Funnymen (5 page)

Well, I wound up doin' that for the next sixty fuckin' years.

CATHERINE RICCI:
Mamma sent me up to Boston with a few slabs of veal Milanese and some lasagna, about thirty pounds of food. She said to me, “Make sure it gets into that boy's stomach. And if it don't go down his mouth, you get it into him some other way . . .”

HUGH BERRIDGE:
Slowly but surely, he got the hang of it. This was not
Rigoletto,
of course; this was the kind of music the Pied Pipers or the Ink Spots were singing. And he started to fit in. His voice, even Vern admitted it, was malleable. But it was just eating Vic alive at first. “I'm tryin', guys, I'm tryin',” he'd say. He looked sickly at times.

[Vic] had trouble remembering the lyrics. Teddy Duncan—he always thought on his feet—had the clever idea to write the lyrics on Vic's shirtsleeves. So we had Jack Enright's secretary write the lyrics in red ink on the sleeves of his shirts.

Unfortunately we had not noticed how much Victor was sweating.

• • •

SALLY KLEIN:
You couldn't pay to keep people away. They came from as much as fifty miles away, which in those days was a big deal.

Harry and Flo already had engagements lined up in Camden, Newark, and Buffalo, and Rosie booked them back into the Baer Lodge for after that.

DR. HOWARD BAER:
The shows at the Lodge were great. It always started the same, making it look as though Ziggy was interrupting Harry and Flo's show in progress. Ziggy would later tell interviewers that he was the first to introduce the whole Pirandello angle into modern comedy, something about a fourth wall being torn down.

Each night their show got funnier and each night the show got a little longer. He'd really get that audience going when he went into the crowd and sat on laps and starting playing with people's food and drinks and cigarettes.

By the time the Beaumonts came on, the crowd was exhausted. Ziggy had wrung them dry. So the Beaumonts would be dancing but nobody was paying attention. And you know, it was sad. Poor Mary Beaumont was a mess. She was drinking heavily, I heard. And Billy was no help. Neither of them ever knew exactly when Ziggy was going to bounce onstage; sometimes he did it in their first number, sometimes he waited till the end. But those two, they were dancing skittishly, like a guillotine could fall on them any second.

On the last night, it all went wrong. Billy was off, Mary was way, way off. You know how when a figure skater falls and you
cringe?
Imagine twenty minutes of that.

The band was playing
Tales of the Vienna Woods,
I think. This was their closer. And on comes Ziggy.

Well, he didn't come on. What he would do is, he'd clandestinely creep into the pit where the band was and he'd take one of the musicians' instruments. This night it was a trumpet. So while the Beaumonts were waltzing, all of a sudden there was this loud strident noise. The spotlight then caught Ziggy in the pit and he was blowing the horn and his eyes were bulging, completely crossed.

Billy said, “Hi, Ziggy. You're here to interrupt us again?”

Ziggy said, “You two could use an interruptus, it looks like.”

Mary said to him, “Well, get on with it then.”

Ziggy said something to the effect of “I'd like to waltz with Mary if I could, Billy.” And he was sucking his thumb, standing knock-kneed and pigeon-toed like a shy child.

He hopped onto the stage—he was in his baggy red flannel pajamas. Just the sight of him holding that trumpet, the fifty or so people left in the room were giggling.

“Will you blow my horn, Billy, while I take a spin with the missus?” Ziggy asked him. “You like blowing on things, Billy, that's what your wife told me.”

Billy blushed, turned beet red . . . he looked down, stared at his shoes. Ziggy readjusted his pajama bottoms in a comical way, in preparation to dance with Mary.

“Boys, if you will,” Ziggy said, trying to get the band to resume.

“No. No more,” Mary said. “No more of this.”

“Hey, that's not what you said last night in your room, Mare,” Zig said.

“You sick Jewboy,” Mary said to him. That's when people knew it wasn't a joke anymore, that it wasn't a routine. There were gasps from every table, from every Jewboy in the place, from ten years old to seventy. “You want to tell people what you were saying when you begged me to
kiss you and you were jerking yourself off in my room? Why don't you tell everyone that!”

Well, the lights came down real fast. You can imagine.

Aunt Rosie never booked the Beaumonts after that.

• • •

GUY PUGLIA:
After four weeks Vic was sounding just like Crosby, [Bob] Eberly, or Fritz Devane. Jesus, he looked funny in that stupid domino vest. Enright's “girl” had knitted it for him but then he lost all that weight. It was one of those pullover deals, straight out of a Henry Aldrich movie. And it was hanging on him like a collapsed parachute.

He'd started seeing Lulu [Louise Mangiapane] back home—but this was Vic and he could never get enough tail. So I don't think he was missing her too much.

MAEVE CLARITY:
The Four Threes Trio was booked into the Lynn Palaestra on Cape Ann for four nights. They would be singing with the Noel Galen Orchestra. The Galen band was opening for the Floyd Lomax Orchestra—Connie Bishop and Dick Fain were their singers then.

Before that, however, Vic had asked me out on a date. I was still living with my father and my brothers Jimmy and Tom. I knew they wouldn't approve of Victor, but . . . well, he and I went to the movies and had dinner a few times and we took walks along the Charles.

Now, I wasn't “that kind of girl.” I'd never been out on a date before, never even held a boy's hand. I was very demure. Vic was charming, very funny, but I had to explain many things to him, such as about time zones, what a vice president was, and what kidneys were for. But he caught on quickly to everything.

He had such crazy dreams back then . . . he just used to talk and talk. It's funny to think about it now. We'd be walking along the river and he would tell me he was the next Fritz Devane, how he was going to eventually try out for the Dorsey band or Benny Goodman. Walking around with him, I'd get such looks from the other girls. He was so dark and big and handsome and here I was, this pale skinny Irish girl.

But I think I was letting him down. He once tried to hold my hand and I snatched it away. I was very scared. What if one of my brothers ran into us? A few nights later he tried it again, and again I wouldn't let him do it. So he said, “How's about this instead, Maeve?” and he took my hand and put it on his pants. “Is this any better?” he asked me.

Now I was eighteen and very shy and . . . well, I didn't know much. This was all very new to me. I didn't know anything about boys. So I said,
“Yes, Vic, this is better.” Because my hand on his pants seemed a lot cleaner to me than it being in his hand.

“Oh!” he said. His face lit up. “So leave it there.”

HUGH BERRIDGE:
The first show we did was seamless. Vern Hapgood had drilled us well. Backstage, however, Vic was a mess. Teddy Duncan said he'd seen Vic upchucking on a box of reeds belonging to a tenor sax man from the Floyd Lomax band.

Vic had promised us he'd dye his hair blond or light brown. But he didn't do it. Rowlie was very upset by that and so was I, frankly.

I remember that Jack Enright's secretary had accompanied us up to Lynn. Rowlie really had a case on her, really thought she was quite the dish. Backstage she'd seen how oversized the vest was on Vic and she quickly went about doing some tailoring.

“Let Me Call You Sweetheart” went off without a hitch. We were clicking. But Vic was—as some Mediterranean types are wont to do—he was sweating. The lights were hot, there was no air-conditioning. It was his first time performing. He was sweating profusely.

Oh no! I remember thinking. The lyrics!

By the third song—I believe it was “The Song Is You”—the lyrics were gone. Vic would lift his arm and occasionally snap his fingers just to sneak a look at his sleeves. But by now each of his sleeves had become one long red blotch.

GUY PUGLIA:
I'm backstage and this bald guy who plays trombone for the Lomax band is saying, “Hey, someone call a doctor! That guy's arms are bleeding all over!”

[The] girls, though, they ate him up. They wanted to mother him, that's what it was . . . they just wanted to drag him home or into a bush some-wheres and adopt him.

“Are his eyes turquoise?” I heard a girl ask another girl. And the second girl said to her, “Eyes? Who's looking at his eyes?”

• • •

ED SMITH:
I was the assistant manager of Herbie's Duplex [a nightclub in Camden, New Jersey] right before the war. Herbie was Herb Shipman, who'd been in the record business in New York in the late twenties . . . but the real owners of the joint were the Pompiere crime family. We lined up some good acts but the bigger names in the area would play New York, Philly, Atlantic City, places like the 500 Club, the Hacienda, or the Mosque. We'd book a band or two and some comics. George Simms
played the place a few times, Mackie Brine too. And Lenny Pearl. The food? Well, let's just say I always made sure to eat at home before coming to work.

The Blissmans had played the Duplex maybe a year before and had died, just died. But you felt sorry for them—they'd tried hard.

Now, the second time we booked the Blissmans it was to open for the Jorge Estrada Orchestra. There was the whole hot Latin scene going on then; you know, Ray Lopez, Cesar Romero, Carmen Morais, Jose Iturbi—they were coming out of the woodwork. But Jorge Estrada was as Spanish as a bialy—his real name was Joey Eisenberg. He dyed his hair black and he used some lotion on his skin to give it a darker tone.

We got this publicity picture in a few days before the Blissmans came. That was the first time I'd ever seen Ziggy Bliss, I guess. I thought, This kid is
human
? His head was like a scouring pad, like Brillo after cleaning up a big mess of catsup. I showed the photo to Herb and he took a look at it and he just grunted.

I remember, it was Jimmy Canty, he was the road manager for the Jorge Estrada Orchestra. We're going over some business stuff maybe four hours before the first show. And Ziggy Bliss walked in.

Jimmy Canty said to me, “What the hell, Herb's letting baby rhinos into the joint now?”

Ziggy comes over, introduces himself. He told me he wanted the first pick of dressing rooms and Jimmy laughed out loud. I told Ziggy there were only two dressing rooms: “The band gets the bigger one and you and your family get the smaller one, behind the kitchen.” Jimmy made a crack, like that'll be enough room 'cause the opening act was a midget act. Ziggy said, “They ain't midgets. They just act like they are.”

I say to him, “You're getting the smaller room. Case closed, kid.”

Ziggy—this is something I'll take to my grave—looked at Jimmy Canty and said, “You better tell Señor Joey Eisenberg that he better play real, real good
esta noche
. 'Cause we're gonna wipe him off the stage otherwise. Ta, gentlemen.”

“Well, that just beats anything I ever stuck my finger in, Eddie,” Jimmy said.

Five nights later, we'd reversed the billing. The Estrada band was opening up for Ziggy Bliss and his parents. And you know what? It was Jimmy Canty whose idea it was. 'Cause there wasn't one of the guys in that band who wanted to come on after the Blissmans had torn up the crowd.

And they got the bigger dressing room too.

• • •

HUGH BERRIDGE:
By the fourth show at the Lynn Palaestra I really felt that we'd become a trio again. Vic calmed down, he was rolling with us . . . there was a sense of unity in the vocalizations. He'd still perspire—but not as much—and it wasn't until the fifth song of the set that the lyrics became indecipherable.

MAEVE CLARITY:
Victor was staying at a small hotel in a town just north of Lynn. Beverly, it was. And I stayed with my father and brothers in South Boston, but each night I came up by train to watch Vic perform. My father was not too pleased with that but Mr. Enright had promised him that it was work-related and that no harm would befall me.