Richard Harris & Peter O’Toole Went To A Bar During Their Play | Late Night with Conan O’Brien

[Applause] how are you i'm very good how are you good thanks very much for coming thank you for asking you seem to be in a good mood yes go ahead no no huh your show yes okay well i forgot all right uh you know i was a little i won't you know how to start i've so many things to ask you but i want to i want to clear the air first i heard that that uh you had heard somewhere you had it was a little angry with me because you heard somewhere that uh i don't like irish food is that the case do they that's that's what i heard whoa [Applause] i know you had a tendency to get tipsy but speaking of tipsy but don't you like irish food i well you know what i was misunderstood i said somewhere and then i apparently had got around in ireland but i don't like irish food it's just it's i said somewhere they're not known for their cuisine you know they're known for like throwing a potato on your plate and a piece of beef and saying get to it you know no no no no but we'll see the best irish food is guinness no argument that you had the wrong menu on the table guinness guinness this is three of the four irish food groups i understand this takes the one the only one you know they say that they say that they speaking of said valentine's day they say that guess is an aphrodisiac i have not found it to be so oh no i know that happy that well the only thing that guinness gets up is your hopes [Applause] do you know who we met first who oh yes i met you well how can i forget uh it was like the i was invited to the white house they had a party for the prime minister of ireland it and they just they said let's round up every irish person we can find they put away all the good furniture they put out the paper plates with the presidential seal on it and uh i bumped into you there it was very exciting i was amazed how tall you were you remember no one knows that i'm yes yeah that's what i get you're tall yeah yeah i remember trying to get the president who i who i really admire your president because he loves ireland your president uh i tried to get him to drink guinness that night you know really yeah i said come on you must drink some mr president you must have some guinness remember the other table of irish guinness oh yeah it was a great they had kegs in the white house for the first time it was a i swear to god the police came by at like two in the morning and shut us down it was a good time it was great to see the first lady and and the president trying to learn the irish jig i'm trying to teach them yeah yeah they were trying to yeah yeah it was a lot of fun yeah it was great the holy and then the evening was over and they cleared us all out of there and uh to know about that man i know i know you weren't allowed to smoke so i used to sneak out on the balcony and so take a quick drive a cigarette then get back in again it was great it was great it was grand with a good night that's the best thing about the white house is that there's a balcony to smoke on yes that's what you are calling you know i want to ask you because uh because you do have a you know i alluded to it before but you have a reputation uh as as do many of the great actors of your generation of drinking some while you work or as you work especially in the theater world and i was curious is that really true is there you know wouldn't it be terrible for me to lie on your show and say it's not true yeah i remember i tell you a great story can i tell you a story well that's sort of what these shows are all about this dovetails nicely for us yeah go ahead why a story all right we had we had there was there was the two guys who we were there were three of us legends for drinking okay and for having a yeah you've had a wild rabbi lazy in life one was richard burton of course peter o'toole the great o'toole and harris i know tula hotel and i did a play together down in bristol old vic which is a very famous theater in england and we have and during the play there's about 15 to 20 minutes when actually we're not on stage so every single night we come off stage together dash across the street tuck the taxis into the bar and we'd be throwing back beers and beers watching the time making sure we got back on time for our cue right well one night we got so engrossed in telling stories that we forgot that we were on stage and the next minute this the door burst open and the stage uh the stage manager came rushing on and said harris o'toole for god's sake you're on your arm there's a full house waiting for you the play has stopped dead come on we dropped our drink quickly down our throat rushed across the street so we dashed across the street we were ducking taxis ducking this and that i dashed it i had to make my entrance just before him as i hit the stage door over the town i i heard my queue i thought i'll never make it dashed up the stairs dashed across pause on stage harris is not on oh tool is not on i just dashed on tripped over a wire slid right across the stage right down to the footlights and hung over onto the lap of two or three sort of bristolian old women an o'toole was to come on next and this woman looked at me in shock as my sort of head was in her lap and she said out loud good god harris is drunk [Laughter] and i and i looked her and i said madam if you think i'm drunk wait lord tool makes his entrance oh god i love it i love it i love it you know it's funny because you mentioned uh peter o'toole but but uh it's you know with in the last couple of years it's become more i think more chic probably in the last 10 15 years and correct me if i'm wrong more chic actually probably to be irish there was a time probably when you were starting out i'm thinking in the 50s when when being an irish actor trying to make a living in england was very difficult it was very rough we it was very i think i was the first irish-born actor to play leading roles and to get academy award nominations and that was the very very first and when i got to england first though it really was tough you were cast as the policeman or as a navi on the street or you know a laborer you couldn't get it you could not get a decent job and i i remember a story that i was doing in my first year out of school drama school i was playing in macbeth and i was playing a small part in macbeth of the doctor this snobby sophisticated racist english actor was playing macbeth and he had to have a whipping boy and it was harris because he was irish oh god sake harris can't you allowed to speak the english language correctly don't you know you don't don't pronounce it like that or for god sake can't you stand with the right mark god i thought i hated this man i said i swear to christ i get you one day so now you must remember i'm playing the doctor came the opening night packed house harris is playing the doctor and the most and the most important scene in macbeth is when lady macbeth commits suicide and i as the doctor have to come on stage for my tiny little part my only little entrance and i have to say and and matt bette turns and he says how goes the queen and i have to say the queen my lord is dead and then he stops and he says she should have died hereafter now it leads into the greatest soliloquy for macbeth which is tomorrow tomorrow and tomorrow creeps with our petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time that's his q i give him the cue i thought i'll get him [Laughter] harris the queen dies harris comes on stage the actor says how goes the queen and i said she's fine [Applause] she is terrific i said i stand up i said she's terrific she's grand and i know i'm fired she's great and she'll be right down now any minute and you'll get on great together and i got off the stage quick and the last thing you heard me say going out the stage door was taxi you knew i [Applause] [Laughter] oh my god all right uh how much time we do we have here jeff hmm oh great because i don't i do not want this to stop uh i i'm i'll come back will you come back sometime sure please do come back i'm curious i didn't want to mention uh i didn't want to mention it is valentine's day and you have a reputation for uh you know the many loves in your life uh you've been married how many times twice you've been married twice okay and you've had a yeah romance difficult for you oh no they threw me out i mean i mean i have to i'm i must tell you i am the closest friends of my two ex-wives they were totally justified throwing me out i mean i was impossible totally impossible never there never here never home always away somewhere i tell you funny story actually my my first one my first one i don't think you can miss okay my first wife was was divorcing me right and she had this sort of very shrewd lawyer and the and my first wife was a sweetheart and i mean i she's a sweetheart today she's my best mate but he never her lawyer never told her but he hired a private detective to follow me around london to build up a kind of case against me there was no need to build a case against me just open the newspapers and there was cases against me just say it's richard harris a justifiable divorce in her part so i was tipped off that this guy was following me and he was watching every move i made and i found out his name and i found out his home number and i kept it in my pocket well about a month afterwards i was in the dorchester hotel in london and i was really drunk i had i dragged about a bottle of vodka a brandy to us actually right and it's about three o'clock in the morning and i thought i'll have some fun so i get his card out of my pocket and i ring him up to his home and a very tired voice said hello and i said ah are you mr so-and-so the private detective he says yes i am well this is richard harris you can hear them he didn't know he didn't think i knew i said well i got to tell you something i said i am pissed drunk i don't know where i am could you please tell me where i am put into some mutes if nothing else put them into some news oh boy i hope uh i gotta mention this uh the hunchback is uh so that everyone should watch this the hunchback is on tnt this sunday at eight o'clock p.m and uh i really do hope you come back this is this is the most fun uh we have on this show thank you very much for doing it thank you richard harris [Applause]

Channel: Conan O'Brien

Views: 550,398

Keywords: Late Night with Conan O’Brien, late night with conan obrien, late night with, conan classic, best of, late night, original, comedy, sketch, humor, funny, celebrity, interview, first, late late show, late, night, show, special, classic, talk show, talk show hosts, triumph the insult comic dog, andy richter, max weinberg, richard harris, harry potter

Id: gCcjvjlB_W8

Length: 11min 47sec (707 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 04 2021