An Interview with Dick Curtis - Part Five

Kliph Nesteroff: February 1951 - you played the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans with Carla Alberghetti...

Dick Curtis: The Monteleone Hotel is right on Bourbon Street. It was an old style hotel. The dining room was separate from the main lobby and everybody showed up in tuxedos, ladies in full dress wearing gloves, the waiters were all in tails. It was real formal. Carla Alberghetti was Anna Maria Alberghetti's sister. They were wonderful opera singers. Carla was not as big a star as her sister but she was pretty big.

We worked there with a wonderful orchestra. I think that was the only show I did there. What's the name of the guy who prosecuted the wealthy guy in the JFK assassination? He was district attorney in New Orleans. Jim Garrison. The guy they were prosecuting was a very wealthy guy in New Orleans and he was gay. A guy named Clay Shaw.

He had orgies at his house and that kind of thing. I'm working with Carla Alberghetti and she says to me, "Dick, will you escort me to a cocktail party they're having for me tomorrow?" I said, "Carla, I don't smoke and I don't drink and I hate cocktail parties because that's all anybody does." She said, "Well, if you don't escort me I can't go." I said, "Okay, all right. I'll take you." I took her to the party and while we were there I noticed this big, tall, white-haired guy who was trying to get friendly with me.

I turned to Carla and whispered, "Will you stand here in between... this guy wants to dance and I don't wanna!" She said, "That's the host!" About that moment someone said, "Taking a picture!" I looked up and they snapped a photo. A couple days later Carla gave me those photos they snapped at the party and I stuck them in my file. I forgot about them until I saw the movie JFK with Kevin Costner. When Jack Kennedy was killed I was as devastated as anybody else. When I saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald on television I was doubly shocked - because I knew Jack Ruby!

I was booked into a club in Witchita about that time and there was no business because everybody was so upset about Jack Kennedy. I was getting ready to leave, but I was staying at a hotel for a couple of days and I wrote a check to Marina Oswald and to JD Tippit's widow. He was the police officer who was supposed to have been killed by Oswald.

I wrote a check for both of them because I figured they were the two unhappiest women in America. I sent them to a buddy of mine at the Dallas Morning News and he said, "A lot of people felt the same way because these two women wound up with a fortune in donated money!" So now I had two canceled checks. I've kept them all these years. One day I was working at the King's Club in Dallas. I was getting ready to go there for lunch because they had a great luncheon that was popular all over town. The maitre'd called me, "Dick, are you coming down?"

I said, "Yes." He said, "Good. Because there are a couple of FBI men down here that would like to talk to you." I said, "Oh." I went down to the King's Club and these two guys showed their identification. We sat down and chatted. One of them said, "Okay, Mr. Curtis. Why is your name and phone number in Jack Ruby's telephone book?"

I said, "Isn't everybody?" He said, "A lot of people. But why are you?" I said, "Well, Jack was kind of a nuisance, but he ran the strip club across from the hotel here. He always wanted people that were appearing here to come to his club, the Carousel.

A couple times I did go over to his club because there were people working at his club that I knew. And that's why my phone number is in Jack Ruby's phone book." They said, "Now, another question. Do you think Jack Ruby was part of a conspiracy to murder the president?"

I said, "When it first happened I thought, 'Oh, Jack. Now he thinks everybody is going to be his friend because he shot the assassin of JFK." They said, "What about now?" I said, "Now - I think he might have been a pawn." I read a lot of books about it and it pointed in that direction. And that was it. But I put all of that together in a frame. The assassination headline with my canceled checks and the photo I told you about.

Clay Shaw had a non de plume, Clay Bertram, but that's the story. I didn't think about it for years and years until I saw that Oliver Stone movie. I thought, "My God, that's him!"

Kliph Nesteroff: January 1959 you played The Cloister.

Dick Curtis: It was in Chicago in the basement of the Maryland Hotel and Irwin Corey was in there too. I followed him in. The Cloister was an Outfit joint. Of course it was. All the places were. Lenny Bruce worked it. I did okay there, but not as well as I might have. People were getting used to comics that used stronger language than I did. I was doing a down home kind of an act at that time. It was okay, but it didn't have the look of some of the acts that were becoming popular. The guy who owned The Cloister became the manager of The Playboy in New York and I worked there for him also. I did okay.

Kliph Nesteroff: Another place you played in Chicago was The Living Room - opening for Mel Torme.

Dick Curtis: The Living Room was the name of the nightclub in The Tradewinds. It was a place opened by the guys that used to own the leading club in Chicago - the Chez Paree. They had to move out of the Chez Paree because they didn't own the building or something. The owners wanted to turn it into a garage, so they closed the Chez. The guys that ran it opened The Living Room. They would show up every night to watch the show and sit in the back.

Mel was getting a divorce at the time from his wife Candy. There was no phone in the place except for a payphone around the corner from where we worked on the stage. Every night I'd be onstage and I could hear Mel yelling at his wife on the phone! There'd be lulls in my act and then all of a sudden you'd hear, "Oh yeah!? Well, up yours too!" He was so mad at her. I'd say, "Mel, wait until the dancing music starts up, would you?" We opened there on a Monday night, Holy week, during a blizzard.

There was nobody in the audience except for my agent and two people he brought with him to see my act. They sat right down in the front. Mel kept saying, "I'm not working. I'm not doing a show to chairs." The maitre'd said, "I'll tell you when to start the show, Dick, and then you start the show." These were tough guys. Outfit guys. The door opens and a bunch of guys walk in with no ties, wearing these raincoats covered in snow and they all go into the back. The maitre'd runs in and he says, "Dick, start the show! Start the show now!" I said, "What? Okay."

So, I start the show with Mel giving me a dismissive wave like he's not going to do it. I get to a part of my act that was very physical in which I do a Texan visiting Rome being chauffeured by an Italian tour guide. It was very physical. When I started doing the Italian I hear, from the back of the room, "HA. HA. HA. HA. HA." I thought, "Oh, geez, a heckler." And I keep hearing it every time I go into the Italian character. Again, "HA. HA. HA. HA. HA." I get through with my act and I put Mel on.

By then there were more people in the audience and Mel did the show. Before the second show one of these tough looking guys walks up to me and says, "Big Ralph wants to know when you gonna do the wop again." I said, "What?" "Big Ralph sez when you gonna do the wop again?" I said, "Oh, the Italian. Oh, I only do it once a night because it's too physical." He said, "Do it again. Big Ralph wants to see it." And he walked away. I walked over to the hatcheck girl who was sitting there filing her nails. I asked her, "Who's Big Ralph?" She said, "Who wants to know?"

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

Dick Curtis: I said, "Well, this guy came over and he said, 'Big Ralph, said do the wop." She says to me, "Do the wop!" Every night from then on,  just before the show, this tough guy would walk down and just give me the signal like, "Now." It endeared me to this Mob guy, whoever he was, because I did this Italian tour guide. It finally became a very successful engagement.

Kliph Nesteroff: August 1961 - The Gondola Room with Dick Haymes and Fran Jeffries.

Dick Curtis: Oh, God. Working with Dick Haymes at the Gondola. Another Outfit joint! The Philadelphia Outfit. I was doing very well there. It was summer and it was very hot and muggy. My manager called me from New York. He said, "Get on the train and come on up here because I want you to audition for a Broadway show. Bob Fosse is directing Hail the Conquering Hero." I got on the train and went up to audition and Huntz Hall was auditioning the same day!

He was auditioning for one of the roles too. There were four parts. Bob Fosse's first directorial effort. We all auditioned, read some lines. Fosse says to me, "You're very good. Would you come read for the principals?" I said, "Yes, sure." I didn't even know what that meant. The principals were the money people. He gave me the address and he said he'd meet me there. I went over there and waited for the elevator in this old building.

I get on the elevator and Burgess Meredith got on the elevator with me! He was wearing a cape with an Irish walking hat and stick! I was so intimidated by being in the elevator with him... we were the only two in there... I couldn't talk. He just nodded at me and we both got off on the same floor. He went one way and I walked out and was staring at a wall covered with Barrymores and every big name in show business. I can't tell you intimidating that was.

I look down the hall and Bob Fosse is shouting, "Dick, down here! This way!" He hands me the script and I look at this room of people sitting all over the place. "Ladies and gentleman this is the fella I told you about. Dick Curtis. He is quite good. Dick, start at page one." So I lifted the script and I was shaking so hard I couldn't read the words! When it became obvious I was shaking, I slammed the script against my chest and that got a laugh. I put my hands out and they were still shaking so I took it and shoved it right up against my face. I said, "Bob, I can't read the type on this - it's written too close to the page." Then I said, "Uh, Bob... can I talk to you?"

We went out in the hall. He said, "What's the matter?" I said, "Bob, I'm in the wrong place." I walked to the elevator. I said, "I can't do this." He said, "Dick, where are you going?" I walked to the elevator and I said, "I'm not meant for this, but thank you." And the elevator doors closed. I got back on the train and went back to Atlantic City. Dick Haymes saw me come in the door and he said, "Hey, where you been?" I said, "Oh, just out."

I went onstage that night and did one of the best shows of my life. Even the top bosses came to me afterward and said, "My God, you're on fire tonight!" I had just blown what might have been a whole other career, but I was just too scared to do it or I felt out of place or I felt I wasn't up to the job. I'm sure a lot of people in our business have experienced the exact same thing.

The Jack Paar Program with guest Milt Kamen (1963)

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

An Interview with Bill Dana - Part Two

Kliph Nesteroff: The comedy team of Dana and Wood was actually under contract to NBC at one point. In 1952 you and Gene Wood were placed in their comedy development program.

Bill Dana: Yes, well, there were a lot of folks in that. Woody Allen was among them. I would imagine we would have been among the very first involved with their comedy development program. Do you have any of the other names?

Kliph Nesteroff: The guy in charge of it was Tad Danielewski...

Bill Dana: Don't know that name.

Kliph Nesteroff: Others in the program were Woody Allen, Paul W. Keyes and a guy named Bernie Illson, who ended up doing publicity for Ed Sullivan.

Bill Dana: Paul Keyes was a writer and I worked with him for a little while. He became very political and very far-right. Nick Vanoff used to stick his head in and say to him, "Have you finished your novel yet?" He was much more of a politician. He went on to work for George Schlatter and became famous as part of the Nixon group. Have you interviewed George Schlatter?

Kliph Nesteroff: I've become friends with him, actually. We became friendly about a year and a half ago.

Bill Dana: He's one of the stars of talent and niceness. He's just a wonderful and nice guy.

Kliph Nesteroff: He's a larger than life guy.

Bill Dana: Very much so, but it is totally fulfilled. There's no mystery about him. He's all real. Nothing fiction.

Kliph Nesteroff: Yes, he has been very, very good to me.

Bill Dana: Well, if you talk to him, tell him I love him more than myself.

Kliph Nesteroff: I will let him know. I speak to him every other week or so.

Bill Dana: Oh, really? 

Kliph Nesteroff: But this comedy development program that you were in with Gene Wood... what did they have you doing?

Bill Dana: Well, the whole idea was... we got involved because we were NBC pages. Traditionally, usually, the page staff was from wealthy families. That was a step sort of...

Kliph Nesteroff: Like an internship?

Bill Dana: Yes, but with an extra heap of political insider stuff. It started when the sons of executives were brought on like a cadet program. We became part of that first comedy development program and Woody and I have talked about this - so I believe he would have been in the same one. If not, then it would have been just a beat after us, simply because of the age difference. I've known Woody Allen in several phases. We met first in England when we were both appearing over there. Don Adams - and this won't be any secret - "borrowed" a lot of Woody's stuff.

That wasn't uncommon. There's a famous story about Phil Foster sitting in a coffee shop up in the Mountains and he overhears two comedians fighting. He asks the server, "What are they fighting about?" "Oh, they're fighting about who stole their Phil Foster routine." It's a classic story of that genre.

Gene Wood and I prided ourselves on the fact that every single word we did as performers we wrote ourselves. Although we may have suffered a little from that. On the whole, we had a good reputation for being new... and useful (laughs). Gene and I would always remain friends even though we saw very little of each other later during our careers. I had a Jewish punim. You know what a punim is?

Kliph Nesteroff: Not really.

Bill Dana: Ah, well then the first thing you need to do is study Yiddish! No matter how you slice it, that's the basis of human comedy, the suffering of the Jews. But a punim is a face. We tried to design ourselves as two Sid Caesars as opposed to Abbott and Costello. I had the bug eyed, little guy face and he looked like the straight man. Eventually, people would come right up to us - and address all the praise to me. Then they'd kinda throw him a bone because he was a good straight man - but because of that it was doomed from the start. But we never stopped being very good friends. Have you studied Gene at all?

Kliph Nesteroff: Well, I always knew him from game shows, but it was only when I learned more about you that I found out he had done comedy.

Bill Dana: Yeah, he became the king of game show mavens and he was very good at it. He was enormously good at it. I guess he made a living, after a while, warming up audiences. And that requires a specific talent, as you know.

Kliph Nesteroff: One blurb I found said that Dana and Wood were shadowing writers on a Kate Smith summer replacement.

Bill Dana: Yeah, wow. That goes way back. The Hudson Theater. That was the first time we performed there and later on I had a whole career there with the Tonight Show. Yeah, Kate Smith had a daily show emanating from the Hudson. I believe we were still on the page staff even while we were doing that.

Kliph Nesteroff: You've mentioned that Don Adams "borrowed" material from Woody Allen. Both Irwin Corey and Will Jordan have told me that Woody Allen once stole material from them... 

Bill Dana: Well, that's possible. You know, as history proves there was no reason for him to have to steal material but... I don't know that he did... this is just a guess... in recounting these stories of thievery, they used to call Milton Berle the thief of bad gags so... Original material was part of what made Dana and Wood stand out... if we did.

Everything we did we wrote ourselves. It's a damn shame we had no recording devices in those days. We had a very hip act. We were starting to get a following when it became... I use the word unbearable but in a context you'll understand... after the hundredth time somebody has walked right past you to your partner, who you've lived with and struggled with, and they throw you a little bone like you're nothing but a straight man... I am simply stating the truth. There is no Dana and Wood without Wood. But it was a crazy thing. I don't usually enjoy talking about this stuff, but this is sorta fun.

Kliph Nesteroff: I have a Variety review - Dana and Wood, April 1954, playing the Black Orchid in Chicago with Wally Griffin, Betty Clooney... it said... and I don't know if you guys were canceled or just finished the engagement... but you were replaced by John Carradine - doing dramatic readings in your place.

Bill Dana: (laughs) Oh, please send me that!

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you ever encounter a comedy writer named Cy Howard?

Bill Dana: No, I knew of him and he was very well-respected. Give me some of the shows he worked on...

Kliph Nesteroff: Well, he created My Friend Irma and Life with Luigi, but character actor Marvin Kaplan told me that he became successful just ripping off other shows. My Friend Irma was just a knock-off of My Sister Eileen and so on... his career was sort of destroyed, apparently, by a Heidi Fleiss-esque prostitution scandal and that was the end of Cy Howard.

Bill Dana: No, I don't remember that. I especially don't remember any kind of Heidi Fleiss type of thing, but I didn't know Cy. My history in the business of comedy goes back beyond Dana and Wood to when I was hired by Ed Simmons. He was a Boston boy, the same area of the world as I. I guess he went on to work with Carol Burnett. A lovely man, but not very ambitious. I knew Norman Lear before I knew Steve Allen even. Imogene Coca used to have these salons not only in her penthouse, but in Peekskill where she rented a place.

I remember Hal March and I were out in a rowboat up there and he told me he was being offered a quiz show. I very sagely told him, "You're a comedian! Don't fool around! It's called what? The 64,000 Dollar Question? Are you kidding?" And he became part of a whole sociological change! He was a lovely guy.

Kliph Nesteroff: He doesn't get any credit today, he isn't very well remembered. When he is remembered it's merely as a straight game show host, so he doesn't get credit for being a wit - which he was.

Bill Dana: Oh, very much so. Very bright.

Kliph Nesteroff: I saw him serve as guest host on an episode of I've Got a Secret. Garry Moore was on vacation. Hal March hosted and he was hilarious.

Bill Dana: Oh, yes. Do you know anything about Sweeney and March?

Kliph Nesteroff: Very little. Other than the fact they existed, I don't know much.

Bill Dana: When I first heard his name he was half of that comedy team. With Hal and me it was a social thing and we all giggled that his show was such a huge monster hit. If he had taken my advice he would have ended up working at Macy's.

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you work with Norman Lear on The Martha Raye Show?

Bill Dana: Yeah, Eddie Simmons and he hired me to just be like a go-fer. I'd do things that required some trust like going to Baltimore to pick up Gloria Lockerman. Do you know the Gloria Lockerman story? She was on The Martha Raye Show and she was this sweet, little Black girl. Oh, there was a lot of stuff there. The show got in trouble because Talullah Bankhead and Martha Raye stood on either side of little Gloria Lockerman.

I encountered a lot of this [racist hostility] during the time I was head writer of The Steve Allen Show. I was always the guy on The Steve Allen Show who checked the mail. There was a lot of the expression, "Steve Allen keep your Jew nose out of Southern politics!" Remember the Emmett Till thing?

I became very close to Steve because I was one of the only bachelors on the show, so I would always work late. I had no place to go so I stuck around the studio. Of course, it was the historical as well as the hysterical that was so much a part of that show. 

Kliph Nesteroff: I spoke to Bill Harbach a few months back...

Bill Dana: Oh, what a lovely man - with an incredible background.

Kliph Nesteroff: Right, his father was a famous songwriter.

Bill Dana: Yes, his father wrote Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. That was Bill's wedding present. He got the copyright to Smoke Gets In You Eyes.

Kliph Nesteroff: Oh, really? You know, you are mentioned briefly in Phil Silvers' autobiography. You worked on the Bilko show?

Bill Dana: Although vague to the exact timing, I did indeed get a temporary gig on The Phil Silvers Show. I believe it was through Phil Foster, whom I met during the closing phase of World War Two in France. Phil Foster was the inspiration for Bilko.

He, like the character, had all kinds of schemes going as we waited in the Saint-Victoret staging area outside Marseilles to be deployed home. I do remember that everyone involved in Mr. Silvers' show liked him. Phil Foster was a booster for Gene Wood and myself when Dana and Wood was starting out.

Kliph Nesteroff: April 1956 - you worked on a special featuring Art Carney and Don Adams called A Salute to Baseball.

Bill Dana: I remember that. That's a good example of chutzpah. It was the first time there was ever a major baseball special and every All-Star you can think of was in it. We wrote the Umpire School bit, which became a classic from that one night. God, those were remarkable days.

Kliph Nesteroff: Some of the other writers listed on that program were Aaron Ruben, a guy named Tom Naud...

Bill Dana: Yeah, sure Tom Naud was on there with us and the Steve Allen people for a while. He's a positive feeling guy. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Eddie Fisher and Dave Garroway were guest stars alongside all the ball players.

Bill Dana: I never had much of an encounter with Dave Garroway. I would have liked to. When he was in his heyday he was brilliant. You never heard a bad word. When you're an NBC page, if somebody is a schmuck, it doesn't remain a secret for long. 

Kliph Nesteroff: I don't know if we got into this last time, although I talked about it with Pete Barbutti - The Las Vegas Show and the United Network.

Bill Dana: Yeah, Pete is a wonderful guy. It still remains a mystery how they scuttled that show, but they did. Rona Barrett called me on the day I received word we were destroying that awful man Joey Bishop. We were destroying him in all these major markets; Philadelphia, Seattle and so on. 

She called with the news that my show was going under. I sort of laughed at her. "I don't mean to laugh at you, Rona, but I'm looking at the numbers here and we are destroying Joey Bishop." She said, "Well I am sorry, Bill, but I got this news from so and so..." And the next day they dropped us. To this day I have no idea what the hell happened there, really. 

Have you ever interviewed Mace Neufeld? He's sort of retired, but he became a major executive at one of the studios. He was my friend, my manager, my partner, going back to Dana and Wood days, but we're not really pals anymore.

Kliph Nesteroff: The story Pete Barbutti told me was that the United Network - the main investors were Texas oilmen and they intended for your show and the whole network to fail so they could use it as some kind of tax write-off.

Bill Dana: Yeah, that's what we heard. There was also some church element to it too. It was such a devastating blow. And the show was coming along so well. And I was just sort of learning as we went along and I had never been the focus of that sort of a show before. I was well-known, obviously, but it wasn't...

Kliph Nesteroff: There were a lot of comedians on the show.

Bill Dana: Oh, yes, we had a lot of people on there that did their first real television - people like John Wayne. I remember I picked him up at the airport myself.

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

Bill Dana: Yes, it was good.

Kliph Nesteroff: Jackie Gayle was a regular on the show.

Bill Dana: Was he a regular? I know he was on it, but I knew him from a whole other world. To me he's in a different category. He was part of the gang hanging out in front of Lindy's, that type of a guy. But he was very funny and a nice enough guy. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Close with Lenny Bruce. 

Bill Dana: Yes, very much so and Lenny Bruce's mother. Is she still alive?

Kliph Nesteroff: No, I think Sally Marr passed away around five years ago.

Bill Dana: We used to call her Bootsie, but I don't know why. She was wonderful. She was a terrific judge of who was bullshitting and who wasn't. A very lovely lady.

Kliph Nesteroff: One of the other people that was a regular on the Las Vegas Show was Cully Richards.

Bill Dana: Yes. Cully was an old school guy. I probably met him when we took over the theater from the dreaded Jerry Lewis. But that's all for today, Kliph. I must rest.