Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Sally Struthers Part 1 Encore

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

GGACP continues the celebration of Women's History Month with this ENCORE of the first part of a two-part interview with Emmy-winning actress Sally Struthers. In this episode, Sally joins Gilbert and Frank for a laugh-filled conversation about the aloofness of Rudy Vallee, the eccentricities of Sam Peckinpah, the versatility of Bill Dana, the unexplainable existence of “The Phynx” and the recent 50th anniversary of “All in the Family.” Also, Jack Nicholson shops at Tiffany’s, Steve McQueen romances Ali MacGraw, Rod Steiger gives Sally the heebie-jeebies and Bob Hope visits the “Planet of the Shapes.” PLUS: Jack Benny! Ned Glass! “Five Easy Pieces”! “The Tim Conway Comedy Hour”! The many faces of Sammy Davis Jr! And Sally remembers friends and co-stars Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. Our guest this week is a prolific, versatile and much-loved actress of stage and screen. You've seen her familiar face in feature films like Five Easy Pieces and the Steve Steve McQueen Vehicle, The Getaway, as well as the critically praised TV movies, The Great Houdini, and Your Name is Jonah, and Intimate Strangers, along with popular TV shows, including Love American Style, The Smothers Brothers, Comedy Hour,

Ironside, 9 to 5, Murder Shoe Road, Dinosaurs, American Dad and Still Standing, and of course has the lovable Eccentric Babette on The Long--running Gilmore Girls. She's also starred on the Broadway stage in regional theater and touring companies and well-received productions of the odd couple, Grease Chicago, Annie, Hello Dolly, Spamalot, and Young Frankenstein, showing off her versatility by playing everyone

from Florence Unger to Miss Hannigan to Flau-Blauger. Flau-Bluquer! Blucar! I knew I said it wrong. I knew it. You want to take it back? So, so now we'll never get Mel Brooks on the show. Just invite him to dinner. He just wants to come over for dinner.

Play, showing off our versatility by playing everyone from Florence Unger to Miss Hannigan to Flau Blucher. Flau-cher. Looker. Looker. I skip it. Oh, showing off her versatility by playing everyone from Florence Unger to Miss Hannigan to Flau Blucher.

But she'll forever be admired and appreciated by audiences the world over as Archie Bunker's only child and frequent antagonist Gloria Stivik. On an iconic program that turned 50 this year, CBS is all in the family. In a long professional career that began way back when she auditioned for a Pond's cold cream commercial, this lady has gone on to share the screen with everyone from Bob Hope to Sammy Davis Jr. to Joan Crawford to Jack Nicholson to her hero Ruth Gordon. Frank and I are thrilled to welcome to the show a multiple Emmy winner and one of our favorite performers and personalities and a woman who won single-handedly impersonated old 16 of the June Taylor dancers,

the talented and delightful Sally Struthers. Wow, you know something? You make me sound good. And interesting and versatile and gifted. Wow. Well, I did. I was all of the June Taylor dancers in one with Art Metrano on the Tim Conway comedy hour. And the producers of that show, Sam Bobrick and Ron Clark, decided they wanted this time around with Tim Conway to make the show look like it had no budget.

So the show started and the camera panned across an empty soundstage and went over to a man in a tuxedo sitting at a music stand with the music but no instrument because the show couldn't afford to buy him an instrument. So that was Art Metrono and he had to hum the opening things. Da da da da da da da da da da da. And then at some point they'd say, and now. Yes, why don't we just all start. Yeah, yeah, and they'd say, the Tim, pardon me, the Tim Conway dancer, instead of the June Taylor dancers

of which they were like 30 and they could lay on the floor and look like sea anemones and swastikas and whatever they were. And I just laid on the floor and opened and closed my arms and legs and waved at my mother. And the suits about five weeks in said, that girl, you got out the front of the show, the dancer, you gotta let her go,

she makes the show look cheap. (*laughing*) Wait a minute, but wasn't cheap the joke they were going for? Exactly. And Bovrack and Clark said, that's the point. And they said, let her go. And it's funny how that works out because if I hadn't been let go, I wouldn't have been available to read for the part of Gloria on All in the Family. So there's a big old window opening after door closed. Door closes, open window. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And one credit that shamefully was left off on your list of credits. I know where you're going. Where are you going with this?

Most people remember you for. And that's the Sphinx. Oh, the Sphinx. Oh my God. Did anyone ever even see the Sphinx? That was my first movie! Yes. Oh come on, Frank you saw that movie?

I have it, I own it on DVD. I saw it. It's a terrible movie. Oh it's frightening. But what a cast? Yeah, it's a cast. It's supposed to be that old Hollywood people all got kidnapped and it's like Johnny Weissmuller, Leo Garcia and Hunts Hall, Paddle Brian. Rudy Valley. George Jessel.

And Rudy Valley. And Rudy Valley, right. And a young Richard Pryor. I went up. I was so ex- And I think Joey Lewis is in it. Joe Lewis. Joe Rudy Valley, right. At a young Richard Pryor. I was so excited. And I think Joey Lewis is in it. Joe Lewis. Joe Lewis, the boxer.

Yes. Yeah. I went up to Rudy Valley on the set and I just thought this is a great conversation starter and I think I was 19 and I said, Mr. Valley? And he said, yes. I said, Mr. Valley, you and I have the same birthday. He said, that's nice.

And he turned around and walked away. The cheapest man in Hollywood, Rudy Valley, supposedly. Yes. He brought in all of his clothes to the wardrobe department, wanted them all cleaned, and everything that was missing a button, he wanted buttons sewn on, new hems sewn in. And they were his personal clothes from home. How did you get the Finks in the first place Sally

they have you on IMDB listed as uncredited. And and and the Finks it's like the monkeys who were an imitation of the Beatles and the Finks was like an imitation it was like an over long horribly written monkeys. It's a good description. It was and I'm glad that I'm not given any credit in that film. You're the only people that have ever brought it up to me and I'm trying not to blush and be ashamed

and cry right now. Yeah, you might've dodged a bullet with that one. And the people in it, a lot of them look like they had already died And what dug up? Yes My god, they did they did love the craft service table How did you end up in that Sally? I mean you're young actress. I mean, it's your first screen Well on credit, but your first time to appear on a movie.

I must have read for it. I don't remember reading for it. That was 53 years ago. I don't, I don't remember. I just remember that I only had a day or maybe two days on the set. Yeah. And then I's a quick shot. Yeah, making an absolute horse's ass of myself. Listen, it's showbiz. It is. Tell Gilbert, though, this is interesting, too. And we'll talk about your childhood in Portland and being the daughter of a doctor and all this fun stuff.

But your decision to become an actor, directly kind of indirectly involves Raymond Burr. It does. It does. God love Raymond Burr. Didn't we all love him on the Perry Mason show and then old Ironsides. Yeah he I had the same experience with him. I guessed it on his never mind we'll go get to that in a second. I wanna be a doctor like my father because I felt really sorry for him because he didn't have any sons. He had two daughters, you know, no Struthers brothers.

So I thought, well, I'll just follow in my father's footsteps. And then one day I realized I literally emotionally and physically couldn't do it and had a breakdown. I was 17 and my mom couldn't get me to stop crying and my father came home and shot me full of some drug that put Me to sleep for 15 hours that I woke up crying and God finally my mother sat me on the floor You've got to tell me what it is. And I said I can't do it She said can't do what I can't be a doctor

He said well who told you you had to be I said I I can't be a doctor. She said, well, who told you you had to be? I said, I did. She said, well, why can't you? You're doing well in school. You're on the honor roll, science. You love it? What's the problem? I said, I threw up when we had to operate,

dissect a cow's eye in biology class, and then a few months later, we all had to dissect a frog, eye in biology class and then a few months later we all had to dissect a frog and I passed out. How am I gonna work on a cadaver for a year in medical school? And my mother said well why don't you be an actor and I said well why would I do that? She said look at you. You're so dramatic. She says you've been entertaining the family since you can walk and talk. She says you could do it. Well where will I go? What do I do? I'll find a school for you. She's thumbing through one day her McCall's magazine which I'm waiting for her to finish so I can cut to the Betsy McCall

paper dolls out of the back pages and she finds an ad with Raymond Burr pointing out like an Uncle Sam poster and says you too can become an actor at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theater Arts. She says, we're going to apply there. They're going to take you. You're going to go. It'll be great. And she was right. All because of Raymond Burr.

Yeah, Raymond Burr. And you worked with an actor whose name popped up on this podcast a bunch of times, and that's Rod Steiger. Oh my God, yeah. on this podcast a bunch of times, and that's Rod Steiger. What do you remember? Oh my God, yeah. What a kind of quirky, could be a serial killer, kind of odd, interesting, intelligent,

really off-center man. He enjoyed my sense of humor, but I didn't want to be alone in a room with him. Let's put it that way, because I didn't know what he was thinking. Oh, how interesting. Have you heard Gilbert's Rod Steiger impression, Sally? No, can you do it? Oh, okay.

Oh, Rod Steiger in... Oh, well, point broker okay you want to learn of my people you want to learn the secret of our success all right I tell you first you wake up with nothing nothing to call your own no. And then you buy a piece of cloth for a penny and you rip that cloth in two pieces and sell it for a penny profit. And then you go out and you find another piece of cloth and you rip that cloth in three pieces and never must you think of buying an extra loaf of bread for the table or a toy for your child. Oh no you must keep going on and on and then all of a sudden you discover something. You have a mercantile heritage. You are a cheney, a mockery, and a kike.

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Bravo. That was so good and it sounds just like my character of Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein. Oh my God, I can't believe you memorized that whole speech. And then remember when he pushed his hand down on the nail spike?

Yeah. Oh gosh, that was, but I, I've heard he was, he was, uh, oh, what are, are another guest and a friend of mine, James, uh, Karen, worked with him and he, he didn't have anything good to say about Steiger. Well I'm not saying anything bad I'm just making an observation as a small woman he seemed formidable and he seemed like he always had something twisted maybe going on in his brain and I didn't really know what to talk about with him so I just kept singing him silly songs which he seemed to like.

Songs like my father taught me when I was five. Yeah I met him once on backstage at what was Bill Maher, politically incorrect. I could say Rod Steiger was nice to me in a very short time we spoke. That movie was called A Month of Sundays. Yes, A Month of Sundays. With our friend Dee Wallace too, Gil. Yes. As well as Sally. I just watched D Wallace two nights ago.

My cousin Jenny was visiting me from Spokane, Washington, and we looked up Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We were watching that. Wasn't she the mom in? No, that was Melinda Dillon. I thought that was D Wallace. She's the mom in ET. She was the mom in ET.

Ah. Well, Close Encoun encounters, ET, same thing. Yeah, same thing. An easy mistake to make. Tell Gilbert, though, Sally, how you found an agent in the Yellow Pages. Oh, my roommate did. And you wound up at the Nina Blanchard agency, because it's a fun story. I needed an agent, my roommate said. She wasn't an actress.

I was living at the Hollywood Studio Club for Girls run by the YWCA and she said you're an actress and I don't see you getting any work and I said I know I don't know how to do that. She said well you need an agent. I said well how do you get an agent? She says we're gonna go look in the yellow pages in the hall by the pay phone. So she looked up theatrical agents, and she found a name, and she called and said, I represent Sally Struthers, and she would like to take a meeting with you next week.

And so, I went the next week, I walked there. I walked three miles from the studio club in my little red dress and my white knee socks and my little black patent leather shoes and my curly hair. And I opened the door to this agency and it was opening the door to the land of tall people. Everyone in there was tall and they looked over at the door at about a six foot five look.

And then all their heads looked down at the same time. And I don't think they'd ever seen a diminutive person walk in that office. I didn't understand why. And then I went to the desk and the girl said incredulously, can I help you? And I said, yes, I have an appointment with Miss Blanchard. She said, you do?

I said, yes. She said, well, what's your name? I said, Sally Struthers. She said, well, yes, you do? I said, yes. She said, well, what's your name? I said, Sally Struthers. She said, well, yes, you do have an appointment. Miss Blanchard will see you in a moment. And I went in again. I opened the door to her office, and she was looking a foot above my head.

And then her face went down, looking at me. And she said, hello. And I said, hi, I came to see if I could get you to be my agent. And she said, honey, I came to see if I could get you to be my agent. And she said, honey, I'm a modeling agency. I don't take anybody under five foot seven. I said, oh, OK, well. Could I do my impressions for you before I leave?

She said she looked like the R.C. Victor dog, her head tilted to the side. She said, she looked like the RCA Victor dog, her head tilted to the side. She said, impressions? Who do you do an impression of? I said, oh, not people, inanimate objects. She said, okay. What did you do, a clam? I did a clam for her that changes into an oyster. And then my pièce de resistance was I did a Spanish Mediterranean home.

You did an impression of an adobe. An adobe home, yes. And then she said, you know what? There's a casting agency down the hall that's casting for a Ponds cold cream commercial. I'm going gonna send you down there and if you get it I'll be your agent and I got it she called me on the payphone at studio club a few days later said you landed the commercial I'm your agent you've got to go this week over to Paramount Studios and have a costume

fitting for the commercial so I so. So your imitation of a Spanish home started your career? Yes. Well, didn't you also stand up, what was it? You stood on your head and you sang I'm sitting on top of the world? Yeah, oh my God, you know everything. Frank, what have you been doing? Looking in my window?

Yes. How did that go over? Well, she sent me down for the Ponds commercial. So when she called me and told me I got it, I couldn't get my dimes out fast enough and drop them in the pay phone and call my aunt and my mother and my other aunt in Portland, Oregon, and tell them I was the Ponds girl. I'm the Ponds girl. And then. And you also worked with. The beloved Fritz Feld. Did you ever meet him?

She worked with him in the Finks, but she doesn't remember anybody else in the Finks. I don't I you know they hung me on a swing outside of a balcony nine floors up. I don't I didn't meet anyone on the ground. Well, you work with another person who both Frank and I are fans of, and that's Ned Glass. Well, now, you remember being in that commercial

where you're on the dunking stool? Oh, gosh, yes. What was it? Dunking, not dunking Sally, is it dunking Sally? Yeah, dunk the dolly with Ned Glass from West Side Story. As long as we're talking about commercials. Well, I just remember that they didn't understand that I have a horrible aversion to water.

Oh God. And it was a very difficult day for me pretending to be a good sport about being dropped in the water several times when I so feel like I can't breathe when I even look at water. It was a commercial for a clothes dryer with Ned Glass from West Side Story and we'll explain people can find it on YouTube but Sally is on a dunking stool at a carnival. Yeah like dunk the clown. Yeah and Ned Glass is the carnival barker and her clothes get wet and they go into the efficient dryer.

So you must have done that around the time you did the Ponds commercial? Yes, Nina Blanchard got me 15 or 20 television commercials within the first year. Test your eye, test your skill, pay the quarter and dump her in the water. You there with the muscle, hit the bullseye and drop the little lady in the drink. Three bolts for a quarter. Hey, hey, look at that, a name.

There we go again. Hey, hey, hey. Don't go away, folks. She won't be long. She's gone to dry her things in a Speed Queen gas dryer with a long life stainless steel drum. It's the smooth drum. Easy on me ladies, payment and press.

Nobody has it but Speed Queen. Monica! Monica! I'm hurrying. Wow. Of being with her. Monica! Monica! I'm hurrying. Wow. Of being with her. So she was working for you and you were under 5'7".

Yeah. How did you get to the Smothers Brothers comedy hour? I went and auditioned for them and I'd like to think they hired me because I made them laugh, but I think they just liked the sound of Sally Struthers on this Mother's Brothers show. People thought you were making it up, that it wasn't your real name. They did. Well, you know, I was told when I got to Hollywood

that people, when they join the Screen Actors Guild and AFTR, which is for television artists, that they come up with a very Hollywood sounding name for themselves. And I thought, nobody's going to spell Struthers right. They're not going to say it right. I've been called everything from Struggles to Smoothers to Strithers to I better pick a different name.

And thank God some smart person talked me out of it, because I was going to change my last name to Mander. Sally Mander. But correct me if I'm wrong Sally it's Norwegian isn't it? I'm 50% Norwegian from my mom but Struthers is from my dad and he was English and Scottish. Struthers is from Scotland. Yeah and and Frank and I were talking that you showed your boobs in some come movie in the Jack Nicholson movie. Oh Five easy pieces five easy pieces very subtle by the way Gilbert

You like the way he does those subtle segway Well, you know anybody that can read five fifty shades of gray out loud could say something like that. It's just fine You said someone Fifty Shades of Grey Out Loud can say something like that. It's just fine with me. You said someone, one of your relatives was listening to that. Oh, my nephew and his wife live with me and his wife is from Bogota, Colombia, Catalina. And as I was leaving to come here, I said, I'm going to go do the podcast for Gilbert Gottfried. And she said in her darling Spanish accent,

little bit Spanish, you know, where would I know him from? So I quickly showed him her all these things that you did. And I said, oh, there's something here I'm not even aware of. So I went to YouTube and looked you up with 50 Shades of Grey and I started playing it. And she didn't want me to stop and leave. She said, before you leave the house to go do the show,

send me the link so I can keep listening to him read the book. I said Catalina. She's going to give you a pass on the boobs question. So back to your boobs. Oh my boobs. That scene was not in the script and the producer director came to me and said we want to do just the end of the sex scene with you and Jack and I said I don't think so. He says oh come on, his name is Bob Rafelson. He says, I'm just going to have, you can stay dressed from the waist down, I want you to

put your legs around his waist, you can hide your chest because you'll be hugging him with your arms kind of around his neck He'll be twirling around and around in a room and he'll work his way to the bedroom and he'll Be on top of you and you'll be on on the bed and then he'll rise up off you and the camera will follow him and he'll have that Jack Nicholson grin on his face and his t-shirt is a motorcycle t-shirt that says triumph. And it'll be a great shot. What they didn't tell me was as the camera went to be up on Jack Nicholson, it first scanned across my chest. And when the movie came out, I went to Portland, Oregon to visit my mom and she said, your Aunt June and I are going to see your movie tonight. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're not going.

She said, yes, we're very excited to see you in your first big movie. I said, please, please don't go. And she said, what's wrong? I said, I was talked in to do something in the film that I will never live down and you're not gonna like it, you're gonna be ashamed of me me please don't go see it she said I'm going to see it and I said well when you come home please don't say

anything to me if you're ashamed of me or you're mad at me because it's already on celluloid it's already in movie theaters I can't take it back she she dressed like a spy she put on a trench coat bandana, and dark glasses and went to the movies. And when she came home, she walked right past me and into her bedroom and shut the door. So that was worth a thousand words. I knew she was ashamed of me. Did you ever discuss it after that moment? No.

You know, it's not even, I rewatched it the other night. It's a movie I know well. It's a barely a glimpse. If you're that person's mother you're not happy. I guess that's true. I guess that's true. And that's such a respected film. Yeah yeah that's a that was Jack Nicholson's first big break after Easy Rider. And what was it like to work with Nicholson? Oh my god he's such a nice man. You know he lost his balance when he was twirling around with me and I was bare chested pressed against him. We fell through a plate glass

window. Oh my god. He cut his arm open and he just said get the medic in here to butterfly tape my arm shut. We got to keep filming so he didn't go to the hospital and get stitches till after we got the shot. But did you run into him years later, Sally? I did. I ran into him in Tiffany's. Who shops at Tiffany's? Not me. I like cross-dress for less.

I like to go to Marshall's. And I like to go to Burlington Coat Factory. And I like to go to thrift shops. But my hairdresser's from Japan. And they like all things Tiffany. So he said, I want you to get me box from Tiffany and look like a gift box. He says it's blue and white, it's made out of porcelain.

I want that for Christmas. So I'm in there buying it with my best friend Pamela. She nudges me, she said, look who's over there at that other counter, Jack Nicholson, go say hello to him. I said, no. I said, that movie was 20 years ago. he won't even remember me, I'm not going over there. She says go say hi. I said no, leave me alone. So I was paying for the

box for Hakuto and I feel a pat on my shoulder. I turn around and there's that big shit-hitting grin on Jack Nicholson's face. Hi Sally, it's Jack, how are ya? He's like, oh my God, hi Jack Nicholson. Oh that's sweet. Yeah, I couldn't believe he remembered me. That was really nice. That is, I love that little dialogue you have too when you're on the couch

and you're talking about the dimple in your chin. Oh yeah, that was a real story. God's assembly line. That was a real story in my life and I had told that the night before at dinner and they made me say it in that scene. Oh, that came from your own life. Yeah.

And Hickenpaw was a strange director. What do you remember about him? Oh my Lord. He's in the getaway. Gilbert, Gilbert. He was a potpourri of insanity and alcoholism. He he was drunk by eight o'clock in the morning on the set and Al Attyry who played the heavy in the movie. Sheriff Saloza. They were both gone. They were so drunk and he went over the

we were we were shooting in El Paso Texas and he went over the border one night when we stopped shooting for the night with the script girl, and he married her, and he came back the next day, and now the script girl was Mrs. Peckinpah. That lasted a week, then he sent her home and got divorced, and he said, Sally, you wanna come to the Dailies tonight? I said, what's the Dailies, Mr. Peckinpah?

He said, well, I send the film to Hollywood and it gets processed. They send it back to me to make sure I like the way it all looks and the processing. And if I, maybe I wanna shoot something else or reshoot that scene, cause I didn't like the lighting. Anyway, it's all, it's all printed and processed

and ready to see. And we run it in the hotel in a boardroom. And you want to come tonight? And I said, sure. So we'd only been watching for about 10 minutes. He'd been drunk all day. And he didn't like the way something looked. He said, everybody looks green.

They look like Martians. Oh my god. And he went over to the screen. And he unzipped his fly. And he urinated on the screen. You know I'd be disappointed if Sam Peckinpah did any less wouldn't you Gilbert? Yes and when you said Alatieri, one of my favorite lines in The Godfather is when he says to Pacino, you think too much of me, Michael. I am the hunted one.

Yeah. I'm telling you. I'm not that clever, kid. Yes. He was terrific in that. He was, but he was very scary. Did you get that audition because you got Peckinpah to teach you how to throw darts?

Was that something clever that you did to kind of make yourself stand out? I had a friend who gave me a piece of advice that I always give to young hopefuls who want to go into acting she said to me don't do what everyone else did does when you walk in the room when you walk in a room if you see two chairs in front of a desk and the person is going to interview you or audition you is on the other side of a desk and the person is going to interview you or audition you is on the other Side of the desk and maybe the across the room is a chair in a corner Everyone goes in and sits in a chair across from the other person at the desk go sit in the corner make them look in

A different direction. They won't realize later why they remember you but they'll remember you because you did something different Just and always sound busy so one time somebody called me to talk to me on the phone and I had dishes and glasses in the sink and had the water running and I just kept moving them around and they said, what are you doing? And I said, well, I'm very busy, I'm doing my dishes. Because I was told by this person to always sound busy.

So the only thing I could think to do is to sound busy doing dishes. But anyway, I went into meet Sam Peckinpah and there he was and right behind him on the wall was a dart board. So I said, is that your dart board Mr. Peckinpah? He said, yes it is. I said, are you good players? He said, yeah. Do you play? I said, no. Will you teach me? And for 30 minutes he taught me to throw darts. And I barely got home and my phone was ringing and saying you got the part in the movie.

Well, that was very smart of you. Very creative. Well, it's the advice I was given and it seems to work to do something different than everyone else does. Did McQueen actually clock you in that scene in the motel? He didn't mean to, but by the time I had already slammed against the wall

and slid down it to the floor a couple of times pretending to be hit I was a little woozy. The third take we did on it I stepped into his slug instead of turning my head with his arm slugging me so I really did get hit and of course that's the that's the one they use in the film. And what was Steve McQueen like to work with? Oh, another really, really lovely man. I watched him fall in love with Ali McGrath while we were making that film. And I watched her fall in love with him.

And she was famously married to Robert Evans at the time. I know, but I don't think she could have been very happy. No, probably not. Or she wouldn't have been very happy. No, probably not. Or she wouldn't have been fooling around with Steve McQueen, but they were such a sweet couple and very kind to everyone else on the set. But also he was Steve McQueen. When we were on a 10 minute break

because the cameras were being turned around and the lights were being reset, he'd go outside of this hotel in El Paso and hop on his motorcycle and race straight up a dirt mountain that was almost perpendicular. And, you know, Peckinpah was screaming, get him off the motorcycle.

We don't have enough insurance. He can't, he's gonna break his arm and we can't finish the film. God damn it, get the queen off the motorcycle. But he was a daredevil he really was I'm with you by the way Sally and by the way that movies about to turn 50 the getaway and nope and as you you said I heard you say that when you get together with Ali or when you see her you guys you guys kind of bond over the fact that you're the last

of the Mohicans there's nobody really left from that picture. No, Dub Taylor is gone. Jack Dotson. Alatieri's gone, Jack Dotson is gone, Sam Peckinpah is gone, Steve McQueen is gone. Slim Pickens. Slim Pickens, yeah. It's Ali and Sally. They're still here.

And Frank sent me a clip of something where I thought, I mean, you look very cute, and you were good in it, but it was one of those weird Bob Hope specials. Oh, God! Sally, have you noticed we bounce around a lot? Yeah, that's good, though. You're keeping me on my toes. I think on my toes I might look 5'1". The show has ADD. Yes, I showed Gilbert the clip of you and Bob Hope in a special from 1971, 50 years ago, and you're on the moon. I think it was called Planet of the Shapes. And it was a it was a planet. Bob is an astronaut on a planet entirely inhabited by women. And that title lets you know the level of the humor in that thing.

And you know, I thought, is this what it's like to be a big star? Because I had to memorize all my lines to do this skit with him, but he was reading off of cue cards. Oh, unfair. Bob Hope was infamous with that. It's like when you'd watch his, even in his movies, you could just see him looking there reading, you know, not looking at the other people.

It's disconcerting when someone reads, yeah, he reads, hi Sally, off the cue card, but he's saying hi Sally to the cue card. He's not saying it to my face and I'm kind of like nudging around trying to get to where he's looking. But it was, but what another nice man, a very nice man. Oh, you liked him. I did and I tried picking him up

cause I pick people up. I'm unnaturally strong for someone that's only five feet tall. I think I could lift a Volkswagen off you if I needed to. Wow, keep that in mind. I went to the hospital straight from the set because I was pretty sure I had torn an intestine or something.

I felt something pop. Wait a minute, from trying to physically lift Bob Hope? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you interact, by the way, it was called a celebration of Bob's 22 years on NBC, Gilbert.

Yeah. And it started, it co-started, it was an all-star roster of women, Jill St. John, Phyllis Diller, Martha Ray, the great Edie Adams, Ja Ja, Imogene Coca, did you interact with these legends or did you just have your isolated Bob? Who was the gal that was next to me that was the other woman from the planet? Oh yes I forgot her name. Edie Williams? Edie Williams. Very good Gilbert. Yeah no I didn't get to I didn't get to interact with the other gals. You worked again with Bob in 1982 in Women I Love, Beautiful But Funny.

I did? Yeah. You know, it might have been a clip show. It says that Liz Taylor and Barbara Streisand were on it, which is hard to fathom. It had to be a clip show. But you liked him. I mean, we've heard conflicting things about the man I liked him. I thought I thought he was interesting. He was he was so Bob Hope, you know You I'd seen him my whole life and now I'm standing next to him and he he was every bit what I thought he would be Mr. Mr. Raconteur Bo Bo Viva Doesn't really look at you but laughs a lot, has a nose you wanna ski jump off of. I, I, I just-

You're probably the first costar that ever tried to physically lift him. Yeah. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. We're putting me on a whole planet with nothing but women. I hope Medicare covers ecstasy. We've decided.

We're going to forget you were here. Now, go back where you came from. Oh, just a minute. You say there are nothing but women up here? That's right. Now go. Oh no, Richard Burton would never forgive me. Here, take me to your jail.

You haven't done anything wrong. Well, give me a chance. I just got here. I'll tell you, I could get 20 years for what I'm thinking. You are under arrest. Well, what's the charge? Assault with a dead weapon And and you were on the Jerry Lewis telethon she was yeah a few times yeah Yeah, I would go on there and pretend to be a singer and and what would what dealings would you have with with Jerry? And what would what dealings would you have with with Jerry? Well, he never sat down and talked to me

because I what I didn't have muscular dystrophy. I was just the hired help, you know, but he would, you know, he would wave across the set and say, nice job, Sally. Thanks, Jerry. I didn't really know him. There's a clip on YouTube of you singing on there. You're holding your own. Thanks, Frank. That's like a rock number.

Pretty ambitious. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing Colossal podcast, but first, a word from our sponsor. And you work with Jack Benny? I did, I worked with Jack Benny, but I ran into Jack and Mary Benny in London, England. We were in the lobby of the Dorchester Hotel and they said, Sally, and I said, and I said Mr. Mrs. Benny they

said are you staying here I said yes are you staying here and they said yes they said want to come up to our room for a little while Mary Benny said I'm gonna iron Jack's shirt and then we're going out to dinner but come up to our room and visit with us so we were talking and pretty soon I started to say something and then I said a word and she said, oh, we don't like that word. We don't like that F word. Oh.

And I said, well, I wasn't gonna say that. I was just saying fart. She said, oh, we don't like that. She said fuck It's fine, but don't say fart Jack does not like fart All right as long as we're talking about comedy legends you were in a show called NBC Follies in 1973 with Sammy you work with Sammy several times Yeah, Mickey Rooney and Uncle Milti

Any memories at all of this trio? Well, I know Sammy's a whole separate deal because Sammy was on all in the family uh, uh, I Remember Milton Berle was Definitely traveling to the beat of his own piccolo. I mean, that man was out there. But I love Sammy and I love Mickey. Well, we were all the same size. It was like Milton Berle meets the Munchkins

is what it was like. But Sammy became a good friend, he and his wife, Alta Viz. I remember being pretty upset the first time I went to his house because he had turned his fireplace into a fish tank, and at a designated hour, all the goldfish went to one side of the tank. Well, they were already kind of on one side of the tank anyway. And then there was a, maybe it wasn't glass maybe

it was a lucite partition and on the other side of the tank somebody dumped in piranha and then they pulled the partition out and you'd see all the goldfish eaten destroyed bloody water in about eight seconds. That's terrible. I thought well this isn't entertaining. This is brutal. This is awful. But what made up for it was he had about 20 candy jars on his bar and you could just pig out on sugar. It was so great.

But the goldfish being torn apart. That's awful. By piranha. Yeah, that was odd. And that night, the movie he played for everyone was Clockwork Orange, and that was really weird too. But that was only my first time going over to their house. After that, things got a little more normal. I would hope so.

Yeah. You met Sammy the, I know you were on Sammy and Company, I think it was, with Lola Filana and Jack Klugman, but you met Sammy the first time on All in the Family? Yes, and every day he brought his guys to rehearsal with him and he brought gifts. And every day he would hand all of us presents. I mean we couldn't we couldn't believe it. And then he invited us all over to his house. And then he and his wife, Altafis, drew up an adoption certificate for me and had it framed saying that I was their child,

which I loved, and then I was invited to his 60th birthday, and I was dressed like Shirley Temple, and he was dressed like a little baby in Dr. Denton pajamas. And we had the best time, and he loved to sing tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree. Every time we were in his car with him he'd be singing that song. Oh wow.

I don't know. He was hooked on that song. Wow. That almost makes up for the piranha. Yeah. Not quite. That is very disturbing. I always remember that line in All in the Family where Archie says to Sammy Davis, he

goes, I know I know you had no choice in being colored, but what made you change you? Do you remember when Edith says, I'm so happy Archie we get to meet Mr. Davis. He says, Edith, when he gets here don't say nothing about his eye. She says, what about his eye Archie? He's got a phony eye. You can't say nothing about, all right, Archie. So when Sammy Davis is there, she's bringing a tea service, a big tray with cups, very fancy for Edith.

And he grabs it and he takes it from her. He says, I'll take it, Edith. I'll serve him. Now, Mr. Davis, do you take any cream of sugar in your eye? It's a great moment a great moment And of course Edith brings him a Twinkie Episode written by the great Bill Dana Yeah, I love Bill Dana. Yeah. Yeah, we just missed Bill Dana

He was one of those we were he agreed to do the podcast and then he died Yeah, yeah, we tried so hard to get him. He agreed to do the podcast. And then he died. Yeah. Yeah, we tried so hard to get him. He wasn't in great health. I even got to talk to him on the phone. I remember thinking, oh, he's going to be a great guest. I got to stay in his house on Maui. Oh, he was good friends with Andy Williams and I was dating Andy Williams and Andy took me over to Maui and we stayed in

Bill Dana's house. I thought that was really swell. You dated Andy Williams. I remember Sammy Davis Jr's he had some very funny reactions to everything Archie said. Yeah yeah but they wrote very well for him and also they let him just react during rehearsal and sometimes his reactions were better than what they wrote so those got written in the script. I mean, he was absolutely wonderful and just up for anything. A really generous, kind guy who had a really tough time breaking into show business.

I mean, while his pals, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin got to go in the front door, you know, and go backstage and do their show, Sammy had to come in through the back, through the kitchen. They wouldn't even let him walk through the hallways. A lot of mistreatment. And and we were told, I think it was by Cliff Nesterhouse maybe. Or Nestor Off. Nestor Off. I know what you're thinking. You're talking about the swimming pool? Yes.

Yeah, that was Rick Lertzman on the Rat Pack episode. Yeah, he was staying at some hotel, and he went swimming in the pool. And someone complained that they don't want to be in the same water that a black guy was in and and they the manager had them drain the pool first. No. Yeah that's what we heard. No come on what's wrong with people? Well listen when Hattie McDaniel won the best supporting actress. She couldn't even, she wasn't even allowed to sit in the banquet hall in 1939.

You're kidding me. Thankfully, we're a long way from that. Human beings can be so ugly to one another. I just, I don't understand it. And since we were on the subject of all in the family. Yeah. Well, Frank and I were talking before that, you know, some shows, there are people who hate each other. And it wasn't like that at all on All in the Family.

We really were family-like when we were together. We were all very close to one another, very trusting of each other, and very free. We were in the zone of safety. We could say anything in front of each other. And of course, we were working with an angel. Jean Stapleton was a devout Christian scientist, so she didn't think or say a single negative thing. So we called her our angel. And Carol O'Connor was a brilliant writer and he wrote a lot of the early scripts.

He helped write them. And he was an English teacher before he became an actor. And so he was a very smart, interesting, opinionated New York Irish Catholic man and my father, Dr. Robert Struthers, died two years before I got all in the family so Carol O'Connor became my father off stage as well as on and he and his wife Nancy took me everywhere they went. If they got invited to party they'd take me. They'd always pick me up. They were so good to me. They introduced me to Bill Rader and said, you know, we met him at a party at Groucho Marx's house and we really like him and I mean he's gonna

come to the taping tonight and he's probably gonna ask you out and so he did and I acquiesced in a couple of weeks later I went to dinner with him and then a year later he asked me to marry him and I called Carol and Nancy O'Connor because they introduced me to him. So he got on the phone and Nancy went to another extension in their house and she got on the phone and when they were both on I said, I just want to let you know that tonight at dinner Bill asked me to marry him and I said yes and there was dead silence on the phone. There was probably eight, nine seconds of I hear crickets and then Carol said, we only meant for you to have dinner with him not marry him. Oh wait, wait a minute, but you wanted me to go out to dinner with

him. They said yeah but so that was my first Bermashave sign you know jumping up on the side of the road telling me, turn back, this isn't gonna work, it's bad. But they were right, I shouldn't have married him, but they introduced me to him. But you know, he called me Sally when we were all together socially, but the minute we were in CBS in a rehearsal hall,

I didn't have a name, I wasn't Sally and I wasn't even Gloria, he called me the girl. And I found it the most interesting quirk. How interesting. He didn't call Rob Reiner the boy but I was the girl and he'd talk about me you know third party wise. He'd say now the girl should move over here or you know that line that the girl says on the top of seven I think we could cut that and gain a little time and then go to page eight. And I used to keep raising my hand saying,

Carol, I'm Sally, why are you calling me the girl? But I was just the girl. How interesting, what an interesting choice. Yeah, and Norman Lear wouldn't let me out to do a movie, a big motion picture, Day of the Locust. was a movie, a big motion picture, Day of the Locust, and John Schlesinger, who was British, was directing it, an award-winning film director. Midnight Cowboy. And I, yes, and I was going to be the lead in the film and my agent and I went to Norman and said could I get out of the last four tapings of the season to

shoot this film? And he said said absolutely not if I let you out I've got six television series on the air then I have to start letting everybody out and it ruins our shooting schedule I can't do that it sets a precedent I can't do it so it was a you know we've even thought of another way I said well I only say three lines per show which are I'll help you set the table ma Michael where are you going and And, oh, Daddy, stop it. And then the next week I say the same three lines but in a different order. I don't need to come to rehearsal all week.

I could just come on taping day and do my part. And the other four days of the week I could be shooting the movie. No, I'm not gonna let you do it. So I said, okay, I was really upset, but I said, okay. The next year, he let Rob Reiner out of several shows to shoot a film with Alan Arkin called Fire Sale. And I found a lawyer and I said, get me off this effing show. The nepotism and the misogynistic attitude around here, I want out. So I fought my entire hiatus period between when we finished filming that season and the next,

working with a lawyer. And we went to arbitration, and I lost. And I had to go back. And I'm sorry that happened to you. That's unfair. And Norman had someone the first day back, my first day, every 100 feet, there was someone holding a bouquet for me through the parking lot, through the hallways, up the elevator, down the rehearsal hall hallway, and everybody that I walked

past I just said shove it. And after that for several weeks I wore a t-shirt every day rehearsal that said prisoner of rehearsal hall two. Wow. I really didn't want to be there. But then we had a new director named Paul Bogart and he was so delightful to work with and they finally started writing stories for Mike and Gloria and I had more lines to say and so everything was fine. From season six on after John, John they got rid of John Rich who I know you didn't you didn't have a lot of fondness for. Bogart came in and changed the climate a bit for you? John Rich picked on me. Yeah.

You'll love this story. One day in the rehearsal hall, Betty Garrett and I were coloring in our coloring books, and they were starting from the top of Act One, and that was a scene between Mike and Edith in the kitchen. So I stayed at the table with Betty coloring in my coloring book. And they started saying their lines, this is all happening behind me, I can hear what's going on but I'm coloring and then

he must have moved his hands like be quiet because all of a sudden everyone went quiet and then he said, I said we're starting from the top of Act One and nothing happened and I kind of realized this was about me. So I turned around and looked at John Rich and I said, are you talking to me? And he says, yes. I said we're starting from the top of Act One and I want you to get over there in place outside the bunker's doorway and wait for your entrance. That had never happened before. In the rehearsal hall you didn't have to get in place and wait five minutes for your quote unquote entrance.

And he says, get over. I said, well, John, I don't come in till page four and I'm just finishing coloring this picture. I promise I'll be over by the bunker's front door and make my entrance in time. And he said, shaking his jowls like Richard Nixon, he said, I don't want to hear your platform shoes clomping across this floor

while they're doing their scene in the kitchen. Get out of there now. And I did the worst thing a human being can do and I've never forgiven myself for it because he was of the Jewish faith. I clicked my heels together, raised my hand in a Nazi salute and said, Yes, sir! Wow. And he did a three-point drop kick on a folding chair and was lunging at me.

And I ran out of the Hursa Hall and down to the bowels of CBS and through all the places where all the electronic stuff goes on, and up another stairwell up into the executive suites and ran into Norman Lear's office and I said, he called me a effing bitch and a pain in the ass and kicked a chair. He said, here's a box of Kleenex, sit down, I'll go get him, I'll bring him back here to apologize to you. And Norman was gone almost an hour and when he came back in his office, he didn't have John Rich with him. And I said, I told you he wouldn't apologize, Sally. I couldn't bring him back because he's on the way to the hospital because he broke his foot.

And I said, there is a God. So the- He broke his foot kicking the chair. Yeah. Wow. And so the next day, Norman Lear called for us to circle the wagons in the rehearsal hall and it was Norman and then in a circle then it was Carol O'Connor, Gene Stapleton, Rob Reiner, me

and Mike Evans who played Lionel Jefferson and Norman's pretending to be a therapist and Norman says well we all know what happened yesterday and there's John with a cast on his leg and crutches Sitting there and he said I think we need to talk about it Sally says that John picks on her and I want all of your opinions about that Carol and Carol says yeah He's a little hard on the girl So he turns to Jean stable. He says that's this care does John pick on Sally all the time and jeans She was so above all that, you know? She didn't even want to be involved in this conversation.

She fumpered around, well, you know, sometimes I, you know, Sally, John, I, she couldn't really say anything. So then he got to Rob, who was sitting next to me, and he said to Rob, you know, does John Rich pick on Sally? And Rob said, it's real simple, Norman. He's not gonna pick on Carol,

because Carol's the star of the show and will have him fired. He's not gonna pick on Jean Stapleton because Jean is in his peer group and she's the female star of the show, and she is an angel, and it really wouldn't look good. And he's not gonna pick on me because I'm a rich Jewish kid

who grew up in Beverly Hills and I'll tell him to fuck off and walk out of this rehearsal hall. And he's not gonna pick on Mike Evans because Mike is black and John's a guilty white liberal. So the only one left to pick on is Sally and he does it all the time. That was the end of that moment.

And this necessitated, if I have this correctly, that was the end of that moment And this necessitated that if I if I have this correctly that was the end of John Rich's He did the rest of that season ready to get renewed right right? That's a turning point a turning point for you because you say that the Bogart episodes from it from season 6 on you were given more to do More more Gloria Mike stories although I have to say and Gilbert and I were talking Some of my favorite episodes in the early season are Gloria episodes. The Women's Lib episode, Battle of the Month, the Black Wig.

Oh, God. Rob Reiner couldn't say that line. Rob Reiner, was that the one where I said, you're a pervert. You want me to wear this wig to bed so that she can sleep with another woman without cheating on your wife. What a sickie you said. You sicko.

And then he says, right, I'm sick. You're the one who's sick. You're jealous of your own wig. That's a great episode, Sally. You're wonderful in that episode. I remember one of the most powerful moments in all the family was you were really angry at Archie.

And so Archie to cheer you up is kind of like throwing punches at you like you do with a little kid. And you say stop it, I'm not your little girl. And he says, don't you ever say that to me again. It's a lovely moment. Yeah. Yeah, we actually had some lovely moments. And that was kind of planned by Norman and the writers

when the show got picked up by CBS and was going to actually go on the air instead of just be another pilot. And I didn't know any of this but one day when the show started airing we already had eight in the can as they say and now the first one was going on the air January 1971 and it was quickly climbing to number one and we were all so excited every day and feeling our oats and we were on the set with the cameramen and the sound men rehearsing because they had to do the dance with us.

So they had to learn when and where we were moving and do it with us. And on a break, Norman was standing there. And I went over to him and I said, Norman, remember when I was auditioning and it was down to the last four girls to play Gloria? And we each had to go in the room in front of all of you and do improvisations with Rob Reiner. Was

I really the funniest one? Now, I learned that day, do not go on fishing expeditions if you don't like what you're going to catch because Norman said to me, no, Sally, we tried to think ahead of which would get us more mileage. If Gloria was her mama's daughter or she was her daddy's little girl and we thought we could get more pathos and humor and tenderness out of some moments in the shows if she was daddy's little girl. And so we cast you because just like Carol O'Connor,

you have blue eyes and a fat face. Geez. I said, thanks. like Carol O'Connor, you have blue eyes and a fat face. Jeez. I said thanks. Well, regardless of how you were cast or why you were cast, Sally, I mean, you won two Emmys for the part. Some of those episodes in the, some of your work in those episodes in the early seasons is is I'm Gilbert and I were talking about in Battle of the Month you you're trying to get Edith to stand up for herself and you call her a doormat

and then you say you're a nothing and it's a it's a wonderful your your apology to her is a wonderful moment the sex talk scene that you have with her is a wonderful moment from the wedding flashback. Oh yes. There's so many so and when Gloria has the miscarriage the wonderful scene with you and Carol on the bed. Yeah when he comes to the room and he doesn't know what to say to her. It's lovely. It's lovely and it's only what 11 episodes into the series that this show is proving that it's way more, it's after something much more than shock value. Yeah. You know, it's really quite beautiful.

We had some amazing writers, and the only difficult thing for us was that Norman kept spinning other shows off onto television, and he would take our writers and put them on the new show, and then he'd give us a whole new group of writers to write for us who hadn't written for us before and didn't know how to really write for us yet and we would have to help them get in the groove and we'd be in a groove with them and then Norman would take them and put them on his next new show and we'd get new writers again.

So it made Carole O'Connor really mad. I can imagine. And one thing with Carol O'Connor, well, it's a combination of Carol O'Connor as an actor and the writers that here's Archie, an angry bigot, and he's a lovable, sympathetic character. Isn't it amazing that you can be both? Yeah, that's part of the magic of that show that they pulled that off Yeah, because you know if you can

Divorce yourself from the ugly things he's saying which is learned behavior and Realized that a person that is a bigot like that learns that sitting on their father's knee It doesn't come out of nowhere that sitting on their father's knee. It doesn't come out of nowhere. They learn, children, you know, what's that song? Children, be careful, children can hear you. So you know Archie Bunker must have had a really racist father, and that's how he turned out

to be like that, and he doesn't even really know what he's saying. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Sammy, them words I just heard you saying here, they reminded me of something that I always wanted to ask you. Yes, sir. Yeah.

Now, you're being colored. Well, I know you had no choice in that. But whatever made you turn Jew? Smile, everybody. Ah, come on, Barney, what are you doing? you turn Jew? Smile everybody! Ah, come on Barney! What are you doing? I thought you went home! You turned my house into a peep show!

I'm sorry Mr. Davis sometimes my father says wrong things Yeah, we noticed that But he's not a bad guy Mr. Davis, I mean like, he'd never burn a cross on your lawn No, but if he saw one burning he's liable to toast a marshmallow on it... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha So we're going to pause it right there folks and continue our conversation with Sally. Next week in part two, we're going to call this one, part one, as you can hear Sally

is a terrific guest and a great talker and full of stories and very enthusiastic and we recorded so much more with her that we want to save some goodies for next week. We talk about her meeting Katherine Hepburn, working with Joan Crawford, doing the female odd couple on Broadway, of course, how Ruth Gordon, the great Ruth Gordon, inspired her character on Gilmore Girls, and so much more. As I said, she's a terrific, talkative, outspoken, fun guest, and we thank our friend John Shuck for the introduction to Sally and for making this happen. So we will see you all next week for part two of the terrific and funny Sally Struthers. And tomorrow I can start in remembering you. There's a faraway look in your eye when you try to pretend to me.

That everything is the same as it used to be I see it's all over now All over now we're through And tomorrow I can start in Remembering, sad because we're parting Remembering, consoling my heart in Remembering you Thank you.