My Lucky Life In And Out Of Show Busines Part 6

"Who's her agent?" Rosie asked.

"Never mind her agent," Morey said. "Who's her lawyer?"

Even when I tried to be serious, I failed. I used to say that I was getting paid to play. I often went into the set on Sat.u.r.days to work out little bits. I couldn't turn my brain off, that's how much fun I was having on the show. Take the episode "Where Did I Come From." One of my favorites, it opens with six-year-old Ritchie looking through his baby alb.u.m while Laura and Rob sit on the sofa. After commenting on a photo, he asks where he came from.

Mary and I, as Laura and Rob, exchange one of those frightened looks that is familiar to parents caught off guard.

"Wha-wha-what did you say, Ritchie?" Rob stammers.

He repeats the question and Rob says there's not enough time to explain such a complicated thing. Then he turns to Laura and asks when she she will have time to explain it to Ritchie. Unwilling to let her husband off the hook, she says there is still a half hour before bedtime, which sends Rob scrambling for Dr. Spock's child-rearing book. Something akin to that moment had actually happened to me at home, where Dr. Spock was our top and only authority. Our copy of his book was dog-eared in a hundred places. will have time to explain it to Ritchie. Unwilling to let her husband off the hook, she says there is still a half hour before bedtime, which sends Rob scrambling for Dr. Spock's child-rearing book. Something akin to that moment had actually happened to me at home, where Dr. Spock was our top and only authority. Our copy of his book was dog-eared in a hundred places.

"Rich, where do you you think you came from?" Rob asks. think you came from?" Rob asks.

"Same place that Grandpa Helper came from," he says. "New Jersey."

Realizing Ritchie is not ready for Dr. Spock, and in fact isn't ready for the kind of specifics he feared, Rob says, "You didn't come from New Jersey. You come from New York. Don't you remember that?"

That line helps send the rest of the show into a wonderful series of flashbacks and reminiscences about the twenty-four hours leading up to Ritchie's birth. It was all about being a nervous husband, something I had recently gone through with Carrie Beth's birth, by the way, and something that came naturally to me. The show developed during rehearsals, where we all took a simple idea and kept adding to it until it was jam-packed with the most delicious comedy bits.

After this whirlwind, it concludes with Ritchie asking his mom if she liked that story. She nods yes.

"Better than Black Beauty Black Beauty?" he asks.

"Yes, better than Black Beauty Black Beauty," she agrees.

In November, about a month after Carrie Beth was born, we had our own h.e.l.l's a poppin'-or rather, h.e.l.l's a burnin'-adventure: the Bel Air fire.

One day Margie looked up from the front yard and all of a sudden she called me to come see, to hurry and confirm the mind-boggling sight of flames shooting up across the horizon. If devils wore top hats, we were seeing the tips of them dancing up and down behind the not-too-distant mountains.

Within no time, the flames began to march over the hill and we had to evacuate. Police cars drove up the street, ordering residents to leave. We packed up quickly and I took the whole family to the studio. At night, we checked into a motel and stayed there for a couple of days.

The fire burned some houses along our street but skipped ours. During the next rain, though, the hillside above us slid down into our pool. I needed to have the entire hillside replanted and reinforced.

For about a week, all any of us talked about at work was the fire. It prompted everyone on the cast to talk about various disasters they had been in throughout their lives, which let Morey tell about a thousand new jokes on marriage. I talked about some of my days in the service, my various car problems, and of course the numerous tornado warnings I had experienced growing up in the Midwest, which also led me to share some stories about my younger brother, Jerry.

"The hardest I've ever laughed," I told people, "was one time when Jerry and I had jobs as surveyors."

"A summer job?" someone asked.

"No, it was winter," I explained. "I was seventeen, and Jerry was twelve. We were out in a field. There was snow up to our knees. And it was freezing cold-below freezing, actually. We were trying to take measurements and he said something funny and we started to laugh. Except our faces were frozen stiff. We couldn't laugh. We could see it beneath the surface, but we couldn't get it out. If you look at someone who's trying to laugh but can't, it's even funnier. As we stared at each other, we laughed even harder. We were dying."

My brother, who had been funny his whole life, had gotten into show business, too. He and my parents had driven out to California (and camped the whole way) when I was doing the Merry Mutes act. They saw Phil and me perform at the Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica. Impressed that I was making a living-such as it was-lip-syncing to records, Jerry went home, got himself a partner, and started doing our act, pantomiming to songs.

When he went into the Air Force, Jerry got into Tops in Blue, a comedy-variety show that traveled from base to base. He swiped material from d.i.c.k Shawn's act, including a piece called "Ma.s.sa Richard," which he performed better than d.i.c.k. He also incorporated jokes from other comics. In those days, no one could check.

Gradually, he included his own material. When I first saw him, I thought, My G.o.d, he's got the timing! If you don't have that talent, you can't do stand-up. But my brother had it, and he began working some of the Playboy clubs, which put him on the map. Dan Rowan and d.i.c.k Martin took him on the road with them. Later he opened for Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.

He had just turned thirty the summer I began doing The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show, and Carl heard me tell stories about Jerry's antics, from punching the high-school dean to his skill playing the four-string banjo.

One day after the Bel Air fire, a bunch of us were telling stories around the table and I mentioned that my brother had been a longtime sleepwalker. It had lasted until he was in his late teens.

"He'd just get up out of bed and leave," I said, getting up from the table myself and acting out the way Jerry used to walk through the house as he slept. "We had to go get him one night. Some people called from across town. He had walked there in his pajamas."

Rosie, Morey, and the others were incredulous.

"One night I caught him going out the door with our dad's golf clubs," I said. "He had the bag over his shoulder. I asked where he was going and he said, 'To play golf.'"

"Did he know what he was doing?" Carl asked.

"Yes, that was the strange thing," I said. "Growing up, we slept in the same bedroom, and I'd say, 'Jerry.' He'd say, 'I know. I'm asleep. Just give me a few minutes.' Then he continued walking around the house. He almost got thrown out of the Air Force because he still walked in his sleep."

Carl, who was always listening to, adapting, and incorporating our real-life stories into the show, caught Jerry's act in Las Vegas, thought he was as funny as I had said, and wrote a two-part episode based on the stories I'd told about Jerry being a sleepwalker and nearly getting thrown out of the service because of it. Once again, Carl amazed me with his finely tuned ear and creativity.

Jerry was excited about being on a network show. It was a break for him, and he hoped it might lead to something else, something bigger, as did I. He did gain more recognition, and we had a good time working together, the first time we'd done so on camera.

By the time the two-parter aired at the end of March 1962, though, it seemed as if there might not be another chance. Worse, it appeared that I would have to go looking for another job myself. CBS canceled the show. Sheldon delivered the news on the set. It was a ratings issue, he explained. Despite good reviews and a whole season of thirty-nine episodes to prove ourselves, we lost the ratings war each week to our more popular time-slot compet.i.tion, The Perry Como Show The Perry Como Show. In short, we didn't find an audience.

"Or they didn't find us," someone said, voicing a frequent complaint that we didn't receive enough promotion from the network.

As the Six-Foot Tower of Jell-O, I didn't see the point in complaining. The facts were the facts, and the network had made its decision. I felt sick. The whole lot of us was practically suicidal. We knew we had something good and we didn't want it to end prematurely. I glanced around the set. It felt like a foreclosure, like we were being wrongly booted from our home. It seemed like such a tragic error in judgment.

The show aside, I was personally devastated. We had just moved across country, bought a house, and had a fourth child. I had recently signed on to do the movie version of Bye Bye Birdie Bye Bye Birdie. My salary would hold us for about a year. But then what?

12.

BUSINESS AS USUAL.

It was spring on the bustling studio's back lot, and I was involved in a rehearsal of the big Conrad Birdie number when my limbs suddenly stiffened. My knees locked and my feet hesitated when normally they flew on automatic pilot. The problem was temporary, though. After a moment, I regained my rhythm and my arms and legs returned to their rubbery precision. The reason for the freeze? Fred Astaire.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the legendary dancer watching the run-through. He was in the back, concealed in the gray shadows beyond the lights, but he was unmistakable.

As soon as we took a break, he walked up to me and said h.e.l.lo. Not only did he remind me that we had met in New York, but he also flattered me by saying he was a fan of The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show. Then he went on to explain that he'd come to the set hoping to see me dance. He loved the way I moved. There was only one thing I could possibly say in response, and that was "thank you."

What else was I going to say?

"Thank you, and I like the way you move, too."

No, such compliments are rare, and I treasured this one. I still do. Someone had a camera and we posed together-the legend and the luckiest guy on the lot, I thought. I was wearing a nicely tailored suit, but I looked like a tramp next to Fred Astaire. He had that impeccable, iconic sense of style. It was part of that special thing that made him unique.

My dad had been the same in his own way. He wasn't as suave as Fred. I mean, who was? But my dad had a taste for nice clothes and an eye for small, stylish touches. In fact, as I chatted with Fred, I thought of my dad, who had always liked nice suits and for a brief time even wore a silk tie around his waist instead of a belt because he had seen Fred Astaire do it.

Fred asked if I was enjoying myself on the film. I said I was, explaining that it was my first and quite exciting and I was learning a lot. I missed working with Chita, who had been pa.s.sed over by the movie's producers, but I was partnered in her place with Janet Leigh, who was not only an Oscar-nominated movie star but a real doll, lots of fun on and off camera, and a warm, generous woman who had my entire family over to her house many times.

All of us adored her.

She wasn't much of a dancer, though you wouldn't have known from the way ch.o.r.eographer Anna White worked with her individually and the two of us together. A Broadway veteran, White figured out our capabilities and made sure we looked good. But Janet's limitations in that area might have diminished her standing with the film's director, George Sidney, who was, quite obviously, enamored with the movie's young star, Ann-Margret.

Then again, even if Janet had moved like Ginger Rogers, it's likely that Sidney would still have been fixated on the very talented redhead. What wasn't to like about her? She was talented and s.e.xy and just exuded the kind of energy and charisma that let you know a major star was being born.

But Sidney's embrace of that potential made the film very different from the play. One afternoon, Janet and I walked onto the set after lunch. She was carping that she wasn't getting as much screen time as she had been led to believe before shooting began. She didn't know that for sure, I said. None of us had seen any of the dailies.

Then we stepped inside the soundstage and I stopped.

"Uh-oh," I said.

"What?" Janet asked.

I motioned toward the stage. Ann-Margret was sitting on George Sidney's lap.

"I think we're in trouble," I said.

"Oh yeah."

Nothing was going on other than the director was smitten with a young woman who was about to have the same effect on countless moviegoers. C'est la vie C'est la vie, especially in Hollywood. You couldn't say a bad word about Ann-Margret. Sweet and polite and barely out of her teens, she was an extremely shy young woman until it was time to work. Then she lit up. She strove to do everything perfectly.

For the most part, though, she kept to herself. In rehearsals, I had a habit of clowning around and enjoying myself. She didn't like that. She was very serious, very focused.

The opposite was true of Paul Lynde, the only actor other than me from the original Broadway production to reprise his role in the movie. Of course, as far as I was concerned, he was irreplaceable. I'm glad the producers felt the same way. And then there was Maureen Stapleton, not to be confused with the television star Jean Stapleton.

Maureen, cast as my mother despite being only six months older than I was, was an immensely talented actress who'd won a Tony Award in 1951 for starring in Tennessee Williams's play The Rose Tattoo The Rose Tattoo. But she was a bigger and more memorable character in real life than any she played onstage or in film. Brash and bawdy, she was quite open about having gotten into the business in the 1940s because of her l.u.s.t for actor Joel McCrea. She was quite open about many of her urges.

She also had more phobias than any human being I had ever met in my life. She had never been on an airplane. She refused to get in an elevator. And when we left the studio for lunch, I had to hold her hand as we crossed Sunset Boulevard. She was too nervous to cross by herself.

Maureen walked around the set with a little paper sack. A little nip here and there kept her calm, though her calm occasionally turned quite boisterous and bawdy, depending on the amount she nipped. When the movie wrapped, George Sidney hosted a party at his house, a formal mansion in Beverly Hills. A butler greeted guests and servers and staff bustled inside and out. This was the first Hollywood party I had ever been to, and I was impressed. I half expected to run into royalty.

Instead, I ran into Maureen and Paul, who arrived together. They were already sloshed. Paul couldn't face people unless he'd had a couple of drinks, and Maureen was hanging on to him, wearing a muumuu and pearls. Both looked like they were swaying in a strong wind-except there was nary a breeze. I lost them during the c.o.c.ktail hour, but dinner starred Paul.

All of us sat at a long table in the dining room. After George Sidney thanked everyone for their contributions to the film, Paul leaned in holding his winegla.s.s as if he were going to say something similar. He didn't. He held on to the quiet until antic.i.p.ation built, then he looked at the picture's star.

"Ann-Margret," he said, "I just want you to know that I'm the only one at this table who doesn't want to screw you."

George Sidney's elderly and quite proper mother gasped. If this had been a movie, something would've popped out of her mouth for comedic effect. It was one of those unbelievably audacious moments that momentarily stops time. But it didn't stop Paul. He couldn't have cared less. This was his milieu. You could almost see the sparkle in his one-hundred-proof eyes as the wickedly funny one-liners lined up like cars waiting to go through a tollbooth.

Maureen toasted each one of his off-color remarks until she was quite toasted herself. It was out of control, and it didn't get any less astonishing when we adjourned to the living room for after-dinner drinks. Maureen was still on her salad, which she carried with her and ate with toothpicks while sitting and sometimes half lying on the floor.

We all tried to act as if there wasn't an elephant in the room. But that lasted only so long.

"Maureen," I finally said, "wouldn't you like to sit in a chair?"

"I'd tell you where I'd like to sit," she said. "But your wife is here."

I didn't know how to respond. But I didn't have to. A few minutes later, the maid suffered a heart attack. Paramedics arrived and treated her there on the living room floor where we'd been partying. By the time they took her to the hospital, Maureen was stark naked in the swimming pool, flailing around and calling for the rest of us to join her.

On the drive home, Margie and I laughed hysterically as we recounted all of the wild shenanigans. I wondered if all Hollywood parties were like that. Of course, they weren't, and the movie's actual premiere in early 1963 paled in comparison. Almost anything would.

For the premiere, though, Margie and I and Janet and her husband, Robert Brandt, hired a car to take us to the screening in Santa Barbara. We wanted to make it a fun night. But after the movie, Janet was livid. She had no idea that Ann-Margret's part was going to be so all-consuming and hers would be so minor. After production was completed, Sidney had filmed an additional opening and closing number with Ann-Margret. We saw it for the first time there.

In the lobby, Janet cornered the director and said, "Where the h.e.l.l did that song come from?"

It wasn't the movie she'd signed on for, and as far as I was concerned, it wasn't the play. But as they say, that's s...o...b..z.

By then, CBS had changed its mind about The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show and we were well into the second season. I was still working on and we were well into the second season. I was still working on Birdie Birdie when the decision was made. Sheldon had gone directly to the sponsor, Procter & Gamble, and persuaded them to stick with us. However, an even more persuasive argument came from the viewers. when the decision was made. Sheldon had gone directly to the sponsor, Procter & Gamble, and persuaded them to stick with us. However, an even more persuasive argument came from the viewers.

It turned out the show found an audience during summer reruns, and vice versa-the audience found the show. They embraced it, in fact. Without compet.i.tion from Perry Como, ratings soared. When the second season began in September 1962, with the Petrie family mourning the death of one of Ritchie's two pet ducks, an episode called "Never Name a Duck," the show cracked TV's Top 10. From there, we never looked back.

A funny thing happened that second season when Mary and I went back to work. We couldn't stop giggling when we were around each other. Part of it was the joy of being back together with everyone and getting to continue the series, but our giggles continued past the first episode or two. I finally asked a psychiatrist friend of mine about it. He stated what was patently obvious.

"d.i.c.k, you've got a crush on her."

I put my head in my hands and laughed.

Of course I did.

Who didn't adore Mary?

If we had been different people, maybe something would have happened. But neither of us was that type of person.

Still, we were stuck on each other.

And others were stuck on us. In addition to ratings, Carl won an Emmy for his writing achievements during the first season, and John Rich received a well-deserved nomination for directing. Both men had done a remarkable job, writing and directing almost every one of the thirty-nine episodes that year. It's something that still stands out, perhaps even more so because for some shows nowadays an entire season might be comprised of only six or eight episodes. Prolificacy aside, the shows were home runs.

For season two, they were back at it. Carl continued to draw on all of our lives for material. In the episode "A Bird in the Head Hurts," Ritchie is traumatized after a woodp.e.c.k.e.r pecks him in the head. Well, that had actually happened to Carl's son, Rob. Likewise, Carl's determination to pick up the check every time we went out to lunch or dinner inspired the episode "My Husband Is a Check-Grabber." And when he wrote "The Cat Burglar" episode about a phantom burglar who breaks into the Petries' home, he basically retold an embarra.s.sing story I had recounted to him about an incident that happened to Margie and me when we lived on Long Island.

In the show, Rob and Laura hear a noise at night and think a cat burglar who has been working the neighborhood has targeted their house. Rob gets out a tiny semiautomatic, but his bullets are in a jewelry case with a ballerina on top. Every time he tries to open it to get the ammo, it plays "The Blue Danube." In real life, Margie and I heard a loud noise outside and were convinced someone was trying to break into our home.

I was petrified except for the fact that I had, after much debate, recently bought a small .22 rifle. Moving quietly, I got the gun out of hiding and prepared to defend my family. A moment later, though, I turned to my wife with a look of horror on my face.

"What's wrong?" she said in a whisper.

I thought even that was too much noise and put my finger to my mouth, telling her to shush. I tried to respond without making a sound.

"I don't know what you're saying," she whispered.

I tried again.

"I can't see to read your lips," she said. "It's too dark."

"I can't find the bullets," I said.

"Oh," she said, rolling her eyes as if I should have known. "They're in my jewelry box."

I tiptoed across the room to her dresser and opened the jewelry box. As soon as I lifted the lid, it started to play music, "The Blue Danube." I slammed it shut and gave her a look. Why had she put the bullets in her jewelry box? How was I going to get them out without the burglar hearing Johann Strauss's famous waltz? What was I going to do?