Parkinson Interviews: George Burns & Walter Matthau 1976

[Music] he didn't lose he won I killed that one didn't win he lost is that it that's it it's bad both ways Walter Matthau and George Burns in an interview from 1975 they were brought together for the film the sunshine boys in which they played a showbiz double act reunited for a valedictory performance it was inspired casting matter reasserted his claim to be Hollywood's best kite actor burns after being ignored by Hollywood for more than 30 years making a triumphant return to the screen age 79 he won an Oscar was a bigger star that he'd ever been before he died two years ago having lived to be 100 now if ever an interview Illustrated the fact that doing a talk-show is better than working it was this a reminder of two talented and funny men having a very good time movie acting is supposed to be something in which you're hiding from the audience you're saying I'm talking to you now if they heard me it's no good I didn't tell you never matter [Laughter] rotate your point it's an intimate inside it's very more than more than you're not supposed to perform for the audience I remember on the stage in the Odd Couple I didn't get a laugh early on in the play and so in a very peevish mood I turned my back to the audience and said all the lines as rapidly as I could I got letters from people that said it was a finest comedy performance they had ever seen do you feel unhappy about being an actor who somehow is excluded from doing the classical Shakespearean roles that they do because of accent yes you do very much so I'm very unhappy about it because I think I would have made a good classical actor but since I speak with an accent I had a terrific disadvantage terrific I mean I remember a fellow in school with as a fellow out there Gordon Stern who's an actor went to the dramatic workshop with me and we were just talking about a fella called Dan Matthews now Dan Matthews was a very handsome brilliantly statured man who got all the leads but he spoke with a heavy Midwestern accent and so when he was doing Shakespeare for example he'd say whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them to die to sleep to sleep perchance to dream I there's the rub for in that sleep of death who knows what dreams may come when we and the director was a German by the name of urban pescado as well as magnificent as this boy speaks great it's English is fantastic but I did play English you am i speaking too much no two more questions I get rain I'll get about another two in about the next 15 minutes you in fact came from an unlikely but lend me five pounds know what I have to eat later no the money you're making must be worth a fortune now yeah yeah I have about 35 pounds 40 pounds I have a heavy heavy obligation to a lot of relatives you do yes is about 15 in the audience you find the silver mole from 12 bookmakers Oh part of the family I thought you'd given up the gambling edge I have I really have it was the most you ever lost it's too exciting about $40,000 in one night $40,000 that's a shame and I think of the people that could really eat and live on that kind of money it's just it's too guilt producing mm-hmm I'm embarrassed by it I'm ashamed of it and I don't want you ever to mention it again you came as I said from an unlikely background didn't you from Davos a Lower East Side in New York yeah how rough was it the background new camp oh it wasn't too bad we ate we had potato soup about twice a week the rest of the time it was weak tea and some bread some beans my mother was a very poor cook she cooked everything on top of the stove on the gas range so we had steamed meat loaf and boiled chicken my mother would boil a chicken for three or four days she'd tell me that the chicken really didn't count it was the soup and was a rough neighborhood oh yeah gang warfare and this little thing yes but it was clean as far as I remember it was clean nobody had knives nobody had guns there were no clubs everything was with the fists that's why a lot of good fighters came out of the Lower East Side how did you how did you in fact you might then from that I mean I assume coming from where you did that you'd you'd no idea that one day it'd be inactive I mean sure that wasn't an ambition that you could entertain coming from where you came from it wasn't consciously I think there was something that germ genetically was there and then I used to listen to to speech I was always entranced bewitched by speech especially good English speech I remember when I I was here I was eight months here at old Buckingham 450 third bomber squadron I went to bobbing then I went to link train of school and then I used to listen to the BBC and I still remember Peter Watson and he'd say this is Peter Watson of the BBC we now bring you the news at dictation speed the Allies a able I love I love I am i easy Estragon have captured Anzio able and [Applause] and it was beautiful it sounded like heavenly music to me it was magnificent and I listened to Peter Watson as much as I could and on the Lower East Side I listened to David Ross and to Milton cross Milton cross did the opera and he had a slight tinge of a New York Hell's Kitchen accent but very florid speech so he would say something like and the great Carlo Menotti and and Lucrezia got a Kurt she come before the Golden Key I love that kind of speech and I and I I think I try to imitate it and I I didn't speak like like like the kids around the neighborhood as a matter of fact my brother was constantly asked hey well why does your brother talk so funny like that your brother talks like he's like from out of town or something what is it though it somebody's ashamed to be like one of us and my brother would say nah he's alright he's a good kid he he reads Shakespeare in the toilet one other thing I've noticed about you too in your acting is the way that you use a walk-in as part of your characterization I remember once reading an interview with Sir Alec Guinness who said that he couldn't get a part right until he got the walk right would I be right in assuming that that you work something in a similar fashion very important very important and very few actors use it hmm I remember a part I did and I asked the director of a very fine directed a McClure man Harold Clurman also he's also critical I asked him what he wanted in the role he said well you're playing a very rich man he's a billionaire he's French and so just walk fancy and talk English so I thought that talking English would be easy I'd simply do an exaggerated British accent and it would sound as though I were translating from the French you know such as I always take an instant dislike to anyone taller than I am with the possible exception of Charles de Gaulle and the walk he said walk fancy so I thought of a walk that perhaps a man who was so rich that he really didn't have to walk and so they carried him until he was 38 from one car to another and one school to another and so I thought of the walk that my mother used when she had to go to the bathroom very badly and she could barely contain it and and she had gotten out of the subway where we had spent a day on the beach at Coney Island and she could barely make it to the house to the flat and so she sort of you know but with this I he was very aristocratic so I it looked a little bit superimposed now but I perfected it to where it looked natural I know it looks terrible now but when you work it into a character and you forget about it it seems to work but you must have the guts to keep it up yes you must have the the nerve to to stay with it you have to fall off yes you say oh my god I'm doing badly yes no yes you in fact you in then in the latest film the sunshine boys you you again you play an old man you play this old music hole comedian and again you've got an entirely different walk for that man rather you demonstrate it let's have a look in fact cuz we've got a clip here of the sequence it's the story but you have the break up of two comedians Oh communities of combat make it come back and this is where the comes to your house for the first reunion for rehearsal I'm bringing the lawyer with me and we're from New Jersey you're lucky if a cow comes in with you against you in court I could win with a cow finger you're starting with the finger again get irate that phone lunatic oh that's my daughter will you shut up is that my video keep quiet can't you see I'm talking don't you see me on the phone with a person but God takes will you behave like a human being for five seconds five seconds behave like a human being hello just a minute you daughter [Music] I'm suing that film actually it happens all Torelli movies the sense that you enjoyed doing it would that be a fair assessment very much so yes I thought the whole experience was totally delightful totally delightful hmm the man I was working with of course is a legend and it was just just a beautiful experience it was warm it was interesting it was exciting and you know I got tired watching that scene I mean I remember the day we did it I think I broke two ribs jumping over that chair we did about 15 20 takes I don't know how George Burns did it well I do what let's let's ask him ladies and gentlemen George Burns you know it's some reception now it's gonna get this cigar into this holder did you feel they said that my age this is exciting did you feel naked did you feel making without your cigar in the movie because in the movie I mean fat water you smoke didn't you and agile never let me smoke I was a character do you in fact that it is as pleasant as Walter did during the movie while it was the greatest experience of my life I've never done a movie like that I've never played a character before and the last movie I made for MGM was was 36 years ago and they must have liked me as they brought me back and the movie is uh the movie is a real good movie and and you had to be good in the movie because you're alongside of Walt I was a great actor and imagined doing a script by by Neil Simon and getting and getting money to do it and you've got these wonderful words that fit your mouth and it's very easy to act anyway knock on the door and somebody says come in and be walking you're a great actor just out the hall you're you're an idiot right went inside I'm an actor is that we just sat down and I did his other different to stand up and I do how much of a relationship built up and they in the making of the movie hours did you play off each other I mean I lived with each other and this sort of thing well he did something to the you wanna challenge we're doing the scene and in the mayor the scene for no rhyme or reason there was there was there was a plate full of nuts on the table and don't forget this is my first picture as a character actor first time my name was wasn't George Burns it was our Louis and we're doing the scene we're going along fine and all of a sudden he says would you like some nuts and I knew it wasn't the scene but if they gotta have to answer as I don't like nuts is too much salt in it then we continue doing the scene and when I came offstage he says George you're a good actor you listen if you worked up a little comedy act between yourselves you know they sort of oh no we didn't have to but he knows there are standard jokes he knows all of them if I give him a line for example he'll he'll answer it correctly let me see I'll make up a line is that one missing let's try it again did you take a bath today is there one missing that's that's it that's not now do you know Lincoln's Gettysburg Address I don't even know where I live that's not the actual line is I didn't know he moved tell you something hey Michael yes yes do you know you're reading that script upside down you say think it's easy you think it's easy no no you had it you didn't know the line a big story the plane to Orleans and Gracie said to dress out to be cleaned and she paid $400 for the dress which was a lot of money because we were only getting formed and Alice's a team now one of the 200 dollars that she got she paid tempest and Commission she paid her railroad fare so tell bills so four hundred dollars for a dress was a lot of money and she sent it to the cleaners and they ruined the dress and she wanted the $400 and they wouldn't get the $400 they said they'd give her $50 well anyway one joke was I said to Gracie the funny thing happened on two one killed my mother in Cleveland and she says I thought you were born in Buffalo so I said I said to the muse of the abuse I said stop and I said a funny thing happened I'm up in Cleveland and Gracie walked down the footlights and she's as ladies and gentlemen she says don't send your clothes to the chiffon cleaners I just sent him my dress a $400 dress and they ruined it I mean she's the reason I'm telling you this is that I'm leaving New Orleans and you people have to stay here so take my advice and don't ever send those people anything to clean because they're not capable they're not nice she says I've been that bad people to work with and then she came back and she said I thought you were born in Buffalo I had to do nothing I said the Gracie how is your brother she talked the flood eh is Oh Oh young in fact were you George when you first started a show I wish oh I was a seven years old I sang with four kids the the peewee quartet and we sang and passed the hat around and sang on ferry boats and saloons and in yards and amateur nights and on the Staten Island ferry boats if they didn't like you they they they know you're the boat fall in the water I got so I was able to sing with her mouth full of water and then I did all kinds of acts I did the skating act I did a ballroom dancing act I did work with a seal and I worked with the dog what was a seal only were the seal well the seal wasn't really my act I was living in a little boardinghouse on 45th Street then they said this man was living there's name was Captain Betts he called himself captain Betts and flip up he wiped at the seal and he was booked into the dead of the Dewey Theatre in 14 speak and he got sick and he asked me to take his place and that drama don't be silly as his best I've never worked with the seal I wouldn't know why would I wouldn't know what to do he said you don't have to worry about it the seal there's the whole point he said the collector goes up in the ceilings I'm a little platform and you're standing there with a ball in your hand and your pockets full of fish and you just load the ball to the seal and the seal flips the ball he bounces the ball he juggles it throws it back to you and you throw him a piece of fish and he applause with his flippers now he does about three more tricks and every time you throw at the end of the trick you throw him a piece of fish and he brought and at the finish of the act there's a rack of horns and he goes and back to the horns and he blows into the lawns and plays Yankee Doodle this is at the finishing hanky doodle he presses 11 two American flags come up and you throw my piece of fetch and as he's reporting with his letters you're taking vows in the practicums not and I opened the module there and got away with it but that night I had a date with her with it with a very pretty girl who was who was also in show business and I was afraid to meet her I was ashamed to me that because when you do four shows a day with your pockets full of fish you don't think it don't smell too good but but I met her and she never noticed it because he was doing inactive thinks mules in fact she complimented me on my aftershave would I know a name like Gaffney bets what other kind of similar some silly-ass did you or do you do well I did a skating act with a fellow we called the AG Brown of William singers dancers and roller skaters anyway we did the sack runner Williams and we split the act up and I went to work with another fellow and he went to work with somebody else and so now you had Ronald Williams and Williams and brown doing the same act and then we all split up again we'd always did the same egg and you had Ronald Williams witnessin brown brown and brown and Williams orange then he had brown Williams Williams have brown brown brown Williams or limbs the Brown Brothers and the Williams boys and we had one fuller in the neighborhoods his name was Jaime Goldberg and he moved he was afraid to live in the Gentile neighborhood how in fact how competitive was it in those days when you're touring there touring around with your ex I mean was there much pinching of material this sort of thing you know because of the the wealth yesterday if you're talking about small-time bored I was a small-time vaudevillian until I was about 27 I played nothing but but very bad theaters but I was very lucky because I was bad too and you're very fortunate in those days because there were places that you could be bad in but then when you played the good board ball you would take your act and you'd register your act with the with the Pat Casey office and if anybody stole the joke you write the Pat Casey you need to look at the act and me look at your act didn't say the joke belongs to the social funny story about a joke actually how important a joke was we were playing the Palace Theatre and we were doing a joke about Hepplewhite or something and Macy's brother went out hunting and he took out four dogs and then the next day took out four more dogs and then that fire says what'd he do with the dog said he took out the day before chase he says he shot them I says he shoots dogs she says he aims for the birds anyway so the joke Fiske oh it was a very good act he gave us a a joke and the joke was this is a very old joke now but I'm going back about 4550 years and the joke is the burglar was Applewhite is a bird that flies backwards because it's not interested in where it's going its interested in where it's been that was and that was a very very big big job first was a very big ahead we got a phone call from Fred Allen saying that that joke was registered with the Pat Casey office that was his joke and by that time we couldn't take that joke out because the the whole routine would go right out from the street I offered 400 hours for that one joke and that's how important that joke was and he wouldn't sell it so I called up John P met Barry who was a great writer in California he's to write first a little bit and I told him my problem which is this this bird flies backwards it's not interesting where it's going gets interesting where it's been and met Barry without even waiting a second said George have the bird fly upside down in case a hunter shoots that he falls up send me else I'd like to ask both of you actually is the fact that you both in fact came from the same kind of background didn't you because you're from the same neighborhood I don't know this Walter did you come from the lorry said yes did you what I was I was a little higher up not not socially or economically but higher up geographically I was on first Street between first and tenth bordering Avenue way and second Avenue well that was high class that was high class yes I was way down and your mother made your mother that you had steak once once once once a month we had to we had sauce and chip wood we had nothing my mother used to ever pot on the stove whenever we brought home she'd thrown the pot we once killed a rat and cooked it really yeah barbecued rat is delicious how many wheel from a big family to two boys and my mother well then you had a lot of rat we had to divide the rat between 12 story thinking that the two of you coming from I mean becoming what you are from from that extraordinary that you ever have braised rat the basic premise of the movie of course is that the double act who got them performed for 43 years and 11,000 performances don't in fact get on well backstage in your experience is that true true to life the double acts don't get on with each other off the stage well that wasn't true with with Gracie in myself no cuz we were a double I do I imagine that would be cool with acts that the where the talent was divided evenly and one would get a good notice someone would get a bad notice and they'd have some arguments but I never had that problem with Gracie because I never got a good notice I knew what to do off the stage but I couldn't do it on yeah and I thought of it and Gracie was able to do it then when Gracie retired I want him to show business because I was retired while I work with grace they probably then they they the message is that it you have a better relationship with your partner on stage if you sort of sleep with her offstage so yeah not only slept with Gracie I hate good Gracie I worked with Gracie I wasn't crazy for 38 years yeah got along just great because we we were not Gracie didn't marry me because I was a great lover she married me for laughs I got more laughs in bed with Gracie's and I didn't when I had the late Jack Benny on my program he talked very affectionately about about your relationship you were very close once you yeah yeah great man yeah and we're friends for 55 years very close and I always love to make Jack Benny laugh because I love to hear him laugh and he was a delight when he laughing maybe Jack would Benny didn't laugh he used to collapse when Jack Benny laughed in a restaurant the whole restaurant laughed and he was very easy to make laugh providing it and tell him any jokes there was little things that made him laugh little nothings like well we'd sit down at the table I said Jack would you like some salt no that's not funny researching a big laughing Jack Benny we and I didn't have to make him laugh he made himself laugh I'd sit with him and all of a sudden you'd look at me in web I say Jack what do what are you laughing at I'm not doing it any I'm not doing anything funny he says yeah but you're not doing it on purpose there was a big comedian again I walked into the lobby and he'll be in today Anthony Hillcrest Country Club I got a very bad memory so this man passed and he says hello Jordan Isis hello kid I call everybody kids so they and he came over to me he says you said these diseases do you and I have been members of the same Club now for 35 years and you keep calling me kid you don't you don't remember my name do you I says I don't uh I said Jack tell him his name how did you only erase him ah George as a as a performer as a comedian a Quiet Riot he was absolutely marvelous he did something in Vegas that I was there wouldn't happened this is the opening of his act he came out on the stage and he stood there he never said a word he just looked at the audience and he kept looking and then he folded as a news then he kept looking and he touched his face and they laughed and then at the finish he says what the hell are you laughing at it's a vaguely eration very very few people can do that you ever see the thing that Benny did on television his his screen personality was very stingy and one day a man came out and said took out a gun and said your money are your life and he turned to the audience and he stood there for about five minutes and it was nothing but laughing yeah right nothing but laughter and then the men said your money issues I'm thinking and he didn't do it he I'm not a computer minute wait a minute as long as and he didn't do it on television oh he did it on radio which is even funnier because that that that five minute pause on radio was frightening on television you could at least see him but on radio you just does this the long pause so when you tell it again please tell it right I didn't get any glass you think the guy says about Jones he says you know Jones lost $100,000 in in lumber last year the other guy says Jones exaggerated wasn't a lumber was toothpicks wasn't a hundred thousand it was eighteen thousand he didn't lose he won I killed that one daddy never didn't win he lost is that it that's it it's bad both ways it's a good thing it's a good doing that together it was a good thing I don't have to make a living telling jokes he'd be absolutely marvelous I cannot he'll he'd be a great I screwed up every joke I've ever tried to tell well because you're doing it adilyn but if you knew the words I'll bet you I can give you a monologue in the view rehearse tip you walked out there you'd be a riot if I if I got six weeks rehearsal no and twelve weeks on the road well how did you remember everything in the play you stuck every line well I rehearsed it for six weeks and took it out on the road for 12 weeks yeah I'm talking about the sunshine boys that didn't go on I studied it for a year before I got that job a year well then let I'll give you analog you'll study for six months you'll do it I'll say the wrong lines no you own no I need six money because I think I think any great actor would be a great comedian because you'll believe it but isn't there something though something that separates the actor no matter how great from a comedian and that's the delivery the timing isn't the something in essence of the delivery of a line which makes it funny I think timing is a fallacy of it everybody says timing timing what is timing timing is if you've got bad ears hear you dude it's a bad time the timing is this do you tell a joke and if they laugh you don't say anything no one definite laughing you talk again that's timing now what you're gonna talk while they're laughing it's bad timing what he doesn't know about timing what doesn't know how to explain timing simply is a master at it that's right like when I came in and I did I did they sunshine boys I read the script and then of the words seemed that that's the way I should read it in that story I read it yes one thing that we didn't hear you do in sunshine boys is sing and that's been part of your act for a long long time I love this thing about singing him and the thing that the audience don't like my singing but I like it I like it I don't I don't care whether they like it or not I love to sing I always sing and I'm not like Tony Bennett or Sinatra you know they they they need to finish because when they exit they need applause for the audience to bring the back but I don't exit yes Kenny yes he can t oh how I hate to get up on the more senator oh how I hate to get up in the morning oh how I'd love to remain in bed for the hardest blow of all is to hear the bugler call you gotta get up you gotta get up you gotta get up this morning someday I'm going to murder the view but someday you're going to find him dead I'll amputate his revelry and step upon it heavily and spend the rest of my life in bed the 20th of January I'll be 79 again I'm gonna stay at 79 you are yeah you don't entertain and it's also retiring nope nope never retire really you don't retire you're collapse what's a retiree and what other business can a man my age walk out on the stage and smoke a cigar and tell a few jokes and sing a few songs and use the same color lipstick that the law is still real yours gonna be silly wish you luck best of all were in the midst e I'd like her to which is nice yeah a pretty girl I would know what to do with it what about you love to votes what are you doing next I don't have anything no you know I found that hard to believe that's true I don't have anything yet I'm reading reading stuff waiting to see something good yeah and then well if I see something good and somebody wants to invest some money and me doing it I'll do it I should think that you're fighting him off you see something better really if you see something bad that you don't want to do throw it in my way I'll take anything Walter Matthau is still working still making movies George Burns I said died in 1996 a few months after celebrating his hundredth birthday in the last 20 years of his life and many because of the sunshine boys became a national institution and just before he died he was asked by an interviewer why he thought he'd been successful he said is because he'd loved to show business after all he explained what of the job could I do that made people laugh a game of the chance to wear the same lipstick as Madonna goodnight a pretty girl was jilted by her husband he left her Annie went his merry way with tearful eyes she wrote a sad letter and here is what the lady had to say I'm returning every present that you gave me I'm sending back each letter that you wrote every sweet memento that we cherished the locket that I wore around my throat close you'll find the mortgage on the house dear that unfair you must admit is cruel I'm returning everything except the baby that's the one thing that I didn't get from you [Music] one more song good song I guess I'll take the train back home there's no more sights a left for me to see I've wined and dined engaged on bill Affairs till Mother's homemade pies look good to me San Francisco is a grand old place when I get back I'll never never roam tell those cable cars to wait and open up that Golden Gate I'm gonna take the train back home to San Francisco I'm gonna take the train back home to Powell and market to see the Ferry Building to wave to Oakland to eat at Fisherman's Wharf to visit Sausalito took me so long to finish this long I just missed the train back home sorry about the slights and problems near the beginning of that program and we hope they didn't spoil your enjoyment too much Parkinson we'll be back with the new series early next year and you can see Walter Matthau in the filter

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Id: ijClM7c5Jx4

Length: 39min 19sec (2359 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 15 2018