Rickles' Book (5 page)

B
rooklyn is a beautiful place. Ask any Brooklynite. Ask me. I’ll tell you it’s beautiful, and I’m a kid from Jackson Heights who rooted against the Dodgers. See, Brooklyn gave me my first big break. Without Brooklyn, I’d still be entertaining at bar mitzvahs. But come to think of it, it’s where I started entertaining at bar mitzvahs. Here’s the story.

There was a big upscale club in the heart of Brooklyn on Ocean Parkway called the Elegante. Its owner was Joe Scandore. Joe and the Elegante changed my life.

Joe was an elegantly dressed man with an improbably high-pitched voice and a law degree from Syracuse University. He was a bright guy with a show-biz brain. In addition to having dinner and attending a regular show, you could get married at the Elegante or have any kind of party you wanted. Joe was Italian, but the Elegante, situated in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood, catered to everyone. It was where you went for a classy meal, a special night out, or the best live entertainment on Ocean Parkway.

I clicked at the Elegante. That’s where my style came together. And Joe was there to witness the whole thing. Joe liked me so much he bought my contract from Willie Weber and decided to manage me.

Leaving Willie wasn’t easy, but he understood. He always wanted the best for me. No hard feelings. Besides, Mom was convinced Joe represented a step up. She was crazy about him, and he treated her like a queen. She loved how he cared for her sonny boy.

Before Joe got me jobs outside the Elegante, he had me working his club so often it became a second home. The schedule was nuts.

It went like this:

Saturday morning I wake up at the crack of dawn in Long Beach, take the Long Island Railroad and two subways to get to Brooklyn.

I’d get to a hotel in downtown Brooklyn, check in, shower and put on the tux. Here comes the knock on the door. It’s Rocky, Joe’s man. Rocky was a sweetheart.

“Bar mitzvah time,” he says. “You’re on in an hour.”

Rocky runs me over to the Elegante where I grab a bite in the kitchen. After the tap dancer is done tapping, I come on to entertain the bar mitzvah party. Everyone’s busy eating lunch.

I begin to sell my stuff.

“Is this your father?” I ask the bar mitzvah boy. “What happened? Did a bus hit him?”

“And this is your mother?” I continue.

He nods yes.

“She’s beautiful. What does she see in your father?”

Then I look over the room and say, “I’ll be honest, this crowd looks like a real mercy mission. So just give me the kid’s gifts and let me go home early.”

Right after the show, Rocky takes me back to the hotel. I take off my yarmulke and Rocky says, “Relax, Jew, I’ll be back at seven.”

I stretch out on the bed and think, Why am I killing myself? The answer’s easy: I need the money.

Seven o’clock and Rocky comes knocking at the door. I jump into my tux and he takes me back to the Elegante where I do a show at nine and another at eleven.

By 1
A.M.
, I’m hanging out at the Elegante bar while Joe, with his smooth-talking style, tries to find me a girl. Usually, I wind up empty-handed, but once in a while when the moon is full and the parking lot deserted, Joe introduces me to a young lady who enjoys my performance and gives me an opportunity to enjoy her in the back of Scandore’s big Cadillac.

Then back to the hotel where I sleep for a few hours.

I’m up Sunday morning for a wedding party and two more shows Sunday night.

This is the Elegante lifestyle.

“Are you happy, sonny boy?” Mom asks.

“Happy enough,” I say.

“Good,” she says, “’cause we’re moving to Miami.”

M
om moved us to Miami Beach, where she shared an apartment on Collins Avenue with her friend from Jackson Heights, Honey Schwartz. Honey was also a widow, a lovely lady who became part of our family.

I had my own small place and adjusted easily. Who couldn’t adjust to Florida? In the fifties, Miami Beach was a tropical suburb of New York City. You felt a Jewish atmosphere everywhere you turned: women playing mah-jongg in front of their cabanas; overweight men in bathing suits sitting at bridge tables dealing out their hands in heavy-money card games. At Joe’s Stone Crab Restaurant, the crabs were two bucks and lobster a buck-fifty. At Wolfie’s Deli at Lincoln Road and Collins Avenue, pastrami, tongue and corned beef piled a mile high on rye with all the pickles and cole slaw you could eat were a quarter a sandwich.

The fancy hotels were the Fontainebleau, the Eden Roc, the Americana and the Diplomat. Headliners were playing them all. At the Latin Quarter, Milton Berle was breaking records. Meanwhile, I was appearing at a small, intimate room called Murray Franklin’s, where the audience sat in rocking chairs. That was the gimmick. Your genial host was Murray Franklin, who saw himself as the Ed Sullivan of Miami Beach. I’ll always be grateful to Murray for giving me a shot.

I’ll also always love Rowan and Martin, because when they were headlining the Americana, they caught my act at Murray’s and talked me up all up and down the beach. Dan and Dick became my pals and boosters.

I was working at Murray’s when I met a guy named Larry King. Yes, the same Larry King who today interviews prime ministers and presidents. On the air, his personality was powerful; at Wolfie’s, he became an eccentric who worried that the pastrami was too thick and the pickles too salty.

Back then, Larry had a radio show from 1
A.M.
to 5
A.M.
He broadcasted from a houseboat. His listeners were mostly waiters, showgirls and anyone with insomnia. King had me on the air many times to take listeners’ phone calls. When the caller talked for more than thirty seconds, I’d say, “Don’t be a hockey puck. Get out of my life.” And I’d hang up. Larry loved it.

“Wait,” King would say, “this next caller is serious. He wants to talk politics.”

“Listen, Larry,” I’d say, “I have no plans to run this country. So leave me alone with the politics. Tell him to kiss my congress.”

And so it went—phone call after phone call, hang-up after hang-up. After hours of laughing it up, we became friends. Still are today.

A sit-down with the Great One, Miami in the fifties.

Word got around Miami that this Rickles guy was pretty funny. A gentleman named Jackie Gleason wanted to see for himself.

There was nothing subtle about Gleason. The night he walked into the club, he picked up a chair and a small table, carried them on stage, and sat down not two feet from me. He poured himself a stiff drink, threw it back and said, “Okay, pal, make the Great One laugh.”

I took a deep breath and started ad-libbing like crazy. Jackie slumped in his chair, barely looking up.

“Jackie,” I said, “wake up. We need you Irish for parades. Take your table and chair, move to another hotel, fix me up with a June Taylor dancer, and I’ll meet you in an hour.”

The audience laughed and Gleason chuckled, which, given his condition, was saying a lot. He lifted his glass and said with a smile, “To you, pally.”

Miami Beach, fun capital of America, was Jackie Gleason’s world; I was just happy to be in it.

I
was still putting one foot in front of the other, counting on my loyal manager to keep me going in Miami. Aunt Honey and my mother would come see me wherever I was appearing. They saw I was making progress, but Mom wanted more for her son.

I wasn’t at the Great Summit, but I can describe the scene for you. I have an eyewitness who is completely trustworthy. Her name is Etta Rickles.

Unbeknownst to me, the unstoppable Etta Rickles had discovered that Dolly Sinatra, Frank’s mother, was staying at the Fontainebleau. Don’t ask me how, but Mom made it her business to meet Dolly.

My mother was the easiest person in the world to talk to, and Dolly enjoyed her company. After two or three weeks of these get-togethers, Mom learned that Sinatra was about to play the Fontainebleau.

Two days before Frank’s arrival, the Great Etta-Dolly Summit took place. The conference was brief:

“How long will Frank be here?” Etta asked Dolly.

“A couple of weeks,” said Dolly.

“Wonderful,” said Etta. “It would be great if you could get Frank to go see Don.”

Not skipping a beat, Dolly said, “Don’t worry, Etta. I’ll make sure Frank shows up.”

That was it.

And as a result of the Great Summit, the course of human history was permanently reshaped. Two weeks later, Frank Sinatra walked into Murray Franklin’s.

I saw him come in. You couldn’t miss him. At first, I didn’t believe it, but Etta had really pulled it off. If anyone could get Frank to do anything, it was Dolly.

When I said, “Make yourself comfortable, Frank, hit somebody,” I saw his entourage wait to see how he’d react.

He howled.

So they howled.

I acted like I had expected it.

“Frank, believe me, I’m telling you this as a friend: Your voice is gone.”

No one in the history of Frank Sinatra had ever talked to the man that way. Especially in public. He had never been the butt of anyone’s jokes when he was around to hear them.

It felt good knowing that the man bought my humor. I saw myself as the guy who makes fun of the boss at the office Christmas party but still has his job on Monday morning.

As far as Frank went, I knew he got me. That let me go a step further, and it’s how our whole thing got started.

Everyone is sentimental about his or her mother, but Frank and I take the cake. It became the starting point of our long friendship. Frank and I both shared a deep desire to please our moms. In later years, he always told me, “Don, your mom and Dolly were friends. That meant a lot to me. It really did.”

“Make yourself comfortable, Frank. Hit somebody.”

W
hen Murray Franklin learned that Jack Paar had taken over the
Tonight
show from Steve Allen and was doing a live broadcast from Miami Beach, he started pitching me.

“You’ll love this kid,” he told Paar’s producer.

“Does he have TV experience?” was the question.

“Sure, he has experience. Steve Allen had him on his show. He was a smash.”

Murray was exaggerating, but exaggeration is what show biz is all about.

The truth was that Steve Allen had put me in a skit. In fact, over the years he put me in many skits, but the first one was something of a disaster. It was me and a camel on stage. I forget the joke, but I remember the camel spitting all over me. And, even worse, the camel gave off an aroma that could empty a room. Now back to Paar.

Without telling Jack, the producer had me come out in the middle of his show. He thought the surprise would result in laughs. I’d dress up as a cabdriver and interrupt the proceedings with ad libs.

So far, so good.

I walk on stage with a driver’s cap pulled over my ears and a meter in my hands.

“Who are you?” Paar asked.

“Maxie the cabbie.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You called for a cab. Well, I’m your cab.”

Paar knew it was a bit, but he wasn’t buying.

Jack stammered in Paar fashion. “Wh-wh-wh-
where are you going with this?”

“Jack,” I said, “I’m a friend. Do yourself a favor and look for other work.”

Jack turned to his producer and whispered, “Who is this guy? Get him out of here.”

The bit went south, and nothing could stop it from going into the dumper.

In the years that followed, Jack and I developed a good relationship, in spite of that warm night in Miami that left us both cold.