My post on why Sid Caesar was not a cast member on Cheers has already brought a lot of e-mail, including two messages from people who read it and thought I was saying Cheers was an unsuccessful piece of shit. One reason there are so many arguments on the Internet is that so many people manage to learn how to use a computer without learning how to read. Anyway, Bruce Bennett wrote to say…
Just read your latest post and just wanted to tell you that the Shelley Winters story is not apocryphal, unless she made it up herself. I saw her tell the story on The Mike Douglas Show back in the 70s. She told it with lots of righteous indignation, so I'm inclined to think she really did it.
Having read Ms. Winter's eight hundred autobiographies and having met her once, I can well believe she made it up and I can also believe she actually did it. What I couldn't believe — and I don't think she ever claimed this — is that it resulted in anyone hiring her.
And really, why should it? Say I'm a Casting Director and I have to find the right actress for a certain role. It doesn't speak well of my qualifications for my job if I don't know who Shelley Winters is…but it didn't interfere with her getting called in and considered for the part. If she should be mad at anyone, it's the Casting Director she never gets in to see. And the fact that she has two Oscars for work done long ago doesn't mean she's still that good and it doesn't mean she's a perfect fit for the role I have to cast.
But it is a good story.
My buddy Ken Levine, who was a producer on Cheers and many other fine programs wrote in to say…
First off, I was not in the meeting between Sid Caesar and the Charles Brothers, and I only heard about it from their side. And that was quite a few years ago so my memory might not be razor sharp.
But the way I heard it, they were not thrilled at the idea in the first place. As gifted as Caesar was, he wasn't how they pictured the role. But out of respect to him, they cheerfully agreed to the meeting. He came in and told them the script was shit. It was the surly abusive Sid that day. He offered all kinds of ideas that they thought were horrifying, and treated them like they were idiots. The meeting ended. The Charles Brothers told Sid's agent he would not be getting the part and no further consideration would be given. And that was that. It used to be a running joke in the room that first season — we'd write a Coach bit and say, "Can you imagine Sid Caesar doing this?" Then we'd re-enact the scene playing Coach as the scariest human being ever.
I can also tell you that no one was ever more gracious and kind in meetings than the Charles Brothers. If you can't get along with them, the problem is you. Or the bottle.
I think by the time of Cheers, Sid had quit drinking…or at least, he claimed he'd quit. But that can have bad effects on some people. It can make them angrier and/or more bewildered when things don't go their way because they can no longer blame the booze.
My impression of Sid was like he was a pitcher who knew he could throw at 105 miles an hour and couldn't figure out why no team wanted him. So many people — and I mean like everyone he met — told him he was a comic genius so he knew that Funny was not the problem. And so his mind continually wrestled with the question, "Well, if that's not it, what is? Especially now that I've stopped drinking?"
He admitted to me once that he held a lot of jealousy — that's what he called it but it sounded to me more like resentment — that folks he'd worked with like Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Carl Reiner and Larry Gelbart were now in these big, successful positions and power. And while they all paid tribute to him and genuflected and said how no one was ever funnier, there wasn't a lot of hiring there.
Mel used him in small parts, both basically non-speaking, in two movies. Neil brought him in to do Little Me and then none of his many other plays. I can't think of Carl ever hiring him…or Larry…or Mel Tolkin or Mike Stewart or Woody Allen or anyone else who worked for him and then became a successful producer and/or director.
Why didn't they? Because I think they all knew that Sid could only function if you were doing The Sid Caesar Show and he was in charge. He couldn't have done a major role in a Carl Reiner movie because he wasn't prepared to take direction from Carl Reiner. Just as he couldn't have played a supporting role in a situation comedy like Cheers because they wouldn't have let him do all his little routines and tricks. If he'd played Coach, and Coach had to ask someone if they wanted a beer, he would have done it in double-talk Italian.
Ken Levine, by the way, did have his own unpleasant encounter with Mr. Caesar. It was not in casting him for a TV role. It was in one of Ken's ninety-two other successful careers…his work as a radio personality. He wrote about it here on his blog…a blog you should be reading at least as often as you read this one. Thanks, Ken. See you for lunch on Wednesday.