The sketch begins with Paul Lynde telling his wife: “Alice, I don’t know. I’m no good anymore. I can’t do it. I was the best pickpocket in Philadelphia, the best! So smooth, nobody even knew things were missing for days. I can’t do it anymore. Too many cops. My hands sweat and I can’t do it.”
She says, “Sure you can, Harry. Come on. I’ll make some spaghetti. You’ll have a glass of wine. You can do it.”
He says, “Oh, well, maybe. Where’s my boy? Where’s the light of my life? Where’s my son?”
And in comes Ronny Graham. And he’s carrying a bat and tossing a ball. His father, a petty crook, was dreaming that one day his son would follow in his footsteps and become a world-renowned criminal. Paul says to Ronny, “What are you doing? He’s supposed to be learning how to pick pockets. What are you doing? What’s with the bat and ball?” And then Paul says, “Show me your report card.” Ronny stalls, and finally reluctantly gives it up. Paul reads it hoping to see bad marks like F’s and D’s. Instead, it’s a bunch of A’s. Paul exits the stage while heartbreakingly moaning, “A. A. A. A!”
After a long pause, Alice Ghostley brought the house down with, “You’re killing that man.” It was a laugh that went on forever.
The show came to New York and opened on Broadway at the Royale Theatre. It was an instant hit. It got very good reviews and my sketch was singled out by the famous New York Times theater critic Brooks Atkinson. I couldn’t believe it! I was actually a writer on Broadway.
Ronny and I went on to become frequent collaborators and lifelong friends. Even though I was in the funny business, nobody made me laugh like Ronny Graham. For instance, there was always a line of autograph seekers at the stage door of the Royale Theatre where New Faces was holding forth. Ronny was always the last one to leave the theater. I don’t know why, but by the time he opened the stage door the crowd had left. It didn’t mean a thing to Ronny. He made believe he was besieged by screaming autograph hunters. He would push his way through the imaginary throng screaming, “Please! This is too much! Let me breathe! I’m an ordinary human being just like you! Please let me through.”
Even though I was the only person there, he never stopped performing. I would collapse with laughter.
Ronny and I wrote crazy songs together. We gave movies that didn’t have title songs their own music and lyrics. Like, “The Creature from the Black Lagoon…Has Stolen My Heart.” And “War and Peace…I’ll Take Peace.”
Later, we wrote a wonderful song that I’m still trying to find a place for called “Retreat.” It’s an ode to cowardice.
Here’s a sample:
Retreat, retreat!
Drop your sword and run.
Our foe is near, our choice is clear,
Get outta here, Hooray for fear,
We’re done.
Run away, Run away,
If you run away you’ll live to run away another day!
I never got it into a show but it’s a winner whenever I sing it in front of an audience.
* * *
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During the summer breaks in production on Your Show of Shows, we would all do our own thing. My reputation as a comedy writer was spreading. I got a call from Freddy Kohlmar, a film producer at Columbia Pictures in Hollywood. He had produced some well-known pictures such as Kiss of Death （1947） starring Victor Mature and Richard Widmark, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir （1947） starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. He called with an incredible opportunity: He wanted me to do the screenplay for a well-known Rodgers and Hart Broadway hit called Pal Joey. He offered to fly me out to L.A. and pay me a thousand dollars a week for eight weeks. I was so dumbstruck, for a moment I couldn’t answer. On the other end of the phone I heard, “Well, well…are you coming?”
I finally found my voice and said, “Turn around, I’m there!”
It was the first time I’d been to California. Having been born and raised in Brooklyn in the jungle of tenements, I’d never seen anything like it. I was stunned by the beauty of the place. Palm trees! Endless blue skies! The Pacific Ocean! It was paradise. And to boot, there were orange trees—thousands of orange trees with big juicy oranges that sometimes hung into the street from people’s backyards. Since they were in the street, I figured they were public property. So every day I’d pick some and happily munch on an orange or two on my way to work.
I had a big office all to myself on the third floor of the Columbia Pictures building on Gower Street in Hollywood. I went to work diligently writing the screenplay of Pal Joey, but only two weeks into the script, Jerry Wald, the head of production at Columbia Pictures, called and said, “We can’t get Sinatra to play Joey. He’s too busy. So Columbia wants to keep it on the shelf for a while. But I have another project for you. It’s called Apple Annie.”