Frankie Ray: Hold on. Let me lower this Hedy Lamarr movie. I'm giving it up for you. White Cargo. Kliph Nesteroff: I love that movie. Frankie Ray: Yeah, she liked me toward the end. Her lawyer lived in the same building as me. She wanted me to bring nuts for her monkey. I thought, "How do you like this? When I was thirteen I saw her in Casbah with Charles Boyer and now here I am all these years later, hanging up the phone saying, "Sorry, I can't bring you nuts today." Kliph Nesteroff: She must have utilized that lawyer. Didn't she run into a lot of legal issues...
Frankie Ray: Yes, she was shoplifting. She was on a health kick. I don't think she ever ate meat. Kliph Nesteroff: Her and Gloria Swanson were the two golden age beauties on a health kick... Frankie Ray: Yes, right. There used to be a place here called Schwab's Drugstore and I used to go there in the mornings for coffee. Next to it was a health store. This elderly woman said to me, "You're not going to eat that are you?" I mumbled, "Oh, fuck." I said, "Maybe. Why?" She gave me a whole lecture and everything.
We kept talking about different things and she looked familiar. I went back to that health store and she was in there. We talked about all kinds of things. After about a week the guy in the store says, "You missing your friend?" It was Greta Garbo (laughs). I was so mad at myself! You know, she was very smart. Every time she got a check she bought property in Beverly Hills. She was a millionaire, one of very few that did good that way. But fuck them! You're supposed to talk about me! Kliph Nesteroff: Right, well, the two guys that you are closely associated with are Shecky Greene and Lenny Bruce. Frankie Ray: Yes, right.
Kliph Nesteroff: When did you first meet Shecky? Frankie Ray: My agent called and said, "I can book you in New Orleans. Don't worry about material. You'll be talking to the tourists when they come in." I got a hundred and fifty dollars, maybe less, but I didn't have to live out of hotels. I got a beautiful apartment. The club was called the Latin Quarter. Eventually, the place had a murder - with knock-out drops. I was arrested. They used to rob the customers. Knock 'em out with drops and rob them. They were using my dressing room because I never used it.
I'd get dressed at my apartment and walk over. I got out of there and went to work at the Casino Royal on Bourbon Street. I stayed there for a long time. One day this guy says, "I'm supposed to look you up." It was Shecky. He was going into a meal-a-minute place following Sammy Shore. It was outside the French Quarter. I said, "Hey, Shecky, how you doing?" He said, "Well, I'm a little nervous Sammy Shore is going to do my act." They did a double and they broke up. There was a writer named Sherry Cloth. Shecky broke up with his partner and I had broke up with mine and Sherry Cloth said, "Why don't you two team up together?"
Shecky looked like he had come from Louis Prima's yard sale. He had argyle socks, a red jacket and yellow pants. I said, "Shecky. Forget about it." He said, "Yeah? Well, then what do I do now?" I never liked Sammy Shore. Not for any specific reason, but he was just... kind of sneaky. So, I said, "Well, let me hustle some people to get you [established] here." That's when our friendship started. We got an apartment together.
He opened that night and I called a few madames from the whorehouse. I said, "This guy Shecky is funny. I know you take the girls out on Sunday. Go to the nightclub across from the Roosevelt Hotel." Soon he got very popular there. Very big. Then he and I opened up a club called The Wit's End. Shecky Greene and Frankie Ray's Wit's End. Kliph Nesteroff: How long did the Wit's End last?
Frankie Ray: Oh, the Wit's End lasted about three years and then I finally needed to leave New Orleans. I bought it from this beautiful woman and then I destroyed it. Everyone thinks they're gonna be Rick from Casablanca when they get a nightclub. I didn't know shit about anything. Shecky said, "I'm going to do the NBC Comedy Hour and they want me to bring a writer. Forget the club. Why don't you come with me?" By that time there was another comedian named Al Bernie at the Roosevelt. He said, "You should get together with Lenny Bruce." Lenny was in Los Angeles and Shecky wanted to bring me out there anyway.
When I got out there I went to this club called Duffy's. That's where this owner let Lenny do anything he wanted. The owner was a Mafia guy from Chicago and he bought the nightclub for his daughter. She married an actor and he wanted a club. He said, "Lenny, do whatever you want up there." People would complain, "That guy Lenny Bruce, I'm gonna report him! I'm a Jewish man and he's making fun of Eddie Cantor!" Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs) Frankie Ray: "He said that Eddie Cantor used to molest Bobby Breen!" Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs) Frankie Ray: [In mobster's voice], "Hey! If Lenny says Eddie Cantor's a fruit, he's a fruit! Now get the fuck out of here!" Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)
Frankie Ray: He had that kind of clout, Lenny. Nightclub owners kept him because they felt he was talented, although he was nobody at that time. So, I did this show for Shecky. He moved to Hollywood because I stayed there and I got him on Combat. But there was something wrong with Shecky. In those days you did not know insanity when you saw it. Then Lenny and I took a job at Mickey Cohen's nightclub, the Near and Far.
It was a strip joint. Lenny was in this strip joint and every night we would get together and go to Canter's delicatessen. He'd say, "You know, Frank, we work all week and we're off Sunday. I've got a friend who has a house in Malibu. He's out of town. You and I can go swimming in the ocean the next day." Well, we get in the car and we go out there and I say, "What's the matter?" He says, "I don't know... I forgot the address... I know it's right around here somewhere... I'll find it... it's just that all these houses look the same." So, here we are. I said, "How are we getting in if there's nobody home?" He said, "The key is under the doormat." So, we get there and he looks under the doormat.
There's no key. So, he breaks the window. I said, "This don't seem right. Then again, he's fucking nuts anyway." So, we go to bed. Twin beds. About two hours after we've been asleep I hear, "Hello! You wanna wake up?" I open my eyes and there's a man, a woman and a daughter. I said, "Lenny! Your friend is home." The guy says, "He's not a friend of mine. I don't know him and I don't know you." He was always doing shit like that. Lenny, it was such a pleasure to be with him and everything... until he got on that needle.
Kliph Nesteroff: You mentioned Sherri Cloth, I know he wrote for Jack Carter. Did you and Shecky Greene physically do an act together at one point? Frankie Ray: No, but we used to kibbitz on stage at the Wit's End. But you can't work with guys like that. Not with Shecky. He's crazy. Kliph Nesteroff: Albert Goldman described the Wit's End as "The kind of place that opens at two in the morning and does its business with pimps, whores, gangsters, strippers and actors."
Frankie Ray: Right. I was going to sue Goldman because he said, "Frankie Ray has been out of work so long he doesn't know what kind of occupation he has." I was going to maybe grab twenty-five grand. You know? I don't know why that guy said that and maybe a lot of people out here believe that I don't have any talent or, you know, that type of thing. Kliph Nesteroff: Going back to that television show with Shecky Greene you mentioned. The Comedy Hour. Frankie Ray: Yeah. Kliph Nesteroff: It wasn't The Colgate Comedy Hour that most are familiar with - but a different incarnation that came shortly thereafter, also on NBC, just called The Comedy Hour...
Frankie Ray: It was a thing where they were breaking in a lot of new comedians like Jonathan Winters. Kliph Nesteroff: The line-up for the episode that you worked on with Shecky - Sid Melton, Billy Curtis, Pat Sheehan, Pat Moran, Chuckie Bradley... Frankie Ray: Doesn't mention Jonathan Winters or Pat Harrington? Kliph Nesteroff: Hy Averback was the announcer. Frankie Ray: I thought I was going to get very lucky. I pitched a thing to the writers. They said, "Frank, tell us about New Orleans." And I told them about the murder case. All the strippers and the whores and everyone was involved in this case about the knock out drops. The writers said, "My God, you were the emcee? We could go down there and the emcee can be played by Gene Kelly!" I almost fainted. He was a heavyweight writer, this guy. But he got sick. And that was the end of it. Kliph Nesteroff: When did you start? Early on you were performing at Billy Rose's nightclub with this guy Don Nardo...
Frankie Ray: Ray & Nardo. When I was fourteen I went to see a show at the Oriental Theater. I always liked the mimics. This guy came out and managed to look like everybody he did. He explained, "If you do Lionel Barrymore... he has arthritis." And he did all the gestures. He said, "If you do all those things, you'll fall right into the voice." I thought, "That must be easy." Next thing you know I've got the guys on the corner screaming. I'm doing Clark Gable, I'm doing James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson.
But then to put an act together? I didn't know what the fuck. So, one day we sneaked into a USO show. A beautiful show is going on and this guy is doing impersonations. This one guy from my neighborhood says, "Ah, he's full of shit. You're better than he is." I said, "Would you stop? We're lucky to be in here." He says, "Oh, yeah? Hey! HEY! We got the real guy here who knows how to be a mimic!" They said, "Well, bring him up here!" I think on that same show was Mario Lanza.
So, I'm scared to go up there. Not that it meant anything, hell, I was more popular than Lanza on the corner. So I go up there and I do the things and the audience falls apart. When you're young you don't have any idea that you should be scared because it don't mean a fucking thing to you. Had I been trained I would have been scared to death. As I'm walking out an old man says, "Can I see you a minute? I like your act. I'd like to book you on a show. Here's my card. Call me." I said, "What the hell is this? There's two names on it." He said, "Yeah, my partner starved to death in the office about a year ago."
He booked me on a thing called Camp Time for seventy-five dollars a week, a glamor girl revue and I was the emcee. I didn't even know what the fucking word emcee meant (laughs). I had no money for a wardrobe. I went to my grandfather. He gave me a jacket. We opened in Richmond, Virginia. I went there on the Greyhound bus. Before I walk out a stagehand grabs me. He says, "Listen. You wanna really wake this audience up? Go out there and say, 'We're gonna bring the first girl up faster than Grant took Richmond." I didn't even know what the fuck that meant! Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)
Frankie Ray: I said it and the the audience lunged at the stage! They said, "Go back where you belong, you goddamned Yankee!" I said, "Whoa, listen! You want to hit someone, go find the guy that gave me the joke. He's backstage!" He ran out of the theater! Then when I got off that show I went to see about an agent. He booked me into a burlesque theater, The Rialto. I played the burlesque circuit from Buffalo through St. Louis.
When I got back he called me, "Frank, would you like to do the USO?" I said, "Yeah, I guess so." He said, "It's a hundred a week and you travel with a five people unit. You'll be the emcee." Then something else clicked in my mind. I was afraid to do impersonations that other mimics were doing, so I used to make up my own. Before you know it, I'm doing guys like John Garfield and George Raft and people like that.
Nobody did George Raft. There was a mimic named Bruce Howard. He took my George Raft and he got into the Palace on Broadway when it reopened. The big write-up said, "The Guy who did George Raft." But I didn't care about that shit. Anyway, the USO... I got booked into a big nightclub in Vancouver.
Frankie Ray: I opened in Vancouver, went to Seattle, got to San Francisco and there was an act called The Radio Aces. The owner of the act used to hire guys and they'd do one or two impressions. A guy named Don Nardo was on there. He said, "They're going to get rid of one of the guys. Why don't you come with us?" Me, like a schmuck, I'm starting to do good as a single with the money and everything. I went with them and took less money. We took another guy and we traveled a while and this other guy was a pain in the ass and we got rid of him. It was Nardo and me and we played all over. We played Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe and did six Sullivan shows.
Kliph Nesteroff: You said Al Bernie suggested you hook up with Lenny Bruce... Frankie Ray: I had met Lenny before. Al Bernie was a mimic before a lot of people were. He did impressions of Jack Benny and all that stuff. I think we became friendly in New York at Lindy's or something. He said, "You know, you remind me of Lenny Bruce."
Nardo and I were booked into the Mountains. In the morning I was having breakfast with some of the acts and I saw this lady walk by. It was Sally, Lenny's mother. She goes, "I know you! You were at Loew's State theater and you did The Arthur Godfrey Show. I did it too. I was a talent scout and brought my son on. My son is at the Strand Theater with the Shep Fields Orchestra. Go say hello to him."
So, I go back and see Lenny and he's very cordial and nice. "Yeah, man, I went to Loew's State the other night and saw you guys. Yeah, I dig you, man." I didn't see him again for maybe eight years until Al Bernie was talking about him. He says, "Frank, he wrote a line for me and people can't stop laughing: 'I just read in the paper that on average one out of every three people is crazy.' Then I point to the audience. 'One, two, wacko! One, two, wacko!" He wrote Al a lot of other things. So I run to Duffy's to see Lenny... he's not there! He's in Hawaii. All of a sudden I hear a voice, "Frankie!" It's Sally, his mother.
I said, "Where's Lenny?" She said, "Fuck Lenny, you come and see me. I'm funnier." I was with a girl that worked as a stripper and she said, "Hey, I just got back from working with Lenny Bruce and I told him about you. He says he's going to look you up."
I had been working at the Near and Far for a couple of weeks. The door opened at the Near and Far, but he didn't come in. The door shut. I said to this girl, "Maybe he didn't come in because he doesn't want to sit through the act. He's way out in left field now and here I am - I'm still doing Edward G. Robinson." But he gave me a call, "Hey Frank, it's Lenny." We became friends after that. And probably the best friend he ever had.
Kliph Nesteroff: I wanted to ask you about your 1950s comedy team 'Igor and h' and your writing partner Larry Tucker... Paul Mazursky: Let me say something to you. You are getting the wrong information. So I don't feel like giving it out anymore. I'll tell you briefly right now and you can put that in your pipe, smoke it, and do whatever you want. Igor and h was the name given to me and a guy named Herb Hartig. Okay? Larry Tucker had nothing to do with Igor and h. Nothing. Later, in New York, Larry Tucker was running a nightclub called Upstairs at the Downstairs. I went to college with this guy Herb Hartig. We both graduated in 1951. When we decided to do this he was already writing comedy stuff for revues, but he didn't want to be known as Herb Hartig because he was writing a novel. He was a little pretentious. He decided to use the lowercase letter 'h' and that's how the 'h' came about. So I said, "Well, if you're going to do that - instead of my being Irwin Mazursky - I'm going to be Igor." That's how we became Igor and h.
Kliph Nesteroff: I didn't mean to infer that Larry Tucker was part of Igor and H. What I meant is that I wanted to ask you about both Larry Tucker and the comedy team Igor and h... Paul Mazursky: Well, the point is... I don't want to talk about it. There's no point. You've got all the information. Look it up. There was a guy named Pops Whitaker who wrote blurbs for The New Yorker telling people what to go see. He gave Igor and h, which he'd seen at the Upstairs at the Downstairs, a great review. And it ran week after week after week. And that's the story of Igor and h.
Kliph Nesteroff: I talked to Will Jordan who described you guys as the intellectual Martin and Lewis. Paul Mazursky: I would say that's accurate except that he is... I don't know what he was... but he was very, very funny. Kliph Nesteroff: Were you hanging around Hanson's Drugstore? Paul Mazursky: We went there trying to sell sketches for ten or fifteen bucks. We later played Steve Allen on television. All of that. Kliph Nesteroff: You did The Steve Allen Show on an episode that also featured Count Basie, Phil Harris and Jane Powell. Paul Mazursky: That's true, I think. Kliph Nesteroff: Who was your manager? Paul Mazursky: Irvin Arthur. Charged us very cheap. Cost fifteen bucks to drive up to the Catskills. He booked us Saturday night for two different places where we made $37.50 each and Irvin made $7.50, the son of a bitch. Kliph Nesteroff: He represented Joan Rivers early on.
Paul Mazursky: He did. He was very good at what he did but he was really cheap. He booked us into a place where we didn't get one laugh. They didn't laugh once and when the lights came up I said, "Any questions from the audience?" They said, "Vot! Vos this! Speak Hebrew! Vee don't speak English! Vot!" But they had good food, good brisket. Kliph Nesteroff: You guys sound like an unlikely act to be booked in the Catskills. Paul Mazursky: Well, I began to work as a waiter in what they call a Cookalone. Cookalone means you rented a little cottage - Cook-A-Lone. You make your own food. I had fifty-five people on my station and my girlfriend came up for the first time and our plan was that we would have sex. As we were getting to the act of sex she said, "I don't feel good. I have lumps in my neck." I probed around and said, "I think you've got mumps. If they find out you've got mumps this place will be empty in five minutes."
So I went and told the owner and he almost passed out. He said, "Take your car!" I said, "I don't have a license." He said, "My busboy has a car." He drove us back to New York. In the morning when I got back - around five in the morning - the table already had enough bread to feed an army. Sour cream, pickles, sauerkraut. These people would eat anything they could get. They would eat glass! Listen, I got to go. Nice talking to you.
Orson Bean: I was very fond of Bud Collyer. He didn't pretend to be anything he wasn't. He always said, "Good night and God Bless." A political conservative, but he was famous for playing Superman on the radio. I loved the To Tell the Truth panel. Elegant Kitty Carlisle on my right with a feather boa. Peggy Cass on the other side. Kliph Nesteroff: Those shows are a window into a lost New York. Orson Bean: Yes, and they cast it like a sitcom in a way. It wasn't just about the game, but the interaction of the panelists.
Kliph Nesteroff: I always liked Hy Gardner, who was a semi-regular on that show. Then I learned more about him and stopped liking him. Orson Bean: I never knew much about him. I used to get a mention in his column once in a while. Was he married to Dorothy Kilgallen? Kliph Nesteroff: No. Orson Bean: Maybe it was that he said something nasty about her and she sued... Kliph Nesteroff: Hy Gardner in his 1953 book wrote an introduction where he takes credit for having Charlie Chaplin booted from the US or denied entry. He then writes that twenty years later people will hail Hy Gardner as a hero.
Orson Bean: And he's less remembered than Arthur Godfrey. They were all rabid right wingers, those columnists. Ed Sullivan was a good guy. I got blacklisted as a communist, but I wasn't a communist. I was a lefty like our whole generation of young people and I was horny for communist girls. She dragged me to meetings. He called and told me I had been mentioned in Counterattack, the newsletter that Red Channels put out. He said, "I'll help you if I can." And he did.
He helped me and I went back on one last time. He was a good guy. He did stuff like that. In those days we were told if we even touched a Black performer we would lose stations in the South. I had Pearl Bailey on my Blue Angel show and was told, "Don't go near her!" Sullivan had Pearl Bailey on and threw his arm around her. He said, "How ya doin' Pearly Mae!" Stations all over the South cut away and the switchboards lit up.
Kliph Nesteroff: The blacklist. You were involved with AFTRA... Orson Bean: Yeah, I ran for the board of the New York local and got elected first Vice President. Charles Collingwood got elected President. A guy named John Henry Faulk got elected second Vice President. For our pains we were all blacklisted to one degree or another. Kliph Nesteroff: There was a struggle within AFTRA to prove you weren't communist infiltrated and to still balance it so it didn't turn into a right wing organization. Orson Bean: If you went to a union meeting you sat on the left side or the right side of the hall to show your political affiliations. And if you didn't have any it was assumed based on where you sat that you did. It was a mess. A group of us got together and decided to run the middle-of-the-road slate. We had a great victory.
The real story was this guy John Henry Faulk. He was a real leftie and didn't cop to it. At the last meeting people like Tony Randall and Jack Paar were there. They were saying, "If you have anything in your background - bring it up - because we don't want to hurt the middle of the road ticket." I said, "I voted for Adlai Stevenson." And they all laughed. Johnny just stayed quiet.
When we were attacked by Red Channels they listed twenty things on him like working with Paul Robeson and all communist front things, heavy duty shit that got me and Charles Collingwood in trouble. I was pissed off at him for that. Kliph Nesteroff: John Henry Faulk sued AWARE. Orson Bean: Yes, it was a real Hollywood thing. Louis Nizer became his lawyer and did a masterful job of painting John Henry Faulk as the closest thing to Jesus and the jury awarded him millions of dollars. While the jury was out deliberating, the guy who they were suing - a grocer in Syracuse or whatever - died. So there was no money!
Kliph Nesteroff: At the time Bud Collyer was very involved in AFTRA.
Orson Bean: Yeah and he would have been on the far right. Prior to the Hollywood Ten, the left dominated Hollywood and blacklisted right wing people too... well, not the famous ones like Adolph Menjou or Charles Colburn, but a lot of people were cast in movies because they were members of the party or being wooed by communists.
If you look at the cast lists of some of the film noir with Edward Dmytryk, it's all communists. A lot of my friends were communists. We didn't think anything of it, but there was a rage that built up amongst the right wingers. I got caught up in that. The blacklist never affected Broadway, however, because it was sponsors who did the blacklisting - not the networks. Kliph Nesteroff: You did a Broadway show called Men of Distinction and in the cast - as an actor - was Martin Ritt.
Orson Bean: Marty Ritt... did he get blacklisted or not? Kliph Nesteroff: He was one of the Ten. Orson Bean: The blacklist was a protection racket. The networks had to pay fifty bucks a head to clear people and they would have to do it week after week. If someone was a series regular they had to pay to clear them again the next week. So they didn't want the blacklist, but it was Campbell's Soup and people like that who did the blacklist. The reason the blacklist never took hold on Broadway was because there were no sponsors. So Marty Ritt could work...
Kliph Nesteroff: Martin Ritt was not know for acting, but for screenwriting and directing. Orson Bean: The whole year I was blacklisted I was in a show called Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? Back before I believed in God he took care of me. And then Ed Sullivan called up and booked me again. The blacklist just kind of waned. It was waning anyway because of our victory in the union and all the publicity The New York Times gave it. I lasted my blacklist years on Broadway.
Kliph Nesteroff: Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter costarred Martin Gabel in a role originally meant for the satirist Henry Morgan. Orson Bean: I suggested Henry Morgan to George Axelrod and he hired him. Henry just couldn't cut it. He was quite upset. They let him go and brought in Martin Gabel. He would have been wonderful, but George Axelrod couldn't direct. A real director could have gotten a real performance out of Henry.
Kliph Nesteroff: Henry Morgan was a unique comic for his time period. He rejected any kind of maudlin element. You were associated with that whole Goodson - Todman thing. When did you meet him? I assume you were friends. Orson Bean: We were very close friends. I loved him. He was the godfather to my daughter. He wrote the liner notes for an album I did called Orson Bean at the hungry i. I loved Henry. Like you said, he was very special. I worked with him in summer stock when he was acting. We all went out and got drunk the night before. We were all staying at this actor's boarding house in Cape Cod. Some guy came up and was bugging him and he got quite angry. The guy said, "I think you need a hangover remedy!" Henry said, "Your wife is a hangover remedy! A counter irritant!" He was vile, but hilarious. I loved Henry.
Kliph Nesteroff: What do you remember about Hanson's Drugstore? Orson Bean: Hanson's was the place where all the comics went. Most of them were hot shot young Jewish kids and I was the company goy. When I was breaking into the business in a place called Hurley's Log Cabin in Boston, the piano player told me my act wasn't playing because I didn't have a funny name.
My opening joke didn't work, "Havard '48, Yale nothing." He made up different names for me. So I'd go out, "My name is Roger Duck - Harvard '48. Yale nothing." And it got a laugh. I never kept the name Roger Duck, but I used to tell this story to this kid Adam Keefe. So Adam Keefe called himself Roger Duck for a while. I am blabbing, but I say this because I used to see him in Hanson's all the time. Kliph Nesteroff: Adam Keefe was an impressionist. Orson Bean: I think he did a comedy record like Monster Mash or something. Is that right?
Kliph Nesteroff: Probably. He did Karloff. What was the Hanson's like? And the building - 1650 Broadway? Orson Bean: It was one of those old fashioned drugstores with a long soda bar. Next to it was a place called Chock Full of Nuts. A coffee bar. Comics would hang out there too. It became a place where mostly young comics hung out and when they became more successful they would go to Lindy's.
Kliph Nesteroff: Did you hang out at Lindy's? Orson Bean: Yes, I did. Not at great length, but pretty often. All these Jewish comics would look at me with my crewcut and gray flannel suit. One of them said, "You ought to have an ad in Variety. Tired of Joe Comic? Hire Orson Bean." Kliph Nesteroff: Did you see Jack Roy around? Orson Bean: The name is vaguely familiar. Kliph Nesteroff: He changed his name to Rodney Dangerfield. Orson Bean: Ah! I was talking to my wife and I said, "I don't know what the hell his real name was." I was on the Tonight Show with Rodney. Rodney couldn't ad-lib, but he did great, great written material.
I was with Rodney on the Tonight Show and he did a boffo six minutes. "I said to my wife, 'How come you never tell me when you've had an orgasm.' She said, 'I'm never near a phone." Rodney never wanted to come on the panel because he couldn't ad-lib anything. It was almost cruel of Carson. Rodney looked pale. Carson said, "What's happening, Rodney?" Rodney said, "I got nothing!" (laughs). I never forgot that. He couldn't even answer, "How you doing?"
Kliph Nesteroff: After you had been doing the Blue Angel and the venue had become quite popular, there was a Blue Angel television show on CBS. A summer replacement. Orson Bean: Yes, we did it thirteen weeks and then they extended it another thirteen weeks. And then they decided it was too hip for the country. Kliph Nesteroff: What did it consist of? Orson Bean: They built a set like The Blue Angel. The outer room was a bar where Bobby Short played the piano and you waited for a table. It was quite inexpensive and it was filled with college kids and their dates. They built a set that was a bar with a hatcheck booth and they built a set that was inside with guests like Pearl Bailey, Hildegarde and people like that. I did comedy monologues in between and there was a certain amount of hip comedy stuff between me and the bartender, the hatcheck girl and the doorman.
Kliph Nesteroff: Jonathan Winters had his television debut on that program. Orson Bean: Did he? I didn't even know that. Jonny was my buddy, I loved him. Kliph Nesteroff: That's very early Jonathan Winters. Do you remember much of him in those early days? Orson Bean: Yes, very much. I don't remember the exact night, but he got booked in the Bon Soir just a block and a half away from the Blue Angel. He would come around and hang out with me, but he was just constantly writing stuff. Years later when he had his crack up and stopped drinking he was never quite as funny. Same thing as Robin Williams. When he went straight he was never quite as funny as when he was snorting cocaine.
