Singing up a storm on the October 1, 1962, debut of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
I was blindfolded, and Johnny poured me a glass of wine. I tasted it and said, “No doubt about it. This is one of the greatest red wines ever made. It’s unmistakably Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1961.”
He said, “I’m sorry, no.”
I said, “Of course. How stupid of me! It’s the other Rothschild classic—Chateau Mouton.”
He said, “No.”
I said, “I can’t believe it. Wait a minute…” I took another sip and said, “Ahh! I’ve got it. It’s the great 1955 Chateau Latour.”
He said, “No.”
I struggled for a while and then asked, “…Is it a white wine?”
The studio audience burst into an enormous laugh.
Johnny, holding back his own laughter, said, “No, I’m sorry. It’s not a white wine.”
I took another sip and said, “What’s the matter with me! How could I not know it? It’s beer! It’s a Budweiser beer!”
The audience erupted again, and Johnny nearly collapsed. He managed to say, “No, no. It’s not beer.”
I said, “My taste has gone crazy! What’s wrong with me? Wait! I know—it’s not even a liquid, it’s a solid! It’s Chiclets, right?”
The audience exploded and Johnny hit the floor. He couldn’t get control of himself for five minutes. It was so funny that even I broke up.
The Johnny Carson Show was one of the best venues for me, not only for selling my movies but just for flat out enjoying the company of the great Johnny Carson.
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I was kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel, earnings-wise, when I got an offer from Jerry Lewis to work on a new screenplay with him. It was called The Ladies Man and was all about the janitor of a hotel for young ladies in Hollywood.
Working with Jerry was both wonderful and terrible. He was really gifted and funny as hell. That was the wonderful part. The terrible part was writing with him. He was not easy to work with and quite often we’d get into a terrible spat. Finally, it became impossible, so eventually either I quit, or he fired me—I’m not sure which.
He sent me the final draft of the screenplay, which he had finished writing with Bill Richmond, who was a great drummer and, for a drummer, a pretty damn good writer. It contained only two scenes that I had originally written for Jerry. One was dusting a butterfly case, and when he opens the case all the butterflies fly away. The other was going through a car wash in a convertible, and absentmindedly hitting the button that opens the top. Both were funny and worked, but not enough for me to want my name on the script.
So I submitted my draft of what I did with Jerry and the final draft with just my two contributions to the Writers Guild. Normally, the job of the Writers Guild is to make sure you got credit on the screen, but in this case, I wanted them to keep my name off the screen. I told them I didn’t feel that I had enough input on the final to have my name on the screenplay. It was a tough fight but finally they agreed, so I got no credit for that movie. Which was fine by me. Despite this, through the years I stayed in touch with Jerry as a friend and we’d occasionally get together and have some wonderful laughs.
Chapter 7
The Chinese Gourmet Society
So there I was, once again still basically not employed. The William Morris office got me a couple of TV specials to help me pay the rent. One of them was writing The Victor Borge Show. So funny, so talented. That was a great experience.
It was a difficult period of my life, but good friends and good food will get you through the roughest times. One of my good friends then was Irving “Speed” Vogel, whom I first met on Fire Island. He was a wonderful guy. Speed ran a textile factory and then quit everything to be a direct metal sculptor. He produced wonderful pieces.
Speed introduced me to Ngoot Lee, who was a brilliant calligrapher and furniture designer who worked for Bloomingdale’s. He would set up some of their furniture displays and do framed calligraphy on the walls. Ngoot was a great cook himself, but he always knew where the best restaurants in Chinatown were. So Speed asked Ngoot to take us to a Chinese restaurant that he thought was really good. That was the beginning of a nine-year tradition of Tuesday nights in Chinatown. We called ourselves the “Chinese Gourmet Society.”
We had strict eating rules at the Chinese Gourmet Society. You were not allowed to eat two mouthfuls of fish, meat, or chicken without an intermediate mouthful of rice. Otherwise, you would be consuming only the expensive food. The check and tip, and the parking fees, if any, were equally divided among the members. It was compulsory, if you were in New York, not working nights, and in reasonable health, to be present at every Chinese Gourmet Society meeting.