The Tonight Show with or without Jack Paar (Feburary 12, 1960)

Dick Clark's Good Old Days with Frankie Avalon, Shelley Berman, Bob Denver and Joey Bishop (1978)

The Tonight Show with Jack Paar with guest Shelley Berman (1960)

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An Interview with Shelley Berman - Part Two

Kliph Nesteroff: Around 1959, and I find this astounding today, to examine the ignorance that some people were promoting, a lot of critics started labeling you and any of the new comedians as a "sick comedian," which just seems so ridiculous.

Shelley Berman: That was a weird period. "Sick Comedy" came across as a matter, really, of Lenny Bruce's choice. He made a recording [with the cover showing him] sitting, having lunch in a cemetary. He called it The Sick Comedy of Lenny Bruce. Lenny was a contemporary. We were friends. He was of our time and he was a very good comedian, but he gave the comedy business a title for the period. It was merely a matter of the time period; we were there. Pretty soon, other comedians who were working the same genre, different from the previous comedians that were "set-up, punchline, set-up, punchline." Mort Sahl was different. I was different. All of a sudden I read about this [Sick Comedy label] and I think Time magazine created this damn thing. That was the first time I saw "Sick Comedy." There was no sick comedy!

Kliph Nesteroff: Yes, the people that were being labeled with it seemed to actually be the most erudite or the most measured comedians.

Shelley Berman: Yes, we were more intellectually... what the hell... they had words for us. I hated those titles and those words.

Kliph Nesteroff: You could almost see some people from the old guard being more appropriately labeled sick... someone like Joe E. Ross who was quite blue maybe, but instead it was the young kids who had the smarter approach that got stuck with that monicker.

Shelley Berman: Yes. It was not right. It was not right.

Kliph Nesteroff: Is there some sort of story about you having picked on some mobsters that were in the crowd at one of your shows?

Shelley Berman: Oh! (laughs) Lenny Bruce did a whole thing on that! He did an entire act on what happened. He fictionalized it. What happened was, I was in Philadelphia. There was a full table there of guys. One guy at the head of the table and eight guys with him. This one guy was laughing at everything. He loved everything. He'd laugh before I got to the joke. He was having a great time and I thought, "This guy is killing my timing. He's just ruining my show." I was trying very hard to unload him and so I was starting to work on him and make him feel foolish and cut it out. Here I am, standing in front of an audience, telling someone not to laugh. Whatever it is, the gall of this performer, I can't think of any other way to describe myself, I finally got off the stage. My boss was waiting for me and he said, "You get out there and you apologize to that man." I said, "I don't do that. I don't apologize! That man was ruining my show by laughing all over the place." He said, "You better go out there and apologize to this man." 

My boss stared at me and said "Do you want to wake up tomorrow morning? Do you want to be alive tomorrow morning? That man. You don't know him. I know him. Go out and apologize." Now I realize that my life was involved. So, I went out and I practically begged him to forgive me. He just stared at me. Finally he said, "Alright, kid. Get the hell out of here."

Kliph Nesteroff: Wow.

Shelley Berman: I knew I was off the hook, but he was a Don and I didn't know it. Anyway, Lenny Bruce made a helluva routine saying it was a Chicago gangster and he described what I was doing, being haughty and demanding of the audience. Wow. I learned my lesson. I think Lenny recorded it, yes. I hope you can find it because he did record it. You might find it somewhere. It's hysterical. He's done me before. Lenny Bruce would do routines on me and I would sit there and scream.

Kliph Nesteroff: Around 1960 you performed at The Thunderbird Hotel in Las Vegas. Apparently this did not go well - your first crack at Las Vegas.

Shelley Berman: That I can't remember. I do remember eventually becoming the headliner at the Sahara.

Kliph Nesteroff: I had read that during your first crack at Vegas, you did twenty-seven straight nights without a laugh.

Shelley Berman: Oh (laughs). Well, it's possible. It's possible that I went into the Thunderbird Hotel and didn't get a laugh, but I don't recall that.

Kliph Nesteroff: You started playing The Sahara in Las Vegas on a regular basis. What was that like as a venue?

Shelley Berman: Oh my God, it was thrilling. It was thrilling. I had the best show of openers; people working with me. The Mills Brothers, these guys that I admired as much as I could admire anybody. My God, and they opened the show. I worked with all kinds of wonderful people on that stage. I looked forward to that job every year.

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you encounter Joe E. Lewis at all?

Shelley Berman: Joe E. Lewis? He was not presently functioning when I first heard him in my audience. He was okay. I recall I was talking to the audience about something and he made a remark and got a good laugh and I was thrilled to meet him because I admired him. But that was it. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Joe E. Ross?
 

Shelley Berman: I've worked with everybody, but we haven't formed attachments. I don't remember everybody. First of all, I'm elderly (laughs). You keep trying to nudge me into being a kid!


Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs) I had heard about a fascinating convention that you had used in one of your monologues in Las Vegas. You had a monologue in which you played an insomniac and so you had the venue turn off all the lights so that the audience would sit in darkness for the full fifteen minutes of the routine. 

Shelley Berman: The Insomniac Solliloquy. I did in fact turn the lights off on myself on the stage ... for me, I had the spotlight turned off when I actually pantomimed turning off the lamp. Turned off the lights. Went to sleep. So, that piece of material, which I believe, it's the best written piece of humor that I ever ... I loved what I did.    

Kliph Nesteroff: I found a 1960 newspaper clipping that says "Shelley Berman left New York for the Virgin Islands. Berman's doctor said the nightclub comedian is suffering from physical exhaustion."

Shelley Berman: Yes, that's true. I had to stop a tour I was going to be on. I canceled it momentarily just so we could rest up a bit. We went to St. John and we just stayed there for a couple of weeks. It was such a blast. What a rest it was, what a beautiful thing it was, and then I came back and booked another tour. I was pretty much in demand [everywhere] and that was pretty thrilling but I was beginning to take it for granted. Honest to God, I was beginning to think "this is the way it should be."

Kliph Nesteroff:  One of your Jack Paar appearances you were on the same episode with a great wit and a troubled man - Oscar Levant.

Shelley Berman: The only thing I can think of [when it comes to] Oscar Levant is that I loved him. I enjoyed him. I think I met him, yes, but we didn't have much contact.

Kliph Nesteroff: I think people forget what a great wit he was.


Shelley Berman: Oh, boy, he was something. 

Kliph Nesteroff: One of my favorite quips of his was around the time that Doris Day became a big film star and was making all those sugar sweet comedy pictures. Oscar Levant said, "I knew Doris Day BEFORE she was a virgin."

Shelley Berman: (laughs) Lovely. Well, that's the kind of thing you could count on from him.

Kliph Nesteroff: In January of 1961 you filled in as the host for a vacationing Jack Paar. 

Shelley Berman: Yes, but I was a loser. I was no good. I didn't know anybody was going to write about it. I didn't know I would be criticized for trying to be a talk show host. Someone asked me to do this. My agent said, "Go ahead - do this," that's all. I had a few days to do this. It was almost a week. I wasn't auditioning for the role, but that's what I read - that I wanted to be the host after Jack Paar. But no. I had no... it wasn't like that and I wasn't good at it. I really wasn't good at it. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Do you remember it being a lot of grief? Did you realize half-way though that this wasn't something you wanted to do?

Shelley Berman: It was something I didn't want to do from the beginning and I knew it. But then I realized that what these guys were doing was way beyond me. I didn't have that kind of a personality.  So, yes, I was not thrilled with it. I didn't hate it, but I didn't think it did me much good.

Kliph Nesteroff: And you were a guest the famous night that Jack Paar walked off the show!

Shelley Berman: Yes. When Jack Paar walked off the show I was a guest. I did not know what to do. I had to receive a gold record on the air. I was to be honored on the air for one of my recordings. I knew that, but I also knew ... at one point [prior to broadcast] he said, "Here's what happened to me and I'm going to quit. I'm going to walk off." I thought, "I'm here. And I don't know what to do." I was in my dressing room and I thought, "What the heck was that? What should I do?" I didn't know ... I didn't know what course I should take or how I should behave. I was rather stupid about that. Maybe rather selfish about it, because I did not know how to side. On that occasion, when Jack started speaking of this. There was something that happened in South America at one point - the people all picking up their tools to fight the city. I said, "All of us should pick up our tools, our farmer tools and whatever we have and we should fight the network!" I just didn't know what else I was to do. There were a few other performers that night, but I can't remember their names...

Kliph Nesteroff: Orson Bean...

Shelley Berman: Orson Bean! He jumped up and he really ran into that whole idea and said, "This is a rotten thing that this network is doing!" He didn't have any qualms about it. He really took off for him. But I had already made my little speech, which had nothing, [none of] that kind of wonderful strength. From that point on Jack Paar thought of me as a deserter. As a selfish deserter. He never, never forgot it.

Kliph Nesteroff: So that was your last time with him...

Shelley Berman: Yes, it was my last time with him and more than that, it was the last time that this man would trust me. He would make remarks about me - unpleasant remarks about me - from then on.   

Kliph Nesteroff: Well, he was known for being, if he wanted to be, very unpleasant. Did you talk to him - or did he talk to anybody when he walked away from his desk, through the curtain and backstage?

Shelley Berman: No. No. I didn't do anything... I received my gold record on that show instead of getting up and walking out. I was more interested in getting my gold record than helping a friend. It was like that. That's the way he took it. I didn't know what the hell to do!  

Kliph Nesteroff: Speaking of records, your third album, The Edge of Shelley Berman, was made up of outtakes from your previous two, Inside Shelley Berman and Outside Shelley Berman.

Shelley Berman: Oh boy, I hated that one.  

Kliph Nesteroff: Why did you continue to work with Verve after they went behind your back and put that together? 

Shelley Berman: I could not help it. I was contracted to them.

Kliph Nesteroff: In spite of all that, The Edge of Shelley Berman  got some pretty positive feedback and sold quite well, right?

Shelley Berman: Some of it worked well, but I felt that it wasn't the best thing for an audience to have. I felt there should have been some better stuff there. The Edge of Shelley Berman. Don Rickles once said, "The next one is going to to be Up Shelley Berman." 

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs) That's great. In 1961 you started appearing regularly on What's My Line?

Shelley Berman: I loved doing that. I loved it. 

Kliph Nesteroff: For a game show, I don't think there was anything smarter on TV...

Shelley Berman: Oh, it was bright, huh? What people to be with on What's My Line! What people to be with! 

Kliph Nesteroff: What was Dorothy Kilgallen like?

Shelley Berman: Dorothy Kilgallen was an angel. She was an angel... but don't cross her! I think one time she got mad at me too, but the next time we were in love again.

Kliph Nesteroff: What did she get mad about?

Shelley Berman: I can't recall what I did. I can't recall, but it was that small. But I do know she got angry and I could see it in her column. Wow. 

Kliph Nesteroff: How about Bennett Cerf? I found his sense of humor very hard to listen to, personally.

Shelley Berman: He just (laughs)... Bennett Cerf absolutely knew it all. Believe me. He was the smartest, most reasonable, intelligent human being. If you doubt me, ask him. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you find him funny?

Shelley Berman: Yes! I found him very humorous, but they were all good. Every one of them was good and there I was sitting with them. I was thrilled.
 
Kliph Nesteroff: Well, I am in love with Arlene Francis. 

Shelley Berman: Arlene Francis, still. Yes. 
 
Kliph Nesteroff: So charming. And what was the atmosphere of that show like? Backstage? 

Shelley Berman: Oh my God, my wife is fully... we were supposed to be out by now. This is a good, long talk and I really love it, but I didn't realize it would take... and my big mouth and I hope I am not disturbing you with this...

Kliph Nesteroff: Oh, no not at all. I'm sorry, I didn't realize...

Shelley Berman: You're giving me... this is an honor, a high honor that... all of these things that you're asking me are so right and I love to talk about them, but my wife is now making a call about my car. I promised to bring my car in... 

Kliph Nesteroff: Okay, well, we can wrap this up...

Shelley Berman: Is that all right? Wait a minute... huh? Bring it in at two? Okay, that will kill our day. Okay, so we're all right. We can bring it in later. It's all right. Let's finish. 

Kliph Nesteroff: I was asking you about what the atmosphere of What's My Line was like backstage.

Shelley Berman: It was friendly, easy. I was glad to be a part of that.  

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you ever appear on its sister program I've Got a Secret?

Shelley Berman: Yes. Everybody did I've Got a Secret. Thank God I did too. I had gotten to know Henry Morgan when I had only heard him on radio. Oh, he was wonderful. Clever. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Henry Morgan is one of my heroes. When you compare his stuff with anybody else who was on the radio in the late forties - his stuff was much more intelligent and much more biting.

Shelley Berman: Yes, yes, absolutely.  I just got to know him there. We didn't get to be close friends, but I got to know him. 

Kliph Nesteroff: You were a temporary host on a late night talk show called Nightlife.

Shelley Berman: Nightlife? I think they were trying me out. I was terrible. I just thought I was something else. I knew I could never be Steve Allen. I knew I could never be some of the other great hosts, but I tried. I was actually being auditioned by the producer. 

Kliph Nesteroff: You appeared in a 1959 episode of Peter Gunn playing a comedian who thought his wife was trying to kill him...

Shelley Berman: Yeah... it's hard to remember the details of it.


Kliph Nesteroff: It was an episode that was written and directed by the show's creator, Blake Edwards.

Shelley Berman: Yes, Blake. My God, yes. 

Kliph Nesteroff: What was you relationship with Blake Edwards like?

Shelley Berman: It was just working with a director. It wasn't anything other than that.

Kliph Nesteroff: And what about Rod Serling? You starred in an episode of The Twilight Zone... 

Shelley Berman: Oh, yes, Rod Serling. Well, that was the same thing, but Rod was wide open. He was just marvelous. How I got to do that show... I got a call one day. "Yes, hello?" "Hi, Shelley, this is Rod Serling. I'd like to write a show for you. Would you like that?" My God! First of all, I almost fainted because I loved that show. And I got to do it.

Kliph Nesteroff: Wow, what an honor.

Shelley Berman: (laughs) Yes! Great honor. Buzz Kulik [directed] and he was easy. He was so easy. Whatever I said worked somehow. It all worked. 

Kliph Nesteroff: People really remember that episode today still.

Shelley Berman: I recall we were shooting and Rod came to me one day and said, "How are things going?" I told him I loved it and everything [but in the episode] "everybody looks like me in the world and everybody acts like me in the world and it's great and everybody's going to know that and feel it - the only thing is - there are no women who are like me." The next day I was dressed in full drag - and I was a woman. They made me up and I was in an elevator going up the floors and I attack a man who wasn't careful about his hands. That was it.

Kliph Nesteroff: You had a guest appearance on The Judy Garland Show. At that point, Judy Garland of course was going through her various troubles. What was she like to work with and did you get to know her at all?

Shelley Berman: Yes, I did. She was troubled. But she was sweet and Ethel Merman was also a guest on that show. They had a duet - a really important duet. We didn't know what the deal was, but Ethel Merman would come to rehearsal and sit there all day long and never get to work. We watched. We knew there was a problem. I did a full sketch with Judy Garland and they eventually had to cut it because she just couldn't handle it...

Kliph Nesteroff: Was that a result of her general deterioration or was it specifically the pills, the booze, or...

Shelley Berman: She was drinking. But what can you say about this great performer? This wonderful performer. Do we just lean on her flaws or do we let that alone? She was so good at what she did. 

Kliph Nesteroff: I'm just imagining her and Ethel Merman together - I mean talk about your vocal powerhouses...

Shelley Berman: Well, they did it. They did the song and it worked. Eventually. Ethel Merman was a patient, quiet, wonderful woman who waited and bided her time and eventually got to sing it one time with her and it worked beautifully as a duet.

Kliph Nesteroff: In 1959 you were in a Broadway bomb called The Girls Against the Boys. It lasted two weeks. 

Shelley Berman: Well, I knew it wasn't going to work and I was stuck in it. I was a headliner in it. From day one I realized it's not going to happen. I fought it and tried, but no it just couldn't happen as a show. I was contracted to do it. There was nothing I could do about it. I just did the show and I did what I could.  

Kliph Nesteroff: What was it about it that you knew would not allow it to succeed?

Shelley Berman: (laughs) Well, my leading lady... I can't remember her name... but she couldn't sing. That didn't work. There were a few other people who were not... I did not have a good part in there. I swear they wanted to get rid of me, I think. Well, I... my wife is saying I was the star in Philadelphia. But then they cut me back. 

Kliph Nesteroff: But it did not last long on Broadway. Only two weeks.

Shelley Berman: No, it couldn't. It was not a good show.  

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you know Jack E. Leonard at all?

Shelley Berman: Oh, I loved him. He was a big, funny guy. We were actually very good friends. But it was just sort of meeting each other here and meeting each other there and it was always sort of... we were lovers. Just very nice.

Kliph Nesteroff: He was hysterical and I have a couple of quotes of his that he said about you onstage. 

Shelley Berman: I couldn't wait to be insulted by him! 


Kliph Nesteroff: He said of the 'new comedians' including yourself, " To understand these fellows you need to take an entry exam" and he said, "Take Shelley Berman. If nobody answers that telephone - he's got no act!" 

Shelley Berman: (laughs) He's right!  

Kliph Nesteroff: He's another guy that people overlook today. Don Rickles has eclipsed him...

Shelley Berman: Jack E. used to call Don Rickles his road show.


Kliph Nesteroff: You were on an episode of Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person. Do you remember anything about that?

Shelley Berman: No, except that it was good; except that it was nice to be honored in that way. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Somebody who had a very unique delivery, sort of in the same vein as George Gobel, was stand-up comedian Jackie Vernon. You performed in a play with Jackie Vernon called The Unemployed Saint?

Shelley Berman: Yes, that was a long time ago. I can't even remember it. Jackie Vernon was kind of heavy and he was a good comedian. He was a funny man.

Kliph Nesteroff: In 1964 you were signed to be a writer - producer - director for Screen Gems. You had written some kind of pilot and brought it to Jackie Cooper...

Shelley Berman: Yes, I did and a few things got sold, but I can't remember a big success out of it.  

Kliph Nesteroff: I was surprised to read about it because I had not heard of this before...

Shelley Berman: Well, I had forgotten it, actually. It was a nice experience and I found out that I did have something going. I don't think it was a success. 

Kliph Nesteroff: There was apparently a pilot called Barney about a traveling salesman featuring Jim Hutton - this was apparently one of your scripts...

Shelley Berman: Yes, well, I wrote that. The truth is that he was given a pilot and it was awful. Somebody needed to fix that pilot. So, I fixed the pilot and everybody was very, very wild over it. Then they did the show. What they didn't realize was that he was absolutely the wrong character. What we all thought would be perfect for him just didn't work. He was more concerned with being cute. It just didn't seem to fit. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Hy Averback was one of the main directors at the time. I heard that you were assigned to shadow him.

Shelley Berman: I didn't get to direct the pilots. I think if I had directed it, it might have succeeded.

 Kliph Nesteroff: Did you write material for singer Abbie Lane's nightclub act?

Shelley Berman: Oh my goodness. Well, I didn't write material for her... I helped her with her material. I offered her a few lines and a few ways for her to do her own material. She was so beautiful and so talented that it didn't matter what I did. But I did help her. There were other [performers] that I made suggestions to and who took my suggestions and worked with it. When you do something like that and you just do it as a friend, it's a gesture. It's a good thing and it's not something that you are just putting in the bank. You just want to help and so you do so. 

An Interview with Shelley Berman - Part One

Kliph Nesteroff: When you were a struggling actor, you sold a few sketches to the Steve Allen Tonight Show. How did you know they would accept material from outside sources? Had you submitted material to other shows that had been rejected?

Shelley Berman: Well, it was just a matter of fate, frankly. There was this man who came to see a show I was in. A stock show. He wasn't coming to see me. He was coming to see the production. He was a talent coordinator for Steve Allen. I had been playing with the idea of writing for someone like that. And here it was. I said, "If I send you a little script of a sketch, would you see to it that he gets it?" He was very nice. He said, "Yes. Absolutely." I don't have his name, it was so long ago. 

I created a sketch in which Steve Allen was [like] a Dr. Phil. He was one who would advise people about their children - that was the sketch. I watched it on the air and it got big laughs. So, I sat down and started to write another one. That's the way it went.

Kliph Nesteroff: At that point were you hoping that this might lead to a job on their staff as a writer?

Shelley Berman: Oh, yes! A staff job there or some other place - to be writing for a living. I had just about given up trying to find a job as an actor. That's all I wanted to do - just be an actor. I had prepared, I had studied, I had been in stock, I had lots of experience in acting and stock companies. I played all kinds of roles and I had played lead roles. Now here I was trying to crack the big time, any possible role. I just couldn't make it.

Kliph Nesteroff: Was it around this time that Martin Landau would tell you about the Compass Players?

Shelley Berman: Well, no he didn't tell me, but that did happen around there. They called me and told me that Marty Landau had suggested me. We were very good friends. We had played stock together. He was now doing some acting and he had a job. He told them about me. They called me. Then I found out that it was Marty who recommended me to those people in Chicago called the Compass Players. I hadn't tried improvisation except in school where you'd improvise.

Kliph Nesteroff: Had that not happened, had you not got the call from the compass players, would you still have been aspiring to be a writer? 

Shelley Berman: Oh God, yes. I would still continue as a writer, but my wife was the one. I said, "Sarah, I'm making a living now. I'm making these sketches [for television] and I'll be writing." She said, "But you're an actor." She wanted me to go to Chicago. "You want me to leave you here!?" She was working to feed us. She was supporting me. She said, "You're an actor. You've got to go there." "But I have a chance to be a big writer!" "You're an actor, Shelley," and she insisted. That was that. So, I went to Chicago to join the Compass Players.

Kliph Nesteroff: Staying on the writing note, when did you first discover the work of Robert Benchley?

Shelley Berman: Oh my goodness. I discovered the work when I was watching movie shorts and Benchley was in them. Then I found books that he had written. Then I found other people that were humorists. Oh my goodness, I was taken, really taken. And I had read an awful lot of stuff. Benchley was one of the chief guys. One of the best.

Kliph Nesteroff: Were you also a fan of James Thurber? S.J. Perleman?

Shelley Berman: Oh God yes! James Thurber. I'm looking at my wife and she's nodding as hard as she can here because these writers are, incidentally, and Dorothy Parker, all the humorists... I had brought all of those books to my students at USC. I don't know if you know this - I taught for twenty-three years. I was bringing all those books to my students. I worshipped what they did. This was after I became a comedian and after I had become a professional. At first when I read them, yes, they were the geniuses that I admired.

Kliph Nesteroff: I won't dwell on this too much, but I understand that while you were struggling, you were a dance instructor. Had you learned to dance in theater school? How did you gain the ability to be a teacher at an Arthur Murray school?

Shelley Berman: They gave me a twelve week [crash course] and I had to ... learn what to teach the people that came in. That's what I did at Arthur Murray ... Eventually, I was able to make a living teaching ballroom dancing. This was way before any opportunities arose to be an actor.

Kliph Nesteroff: It's just so hard for me to picture you in that scenario in my mind.

Shelley Berman: Well, I look back on it and I laugh. But I was pretty damn good as a dancing teacher. I loved it. I was doing well with it. I was surprised. My wife from then on, everytime we danced together, she'd be counting. If we're doing a waltz I can actually see her lips moving. It didn't hurt our beautiful marriage, but it was funny.

Kliph Nesteroff: In my mind, I can sort of picture you being a cab driver, I can sort of picture you managing a drug store...

Shelley Berman: Oh God (laughs).

Kliph Nesteroff: I can't picture you as a ballroom dance instructor.

Shelley Berman: (laughs) Well, yes... Sara, he can see me driving a taxi (wife laughs). He can see me doing these other things... you can imagine those things. But those are things I had forgotten ... and here you are reminding me of my sordid past! Oh, I was selling pots and pans at Mandel Brothers in Chicago, a big department store.

Kliph Nesteroff: Through all those years of struggling, you finally managed to get an audition at Mister Kelly's [nightclub]. What did you have to go through in order to convince the nightclub to give you a tryout?

Shelley Berman: I found an agent who might be interested in me. I was, of course, doing improv with this group in Chicago and gaining some notoriety. People were coming to see us. This agent came and I can't remember her, frankly, but she did wrangle the audition for me with these two brothers. The Marienthal Brothers who were running the place. I just did some of the stuff that became part of our repertoire and I got hired. I got hired to be the opening act. They liked my comedy. I did well. I had an awful lot to learn about being a nightclub comedian. I was an actor and all these things that I had done that I brought into this nightclub, I had brought in as an actor doing improv. I expected the audience to behave as an audience behaves in the theater. But it was a nightclub; they're drinking; they're talking. I had to make a lot of adjustments and I was slow.

Kliph Nesteroff: Who were you opening for?

Shelley Berman: One of the people was Anita O'Day. The first time I saw her she was working with Gene Krupa. She was magnificent. I watched her and she was wonderful. Who else did I open for? Peggy Lee. Della Reese. I opened for a lot of female singers and all these marvelous people. I was content to be an opener. I didn't realize I was fitting myself for more than that in nightclubs.

Kliph Nesteroff: It must have been a thrill to get paid to perform and to be in the presence of such incredible stars.

Shelley Berman: Ella Fitzgerald. Yes, these were extraordinary people. It was hard for me not to watch them. But I couldn't watch them - because I could not be present in view of the audience at all. I didn't want to distract ... One time, a beautiful thing happened. I opened the show for Anita O'Day and it was the second time that we worked together. I did my opening and it was good and the audience really liked it. When I got off, the audience didn't stop applauding and shouting. It was incredible. They just didn't want me to get off the stage. I walked off the stage, they're still applauding, and I go over to the place where Anita was waiting to go on. She says, "You go back there, sweetheart. They want you." And I did. I can't believe the beauty of that moment - how lovely that woman was - to be able to say that to me and put me back on. I went back, I did one little thing, and then got off. But what a thing to do for me.

Kliph Nesteroff: What a classy act, Anita O'Day. By 1957 you had appeared on The Steve Allen Show as a performer.

Shelley Berman: Yes, yes. It was in that same period that I was just beginning to appear as a comedian.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was the atmosphere of that show like?

Shelley Berman: The Steve Allen Show? Everybody was sweet. Everybody. He didn't have that big cast of wonderful, wonderful comedians at that time. He had a regular Allen's Alley, but at the time I was just a budding comic who he put on his show. He had marvelous singers and the orchestra was Skitch Henderson. Andy Williams was singing and Steve and Eydie and those people were on his show. He was doing very few monologues. He went out and just talked. He was just delightful. His mind was so quick. He was so neat. It was wonderful to watch him. He said, "You've been writing some of these sketches. Why don't you do one?" So, I did and it sort of hit.

Kliph Nesteroff: So he remembered you as the man who had submitted the sketches. Now, a man that I've always found funny - and today is underrated - is George Gobel...

Shelley Berman: Ohhhhh...

Kliph Nesteroff: And you appeared on The George Gobel Show...

Shelley Berman: Oh. No, I never appeared on The George Gobel Show.

Kliph Nesteroff: You didn't?

Shelley Berman: Yes, oh, my wife is nodding that I'm wrong. I did. Yes, I did. There was nobody like George Gobel. Absolutely nobody. I was befriended by a man I so admired - Hal Kanter. He was the producer and head writer of that George Gobel Show. He created George Gobel. The persona and almost all the humor. Gobel, himself, was a very talented comedian. Hal Kanter was one of the great deans of comedy that we saw.

Kliph Nesteroff: I don't understand why George Gobel has not had the longevity in terms of people's memories. It's strange because he was around so much in the fifties and sixties, yet now all of a sudden is forgotten...

Shelley Berman: That's interesting that you say that. That's something we all wonder about. What the hell happened? Where did he go?

Kliph Nesteroff: His rhythm of speech, his pattern, is stunning. Like you say, there was no one like him. Just a unique...

Shelley Berman: (doing a Gobel voice) Pritt-ee, perk-ee, Pegg-eee Lee. And the way he hopped across the stage. He had his own way of walking, talking. He was marvelous. I did not get to know him. I don't remember having much of a chance to even talk to him.

Kliph Nesteroff: You went on to perform regularly at The Blue Angel. What was The Blue Angel like as a venue?

Shelley Berman: That was the cream. That was it. That was the elite. That was where Barbara Streisand opened the show for me. That was one of the top places to be in New York. You went there, you did your time, and everything worked out for you. It really was beautiful. I remember learning how to deal with the occasional heckler. That was hard. Oh my, that was hard. I didn't want to prove that I was nifty and smart. I didn't want to do that. I just wanted to do my show. In New York I found that occasional heckler and it was hard to deal with, but when I did decide to fight back I was able to keep my place on that stage.

Kliph Nesteroff: Would you try to battle a heckler within the character, within the sketch that you were doing so that you'd be able to get back into your routine after the disturbance had been dealt with?

Shelley Berman: No, that would be quite hard. That was the problem. I was a character on a phone for the most part. If I turned to the heckler at any point - that phone routine which is so [meticulously] put together - I would drop that routine. It would be dead [because] of that one moment. That was hard for me because I did not address the audience. I was an actor playing a part.

Kliph Nesteroff: If that happened, you had to abandon the sketch you were in the middle of and start a different one...

Shelley Berman: Yes, that's correct.

Kliph Nesteroff: You appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show seven times in 1959 alone. Of course, he was known for being a great showman and a peculiar personality...

Shelley Berman: I did twenty one Ed Sullivan shows in the long run. He could be something. He was so... he was something. He was a stickler for time. If you were a new comedian you got six minutes and that was it. If you were an established comedian you got seven minutes. If you were a star you got ten minutes. It seemed to me, that was the way it worked. I did a routine for him which ran twelve minutes. We would try our routine in the dress rehearsal on Sunday morning. He would tape it, but rarely used portions of that in the evening show, but he could have. I did a routine in which I portrayed my father talking to me and I'm asking him to give me one hundred dollars to go to acting school in New York. It's played with a mild Jewish dialect and you can see the [father] not [understanding] what the heck it is this son of his wants to do. Eventually you see the love of the man for the boy. It was a nice routine. 

When I did it on Sunday morning, there was a line in which [Ed Sullivan] came to me and said, "When you say 'write a letter' why don't you say write a letter to your mother?" He knew [my routine] over stayed my time, but here he's asking me to extend a line. I couldn't believe it. I'm trying to tell him and he says "Write a letter to your mother. That's what I think you should say. That's what I want you to do." I said, "It will extend the piece!" Then all of a sudden he stood up and he pointed at me and let me know in no uncertain terms "WRITE A LETTER TO THE MOTHER!" Oh my God. I thought, "This guy is going to hit me." It made the whole routine a lot sweeter and a lot better. Incidentally, when I did that routine that night, it was the first time I'd ever seen a standing ovation from a TV audience. When I got offstage, Sylvia [Sullivan] was on the phone waiting and she was in tears telling me how much she loved what I did. Well, I was walking on air.

Kliph Nesteroff: Contrary to popular opinion, sometimes Ed Sullivan knew exactly what he was doing.

Shelley Berman: Oh, boy. Contrary to what we thought - he knew what he was doing. He was the greatest showman I have ever known. This is a long time now. He brought us so many great, great acts. The Beatles, Elvis Presley. He brought us all these people.

Kliph Nesteroff: Your story is interesting in the regard that a lot of comedians have stories about Sullivan cutting their act at the last minute for time.

Shelley Berman: He would. He wasn't heartless, but he had to do what he had to do.

Kliph Nesteroff: Around that time Jack Paar and Ed Sullivan got involved in a [booking] feud. You were a regular on both shows.

Shelley Berman: Yes, I was a guest on both shows.

Kliph Nesteroff: Were you at any point entangled in that? They were sparring over the booking of guests, right?

Shelley Berman: That I didn't know. That I didn't know. Somebody called me to do the show, that's all I knew, that's all I wanted to know. So, I wasn't in on any of that. I just did my thing.


                            ON TO PART TWO!