Going back to Europe to write for Sid Caesar’s BBC show, this time crossing the Atlantic without a rifle and a helmet.
What Sid didn’t tell us was that he’d been taking a strong sedative at the time.
When the waiter came to take the food order after our drinks, Sid said, “I’ll have fillet of sole…” and promptly slumped forward, face-first, into a bowl of coleslaw.
The writers laughed at first, thinking it was a joke. When we realized that Sid had passed out, Carl told us that we had to pretend that this was a skit or else the incident would be in all the morning tabloids.
I stood over Sid with a knife in my hand and said: “So, Inspector, this undoubtedly is the murder weapon.”
Larry Gelbart responded, “Let us pray,” and they all put their heads down on the table.
This kind of improvisation went on for forty-five minutes, with Sid out cold. We periodically checked to make sure he was still breathing. Finally, as the waiter brought the check to the table, Sid’s head popped up and he said, “…and shoestring potatoes,” picking up exactly where he had left off when he went down into the coleslaw.
After Caesar’s Hour ended in 1957, we did several special hour-long variety shows starring Sid. On those, we got the assistance of a brilliant young writer called Woody Allen. Woody got into the swing of the writers’ room very easily right from the start. He didn’t just write funny jokes, he wrote characters, behavior, funny situations. Quite often after a hard writing session, I had to walk it off. That is, instead of taking a cab home I would walk. It was a long walk from Rockefeller Center all the way up to Fifth Avenue and Eighty-seventh Street （where I lived at the time）， and Woody would generously offer to accompany me. I don’t know whether it was just for the good talk, or if he thought at least he’d be there to call 911 if I collapsed. I appreciate the memory of his friendship and entertaining chatter on those long walks home.
In addition to those specials, I also got to continue to write for Sid on his new series Sid Caesar Invites You…， which we got to do both on United States TV and were invited to do across the pond for the BBC.
Near the end of Sid’s epic nine-or ten-year run on television, our ratings were dropping fast. I don’t know of any other comedian, including Charlie Chaplin, who could have done nearly ten years of live television. Sid was one of the greatest comedy artists that was ever born into this world. But over a period of years, television ground him into sausages—one sausage a week, until finally there wasn’t much of the muse left. The decline was affecting all of us. I wasn’t sleeping much, and I was angry and ill-tempered most of the time. In 1958 and ’59 the show was losing its top status and we were falling behind in the ratings to, believe it or not, Lawrence Welk, with his bubbly dance music. We were all working day and night to keep the show on the air. My nerves began to fray and I was always in a bad mood. I must have been absolute hell to live with, that’s probably what led to the end of my first marriage. It was one of the worst periods of my life.
I think there is a saying that goes like this: It’s a stormy wind that doesn’t blow somebody some good. So even though the marriage didn’t work out and in the later years was beset with stormy times, the good part of the wind that blew me some good was my three children from that marriage. Stefanie, Nicholas, and Edward were always a source of comfort and happiness. No matter how life was treating me, they were always there for me with their love and affection. A real blessing.
When Eddie was just a little kid, maybe eight or nine, Carl Reiner was making a movie called Where’s Poppa? In one of the hilariously funny scenes of that movie, Ron Leibman is forbidden to leave the house by his wife. When she blocks the door he says to her, “Get away from that door, or I’m gonna choke your child!” And to prove his resolve he grabs his little boy and begins choking him. My son Eddie was that little boy. Eddie was playing it so real, with incredible gagging sounds, that as I watched I actually was terrified that he might really be choking him! Anyway, he didn’t and the scene got nonstop laughter. Eddie went on to grow up, get married, and have a child of his own. My wonderful granddaughter Samantha, who turned out to be beautiful, incredibly smart, and really talented. He was and has always been an exceptionally loving and really great father in his own right.
From Carl Reiner’s hilarious movie Where’s Poppa? Here is my ten-year-old son, Edward Brooks, in his acting debut. He was so good, I was afraid that actor Ron Leibman was actually choking him!