An Interview with Bill Persky

Kliph Nesteroff: I had heard that while you were in college you were doing impressions and had started a little act of your own. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about that.

Bill Persky: Well, I started doing entertainment at fraternity parties and people liked it. I was doing impressions. That was back in 1951-52. Many years later I spoke to my daughter's high school class and I mentioned that I had been an entertainer in college working in nightclubs and I did impressions of actors, most of whom are now dead. When the school paper came out it said, "Dana [Persky]'s Father Does Impressions of Dead Actors."

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

Bill Persky: At any rate I just worked in a few clubs and I did some larger university parties. Then I started writing and in college, a roommate, he and I started writing together. We wrote a show for the school, a big musical that was chosen by Life magazine in 1953 as the outstanding college show of the year. 

They came up and did all sorts of interviews and pictures, but we never made it into the magazine. The star of that show was actually Peter Falk and Bob Dishy. The director was Jerry Leider who went on to be a very successful man. 

Kliph Nesteroff: To be fair, Rich Little still performs and all of his impressions are of dead actors.

Bill Persky: Right, of course. I remember Carl Reiner once went up to Rich Little and said, "Hey, Rich! Who are you?"

Kliph Nesteroff: Your sister was married to Paul Grossinger of the Catskill Grossingers. Did that relation have any bearing or influence on you in terms of getting involved with comedy and show business?

Bill Persky: That's right. Oh, God yes, that was the start of it all. She went to a book party for the book by Joey Adams, the stand-up comic. He'd written a book called Nights of the Clown Table about the table at Toots Shor's where all the comedians sat. Anyway, there were all these jokes in the book and I started telling the jokes and that was really the beginning of my getting involved with doing anything with comedy. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Did that connection actually bring you into contact with any of the mountain comics?

Bill Persky: Oh, yes. I saw them all. I met most of them and used to take care of... I worked up there in the summer and worked at the pool as a cabana boy. One of my regular customers was Milton Berle's mother. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Was it just a thrill?

Bill Persky: Oh, God yes. The whole thing was just a rare experience to be exposed to. I was at Grossinger's and Mel Brooks was on the staff to write a show, the staff show. He was there and he entertained at the mid-week variety show. On the weekends they'd have big stars, but during the week they'd have lesser people. And Mel, got to do stand-up and insulted everyone to the point that they ran him off the grounds the next day.

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs) I had also read that you sold a script to Howdy Doody.

Bill Persky: Yes. Donald, my partner, Don Rosenblit and I, were working at an ad agency in New York and we met somebody that was involved with Howdy Doody. We went and had a meeting there. We invented a character that was actually on Howdy Doody [regularly], though we didn't end up getting to write anything more than the sample story. They took the character. It was about Howdy going up to the North Pole and encountering this animal that was called the Pigloo, which was a combination pig and igloo. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Was that your first sale to television?

Bill Persky: Yes, yes it was. I don't know that we got very much for it. In addition to talking to you, am in the process of writing a book called My Life as a Situation Comedy. In it are a lot of the stories of how I got started.

Kliph Nesteroff: Early on you got a job working at WNEW as... assistant program director? Did you meet William B. Williams?

Bill Persky: That's right... yeah, he was a very close friend. He was terrific. He knew more about popular music than anyone in the world. Frank Sinatra loved him. In fact, during the time when Frank Sinatra's career was ebbing, it was William B. who really kept him alive in the people's eyes. He played his music all the time. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Was Gene Rayburn also on staff? 

Bill Persky: No, it was Klavan and Finch then - Rayburn had left. Gene Klavan and I forget Finch's first name.

Kliph Nesteroff: I read that you were sometimes on air seven hours a day.

Bill Persky: Yes, well, there was a strike. The disc jockeys went on strike and even though I was earning forty dollars a week I was considered "management" and I had to stay there. They put us on the air, Sam Denoff and myself. We were on the air seven hours a day for a whole week. In fact, one of the funniest things was on the final night of the negotiations of the strike we were all sitting around and we decided we wanted to play poker. We went into the record library and the [LPs] were all different sizes. There were transcriptions that were sixteen inches and then there were fourteen inches and there were twelve inch and it was the beginning of forty-fives... so we used the records as money. The transcriptions were quarters and we sat playing cards with all of these records.

Kliph Nesteroff: Eventually you and Sam Denoff started writing for nightclub comedians.

Bill Persky: Ron Carey [was a comedian we wrote for]. He was sixteen when we first met him. Crazy as a loon. But funny as hell.

Kliph Nesteroff: He never seemed to garner much fame as a nightclub comic, mostly as a TV actor. Did he have much of a career in stand-up?

Bill Persky: No. One of the things that happened was, he was afraid to travel. So he would only go to places where he could hear WNEW on the radio because otherwise he would feel out of touch with us. So he had offers made, but he wouldn't take them. 

Kliph Nesteroff: I have a list here. Sid Caesar, Dick Shawn and Don Rickles as other people whom you wrote nightclub material for...

Bill Persky: Rickles, not really. For Rickles we wrote the Van Dyke show that really got him noticed as a television actor. It was about him holding up Dick and Mary in an elevator that got stuck. Sid, during a period of time, when he was between shows and was kind of on the wane, was doing nightclub stuff. We wrote a whole bunch of things for him. My favorite was, there was a restaurant in New York then called The Forum of the Twelve Caesars. It was very lavish, old Roman decor. The wine buckets were Roman helmets, and the salt shakers... I mean, the accoutrements were more popular than the food. There was an article about how much stuff was stolen. So we wrote a piece for Sid about the fact that the restaurant wasn't really a restaurant, it was an antique store. The idea was to help people to steal things. So we would explain how when you see that the wine is no longer in the bucket, pour the ice out, and wipe it dry so they can wear it out. It was a really funny piece.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was the process of selling material to nightclub comedians? Did you approach them directly? Did you have to go through somebody?

Bill Persky: In the beginning George Shapiro, who was our agent, forced us on them. Then once we got a reputation - they came to us which made it a lot easier.

Kliph Nesteroff: Would you bother to go to the nightclub and watch them deliver your material?

Bill Persky: We'd always go to see them and see what we had to do with it.

Kliph Nesteroff: Now you were going to write for Allen and Rossi but...

Bill Persky: Couldn't stand them. I came up with one of the most non-committal reactions to a comedian looking for praise when they came off. They walked over and they said, "Eh? Eh?" I said, "Boy, do you do forty-five minutes." They took it to mean that I meant, "Boy, you do a brilliant forty-five minutes."

Kliph Nesteroff: What was your aversion to them?

Bill Persky: They were slobs! They weren't funny!

Kliph Nesteroff: And that was at The Copacabana. What was The Copa like as a venue?

Bill Persky: Oh, it was fabulous. It was the kind of place where if you had a table and somebody who was connected came in they walked right over you and put them right in front of you. There's a great Copa story from that period. The head of The Copa was Jules Podell and somebody talked him into booking Howard Keel who was a singer. Howard Keel opened and no one came to see him and the audience didn't like him. When he walked off to his dressing room, he said to Jules Podell who was standing there, "Well, Mr. Podell! What do you think?" Jules Podell said, "How would you like to go fuck yourself?" 

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs) Ah, Jules Podell. I wanted to ask you a little bit about The Steve Allen Show - or what was called the NEW Steve Allen Show when you got hired in 1961. Along with you on the writing staff was a young Buck Henry. What was Buck like back then?

Bill Persky: Crazy. He was always crazy, brilliant and so intelligent and sophisticated, knowledgeble and educated. But he was nuts. He would walk around with pajamas on under his clothes.

Kliph Nesteroff: And a young unknown Tim Conway as well?

Bill Persky: Well, Timmy... someone saw Timmy in Cleveland and brought him in. I think, as a matter of fact, Rose Marie was his agent. If I recall right it was Rose Marie who brought him to Steve's attention. He was brilliant and we wrote the first piece that he did on national television. It was about a man who was the protocol man in Washington, getting ready for the visit of a dignitary. 

Kliph Nesteroff: He was in a comedy team with Ernie Anderson...

Bill Persky: Yeah, way back. Not then.

Kliph Nesteroff: How about Joey Forman - he was on the program also wasn't he?

Bill Persky: Joey I had known for years because he was Eddie Fisher's best friend back in the Catskill days. He worked on the show and he did impressions. Also on the show there were The Smothers Brothers. That was first show. They were dynamite.

Kliph Nesteroff: Stan Burns.

Bill Persky: Stan Burns was probably one of the funniest, nicest men I ever met. He was so unlike a comedy writer. He was just crazy, his ideas and his energy. He never bought into anything Hollywood, it was just what he did for a living. He was just a guy who'd come in. He didn't hang out anywhere and he didn't want to be part of any parties or any of that stuff. He wasn't show business. You know what I mean? He was just in show business.

Kliph Nesteroff: Leonard Stern.

Bill Persky: Leonard Stern was a very severe guy. He certainly had his accomplishments. We were not ever close, although I worked with him a lot.

Kliph Nesteroff: What do you mean by severe?

Bill Persky: He was just kind of removed. Kind of arched.

Kliph Nesteroff: There was a producer on the show named Charlie Andrews...

Bill Persky: Yeah. He was a nice guy, but he was in over his show on that show. 

Kliph Nesteroff: How so?

Bill Persky: He just really didn't take control of it. Bill Dana was actually the producer. Billy is the sweetest guy in the world and a wonderful writer, but the most disorganized person you have ever met. So between the two of them it was not well run.

Kliph Nesteroff: Speaking of Bill Dana - you and Sam Denoff wrote for at least one of Bill Dana's comedy records. You also did your own comedy record with Lennie Weinrib and...

Bill Persky: Yes and Joyce Jameson. It also became a CBS television special and was the start of the television career of Sonny and Cher. It was called The First Nine Months are the Hardest and it was about my experiences during my wife's first pregnancy, which were not unique. They were everyone's experience. We did the album and then out of the album we sold the special to CBS and it starred Jimmy Farantino and Michelle Leigh. It had three couples on it. Ken Berry and his wife Jackie Joseph. Dick Van Dyke was the host. He was the doctor the women were going to. We needed a third couple and we coudn't find any, and the only ones we could think of were Sonny and Cher. This was in 1970. The network was not really that interested in them, but they let us use them. As a result of that special they got their series. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Arnie Sultan and Marvin Worth were a pair of writers you worked with on The Steve Allen Show...

Bill Persky: Arnie Sultan and Marvin Worth. They were the hottest show business guys around at that time. They had more deals than they had hair on their head. I don't know that any of them ever worked out, but they always had a lot of action going on. I think both of them are long gone. Marvin produced the Lenny movie and he did a number of things. Arnie never did go much past their partnership.

Kliph Nesteroff: And some other cast members in the Steve Allen fold... Louis Nye...

Bill Persky: Louis, of course, was brilliant and crazy. They were all very bizarre. He was the kind of person you never got to know... I knew him, but I didn't know him. And Dayton Allen was beyond reaching.

Kliph Nesteroff: You went on to work on The Andy Williams Show with a veteran comedy writer - Mort Greene.

Bill Persky: Mort "Velvet" Greene. Mort Greene had been very successful, I think, on The Perry Como Show. He was called Velvet Mort because he had velvet collars on all of his suit jackets. By the time he got to Andy, he hadn't worked for a while so the velvet was pretty frayed. He and Harry [Crane] were not a good mix. There were two kinds of comedy writers if you asked one comedy writer about another. There were two answers. "Funniest guy in the world. Don't turn your back on him." Or "Nicest guy in the world. Can't write his name." Harry was funniest guy in the world don't turn your back on him, Mort was nicest guy - can't write his name. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Well, how did he get on the show if he couldn't...

Bill Persky: I don't know. Friendship. Bob Finkel who was the producer was an old friend of his, I don't know. It was about a friendship. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Were you fired from The Andy Williams Show?

Bill Persky: Yes.

Kliph Nesteroff: Why did that happen?

Bill Persky: It happened because Harry, who was the world's greatest politician, in order to preserve himself, sacrificed us while appearing to be our champion. The interesting thing was, when we were fired from The Andy Williams Show it was like the end of the world. They weren't doing a full series the next year, they were just doing a series of specials. In the period between February and the start of their new season in September, we had gotten on The Dick Van Dyke Show and had already become stars. We got a call from Bob Finkel in October and Andy had said, "I think it would be a good idea to get Bill and Sam back because something's missing." He called up to see if we were available, which I knew we weren't, but I made him give me all the detailing and I kept him on the line for an hour just to get even. 

Kliph Nesteroff: And then - I don't know if you actually sat in the writers room - but you wrote a little something for The Joey Bishop Show.

Bill Persky: We wrote a Joey Bishop show. I don't remember which one it was. Everybody, The Joey Bishop Show, and The Dick Van Dyke Show, they were all on the same studio lot. There were five stages and we had five of the top ten shows on television, so everyone knew everybody. Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson were pretty much working for Joey but they also did some Van Dykes, so we went back and forth.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was Joey Bishop like?

Bill Persky: He was a prick. The best story about him... he played his own cousin on one episode. He was playing two parts or something and he complained that the cousin was getting bigger laughs than him.    

Kliph Nesteroff: Danny Thomas.

Bill Persky: He was terrific. I loved Danny. He was funny and he was warm. He was very giving. Of course, Sheldon his partner really took care of the business side. Sheldon Leonard - he was a Damon Runyon character. But smart as a whip, great business man, a real good eye for talent, and as flamboyant as you would expect him to be. I remember we were once in Vegas, and he was dressed in a white suit with a black silk shirt and a white tie and panama hat at the crap table. I was at the other end with his wife Frankie and I looked at him and I said to her, "God, you know, Frankie. Nobody could dress like that." She said, "I wish nobody would."

Kliph Nesteroff: Somebody that loved Damon Runyon-esque folks was Nat Hiken. Did you ever get a chance to meet Nat? 

Bill Persky: Yes, actually we worked...we gave... the week that I was leaving New York for The Steve Allen Show where we only had a three week contract... if they liked us we'd be picked up for another three weeks and then another three weeks. So it was a very precarious thing to do. But both Sam and I knew that if we didn't take this chance that we'd never get another one. The weekend before I left for California, my in-laws and my wife and I went out to golf. I had hit a ball into the woods and I went in to look for it, and I found a ball that had Nat Hiken's name on it. So, I took that as a very good sign. I kept that golf ball as a good luck charm. When I knew Nat and we spent time together, I said, "I found this." And I gave it to him.

Kliph Nesteroff: So when did you get to know him?

Bill Persky: I guess it was in the second year of the Van Dyke Show. We had an extra small office near our office and he was on the lot doing something I guess for Danny and Sheldon. He used that office and we spent a lot of time together. He was the dearest and the most brilliant comedy mind around.

Kliph Nesteroff: I don't understand why he doesn't get the recognition today...

Bill Persky: Yeah, it's interesting. He's really one of the classics. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you ever know or work with Phil Silvers?

Bill Persky: Only briefly in that I was casting a pilot and I wanted Phil Silvers for the lead and I met with him then. He didn't get the part. I met with him then.

Kliph Nesteroff: What can you tell me about working with Morey Amsterdam?

Bill Persky: Morey was a very sweet man. A joke machine. No taste. He wasn't neccesarily vulgar or anything, but he just made up jokes that didn't have any substance.

Kliph Nesteroff: You have said before that Rose Marie, and maybe Richard Deacon as well, were hesitant to accept you and Sam as producers on the [Dick Van Dyke] show.

Bill Persky: Yeah. They never really accepted us. Even in the three years and the fact that we had written, by that time, thirty-five shows and we were the story editors. When Carl [Reiner] went to do The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! he put us as directors and producers and they didn't like him leaving I think. You know, Richard Deacon was really bitchy. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Did that make the process of working there incredibly uncomfortable?

Bill Persky: No, but Carl used to sit at one end of the table for the readings and we would sit at the other end. So, when he left, we left the end of his table open and we still stayed where we belonged. And then a phone call came in for Carl and Deacon picked it up and answered it and he said, "They want to talk to the producer." I took the call and the person said, "Is this Carl Reiner?" I said, "No. But I'm trying as hard as I can."

Kliph Nesteroff: Somebody that I think you worked with that I find fascinating as a character is...

Bill Persky: Billy DeWolfe.

Kliph Nesteroff: Well, yes, Billy DeWolfe, but I was actually going to say Burt Mustin.

Bill Persky: Oh, Burt. I loved Burt. Burt Mustin was one of the true gentleman of the world. I just loved him. He had a very interesting background. He had been, not at Westpoint, but I guess The Citadel. He was a real Southern gentleman. I saw wedding photos in his uniform and everything. He had a barbershop quartet and I used to sing with him. He was a great guy. I loved Burt. And Billy DeWolfe was, I guess, one of my favorite people ever. He was just a sweetheart of a guy and brilliantly funny. Most people didn't know that he had been an acrobat at one point. He had a way - he was so grand and it was terrific.

Kliph Nesteroff: I had heard that the first Good Morning World pilot had been turned down.

Bill Persky: Yes, it was with Ron Rifkin. It was only different in the fact that they didn't like that Ron Rifkin was Jewish. I mean, literally he just came across as ethnic, and so we re-did it. He was good in it though. It almost destroyed him. It was the first thing he did in Hollywood, he couldn't believe he got a job and he was vilified by the client and replaced. It took him a long time to recover.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was Ronnie Schell like?

Bill Persky: Ronnie Schell was a lunatic. He'd do anything for a dollar. But funny. Absolutely funny.

Kliph Nesteroff: Now, in your show for Marlo Thomas - That Girl - the early George Carlin appears in a couple of episodes.

Bill Persky: That's right and he disappeared one day and returned as a totally different person about two years later. He just freaked out. He knew he had another calling. He called and said he wasn't coming in. He just said, "I'm leaving." We brought in Ronnie Schell. 

Kliph Nesteroff: So what do you remember about George prior to the transformation?

Bill Persky: George? He was the most straight-laced, conservative Republican you ever saw.

Kliph Nesteroff: You had a writer on That Girl named Ruth Brooks Flippen.

Bill Persky: She was a very big favorite of Marlo's. Marlo felt very comfortable with her's being the voice of a woman. We needed a woman on the show. She was terrific.

Kliph Nesteroff: And Bernie Orenstein.

Bill Persky: Bernie Orenstein and Saul Turtletaub. Friends to this day. I just lectured at a class that Bernie Orenstein is teaching. They did more different shows than anybody in the business. Every year they did a different show, except for when they did Sanford and Son, which they did for about two years. 

Kliph Nesteroff: There is an anecdote I would love for you to tell. A little something about Orson Welles? The last time you saw Orson Welles?

Bill Persky: Oh, yes. Well, it was at the end of the shooting of the Hallmark Hall of Fame version of The Man Who Came to Dinner. We were in South Hampton and Orson had been alienated from the cast. There was an ongoing battle between him and the director Buzz Kulik. Orson was painted into a corner about being a real villain. He was not easy to work with. Through a series of circumstnaces he knew that I admired and protected him so we spent a lot of time together. It was six weeks that we were in London in South Hampton and the final night, there was a fight between the two of them, Buzz Kulik and Orson Welles. He disappeared and no one knew where he was. We had to finish the show. It was about the final shot. We finally located him. 

He said he'd only come back with a public apology. He came back and Kulik apologized over the P.A., but by that time the crew hated him, everybody hated him. After the show finished there was [going to be] a wrap party. I went inside to say goodbye to him and he was sitting there real vulnerable, in his final outfit. It was a very grand, blue suit and a cape and a persian lamb hat. He was the most elegant looking guy ever. He said, "Well, Billy, we should go to the party." I said, "Do you really think so?" He said, "Oh, yes. I've been through this before." So we went upstairs. It was on the fourth floor and the elevator wasn't working. He walked in and it was like deadly silence. He acted like they quited down to hear him say goodbye. He made an elegant speech and walked out and I walked out with him. He said, "Billy, I must pee!" I said, "Perhaps over here, sir." The door was locked to the men's room. We went down another floor and went down all four floors and he said, "If I don't pee I will explode!" 

We walked out into the parking lot and it was this heavy fog, this South Hampton fog and every footstep echoed like a rifle shot. The only lighting was from a tower in the middle of the parking lot about a hundred yards away. It was just the eeriest... it was like a scene from The Third Man. The only thing missing was the zither. In all of South Hampton, there is this ancient Roman Wall that works its way through the city ... in the parking lot there was a seciton of it. I walked over with Orson and he gave me a hug and he said, "Thank you, Billy. I love you." And I said, "I love you too, Orson." He unzipped his fly and I walked into the fog to the sound of Niagra Falls as Orson Welles peed on the Roman Wall.

Integration Report (1960)

Some of the earliest work from legendary documentarian Albert Maysles.

Take This Hammer featuring James Baldwin (1963)

Peter Gunn with special guest star Jay Lawrence (1959)

The Cry of Jazz (1959)

The Lenny Bruce Pilot with guest Buddy Rich (1959)

I've Got a Secret (1956)

The Gypsy Rose Lee Show with guests The Letterman (1967)

The Newlywed Game (1966)

KNTV Record Hop (1963)

The Jetsons (1962)

Classic Television Showbiz's Late Late Show: Attack of the Puppet Peope (1958)

An Interview with Bobby Ramsen - Part Two

 Kliph Nesteroff: So, we were talking about the Mob and the well-known connection between nightclub comedy during the middle twentieth century and "the boys" as you put it. There were some comedians that were not gangsters themselves, but were certainly darlings of that set and in many ways cut from the same cloth. A guy like B.S. Pully, for instance, with his intimidating stature would actually play gangsters in everything from Guys n' Dolls to Car 54, Where Are You - and in real life he possessed a similar rough-around-the-edges, underworld type demeanor.

Bobby Ramsen: Yes and he worked that way too in his stand-up. He did a stand-up act and he was one of the dirtiest comedians around. He was using four-letter words. Everyone uses four letter words in this era, but in those days to use a four-letter word? Kliph, I'm gonna tell you a true story. You're going to love this. Most every club that I ever worked when I first started in the business at the start of the nineteen fifties had a sign backstage. The sign said: "No hells and no damns." That's how squeaky clean the clubs were.

Mr. Podell never, ever fired anybody, but the only time he had a problem... if you go digging you're libel to come back with [the name of] somebody else. There is a book out there by his daughter and she mentions someone else. Jules Podell let Rich Little go. It was amicable. They both agreed that it would be best if he left. Rich Little is Canadian. He came down and he became very successful and a wonderful impressionist. One of his impressions was political and he started to do anti-Vietnam jokes as this particular person. Veterans took it upon themselves to start picketing The Copacabana because Rich Little, especially being Canadian, "What right has he got to tell us about our politics?" and so forth. They were asked to go away. They were across the street from the club. They wouldn't leave. They're walking back and forth with the signs, "Get rid of Rich Little" and "What right has he" and so on. They tried to get rid of [the picketers] and they can't. By law, they're allowed to quietly protest with signs, but Mr. Podell doesn't want it happening in front of his club.

You can't blame him. He used to go up the wall when people on the radio would say, "Heavy rains and a snowstorm expected." He said, "Well, why do they have to mention what the weather is going to be! It's going to keep people away from the club!" Anyway, he went to Rich Little and he said, "Rich. There's nothing I can do. I can't get rid of these people. I'd appreciate it if you'd just walk away from this." They came to a deal and he left. The only other person that he had a problem with, and this is even more important, George Carlin. George Carlin had a mind of his own and wasn't about to be told what to do in his act, did a joke about a whorehouse. Mr. Podell came to him and said, "Please don't use the expression whorehouse on my stage." And they had a to do and, as far as I know, he never let him go, but he didn't think to kindly of him after that. Carlin refused to take it out of his act. 

Kliph Nesteroff: A clash of titans.

Bobby Ramsen: Jules Podell... he talked with a very, low, gruff voice. He was short and squat. He was not involved with the boys, he worked for the boys - to run the kitchen of The Copacabana and eventually they used his name. "Jules Podell's Copacabana." He was the front man for the boys at The Copacabana, but he was not involved in any way except he helped run The Copacabana. The Copacabana according to what I heard was owned by Mr. Genovese. When Mr. Genovese "went away" for awhile and did a few years in jail, he turned it over to Frank Costello.

Mr. Costello eventually became the owner of The Copacabana, but Podell worked for these guys. He not only worked for these guys, there was a guy named Connie Immerman. He ran The Cotton Club, which was the boys. Started out as a speakeasy, ended up becoming a legitimate club when prohibition was repealed. Then he had another place called Connie's Inn. These were all Black [clubs] in Harlem. Very, very famous. All of the white people used to come down from midtown Manhattan and frequent The Cotton Club. These are the guys that ran it. Eddie Davis was a legitimate guy that ran a club, he was an entertainer, his partner was Leon Enken. Eddie said that when they first opened up, when prohibition was repealed, and they remained to run Leon and Eddie's... A guy came in one day. Put a gun on the table and said, "We'd like to talk to you and your partner." Eddie said, "We have absolutely no interest in any other partners. We're two guys running a club and we're not working for partners." 

He said he was never bothered again. It wasn't a question of, I mean, I'm sure strong arm tactics were used in certain respects, but that [story] was straight from Eddie Davis. He finally sold the building. He got four hundred thousand dollars back in the fifties. That was big money and it was quite a piece of property. Toots Shor

Kliph Nesteroff: It's fascinating history, all of that.

Bobby Ramsen: Jules Podell, like I say, talked with a very deep, gruff voice. He had a way about him and he ran a very, very tight club. That's what made it so important. The Copacabana, Kliph, you could go to The Copacabana in those days... the food was excellent. It had one of the best Chinese menus in New York. It was sensational Chinese food. The steaks were superb. You could go to The Copacabana for seven dollars and fifty cents, near the end in the sixties, it was not a cover charge. It was not a music charge. It was not an admission charge. It was a minimum. You had to spend seven-fifty. You could eat it or drink it. People would come there and see Jimmy Durante! Frank Sinatra! Rosemary Clooney! Louis Prima! The biggest stars in America. Big, big gigantic nightclub stars... seven dollars and fifty cents. And the food was sensational. He gave them such value and that's why he had a top... he would never pay anybody, including Sinatra, more than eight thousand dollars.

That was the very top amount he would pay anybody. If you didn't want to work for eight thousand dollars then don't play it. A lot of people played it because they were friendly with certain people that asked them to play it. He was very careful about everything that came out of the kitchen. Most of the time you would find him in a highchair, sitting at the entrance/exit of the kitchen, looking at the plates of food that were going out to the customers. He once threw somebody out of the club because they sent the steak back. He walked over to him and said, "Was there something wrong with the steak?" He said, "Yes. I didn't like the steak." He said, "I serve only the finest food. It's always done perfectly. I would appreciate it if you would leave and don't ever come here again." True story.

Kliph Nesteroff: There is a pretty good half hour documentary from 1962 called Lonely Boy. It traces the ascent of Paul Anka, and there's plenty of footage of him in The Copacabana and lots of film of Jules Podell and he is exactly as you have described.

Bobby Ramsen: That's interesting. Revealing, right?

Kliph Nesteroff: Yes and it gives you a great glimpse into Jules Podell the person, the larger than life character.

Bobby Ramsen: Sure. I was up in their lounge one day. They used to have little cellophane packets with tiny little crackers inside, they called them oysterettes. They served a lot of clams and oysters and they'd have this little thing on the table that would hold a bunch of packets of oysterettes and a little jar with horseradish and sauce. Mr. Podell was up there before the club opened that night and everybody was straightening things up. About five o'clock in the afternoon. He noticed that a busboy, as he was taking care of his duties - fixing the chairs, setting the tables - picked up a package of oysterettes, opened it up and started to put them in his mouth. Mr. Podell walked over and said, "Put that down. Now get out of the club. Don't ever come back." So someone said to him, "Julie. Weren't you a little rough on the kid? It's only a package of oysterettes." Mr. Podell said, "It stawwts with oysterettes and it finishes up with steaks!" (laughs). 

Kliph Nesteroff: I wanted to ask you a little bit more about BS Pully. Did you work with him or know him?

Bobby Ramsen: I met Pully a few times. He worked in the smaller clubs and usually a jazz place. His name was BS Pully and you know what the BS stands for. He had a partner named HS Gump. These two guys, they worked... I was talking about this with someone recently and they said, "It sounds like Andrew Dice Clay." Because Andrew Dice used the same...

Kliph Nesteroff: Well, now that you mention it of course. They both did x-rated nursery rhymes...

Bobby Ramsen: That's exactly where I'm going. That started with Pully. Pully's joke was, "Hickory, dickory, dock. The mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one... uhhhhhh..... hickory, dickory...mouse ran up the... fuck 'em! Let him stay there!" Now he said [fuck]. Like I said to you, [back then] no hells, no damns. You couldn't say S.O.B. I hear S.O.B. on the late night shows all the time now. Bastard is a word they throw around now. The only place where you could get away with that kind of language was on Broadway. The legitimate stage you could say anything because it was thee-yay-tah and it was acceptable. In a nightclub it just wasn't acceptable. So Pully had his own special crowd that would go to see him. Some people would go just once to say, "I don't believe what I'm hearing!" That was part of Lenny Bruce's entre into getting a name. 

Comedians would stand around in front of Lindy's and Hansen's Drugstore and they'd banter [dirty] jokes back and forth. But you would never think of repeating that joke at the nightclub you were working at that night. You just wouldn't tell these kinds of jokes to an audience or even like a Hitler joke. You couldn't tell a Hitler joke! But amongst each other you would. Like, "A guy comes up to an agent. A Broadway agent. He says, 'I got a great act. This guy is sensational. People are going to love this guy. You're making a mistake if you don't use him.' 'All right. You've sold him. What's his name?' 'His name is Adolf Hitler.' 'Adolf Hitler!? Are you crazy?' 'He says, all right. Don't get excited. So the guy made a mistake!" Those are the kinds of jokes you'd do in front of Hansen's and you'd all laugh. But a guy like Lenny Bruce came along and he had the guts to go out and do that kind of material on a nightclub floor. Obviously he gained an audience and a great deal of fame.

Kliph Nesteroff: Do you think the reason that Lenny Bruce ended up getting in trouble then, was not necessarily the language he employed... as we just established BS Pully was already doing four-letter material and nobody ever bothered to arrest him... So do you not agree that Lenny Bruce's obscenity charges had little to do with obscenity and instead, everything to do with the subject matter - namely attacking the church? Attacking religion?

Bobby Ramsen: Yes, well, listen. The story that goes around. He started to step on too many toes. He was doing pope jokes. Now that's a very, very delicate subject. I think Carson is the only one, and now Letterman will do some pope jokes, and they get away with it. But with Lenny... people would stand around and they'd say, "There's so much wealth in the Catholic church. Look at all the poor Catholics having a problem just getting along. Why doesn't the church take some of that money to help the poor?" These are the kinds of things you would hear in private conversation. Lenny took that and he put it into his act. Once he did that he opened the door for criticism.

He had some big Irish-Catholic fans. Dorothy Kilgallen, an Irish-Catholic lady, never found any offense. She praised Lenny when she first saw him. She was a big fan of Lenny's and as far as I know, she never stopped being a big fan. She was loyal to him and so on and so forth. It finally got to a point where a combination of doing church jokes and the pope jokes... then he started to use the four letter words that we're talking about, Kliph, that nobody had the guts to do. 

If he said the same thing for five dollars and fifty cents on Broadway... and parenthetically, that fifty cents was the amusement tax. In other words, if you went to the theater you paid a dollar ten. You paid a dollar for the seat. The ten percent was an amusement tax. That amusement tax was put on all amusements; movie houses, the opera, wherever you went and there was entertainment. It was put on to defray the cost of the Spanish-American War in 1898 with the proviso of when the war is won, that tax will be taken off. It is now 2011 (laughs) and when you go to the theater and buy a ticket for a hundred and fifty dollars, they add ten percent so it's a hundred and sixty-five dollars... fifteen dollars is to help defray the cost of the Spanish-American War (laughs).

Kliph Nesteroff: Unreal.

Bobby Ramsen: Yes, well, that's what it is. Once the tax goes on it never comes off.

Kliph Nesteroff: I wanted to ask you a bit about Fat Jack E. Leonard. Did you know him...

Bobby Ramsen: I did know him. I knew him very well. One of the nicest, one of the sweetest, one of the kindest... a gentle man. A truly gentle man. A lovely guy. The kind of stuff that he did was nowhere near... a lot of insult comedians are downright mean. If they know something about you or they heard something about you, they'll say it right to your face on the stage. It's done with venom. Jack E. never, never worked that way. He would do jokes, like he would say to Perry Como, "Perry Como is here tonight. Hello, Perry, it's nice to see you here. You're wonderful and we're all fans of yours. Some day your singing voice is going to reach your throat and you're going to be an even bigger star."

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

Bobby Ramsen: So, that was the kind of stuff that he would do. "It's nice to see you here tonight and I just want to tell you - I never liked you when I liked you!" When David Letterman puts his hand to the side of his body after a punchline, I'm sure he'd admit it if you asked him, [he's doing] Jack E. Leonard. Jack E. Leonard used to pat the side of his stomach. As a human being, just the sweetest guy in the world, married to a darling lady. He was out of Chicago, he came to New York and became a big hit. Of course, a big man like that doing a dance is always entertaining and he started out as a dancer so he was very light on his feet and he wore a Panama hat and he used to twirl the hat. He had a lot of funny, little ways about him and the sweetness came through even when he was insulting people.

Kliph Nesteroff: When Don Rickles first came on the scene, was their any sense that he was trying ride the coattails of Jack E. Leonard at all?

Bobby Ramsen: Well... when Don first appeared at The Copacabana, I was there. Jack E. came over and he told Don, "I want to introduce you." So they had a good relationship. Jack E. came out and said, "It's time for Rickles to come on. I'm here tonight because I want to make a citizen's arrest."

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

Bobby Ramsen: So he kidded Rickles. Jack E. Leonard did not work the same way that Don works. Don works stronger than Jack E. Leonard. Jack E. Leonard was a powder puff compared to a rabbit punch. But there's no doubt about Rickles success. You never watch Don Rickles without coming away having two or three belly laughs. I mean, just funny, funny, stuff - especially when he's on the talk shows. He does something that no one else does. He does exactly the same thing every time he goes on. Exactly the same thing and for some reason it works for him. Whether he's picking out certain characteristics about Leno's chin or something about Letterman, "That's because you're in the house all the time - you never leave the house." If he knows some detail, there's no stopping him. He'll use it. But Don likes to say he's an original and that nobody ever did what he did before. It's simply not true. Jack E. Leonard was an insult comedian. One of the funniest insult comedians that ever came down the pike was Charlie McCarthy. Charlie McCarthy was one of the best. Bergen's Charlie McCarthy was one of the funniest insult comedians around. Get a hold of an old Charlie McCarthy - Edgar Bergen [episode] of The Chase and Sanborn Hour. There was a time where two big stars would come on every week - John Barrymore in his very late years bantering with Charlie McCarthy and W.C. Fields would banter. You'll hear, McCarthy was an insult comedian!

Kliph Nesteroff: So who would have been writing those quips?

Bobby Ramsen: They had a string of writers. When I told you the Mort Lachman story, being with somebody for twenty-five years - was par for the course. Jack Benny had the same writers, some of them for forty years! They grew up together in the radio business. There's a book out there, I can't think of the name. I wish I could. It's interviews with all of the old time writers. The guys that wrote the Fanny Brice Baby Snooks stuff, Fibber McGee and Molly, Perry Como, I can't think of the name.

Kliph Nesteroff: I have one book like that called The Laugh Crafters by Jordan S. Young and its about all the old time radio comedy writers...

Bobby Ramsen: I think that might be the book. That gives you the general idea of what it would have been like writing for them. Jerry Seelan was a writer for the Fanny Brice - Baby Snooks show. He told me over lunch one day at The Friar's Club, "I'm going to tell you something, Bobby, that will save you fifteen years. Find yourself a character. If you find yourself a character, that's a big step toward becoming well-known." It sounds simple, but very true and very good advice. Here's a story that I heard and I buy it. Jack Benny was one of the best stand-up monologists in the business in vaudeville. Jack Benny's first review [in Variety] when he was playing all the Hinterlands, starting out of Waukegan and in the process of going through all the steps of making it to the big time - The Palace Theater, which was the gold. This was Benny's first review in a New York venue. There was a stand-up monologist named Julius Tannen. The reviewer said of Benny in his first appearance at The Palace, "It appears that Mr. Benny has been watching Julius Tannen... but not close enough."

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs) ouch.

Bobby Ramsen: So that was his first review. Now, according to what I heard, Ed Sullivan had a little interview show on one of the stations. When I say little, I mean it was like a fifteen minute show. Jack Benny was his guest. He was such a big hit and radio was just beginning. It was around 1932-33. It peaked the interest of the radio people and the networks. So he walks away from that interview with glowing reports. They get in touch with him and they give him his own radio show. He comes on and does what he does. It, of course, was not the Jack Benny show that we would come to know because he was just beginning. This thing took years to build. But one of the building blocks of the Jack Benny story was that the Canadian Dry company sponsored Jack Benny's first program. During that first sponsorship during those early, early years, the Canada Dry company decided that if they could get their hands on the empty bottles, they could reuse the bottles and as a business move it was worth it to them. Now how do you do it? Somebody came up with the idea that you leave a deposit of two cents and when you're finished with the bottle, if you bring it back, we'll give you two cents. In the interim the writers started to give Benny lines like, "I'm so excited. Today is the day that I'm bringing back four bottles of Canada Dry and I'm going to get eight cents!" That was the beginning of Benny's cheap character.

Kliph Nesteroff: Fascinating.

Bobby Ramsen: It's fascinating. So that's what I'm saying as far as serendipity is concerned. How does somebody come up with "I get no respect." Well, Rodney came up with it and that line was used years ago. There's a whole scene where the expression "I get no respect" is used in a film called Bye, Bye, Birdie. Paul Lynde is lamenting that "I get no respect." His little boy comes down and says, "I respect you, daddy." Lynde, in that wonderful voice says, "Who wants the respect of a ten year old!" What I'm saying is that the line was used before and Rodney really made something out of it. I get such a kick out of it when they say on the Senate floor that "this bill has become the Rodney Dangerfield bill." His name has entered the American culture and that's exciting to me because I knew Rodney when he called himself Jack Roy. So, I go way back with Rodney.

Kliph Nesteroff: That whole story of him abandoning show business as Jack Roy to go sell aluminum siding only to come back triumphantly as Rodney Dangerfield is also a great story.

Bobby Ramsen: Make a little note. The next time we speak - get me to tell you the story of where Jack Roy came up with the name Rodney Dangerfield. It's a great story.

The Tomorrow Show (1979)

NBA on CBS (1979)

NBC Promo Bumpers (1975)

KXTV News (1977)

The Odd Couple with special guest stars Martina Arroyo, Jack Carter and Howard Cossell (1975)

Classic Television Showbiz's Late Late Show: Lenny Bruce Without Tears (1972)

The Kraft Music Hall with Milton Berle and Andy Griffith (1958)

The Bob Hope Chevy Show with guests James Cagney and the Cast of I Love Lucy (1956) - Footage Offline - 4/3/11

What's My Line (1956)