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John Barbour: I got a call from George Schlatter [in 1976]. He said, "Can I borrow some lines from your KNBC commentaries? I'll pay you for them." I said, "I got a better idea, George. You never have anything that's longer than thirty seconds on your Laugh-In revival. Why don't you hire me as the critic at large and I'll write my own commentaries?" He hired me and Digby Wolfe. Digby was an Australian writer who was really responsible for the title Laugh-In.
Digby, myself and a woman named Candace Rodman from the LA Times ended up writing the majority of the Laugh-In revival. Sinatra was a guest one day. They'd throw a bunch of material at him and Sinatra would pick the stuff he wanted. "I like this, this and this." So he did it and got laughs from the crew. I was sitting in a seat at the back of the room. Sinatra says, "George, who wrote this stuff?" Digby pointed to me, "Johnny wrote it." Sinatra looks up, "Kid! Come down here."
That's how I ended up writing for Sinatra. I wrote all his special material. If he wanted to write an angry letter or something, I would be the one to do it. I'd get a check for a thousand dollars whether it was a one-liner or a letter. One time I didn't cash it and he called me, "If you don't cash it - you don't write another word for me." So I had to cash it. As a result I ended up on the Tonight Show and I got on The Dean Martin Show. Let me tell you about Greg Garrison and Dean Martin.
When The Dean Martin Show first started - it was really bombing. NBC called [producer] Greg Garrison and said, "Can you help?" Greg called Dean and said, "Your audiences love the drinking, womanizing [persona]. You should have a group of girls. You come out by the piano and have a drink." Dean said, "Will you produce? If you do it, I'll give you half the show." They did it on a handshake and The Dean Martin Show became the most successful program at NBC. He became the largest single stockholder in RCA. Even after he died his handshake held up with Greg Garrison. They never had a contract.
The other thing Greg Garrison did... My wife is an extremely attractive brunette and a great dancer. Greg Garrison said to me my third time on the show, "Would you be upset if I asked your wife to go out with me?" I said, "You'd have to ask her. I'll tell you though - she already turned down Sinatra." And I never did the show again! When Sinatra was going to be roasted on the Dean Martin roasts, I wasn't on it. I only did the Redd Foxx roast because Redd insisted, as he felt I was responsible for helping his career.
Greg Garrison would not let me on the Sinatra roast. When Sinatra called he said, "Next time I'm hosting the Tonight Show you're coming on." I laughed. I said, "Listen, if you think Greg Garrison hates me, wait till you hear what Johnny Carson thinks." Carson hated me because when I was a local critic on KNBC I bombed him on his 15th anniversary. I said he was no Jack Paar and he went nuts. He went berserk.
Anyway, Sinatra had me on and I did the Tonight Show. But I'll tell you what Carson did. When Sinatra said, "We'll be right back with John Barbour!" They went to commercial break and there was no music. When it came time to introduce me there was still rumbling in the audience. If you watch the first minute and a half - I don't get many laughs. When the show was over one of the musicians came over to me and said, "You know, we're sorry we didn't play, but Carson ordered us not to play when you were on." He was a very mean, narrow, vindictive human being. He did a nice job on the Tonight Show, his monologues were cute and he was cute, but intellectually he was incapable. He tried to have Gore Vidal on and he was incapable of talking to him. He was incapable of talking with anyone smart.
When I bombed Jerry Lewis for his telethon... I got offended when I watched the telethon... Jerry said he was there "to correct God's mistakes." That is an actual quote of his. I said, "Jesus Christ!" He was an egomaniac. Anyway, I went on the air and said, "You know, it used to be called the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. Now they call it the Jerry Lewis Telethon. That's because someday they expect to find a cure for Muscular Dystrophy, but they'll never find a cure for Jerry Lewis." The crew laughed. I brought up the quote about God's mistake. I said, "You know, they raised twenty-three million dollars, but maybe they could raise twice that amount of every man, woman and child that never wanted to see him again donated a quarter."
Well, my God, the switchboard lit up. They had to hire a couple of guards. They kicked me out of the building at one point. The reason they could fire me - which they did three times - was because I never had a contract. Then the general manager of the station called me and said, "Nobody would have the balls to tell the truth the way you just did. You're coming back." I came back and I decided to read three or four pieces of vitriolic hate mail directed to me. Somebody shot the windows out of my Studebaker. I went on air and read this scathing hate mail.
As a result, there was a huge turn around in audience response. So another flood of letters came in and they supported what I said. So anyways, I ran into Johnny Carson after all of this. He was getting made-up in the room next to me and he started talking to me very friendly and then he did an impression. He got up and walked around - and did his impression of Jerry Lewis.
And what Jerry Lewis was really thinking when he was doing the telethon... and he was brilliant. He was like Lenny Bruce! I said, "Johnny, that's brilliant! Why don't you do it on your show?" He said, "Because I like my job."
Kliph Nesteroff: How about Lenny Bruce...
John Barbour: I was good friends with his mother Sally Marr. She was a fan of all comics. In fact, I'll tell you about Pat Morita whom she handled. My third job at the Hungry i, a kid came up to me afterward and said, "I love your act." He was a Japanese kid with two other people. He introduced me to his friends who worked with him as IBM machine operators. He said, "I want to be a comic. How do you go about it?" I said, "You just do it. Write what you think is funny and get up and do it. I can't tell you what to do."
He said, "Will you come see my act?" I said, "No, I can't." He said, "Well, can we do it in a coffeeshop?" So we went and sat down in a coffeeshop and I said, "Okay. Do your act. I won't laugh, but I'll listen." He says, "Okay. This Jew and this Irishman get on a bus..." He hadn't said ten words and I said, "Shut up." He said, "What's wrong? Don't you want to hear the rest of the joke?" I said, "No. You should be doing material about yourself." And that's what he started doing.
Kliph Nesteroff: He billed himself as The Hip Nip.
John Barbour: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Anyway, Lenny Bruce was booked into a place called the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach. I went down to see him because I was a huge fan. When I started doing stand-up I bought all the albums. I bought the Redd Foxx party albums, the Lenny Bruce albums, the Mort Sahl albums, all of them. And I learned something from absolutely every one of them. What it showed was that these guys did material that suited their personality. This is what I hated about the Bob Fosse movie with Dustin Hoffman... when Lenny Bruce is failing at the end of the film trying to do an act that is clean... it doesn't work because at the beginning of the movie we never see him do his clean act, which had been a huge hit with the audience.
Lenny Bruce did some of the funniest material that was clean. He worked half the time talking about his court case. It was interesting, but not funny. When I went to see him... all I said before hand was, "I loved that Lone Ranger bit you used to do. I don't know what you're planning to do on stage tonight, but just for me would you do the Lone Ranger bit?" Anyway, he went onstage and there were around five hundred people there. Sawdust floor.
He came out and did one of the greatest hours I ever saw. Everything was... and he did the Lone Ranger routine and got the most wonderful ovation when it was over. Afterward we spent a couple hours together. That was not long before he died. He said, "John, you know, I have no bank account left. I don't even have a car. I don't have anything." I said to him, "Nobody cares about your court case except your lawyers. Reference it a little bit, but you should do the material that made you successful in the first place."
Six months later he was dead. I would not be surprised if the LAPD had staged that death by setting him up with some bad drugs and stripped the body and stuck that needle in him. There was a whole war against Lenny Bruce at the time. That picture they took was totally obscene, but they made sure it got out there.
Frankie Ray: Hold on. Let me lower this Hedy Lamarr movie. I'm giving it up for you. White Cargo.
Kliph Nesteroff: I love that movie.
Frankie Ray: Yeah, she liked me toward the end. Her lawyer lived in the same building as me. She wanted me to bring nuts for her monkey. I thought, "How do you like this? When I was thirteen I saw her in Casbah with Charles Boyer and now here I am all these years later, hanging up the phone saying, "Sorry, I can't bring you nuts today."
Kliph Nesteroff: She must have utilized that lawyer. Didn't she run into a lot of legal issues...
Frankie Ray: Yes, she was shoplifting. She was on a health kick. I don't think she ever ate meat.
Kliph Nesteroff: Her and Gloria Swanson were the two golden age beauties on a health kick...
Frankie Ray: Yes, right. There used to be a place here called Schwab's Drugstore and I used to go there in the mornings for coffee. Next to it was a health store. This elderly woman said to me, "You're not going to eat that are you?" I mumbled, "Oh, fuck." I said, "Maybe. Why?" She gave me a whole lecture and everything.
We kept talking about different things and she looked familiar. I went back to that health store and she was in there. We talked about all kinds of things. After about a week the guy in the store says, "You missing your friend?" It was Greta Garbo (laughs). I was so mad at myself! You know, she was very smart. Every time she got a check she bought property in Beverly Hills. She was a millionaire, one of very few that did good that way. But fuck them! You're supposed to talk about me!
Kliph Nesteroff: Right, well, the two guys that you are closely associated with are Shecky Greene and Lenny Bruce.
Frankie Ray: Yes, right.
Kliph Nesteroff: When did you first meet Shecky?
Frankie Ray: My agent called and said, "I can book you in New Orleans. Don't worry about material. You'll be talking to the tourists when they come in." I got a hundred and fifty dollars, maybe less, but I didn't have to live out of hotels. I got a beautiful apartment. The club was called the Latin Quarter. Eventually, the place had a murder - with knock-out drops. I was arrested. They used to rob the customers. Knock 'em out with drops and rob them. They were using my dressing room because I never used it.
I'd get dressed at my apartment and walk over. I got out of there and went to work at the Casino Royal on Bourbon Street. I stayed there for a long time. One day this guy says, "I'm supposed to look you up." It was Shecky. He was going into a meal-a-minute place following Sammy Shore. It was outside the French Quarter. I said, "Hey, Shecky, how you doing?" He said, "Well, I'm a little nervous Sammy Shore is going to do my act." They did a double and they broke up. There was a writer named Sherry Cloth. Shecky broke up with his partner and I had broke up with mine and Sherry Cloth said, "Why don't you two team up together?"
Shecky looked like he had come from Louis Prima's yard sale. He had argyle socks, a red jacket and yellow pants. I said, "Shecky. Forget about it." He said, "Yeah? Well, then what do I do now?" I never liked Sammy Shore. Not for any specific reason, but he was just... kind of sneaky. So, I said, "Well, let me hustle some people to get you [established] here." That's when our friendship started. We got an apartment together.
He opened that night and I called a few madames from the whorehouse. I said, "This guy Shecky is funny. I know you take the girls out on Sunday. Go to the nightclub across from the Roosevelt Hotel." Soon he got very popular there. Very big. Then he and I opened up a club called The Wit's End. Shecky Greene and Frankie Ray's Wit's End.
Kliph Nesteroff: How long did the Wit's End last?
Frankie Ray: Oh, the Wit's End lasted about three years and then I finally needed to leave New Orleans. I bought it from this beautiful woman and then I destroyed it. Everyone thinks they're gonna be Rick from Casablanca when they get a nightclub. I didn't know shit about anything. Shecky said, "I'm going to do the NBC Comedy Hour and they want me to bring a writer. Forget the club. Why don't you come with me?" By that time there was another comedian named Al Bernie at the Roosevelt. He said, "You should get together with Lenny Bruce." Lenny was in Los Angeles and Shecky wanted to bring me out there anyway.
When I got out there I went to this club called Duffy's. That's where this owner let Lenny do anything he wanted. The owner was a Mafia guy from Chicago and he bought the nightclub for his daughter. She married an actor and he wanted a club. He said, "Lenny, do whatever you want up there." People would complain, "That guy Lenny Bruce, I'm gonna report him! I'm a Jewish man and he's making fun of Eddie Cantor!"
Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)
Frankie Ray: "He said that Eddie Cantor used to molest Bobby Breen!"
Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)
Frankie Ray: [In mobster's voice], "Hey! If Lenny says Eddie Cantor's a fruit, he's a fruit! Now get the fuck out of here!"
Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)
Frankie Ray: He had that kind of clout, Lenny. Nightclub owners kept him because they felt he was talented, although he was nobody at that time. So, I did this show for Shecky. He moved to Hollywood because I stayed there and I got him on Combat. But there was something wrong with Shecky. In those days you did not know insanity when you saw it. Then Lenny and I took a job at Mickey Cohen's nightclub, the Near and Far.
It was a strip joint. Lenny was in this strip joint and every night we would get together and go to Canter's delicatessen. He'd say, "You know, Frank, we work all week and we're off Sunday. I've got a friend who has a house in Malibu. He's out of town. You and I can go swimming in the ocean the next day." Well, we get in the car and we go out there and I say, "What's the matter?" He says, "I don't know... I forgot the address... I know it's right around here somewhere... I'll find it... it's just that all these houses look the same." So, here we are. I said, "How are we getting in if there's nobody home?" He said, "The key is under the doormat." So, we get there and he looks under the doormat.
There's no key. So, he breaks the window. I said, "This don't seem right. Then again, he's fucking nuts anyway." So, we go to bed. Twin beds. About two hours after we've been asleep I hear, "Hello! You wanna wake up?" I open my eyes and there's a man, a woman and a daughter. I said, "Lenny! Your friend is home." The guy says, "He's not a friend of mine. I don't know him and I don't know you." He was always doing shit like that. Lenny, it was such a pleasure to be with him and everything... until he got on that needle.
Kliph Nesteroff: You mentioned Sherri Cloth, I know he wrote for Jack Carter. Did you and Shecky Greene physically do an act together at one point?
Frankie Ray: No, but we used to kibbitz on stage at the Wit's End. But you can't work with guys like that. Not with Shecky. He's crazy.
Kliph Nesteroff: Albert Goldman described the Wit's End as "The kind of place that opens at two in the morning and does its business with pimps, whores, gangsters, strippers and actors."
Frankie Ray: Right. I was going to sue Goldman because he said, "Frankie Ray has been out of work so long he doesn't know what kind of occupation he has." I was going to maybe grab twenty-five grand. You know? I don't know why that guy said that and maybe a lot of people out here believe that I don't have any talent or, you know, that type of thing.
Kliph Nesteroff: Going back to that television show with Shecky Greene you mentioned. The Comedy Hour.
Frankie Ray: Yeah.
Kliph Nesteroff: It wasn't The Colgate Comedy Hour that most are familiar with - but a different incarnation that came shortly thereafter, also on NBC, just called The Comedy Hour...
Frankie Ray: It was a thing where they were breaking in a lot of new comedians like Jonathan Winters.
Kliph Nesteroff: The line-up for the episode that you worked on with Shecky - Sid Melton, Billy Curtis, Pat Sheehan, Pat Moran, Chuckie Bradley...
Frankie Ray: Doesn't mention Jonathan Winters or Pat Harrington?
Kliph Nesteroff: Hy Averback was the announcer.
Frankie Ray: I thought I was going to get very lucky. I pitched a thing to the writers. They said, "Frank, tell us about New Orleans." And I told them about the murder case. All the strippers and the whores and everyone was involved in this case about the knock out drops. The writers said, "My God, you were the emcee? We could go down there and the emcee can be played by Gene Kelly!" I almost fainted. He was a heavyweight writer, this guy. But he got sick. And that was the end of it.
Kliph Nesteroff: When did you start? Early on you were performing at Billy Rose's nightclub with this guy Don Nardo...
Frankie Ray: Ray & Nardo. When I was fourteen I went to see a show at the Oriental Theater. I always liked the mimics. This guy came out and managed to look like everybody he did. He explained, "If you do Lionel Barrymore... he has arthritis." And he did all the gestures. He said, "If you do all those things, you'll fall right into the voice." I thought, "That must be easy." Next thing you know I've got the guys on the corner screaming. I'm doing Clark Gable, I'm doing James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson.
But then to put an act together? I didn't know what the fuck. So, one day we sneaked into a USO show. A beautiful show is going on and this guy is doing impersonations. This one guy from my neighborhood says, "Ah, he's full of shit. You're better than he is." I said, "Would you stop? We're lucky to be in here." He says, "Oh, yeah? Hey! HEY! We got the real guy here who knows how to be a mimic!" They said, "Well, bring him up here!" I think on that same show was Mario Lanza.
So, I'm scared to go up there. Not that it meant anything, hell, I was more popular than Lanza on the corner. So I go up there and I do the things and the audience falls apart. When you're young you don't have any idea that you should be scared because it don't mean a fucking thing to you. Had I been trained I would have been scared to death. As I'm walking out an old man says, "Can I see you a minute? I like your act. I'd like to book you on a show. Here's my card. Call me." I said, "What the hell is this? There's two names on it." He said, "Yeah, my partner starved to death in the office about a year ago."
He booked me on a thing called Camp Time for seventy-five dollars a week, a glamor girl revue and I was the emcee. I didn't even know what the fucking word emcee meant (laughs). I had no money for a wardrobe. I went to my grandfather. He gave me a jacket. We opened in Richmond, Virginia. I went there on the Greyhound bus. Before I walk out a stagehand grabs me. He says, "Listen. You wanna really wake this audience up? Go out there and say, 'We're gonna bring the first girl up faster than Grant took Richmond." I didn't even know what the fuck that meant!
Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)
Frankie Ray: I said it and the the audience lunged at the stage! They said, "Go back where you belong, you goddamned Yankee!" I said, "Whoa, listen! You want to hit someone, go find the guy that gave me the joke. He's backstage!" He ran out of the theater! Then when I got off that show I went to see about an agent. He booked me into a burlesque theater, The Rialto. I played the burlesque circuit from Buffalo through St. Louis.
When I got back he called me, "Frank, would you like to do the USO?" I said, "Yeah, I guess so." He said, "It's a hundred a week and you travel with a five people unit. You'll be the emcee." Then something else clicked in my mind. I was afraid to do impersonations that other mimics were doing, so I used to make up my own. Before you know it, I'm doing guys like John Garfield and George Raft and people like that.
Nobody did George Raft. There was a mimic named Bruce Howard. He took my George Raft and he got into the Palace on Broadway when it reopened. The big write-up said, "The Guy who did George Raft." But I didn't care about that shit. Anyway, the USO... I got booked into a big nightclub in Vancouver.
Frankie Ray: I opened in Vancouver, went to Seattle, got to San Francisco and there was an act called The Radio Aces. The owner of the act used to hire guys and they'd do one or two impressions. A guy named Don Nardo was on there. He said, "They're going to get rid of one of the guys. Why don't you come with us?" Me, like a schmuck, I'm starting to do good as a single with the money and everything. I went with them and took less money. We took another guy and we traveled a while and this other guy was a pain in the ass and we got rid of him. It was Nardo and me and we played all over. We played Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe and did six Sullivan shows.
Kliph Nesteroff: You said Al Bernie suggested you hook up with Lenny Bruce...
Frankie Ray: I had met Lenny before. Al Bernie was a mimic before a lot of people were. He did impressions of Jack Benny and all that stuff. I think we became friendly in New York at Lindy's or something. He said, "You know, you remind me of Lenny Bruce."
Nardo and I were booked into the Mountains. In the morning I was having breakfast with some of the acts and I saw this lady walk by. It was Sally, Lenny's mother. She goes, "I know you! You were at Loew's State theater and you did The Arthur Godfrey Show. I did it too. I was a talent scout and brought my son on. My son is at the Strand Theater with the Shep Fields Orchestra. Go say hello to him."
So, I go back and see Lenny and he's very cordial and nice. "Yeah, man, I went to Loew's State the other night and saw you guys. Yeah, I dig you, man." I didn't see him again for maybe eight years until Al Bernie was talking about him. He says, "Frank, he wrote a line for me and people can't stop laughing: 'I just read in the paper that on average one out of every three people is crazy.' Then I point to the audience. 'One, two, wacko! One, two, wacko!" He wrote Al a lot of other things. So I run to Duffy's to see Lenny... he's not there! He's in Hawaii. All of a sudden I hear a voice, "Frankie!" It's Sally, his mother.
I said, "Where's Lenny?" She said, "Fuck Lenny, you come and see me. I'm funnier." I was with a girl that worked as a stripper and she said, "Hey, I just got back from working with Lenny Bruce and I told him about you. He says he's going to look you up."
I had been working at the Near and Far for a couple of weeks. The door opened at the Near and Far, but he didn't come in. The door shut. I said to this girl, "Maybe he didn't come in because he doesn't want to sit through the act. He's way out in left field now and here I am - I'm still doing Edward G. Robinson." But he gave me a call, "Hey Frank, it's Lenny." We became friends after that. And probably the best friend he ever had.
Kliph Nesteroff: I wanted to ask you about your 1950s comedy team 'Igor and h' and your writing partner Larry Tucker...
Paul Mazursky: Let me say something to you. You are getting the wrong information. So I don't feel like giving it out anymore. I'll tell you briefly right now and you can put that in your pipe, smoke it, and do whatever you want. Igor and h was the name given to me and a guy named Herb Hartig. Okay? Larry Tucker had nothing to do with Igor and h. Nothing. Later, in New York, Larry Tucker was running a nightclub called Upstairs at the Downstairs. I went to college with this guy Herb Hartig. We both graduated in 1951. When we decided to do this he was already writing comedy stuff for revues, but he didn't want to be known as Herb Hartig because he was writing a novel. He was a little pretentious. He decided to use the lowercase letter 'h' and that's how the 'h' came about. So I said, "Well, if you're going to do that - instead of my being Irwin Mazursky - I'm going to be Igor." That's how we became Igor and h.
Kliph Nesteroff: I didn't mean to infer that Larry Tucker was part of Igor and H. What I meant is that I wanted to ask you about both Larry Tucker and the comedy team Igor and h...
Paul Mazursky: Well, the point is... I don't want to talk about it. There's no point. You've got all the information. Look it up. There was a guy named Pops Whitaker who wrote blurbs for The New Yorker telling people what to go see. He gave Igor and h, which he'd seen at the Upstairs at the Downstairs, a great review. And it ran week after week after week. And that's the story of Igor and h.
Kliph Nesteroff: I talked to Will Jordan who described you guys as the intellectual Martin and Lewis.
Paul Mazursky: I would say that's accurate except that he is... I don't know what he was... but he was very, very funny.
Kliph Nesteroff: Were you hanging around Hanson's Drugstore?
Paul Mazursky: We went there trying to sell sketches for ten or fifteen bucks. We later played Steve Allen on television. All of that.
Kliph Nesteroff: You did The Steve Allen Show on an episode that also featured Count Basie, Phil Harris and Jane Powell.
Paul Mazursky: That's true, I think.
Kliph Nesteroff: Who was your manager?
Paul Mazursky: Irvin Arthur. Charged us very cheap. Cost fifteen bucks to drive up to the Catskills. He booked us Saturday night for two different places where we made $37.50 each and Irvin made $7.50, the son of a bitch.
Kliph Nesteroff: He represented Joan Rivers early on.
Paul Mazursky: He did. He was very good at what he did but he was really cheap. He booked us into a place where we didn't get one laugh. They didn't laugh once and when the lights came up I said, "Any questions from the audience?" They said, "Vot! Vos this! Speak Hebrew! Vee don't speak English! Vot!" But they had good food, good brisket.
Kliph Nesteroff: You guys sound like an unlikely act to be booked in the Catskills.
Paul Mazursky: Well, I began to work as a waiter in what they call a Cookalone. Cookalone means you rented a little cottage - Cook-A-Lone. You make your own food. I had fifty-five people on my station and my girlfriend came up for the first time and our plan was that we would have sex. As we were getting to the act of sex she said, "I don't feel good. I have lumps in my neck." I probed around and said, "I think you've got mumps. If they find out you've got mumps this place will be empty in five minutes."
So I went and told the owner and he almost passed out. He said, "Take your car!" I said, "I don't have a license." He said, "My busboy has a car." He drove us back to New York. In the morning when I got back - around five in the morning - the table already had enough bread to feed an army. Sour cream, pickles, sauerkraut. These people would eat anything they could get. They would eat glass! Listen, I got to go. Nice talking to you.
