Buddy Hackett Dick Cavett 1980

I haven't seen my next guest in quite a while he's he's one of the funniest guys in the business and he's been a comedian for over three decades and certainly one of the most successful he's one of those people who's whose career doesn't seem to slump as it can do in comedy he's done he's a great success in Las Vegas he kills audiences there he's made movies that in which he's very effective on the screen mad mad world of the lovebug I can't remember the others there's even one I think he hopes I won't mention but I may bring it up when he gets out here so he can defend himself he's done shows on Broadway is considered quite a good actor in Den Olympics and lovers I had a ball I think Viva Madison Avenue was one of them he's a Brooklyn boy that used to be essential to comedy worked in the catskills circuit he once worked inside a wait guessing machine whatever that means maybe he'll tell us then he's written a couple of books one of them perhaps surprisingly a book of poetry so will you welcome a Renaissance man Buddy Hackett there now you're wearing a lavalier microphone yeah and I'm working a boom that's right okay I just I don't know I didn't know if I had to come over and talk into your tie you know you know somebody did that once a guide someone not in the business and they kept leaning over every time he spoke talk in your time I realized I thought we'd forgotten their microphone went home laughing ed will spit on your tie shrunk it to a bowtie before the show was over how are you well I'm always the same you know I'm all these hey no matter how fat I am I'm fatter than I want to be and how thin I am I'm not thin as I want to be that's always my big hang-up so it never changes no I'm always up check everybody get up in the morning and I look in America huh it's you again you startled if it was somebody else oh no once I got to 158 pounds and there's a lot of different thing like you don't hit the wall in the shower that's one of the biggest things never had to have them rock a bathtub to get you out of it or any other no I didn't have that no no the highest I ever would was 253 or something like that when you say 150 whatever it was for me that's up no no 50 acres a lot for you right yeah you go for a middleweight champ if you were 150 I remembered our old friend Jackie Leonard used to say I lost more than you are I guess he did he once said to an audience in Boston that upset Amitabh all of you never should have want you did you ever see him top I did one time no I didn't what was the time Chuck Caillou wondered I did what everybody well this is on your own partial and Jack had been going and going Jack Leonard have been swing did that tremendous speed and he finally just sort of ran out of breath and said for no reason I'm sure he didn't know you know my wife's an acrobat and Jack said she'd have to be ha ha he was so stopped by this that's at one time my life I've seen his his jaw drop what was yours well years ago I was single very young and I got booked into Catskills because I had a collar mainly he's not good at it cause I got booked for a few shows $45 a show and Jack was a big star up there and part of my job was to take him to his job and to take him to breakfast and show for him during the day so I met some lady I knew and she spent the night with me and in the morning there's a knock on the door we had these cabins where this guy kenderson here oh they don't Fat Boy I said just a minute and I get out of bed and I open the door I get back in bed and I tell the girl who is naked to just put the covers down here and sit up in the bed I said come in he walk this order transcripted that wouldn't wouldn't mean much mal top by toppers did you ever want anything else and as a career better your life and the other been performing it seemed to be a born yeah like what I do yeah I really like but in the business I'd like to do other things yeah I think and when was in picture I forget if it was a requiem for a heavyweight or if it was the great man and he did a seven minutes in the crowd but did one seven minute scene and a great man okay and you got an award foot that's right and I'd like a chance you know food you have for me and all the other comedians people always surprised when a comedian can be moving or you know it can act it's as if comedy were easy and acting we're hard and we get a lot less laughs gonna get left so well used it a dramatic you know and if you're heard this but there's someone told me who was old enough to remember George Bernard Shaw that he came to a rehearsal once of a great actor who was doing his first comedy he was felled he was sort of slumming by doing a comet and it was a short comedy and shot got impatient with the guy and said tragedy is all very well but comedy is serious business it's really nice yeah well somebody said that just Oh Edmund Gwenn yeah just went as he was dying in the hospital someone sector is it tough ed and he said not as tough as doing comedy that's one beard well I mentioned in the introduction that you see or seems to be a career without slumps well I need ice you know I I took what I know I can do and did it you know and I didn't shoot any crap you know I know there will guys making a big living in nightclubs and one guy said I'm never gonna work there again I'm gonna be features I'm just gonna be in features and that's I don't know what he's doing now somewhere with brooms is what good and I Club and I stayed there and I made all my commitments in the nightclub no 30-day clause you have to leave me out if I have to do a film some no sign that all the time no one ever goes out to do a film I just stayed 21 years at one hotel in Las Vegas I was seven years in Las Vegas before I sign that deal then 21 years at the Sahara and now I just signed for three more years over the Riviera non-exclusive some work on both hotels well how does that work you mean when you're in town you do both know if you got work you're in the business if you haven't got work you're not in the business when I did got Show Stanley I was on Broadway and Garson Kanin offered me a wonderful place while Jaime invoices and it was so good I could taste it I said yes by all means yes meanwhile Danny and Doc Simon came to see me doc Simon was not good Doc's on roof today the Neil Simon yeah and Max Lehman want to know how you feel about television I said I painted my screen black they went to the Morris office and mr. less vulgar Tamar's office told me look you can't do Goss and canons play because he has to rewrite the third act and the show you're in is closing that was lunatics and lovers it's too late to book in any clubs so gonna take max Lieberman's offer and do the television which the William Morris had 10% of the package you see yeah so I did the television I did the show Stanley which was a big hit for Cal Burnett and afters embolus nigo da just got started on that show except reduces non directed and acted in comic and everything and so I did that show and it was on one season and went down the tube and years later I was still in love with hyena voices has never been done and they called glass and Cainan and I said I'd like to buy to make a movie out of it of course I like the reason again he gave me a copy I read it again I said you never rewrote the third act he said what's wrong with the third act I said nothing but mister last well will told me that you want to rewrite the third act he said mr. lash Vogel told me you wanted to do television don't have many stories like that Duran well I was angry when I first heard him but since I figured out that mr. lash mogul in his wisdom and star maker that he was really believed that the TV was the better move for me so yes now I think of it I was angry for a long time but now I think no he knew he was doing what was the best thing and maybe you did do the best thing who knows but certainly during that well not well so I can't complain you said something interesting about that somebody never thought of before about comics who work as you do and in some way well it's just Rickles as a friend Jonathan winters my dad I mean so oddly yeah the ones who don't go out and do an act that's could be written down on paper and use night after night or it isn't memorized and yet and and they get to a kind of height with that a kind of plateau and then there's a sort of critical time in their career at that point whether they you all right what what is that all bad I had that in 1954 yeah 1954 well was even before that December 51 I went to work a Billy Gray's band box in Hollywood and I stayed there seven weeks got a movie contract with Universal then I was working other clubs then I went back to the BAM box first of all now I had a movie contract I hadn't made any film but I told mr. Bob Goldie who was the head of talent and Universal I said uh Sammy Lewis expects me to come back in a BAM box he said what's wrong with that I said well I'm with the pictures now he said how many of you made I said none he said where did I find you I said in the van bah he said well go back there and I can send some of our producers to watch you and perhaps they'll put you one of our pictures see getting a contract is easy getting a depicting was tough so I went back and Sammy Lewis told me look pick out the good things put them all together have 40 minutes of good stuff and do that every night a club owners entitled to know what he's buying mm-hmm so I that was now 52 of age 53 and then I made a pitch and I went to work in Las Vegas and I start doing those 42 minutes up in Las Vegas I was the supporting act at first so I don't do 15 minutes or 12 some would not King : Gordon MacRae and people like that but then I got into doing 40 minutes where I was headlining back in Ben maxixe Town and Country and places like that and every night the same lines at the same time funny reaction for the audience play was driving me nuts it was a hard job it wasn't the thrill of going out port and taking a chance that's going out there and saying whatever you want to say except of course in those days I get what you call a very clean act yeah not even hell or damn already you know then later on I start getting as free as I want to be I'll tell you the first joke I told I go to a club on and he said tell her on stage and here's a joke I wonder if they'll hear this at home well they probably look yeah that was that I said I was in the Army had a colonel named fat-ass Johnson but no one called him that nobody would would take a chance but I once called her by accident I was working in the motor pool that's what he kept trucks and jeeps and their phone rang and I was just a recruit I'm not supposed to touch the phone but I pick her hello and the wife said soldier what vehicle just got available I said six trucks seven jeeps an m8 armored car and a half track and that is Johnson's command car and the boy said soldier have you any idea who you're talking to I said no she said this is Colonel Johnson I should kind of look any idea we are talking to he should know it by by fat ass and that's the way we Wonderwall well that was the first time I hope you were promoted for them well that way the first time I was the first our psycho off caller on the stage you know the boss said that's terrific Buzzi rough conduct the Tradewinds club in Chicago in 1960 so after that I got some terrible reviews about how dare he used that language what language then I start explaining the word ass onstage see that became I said it comes from anterior superior spine a period a spur a desperate nice sure I said that's a medical abbreviation if you gotta adopt him you said and he tells you have contusions and lacerations on the anterior superior spine you'll frighten to death but if he says look Harry you got a little piece of glass in your ass that's why you're ripping now the critics really ripped me well how dare he dwell on it I would open this over say good evening to critics have taste in their ass that's how I would hold you up what are you doing inside a weight machine well I was gonna enter 12 or 13 years old and it was uncle Abe on a boardwalk guess he wait you say guess your weights and you get up on this big scale and had a big fat back about that deep then you're in the back and you guys you weigh about 140 pounds and I'd moved the tank about 142 gotta guess within three rounds yeah see you get over there hey guys she's here much to lose nine pounds but you weighed what he said on the thing in this way I wonder who invented the joke about someone being so large that when I get on a scale a card came out saying please one at a time one every time that's the bets been around for years and years and years and it I'll give it the Goodman HC vote a lot of things like that yeah yeah then I think I read it on Fred Allen years ago it's good it's right enough to be a sir Allen or invented a lot of jokes in my life but only one I could think of at the moment wasn't and I was working a really great BAM box and I had gotten booked in Las Vegas and I was back in really great then I said there's only one way to go to Las Vegas and of course this was before they were jet airplanes yes soon as you land go out into the front of the plane walk into the propeller that's the only way to keep losing money this way get an even split dirty comic stole that joke because it was everywhere well I usually do a whole routine about taking out garbage yeah and it was very clean routine very acceptable routine but a lot of guys did it yeah but then as I start changing into using any kind of language nobody could take any more it's a kind of a protective coloration there blue I guess next to going with the windmill e goes to Budapest must be one of the best movies ever made what effect you can't admit I saw it I know there's the title of my movie called Mellie goes to boot it is or wasn't it it was the title all the way until the end they change it to the golden head Oh much better yes and the story was about two crooks that go to the Cathedral in a place called yu-gi-oh ah yeah to steal the head of Saint Laszlo the patron saint of hungry it's a comedy supposedly George Sanders and I what it crooks and a little girl Millie and her family they left England than a little boat called the white rabbit and camped at Danube on a holiday and she foiled our attempt at stealing the golden head no you think she never came out it played one night in England then the people were praying for the water come back oh I don't know I've had a well wait a minute I made another picture recently that's gonna be almost the same it's also with me and a little girl and this pictures called babe and a guy gonna see this because it's not out yet but the guys on the seedier submitted up in Canada it had such a nice script and I really wanted to do it was very unusual about this old what well maybe it'll be good I don't know but there's old boardvision living in a theater and a little girl and runs away from an orphanage and he they become friends but he talks to like she's another guy and he talks he talks his clothes are all dirty names and she answers him worse than me is awful but it's very real you know it's kind of interesting yeah never heard of a movie quite like that no you're never gonna be no more I got no more the man just fainted them where now yeah well he sees this yeah yeah when you do you bet your life I let's see a syndicated thing do you do that numbing thing where you take five to six in a row every five one day Wow yeah and it's not that hard it's an ad-lib show which says well it is for me that contestants have been rehearsed as to where to stand and all at the afternoon but not the calm one I'm going to say when Gretchen did the show if that's with the same title he used he had lived it to some and used some writing help well they had writers yeah and they did one show for three hours and edited down to 26 minutes did you know that yes I know there was a lot of editing on it yeah my mind there's no editing I come out right don't ever throw coins at me my papa dropped his lens people may want to know what happened you probably didn't hear their noise but it was like a clunk clunk and there's a young photographer out there he's got a lens like this now do you ever known any comics who successfully retired from the business what do you mean by success I mean where they weren't so sad afterwards nay hung around the other comics and so on acne it seems like something well let's see I think I remember one that became an agent whitey Martin well no I don't think he made it can you imagine that the impulse or whatever to entertain every every leaving you completely and just thinking me yeah it just stopped it yeah if we didn't have the inflation I would've stopped I had enough saved to continue living the way I'm living the rest of my life if the inflation thing come on yeah now I can go to Thursday without a double portion zone look I really get into I bought a diesel car hmm you know a puto diesel car yeah so that I wouldn't spend a lot of money on gasoline and also you get a lot of mileage with it I did that and uh I turned off the lights in the house all the time which is kind of damage unless people are reading your network just like no more you can feel with your mouth that's true yeah we only have a couple minutes left your son is going into the business yeah he wants a good comedian did you did you ever tell him look only one in a thousand makes it and so I told him everything I try to discourage him he has such an opportunity in Las Vegas he's so well-liked he went to hotel school there he now teaches at the school casually lectures at the school he grew up at the Sahara Hotel they were actually grooming him to one day be general manager Hotel I believe I think so or the hotels in town and kids he went to school with our assistant to the president down at Atlantic City kid named David land I was like kid that went to work there and I was same age as my boy and but my son got the bug he wants to be a comedian who's gonna tell him no he's a good kid yeah and there's no way of stopping somebody by telling him it can be roughly what was a poetry book he wrote I learned a book called the naked mind of Buddy Hackett and that's not what I wanted quality I wanted to call it I was going along nicely when it came to a fork in my head but if you want me to do one of the poems I'll try to remember one in 30 seconds Oh 30 seconds this is for my mother and father's 50th wedding anniversary 50 years together the golden numbers shine the years have passed life's mellowed to the Acne of its time love is all around us and it's been here all the while though the battles that we've won and fought can hardly bring a smile for who knows where love death end and that plague of boredom starts no can't we find it anywhere except deep inside our hearts once I took your arm for comfort and a pleasure of your touch later on I leaned upon it a tender loving crutch once I smiled and poured wine for you fuel for passions fire now again I drop a to see won't notice when I tire I know you're lovely wrinkled face I know you're lovely time alone face I know it's wrinkled there I recognize nature's penmanship how forms for why don't where yes the number of 50 lumens like a big clock overhead and I've loved you every moment God willing I love you when I'm dead we're human so we realize all our days are numbered but we will love and laugh and drink again when the angels right 100 very nice work Delaney might discourage you from writing more poetry but you have to say a very fast good night to you I don't how fast to say it okay good night thanks for being here buddy

Channel: Archy M

Views: 160,673

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Id: NbRK_DgBMpk

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 07 2018