An Interview with Jackie Curtiss - Part Three

Jackie Curtiss: BS Pully, boy, he was tough. I had a buddy who worked with him a lot. He was truly a tough guy. He was a gangster. He did a lot of strange things. I don't know if you ever heard about his penis-in-the-cigar-box bit? Pully was really something. He said in that voice of his, "You're a very funny guy and if you're not a star, you should be. If you become a star remember I told you first."

Kliph Nesteroff: Another eccentric of those times was Lord Buckley.

Jackie Curtiss: Buckley I knew very well. Do you know how he died? He died of malnutrition. Lord Buckley in the end... he was a quiet guy offstage. Very brilliant onstage. When he started losing everything he started selling his furniture. He ended up in an empty house without food. It was just a tragic death. But you've heard his bit The Naz? He was so over the top and, to me, much like Tallulah. 

Kliph Nesteroff: How did you first meet him?

Jackie Curtiss: He came into the Band Box. He sent a note. I didn't really know who he was. I had heard his records. He was that quiet kind of guy and I became very close to him. When he was with people he was so over the top. But when he was one on one... you know, his act was so bombastic. He was a brilliant man. I always referred to him as the first and only jazz comic. He was very big on marijuana. That was his choice of relaxation.

Kliph Nesteroff: How bout Jan Murray...

Jackie Curtiss: Jan Murray was a mainstay guy. I met him with Berle. I knew Berle, but Jan was also kind of a hanger on. Good guy, but to me he got less funny after he got his nose fixed. I'm serious. He had character before - and then afterward he wanted to be handsome. Same thing happened with a great guy named Gil Lamb. If you ever want to see him watch the picture The Fleet's In with Dorothy Lamour and Bill Holden and Eddie Bracken. You'll see Gil Lamb do his basic act in that. He was very, very funny, but he had a nose job and wanted to be a legit actor and everything fell apart. I will tell you a very funny thing. A little bit of that happened to my good buddy Dick Curtis. He had his nose fixed. When he had his bent nose - I don't know what it was. There was more of a charm.

Kliph Nesteroff: That's what everyone says about Harvey Stone as well. That he was a great comedian and then got a nose job and his career fell apart!

Jackie Curtiss: Dick did well, but he wasn't the comic that he was when he got his nose fixed. Dick and I are very, very close. We both had big War years. You should get The Fleet's In. It's a great movie. One of the best Paramount movies. Betty Hutton is teamed up with Eddie Bracken. Gil Lamb is the tall and lanky one who swallows his harmonica. Jimmy Dorsey presents Lorraine and Rognan, who were a great dance act. Betty Hutton sings "Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry." You should revisit it. 

Kliph Nesteroff: A lot of these films I saw a long time ago and did not realize that certain people in them were nightclub comics.

Jackie Curtiss: Right.

Kliph Nesteroff: Like Stalag 17. The first time I saw that I didn't know who Jay Lawrence was and certainly didn't know he was Larry Storch's brother.

Jackie Curtiss: I had seen Gil Lamb at the Adams Theater when I was a kid. When I saw him in the movie I knew his act.

Kliph Nesteroff: How bout Joey Bishop...

Jackie Curtiss: Joey was another good buddy of mine. He was the last of the Rat Pack. I did Joey's show when Regis Philbin was his sidekick. I gave Regis his first singing job at the Playboy Club. Joey was great. Joey was a good buddy. He always hung out when I had the Playboy Club. He always came by and talked. He had a wonderful, quiet sense of humor offstage beyond his regular persona. I remember once he came in limping and I said, "What's the matter?" He said, "I hurt my back." I asked, "How'd that happen?" He said, "I fell off my wallet."

Kliph Nesteroff: I talked to a couple people that were close with him. One was Don Sherman...

Jackie Curtiss: Don! Don is an old buddy of mine too. He made it big in Australia. He was a local guy when I had a club here called the Trolly Ho. Funny guy.

Kliph Nesteroff: He died in May. Another that knew Joey Bishop well was Lou Alexander.

Jackie Curtiss: Oh, God. "Alexander the Grape." Lou used to be my agent when I was working the Landmark in Vegas. He was the agent for part of that. Lou was a good old comic that had been around all the time and he was very close with Jeremy Vernon who is now Jeremy Crispin. Have you talked to him at all?

Kliph Nesteroff: No, I don't even know who he is.

Jackie Curtiss: Oh, he's very close with Lou. Lou was also very close to Stanley Dean. Lou would do things where he would tell a joke and then do a look. That actually became his downfall because it got to the point where people would moan. He was going to do a comedy album called Alexander the Grape because he was sour. He's just a real whacko guy. I love him, but he's a real whacko. I haven't talked to him in fifteen or twenty years. I remember once he and I and Jeremy were somewhere... we were in Vegas. 

Someone was going to put a hundred thousand dollars behind Lou. He saw him, he was going to manage him and evidentally the guy turned out to be a phony and the whole thing fell through. Lou was in complete depression because he lost a hundred thousand dollars - that he never had. That's Lou.

Kliph Nesteroff: And he had been in a comedy team with Howard Storm.

Jackie Curtiss: Right. Howard Storm went on to be a big television director. Jeremy Vernon worked all the Playboy clubs and did all of the television shows. Good lookin' guy. He looked like a poor man's Cary Grant. A nice guy.

Kliph Nesteroff: Some more names I'll throw at you. Pat Cooper.

Jackie Curtiss: Pat Cooper and his wife Pat Cooper. They had a kid named Pat Cooper. Pat was all right, but he had problems with himself and could be kind of annoying. He aggravated a lot of people. It's hard to pin down exactly what the problem was, but he was very funny onstage.

Kliph Nesteroff: He certainly seems capable of burning some bridges.

Jackie Curtiss: Yes, I think so.

Kliph Nesteroff: Myron Cohen.

Jackie Curtiss: I first met Myron when I was singing with Jack Fina at the Balinese Room in Galveston, Texas. He was the act that we backed. Then when I did the Sullivan shows I reminisced with him. He told me once to take something out of my act because, "My boy, you've got more class." He was a true gentleman. Quiet. Reserved.

Kliph Nesteroff: My understanding is that Myron Cohen became famous out of spite. Walter Winchell didn't like Cohen's act and often wrote in his column that it was distasteful. Ed Sullivan hated Walter Winchell, so when Sullivan got his TV show - he would book Myron Cohen as often as possible in order to spite Winchell.

Jackie Curtiss: That is probably true. I hadn't heard that story. He was beloved. He really was.

Kliph Nesteroff: How about Joe E. Lewis.

Jackie Curtiss: Joe E. Lewis I wrote for. One of the jokes I wrote for him is now a bumper sticker, a greeting card and it is all around the world. I only got one hundred and fifty bucks. The line was, "A friend in need is a pest." You've probably seen or heard that somewhere. I wrote that for him in the nineteen fifties. He was a real great guy, but very sick. He was always sick. I told you about Arturo? 

The maitre'd for Dean Martin? Whenever Dean Martin came to Las Vegas he stayed with Arturo. One of the great stories that Arturo told was that in the middle of the night he heard this hacking noise. He got up and he went in and there was Joe E. leaning over a sink in the bathroom dry heaving. Arturo said, "Joe E! Do you always do that?" Joe E. looked up and he said, "Doesn't everybody?"

Kliph Nesteroff: Who were some of the other comics that you wrote for?

Jackie Curtiss: I wrote for a lot of comics, but not to get paid. Joe E. paid me, but some guys I'd just give something. I wrote a lot of stuff for Redd Foxx because he was my buddy. Redd would call me twice a week and run jokes by me to see if I thought he should put them in his act. He trusted me. 

One joke that I wrote for him that he used all the time... you know when he does the bit about the Southern cop? He puts his foot on the running board, saying, 'Hold on there, Trigger.' 'I think he said Trigger.' He wanted something to put after that. I thought about it and I said, "How bout, 'Officer, give me a break.' Officer says, 'Okay. Beat this bullet to the corner." He loved that. He gave me a lot of stuff too.

Kliph Nesteroff: I don't think there is any comedian in the history of comedy that recorded as many albums as Redd Foxx.

Jackie Curtiss: That's right - and before he was famous.

Kliph Nesteroff: And even though Sanford and Son is not the most genuine conveyance of Redd Foxx - the one thing that I love and appreciate about it - is how many Black nightclub comics show up on that program...

Jackie Curtiss: Oh, he had everyone on. I ran the Playboy Club out here while Redd was doing Sanford and Son. He came in two or three times a week so he could keep sharp. I will tell you - Bill Tracy and I were in Ziegfeld Follies of 1965 in Vegas at the Thunderbird. Redd had a two o'clock in the afternoon show - XXX. So out front it said, "XXX Redd FoXX." It was the dirtiest show that he could do. That's what they wanted and that's what he was getting paid for. 

I would stand in the back and watch everyday and then we'd go have lunch. One show I will never forget. He walked onstage... he always started the same way. "My name is Redd Foxx. R.e.d.d. F.o.x.x." He got that far and a guy sitting ringside said, "Let's see how dirty you can be, you motherfucker!" Everyone heard him. Redd just stopped and looked at the guy and said, "Okay." Redd did fifty minutes of the cleanest, funniest material I have ever heard in my life. Not one profanity and he did politics, religion, marriage, boyscouts, every topic and it was hysterical. Standing ovation. He walked back out after the applause and looked right at the guy's face and said, "That dirty enough for you, motherfucker!" 

Kliph Nesteroff: By the time he had his crossover success he was such a veteran. He had done thousands of shows...

Jackie Curtiss: Redd Foxx was the only veteran that became a veteran. He was a veteran before he was anything. He was the sweetest man. The only problem was he became such a cokehead and the IRS knocked him out. They took the necklace right off his neck. He cried. Took it off of him physically. I miss him a lot. He would call me up and we would laugh. He told me this joke... he said, "Jackie! They found out absolutely positively for sure that Adam was a white man! You ever try and take ribs away from a black guy?" A beautiful man.

Kliph Nesteroff: Sanford and Son features a lot of old obscure nightclub comics that never made it. It seems like Redd Foxx was a real loyal guy.

Jackie Curtiss: Oh, very. He helped Slappy White because Slappy White was doing nothing. I think he teamed up with Steve Rossi too - another bad guy.

Kliph Nesteroff: Slappy or Steve?

Jackie Curtiss: Rossi. Just ego. He was in the Mitchell Boy Choir with Bill Tracy when they did Going My Way and The Bishop's Wife. Rossi was a singer as a kid before he teamed up with Marty Allen and he was just never a good guy. I knew that because of Bill. Bill grew up with him since they were kids.

Kliph Nesteroff: I interviewed Steve Rossi last year... he was nice enough, but you can tell that...

Jackie Curtiss: You can tell that he's phony baloney. He was being nice for you. I would give him less than that.

Kliph Nesteroff: You were in a couple comedy teams. Maybe you have a take on this. Between Martin and Lewis and The Smothers Brothers there was no comedy team more successful, no comedy team bigger than Allen and Rossi. I don't understand why. They were on every show and... they're awful.

Jackie Curtiss: They were popular because Marty Allen was a politician. He knew everybody. He got jobs when they couldn't get jobs. He was actually a lot funnier when he was with Mitch DeWood, but Mitch DeWood was not your typical straight man. He wasn't handsome.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was the main difference between Allen and Rossi as opposed to Allen and DeWood - if you could pinpoint...

Jackie Curtiss: With DeWood it was more double comedy than comic and straightman. I originally had some trouble with Marc Antone about a year into our comedy team. I had to sit him down and read him the riot act because what happens is... it's called Straight Man's Disease. You give them a laugh and they go nuts. Once Marc got the taste of getting a laugh... I mean, it was all right afterwards... but you can't overstep the bounds. Because they get such an ego. 

What happened was... I wrote a new bit. I said, "Here. Learn this." All of a sudden in the middle of this thing he says, "You know, Jackie. I don't think this is very funny." I just grabbed it out of his hand and tore it up and did the Rip Taylor confetti thing. I said, "That's the last time. From now on - I give you anything - you just learn it. I'm a benevolent dictator from now on." Six months later he came to me and he said, "You know something, you were right. I was out of line." You can't go to a comic who writes something and say, "I don't think this is funny!" That is just... even if it isn't funny!

Kliph Nesteroff: When I spoke with Marty Allen it seemed like he did not want to talk about Mitch DeWood.

Jackie Curtiss: They had a terrible falling out. I don't know exactly what it was... but it was something to do with family. It might have been his sister. I wrote a show about twenty-five years ago in which I had Marty on with Dave Madden and Dave Barry. It was a thing called Startime Showcase. I had them present comics. Marty and I go way back. Marty is a nice guy and I like him. Marty did not like a lot of people and didn't get along with a lot of people. I liked him. I'm not sure whether he liked me or not.

Kliph Nesteroff: He's interesting to talk to because he goes way back...

Jackie Curtiss: Oh, sure, he goes further back than me as far as comedy is concerned.

Kliph Nesteroff: He was in a comedy team with a guy named Tiny Wolf back in Pittsburgh...

Jackie Curtiss: Before DeWood.

Kliph Nesteroff: Before DeWood. Marty was fine with talking about Tiny Wolf and he was fine with talking about Steve Rossi, but when we got to Mitch DeWood... and they spent almost a decade together...

Jackie Curtiss: When I had him on Startime Showcase we were all sitting around having coffee. Dave Barry said, "Marty, were you teamed up with some guy named Mitch something?" Marty said, "Nope. Don't remember that."

Kliph Nesteroff: That's what he said to me! On two occasions - it was so strange!

Jackie Curtiss: Yeah and I was in the thick of it in those days when they were a team.

The Tonight Show with guest host Jerry Lewis and guests Charlie Callas, Patrice Munsel, Mason Williams and George Carlin (1969)

Groove-In (1968)

CBS News (1963)

New piece of comedy history composed for WFMU. Murder, intrigue and stand-up comedy. G'wan and read. Murder in Mink! The Crimes of Comedian Ray Bourbon by Kliph Nesteroff

What's My Line with mystery guest Tyrone Power and guest panelist Wally Cox (1955)

The Colgate Summer Comedy Hour with guests Gene Sheldon, Jay Lawrence, Don Wilson, The Gaylords and the Will Mastin Trio (1954)

This is the best installment of the Colgate show that i have ever seen. Everyone delivers - Jay Lawrence, Gene Sheldon and Sammy are especially in top form.


 

Shower of Stars with guests Jack Benny, Jayne Mansfield, Johnnie Ray and Liberace (1955)

Person to Person with guest Bing Crosby (1954)

The George Gobel Show (1954)

CBS News (1968)

The Merv Griffin Show with guests Les Paul, Dick Gregory and Jonathan Miller (1966)

Classic Television Showbiz's Late Late Show: Bahama Passage (1941)

Strictly for Laughs - Pilot - featuring Dave Barry, Sid Melton, Ken Murray, Rose Marie, Alan Reed, Mel Blanc, Jesse White, Paul Gilbert, Moe Howard, Buddy Lester, Willard Waterman, Tommy Noonan plus Bobby someone and Marvin somebody (1961)

A very rare glimpse at some forgotten comedians and comic actors. I am ashamed I can't identify 'em all, so speak up if you can! Whose the other fella with the pencil moustache that is not Willard Waterman?

An Interview with William O. Harbach - Part Three

Kliph Nesteroff: The strange thing about your show, the Hollywood Palace, you had these showbiz legends like Jimmy Durante introducing these long hair hippie bands...

William Harbach: Yeah (laughs). I guess it made it kinda fun.

Kliph Nesteroff: Today, one of the funniest and most enjoyable things about the show is watching those hippie bands onstage and then seeing the cut away to the audience reaction. The studio audience is just filled with these gray haired tourists and elderly ladies...

William Harbach: Yeah! Yes, yes, yes (laughs).

Kliph Nesteroff: Dumbfounded looks on their faces...

William Harbach: Yes, I know (laughs). Oh, God.

Kliph Nesteroff: One of the other reasons I love the Hollywood Palace so much is because you get to see full stand-up sets from some legendary comedians. Jack Carter was on several times.

William Harbach: Jack Carter was marvelous, but he hated the audience. He would always say, "Those bastards," when he walked off and didn't get the applause he thought he deserved. He had a chip on his shoulder, but he didn't show it to the audience. He'd come offstage, "Those bastards!"

Kliph Nesteroff: I watched an episode hosted by Phil Silvers.

William Harbach: Phil Silvers was marvelous and a very friendly, easy guy to work with. They basically all were. Even Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. They weren't from vaudeville or anything, but hosting a show like this was fun and different for them. Bette Davis you had to be very careful with. She was bright as hell and she could cut you down faster than a snake if you did something wrong. You had to be right or she would jump on you. We would do the dress rehearsal at five and the air show at eight. We had a meeting before the dress rehearsal. 

There was a sketch we were doing and we had two different options of how to do it. I said, "We can do it the one way during dress and the other way during air." We would do that and whatever was the best performance was what went into the actual show [when it aired]. So we had two shots at everything. I said, "So, let's try both and..." Bette said, "No! Right now decide which is the one to do!" I said, "Of course, Bette." And I did. You were on your toes with her.

Kliph Nesteroff: Jack Carter told me a story about an episode Judy Garland hosted. She did the rehearsal but was then too expended to do the taping. So the entire airing was of the rehearsal.

William Harbach: Yes, she was a little with the booze or something. She was wonderful, but it was sad. She wanted to open the show with, "What the World Needs Now... Is Love, Sweet Love..." At dress rehearsal she was so wrong. She kept making mistakes and I would walk down there and say, "Darling, I'm sorry. We've got to stop. There was a clinker in the band." I kept making an excuse and had to do it about four different times. Finally she got through it and we started the show. We went to commercial and she came to me and said, "Bill, that wasn't very good, was it?" I said, "Hey, we still have the air show to do. Don't worry." By the time we got to the air show she couldn't do anything. Forget it. No, it was sad. She was fighting her unhappiness.

Kliph Nesteroff: Sometimes you can notice moments that are inconsistent... obviously a combination of rehearsal footage and air footage...

William Harbach: She was heartbreaking.

Kliph Nesteroff: How about working with Joan Crawford when she hosted?

William Harbach: Joan Crawford was marvelous. She did a dramatic reading, as I remember. We had Edward G. Robinson also, who I loved, do some dramatic readings. We had him on twice and he was marvelous. 

Kliph Nesteroff: And Fred Astaire...

William Harbach: Fred was marvelous! Oh, God! He was so easy to work with. You couldn't do enough for him, you were on his team so much. He was the sweetest guy. 

Kliph Nesteroff: How about Milton Berle?

William Harbach: Milton could kill you. He was all right when he was happy. We started doing the second Milton Berle Show while we were still working on the Hollywood Palace and it did not... it was over. It was not worth it. It just kept going down, down, down. My partner [Nick Vanoff] and I were the producers along with Bill Dana. We made him the actual producer of the show, but it kept going down, down, down. I handled the people and my partner was the business man. Milton had just finished a sketch. He was dressed as a rabbit. We walked into the dressing room and Nick said, "Milton. Right now..." He looked at his watch and he clicked it. "This show now belongs to you. Harbach and I are out. We've had it with you." 

Berle would yell about things. "I don't like that ending! Try a different ending for these shots!" We were spending so much money on it because of Milton. He was dragging it down and he was scared. He was basically doing everything wrong in rehearsal. Nick said, "It's your show. Harbach and I are out. We're not going to put up with this shit any longer." I said, "Everyone take an hour break for lunch!" We went upstairs to our office in the Hollywood Palace. I said, "You know, he's going to come back." "Of course, he's going to come back. He can't do the show without us." 

We were up there for about an hour. Just before the hour was up the secretary said, "Mr. Berle is outside." I said, "Bring him in, please." Berle came in with his hat in his hand. He said, "I'm sorry. I know I've been lousy. I'll follow along with you guys. You've been right and I've been wrong." I said, "Let's get back to rehearsal. We'll do a great show." And that was it. And then it was over. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Berle is a master at what he does and yet whenever you watch him - you can always see this look of fear and desperation in his eyes. 

William Harbach: Or trying to get you to laugh before he even finishes the joke. Yes. He had a problem with that. You're right. You're absolutely right.

Kliph Nesteroff: It's interesting when you see something like that and maybe it's because I used to do stand-up, I don't know. But when you can see through the veneer and pretty much see what they're thinking...

William Harbach: Absolutely, absolutely...

Kliph Nesteroff: Same with Jack Carter. These guys work so fast because there's a kind of fear they have that there isn't gonna be a laugh there...

William Harbach: That's right.

Kliph Nesteroff: How about Henny Youngman?

William Harbach: Henny! I loved Henny! He was a darling. You could eat him. He was so easy going and there were no problems and he did the smallest, most ridiculous jokes.

Kliph Nesteroff: One of the all time great Hollywood Palace moments has Milton Berle onstage doing his act and Henny Youngman is in the balcony heckling...

William Harbach: That's it, yes. That's how that bit started.

Kliph Nesteroff: Shecky Greene did your show three or four times.

William Harbach: Shecky was a little uptight when things were not right. He had a bit of a temper. Jackie Mason had his first appearance on the Palace after his spat with Ed Sullivan and I loved working with him. He was great. He was easy and funny.

Kliph Nesteroff: James Brown did some remarkable turns on the Hollywood Palace.

William Harbach: I'm Black and I'm Proud! Yes, of course, ABC liked it because the kids liked that.

Kliph Nesteroff: That's another one... James Brown puts on this remarkable performance and they cut to the crowd and its a shot of these elderly, white tourists...

William Harbach: (laughs) Yes, "What the hell is this?" (laughs)

Kliph Nesteroff: And one of the greatest of all time who had several of his best television appearances on your show - Sammy Davis Jr.

William Harbach: Oh! There's a giant! An absolute giant! I had him on the old Steve Allen Show before he had done anything. Oh, Jesus Christ. We did a thing on a boat in the East River where he did a dance across this big steamer. He could do anything and God, I loved that man. I called him when he was dying. He smoked a lot. I called him two weeks before he took a cab.

Kliph Nesteroff: In all the episodes of Hollywood Palace... there are only two acts that received a standing ovation and they received one every single time they hosted. Jimmy Durante - and Sammy Davis Jr.

William Harbach: They were loved. And I loved them too. (In Jimmy Durante voice), "Hey, Bill! What time tomorrow?" Oh my God, I loved Jim. Easy, easy guy, no problems and gentle. Everybody loved him. What's not to love?

Kliph Nesteroff: Durante seemed like the least pretentious guy in show business.

William Harbach: Absolutely true. Very sincere. He could sing a song and bring tears to your eyes. That's right. 

Kliph Nesteroff: How about the comedian Gene Baylos...

William Harbach: (laughs) I loved him too and he was crazy. He really was nuts. Gene Baylos... God, just to be with him before anything happened I was on the floor. He'd come on stage doing his act real loud and then say, "What am I yelling for? I got the job!" 

Kliph Nesteroff: Buddy Hackett.

William Harbach: Buddy Hackett was... all right. We had a falling out. Uh, he didn't... he uh... I cut him short. He was doing a number and I said, "Look, we gotta cut this down, Buddy." He got mad and uh, from then on... it was... forget you.

Kliph Nesteroff: He could be quite vicious, I hear.

William Harbach: Oh, yes and we had a bit of a thing and I said, "Buddy, you're out of the sketch." He had a temper.

Kliph Nesteroff: How about Joey Bishop?

William Harbach: Joey Bishop, well... I loved his act, but we were never too... he was involved with... he had a feeling that we were a little Mickey Mouse compared to the Rat Pack. He thought he was above us.

Kliph Nesteroff: Van Johnson hosted the Hollywood Palace twice. He seems like an unlikely host.

William Harbach: Van Johnson was a piece of cake. It was a breath of fresh air for him to be hosting something like this. He loved song and dance stuff and he was fun. We had a good time with him.

Kliph Nesteroff: How about some of the writers that worked on the show. Harry Crane worked on it a bit...

William Harbach: Great, yes, he was one of the best. I had Herb Sargent and Stan Burns on the Tonight Show and we had a bunch on the Palace - but they weren't writer writers - they were doing introduction stuff. Leonard Stern did our sketches on Steve Allen.

Kliph Nesteroff: Later on you produced a John Wayne television special and the head writer was Paul Keyes.

William Harbach: Yes. I didn't know him well. He had a little group that he worked with and I knew he was good. He was head writer of The Dean Martin Show for a while and he was real big league. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Paul Keyes was close with Richard Nixon.

William Harbach: What? Really?

Kliph Nesteroff: Some people had said that he was merely a speech writer, but I wrote a piece and discovered he was full on media adviser...

William Harbach: Wow.

Kliph Nesteroff: I want to ask you a little bit about the giant stars of early television that are completely forgotten. Dave Garroway.

William Harbach: Ah! I loved him. He went a little bananas at the end. I remember being at his apartment and he thought that [NBC President] General Sarnoff was trying to kill him. He was saying, "Bill! You see that guy standing by that lampost out there? Who is that guy!" I said, "I have no idea, Dave." He said, "Someone is trying to kill me! It's Sarnoff's people!" He had delusions. It was very sad at the end. Did he commit suicide?

Kliph Nesteroff: Yeah, in the early eighties.

William Harbach: A gun or no?

Kliph Nesteroff: A gun, yeah.

William Harbach: He was charming as hell and I loved him. I was a big fan... but he had problems.

Kliph Nesteroff: So many giants of early television became so obscure. Garroway is one. It's astounding how few people know who Arthur Godfrey is.

William Harbach: (laughs) We had a conflict. Godfrey did one show for us. He said, "For the opening I want to be in the audience and I'll pick out a woman I want to talk to and I'll read a poem to her." I said, "Well, Arthur, that's not a good Hollywood Palace opening. We can maybe do that down in the middle of the show or something." He said, "No. I want to open the show that way." I said, "I don't think so. That's not going to work." Then his agent called to tell me Godfrey wasn't going to do the show. I said, "Okay, fine." The next day his agent phoned again. "He'll do it. Just tell him what you want."

Kliph Nesteroff: Even by then he was becoming irrelevant.

William Harbach: Oh, yes. And he did some mean things. He was mean as hell to Julius LaRosa and I heard other people didn't like working with him.

Kliph Nesteroff: Peter Lind Hayes is another forgotten early television giant.

William Harbach: Yes, he was a very sweet guy and his wife I loved. They went into the wallpaper, but they were like Tex and Jinx for a while.

Kliph Nesteroff: And another name that has fallen by the wayside is Betty Furness.

William Harbach: Yes, I was going to a party at her apartment at the end of my NBC work week in the early nineteen fifties. I'd get through work at one in the morning. By the time I got there it was two. Betty Furness was giving this big party on 86th Street. It was jammed. Everybody was sitting in every seat. I walked in and there was no place to sit. 

There was a guy sitting on a pillow in the well of a piano in the corner of the room. He waved for me to sit down on this pillow. It turned out to be Walter Cronkite! We got to talking about boats. We both loved boats and we ended up sailing together all over New England and the Bahamas and all over! We became fast friends. And we met under a piano!