Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Hal Linden Encore

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

GGACP celebrates the birthday of Emmy and Tony-winning actor-singer Hal Linden (b. March 20) by revisiting this interview from 2016. In this episode, Hal joins Gilbert and Frank for a look back at his long and varied career (including work in sitcoms, on Broadway and in nightclubs) and reveals why “Barney Miller” was considered the most authentic of all cop shows. Also, Hal covers Benny Goodman, backs up Perry Como, shares the screen with Harry Morgan and cuts the rug with Donald O’Connor. PLUS: Cab Calloway! Eddie “The Old Philosopher” Lawrence! “Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster”! The Chinese Bing Crosby! And Hal salutes the late, great Abe Vigoda! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bet MGM is an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League and has your back all season long. From puck drop to the final shot, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with Bet MGM. And no matter your team, your favorite skater or your style, there's something every NHL fan is going to love about Bet MGM. Download the app today and discover why Bet MGM is your hockey home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with Bet MGM, a sports book worth a celly, and an official sports betting partner

of the National Hockey League. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hi, I'm Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer Frank Berterosa. Our guest this week is a singer, musician, Emmy winning and Tony winning actor who has conquered the stage nightclubs, films and television over his nearly seven decade career. Memorable films include Alan Alda's A New Life, When You Comein' Back Red life when you come in back red rider and out to sea co-starring screen legends Jack Lemmon and Walter Mathau.

His TV appearances are too numerous to mention but here goes anyway. The FBI, the love boat, the Carol Burnett show, The Golden Girls, The Muppet Show, Great Performances, Will & Grace, Gilmore Girls, Night of a Hundred Stars, The Mindy Project, and Two Broke Girls, just to name a few. He's also worked extensively on Broadway and Off-Broadway stage, appearing in hit shows like Bells Are Ringing, The Pajama Game, The Apple Tree, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Cabaret, and The Rothschilds, for which he was awarded the Tony for Best Actor. Is there more?

You bet there is. He's also an accomplished musician and nightclub performer, and in 2011 he released his first album of jazz and pop standards. It's never too late. But to us, as well as millions of viewers all over the world, he'll always be known as the unflappable and compassionate police captain Barney Miller in the iconic and long running TV series of the same name. Please welcome to the podcast a man of multiple talents and to our knowledge the only man to work with both Billy Barty and Godzilla. Hal Linden.

Boy am I impressed. What a what a what a resume. Yeah did you know? By the way, it is seven decades. How many years in total, Al? Well, it depends where you count from. I actually became a professional musician in 1945, so it's over seven decades. Wow. Seventy years in show business. I gotta tell you, one thing I saw on TV once that annoyed the hell out of me It was one of these shows like you may be like these joke type shows like they throw together a special

And this was making fun of these actors and athletes who release albums where they sing like You know William Shatner and you downs and all those people. Oh Leonard Nimoy. Yeah Leonard Nimoy a bunch of them and and that's right Telly Savalas yes he did one and in the midst of it just to show how fucking stupid they were they go and when Barney Miller was on the air, even Hal Lyndon thought he could sing. And I thought, the fuck is wrong with them? He's a singer. Yes!

He started as a singer. That was my entrance into the theater. I came from the big band era, where I played with Bobby Sherwood and Ray McKinley and bands like that as a saxophone player. But I was always the boy singer or not really the boy singer. I was the one who jumped out of the saxophone section, sang the song and then had to go back and sit down and play the rest of the song on the saxophone. And when I went into the theater, the natural place was into the musical theater. So I started out singing right away.

Yeah, I've heard you say you didn't really want to be John Raitt. You wanted to be Benny Goodman. Benny Goodman. Yeah. Well, that was in the beginning. I actually started as a legitimate clarinet player. Had I any kind of discipline in my life, I would today be a, or would have been a first chair clarinet player with some symphony. And think about it, I could have been making hundreds of dollars a week.

And it was lack of discipline and hormones that drove me out of the classical music business. I realized that more girls went to dances than went to symphony concerts. So I became a saxophone player and that blew the whole legitimate career. We should say too you're born right here in the Bronx. Bronx, New York. Yeah another New York guest. We've had a lot of New York born guests on this show. And tell us your real name. Harold

Lipschitz. And what was... Since I was going to be a big band leader, hard to parse, swing and sway with Harold Lipschitz. It just didn't quite make it. So between high school and college, I changed my name. And what was your nickname? Lippy. Lippy. Lippy.

Listen, that's the best... That's the better part. Could have been the other half, you know. I was the youngest and every one of them started out as musically, as a musician. At one point, five of the eight were professional musicians and major professional musicians. I'm talking about first chair viola with the NBC Symphony. I'm talking about the concertmaster of the Goldman Band. Really top notch musicians. I was, as I say, the youngest.

So when the time came for me, it was just a question, it wasn't a question of was I gonna study music. It was a question of pick an instrument. We've got a clarinet, we've got a fiddle, what do you wanna play? And so it was a foregone conclusion for me. So you are from a whole family of music. Just my generation.

Nobody in the, it didn't come from musicians, but my father was a music lover, and he thought, the way he put it, he said, when you go to a concert, I want you to know what you're listening to. That's why he taught us music. That's why he insisted we study music. And it turned out to be godsent. Certainly worse for me because when I finally did go into the theater and became an actor, I never waited on tables, I never drove a cab, because I could do all, I could read music, I could sight sing, I could do jingles,

I could do all kinds of things that other people couldn't do. Thank heaven for the music. I've heard you say you did everything in show business that somebody could do basically. Just about, if you make me a list, I don't think I missed anything. Gilbert, you'd find this interesting too, that one of the things Hal did early on is,

what would you call it, Hal? Was it dubbing? Was it... We called it dubbing at the time. This was in the late 50s, early 60s when there were only three networks and every so often every city had an independent station. And what and every city had an independent station. And what they used to do is they would show either very old movies or foreign movies that they could get really cheap. Foreign movies that never came to America.

And we would go into a studio and put the English words into the foreign actors' mouths. They would write the entire script and we'd go and do it piece by piece, put the words in, it was always lip synched. So it looked like the actors were speaking in English. Which explains the Godzilla part in the intro. Yes, Godzilla versus the sea monster.

He's also in Destroy All Monsters. I worked with Godzilla. But then again I also did some interesting movies. I did the Russian War and Peace that won the Academy Award that time. I did Z. Oh, the Costa Gavre's movie. I was...Continu in Z. Oh, the Costa Gavras movie. I was, I was, Pantignon and Z.

Oh, that's a good movie. Yes. I did a whole bunch of very good movies and some really lousy movies. We used to go in there, sometimes there were like three actors and we'd do all the parts. Just change the voice a little, you know,

it'd be for an old man, you speak like this. For a young guy, you talk like this. You know? Always with an accent. One time, one time, what did I, I was doing some picture in the morning and they stuck their nose in and said, can you do a, can you, somebody laugh for me?

And I did a laugh, and they said, fine, studio seven, and what it was was, now what was that movie, remember the music was Mozart, a Danish picture, and it was about young people in love, and there was a whole sequence of laughter, and they just didn't like the laughter that the guy had done. So, so I did all the laughter in the movie. And then the next day, they used to take foreign pictures where the couple

would go into the bedroom and the door would close, fade out. So they would go into hotel rooms and you'd see arms and legs and, and, and we do heavy breathing. So I would heavy breathe one day and laugh the next day and be a, have a Swedish accent the next day. It was, Hey, kept me going, kept me going and till till something happened on Broadway for me. It's the rare actor that never had to do you know odd jobs. Never wait on tables, never never drove a cab. I always kind of

have to apologize to all my fellow actors because I know what they went through. So what was the official big break, Hal? Was it the Bells are Ringing with Judy Holliday? Bells are Ringing. Bells are Ringing was... I was in... I had just started basically. It was only my, I think, third year in the business. And it wasn't a full year as I can tell you, but I had done a couple of seasons of Summer Stock. I was in Summer Stock playing character roles or anything I can get a hold of.

I was going with a dancer on Broadway who was in Bells of Ringing. And she heard that there was an opening for the understudy to the lead. Actually he was a standby. There's a distinction. One has a reputation, the other is just a chorus member. And they were, it was about the second or third year of the show and he was leaving. They wanted to go to an understudy, somebody to come into the chorus and understudy the lead. And she suggested me, I didn't even have an agent. So I drove into New York to audition for the stage manager

just to get an audition for the casting person. And after five or six auditions, I got the job. I was still, here was my career. That Saturday that I got the job, cause I had to audition between shows at the Schubert Theater for Judy, Judy Holliday. She had to okay me as the understudy. Oh, interesting.

That day I was a Ray Charles singer, the other Ray Charles. Ray Charles used to be a music arranger, singer, wonderful guy. And I was a Ray Charles singer on the Perry Como show, standing behind Perry going, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. And at a break I ran over to the Schubert Theater, got my audition for Judy, got the job, came back, we shot the Como show, I got in my car, drove to Long Island and played

a bar mitzvah on the saxophone. That's show business. started rehearsal with a stage manager and a book. And Saturday all week, he just gave me the staging, where we worked together all week. Saturday morning was first understudy rehearsal. And in the middle of it, he came out and said, "'Keep rehearsing, because you're on today.'" And I made my Broadway debut in the lead of a musical. Wow.

Was it Chaplin's son? Sydney Chaplin? Sydney Chaplin. Very charming, wonderful guy. Yeah. And you were once hired to be like this stand-in. Always. That whole decade. decade, the 60s, I was the understudy or the standby. And you were in luck because there was a play going on. That was the beginning of Asian Flu. It was the first Asian Flu, and Sidney got it on a Saturday matinee.

That was my Broadway debut. And that was also the last club date I ever played as a saxophone player. Once I got into the theater, I put it away. Actually, I didn't touch it for about 20 years. Wow. Yeah. Well, go ahead.

No, I was gonna say till I was, the next time I picked up the horn was in the 70s, when that was 1958. So it was in the 70s already 20 years later and I was doing a Captain and Tenille special in this I was Barney already and we did a special in New Orleans. We were sitting around talking about what I was gonna do on the show. I said, you know, New Orleans, I used to play the clarinet. I could probably get it together

and do a little Dixieland. They got all excited. They hired a Dixieland band, mine is the clarinet player. Tony Tenille said, oh, I'll do a number with the group. Went down to New Orleans, rehearsed with the group. We came up with a number we could do. It was their arrangement that I joined in on. We got that next morning, we got to the

nightclub that they had hired and blacked out the windows and pumped smoke all over the place to make it look exotic. And I started to get nervous because I hadn't been playing the horn for 20 years. I wasn't sure how this was going to go. Grabbed the group in the corner and we quickly ran through it. Okay, fine. Okay, we're going to shoot it.

Got up on the stage and we did the number, it was perfect. Of course the cameras weren't, so it was Hal, we're gonna have to do take two, we didn't know who was playing when, okay, take two. Now we played it again, fine, really good. We're gonna need another take, Hal, to take three, take seven, take 12, take 19.

Now we're gonna change coverage by this time. The embouchure is going south. I could hardly hold the clarinet in my mouth. These muscles are the muscles, you know, if you play all the time, that's fine. You're strong, but when you don't play, I can, by the time Tony got up to sing her song, I could barely make a sound. Air was coming out of my mind.

I could, we made it through though, and that experience got me back to playing the horn again. So I look at it positively. That's great. After a 20 year layoff. 20 years layoff. Wow. Now you brought the horn with you.

You brought the clarinet with you. I got the horn with me. I thought, you know, I would make some noises. That way would kind of equal what the noise is that Gilbert makes. You know, he's very musical. Yes. Okay. You want to sing the first part and I'll play the second part? Okay.

What do you want to hear? You got any requests? I have a little tip jar right here. Gosh. What was your specialty in the old days? Oh, no, God knows. I don't know what, do we have musical clearance? I don't dare to talk about it. We're good on that. So so Fantastic. That was Hal Barney Miller Linden. You are clarinet.

Only the second guest to serenade us on an instrument that we've had on this podcast. The other one was, you know, Dominic Chianese from the Sopranos, Hal? Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, came in here and played his guitar for us. That sounds wonderful. Wow. Still playing, I'm still plugging, still. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal podcast after this.

Bet MGM is an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League and has your back all season long. this. that every NHL fan is going to love about Ben MGM. Download the app today and discover why Ben MGM is your hockey home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with Ben MGM, a sports book worth a celly and an official sports

betting partner of the National Hockey League. Ben MGM dot com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. if you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Ben MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. What are you playing for 70 years you figure? Now I joined the Musicians Union in 1945. Wow. Figure that out that's 71

years ago. Wow. Well as long as we're talking too about your Broadway career and Gil will appreciate this some of the people that Hal worked with on Broadway. First of all tell us a little bit about what Judy Holliday was like. The most generous actress I've ever worked with. She was everything you didn't think of her. Judy was a ditzy blonde, the original ditzy blonde. Sure, sure, that's how she was. That's how she was looked upon. First of all, she was brilliant.

I remember I went on, you know, no rehearsal. I'd never rehearsed with her. So it was all, and I remember distinctly doing Just In Time, Just In Time comes from Bells of Ringing. And it was done stage left to stage right in one, in front of a park drop ostensibly we were going to a party and I just take her in my arms and start singing in her ear as we danced across the stage and I I took her in my arms and did just that I

started singing in her ear just in, I found you just in time. And all of a sudden I felt my back, her hand on my back twisting me. So we're now dancing kind of this way, but I was facing the audience. I hadn't even thought about it. I was just singing in her ear. That's great.

She turned you to the audience. She turned me to the audience so that we could, it was a little awkward dancing, but the audience could hear what I was singing. Cause in those days we didn't have microphones in our hair. You know what I mean? You had to be able to. She was funny.

That was the quintessential Judy Holliday. She knew that the important thing of that moment was for me to be able to, for the audience to be able to hear me do that. It was generous. And wasn't her real name something like Judy Yuntiff? No, no, no, close. Tuvim. T-U-V-I-M.

Yeah. Which, Yom To close. Tuvim, T-U-V-I-M. Yeah. Which, yom tov, tuvim, tuvim is plural of tov. Yes, and that's holiday. Yeah. Hence holiday. Oh, that's how she, and as long as we're talking about names, tell us how Harro Lipschitz became Halloween. Before I forget that one.

I was doing a Christmas gig. I was still in high school. And Christmas we got a job in Lakewood, New Jersey. Remember that used to be a resort town in New Jersey. I don't know if it's still maybe, I have no idea. And about to graduate high school, about to go to college, and I wanted to change my name between high school and college.

I had this career all planned out to be, I was gonna play the Paramount Capital, remember when the big bands were there? And we went through Lyndon, New Jersey, and there was a gas storage tank, you know those tanks that are, when they're full, they're all the way up. Oh sure, sure.

And when this one was full and the name Linden was in about seven story letters. So I said, I'll start with big billing. And that's how I got the name Linden. That's it, you got to keep your initials. Well, it was going to be an L name, yeah. Right, right. Now, going back to Broadway just for a second, one of your favorite actors, Gil, Jack Guilford.

Oh my God, yeah. You worked with him, Three Men and a Horse? Three Men and a Horse. The best. You know, when Jack Sue died, we did a memorial program to Jack. And each one of us got to speak about how we felt about Jack. Now Jack had been in a internment camp in Utah.

He was really Japanese, not Chinese at all. He took a Chinese name because he was not very, you couldn't have a career with a Japanese name. And the thing I said about Jack was that, Jack Hsu, was that it never turned him bitter. A lot of people who went through that became bitter, a lot of animosity. Jack dealt with it with humor.

Jack was loving and dealt with all of his difficulties with his wonderful sense of humor. And that was Jack Guilford, too. Read about all the people who were blacklisted. Oh yeah. We just had Lee Grant on this show. Well Lee. Yeah. But all the people who became bitter, embittered by what the Blacklist did to them. Jack, Jack was open and loving. He didn't have animosity for anyone. I'll never forget on stage in Three Mountain on a Horse,

we were working with Sam Levine. Sam Levine was kind of a tough guy to work with because he had, he was the original on that show, he knew every line in the show, he had directed it 50 times in summer stock, you know, and when we started doing, decided to do it on Broadway, George Abbott was the director who hired me to play a part. That was, I probably wasn't right for but it was a nice stretch as an actor I really wanted to try it and Abbott a bit was a big fan

of mine he hired me I don't think Sam ever liked the fact that I was playing a part that should have been played by let's say Maxi Rosenblum you know that's who should have been playing the part let's say, Maxi Rosenblum, you know. Slapsy Maxi. Slapsy, you know, that's who should have been playing the part. And here was this young guy, who was a leading man at the time. And I remember in performance once, I inverted a line accidentally. I don't remember what the line was, but it was, hey Sam, such and such. And I said, such and such, Sam. Was, you know, just inverted it.

Nothing really important. And Sam got really angry on stage at me for doing that. And kind of looked at me with daggers in his eyes. And said his next line like I had just done something on stage, you know what I mean? And I had no more lines, I just kind of took it. And Jack had the next line and he walked up to Sam and did it right in Sam's face,

like as if saying, how dare you do that to a fellow actor? You know, this was going on on stage. There was a scene about something else. I don't know what the audience felt. But there was Jack Gilford saying, you can't do that to your fellow actors. You respect, you know? Wonderful, wonderful man.

Everybody we've had on this show knew Jack Gilford. Yeah. I think Josh Mustell knew him as a kid too. Oh, of course. Everybody had lovely things to say about him. Oh. Everybody we've had on this show knew Jack Gilford. I think Josh Mustell knew him as a kid too. Everybody had lovely things to say about him. Just a darling man, darling man. Did you also work with Gilbert and I are fond of Eddie Lawrence, the old philosopher.

Oh my God, yes. Eddie was in Bells are Ringing. Right. Eddie was in Bells are Ringing, yes. A real character. A real character, an artist too, you know. Yeah. He was a painter.

What's a mad, Bunky? Oh yeah, can you do an imitation of... No, I don't do imitations. Yeah, I remember he would come out with those records and everything. Yeah, sure, sure. In those days. Say your dog ran away from home. Is that what's bothering you, punky?

Yeah, even commercials like that. Oh, yeah. He was hysterical. And you worked with Cab Calloway. Cab Calloway. That was interesting. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.

Cab was in, let me put it this way, Cab was Cab. He was playing the time study man in... Was that Pajama Game? Pajama Game, right. Yeah. It was a very interesting time study man, but it was Cab Calloway, you know, which was fine, you know. People who spend their life in the theater learn a discipline.

You become disciplined. The most important thing is what you're doing, not yourself. It's always what you're doing and how you fit into the play. And a lot of people who come into the theater think they're gonna bring their own personalities and it works out. It sometimes does but sometimes it's outside the scope of what the play should be about. He seemed like an interesting guy, Cab Calloway. I was doing research on it. He apparently fired Dizzy Gillespie from his band because he thought he was mocking him. I didn't know that. It's like an Arthur Godfrey move.

Talk about Dizzy while you're at it. When I was about 16, I went to see Dizzy on 52nd Street. I don't think we were allowed in the place. I was only 16, but we would buy a beer and stand at the bar and stand there with one beer for four hours and watch Dizzy and Bird and Coleman Hawkins, whoever. Oh, you saw all these guys. Oh yeah, that's great.

Well, that was, as a kid, who really wanted to be a part of it. That was a big thing for me. And I remember specifically, I'm standing there four hours with a hot beer in my hand. It was, yeah. And the bartender kept saying, how you doing? And I said, oh, I'm fine.

I can only afford the 75 cents. That was it for the one beer. But I got to hear four hours of music. And I remember Dizzy took a break and he was coming, you remember those clubs on 52nd Street, it was only about 12 feet wide, the whole building. So there was only a little room for them to walk out because I was four deep at the bar.

And as Dizzy came by, I said, I said, Hey, Diz. And he stopped and took my hands. Hey, man, great to see you. Like he knew me, you know, 16 year old kid who's I was and that stayed with me. that moment that he, you know, reached out to welcome me. How many years later? It's now the Kennedy Center Honors, and I'm one of the honoree... people, you know, in the show. people, you know, in the show. And Dizzy was honored

as one of the Kennedy Center honorees. And when I walked out of the elevator, the first night is a dinner, the Saturday night before the show is a dinner at the State Department dining room. That's where they actually give the awards. And I walked out of the elevator and there was Dizze. By now he was in a wheelchair. I don't remember what year it was, which I guess shortly before he died. And I went over to Dizze and now he got all excited because he recognized Barney Miller.

Ah, he said, hey man. He was most effusive, wonderful, outgoing. Hey man, God, it's nice to see you, I'm so glad to meet you. I said, Diz, we met. And I told him about that night when I was 16 years old and it was this incredible talent stopping to validate me. Terrific guy. How great that you hung on to that story that you never forgot it. Oh, well, 16 years old, you don't forget too much.

Yeah. Forget the good stuff, you remember the good stuff and the bad stuff, right? Gil, you'll appreciate this. One of Hal's early acting roles was a small part on Car 54, Where Are You? Oh my god! I love that show. They shot it in the Bronx.

Yes! We had Hank Garrett here. Hank Garrett and Charlotte Ray. Charlotte, dear Charlotte. They shot it in the Bronx. I think I played a district attorney or something. It was the ph. Well, Gilbert, I know the episode. It was the phony marriage service episode. Oh, was this with Molly Picon? Yeah, very good.

Right. Yeah. She was always claiming she could fix people up with major movie stars. That's right. Like Charles Boyer and Eddie Fisher. That's it. We do deep research on this show, Hal. That one I didn't recall, but now you remember it. And you brought up Jack Sue, which is the perfect segue to talk about Barney Miller.

Did you know that Jack Sue was in an internment camp? No. Like George Takei? No. His real name was Goro Suzuki. Suzuki, yeah. Suzuki. I heard around the time that Barney Miller was on the air they asked police,

because there were a lot of cop shows, you know, it's screeching tires and guns firing and car chases. And you know, Barney Miller was basically these schlubby guys sitting around the precinct. Filling out papers. Yeah, a lot of paperwork. And they were talking, they asked a bunch of police what the most realistic show about police work was and they all picked Barney Miller.

So did Wombo, Joe Wombo, who wrote the police novels. Blue Knight, yeah. Onion Field. Yeah, sure. He said not only was it the best kind of police show, but it was the most authentic and the logic is this ask a police officer a

particularly a Detective ask a detective how many times have you fired your weapon in anger? Yes, they go to the range and they Shoot target practice. But how many times have you fired your weapon in anger? I've asked many detectives that. And they said once or never. I think the biggest answer was twice.

You watch, you know, TV cop shows. They're firing off rounds like crazy. Right, sure. Most police work, most detective work, is grunt work. It's gathering information, recording the information, disseminating the information, getting other people's information, trying to put it together. Paperwork. That's most of police work. So that's why they said this was the accurate picture of a police detective squadroom.

Jack Su by the way, I found this too in my research, did not know that he called himself the Chinese Bing Crosby. Yes he did. Chinese Bing Crosby. Jack was a singer. Yes. Jack was a singer. He did He did a flower drum song, the movie. That's the way he did flower drum song. Yeah. Jack was a singer. That's the way he built himself, the Chinese Bing

Crosby. Isn't that great? An attempt to get work. And he went way back with Annie Arnold. I was going to say, They toured American Legion posts and bars all through the Midwest together, and that's where they became friendly. So when they were both in Hollywood in the 60s and 70s, Danny had used them before on something he did, and then when he did Barney, he brought them back for Barney.

What a funny guy, Jack Sue. Oh, he had that great deadpan. Oh yeah. Master deadpan. Remember on The Odd Couple as the wrestler? Oh my God, yes. Right, and lots of mash. Very funny guy. And another guy who I knew from the comedy clubs,

and that was Steve Landesberg. Steve came originally on the show as a perp. He was originally, he played a- Oh, he was the phony priest. Phony priest, he came. That's right. Used to steal Gideon Bibles from hotel rooms and stand on street corners and hawk them for donations.

That was he was the phony priest. I'll never forget the thing in that show was that there was a guy who was going to blow himself up in the police station. But he wanted absolutely saw the priest. he wanted absolution before he did it so he came over to Steve and Steve said you got it how well did you know Landisburg Gil? funny guy oh yeah not not well but he was nice to me. He said he was a fan of mine.

That's nice. I always remembered him. That's nice. And the interesting thing about Steve, if you've ever seen his act, he had an act as nutty as yours. He was wild. His stuff was really over the top and out of space. When he came on the show and he had to play a part of an intellectual.

You saw the other side of Steve Lannisburg. You saw the actor. Yeah. So the actor. I remember he had a bit about Jewish country singers. Oh he did. Oh. All kinds of crazy things. Really wild. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He did a lot of voices I remember in this act. Funny, funny man. Funny. And of course our favorite here and that's Abe Vagoda. The late great Abe. We both were, all three of us worked with him. Yes. I had actually worked with Abe on a commercial about 10 years before. We both got, neither one of us was doing very well and we got a gig on a commercial. No lines, just pushing a car or something.

I don't even remember what it was. That's the first time I met Abe. But we worked on Broadway together, not together, but I had seen him on Broadway in shows and he saw me on Broadway, so we had that behind us. We were the first two people hired, and I remember going out to, when we did the pilot. Oh, you're the only two holdovers

from the original pilot. From the original pilot, right. Yeah. But we were the first two hired, and we, Abe always looked like he was about to die. Right? Right? And the press agent, the press agent

wanted to do a, some kind of whole press thing. He said, we're going to a gym. You can work out together. We'll get pictures of you on the treadmills next to each other and whatnot. And we did all the equipment and they took pictures. And then Abe said, I see they got a handball court, indoor four-ball handball.. You wanna play some handball? I hadn't, you know, I was 41 at the time. Abe, as I said, looked like 112.

I said, sure, we'll play. He destroyed me. Abe was a handball player. You know they have those handball courts down in the village? Yeah, sure. Abe, he was one of those guys. He played handball. He killed me. I couldn't, I could not keep up with him.

Well, he was a runner. Was he? I don't know. He ran his whole life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, in fact, there's a story, and I hope it's a true story, that he went to the audition with Danny Arnold in his jogging shorts. He went straight from a run and Danny said you look tired and gave him the part. Actually you know he went up for a different part. Oh he did? Yes, before Jack sat at that desk there was in

the original pilot there was a character with an Italian name who sat at that desk. And Abe went up for that part because he has just come off The Godfather where he had the thing with the, you know, the mafia. So he went up for that part. And Danny saw him and said, no, I think I got an idea for you and created fish. And it's funny to think when you talk to Abe in real life that he was nothing, it showed what a good actor he was, that he was nothing at all like Tessio in The Godfather. Oh no, no, no. He was closer to fish. Oh yeah. Yes. No, no, no, no. Tessio

was, that was acting. That was acting. That was not Abe at all. I read and I hope this one's true too and I don't know. We'd have to we know Abe's daughter a little bit. Maybe we can ask her. But he was considered for the monster in Young Frankenstein?

Oh! And you heard that Hal? That I don't know. Yeah. Pretty interesting trivia. This is interesting because he wound up playing the Boris Karloff part. Oh, and Orsonick and the Old Lace on Broadway. Right, right, right. And also the end Jack Guilford was Dr. Einstein. Really? Yes. Yes. Yeah. I saw a version where Larry Storch was dr. Einstein. Oh wow with with Abe yeah, a versatile actor and very very funny And talk about a deadpan very dry very dry funny and there's there's great YouTube video of you at his 90th hell I

Happen to be in the neighborhood. I'm serious. I wasn't invited. Somebody said, do you know that Ava Goda's 90th birthday party is right down the street in that hotel? I said, you're kidding me. And we went over there and I walked in on him. I wasn't invited.

He didn't even know I was in town. And I walked in and it was just, it was kind of nice. Kind of nice. So much stuff I found about the show. Well, obviously Gilbert and I both watched the show. A wonderful show. I mean, it's such a smart sitcom, and the show that never insulted your intelligence.

I didn't know that Danny Arnold loosely based the show or designed it on the movie and the play detective story. Did you know that, Kirk Douglas? Yeah, well detective story was a drama. Right. In which there were, it took place in the detective squad room. Different desks, three different stories going on at the same time of people being questioned by detectives, whatnot.

And then I think one of them grabs a gun and it turns into a tragedy at the end. You know, a very heavy show. But Danny saw the possibility as he was looking at this. He said, instead of drama, why don't we do comedy right in the same place? And that's, he put that together. And the story of how you got cast is also an odd story. That involves a fair amount of coincidence. My career has involved a fair amount of coincidence.

My careers involved a fair amount of coincidences. I think career. Not the least of which was, you know, bells are ringing. I mean, I didn't even have an agent. I was never presented for it. I just happened to know the girl in the show. And by the way, I ended up marrying her, so it was okay. Right. Right. 52 years.

Anyway, Danny was in town. He was, he had written and was co-producing a movie. I don't remember what movie it was. And it was over Christmas. And I think his, his wife sent his two kids during their Christmas break to be with him. And because he was kind of on set all the time, trying to shoot this picture, he said, let's keep the kids busy by day, and I'll spend the evening with them. And so they put him in a limousine, and they took and put him on a ship

to go on a trip around Manhattan, or they sent him to a Nick game, or a whatever they could to keep the kids busy and they finally kind of rebelled. They said, we don't want to go anywhere. We just spend the day with you. And he said, I don't have time. Just then it was a company move. It was a full set move going from one location to another. That takes a long time. So the director said go with your kids, spend the day with your kids, and they happen to have tickets for the Rothschilds. So he went and got another ticket and joined them to see the Rothschilds. Never sent, never came backstage, didn't say hello, didn't send me a note, nothing. I didn't know the man. You had no knowledge that he was even there.

Didn't know he existed until two years later when they were casting Barney Miller. And the network, you know, comes up with, it's a list of 10 for each role that they think, whoever has the highest TV queue. And Danny said, no, no, no, I saw an actor in New York. I'm gonna use him. And that was it. I never auditioned for it., I'm gonna use him, and that was it.

I never auditioned for it, I never, he just saw me do that one role and knew that I would be right for Barney Miller. Isn't that great? And you were totally an unknown actor as far as TV. Not quite unknown, I had won a Tony on Broadway. Yeah, but on TV. As far as he was concerned.

I had been on TV before but you know Guest roles things like that certainly not to have my own series. No, I Heard a story. I know it's Richard Belzer because he was on law and order for all those years That a lot of times He's still on law and order for oh this. What? He's still on law and order. Oh, yeah. Henry runs. He'll be there forever. He'll be there forever. When he needed a cab, he would sometimes hail down a police car.

Police car. And they would see him. They think, oh, a fellow cop. Did that happen with you a lot? Yes, it did. Not a lot. One time that I can recall, and it had to do with the, we got into a, I come to New York, we got to a hotel, our clothes didn't arrive, our baggage didn't arrive and I had to be somewhere in a tuxedo that night. So by the time the clothes came and we got to the tuxedo and ran out of the

hotel, looking for cabs like crazy, a cop car came by and said, Captain, can we help you? I said, as a matter of fact, I've got to be at the Majestic Theater in six minutes. He said, hop in. And we got into the cop car and they drove me to the theater.

That's the one time it happened. Yeah. Yeah. Did, we touched on this briefly Hal, but did cops approach you? Did they like the show, generally speaking? They identified with it. I think that's the point.

They identified with what we were doing because that's what detectives do. And I have honorary badges from police departments all over America and Canada. Yeah, they identified with it. So it was, police work is a lot more like Barney Miller than T.J. Hooker and things like that. Oh yes, oh yes.

Now, I'm not talking about beat cops. Beat cops is a different life. Beat cops have to go out there and deal with the public and walk a beat. Or drive around in a black and white. I'm talking about detectives. The work that detectives do is mainly paperwork, grunt work. Getting information from people.

Yeah. Tell us a little bit about James Gregory, an actor that Gilbert and I are very fond of. Jimmy. Detective Luger. And also Planet of the Apes. Oh, he's in Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Inspector Lugar. Inspector Lugar sorry yeah. Jimmy Gregory had an enormous career in Hollywood from the 30s on. He was in everything. He was in everything. He was everybody's senator or a judge. Manchurian candidate. Exactly. But he never did comedy. Look at all his pictures. He never did

comedy. I guess he knew Danny and Danny knew his proclivity for comedy and and Jimmy would come in to every show totally prepared. He had made all his actor decisions. You know, we were still, listen, let's try it this way. Well, how about that? What do you think? You know, the character needs this, et cetera. We were really a repertory theater

interacting and everything. Jimmy had every bit down from the bow tie a repertory theater interacting and everything. Jimmy had every bit down from the bow tie to not only every word, but every, and he kind of smiled at us, at the Mishigas we would go through to create, you know. That's the way we worked and that's the way Jimmy worked. There was a big generational difference.

And then Jimmy got his- You guys were fun together. How's that? You guys were a fun duo. Yes, it was a lovely relationship. Yeah. And then- A fun dynamic.

I don't know if you remember this, but Jimmy got his own show from Bonnie Mello. It was called Detective School. Oh, I don't remember that. I don't think you ever saw it. It was on and off very quickly. What? Well, we're usually pretty good at this stuff, though.

This was the point. This was the point. He was the teacher how to be a detective, and they hired, I don't know, six stand-up comics. Young kids right out of the comedy store, right out of... Wow. And they were gonna be his foils. You know, he would be the Barney Miller of that show with all these crazy comics, but they were comics. They weren't actors.

Oh. One night, we were notoriously late. We would always shoot late on the last day of shooting. It was always like two o'clock in the morning. And in comes Jimmy. He was doing his show. And maybe he had a couple. He was nice and loose.

Hey Jim, you know, and everybody, we hadn't seen him the whole season because he was off doing his show. Hey, what brings you here? He looked at us, he said, I just wanted to watch some actors work. Wow. That's great.

Wow, indeed, for all of us. Love that. Yeah. Yeah. I, for all of us. Love that. Yeah. Yeah. I think he's in the Twilight Zone pilot, James Gregory. We'll double check that. I think he's in the first Twilight Zone. You know what's fun about,

one of the things that's fun about Barney Miller, Hal, is just going back and looking at all those wonderful character actors. I mean, not only the main cast, but I mean here, there's just a short list. Bruce Kirby, Richard Libertini, Nehemiah Perzov, Ned Glass, William Wyndham, actors we talk about on this show, Bob Dischey. Wow. What about Back to the Future?

What's his name? Oh, Christopher Lloyd. Christopher Lloyd. Christopher Lloyd. Right, Kenneth Mars was on it, Phil Leeds. Phil Leeds, oh, Philly was here all the time. Yeah. Don Kalfa. Well, Don Kalfa, I think, holds the record.

Don Kalfa, I think, did seven Barney Millers as seven different crazy people. Oh! Ha ha ha ha ha! Funny guy. Don was, you know, that kind of bug-eyed and nutty. And he played seven different characters. Danny didn't care.

Danny didn't care that a guy would reappear as somebody else. It was next season, don't worry about it. You know? It was last season. That was funny. In old TV. They could use the same actor playing 20 different parts.

Sure, that was Danny's. Listen, he's funny, he's good. I know I can count on him. I hire him. Yeah, Danny, the more you read about Danny, he's kind of like a modern day Nat Huyck and he really had an eye for talent and eye for characters Close he wrote the key wrote the caddy the closest Martin Lewis movie and closest thing I know to a comedic genius was really yeah

And he knew how to use people and he knew the point. I'm the point is he knew construction a lot of great funny people don't understand construction. So they're funny in the instance, in the instant, but not, they can't sustain it. That's the hard part. Danny knew construction and he knew limitations. You will notice he had some funny people playing cops. Abe, Steve, you will notice he had some funny people playing cops Abe Steve Ron Carey Ron

Carey yeah but he had a frame around all of them he said the the question to ask yourself before you make an acting choice is would you go to this police officer for help who acted the way you want to act? Because we come up with funny, you know, Ronnie Carey would come up with funny, Landisburg you could think of, you know, funny people and they come up with funny bits. But it had to answer that question. would you go to a police officer who behaved like that for help? That was the limitation that he placed on. Now, the people, the perps or the people who got ripped off,

they could be as nutty as you want because there were no limitations on that. But the police officers had to be credible police officers. And that knowledge, that structure that he forced on us is what gave the, why the cops identified with it. Because they always had to be a credible police officer officer it kept it away from becoming shtick stick yeah they were stick but that was on the on the other side of the table some of the people who came in Don Kalfa could do crazy stick you know all these people were able to not not as

shtick but to make it a part of their character. They could do it, but not the cops. Cops had to be credible. I've also heard you say that he would cut a laugh. Oh, he would cut a laugh. If it hurt the scene, or if it made the scene less believable. Not only that, the point is, it was never straight line punch line.

Right, it wasn't that kind of show. No, it was not straight line punch line. It. It wasn't that kind of show. No, it was not straight line punch line. It was a character comedy. Yeah. And so, uh, many times, um, uh, a character would say something and Wojo would look at them and, and you know, maybe he'd have a retort, but once he shot it, all you, all you had to do was cut the woujo and he would kind of look. That was enough, you didn't need the line.

You didn't need the retort, you didn't need, he recognized that we were doing character comedy, not straight line punch line comedy. And did you work with Nehemiah Persoff? Oh sure. What was he like? You know, consummate professional. Nehemiah came in. He always played, well I recall, he played a religious Jewish diamond dealer who got ripped off.

That sounds good. You got a good memory for these episodes, Al. Oh yes, because this one I remember specifically. And you know, he came in and my question was, what are you doing walking around with thousands of dollars of diamonds in your pocket? He looked at me and says, that's the way it's always been done. Tradition!

Any minute he was going to break into song. The fat fleshing. Ha ha ha ha! It was just... It wasn't a question of trying to be funny, it was a question of being good actors. They were all good, good actors who just dug into that cat part and found that motherload of humor in this situation.

We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast, but first a word from our sponsor. If you go to the IMDB page for the Barney Miller show, and it's a little bit like the love boat in that sense, because you guys were on what, seven seasons, eight seasons? Eight seasons. Eight seasons, so everybody came through there.

And if you go down the list on IMDB and you look at those actors It's it's a who's who yeah, not just comedic actors But you know people like me and my purse on every kind of character actor of the 20th century was that show? Nikki wasn't a comedic actor. He was just a good actor, but he understood where the comedy was and How to how to how to achieve it by playing it properly. Right. And we have to give credit to Max Gale and Ron the great Ron Glass and Gregory Sierra and Barbara Barry. Max Gale you know the original in the first pilot was a was a was named Kaczynski. And when Max came in, they gave him the name Wojciechowicz.

And honestly, truthfully, it was supposed to be a kind of a Polish joke. That was popular in those days. He was supposed to be the kind of slowish guy who didn't quite get everything. But Max took it and ran with it so he became the guy who had to learn everything he had to investigate everything had to dig deeper than everybody you know what I mean he used that and it was it never became a

Polish joke after that I think the Danny Arnold's credit, he never played to the stereotype. He always played, certainly in Harris and Ron Glass' character's case. Always write the intellectual. He was writing a novel. Writing a novel, right. He was very, yeah. Always.

A social climber. Right. Yeah. Very, very, very smart show. And why did it finally end, Hal, because I've heard you say it was never canceled. It was never canceled. It was the next to the last season.

Danny wanted to cancel it one season earlier. The problem with sitcoms, especially in those days, I don't know about today, probably the same thing. They're self-devouring. We had what? Maybe six, five or six writing sources. By that I mean a writer or a team, whatever. Five or six different writing sources.

One through six. The top one was, you know, an associate producer. Well, as soon as your show was a hit, the agent of teams one and two is out trying to get them to be number one of their own, you know, getting their own property. So you're constantly losing from the top down and you're moving the people up, finding new writers.

Next season you gotta move them up and find new, three new writing sources. And that became difficult for Danny. As time went on, everybody was writing another version of a Barney Miller they had seen. You know, all the new writers. And Danny came to us and he was going to, as I said, cancel it a year earlier because he didn't want to lose the quality of the show. And for some reason, I guess there were contractual reasons he couldn't.

So he really suffered through the last season. That was the first season that I ever rejected a script, because it was funny but wrong. Wasn't Barney. I just brought it up to him. I said, you sure you wanna do this one? And he read it through, he canceled the week and we went on, did something else the next week.

It was tough. Danny said, I am going to accept, I'm gonna read everybody, anybody who wants to send me a Barney Miller script or anything, I'm gonna read it. I'm gonna take a month and read everything. College kids, anybody, in order to find new concepts, new ideas, new approaches for the play, for the show.

He came back a month later and said, it's enough guys. I don't wanna do less than the best. Sure. And he just closed it. What's the mark of a good show that kind of knows when to get out early rather than late? Yeah.

Yeah, there's been so many of those shows that. Eventually they're doing imitations of themselves. Yes. Or worse yet, they get self-serious themselves. Yes. Or worse yet they get self-serious. They start to do the inspirational episode and the teen pregnancy episode. And they start to have the closing credits with no music. You know you've seen something really important. A very special Barney Miller.

So we have to ask Hal, because our listeners demand it, does Barney Miller have a favorite Barney Miller episode? I know it's like picking a favorite child. Right. I think the quintessential Barney Miller everybody agrees on was the hash brownies. The hash brownies, yeah, I knew you'd pick that one. That is great. Everybody has a great moment. Everybody's got an aria. Yeah.

And you know, we read the thing and after the reading I said to Danny, I said, everybody's got an aria, everybody's got a moment. Yeah, it was great. Except me. I didn't. And he looked at me and he said, you're right. But I gotta have somebody to compare them to. I had to be, and from there on I knew, that's it.

I'm not gonna have too many punch lines. I'm the straight man here but Jack Benny did a Made a career being a straight man. Oh sure, you know, so No kick after that. I knew my function Well, we've talked about straight men on this show the under underrated straight men. Oh, like Bud Abbott. Like Bud Abbott. It's fantastic when you really watch,

go back and watch those bits. And here you are for eight years playing a straight man to all of these loons. Carl Reiner. Carl Reiner with, doing all that. Oh, Carl Reiner. You know, the great example. Yeah.

The great example. Beautiful, yeah. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about just a couple of things, a couple of wild cards here. You have any memory, Gilbert and I talk about Bob Hope specials on this show. Do you have any memory of doing Bob Hope,

Blampoon's television with George Burns? Was I on it? You sure were. Okay. With Mr. T. The thing that got me with all of those shows, quite honestly, was Reliance on Cue Cards. Bob read every thing, you know,

and you're working with an actor and you're looking right at him and saying your lines and he's looking over your shoulder and talking to you over here, you know what I mean? Very difficult. Bob read everything. I'll tell you a quick Bob Ho story. He had the golf tournament down the desert,

the Bob Ho classic, and every year I used to do it. And every year, you know, in all those golf tournaments, you had to sing for your supper, because he had the show, and he said, listen, do a number. So, I actually, one year, I get down there, and he said, do you mind opening the show? I was going to do a clarinet number.

Perfect, good, great opening number. I was terrific, get out early and go home. And we start the show, he goes out and he does a couple of jokes, and right in the middle of it, there's a scream, a thud, turn the lights on, lights on, somebody fell off his chair, he's lying on the floor and they're pounding on his chest. And Bob is saying, okay everybody take it easy,

we have doctors here, we'll take care of this, don't worry about it, I'm sure he's gonna be fine. I don't know how long this went on, till the door opens, here comes a gurney, and Hope is trying to calm everybody down, they pick the guy up, they put him on the gurney, and they wheel him out the door, and as the door is closing, Hope says,

okay everybody, let's settle down and welcome Hal Linden. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh boy. And as I'm walking on and as he's walking off, he says, I owe you one kid. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. That's showbiz history, Hal, to have done a Bob Hope special.

Oh yes. With Burns. Yeah, here's some other wild cards. I don't remember dealing with. Oh, he's some other wild cards. I don't remember dealing with... He's supposedly on that one. Maybe you guys didn't thought separately. Yeah. Do you want to tell us a little bit about working with Walter Mathow and Jack Lemmon and Out to Sea?

And Donald O'Connor. And Donald O'Connor. I'll tell you a Donald O'Connor story. We're all ears. We played dance instructors on a boat. Yeah. And out to see you know that one. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Mathau and Lemon, I just sat in awe and watched them work. They were the top, you know, when it came to that kind of picture, they were the top grade.

I just watched them work. Donald O'Connor and I were, you know, playing these other dance instructors. And there was a number, they would, the Macarena was popular at the time. So they put a Macarena was popular at the time. So they put a Macarena scene in where we're teaching, we're doing the Macarena with the people on the boat,

the old ladies who are dancing with us. Donald O'Connor couldn't get the steps for the Macarena. Wow. I was teaching Donald O'Connor how to do the Macarena. Oh. I'm saying, am I living in another world here? That's surreal. There's a lot of fun stuff here, Hal. What about, tell us a little bit about Blacks. When you've been around as long as I have, the list gets longer and longer. Well, you're one of those guests that's done everything and worked with everybody.

Tell us a little bit about Blacks Magic, which was the series you did with the great Harry Morgan. Harry Morgan played my father, yeah. Yeah, do you remember this show, Gil? I have faked. Hal was a magician, like a Blackstone kind of magician and Harry Morgan was a con artist. Well he wasn't a con artist. Wasn't he a con man? No. No. He was very, no he was a positive character. I had morphed from magic into solving crimes.

Oh, okay. So it was crime solving using magic techniques. I see. Like the Bill Bixby show. Yeah, it was just gonna say something. Yeah, I guess. Levinson and Link, one of them was a Magic fan. And that's how that started.

Yeah. But working with Harry was a joy. He was another dear man. Another dear man without an agenda. Just a happy, nice guy. Where do you want to go with this, Gil? There's so much here. Oh God. Hit me with your to go with this, Gil? There's so much here. Oh, God.

Hit me with your best shot. Let's see. What's that? Hit me with your best shot. Hit me with your best shot. You turned down a prominent role in saying elsewhere. Yeah, you know, that happened so quick. That was right after, as soon as Barney was going off the air, and I had offers from Broadway,

and I didn't know if I wanted to get right back into television. You know, I thought I'd rather see what would happen next first. I figured something would come up, and it did eventually, you know, series work. That may have been a mistake. I have made many in my quite long career, yes.

I was touched by a video online, Hal, and doing the research, and it's you, and we want it too, we want to ask you if you're still touring, if you're still doing... Yes, still doing the act. You're still doing the act. Yeah. It's a video of you singing a rather moving

Neil Sadaka song called The Hungry Years. Yeah. And you have a little monologue before the song where you're talking about, and it's very interesting. Well, the interesting part, it's a Neil Sadaka song, though we rewrote it. Neil Siddaka's song is about a broken marriage. Oh.

If you know the original. It's a marriage that's over and I miss the hungry years when we started out. Right, right, right. Yes, but that didn't fit the act because I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about nostalgia and remembering. Everybody's got a place that they remember.

I think one of the lines is, is there anybody here who never had a bookcase made of bricks and lumber? Right. You're talking about the old the first apartment. Yes, and the struggle art men this Decorating it and the struggles we went through and so we Ken and Mitz you else rewrote the lyric To reflect what I was talking about my hungry is Yes, I was married for 52 years, I didn't have a broken marriage, you know.

So it's, by the way, that's why it's not on the CD. Oh, because I say, because of the rewrite. Yes, it's a rewrite. It's a parody. Yeah, but it's very sweet what you do with it. And it's interesting that you have a soft spot still for the struggle in spite of all the successes. It's true.

I do miss the hungry years. There were things that, I remember going to the supermarket with two little baby girls and opening up Swiss cheese and giving them each a piece so they could eat it and make sure I got rid of the package before I got to the front so I wouldn't have to pay for it.

You know. Wow. Yes, specifically hungry years. There were terrific times, because you were trying, you were working so hard to accomplish something. And you do remember the, going down to Lord and Taylor and looking at the windows

at Christmas, that was a big trip with the kids. And then, Saks Fifth Avenue windows. That was like going to a Broadway musical. That's all we could afford. But that was the stuff that kept us together and that we shared. And yes, when it got good, when the times got good, maybe I didn't spend enough time with those kids, because I was now, had a career, you know.

Yeah, I've heard you say that. So that song comes out of comes out of truth, comes out of truth. I do miss the hungry years. Yeah well and a lot of people talk about psychologically how the the most fun is getting there is looking in the the window of the store waiting for it to open before the success actually comes. You think about the early days of your career Gilbert? Oh yeah. And it's like, and it's both a good and bad feeling at the same time.

Yes, because you couldn't buy the kids ice cream. You couldn't, you know, take them to a circus. I couldn't afford it. Yes. It's the bad times, but it forced us together to make, to make moments work that lasted. I have four kids and they all talk to me. That's nice. And you have eight grandkids.

What more can you ask? What more can you ask? What more can you ask? That's great. Should we have Hal take us out with another tune? What do you got in mind? I don't know I was thinking a sweet Georgia Brown a clarinet tune. Yeah well still too hard. How about a Benny Goodwin something or other? Benny's called Goodbye. The musical stylings of Mr. Hal Linden. That's great. Thank you. So, this is great.

This has been great, Hal. You have anything you want to plug? You did the Fantastix this summer? Fantastix, we just closed. Yeah, you just closed. Yeah, you just closed that one. You're doing something. Wonderful production at Pasadena Playhouse.

I did American Housewife, is that the name of it? Yeah, coming on Christmas. Okay. And I'll be down at the Old Globe in San Diego doing the Steve Martin play, the Picasso at the La Panagio. You're still working constantly. In January. Yeah. Still working steadily. Good for you. It's the doing that's the reward. You know, I don't have to tell you, I talk to a lot of kids in college, acting students.

I gotta tell them, the reward is in the doing. And if it's not in the doing, do something else. And you gonna get to New York anytime soon? You coming back to the Carlisle? Oh, I wish, I wish. That was terrific. Yeah. No, I think they changed their policy. I don't think we're gonna do it. Did they? But you're still doing the music act. You're still touring.

Still doing the concert act. Songs. Stuff I do on Broadway. Stuff I wish I did on Broadway. Songs like Hungry Years. Yeah. And you're singing, I mean on Broadway you can't really fake it. No. Like you could do on records. That's true. That's true and you know that was the hard part because I was a band crooner.

I, for all those years as a musician, I was singing in the microphone like that, you know? And then when you get to Broadway, you're on your own. We didn't even have microphones, as I said, in our hair in those days. You had to be able to hit the back wall. That was a concerted effort on my part to open my sound out so that I could sing on Broadway.

And it was a good career, I loved that. That's another part of the hungry is that... You know, there's another clip of you too. Talk about, you know Consummate Professional. There's a clip online of you in one of the music shows and you're doing Harold Hill and you're doing the Music Man so beautifully. And I'm thinking, I'm watching this and I said to my wife,

I didn't know how Lyndon was in the Music Man. And then when the song was over, you said, I never got the part. No, that's right. I auditioned for it. I had to learn it for that. It was great. It was when Preston did it on Broadway.

Actually, I did get the part, but I didn't take it. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it was, Preston had done it on Broadway with a sending out, I think, a Second Road Company. And I had to learn that part, and I auditioned for it, and they offered it to me. But I had just had my first child. I was an infant.

And I had to go on the road. I wasn't about to leave them behind, so it was a question of we had to take a nanny and extra traveling, and we just couldn't come to terms on the salary. So I just, I couldn't do it. And I never did it, interestingly. Yeah, but you do it so well.

Yes. Thank you. I would urge our listeners, go to YouTube and look at the clips of Hal's One Man Show. It's great stuff. Not only the music, but the little monologues, the storytelling. Well, it's, you know, I'm a good singer. Am I a great singer? I'm a good clarinet player.

Am I a great clarinet player. Am I a great clarinet player? But what I am, or what I have most confidence in, is that I'm a good actor. And so putting it together became an acting job, a construction, in a to do what and how to go from song to song and make a narrative out so that the act is not just a concert that is a group of songs, it's got a beginning, a middle, and an end. That I think comes from being in theater for so many years because a character has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. So when you're designing a character you're already creating a structure for the character. I'm a big believer in structure. So I do a concert but it's a structured concert so that it

hopefully it has meaning and if an audience doesn't know me at the beginning they'll know me at the end. Well I hope I get a chance to see you live sometime. Tell the Carlisle, bring me back. We use our influence. Yeah our limited influence. Thanks Hal, it's a treat. A pleasure influence. Thanks Hal, it's a treat. A pleasure sir. So I'm Gilbert Gottfried.

This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. And we've been talking to someone who can and has done everything in show business. Sure has. Hal Linden. Thank you Hal. A pleasure sir.