable man. He's on an episode of You Bet Your Life, Harry Ruby, if you want to see him. He was played by Red Skelton in the movie, and they looked a little like him, but there's nothing like him. And they erased that. I had people that would make a movie buff's mouthwater on those early shows. Gail Sunder. guard.

Did I have Percy Hilton possibly, the trivia expert people? Well, some of those Carson shows, the New York Carson shows, were taped over as well. Oh, a ton of them. And Jack Parr's prime

late night. His prime was not as good as his late night. Jack's neuroses and strangenesses and weirdnesses and danger and all his electric neurosis were in the late night show, and you couldn't take her eyes off him.

The great Kenneth Tynan said, when Jack's on the screen, if there are two people, even if it's Carrie Grant, or the ghost of Houdini, you can't take her eyes off, Jack, for fear you might miss a live nervous breakdown. It was so true.

I think to Ernie Kofax, they called his wife, the Edie Adams, and they said, It was just some guy who worked at the network, and he said, look, you better rush over here right away. They're going to burn all of his shows. Oh, I have heard this and hoped it was not true. Yeah.

Did they get there? I think she got and saved what she could. Well, I have one like that'll kill selected people. A friend of mine went up to NBC to meet a friend for lunch one day, and he said my friend was so depressed. I said, why? And he said, I just erased George S. Kaufman's first appearance on the Tonight Show with Jack Bo. Oh, geez. Groucho's God, George S. Coffman.

Oh, God. Yeah. I remember that appearance almost word for word. And I must have been still in Nebraska when it aired. Where were we going? No, where I think I slurred off. I think I thought I slurred off. I remember one time at six.

some event, I started doing the Groucho imitation to you, where I started following you around, going, uh, and then I miss Grace, Harry Ruperian. And at first you were laughing, and then you were, you gave me chills. Yes. Because everybody else does groucher way. Yeah, why don't get it? See, I can't do the young groucho anymore. It's that, that soft voice, cold groucho.

a just velvet soft voice yeah and i margaret so much worked with us in some of those movies and she was always she never understood what i was talking making me cry because she would say julie what did that joke mean and then she never understood one and then you know the joke I remember sitting there when he said that I also noticed another thing sitting next to Groucho he was surprised by things he said I mean by that

he heard them as we did he didn't think I'm going to say this you said something and he said and then he'd give a little laugh like hey that wasn't bad oh wow yes yes and you've had it yourself you've said something and thought

That was good. I didn't even have to think at it. Oh, yes, yes. Very true in Groucho, even as he got older. One day, do you dare me to tell you a

Groucho story you may ever heard? Absolutely. One day, he and Tony Randall were in their tuxedos backstage, I think, at the music hall for some big special, and they were asked to step aside

back there in the hall while they brought some scenery through or something. Would you two gentlemen just go into that room and they went into a room? And the room was a dressing room. And suddenly from the other end it filled with chorus girls who stripped mother naked

and got into some jungle costume as Groucho and Randall stood there in their tuxedo. You see Groucho holding his cigar and saying to Randall, you know, you don't get this in the pants business. I think what any other comedian might have said, it wouldn't have been that. Is it true that when you introduced him at some of his comeback shows, that you actually walked out on stage and said,

I can't believe that I know Groucho Marx? Yeah, people get sick of my saying that kind of thing, and I was a star-struck boy from Omaha, from, Jesus, I must be drunk, Lincoln. I'll tell you why I thought Omaha because I would go over there sometimes to see things that didn't play Lincoln like Spike Jones. So you don't remember where you were born?

It's the state right. I've never known for sure. This is strange, but almost like, how can you explain this, boys and girls? Okay. Here's a man who grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, Grand Island, Lincoln, Nebraska. And before he went east to school,

In Lincoln, Nebraska, he had met Dane Clark, Basil Rathbone, Charles Lawton, Agnes Moorhead, Charles Boyet, Cedric – I was corrected on that by Stephen Frye, Cedric Hardwick, Henry Fonda, and somebody else. Oh, you know something I remembered a Cedric Hardwick story. shoot sir cedric cardwick sir cedric hardwick to you buddy he was sir cedric hardwick he was in ghost of frankenstein was my favorite um i had heard he had trouble with impotence sir cedric hard i think it came quite easily to him we love and and we ought to be on the radio He had a problem with him, and he used to introduce himself as Sir Seldom Hard Dick.

My God, you have collector's items like that. To Sedgoyle called. I met him once in the doorway of the Algonquin, and it was freezing cold, and I thought I got to say some. to him. We were coming in opposite directions and holding the door for each other and I said, this weather's not too good for the voice, I guess.

I was always, I could connect with him. Should I do his answer for you? Oh, please. Not too good. I think I confuse Cedric Hardwick with Cyril Richard. They would both hate you.

Fair enough. One was a foot and a half taller than the other and gay as a fruit cake. Subdard's son was Watson on the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes. He wasn't the first Watson. I think he was the second Watson.

Well, the Jeremy Brett one. Yeah, yeah. See, I was just... Edward Hardwick. Yeah. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. after this. I think there was a story

that Ralph Bellamy would tell that they were doing one of the Frankenstein movies and the director gave them this direction like Frankenstein is chasing you and the wolfman is coming through the window

and Dracula is coming out and we want you to react like you're fed up. Fed up. Yeah. And that used to be that greeting to each other from then on ralph bellamy would see cedric hodwick and they'd both go so you fed up yet i loved little bits like that why don't you do a book of these fabulous collection of jewels that you should gilbert stored in your head you should like a toad

yeah why am i wasting time talking to you i have when i should be doing this book oh but if i were you i'd turn on some sort of recording device that's an idea What I remember, when I was following you around with the groucho thing, you then eventually... I had to swat you away. Yes, and you eventually ran into an elevator, and I wasn't able to stop the elevator in time, so I called your room in the hotel.

You don't really want to tell this, do you? Yes. Go ahead, okay. No, and then I just... Oh, tell us about... You used to write for Jerry Lewis. Yes. You know how Jerry would come on and go? I wrote that.

That was yours. Yeah, that was mine. It's the only one he ever used. And that Hindenberg of a show that he did. Was this one of the most expensive catastrophe? One that was like three hours long? It was two hours long live. Totally unscripted allegedly.

Yeah, what's he going to do for two hours was the motto they flooded the country with for about a year? and I like Jerry very much and then and now but it was a load that he should not have taken on and it was not possible and he would get depressed and when his dad came around

and I don't know Did you leave the Tonight Show, Dick, to go to that show? You might have too because I made 360 on the Tonight Show Jerry did it for two weeks, liked me, wanted me on his big new show,

and I wanted to be faithful to Johnny because we're both from Nebraska and for other reasons I liked him so much. But yeah, I went to my manager's office and I heard the late Charles Jaffe talking to the Jerry Lewis ABC show saying, my client doesn't work for $800 a week. And I said, get them back. It's true. I work for $3.60.

Come on. And he got $1,200 a week. Imagine a boy who had been a copy boy at time a few years earlier at $60 a week, getting $1,200 a week with Jerry. But there were a lot of good stuff in those shows, and to my amazement, they have just come out on a box set of all those shows. Kennedy was shot near the end of the abbreviated run, and after that, I think about three more shows sort of dribbled out, and then they quit. but I had a good time writing for him. I didn't hate Hollywood the way you're supposed to. I would now, I'm sure, but I liked having an apartment in Bel Air.

I liked seeing Johnny Weissmuller as my neighbor. And I like going to Paramount and sitting on the old Western set and then the New York set and then the Standing Street. Yeah. And I heard, well, Johnny Weismillet to anyone listening, Who doesn't was Tarzan. Yeah. And I heard toward the end, he had gotten like Alzheimer's

and would be in a home doing the Tarzan yell. That's sad. It's true. It was sad when I knew him. I lived in one of those, one of the million rectangular apartment, two-story high buildings with a pool in the middle you have out there. And one day, here came Tarzan. A little pudgy

With his hair a little long Actually I didn't see him first I heard him I was just going to swim And I heard You're going to hit it And you know he had a high voice And

Here he was carrying a very heavy suitcase A smaller suitcase And a six foot by four foot Portrait of himself No I'll tell a lie, a photograph, full-length Tarzan. And he said, I'm moving in here because my apartment's, my house being painted, an excuse in Hollywood when the IRS had gotten you and you moved into an apartment

and told people your house being painted. The sad part is he was on the second floor, and he was winded having climbed one set of stairs, and I helped Tarzan take. Wow. And if you'd told me when I'm Grand Island at the Grand Theater where I was first molested, I would, watching Tarzan and Mia's mother on the screen, I would carry a suitcase someday I wouldn't be able to conceive of it.

Now, I heard getting back to, I heard Jerry Lewis basically is the nutty professor. It's like one minute, he's a nice, funny guy, and the next minute he could turn, like, totally evil on you. He never turned evil on me. This is not to deny all the people who say that, but I didn't see it. And, oh, my God, look, listen, I'm getting a call on my phone. Let me, don't cut the... Richard Luz.

Heirs. Yeah, I'm not doing anything but a live show with... Yes? This is the Gottfried show. I'm sorry about the laughter. They're out of drums here. The car is there. I was just going to ask him to do his bird quook.

I'm sorry. I repeat what time it arrives. Okay. Tell him I'll need 15 minutes beyond that. Okay, thank you. He's having too much fun. deposit your dime again remember when you

deposited oh yes whose great joke was it no I don't remember but I always remember when I would be on a pay phone and I'd hang up it would ring back

and say you owe like 25 and nobody would pay that it was idiotic it would ever be dumbing yeah was it in Mike Nichols was it Nichols was it Nichols made a great phone thing

or some other comic I think it might been some other comic and maybe Shelley Berman who got to that point in his bit and he said the voice said you must deposit 15 cents and he said well

I can't but I'll take your name and address I hope that's true yeah that that used to be on those pay phones they would call you back and you'd have to pay

but then they realized that was so stupid no one would ever pay what would you do would you just say okay here it comes and then yes yes i would always i would always hang up and walk off with the phone ringing back or say oh good frank nelson a little frank nelson oh tell us the jack bennie story all right but it would be more appropriate to tell a quick frank nelson story oh okay frank nelson was set up who frank nelson was this will strike you as in problem I promise.

Okay, so I don't know whose voice to do it in, so I'll do it in mine instead of Jack Warden. Let's say I'm sitting with Streisand in the Kennedy Center in Washington, of course that Kennedy Center, not the one in Broken Bow Nebraska.

And the theater has emptied. It's an NBC special, but it's lunch. And everybody's gone. So an overhead shot shows the two of us occupying only two seats. And a gopher comes over. To those unskilled in showbiz jargon, a young kid who runs errands on a show.

Kid and jeans, loafers, t-shirt comes over it. Very polite. He said, Ms. Dreson, do you want some coffee? And she said, yes, sugar and cream. Do you like coffee, Mr. Cavett? Now, I think it's the fact that he phrased it that way. But anyway, do you like coffee, Mr. Cabot? Ooh, do I?

And then he looked sort of startled, of course. And I said, I got to explain quickly. There was a thing called the Jack Benny show long before your time. And there was this very funny character actor on it, whose name was Frank Nelson. And he said, I know he's my father. Oh, my God. Skew the Theraman music, the Twilight. I almost passed out.

Now, skeptics have said, well, how do you know he was? Sure. Well, he was. He talked about his dad. He said the one thing his dad hated the most, and don't be offended by this, from something we said earlier,

was being mistaken for Gail Gordon on the Lucy show. Yes, they both did the same thing. Yeah. Wavy duck hair, little mustache. And who is like, And a little fruity, and they're, oh, yes. I found an old life magazine recently, and there's Frank Nelson on it. And all it says is, yes, he had the whole country.

Frank Nelson was on the cover of Life magazine. A full cover of Life magazine back in the heyday of the Benny show. Gee, it's fun to watch those old Benny shows now. Yes. When you were on the Joy Behar show, Dick, and you were a guest when we first met, and you told this wonderful Benny story about the meeting the fans. the out-of-towners in the elevator? Oh, yes.

The special on HBO called Mel Brooks and Dick Cavett together again. I think I got the biggest laugh with that of anything I did that night. It's a sweet story. Jack Benny, an harmless story. Jack Benny being certainly one of the cleanest comics who ever worked in radio and vaudeville and I don't know anybody in show business who disliked Jack Benny and you can't say that about very many of our beloved colleagues everybody liked him I hung out because I was in hog heaven once I got the par job I stayed at the tapings I hung out with Bob Hope and Benny and all the comics Burl whoever it was I was around them. They were my people. I had made it. I had gotten to their world. And I was

in the dressing room talking to Mr. Benny one day, and he ordered a glass of scotch, drank two inches of it, and walked out on stage. This is a separate story, but to me that was astounding, the most relaxed man. Anyway, that night,

after the show, got in the elevator, so did some tourists, so weren't supposed to get in that elevator. And in the seven floors, and this test your age. And the seven floors down to the main floor. One person said, are you really cheap?

Another one said, do you really play the violin? Are you old enough to know these references? Oh, yes. Do you not really pay Rochester? Another one said. And he's such a nice man and he'd smile and, you know, nod. Is it really a guy living under

your house in a, you know, like a vault type thing? Did you any drive of Maxwell? I mean, or is that just a joke? And he endured all this nicely. I just was so impressed. Got to the main floor, everybody rushed off to tell their friends. I said, Mr. Benny, does that get kind of old?

I mean, over the years and all that. And he said, he put his hand on my shoulder. He said, you know, kid, sometimes you, you, you, you, You just want to tell them to go fuck themselves. That's gold. I loved it. It's great. The voice that came out of my radio.

Oh, God. I would trade a lot for that experience. Well, how do we get off on a laugh? Two bald guys put their heads together and made an ass with. themselves. Well, do you... What if we fired some names at you? Yes.

And you just gave us a little short response. Okay. Well, you keep track in my time. Absolutely. Absolutely. Our staff, our crack staff is keeping track. Alfred Hitchcock. During a commercial break, sort of not looking at me directly.

Great Calli. the most promiscuous woman I've ever known. That's one Hitchcock story. That'll do. He was just great. He was such fun. He did the bit. Marshall Brickman was working for me.

I think he was the one who had the idea of have our two profiles at the beginning of the show and Shadow Hitchcock's and mine. Marshall Brickman who went on to co-write Annie Hall. That's right. Famously. Yeah, and Jersey boys, too. That's right. What about Salvador Dolly?

Oh, wait a minute. I get you. Okay, but one quick thing with Hitchcock, he said, I know the man to my right does him better than I do, but shall we reveal the secret of doing Hitchcock that you, I think Larry Storch told this one. All you have to do to do Hitchcock is to raise your voice slightly and pretend you've got a bit of meat stuck in your rear, right,

top molar which gives you I wanted to do a movie once in which it's an assembly line and there's a frame of an automobile and then they add the fenders

and it moves along and they add the doors and that moves along and they add the windows and then they add the top and then they add the trunk and then it is a completed automobile and you open the door and a dead body falls out. That was a fantasy of a movie he wanted to do.

He also announced that he had never, ever, right up to that day, looked through a camera. I'm not sure exactly what that means, except he was famous for like cartoon strips working out the entire movie in every shot on paper, drawing the figures and the dialogue. And he said making it was just sort of dreary after that. now what about groucho's girlfriend or secretary toward the end of his life that's a terribly long story best told by my friend steve stolior in a book called raised eyebrows a young woman vivaciously pretty at the first attached herself to groucho and there are two schools of thought and they are she saved his life, brought him back to life. He was a lonely old man, taking walks, trying to talk to strangers

because he had no do, and he'd walk past a neighbor's house hoping to be invited into dinner. And Aaron Fleming, her real name was Aaron Fleming, came in to his life and got him to do concerts, got him to Carnegie Hall, and was also an abusive psychotic. That's in a nutshell. Yeah, that's the nicest thing I could say. I got along with Aaron Fine.

Some will remember a trial on CNN about the money. There was a scene televised. She'd gotten a fight with a guard about her purse. She wasn't going to give it up. She said that man killed Groucho Marx pointing at the judge, and she was losing her mind by then. It was a very sad and long story, and she later shot herself. I'm surprised no one's made a movie either based on that,

not a groucho-erun movie, but something. Raised eyebrows. Oh, and before we forget, someone died. I was talking with Frank about it. Someone died on your show. Yeah, that's, I think I'm the only, if there's a Guinness Book of Records,

the entry for having a guest die is probably occupied only by me. during a taping, J. I. Rodale. Who would the gods have die on a show, but a health expert? That's a long story, and I can refer you to my book. It's in here.

Yeah, talk show book. Oh, you've got a, that's like a galley copy. Rare collector's item. And it was... And Pete Hamill was on there with you, was he not? Pete Hamill was sitting there and got the column of his year, at least. the next day

as the men they perished in front of the audience. How did it happen? Heart attack. You know, but I mean... Oh, he was very funny for half an hour

in his segment. I made a mental note to have him back. And he sat down on the couch and Hamill came out and suddenly I heard and Hamill forgetting or not realizing

he was in close up at the moment as it happened said this looks bad. And I looked over, and there was Mr. Rodale in the death rattle. Years later, Catherine Hepburn wanted to hear everything about that. When I first met her, her dad was a doctor, and she always gave medicine to people she worked with. And I said, why do you suppose I found myself at the edge of the stage saying, is there a doctor in the audience?

And she said, well, you know that, dad? there's a doctor in the house wouldn't get a laugh and she was right and it would have and the audience didn't think it was real because there's makeup

and band and entertainment you don't die in that situation that was horrible and all of us forgot that all of us forgot

until a week later when we watched the ghastly tape that he had said among other things I plan to live to be 100

you tell your creative writing student, take that out. And I never felt better in my life, the worst thing you can ever hear from anybody, including yourself. What about Olivier? He is fine.

He was just fine. He's a nice guy. Hell of a tap dancer. I have borrowed a mailbook answer about, did you know Hitler? Do you want to know if it may never have been revealed? Olivier was great, of course.

It's never been revealed that I know, if Mel may not, why he came up with the phrase springtime for Hitler. When we were improvising the notorious Ballantine beer commercials years ago, he was the 2,500-year-old brewmaster, and I was the young interviewer. Sir, have you, you know, they couldn't get Carl, and they got me. I was totally unknown. It was great fun. Most fun I ever had.

Mel, we improvised for three, four hours at a time. And there was a play that the great Edward Everett Horton started doing when he was about 30 called Springtime for Henry. And he was still doing it when he was 60 and 70. That's where it came from, huh? Springtime for, and I just know how Mel's mind would be. He would take part of the thing and put it together something else.

And I'd say, what are you going to call the thing? And he'd say, let's call it Springtime for. I know that's where it came from. I don't know if Mel knows that. But I hope so. But I'll tell him. Here's a cliche. You've never tasted this beer, have you, sir?

I can say anything I wanted to. I don't think you've ever tasted Valentine beer. Taste some now. Well, all right, Fluffy. Let's see. I shall pour some into my swizzle or mouth. Mm-hmm. Oh, do you like it, sir?

My tongue just threw a party for my mouth. Are those available anywhere, Dick? Can anybody find those on the Internet? I have a couple of DVDs of them. I don't know. People wrote in, loved those commercials, so. It'd be great to see. And said, what can we do to keep them on?

The beer is like piss, and we can't drink it. But I bought two six-packs, hoping it will help keep your commercials on they wrote to the ad agency oh another one we wanted to ask you about because he just died recently and that's it caesar yeah i say yeah because one of the reasons i'm late going home now is i owe the times a piece on sid i got to call him sid after a while um and i think i'll tip the title uh i think i'm going to call a it was like looking at a god when I first saw him

I sat in church in Nebraska all through high school bored my ass off to sit in church and all I could ever think of on Sunday was show of shows the night before and things that said in imaging and coca not cocoa you idiot

did and once I thought now there's a man sitting down there about his size. Could Sid Caesar physically be sitting in the same room or place that I am? No, he's a god off somewhere in New York, I believe they call it. And eventually I met him and eventually had him on shows. And my last contact with him was Melbrook.

of course, called and said, would you write a little thing about Sid or we're going to have a birthday party for him this last year? And Carl and everybody, we'll go to his house and we'll read these things and I wrote something. And I heard that they read it to him and all the things that people had written who couldn't be there. And then it was sad and that he was, just a shell of himself was left and the next day he had forgotten the party. The gods disliked him intensely. He suffered so. And there was never anybody like him in any way.

The most lavishly gifted comedian probably of my time. Now, people could say, excuse me, was he funnier than Johnny Winters? That's a dumb question. How do you compare great, great comedians? Is yellow a better color than green? He certainly had a shitload of physical and mental and verbal gifts that was unprecedented. A little awkward in conversation.

I just watched two shows he was on with other guests of mine for writing this. And then years later, I was on CNBC, and I did two half hours with Sid in Hawaii, I don't know, Atlantic City. He must have been in a great period of his life, maybe off the booze, maybe analysis was finally working for him. And he was the best talker you can imagine. For three hours, you almost want to say you couldn't shut him up. He was so damn interesting. He talked about everything. I said, could you do show of shows now?

He said, no, there are no skilled stage hands now if we've done live television enough. Stuff like that. It was just technical interesting. And he was so happy with himself that these two half hours went so well. and at the end of the second one he went what a great interview not on camera I mean it was over by that time

but he was I was so happy that I somehow had made him happy or comfortable or something in a way that he obviously had never been before and I treasure those two half hours what a man I guess I have to get out of here now oh did you know I was going to do

play off Broadway oh tell us anything you have about the clock yeah it's um you know a great uh thing event that got very ugly happened on my uh pbs show when the great writer mary mccarthy was on and talked about the great writer lillian helman in a way that caused lillian helman to sue her and it went on the case went on for years uh to most intelligent people lillian ruined her reputation by pursuing this suit, this great advocate of free speech over the years, and her hatred of McCarthy

and the viciousness of the lawsuit. And a play was written by Nora Ephron about it, and a gentleman by the last name of Maury wrote a splendid new play on the same subject. and I read it with them one night and somebody said why don't you do the play with us so I guess I will

it's at the Abingdon Theater it'll be at the Edming Theater from mid-March to mid-February to mid-March about four or five weeks and who do you play but why do I get all the rotten parts I was myself in

four or five movies and myself on the odd couple and myself on the I don't know what all. Oh, Forrest Gump. That's right. And Apollo 13. And Apollo 13.

Am I in that too? Yes, you're in it. In a clip. Yeah. And a Frankenheimer movie. Can't they get anyone else to do me? Well, Beetlejuice, at least I was allegedly somewhere else. That's right.

That's right. Yeah. But this will be at the Abington, Abingdon Theater. and you can Google it, and it's called Helman v. McCarthy. And boy, did it get dirty. Two women loathing each other. And part of it is the fraud that Lillian Hellman was toward the end. Martha Gellhorn, who had been one of the women married to Ernest Hemingway,

did a exhaustive piece about, remember Julia, the novel and the movie, Jane Fonda played Bill and Elman. And the woman that story really happened to came forth saying it was not Lillian Elman, it was me. Oh, it's just full of interesting, fascinating stuff.

Your sort of thing. The serious side of you we see so often. Will Richard Louby mentioned at any point? I'll probably work Richard Lou in. You should. Jesus, I got to get out of here, you guys. Can I come back sometime?

Please do. Absolutely. In fact, you have no say in the matter. You have to come back. Okay. Hi. I'm... How's later tonight?

You'll sleep over. I'm Gilbert Godfried with my co-host, Frank Santropadre. And we've been speaking to... He'll get it eventually. Say your name. Sancto Padre. Santo Padre he's got it By about the seventh show I figured

He's going to nail it down Yeah one day But there won't be a seventh show I assure you Is that Panto Padre Spelled the usual way Yes Yes

And we've been We've been speaking To Dick Cavett And this is the amazing colossal podcast Thank you Dick It's been a treat And Dick you have to come back

Any time you can Can I get a copy this to my lawyer before it goes out. Thanks, dude. It's a treat.