I'm getting tired of writing about people dying so I'll be as brief as I can about Mitzi Shore, who has passed away at the age of 87. This obit well recounts the facts of her life and how a divorce gave her ownership of what turned out to be the most important franchise ever in the world of stand-up comedy.
The list of funny people who benefited from performing at the Comedy Store is endless, though nowhere near as endless as the list of those who got onto her stages, tried to emulate the success stories of that profession and wound up selling insurance for a living. Unless you saw an Open Mike (Try-Out) Night at the Store, you have no idea how unfunny some people who think they're hilarious can be.
Mitzi culled from those auditioners the <1% who showed some talent — which I never thought was as difficult to discern as some insisted — and gave them a showcase and a shot. Many who parlayed their shot into stardom will tell you that they owed much of it to her. As a writer for a few of those guys during the Golden Era at the store, I was in a position to observe without having to kiss up to Mitzi for good time slots and I'll give her this: She was really, really good at running the business side of that business and it made her very wealthy.
One of these days, when more time has passed since her passing, I may be in the mood to write about the flip side of that. It has to do with how in show business, some people will give you a great break and even though they profit from it too, they expect you to keep paying them back forever for it. For now, let's just thank her for helping out the careers of a lot of people we know, love and laugh at.
What I did Monday evening was to take Leonard and Alice Maltin, along with my friend Amber, to see the fine cabaret performer Mark Nadler. It's rare to see him playing the piano and singing show tunes in Southern California but he was briefly in town. I wanted to see him. I wanted Amber to see him. I thought Leonard and Alice would enjoy seeing him. If and when you get the chance, you will too. He plays well, he sings well and he annotates the songs he plays with fascinating and funny facts. In this case, it was an evening of songs written by Cole Porter…and showtunes don't get much better than that. Just as performers of them don't get much better than Mark Nadler.
The location for this was Upstairs at Vitello's, a small but serviceable room on the second floor of Vitello's restaurant in what they call Tujunga Village, but I think it's actually Studio City out in the valley here. Vitello's is probably most famous as the Italian restaurant where Robert Blake dined with his wife just before she was murdered by some unknown person who most people think was Robert Blake.
The place should be known as one of the better rooms around L.A. for cabaret-style performing, which is as easy thing to be as most of them are pretty awful. It is a constant frustration of performers that the venues where they can perform do not share the income fairly and force them to invite people to come see them in a room with cramped seating, poor sight lines, mediocre food, overpriced mediocre food and, often, maddeningly-poor service. A subject for another time here.
Naturally, we talked a lot about our friend Chuck McCann. Leonard has penned a fine tribute to the man and you can read it here.
As you may know, my life abounds in strange coincidences. Just as we were getting away from the topic of Chuck, Leonard and I noticed that about twelve inches from us, seated at the next table was Sonny Fox. At the same time Chuck was a superstar of kids' TV in New York, so was Sonny Fox on Wonderama and other shows, and their paths crossed constantly. After Mr. Nadler did that voodoo that he do so well, we had a great conversation with Sonny about Chuck. Sonny even produced Chuck's last attempt to do classic-style programming for children. It did not go well but Sonny's love and respect of Chuck was not diminished.
Then last night, I attended a meeting of Yarmy's Army, the local social club of funny writers and performers to which I belong. Chuck was among its founding members and we all sat around, ate Chinese food and told anecdotes about the guy. I still don't know if and when there's going to be a memorial for Mr. McCann but I feel like I've already been to two of them. Which is fine because there's no end to the stories that can be told about the guy.
One of the job requirements for hosting a late night talk show is that you have to be able to tell a truly wonderful anecdote about something that happened to you. Last night, Seth Meyers told what may well have been the best "desk story" ever…
Bob Bergen is one of the top voiceover guys in the business and a former client of Don Pitts. This morning on Facebook, Bob wrote about Don and he gave me permission to share some of it with you here…
Don was my first agent, and signed me when I was 18. At that time he had just left Abrams, Rubaloff and Lawrence and set up shop at Commercials Unlimited. Even though I was a seasoned V.O. student with four years of study behind me, I had no clue how I'd hit the agent jackpot…until one day early on in my representation.
CU had this tiny little V.O. booth. I got a call to come in for an audition. Sunny (Sonny??), the beautiful receptionist, gave me my copy and asked me to have a seat on the couch. In walked a larger than life man, oozing with the essence of cigar and body odor, and sat next to me. He was sweating profusely, which dripped a bit on my arm. I was so deep in thought with my copy, it took me a moment before I realized it was Orson Welles.
Welles looked over my shoulder and said, "Young man, I think you are my partner in this audition. Would you like to step into the hallway and rehearse a bit?" My first thought was, "Orson Welles has to audition???" My second thought was, "Holy crap on the floor, I'm going to rehearse with Citizen Kane!"
We were summoned into the booth by Don, who also played engineer. Again, a tiny booth. Welles and I were stomach to stomach. I had to lean into the mic as there was no way Don could mic me properly. Orson's (may I call him Orson?) shirt was sweat soaked. When we were done, I had a round sweat stain on my shirt where our stomachs met. And I hoped I could somehow absorb his DNA genius. (didn't need the body odor though)
When we walked out, Orson shook my hand and told me I had the best agent in the business.
Almost every male voice talent who was represented by Don — and I suspect, a few of the ladies — could do a great impression of Don. Every once in a while in some cartoon, I've heard an impression of Don coming out of the animated mouth of some bit player. I wonder if Orson did him, too.
Don Pitts, who was once the most powerful agent in the Los Angeles voiceover business, has passed away. I can't tell you his exact age but 90 is a good guess. He did outlive his last two clients, Janet Waldo and June Foray. The photo above is from the mid-eighties — Don with another wonderful voice actress, Susan Silo.
Anyone who listened to radio in San Francisco may remember Don as a top-rated on-air personality, mostly on KGO and KYA. On this page, you can hear about twenty-one minutes of a broadcast he did around 1956.
Don started in radio in 1945 but in the sixties, he made a move to Los Angeles and into representing other folks in front of microphones. Nearly everyone in town who did voiceovers in the sixties and into the seventies was a Don Pitts client including June, Janet, Mel Blanc, Orson Welles, Casey Kasem, Paul Frees, Paul Winchell, Rod Roddy, Henry Corden, Don Messick and Daws Butler. That is a very partial list. He was a fine gentleman and even though I'm sick of writing about death this week, I had to note his passing.
I often had Chuck McCann on my Cartoon Voices panels at Comic-Con in San Diego. Here, from 2011, I got him to tell one of my favorite anecdotes. The lady on the right is the wonderful Laraine Newman…
A year ago today, my lovely friend Carolyn Kelly lost her battle with cancer. Actually, she lost it many months before 4/9/17 and probably admitted it to herself some weeks before…but it was that Sunday night that someone from the hospice agency called and told me it was all over.
By then, she had no awareness of where she was or what was happening, pretty much sleeping 24/7 as two hospice nurses tag-teamed to monitor her breathing and other vital signs. I stopped in twice a day because I felt I should but we were well past the point when I could do anything or she even knew I was there.
Something one of the hospice nurses said has stayed with me. I sat with her for many long hours as Carolyn slept, already gone effectively gone from this world. The nurse was young and bright and so very, very compassionate. I asked her why of all the positions in her profession, she had chosen hospice…tending to people who were soon to die. She said, "I tried various jobs but I found this one gave me a real sense of taking care of people and helping people."
I said, "Helping them to die?"
"I'm not here just to take care of people like her," she said, nodding towards Carolyn. "I'm also here to take care of people like you."
She spoke of the families and friends who are usually unprepared to take care of someone who is dying, or to deal with the maze of emotions that can accompany the death of a loved one. Carolyn's case, she said, was an easy one because there was just one loved one around — me — and I had it more or less together.
Later, I discussed it with one of my own doctors. He asked me if I was familiar with the five stages of death as defined by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and her colleagues. I made him laugh by replying, "Yes, I've seen All That Jazz." They are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. My doctor said, "What a lot of people don't get is that it isn't just the dying person who goes through those five steps. It's usually also the people who love them and care for them."
Not always. I don't think I went through the first three at all. In fact, I think my value to Carolyn the last year was that I was anchored in the reality of the situation when that became difficult for her. She, I believe, jumped from Denial to something that was more like "Denial + Combat" and eventually to a mix of Depression and Guilt. The guilt had to do with how much time and money she was costing me and others. She was a caring and sensitive person…the kind who was embarrassed when something she did created a problem for someone else.
Was it one year ago? Really? At some moments, it feels like one decade and at others, like one week. I have done what I hope all my friends will do when I go. I have mourned briefly, I have taken care of (most of) the business that was left dangling and I have reconfigured my life without her. That last item may sound callous but it has to be done and you can do it without trampling on or losing the memory of the departed one.
Carolyn was a wonderful, smiling, positive presence not only in my life but in the lives of everyone she met. No one was not better for having known her.
In these last twelve months, one of the big "wish she was here to see this" moments was when I received the first, hot-off-the-presses copy of Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips, Volume Four. I promised her we'd get the book out and keep getting subsequent volumes out until her father's masterpiece of comic art is reprinted in full, all according to Carolyn's plan. Volume Five will be out by Halloween of this year and it's darn near ready to go to the printers now.
That would have made her happy…and everything that made her happy made me happy so I'm now being happy on her behalf. It's not as good as having her around but since a year ago today, it's as close as I can come.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes of his friendship and debt to Bill Cosby and of the struggle to balance that against what Cosby has done and come to represent. And once you consider what it means to those who loved and respected Cosby, think about what it means in reference to folks accused of lesser offenses…or where there is lesser evidence.
It's one of those times when this blog cannot seem to get off the subject of death. My main post tomorrow is about it and now I feel I should post word that Mitzi Shore, proprietor of The Comedy Store, is in hospice and her son Pauly has tweeted, "…let's all prey [sic] she when she goes to heaven she go peaceful I know she was loved by many of you."
I did not get along with this woman but even I have to acknowledge she may have been the most important non-performing person in the world of comedy for a couple of decades. When she goes, some newspaper will run a long, long list of successful comedians who might not have had careers without Mitzi Shore. I'm sure there will be quotes aplenty from performers like David Letterman and Jay Leno and so many others. Given the way that industry has changed, I doubt anyone ever will have more impact than she did.
I rarely called him that but others did often and it's obvious why. Chuck McCann was an outstanding member on any list of Funny People. His sixties kid show in New York was legendary and I don't think I was ever in a public place with Chuck without someone recognizing him and telling him how much they'd grown up on that show and loved it…and him.
Often, I'd find myself around a table with Chuck and other funny folks and here is how it would go: Someone would tell a story about a bad agent. Then almost everyone else around the table would tell a story about a bad agent. And then Chuck would tell the best story about a bad agent.
Or someone would tell a story about Milton Berle. Then almost everyone else around the table would tell a story about Milton Berle. And then Chuck would tell the best story about Milton Berle.
Or someone would tell a story about TelePrompters. Then almost everyone else around the table would tell a story about TelePrompters. And then Chuck would tell the best story about TelePrompters. When it came to telling great anecdotes, no one could follow him.
He loved to perform — any time for any audience. It could be two people or two million…didn't matter. The happiest I ever saw him was when I got him to come down to San Diego and be part of one of my Cartoon Voices panels at Comic-Con. Or maybe it was back when I was teaching Comedy Writing down at U.S.C. I drove Chuck down there to speak to my class and the students were mesmerized. At least one of them — he told me this, after — was less interested in learning from Chuck how to write funny than he was in learning how to brighten up a room and make everyone laugh and smile and have a good time.
That was a good reason to be around Chuck…to try and learn that. Another reason was that you laughed a lot. And you felt more creative. And you felt honored to have someone like that as your friend. I just started to write "I'm going to miss that guy" and then I realized: I already do.
Here's a montage of Donald Trump being praised by…Donald Trump. Even if there's a tiny basis for some of these claims — and I'm not saying there is — I wonder if there's a Trump supporter alive who wouldn't want to throw rocks at a Democrat who talked like this…
Through the 22nd of this month, the Garry Marshall Theatre out in Toluca Lake is featuring an excellent production of Neil Simon's 1993 play, Laughter on the 23rd Floor. Everyone says the play was based on the classic comedy-variety series, Your Show of Shows, which starred Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca and which included on its now-legendary writing staff, a young Neil Simon. More accurately, Laughter on the 23rd Floor is mostly about Caesar's subsequent series, Caesar's Hour.
What's the difference? Well, Simon's play was about Caesar's reign as the King of TV Comics coming to an end, and that happened on Caesar's Hour, not Your Show of Shows. Caesar's Hour also had a writing staff that included, along with Simon, Larry Gelbart and Sheldon Keller, both of whom are renamed characters in the play. (Gelbart and Belkin didn't work on Your Show of Shows and Larry especially used to get somewhat pissed at all the articles that said he did. Neither did Woody Allen, who was often credited as a Your Show of Shows writer. Allen worked on some of Caesar's later specials.)
Everyone gets this stuff wrong. Wikipedia says the character of Kenny in the play was based on Gelbart and Carl Reiner. It was just Gelbart. It also says the character of Harry Prince in the play was based on Caesar's brother, Dave. That character wasn't in the play. It was only in the 2001 TV movie of the same name, which Simon wrote using almost none of the play.
The program book bio of Neil Simon for the Garry Marshall Theater production says Simon was a writer on The Sid Caesar Show. No, he wasn't. Mr. Caesar starred in four different TV series: The Admiral Broadway Revue, Your Show of Shows, Caesar's Hour and Sid Caesar Invites You. He did do one special called The Sid Caesar Show but Simon had nothing to do with it. I could go on and on and I usually do…but this time, having made my point, I'm uncharacteristically going to stop.
Nevertheless, the production out at the Garry Marshall is first-rate. I saw the play on Broadway and while it's been a while, I think this production may be better. What I saw in New York had Nathan Lane in the Sid Caesar role. No, correct that: It had Nathan Lane playing Jackie Gleason playing Sid Caesar. He was very, very good but I thought Pat Towne, who's doing it at the Marshall, is doing it better. The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, as well: John Ross Bowie, Lanisa Renee Frederick, Jason Grasl, Cornelius Jones Jr., Jessica Joy, Ty Mayberry, Roland Rusinek and Jason Weiss. Mr. Weiss is an understudy but you sure couldn't tell it from his fine performance as Mel Brooks Ira Stone.
And a special shout-out to Scenic Designer Alex Calle and anyone else who had anything to do with the terrific period set.
The core of this play is the Caesar doppelgänger. It's a story about the star's breakdown as his show, though hailed as a creative highpoint in the history of television begins losing ratings to programming with lower aspirations. That's why it's Caesar's Hour (where that happened) and not Your Show of Shows, which was an unqualified success. One suspects Simon wrote the play just to show what Sid went through then.
Having worked with the late/great Caesar, I absolutely believe it is an accurate portrait. Sometimes in show business, you do it right and lose to someone doing it wrong. When I was around Sid, I observed a constant procession of people telling him, "You are the funniest man who was ever on television" and the even more hurtful "How come you aren't on TV every week?" The compliments were hurtful because Sid had no answer for that question.
Imagine if you were a baseball player who could bat .365 and no team wanted you. You might be happier being a poor player because at least then you could understand your unemployment.
With Sid, the reasons had to do with his need to control, his inability to be funny (or even genuine) out of character, his inability to change with the times and his constant paranoia. Under the direction of Michael A. Shepperd, Pat Towne captured all of that perfectly while simultaneously and appropriately devouring much of Mr. Calle's lovely scenery. It was really one of the most expert performances I've seen in an off-off-off-Broadway venue. If you're close enough to Toluca Lake to get over and see it before 4/22, I recommend it.
And it reminded me what a crapshoot theater can be at times. I really, really didn't like the last show I saw at the Marshall a while back, so much so that I didn't even tell you about it here. I was regretting my already-purchased tickets to this one but boy, did it more than make up for the previous visit. Sometimes, you need to just roll the dice and go.
I'm getting way behind in my name-dropping here so let's play catch-up and I'm going to enlist my friend Steve Stoliar to help me. Last Saturday evening, we went to see a really terrible, unfunny movie called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
You may have just read that last sentence twice (maybe even thrice) thinking, "Huh? That's one of the funniest films ever made!" Well, not at the Saban Theater last Saturday, it wasn't. We had poor seats for viewing it, the print wasn't great, the big screen wasn't that big, the sound quality wasn't that good and much of the audience seemed to think the point of showing the film at all was for them to prove how well they knew it by shouting all the lines out loud before the actors on the screen could utter them.
I had planned to take my friend Amber that night because she's never seen this usually-hilarious movie and I thought a theater-full of Python lovers would be the ideal audience with which to view it. Turned out I was wrong. Too many of them thought they were at The Rocky Horror Picture Show and too few of them laughed. In a way, I'm glad she had a sudden family matter to deal with and I took Steve instead.
And another reason I'm glad I took Steve is that when I finally sat down to write about the night, I realized he'd already done most of the heavy lifting for me on his Facebook page. Here, with his permission, is what he wrote there. It may help if I remind you that when Steve was but a mere college student, he had a job as the personal secretary/aide to one Julius "Groucho" Marx…
Last night, I had a certifiably splendiferous experience. A couple of days earlier, I'd gotten a call from my pal, Mark Evanier, telling me that his date for the evening was unable to attend and was I interested in accompanying him to a screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, after which a Mr. John Cleese would be doing Q&A? I leapt at the chance.
Mark's seats turned out to be very close to the stage (3rd row), but way off to the side, which is not the best way to watch a motion picture — but — it was a terrific vantage point from which to observe the post-film Q&A. The only sour note was the asshole sitting behind us who decided to impress everyone within earshot by reciting the dialogue along with the film. I turned around twice and glared at him. Nothing. Mark turned around and glared at him. Nothing. Finally, I turned around and said, "Please stop doing that."
He leaned forward and said, "Oh, so we're not supposed to talk during a movie we've all seen a million times?!" I said, "That's right." Then the guy on the other side of me turned around and reiterated, "No, you're not." The asshole's recitation subsided for a while, but then he continued, off and on, and I tried to tune him out as best I could, because getting into a useless fight with this jerk wasn't worth missing out on the movie. It had been quite some time since I'd seen Grail and I did laugh frequently.
After the film, Cleese's lovely actress-comedian daughter, Camilla, came out and introduced her 78-year-old father, who strode out to a thunderous standing ovation, waved, bowed, thanked everyone, and then exited the stage. Camilla coaxed him back and they did a wonderful Q&A based on questions audience members had written down on blue cards before the show (I didn't ask anything).
Cleese was very warm, engaging, and funny (big surprise). He talked about the film, his Python mates, Fawlty Towers (adamant about giving ex-wife Connie Booth credit for having co-written the scripts), his mother, and various other things.
After he and Camilla wrapped up their chat, an announcer said that people who had VIP wristbands to meet-and-greet Mr. Cleese and have their picture taken were to remain in the theatre. As Mark and I were filing out, I said, "Can't we pretend we have VIP tickets and get our picture taken?"
He said, "We'd have to pretend, because we don't have them." Oh well; it was still a great night. We figured we'd take what Cavett calls "a prophylactic piss" before heading out into the cold night air, but the line up the stairs to the men's room was quite daunting, so we figured we'd stick around in the lobby and wait for it to die down.
Shortly thereafter, voice-over legend Maurice LaMarche stopped to talk to Mark, with whom he'd worked on a number of occasions. He said he and his wife had VIP tickets to get their photos taken, but they had to take off and did we want their wristbands? If not, they would just go to waste.
In fact, we did. So after using the men's room, we got in line to meet-and-greet Mr. Cleese and have our pictures taken. Despite all the legendary people Mark and I have met, known, worked with, and befriended over the years, we were just two fans waiting to shake hands with a comedy giant (literally and figuratively).
John Cleese and Steve Stoliar
I was mightily impressed with how warm, patient, and personable Cleese was with each fan. There was no sense of "Smile! Click! Now on your way!" He seemed happy to chat, if briefly, with his public. When it was my turn, I shook his hand and said, "Thank you for more than I can possibly articulate." He appreciated that, then laughed at the sight of my "NO TRUMP" button.
I told him I used to write for Dick Cavett and he said, "I did a play once with his wife." I said, "Carrie Nye. She could be intimidating when you first meet her, but she was actually quite warm and friendly." He agreed. I mentioned having worked for Groucho and his eyes lit up. After we posed for our photo, he said, "Stick around in the lobby and we can chat afterward." Fine with me.
So Mark and I hung out in the lobby and, after Cleese had interacted with his adoring VIP wristband wearers, he exited the room — and patiently signed autographs for fans who had brought stuff to sign, but hadn't shelled out for VIP tickets. After he was done, I reminded him that he'd asked me to stick around. Handlers were trying to hurry him out to his awaiting tour bus, but he wanted to know what Groucho was like, how old he was at the time, etc. I told him a couple of brief Groucho-and-me anecdotes and he laughed heartily — and he was amused/intrigued that Zeppo and I had dated the same girl. Then he really did have to go.
A completely unexpected and wondrous experience, thanks to the generosity of Mark, Maurice LaMarche, and — of course — Mr. Cleese.
ME again. This was about the sixth or seventh time I've heard John Cleese in person, speaking or being interviewed and I've heard all the other Pythons, save for Graham Chapman but I had the pleasure (which it was) to lunch with him about a quarter-century ago. I've always been impressed not so much with how witty they were — one expects that — but with how wise they all were. These are — or in Mr. Chapman's case, were — very smart men.
I was also impressed, as was Steve, with how nice Cleese was. I know he was making a lot of money for being there but he didn't have to be as polite and engaged with everyone as he was. He genuinely seemed to want to stay around longer and talk with us. Maybe it's just that he's a good actor but I don't think it was that.
Naturally, I got a photo with him and this may be the only picture I have of myself actually laughing. Steve went before me and told Cleese about working with Dick Cavett and Groucho. Then when I followed Steve to the position before the camera, I said, "I hope he didn't tell you those lies about working for Dick Cavett and Groucho Marx." Cleese laughed and said, "Are you a writer, too?"
I said I was and I added, "And I've made a damn good living plagiarizing from you." While smiling for the photographer, he muttered, "You and half the known universe" and the way he said it is what I'm laughing at in the picture.
Like Steve, I've been around a lot of people I admired for their comedic abilities and had my picture taken with quite a few of 'em. I think this was only the second time someone was paid for posing with me (this first was Marty Allen) and this time, I didn't even pay. Maurice LaMarche did.
He did a very nice thing for Steve and me because while the photo itself wasn't all that exciting, those few minutes of one-on-one with Basil Fawlty were absolutely delightful. I've occasionally been disappointed by heroes I've met and I'm still smiling about that not being the case this time. And yes, I'm still amazed at how unfunny Monty Python and the Holy Grail can be in a roomful of people who think they're doing Mystery Science Theater 3000.
