An Interview with Pat Carroll - Part Three

Pat Carroll:  Martha Raye was one of the great lady comics. Yet, the thing that impressed me about her - she was such a great singer. Was it Nat Hiken when she had her own television show?

Kliph Nesteroff: Yeah.

Pat Carroll: No matter what the sketches were or how wild they were, he always had her sing one ballad in a slit skirt, looking like gangbusters. She had great legs and she had great pipes and she could sing a ballad to make you cry. She could play a sketch where you would laugh until you cried. What a great performer Martha Raye was.

Kliph Nesteroff: When you first came on the scene you were constantly compared to her.

Pat Carroll: Was I?

Kliph Nesteroff: Yes, Martha Ray-esque.

Pat Carroll: I didn't know that. That thrills me to pieces.

Kliph Nesteroff: You did a Doris Day movie that happened to be George Carlin's film debut.

Pat Carroll: With Six You Get Eggroll. My cohort from the Sid Caesar days, Howie Morris, directed me in that. It was Doris' last film. I was on the set with George Carlin and I think I had run into him elsewhere. He was always very cordial and a very funny man. Didn't he have gorgeous success in his life? I love the fact that young people dug him so much. He was a God to them. A God to them! He spoke the truth from heaven as far as they were concerned and I was very thrilled for him. Because I thought he deserved his success, highly.

Kliph Nesteroff: How about producer Ernie Glucksman...

Pat Carroll: Now did I work with him at Tamiment also, if I'm not mistaken? Ernie was involved in some early stuff I did. He was like the movie idea of what a producer is. He always made me laugh. As a producer he made me laugh. He always had something very cogent to say about what was going on.

Kliph Nesteroff: You did Jack Paar's show several times...

Pat Carroll: Dear, nervous Jack Paar (laughs). I've never seen anybody so nervous before going out to do a performance. I don't understand how the man had such success because he must have gone home and taken powders and all kinds of nostrums because you can't be that nervous and continue to live healthily. But he did work hard. And he made a lot of mistakes.

And he was a bumbler and I'm sure he said things he had not fully thought through. But the man caught the imagination of the television public. That's all you've got to have with that camera on you is that ingredient. I think he absolutely mesmerized them because they never knew what he would come up with. That in itself is a talent.

Kliph Nesteroff: Sid Melton.

Pat Carroll: Oh, my darling Sid Melton! That was another nervous nellie, God bless him. He had done The Danny Thomas Show long before I ever appeared on the scene. He was a nervous wreck! I practically had to hold his hand and pat his brow.

He'd go on and you'd think nothing was wrong. But he was so nervous. If I had been like him in anyway you would have heard chattering teeth, that's just how nervous he was. But he was fun and he was a good actor and he knew exactly what his place was and played that to the nth degree. He was a wonderful companion. He really was. I always got a kick out of Sid.

Kliph Nesteroff: The Danny Thomas Show aside, you worked with Sid Melton in a production of Come On and Play at the Ivar Theater in 1954...

Pat Caroll: Yes (laughs). He was just as nervous then! Ha ha! That's all I can think of about Sid! I just think of him quaking before he had to go on. I used to think, "You should never have got into this business!"

Oh my God, what a nervous nellie. He'd get onstage and you would never know that existed. Sid, God bless him. I loved old Sid. He was a dear heart, a wonderful companion and despite his nervousness he belonged in this profession.

Kliph Nesteroff: He was so prolific.

Pat Carroll: Oh, yeah, he was in everything! Films, old television shows... everytime he was in a film you'd go, "Oh, that's Sid Melton!" He had an amazing, long career and can you imagine - he was nervous all that time!

Kliph Nesteroff: How about Jack Carter?

Pat Carroll: Jack Carter, now there was sharp fella. He came from another school of this profession. He tickled me because he was so showbiz. He was real showbiz. You know? But a very clever performer.

Kliph Nesteroff: How about all of those Village nightclubs and Uptown Cabarets you played. Those were the only real nightclubs that seemed to book, with the exception of Jean Carroll, to book female comedians. A lot of them. The majority of the female comics were doing the Village Vanguard, the Blue Angel, the Bon Soir...

Pat Carroll: That's right.

Kliph Nesteroff: Yourself, Imogene Coca...

Pat Carroll: The Bon Soir is the place that I never worked. I think you're absolutely right about that and, except for Martha Raye, I don't think we had many in the professional field until Lucy came along and made the whole career of "comedienne" okay. You no longer had to be an ugly girl to be a comic. She made it possible for any young woman to do comedy anywhere. You know, when I was doing The Danny Thomas Show we were on the same lot where she and Desi did the Lucy show.

Lucille Ball used to come to my dressing room out of sentiment and I got to talk to her. We talked about her early days at MGM. She said, "I am doing work today that I was taught to do by Rags Ragland and Buster Keaton." MGM kept them under contract and they taught comedy classes to the young contract players, Lucy being one.

She said, "They used to give us a prop to take home with us and study every part of it, get so familiar with it, we could throw it in the air, catch it and do anything we want. That has helped me so much." I keep thinking of her using stilts in her show and how adept she was with any kind of prop.

It was because those men taught her the familiarity you have to have with a physical prop. How wonderful of her to give the credit was due. She was a very generous woman that way. How smart of MGM to have those two brilliant men of comedy and both different, very different in their approaches, teach the young players about comedy.

Kliph Nesteroff: What kind of crowd came to see the show at the Village Vanguard and the Blue Angel?

Pat Carroll: The Village Vanguard also appealed to that Village crowd and the Blue Angel appealed to the black tie crowd, because it was the place to go after dinner. But saloons are all very similar no matter what they are because they exist for two things: sex and booze - possibly entertainment. We were third on the list. Ha ha!

So when you get up to perform your act, whatever it is, you have those three bugaboos to fight immediately. I was never really that comfortable doing that work. It was nothing I was ever that interested in, but it was how I was making a living - so I was grateful to have the work. I think I had some talent and some entertaining material and I did my best, but I didn't like that atmosphere.

Kliph Nesteroff: Some of the other women that were in that same atmosphere at that time were Betty and Jane Kean...

Pat Carroll: Oh, well, those ladies for golly sake, they were showbiz kids! To see them at the Latin Quarter or wherever it was - they were a wonderful act. Jane would be the glamor girl and Betty would do the comedy and then they'd switch roles.

Yes, they were just wonderfully entertaining. I saw Jane shortly before she died and she was still the same gal, still happy to be in this profession. They grew up in it, worked in it, and were very successful and they were good.

Kliph Nesteroff: Another who was part of that scene was Connie Sawyer.

Pat Carroll: Oh my God, Connie Sawyer is in her nineties today, Kliph. I saw her this past year and she's in the actor's home. She's ninety-three or ninety-six and she's still driving.

Kliph Nesteroff: She actually just turned a hundred and one.

Pat Carroll: Oh, I will send flowers to the actor's home. Oh my God, she made it. She still goes on auditions, can you believe it? She is adorable. She cusses like a trouper. The first year I was in New York I couldn't afford to go back to Los Angeles for Thanksgiving. I had met Connie at one of the rooms. She heard I couldn't get home and she invited me to her home in Connecticut for Thanksgiving. Now is that adorable? I had a wonderful time! I never forgot Connie for that. How out-of-the-way generous. I never saw her perform that much so I never had an estimate of how she did, but she was so thrilled to be in this profession and it was a joy to be around her.

Kliph Nesteroff: I spoke with Jack Carter and he said that what Imogene Coca had been for Sid Caesar,  Connie Sawyer had been to Jack Carter.

Pat Carroll: Oh, I didn't know that. How wonderful. I bet they worked together great. These people were wonderful. She is a funny lady. A funny lady. She tickles and delights me. My daughter met her recently for some reason and she just fell in love with her. She said, "That Connie is something special." Oh, thank you for telling me about her birthday, Kliph. I shall salute her with joy. She deserves it.

Kliph Nesteroff: You did a television version of Cinderella with Walter Pidgeon and Ginger Rogers.

Pat Carroll: (laughs) Ha ha! That's right, that's right. I played one of the ugly step sisters, the one with the creaky knees. Doing that Cinderella was wonderful. Lesley Anne Warren was eighteen years old. Richard Rodgers would run to the Farmer's Market at two o'clock in the morning to get some special thing she loved. She was enchanting. Celeste Holm was there and Ginger Rogers and Walter Pidgeon who were darling.

Oh my God, they were so dear! It came the wedding scene with the horses and the horses misbehaved. Our director came on the squawk box and said, "Everybody take five. Get the prop man and let's clean this up." So we all waited five minutes and then again on the squawk box, "Could somebody please get Joe and we'll clean this up so we can get on with the session!" Finally, Joe comes on set with the shovel and he stands there looking at this devastation. Finally the director says, "Joe, what is the problem?" He said, "Well, until it stops steaming it belongs to special effects." Ha ha! Ha ha!

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

Pat Carroll: Oh my God, we couldn't get back to taping for another fifteen minutes, people were falling down laughing! Is that hysterical? Until it stops steaming (laughs). I've never forgotten that. This was at two o'clock in the morning. They made it like a film so we ran into dreadful hours. But it was a delightful experience and Barbara Ruick was the other step sister. They used to call us Thelma Todd and Marie Dressler.

That's the way we were called to come to the set for a session. "Would Marie Dressler and Thelma Todd please report!" Where they got that I don't know, but we were Marie Dressler and Thelma Todd! Ha ha! What a darling girl she was. She was married to John Williams and she died on location. She was shooting a film, she was late for call, and they found her dead. She had a heart attack. It was so tragic.

Kliph Nesteroff: Someone else who died while performing was Dick Shawn. And you had some kind of connection with him.

Pat Carroll: Talking about Tamiment, Dick Shawn was the most electric, young entertainer I think I had ever seen. He was absolutely electric. He was a tall, handsome, virile, young man. He'd come onstage and the women would just swoon with laughter. He was a wonderful entertainer. I don't think of him as a comic, I think of him as an entertainer. He used to do a routine called Massa Richard. "I think I see Massa Richard comin' down the road!"

And one night, I don't know what got into me, but I knew he was going to do Massa Richard so I had props get me guns and I had three guns and rifles and I came down the aisle. The audience started to laugh and Dick didn't know what was happening. Dick finally caught on. He said, "Oh my God! Massa Richard is here." Well, I didn't know what to do because now I had to keep going! (laughs) But he turned it into hysteria. Of course, I was just doing it to annoy him.

He turned it into brilliant comedy and I became speechless standing there with guns all over me and I thought, "This young man is a genius." I just did it as a joke and he turned it into a brilliant bit. I also saw his turn at the Palace as an opener for Judy Garland. He had those people in the palm of his hand. He was a tough act for Ms. Garland to follow. The next day in Variety there were like five columns on Dick Shawn.

He was just - I don't know what happened to Dick's career. I thought, "This is the next Jolson. This man is the next Jolson. He is overwhelming as an entertainer." Somehow, whether it was bad advice from agents or whatever, his movie career never really happened for him the way it should have. I don't think films could have captured him. You had to see him live. You had to see this dynamo live to capture his brilliance. He was just magnificent, Kliph. I wish you could have seen him. He was such an entertainer and a sheer triumph at the Garland show. Sheer triumph at the Palace.

Kliph Nesteroff: That's remarkable.

Pat Carroll: It was. It was remarkable and what made me so sick was that the rest of his career was not remarkable. He had those qualities and it should have happened for him. Somewhere along the line someone gave him bad advice.

Kliph Nesteroff: I don't know if you'll remember this... it's a motion picture that was maybe never even released. It is the lost, unknown comedy film of the sixties. From 1967 - a film called Silent Treatment written and produced by a guy named Ralph Andrews. It was a feature-length, silent, slapstick film done in color...

Pat Carroll: Oh, yes! I remember that!

Kliph Nesteroff: It featured every comedian in the business.

Pat Carroll: Yes, because we had all worked for Ralph on You Don't Say or one of the game shows he produced and owned that made him a very rich man. Everybody worked for him. We all appeared on those shows and he had everybody in that film. Was it ever released?

Kliph Nesteroff: Well, I've never seen it...

Pat Carroll: And I certainly have not... I bet you it was just never released. Who is all in it?

Kliph Nesteroff: It stars Pat Carroll, Rod Serling, Rowan and Martin, Phyllis Diller, Richard Deacon, Godfrey Cambridge, Wally Cox, Marty Ingels, Mickey Manners, Cliff Arquette, Les Crane, Carl Ballantine, Nick Adams, Rose Marie, Doodles Weaver, Paul Lynde, Milton Berle, Jerry Lewis...

Pat Carroll: Look at that! Look. At. That. That is everybody!

Kliph Nesteroff: Jackie Coogan, George Raft, Gene Autry, Rudy Vallee, Forrest Tucker... It's like a bizarro version of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World...

Pat Carroll: Only it didn't get released! Ha ha!

Lenny Bruce addresses the UCLA Student Body (1966)

The David Frost Show with guests Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards (1970)

The David Frost Show with guest Buddy Grecco (1970)

The David Frost Show with guest Lulu (1969)

Here's Hollywood with guest Don Defore (1962)

Jack Benny Addresses the UCLA Student Body (1973)

The General Electric Theater with special guest stars Groucho Marx and Dennis Hopper (1962)

The Late Show with guest host Mel Brooks (1987)

The Garry Moore Show - Christmas Episode with guest Norm Crosby (1963)

Laugh-In - Christmas Episode (1968)

Pat Boone in Hollywood (1968)

The Object Is with Dick Clark and Stubby Kaye (1964)

The Desilu Playhouse with special guest star William Bendix, Martin Balsam and Jesse White (1958)

Fireside Theater with special guest star William Bendix (1955)

The Garry Moore Show with guests Tony Martin and Frank Fontaine (1961)

The Garry Moore Show with guest Nat King Cole (1961)

The Florence Manson Show with guest Louis Armstrong (1958)

The Garry Moore Show with guests Bob Newhart, Julie London and Robert Goulet (1961)

Gunsmoke - Christmas Episode (1971)

The Schlitz Playhouse with special guest stars William Schallert and William Bendix (1956)

The Garry Moore Show with guests Tony Randall and Patti Page (1960)

Oh My Word with Jim Lange, Sal Mineo and Buddy Grecco (1965)

The Garry Moore Show with guest George Gobel (1961)

George Carlin addresses UCLA student body (1972)

The Garry Moore Show with guests Bill Dana and Peter Lawford (1960)

The Steve Allen Show with guest Jack Kerouac and William Bendix (1959)

The Jack Paar Show (1954)

The Dick Cavett Show with guest Jack Benny (1971)

Different footage than the episode you're familiar with.

The Bob Hope presents the Chrysler Theater with guest Groucho Marx (1964)

Hullabaloo - Christmas Episode - starring Jerry Lewis (1965)

The George Burns Show with guests Jack Benny, Bobby Darin, Betty Grable and Polly Bergen (1960)

An Interview with Frankie Man - Part Two

Kliph Nesteroff: When did you first meet Lenny Bruce?

Frankie Man: Boy, I met him when I was eighteen years old. Many, many years ago. He was just doing club dates. He did impressions. I take credit for turning him into a hipper person along with Joe Ancis. I was funny offstage and onstage, so I had one up on Joe. I hipped Lenny to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. We became good friends.

I teamed up with Jack Eagle and Lenny came to see our act. He thought it was great. He said, "Boy, you guys are unbelievable. Stay in the business long enough and you'll become stars." When he became big I wanted to see him when he was playing New York. He said, "No, I don't give out any free passes. I know too many people. I wouldn't get a salary if I did that because I take the door." That was a pretty common thing. When you became famous then all your friends wanna come see you for nothing. 

I was a musician up in the Catskills. I was the leader of the showband at the Raleigh Hotel in South Fallsburg. Buddy Hackett would come and do his act. Then I would go over to the Concord with him and Alan King. Everyone would hang out at the swimming pool. I'd show up all dressed in a nice tie. Buddy Hackett used to call me, "The Little Man." "Here comes the Little Man in his tie. Isn't he cute?"

My real name is Frank Schreiber - and Buddy Hackett changed it to Frank Man from always calling me "The Little Man." I was like his mascot. We had a secret handshake. The cops stopped him once. They searched him, patted him down. He took a package out of his coat pocket and said, "Officer, would you do me a favor and hold this?" It had his pot in it! The cop never knew it, gave it back to him, and let him drive away. 

I told Buddy that I was starting to do an act and was in need of material. He said, "Anything of mine you do will not affect my career. You're going to be doing a lot of small joints when you start out." So he gave me the Chinese Waiter and a couple other things. I pieced it together with my "trumpet impressions." I can imitate almost any famous trumpet player on my trumpet and sound exactly like them.

Clyde McCoy, Henry Busse, Harry James, Al Hirt... my favorite was doing Satchmo Louis Armstrong because I could play, sing and sound exactly like him. So that was my act. I was looking for a job and Buddy told me, "You need an agent. Go see Billy Claire in New York City and tell him I sent you." I went and saw him. He said, "Buddy Hackett sent you? Okay, where are you working?"

I said, "I'm not working. I'm looking for a job." He said, "Well, if you're not working I can't see you, so how can I book you? Come back when you're working somewhere." Couple weeks later I was working at the Boulevard in Queens in what was like a society band and I was playing trumpet. All of a sudden it was Friday night and the comedian didn't show up. His name was Frankie Keenan.

Frankie Keenan got drunk, got in an accident and didn't show up. They all said, "Well, put Frankie Man on while the audience is waiting!" So they introduced me from the orchestra and I did about forty minutes. It went over terrific! The boss said, "I want to hire you for tomorrow night." I hired a trumpet player to replace me so this time I could enter from behind the curtain - like a big star! (laughs)

On Monday I went in to see Billy Claire and he said, "Oh, you again? Where you working?" I said, "I just closed the show at the Boulevard." He said, "The Boulevard!?" It was like the Queens version of the Copa. He said, "Well, I can get you a lot of work!" And he did get me a lot of work. I never went back to being a musician again. That's how I became a comedian.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was the Boulevard like? I had heard it was owned by Morris Levy.

Frankie Man: Could be, could be. When we worked the 500 Club in Atlantic City, that was supposedly Mafia owned.

Kliph Nesteroff: Skinny D'Amato.

Frankie Man: Skinny D'Amato. I did it as Eagle and Man. Jack Eagle and I. We worked with Nat King Cole... it was the only time we worked with him. We didn't know that when you work with a star you're supposed to do fifteen minutes. We didn't know.

We opened for him and we went out and did our hour! Nobody said anything until later. Then they told us they were replacing us with a comedy team called Allen and DeWood. That was the end of our experience with Nat King Cole. We were new. We didn't know. 

We would end the act playing the Saints Go Marching In. Both playing the trumpet, we'd march through the audience and go out the back door and march back in through the front door. It was a smash. So we did that with Nat King Cole and his people weren't too happy about it. Okay. So now we're on The Ed Sullivan Show. Bob Leslie was part of a comedy team called the Leslie Brothers and they were the hottest team before Martin and Lewis. They were the hottest thing in the Catskills.

They were a tummel team long before Martin and Lewis and just as funny. They'd get up in the morning and put on their tuxedos because they'd always get a call immediately to do a club date. That's how busy they were. When they broke up, Bob Leslie became a good friend of mine and he was writing material for us. He'd make suggestions. He told us to do the Saints Go Marching In and walk through the audience on Ed Sullivan.

Our manager at that time was Willie Weber who managed Don Rickles, Henny Youngman, Phil Foster, you name it. Willie Weber would say, "I made all these big stars!" And he'd show you pictures of Phil Foster, Gene Baylos, Sonny Sands, Jackie Mason - all these people are up on the wall. When I was getting ready to sign the contract with him I looked up at the photos on the wall and they were all looking back shaking their heads at me, "No. No. Don't do it. No."

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

Frankie Man: Anyway, we were on The Ed Sullivan Show and we had this thing where Jack Eagle dressed in Bermuda shorts and I dressed in a tuxedo. I said something about them and he says, "They're not Bermuda shorts!" I say, "What are they?" He says, "They're Kosher kilts!" They told us, "You have to cut that line from your act. It's too dirty."

Kosher is too dirty (laughs). They made it like we were talking about circumcising pants. So we were at dress rehearsal and Jack had this big trunk where he takes out different hats. One was like Napoleon and he put his hand in his vest and says, "Oh, have I got heartburn." Ed Sullivan came over while we were rehearsing. He said, "Wait you guys. Put that heartburn in the beginning. Take the other bit and put it here and the other bit here." Jack said, "Mr. Sullivan, we have it all rehearsed for a certain sequence and one is supposed to follow the other." Sullivan looked us and said, "What are you guys? Actor's Studio?"

So we had to change it. Willie Weber said, "Forget about what Bob Leslie told you. You can't march through the audience on a television show! They're not going to turn the cameras around for you!" So we cut out our closing, which hurt us. Of course they can turn the cameras around. I think Marty Allen and Mitch DeWood did it, where they turned the cameras around.

Kliph Nesteroff: And they always had cameras on the crowd anyway for when Sullivan asked a celebrity to stand up and take a bow. When did you first meet Joe Ancis?

Frankie Man: Joe Ancis went one way and I went another way and we didn't actually meet. I didn't ever see him at the B&G or Hanson's.

Kliph Nesteroff: Everybody credits Joe Ancis with hipping Lenny Bruce to smoking pot and listening to jazz. You're saying that you were just as much an influence on Lenny Bruce...

Frankie Man: I certainly had quite a bit of influence on him.

Kliph Nesteroff: Who else was part of that circle? You mentioned Buddy Hackett, Lenny Bruce..

Frankie Man: Marvin Worth. He went on to produce Lenny and The Rose with Bette Midler. Buddy Hackett got him in with us because he didn't actually have that much talent. He was kind of like a follower. I don't think he ever said anything funny. He had terrible breath.

You had to stay away from him a little bit, but Buddy got him into Hollywood somehow. He wasn't a stand-up comic, he was just a friend of Buddy's and he'd hang around with us and smoke pot. It was me, Lenny, Buddy, Marvin Worth and Bob Leslie in that clique. Bob Leslie wrote for Alan King.

He wrote him several bits, but Bob's problem was he was an alcoholic. But he could stay up and write all those Garry Moore shots for Alan King. Bob Leslie changed Alan King's image even to the point of the cigar and putting the fingers in the vest and walking around with a tough voice. Bob wrote him things about health foods. "You go to a health food restaurant and yell out, 'Hey, waiter!' and he brings it."

Kliph Nesteroff: Alan King started out doing a record act, but Jack Carter told me that his initial stand-up was just a bunch of old Sam Levenson routines.

Frankie Man: Well, Bob Leslie changed his image. Took him away from wife jokes to attacking different situations. He once said to Alan, "You know, it's Christmastime coming round. I know you're paying me $750 for each bit, but is there anyway you can give me a little raise so I can get something extra for the kids?" Alan said, "I'll get another writer."

So that was that. Bob went out and got drunk. So I always had it in for Alan King because of that. "I'll get another writer." Alan King also had a drinking problem. My God. It wasn't a problem for him. Before the show he would down a pint of scotch and never seem drunk until after the show. Nobody ever knew he drank.

Kliph Nesteroff: What about Jack Roy... the original Rodney Dangerfield.

Frankie Man: Jack Roy, yeah, he didn't make it with that. He had a little guy that was managing him named Roy Duke. Somehow they figured he should change his name to Rodney Dangerfield. I always told Roy Duke that he could be famous if he changed his. "Change your name to Donald - then you'll be Donald Duke!" But he never did - and Rodney got rid of him.

Roy Duke was with Rodney all the way in the beginning, driving him everywhere and doing everything nice for him and then when he became a bigger star he left him for a bigger agent. We weren't pals, but we knew each other. I lived across the street from him at 110 W. 86th Street. I would see him at night sometimes after my club date and we would just bullshit.

Kliph Nesteroff: How about Jackie Mason?

Frankie Man: I've been imitating Jackie Mason for close to forty years. I was probably one of the first people that imitated him. Now everybody and his brother does a bad impression of Jackie Mason. The agents wanted Jackie Mason to get speech lessons when he started out. Bob Leslie talked him out of it. He said, "Keep the accent. That's going to help make you. When you have a voice people can imitate, it will help make you famous."

I was in a taxi cab. The cab driver told me, "I meet so many famous people in this cab. I met Morey Amsterdam. I met Henny Youngman." I'm talking to him and I start talking like Jackie Mason, "Well, I'll have you know I'm a very famous comedian and you don't even know who I am." So, I thought I'd trick him into saying I'm Jackie Mason. I say to him, "So, who do you think I am?" The cab driver said, "You're the one who plays the trumpet and works with that fat guy."

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you get along with Jackie Mason?

Frankie Man: Well, he came to my place in the Grove. We were casual friends. He knew that I imitated him. I even quote him in my bio. He once said, "Frankie looks more like me than I do." Ginger Reiter, the mother of Sheba Mason, called me up. They had been together a long time. She said, "Sheba is seven years old and Jackie won't help her. I have to go to court to get the alimony. He just doesn't want to help her in any way. Can you possibly put Sheba into your act? She wants to sing, act, dance and be in show business. Not the Fountainbleu or the Diplomat. Just some small shows you do."

So I coached her and we figured out fifteen minutes for Jackie Mason's daughter. You know, he had this daughter he wouldn't acknowledge. This was in all the papers, by the way. 

I would introduce her and say, "Sheba, a lot of people are wondering - are you really Jackie Mason's daughter?" She would say, [in Jackie Mason voice], "To tell you the truth - with a face like this - who else could I be?" Which got a cute laugh.

Kliph Nesteroff: July 1956, your comedy team Eagle and Man played the Gatineau Club outside Ottawa with the Hamp-Tones.

Frankie Man: Yes and we did the Cave in Vancouver. When we were there Oscar Peterson came to see our show. We went to say hello and he told us the only reason he came in was because he saw the marquee and thought we were a bird act.

Kliph Nesteroff: You knew the comedian Jackie Vernon...

Frankie Man: Jackie Vernon was originally a Jack E. Leonard type of comedian. He would attack the audience. He was a rough guy. I once fought with him, naturally. Danny Davis was a pretty good mimic and a pretty good comedy writer who used to hang out at Hanson's, but when he got onstage he wasn't funny.

He could only write funny stuff for other people. "You want fifty jokes or a hundred?" I remember one day he shaved his head and he looked like Yul Brynner. Anyway, he wrote this act for Jackie Vernon where he comes out and says, "You'd never know by looking at me that I used to be a real dull guy."

Vernon went from being like a Jack E. Leonard imitator to being a dull guy. And that became his act. I only saw him after he changed his act. I saw him at the Playboy Clubs. He did the Playboy circuit and so did Eagle and Man. There were about six that we would do. We'd go from one to the other to the other. I saw him do the dull guy and I told him, "You know, you're not going over." He said, "I know, but I'm sticking with this character. I'm going to make it with this character. You'll see."

He bombed, he bombed, he bombed, he bombed. Now, he was working - it could have been the Cave in Vancouver - and Steve Allen was in the audience. Steve was in town rehearsing for some show. They were sitting way in the back at the Cave and they were the only people there for the second show. Jackie Vernon came on stage and his opening line was, "Y'know, you'd never think it from looking at me that I was ever a dull guy." Steve fell off his chair! He thought that was so funny that he booked him on his show and that changed Jackie Vernon's career. He made it. I never thought he would ever go anywhere.

Kliph Nesteroff: You played the Elmwood Casino in Windsor, Ontario.

Frankie Man: Oh, yeah, we always played that. That was a big thing for us. It had a line of girls. When I was there I was going with one of the chorus girls and she was the emcee's girlfriend, but we were making it together and he didn't know. One night I was up in her room and there was a knock on the door. He says, "It's me. It's Jimmy. Hey, it's me! Sue! Didn't you hear! There's a fire downstairs!" I laughed. I said, "There's no fire, Sue. It's a trick." Pretty soon we see smoke. It's a real fire!

So I ran down with my trumpet and started playing I Don't Wanna Set the World on Fire. They took a picture of me with all the firemen around. 

Kliph Nesteroff: Let's get back to Lenny Bruce...

Frankie Man: I once got a call from Sally Marr. She said, "I recommended you to do the voice of Lenny Bruce. Can you send me a tape of you doing Lenny?" I sent her a tape and she played it for Steve Allen and Pat McCormick. They said, "Boy, Sally. Your son was really funny." She says, "That's not my son." They said, "What do you mean he isn't your son?"

I did the prison break or one of those routines and it sounded exactly like him. It's one of my best impressions. She told them, "It's Frankie Man - the Little Man. He does Lenny." They were going to do this show - Lenny Bruce Returns - with Jackie Gayle, Pat McCormick and some other people. They hired me to do the voice of Lenny Bruce. They wrote this story where Lenny Bruce comes back and he's in a taxi cab. Pat McCormick is the taxi driver. They were filming this and the cops pulled over the shoot because they didn't have a permit. I was in the back and in Lenny's voice I go, "Lookit this! I've been dead four years and they're still busting me!" It was for television and they paid me well.

Kliph Nesteroff: Do you remember the last time you saw Lenny Bruce?

Frankie Man: Yeah, it was in New York at the trial. Dorothy Kilgallen was on the stand and they asked her, "Where do you think the social comment is in shtupping a chicken?" That was the last time I saw Lenny.

Kliph Nesteroff: Did you and Lenny remain close?

Frankie Man: Whenever I was in town I would see him. We'd hang out or go to his room. He wanted me to try dilaudid. I said, "No, I don't use it." He said, "No, man, you just skimp off it." I said, "I'm not going to skimp off it! Give me a couple pills and I'll take em." I took a couple pills and went to sleep and that was it.

If I had taken a hit, I might have become addicted because whenever a new pill came out, I would try it, whether it was DMT or STP or LSD. But I never really got hooked on anything even though I smoked for about fifty years. Then I went to NA and I was clean for fifteen. Then I went off for a couple months and found it wasn't doing it for me either. So I went to NA again and I got two years clean coming up. I don't drink or do any drugs. I live a healthy life now and play tennis four times a week. I'll be ninety soon.