My Lucky Life In And Out Of Show Busines Part 9

The belly laughs, the ringing lovely.G.o.d bless all the clowns.

Give them a long, good life, Make bright their way-they're a race apart.

Alchemists most, who turn their hearts' pain, Into a dazzling jest to lift the heart.

G.o.d bless all clowns.

I met Buster Keaton the same way I did Stan. I found out that someone I knew had his phone number and one afternoon I called him up. His wife, Eleanor, answered and put Buster on. After a short talk, he invited me to lunch. He lived in Woodland Hills, about ten minutes from my Encino house. He had a beautiful piece of property, maybe a quarter of an acre. met Buster Keaton the same way I did Stan. I found out that someone I knew had his phone number and one afternoon I called him up. His wife, Eleanor, answered and put Buster on. After a short talk, he invited me to lunch. He lived in Woodland Hills, about ten minutes from my Encino house. He had a beautiful piece of property, maybe a quarter of an acre.

While Stan was very much an English gentleman, he was still gregarious and friendly. Buster was the opposite. He was extremely shy. After meeting him, in fact, I was surprised I had been invited out. His wife greeted me at the door and chatted with me in the kitchen. After a while, I saw Buster through the kitchen window. He was walking around outside. His wife smiled the patient smile of a woman who knew him well.

"He'll come to you," she said. "Give him time."

Sure enough, he finally entered the kitchen. He had on his flat hat and was playing a ukulele, singing, "Oh Mr. Moon, Carolina moon, won't you shine on me." He was more comfortable in character, as the showman, or talking about his work. I asked if he remembered the bit where he put one foot on the table and then the other and we saw him suspended in midair before he fell. Not only did he remember, at age sixty-eight, he did it for me, then and there.

Way out in the back he had a little picnic table where we had lunch. A miniature railroad ran through the yard. Buster made hot dogs for us and ran them out to the table on the train. He got a kick out of that. On another one of my visits, we were in the kitchen when his dog, a giant St. Bernard named Elmer, sauntered through the back door, looked up at Buster, then at me, and let out a loud and clear meow.

"How the heck did you get him to do that?" I asked.

Buster opened the dog's mouth and pulled out a newborn kitten. It was soaking wet from the dog's s...o...b..r.

"It's in his mouth like a wad of chewing tobacco," I said.

Buster laughed.

"He found the kitty and has been taking care of it," he said. "He carries it around like that."

I also learned Buster was something of a pool shark. He had a specially built table and custom-made pool cues. We played a couple games and he ma.s.sacred me. Given that the cues had his name on them, who would have expected any other result? In fact, he ended up leaving those cues to me after his death in 1966.

I gave the eulogy at his funeral as well. All the same people from Stan's funeral the previous year were present again, everyone except Buster.

My connection to the older stars extended to Harold Lloyd, who wanted me to play him in a movie, and a number of actors from Hollywood's Golden Age whom I met on visits to the Motion Picture Home, where characters like Babe London treated me to stories about Charlie Chaplin, W. C. Fields, and Harry Langdon. I also met one of the Keystone Kops, a man in his eighties whose hobby was making costume jewelry. One of his customers turned out to be a wealthy widow. He ended up marrying her and living out his life in luxury.

Talk about happy endings.

16.

UPSETS AND GOOD-BYES.

In the spring of 1965, I made Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N., a silly Disney movie about a Navy pilot who ends up on a deserted island with a native girl and a s.p.a.ce programtrained chimp for companionship. The picture was pure family fun-and a good time for me personally for a reason I never expected: I fell into a deep friendship with the chimp.

We shot a good portion of the movie in Kauai and made a family vacation out of it. Walt and his wife, Lillian, came over, too. We stayed at a hotel whose accommodations looked like gra.s.s-covered huts. Walt and Lilly had the room above ours, and I heard him hacking and coughing all night. Yet after dinner, as we told stories in the bar, he smoked like a chimney, and drank pretty well, too, as did I in those days.

My partner and manager, Byron Paul, was directing the movie, and before shooting on the first day, my costar Nancy Kwan, a beautiful actress originally trained as a cla.s.sical ballerina, took him aside and asked, "Mr. Van d.y.k.e is not going to bother me, is he?" Evidently she had been in another project where someone had spent the entire production chasing after her.

"No, Mr. Van d.y.k.e is safe," Byron told her.

She needn't have worried, as Mr. Van d.y.k.e was occupied with his other costar. A jungle set was built near the beach, and on the first morning of work, as I walked onto the set holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other, I was greeted by d.i.n.ky, the 130-pound chimp who was the real star of the movie. Seated in his personal director's chair, which was near mine, he crooked his index finger and motioned me toward him.

"h.e.l.lo, how are you?" I said.

Apparently he felt the same way I did. After a slight roll of his eyes, he reached for my coffee and cigarette, then drank the coffee and smoked the cigarette. I looked at his trainer.

"He shouldn't smoke," I said.

"Neither should you," the trainer said.

From then on, I brought d.i.n.ky a cup of coffee every morning and lit a cigarette for him. I might as well have asked him how he slept, as we started our days so similarly. It was as if we could actually talk to each other. Soon d.i.n.ky and I started to have lunch together. He ate with a fork and used a napkin. For a chimp, his manners were impeccable. So was his sense of humor.

One day I saw him resting cross-legged on a log. I noticed he had taken off the chain that was normally around his ankle and put it around the leg of his trainer, Stewart. I swear he caught my eye and gave me a look that said, Don't tell Don't tell. All of a sudden he took off and ran up a tree, then beat his chest and laughed.

I don't know any other way to describe it, but d.i.n.ky was chuckling at his own joke.

I was charmed. He started to have a thing for me, too. He would pick at my hair the way chimps do with one another. I would get down on the ground to make it easier for him. When he finished, I went through his.

He developed an obsession with my watch. I almost expected him to know how to tell time-that's how bright this chimp was.

In the movie, he played golf and he was incredible. We also played poker. One day he was sick. I think he had a temperature of 103. In the scene, we were playing cards. He was supposed to be able to see my cards in the shaving mirror behind me. Amazingly, he looked up and smiled on cue. But the second that Byron said Cut Cut, he would groan and lay down, ill.

I turned to the trainer and Byron. I wanted the trainer to help him and Byron to praise him. This chimp was a pro.

The downside was that when he misbehaved, his trainer took him away and hit him. I hated that. In one scene, I came sliding down a coconut tree as planned, but I startled d.i.n.ky, who was seated at the base of the tree. I saw all of his hair suddenly stand on end. So did Stewart. He balled up a chain he kept with him and threw it at the chimp. He saw the look on my face. It was one of surprise and anger.

"He would've attacked you," he explained.

I never got used to that part of working with the chimp. To me, he was a doll. I forgot that he was an animal being cajoled, if not forced, into performing acts that did not come naturally to him. Later I heard he was doing a Tarzan movie in Mexico and bit an actor in the face. I was told the actor picked him up and pinched him, and in turn d.i.n.ky nipped his face. That was the end of his film career.

He was ten years old, so he was pretty close to retirement, anyway. After I heard he'd been placed in the Los Angeles Zoo, I went there to see him, knowing he had been raised in a house his whole life-he had never been in a cage. When I got there, he was sitting in the middle of a large circular pen. It was outdoors, but it was still a cage-and I saw the effect it had on him.

I called out his name. He looked up and recognized me immediately. He ran over as close as he could. I could tell from the expression on his face that he was asking me to get him out of there. It looked like he was saying, I'm in here with a bunch of monkeys. Take me home I'm in here with a bunch of monkeys. Take me home.

The whole visit upset me. I knew he thought that I had come to take him out, which I would have if it had been possible.

I had to walk away. I couldn't look back.

There was a similar feeling of sadness when it came time to acknowledge the end of The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show.

In late summer of 1965, all of us began the fifth season knowing it was our last. The public may not have realized it yet, but we knew.

Carl felt strongly that he would get stale after five years of writing and rewriting thirty-nine episodes a season, and so would the show. He thought all of us would lose the spring in our step. I think he also recognized that all of us, through our collaboration and hard work, had produced a TV cla.s.sic, and he feared that if repet.i.tion and fatigue set in, it could tarnish the show's magical reputation. He also may have been ready to do something else.

The same may have been true of Mary. She may have been ready to move beyond Laura Petrie. I don't know. But I doubt it.

Was the show getting stale?

No.

Repet.i.tive?

No.

Was I ready to leave?

No.

I loved the show and the people. It wasn't work. I played myself. Between the series and a movie every summer, I had a great setup. As a performer, nothing topped the excitement and energy of working in front of a live audience. If it wasn't the stage, a weekly show like ours was as close of an approximation as one could get. We stopped only if there was a mistake or a scene change. Otherwise the studio audience let us know if we were funny or not.

If there was discussion about continuing the show without Carl, I didn't hear it. Ownership issues aside, I couldn't imagine anyone considering The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show without Carl Reiner. Although it was a collaborative effort, everything about the show stemmed from his endlessly and enviably fascinating, funny, and fertile brain and trickled down to the rest of us. We all knew it, and as each of us said in our own ways, we appreciated every aspect of having been party to this chapter of television genius. without Carl Reiner. Although it was a collaborative effort, everything about the show stemmed from his endlessly and enviably fascinating, funny, and fertile brain and trickled down to the rest of us. We all knew it, and as each of us said in our own ways, we appreciated every aspect of having been party to this chapter of television genius.

The final season began airing in September. Two months later, CBS put out a press release informing the rest of the world what we already knew-that this would be the show's swan song, its final season. I got steamed when the New York Times New York Times attributed the decision to me. It wasn't true. Not wanting the disappointment of millions of viewers pinned on me, I did a series of interviews with other reporters wherein I tried to explain I wasn't behind the decision while still holding the party line, namely that we wanted "to quit while we were still on top." attributed the decision to me. It wasn't true. Not wanting the disappointment of millions of viewers pinned on me, I did a series of interviews with other reporters wherein I tried to explain I wasn't behind the decision while still holding the party line, namely that we wanted "to quit while we were still on top."

It was like yelling into the wind, though. The writers still stared back with perplexed looks, as I'm sure our fans did, too, asking yet again, "So why are you all stopping a hit show?"

I was not as hard-pressed to answer the other question people asked-what next? In February 1966, I was being interviewed by a reporter who asked that question-"What are you going to do next?"-with such concern that I had to tell her not to worry, I was going to be fine.

Indeed, I had a full plate of TV specials and movies. I had invested in a Phoenix-based radio station. I also volunteered with Big Brothers, served on the board of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, worked with the California Educational Center, donated time to the Society for the Prevention of Blindness, and of course cared for my wife, four children, various dogs, and our ornery cat. But really, until The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show finished, I preferred to concentrate on, no, I preferred to savor, each and every last episode. finished, I preferred to concentrate on, no, I preferred to savor, each and every last episode.

Like the others before it, the final season continued to take inspiration from our personal lives. Carl's earliest literary efforts were the source of "A Farewell to Writing," which has Rob struggling to begin the novel he always wanted to write. In "Fifty-Two, Forty-Five or Work," Rob recalls a time when he was out of work with a new home and a pregnant wife, and that storyline was ripped straight out of my family alb.u.m.

Likewise, "The Man from My Uncle," about government agents using the Petries' home to stake out a neighbor, may have sounded far-fetched, but the script from Jerry Belson and Garry Marshall was rooted in another actual event that happened to me. After the Watts Riots in August 1965, I gave some of my time to Operation Bootstrap, a group that endeavored to help people in Watts develop skills and businesses of their own without government aid.

They began on a shoestring budget in a former auto-parts store and eventually gave rise to the Shindana Toy Factory, a business that designed toys for African-Americans. I made several trips with members from my church to the empty store where Bootstrap was headquartered, engaged in some heated debates, and got to know this one guy named Lenny.

In his thirties, Lenny was a member of the Black Panthers, extremely political, but also extremely thoughtful and sensitive. I learned that he was a painter. He showed me his canvases, which I admired. I also found out that he was married and had a daughter. On those levels at least we related to each other easily, more than one might think given our different worlds.

Interested in bridging those different worlds, I invited Lenny and his family to my house for dinner with my family. My kids were fascinated by Lenny. He was fairly articulate but tough as nails, which was reflected in the stories he told during dinner. Those stories pinned the kids to the table. I mean, n.o.body moved while Lenny spoke-that is, until the phone rang.

I answered and a detective from the LAPD identified himself and told me not to worry, they had things under control.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"We heard there was going to be an armed robbery in your house tonight," he said.

"What?!" I exclaimed.

"We have your house surrounded," he said.

"Holy Jesus!" I said, looking across the room at Lenny and cringing at what he was going to think.

After I hung up, I told everyone what was going on. Lenny erupted in anger, got up, and walked toward the phone.

"I'm going to make a call," he said. "In two minutes I'll have forty guys here with guns."

"What?" I said.

"We'll take care of them," he added.

"d.i.c.k!" said Margie, who had gotten up from the table and was now standing next to me. "Do something."

First, I calmed the situation inside my house, and then I walked outside and dealt with the police. There were cops everywhere. I had no idea where the LAPD got their information, whether a neighbor saw Lenny and his family enter our house and called the local precinct or whether it was a mistake, which seemed unlikely. But I was p.i.s.sed-and embarra.s.sed.

While the memorable evening did eventually morph into a good TV episode, I wish it had turned out differently.

As for the series finale, an episode t.i.tled "The Gunslinger," it was a Western spoof in which Rob goes to the dentist and gets put under, descends into a dream, and everyone is transported back into the Wild West. We cooked that up so that everyone could be in the last one: I was the sheriff, Mary was the song-and-dance girl in the saloon, Carl was the bad guy (Big Bad Brady), and all the writers (Sam, Bill, Jerry, and Garry) were cowboys. Even my children were in it.

We added to the fun with a cast and crew party afterward. As hard as we tried to celebrate five special years of accomplishment, camaraderie, creativity, friendship, and laughs, it was also a night of good-byes, which made it a bittersweet occasion. I got in the car at the end of the night, turned to Margie thinking I had something to say about the party, and nothing came out of my mouth. I was overwhelmed.

I learned that you may move on from a show like ours, but you never move away from it. At the end of May 1966, we staged a mini reunion when the show walked away with four Emmys. The New York Times New York Times called it "a hail and farewell gesture" by our peers since we were going off the air. Indeed, almost everyone on the show had been nominated. We were genuinely touched. called it "a hail and farewell gesture" by our peers since we were going off the air. Indeed, almost everyone on the show had been nominated. We were genuinely touched.

I arrived at the awards show thinking Don Adams was a shoe-in for his new series Get Smart Get Smart, and so I was genuinely caught off-guard when my name was called for the third straight year. In my thank-you speech, I joked that I wouldn't be there next year, so the category was going to have a fresh face. I added a heartfelt thank-you, which I hoped conveyed my grat.i.tude not just for the individual honor but also for the honor of being there.

And it was quite a club. That night, Bill Cosby, one of Emmy's cohosts, also won an Emmy for his work opposite Robert Culp on I Spy I Spy. The first black actor to costar in a weekly prime-time TV series, he thanked NBC for "having the guts" to go with him. It wasn't just NBC, though. It was also Sheldon Leonard, I Spy I Spy's executive producer, who had put Bill in that role and who had, at another point in time, fought to keep The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show on the air. on the air.

When you're watching award shows you sometimes wonder what the men and women in their tuxedos and gowns are thinking about while all the nominees are being called and winners announced. On that occasion, I was thinking about the connections many of us shared as we strove to entertain and inform people, and occasionally make points about the quality and condition of our lives, and I felt pretty darn lucky to be among them.

I was also thinking that I was on to the next phase of my life and career, some of which was planned, but most of which was a mystery, the way it always is, and I was looking forward to seeing what would happen.

PART TWO.

I've made peace with insecurity...because there is no security of any kind.

-Me

17.

NEVER A DULL MOMENT.

Destiny is an interesting idea to ponder. Somehow, when Carl was looking to cast the lead role in his new television series, I was in the exact right place at the exact right time and answered the call. However, such was not the case one day in 1966, a day that, had I answered in another way, could've made me far wealthier than I ever imagined.

I was in the driver's seat of a Volkswagen Bug parked in front of a McDonald's, biding my time on the set of the movie Divorce American Style Divorce American Style while the crew completed a routine recalibration of equipment and director Bud Yorkin conferred with my costar Debbie Reynolds. A man sidled up to my little car, introduced himself, and asked if I lived in Phoenix. while the crew completed a routine recalibration of equipment and director Bud Yorkin conferred with my costar Debbie Reynolds. A man sidled up to my little car, introduced himself, and asked if I lived in Phoenix.