In addition to his 18,522 plays and his 7,001 screenplays, Neil Simon wrote two books which are essentially Volumes 1 and 2 of his autobiography. Rewrites starts with his first Broadway play Come Blow Your Horn (with a few flashbacks to what preceded it) and goes through The Sunshine Boys and the death of his first wife, Joan. The Play Goes On starts with The Good Doctor and Simon working to get over his loss. It covers his second marriage and ends with Play #30 — Proposals — and the dissolution of his third marriage.
Both books are filled with great anecdotes and insight into his process. What neither one is filled with, inexplicably, is much of anything about his days on Your Show of Shows or other TV shows starring Sid Caesar. He does write about working with Caesar on the Broadway show, Little Me…but he writes more about working on one Jerry Lewis TV special than he does about his time in the most famous Writers Room in TV history. He also quietly skips over the Play #28, Laughter on the 23rd Floor — the play he wrote about his days working in television for Mr. Caesar.
This could not have been an unintentional oversight. It's like if Neil Armstrong wrote his autobiography and left out the little matter of walking on The Moon.
Why? My guess — and this is only my guess — is that Mr. Simon had plenty to say about those years but he wanted to wait until Mr. Caesar and perhaps others were deceased and incapable of offense. Simon may even have written those chapters and decided to omit them for now and maybe expand them later into an entire book. Then again, he did not hesitate to write Laughter on the 23rd Floor which was a roman a clef of the Caesar Years and I'm not sure if that suggests my guess is wrong. Maybe you've got a guess that's better.
Somewhere, Neil Simon's files presumably exist. They would contain dozens, if not hundreds of unfinished plays and I believe there may be around a half-dozen plays that he "completed" and never surrendered to production. I put that word in quotes because Simon famously didn't consider a play as done until its formal opening and critical evaluation. He rewrote and rewrote and rewrote during rehearsals and previews, and if you pulled one of those finished, unproduced plays now from his filing cabinets and put it on stage, it would be lacking all he would have done to perfect and polish.
I wonder what's going to happen with all that leftover material now. And I wonder if in that filing cabinet somewhere, there isn't at least part of a book on how he and his brother got hired to write for Sid Caesar.
In the meantime, I was going to set up Amazon links here in case any of you wanted to order Rewrites or The Play Goes On…and you can, of course. But I see that prices on them have gone up somewhat and it would be far cheaper to order a new book called Neil Simon's Memoirs. It collects the entirety of both books plus has a new intro by Nathan Lane. If like me, you already have both books and don't want to buy this new amalgam just to read Lane's intro, you can read it online at that Amazon link. End of plug.
Another day, another obit. Neil Simon — arguably the most successful playwright of the last century or two — died early this morning in New York. The cause is being given as complications from pneumonia but Mr. Simon had been in failing health for some time…since 2004 when he wrote an update on his most famous play and gave us Oscar and Felix: A New Look at the Odd Couple. It ran briefly at a playhouse in Westwood and he never wrote another play. If he wasn't writing plays, you know he had to be sick.
The man's output was staggering. If you read all the obits, you'll see a lot of different counts as to how many stage plays, how many screenplays, etc. That's how prolific the man was. His byline appeared on countless scripts…and he even "doctored" hit shows without credit, including A Chorus Line. My favorite would be The Odd Couple, of course, but I remember many wonderful times in the theater because of him. I never laughed as hard in my life as I did at a production of The Last of the Red Hot Lovers that starred Jack Weston…and that's not even considered one of Simon's best works.
And if you read all those obits, you don't need me to tell you the details of his extraordinary life. Here are links to ones at Playbill, in the Los Angeles Times, the Hollywood Reporter and the New York Times. All tell the tale of this amazing man who first distinguished himself writing for Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows. And almost all of the obits on the 'net will give you inaccurate lists of the other writers who worked on that TV program.
What none of them can possibly convey is how many productions there have been around the world of Simon plays…how many actors learned and earned being in Simon plays…how many people learned to love live theater at Simon plays. These all will continue for centuries to come.
I had two encounters with Mr. Simon, neither of which will mean a lot to you but they meant a lot to me. One was after an outta-town tryout of his Broadway-bound play, Chapter Two. It was down at the Ahmanson and my date and I were exiting the theater after the performance, long after the rest of the audience had departed. I think she had a problem that necessitated an extra-long stay in the Ladies Room. Anyway, we're walking out and there's Neil Simon, who at this stage was attending all or most performances, deciding what to change. As he explained in almost every interview, his plays weren't written. They were rewritten…again and again in tryouts until he was satisfied.
I saw him there and had to say something to just, you know, "connect." I said, allegedly to my date but for his ears, "You know, the guy who wrote this might have a career some day." Knowing I'd said that to get his attention, he stopped, extended his hand for shaking purposes and asked me, "What did you really think of it?" And I suddenly found myself in one of the scariest moments of my life.
I said — and this was not at all a fib — "If I paid top dollar to see this on Broadway, which I probably will, I'd be happy I'd spent the money."
He said, "Good. Now, tell me something you didn't like about it."
Consider that for a moment. Here's the most successful playwright in the world asking a total stranger — and he didn't even know I was a writer, albeit one way, way down on the food chain from him — to criticize his work. There were hints to his success sprinkled all throughout him asking me that.
Thinking as fast as I could, I said something like, "There were moments here and there where I felt Anita Gillette's character was a little too clever and funny. She's supposed to be aware that she's not as quick-witted as her new husband and now and then, she seemed very quick-witted."
Mr. Simon thought for a second and said, "You're probably right. I don't think I'm going to change it but you're probably right." Then he thanked me, shook hands again and turned to go in a way that I think was intended to say politely that he was done with me and had no interest in a continuing conversation. Okay, fine. I was happy. My date wasn't.
As we turned to go, she said, "You didn't introduce me!" I replied, "I didn't introduce me, either." I heard a snicker and glanced over to see it had come from Simon, who gave me a look of amusement. I kept waiting for our exchange to turn up in something he wrote later but I guess it didn't make the cut.
In my other encounter with him, I was actually introduced. It was in 1996 at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills — an event taped for TV called Caesar's Writers. Sid was there and so were a bevy of men (all men) who'd written for his TV shows and all gone on to great success. Along with The Great Caesar, the dais was Mel Tolkin, Carl Reiner, Aaron Ruben, Larry Gelbart, Mel Brooks, Danny Simon, Sheldon Keller, Gary Belkin and Neil, and it was hosted by a pal of mine, Bob Claster. This was a sold-out-immediately event and I think Bob got me in because I'd persuaded Belkin to participate and because I'd brought as my date, Sid's old sidekick, Howard Morris.
Howie introduced me to everyone and when we got to Neil Simon, it was…well, for me, on a par with meeting Stan Freberg or Jack Kirby or Groucho or anyone else whose work I'd incessantly admired. Nothing particularly quotable was said. It was just important to me and I felt that Mr. Simon knew it was important to me (Howie had introduced me as a writer) and…well, what I remember is a warm feeling that I was standing there for maybe five minutes talking with the guy who wrote some of my favorite things in the world. For a half-second there, I wanted to say but didn't, "Oh, thank you for treating me like I belong on the same planet as you and for not being an asshole. That means a lot to me."
Howie Morris was also my ticket for hanging around with those guys a lot before and a little bit after the event…though Neil hurried out right after, concerned for his brother. In the midst of the on-camera conversation, Danny took sick and walked off the stage. The video was skillfully edited to remove his exit and to call no attention to his sudden disappearance…and it turned out he was okay.
Before the show, I don't think I've ever been in a room with such sharp, witty people — especially Larry Gelbart, who said something brilliant and hilarious with each breath. I said almost nothing…and I couldn't help noticing that Neil Simon said almost nothing. Like me, he just happily played audience for the others.
Comedy writers sometimes don't like to laugh at the quips of others. They don't like admitting that even for a moment, someone thought of something funny that didn't occur to them. Not Neil Simon. He laughed as much as anyone…maybe more than me, even. I didn't say anything because I had absolutely nothing to add. He didn't say anything because he had absolutely nothing to prove. Nothing at all.
I picked out an old photo of John McCain to run here. It's from the period when I kinda admired him…a period when he actually was a "maverick" at times, bucking his party more than once every two-or-so years. You can probably chart the disintegration of bi-partisanship and country-over-party in these United States by tracking how it disappeared from John McCain's repertoire. It was pretty much gone by the time he made his last serious run at the presidency and tried to turn himself into what he thought he had to be to nail the Republican nomination.
I vividly recall the last time he was on with Jon Stewart. They'd had a good relationship before then — at least good by the standards of ten-minute TV appearances. McCain was going to go after his party's nomination with all he had and Stewart seemed to know, during the exchange if not before, that it was their last on-camera chat.
In one of McCain's maverick moments years earlier, he'd denounced Reverend Jerry Falwell was an "agent of intolerance." Now that he was seeking the G.O.P. nod, McCain retracted and distanced himself from that remark. He even agreed to deliver the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University that year, which meant buddy-buddy pics and bonding with the former Agent of Intolerance. He was on his way to that event when he went on Stewart's show and the following was said…
STEWART: I feel like it's a condoning of Falwell's kind of crazymaking to some extent to have you go down there, and it strikes me as something you wouldn't normally do. Am I wrong about that?
McCAIN: Jon, I've spoken at a lot of schools. I've spoken to schools whose specific policies I may disagree with — Ivy League schools don't allow military recruiters. I don't agree with that. I'm going there to speak to the students at his invitation, and I can assure you that the message will be the same that I give everywhere.
STEWART: You don't think that it helps to sort of reassert Falwell as the voice for a certain group of people, say Evangelicals or the Christian Right? Isn't it the kind of thing that maybe if you don't go there, it helps to keep marginalizing guys like that, or do I misunderstand politics? No? Maybe I misunderstand things.
McCAIN: Jon, I try to, as I said —
STEWART: Why do I feel like I'm about to get grounded?
McCAIN: Listen, I love coming on your show. Young people all over America watch it. I love to travel around the country and speak at colleges and universities. Look, they're all parts of the Republican Party. I respect them. I may disagree and I'm sure that I've had disagreements with them. I 'm not going to change —
STEWART: You're not freaking out on us? Are you freaking out on us? Because if you're freaking out and you're going into the crazy base world…are you going into crazy base world?
McCAIN: I'm afraid so.
STEWART: All right, sir. You know we have great regard for you here and I hope you know what you're doing there. I trust that you do. When you see Falwell, do you feel nervous, do you have vomit in the back of your throat? What does it feel like?
McCAIN: No, but I'll give him your love.
I don't know how you read that but I read it as McCain saying, in effect, "I want to be president so badly, I'll even do what I know to be morally wrong." He probably thought the same way when he picked Sarah Palin and when he said certain things on the campaign trail that I don't think he'd have said if he wasn't trying to follow his party to the Barack-Bashing Right.
Honest. I admired this guy at one point, partly for his war heroism — and yes, I know some part of the legend are in dispute. I admired him even more for a lot of speeches and his reaching out to Vietnam War protesters after the war to try and heal some of the fractures. I'm thinking a lot about that kind of thing tonight. He was a good man…sometimes.
Rumor has it that John McCain wants his eulogy delivered by President Obama and not President Trump. That's so egotistical of McCain. Imagine wanting to be mentioned in your own eulogy!
I regret it took me so long to discover Randy Rainbow. He's been strewing great song parodies across the 'net for some time now and almost every time I watch an old one, I wish I'd embedded it when it was breaking news. I'm going to post a few of the better ones anyway…
Last December, the folks who have been running the quite-successful Salt Lake City Comic Con lost a court battle over the use of the term "comic con." A federal jury decided that they violated trademark law and that the term "comic con" belongs to the folks who run Comic-Con International in San Diego. The Salt Lake group changed its name (temporarily, they hoped) to the FanX® Salt Lake Comic Convention and pushed for a new trial.
The other day, Judge Anthony Battaglia in the U.S. District Court of Southern California issued an injunction against the Utah convention using that term and ordered its proprietors to pay $4 million in legal fees on top of the $20,000 penalty set by the earlier trial. You can read the decision here if you are so inclined. The Salt Lake folks have said they will continue to fight.
I am not a neutral party in this. I have been a guest at all 49 of the conventions now known as Comic-Con International and am good friends with many of its operators. So give that whatever weights you think it merits as I quote something I wrote here last December…
I…don't see why anyone is fearful of the impact of this verdict. Can't the Boise Comic Con (if there is such a gathering) rename itself the Boise Comic Fest or the Boise Media Con and proceed without much of a speed bump? Are a lot of people going to go, "It's a Comic Fest? Oh, no! I only go to Comic Cons"? There are plenty of successful enterprises around the country that could call themselves "Comic Cons" and don't: Heroes Con, DragonCon, WonderCon, Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, Megacon, etc. Still, a lot of folks seem worried that the group in San Diego now wields some undeserved power to control the industry and wipe out its competitors. I don't see how anything is going to change except one or two words in some conventions' names.
I still feel that way…and I'll bet the FanX® Salt Lake Comic Convention in a few weeks is just as big a hit as it would have been under its old name. I'll also bet that other events around the country that use the term "comic con" in their names will change a word or two and it won't make one bit of difference to their attendances or proceeds. I dunno if this battle is over now but it won't harm anything if it is.
Robin Leach, the veteran entertainment journalist who got famous celebrating the excesses of the rich and famous, died early this morning at the age of 76. He had been hospitalized since last November when he suffered a stroke in Cabo San Lucas. I mean no disrespect to his passing but…hey, isn't that kind of the way you'd expect Robin Leach to go?
I only met him once but that was enough to see that he was a man of great humor and spirit, and that he didn't undertake any of his endeavors with false seriousness…or even the true kind. I liked him in the recording studio and I liked him on TV. I've told this story before here but it's appropriate to repeat it today…
Here's another one of those "incredible coincidence" stories you won't believe. But I have witnesses to this one, and am quite prepared to take a polygraph that it happened just the way I say it happened.
For much of a decade, I wrote and voice-directed a cartoon show called Garfield and Friends. This was great fun because the Powers That Be (aka Jim Davis, creator of the lasagna-loving feline) allowed me to write pretty much whatever I wanted, and to cast whomever I felt suitable to do the guest voices.
One week, I penned an episode entitled, Lifestyles of the Fat and Furry, which burlesqued the then-popular TV series, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, hosted by Robin Leach. The program chronicled the indulgent creature comforts of folks with vast amounts of fame and/or cash, usually both. Teetering tenuously on the ledge of self-parody, the show drew much of its charm from the fustian, hyperkinetic narration of Mr. Leach.
Having written my parody of their parody, I set about to secure Robin Leach himself to do the voice of Robin Leach. I figured he could handle the role. About a week before we would be recording the voice track, I phoned his office in Los Angeles. They told me to call his office in New York.
I called his office in New York. They told me to call his office in Connecticut.
I called his office in Connecticut. They told me to call his office in London.
I called his office in London. They told me that Robin was on a six-week expedition down the Brahmaputra River, or somewhere equally remote. Wherever it was, he wouldn't be back 'til long after our tape date. So I shrugged and booked Frank Welker.
Frank Welker is the most gifted, amazing voice magician who has ever stood before a microphone in Hollywood. Frank can sound like anyone or anything. He is heard constantly in animated cartoons but also logs many hours doing voice matches and dubbing in live-action motion pictures. You hear him often in movies without knowing you're hearing him.
I knew he did a mean Robin Leach so I arranged with his agent for Frank to come in and play the part. I gave him a call time of 2:00.
Nine AM that morning, I walked into Buzzy's Recording Studio on Melrose Avenue for a full day of Garfield recording. I asked Marie at the desk, as I always did, if we were in Studio A or Studio B. She said — and I swear, I'm not making this up — "You're in Studio A. Robin Leach is in B."
Robin Leach???
That was what the lady said. I walked directly into Studio B and there — standing at a microphone, wearing a shirt imprinted with images of hundred dollar bills — was Robin Leach. In person.
I explained to him what we were doing over in A, and how I'd attempted to contact him, and how I'd given up and hired an impressionist, and he couldn't have been nicer. "Well, if the offer's still open, I'd be delighted to play me," he said. About an hour later, after he finished the spots he was recording, he came over to our studio and played Robin Leach like he'd been doing it all his life.
Mr. Leach and Mr. Welker. Left to right.
In fact, he played himself with enormous good-humor and that same sense of show biz and self-mocking that had made his show a hit. He exaggerated the vocal quirkiness of the Leach style more than I'd probably have allowed a mimic to do.
Robin was long gone by 2:00 when Frank Welker showed up. "Well, I'm here to do that Robin Leach bit," Frank announced. "I was warming up in the car on the way over."
"Uh, Frank," I said sheepishly. "I'm sorry but there's been a change of plans. I have a different role for you to play…not Robin Leach…"
Frank was puzzled. "What happened to the Robin Leach role?"
"Well, I don't know how to tell you this but, uh, we found someone who does a better Robin Leach than you do…"
Frank is a wonderful, cooperative person but he seemed a bit affronted — like his honor had been besmirched. He looked hurt so I added, "I'm sorry…I thought this other guy was a little better, Here — you can hear for yourself." And I told Andy the Engineer to run a few seconds of the voice track we'd recorded earlier that morn.
As the mellifluous tones of R. Leach boomed through the speakers, I saw shock upon the face of the best impressionist in the business. There, framed by stark horror, was the realization that someone had bested him in the category of Robin Leach impressions.
(I finally told him the truth. I didn't have the heart…)
A few weeks ago, I got up each morning and wondered, "What stupid, nasty thing has Trump done now?" These days, I get up and wonder, "What new legal jam is Trump in now?" It feels much better, thank you.
Russ Heath was one of the great comic book illustrators of the field. Because he veered away from super-heroes and more "commercial" genres, he often did not get the respect he deserved but…boy, when he drew a war comic, no one could draw a tank like Russ Heath. And when he drew beautiful women or cityscapes or just about anything that existed in reality, he was unmatched in his ability to capture reality and put it down on the page.
He was also a colorful figure with a wicked sense of humor. He was hard to get to know but once you did, you never for a moment doubted that it was worth the trouble.
And he was devoted to this art. He drew one comic book story I wrote and he must have called me at least twice per page to ask minute but valid questions: How did I envision staging this panel? Exactly what kind of expression should be on that character's face in this panel? How tall was this character compared to others. With someone else, I might have said, "Stop asking these questions. Just draw the damned thing!" But I could see the painstaking precision Russ put into his work, making everything as close to perfect as he could get it, not for his editor's satisfaction but for his own.
Like a lot of older artists, Russ found a lucrative industry in doing re-creations of his old covers. You could pay him to expertly redo a scene from Sea Devils or G.I. Combat or any of them but you had to answer a question first. The question was "Do you want it exact or can I fix things?" Russ was so intense about doing his best work that when he looked back at old work from decades past, he always saw ways to improve things. He would do it either way for you but was happier if you let him fix stuff.
Russ was born September 29, 1926 in New York and raised in New Jersey. He began drawing at an early age and his first published work in comics appears to have been for Holyoke Publishing's Captain Aero Comics in 1942. He was sixteen years old and still in high school. He served in the Air Force in World War II and his career really got going after he got out of the service. He joined the staff at Timely Comics (what we now call Marvel) in 1947 and was a constant presence in the comic book field ever after.
He was probably best known for his work on DC's war comics and he did a lot of the artwork — probably more than some people thought — on the Little Annie Fanny strip that Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder did for Playboy. Kurtzman was always late and that led to a story I told on this blog back in 2010…
One time when deadlines were nearing meltdown, Harvey Kurtzman called Heath in to assist in a marathon work session at the Playboy Mansion in Chicago. Russ flew in and was given a room there, and spent many days aiding Kurtzman and artist Will Elder in getting one installment done of the strip. When it was completed, Kurtzman and Elder left…but Heath just stayed. And stayed. And stayed some more.
He had a free room as well as free meals whenever he wanted them from Hef's 24-hour kitchen. He also had access to whatever young ladies were lounging about…so he thought, "Why leave?" He decided to live there until someone told him to get out…and for months, no one did. Everyone just kind of assumed he belonged there. It took quite a while before someone realized he didn't and threw him and his drawing table out.
As I related in my speech, when I was 14 years old, I used to take comic books over to my friend Randy Jacobs' house. His parents didn't allow him to spend money on comics but it was okay for him to read mine. And while he read mine, I read from his secret (his parents didn't know about it) stash of Playboy magazines. Well, maybe "read" is the wrong word here. In truth, I mainly looked at the pictures. If you've ever been a 14 year old boy, you know that few things can look as wonderful as Miss October when you're that age.
One day, Randy and I made an incredible discovery. One of the best artists in the DC war comics I brought over was this person named Russ Heath. And on the Little Annie Fanny strips in Playboy, the credits said that one of the artists was Russ Heath. We were shocked because we assumed that if you drew for Comics Code-approved comic books, you were barred from drawing naked women anywhere. I think Randy even suggested, "Maybe it's a different Russ Heath" but I knew. The tanks were drawn with the same meticulous care as the breasts. And later, when I got to know Russ, I realized they were drawn with the same painstaking research. I also found out something else amazing about him.
In one issue of Playboy that Randy had, there was a pictorial on the Playboy Mansion, which was then in Chicago. There was a photo of one of Hef's movie screenings in his private screening room. It was furnished with two-person love seats that faced the screen and in each love seat, there was some male crony of Hef's with his arm around his gorgeous date. Right in the middle of the photo was a handsome guy to be envied, cuddling up with Miss Whatever Month She Was. I had no idea who that man was or what he did but I wanted to be him.
Flash forward to years later and, yes, I know you can see the payoff on this from a block away. Russ and I are both working at Hanna-Barbera and one day, we're out to lunch and he's telling Tales From the Mansion. He happens to tell about one time they dragged him away from his drawing board to take part in a photoshoot in Hef's screening room. I instantly thought of that cool guy in the love seat and when I got home, I hauled out that issue. (Yes, I have a copy. I have every issue of Playboy, in large part because I always try to have every issue of everything. Keeping this set up is easy because years ago when I did a show with Hefner, I told him I had every issue to date and he said, "Well, let's keep your collection going" and he gifted me with a lifetime subscription. Every time I see him bragging about having sex with his six current girl friends, I hope he meant my lifetime and not his.)
Well, anyway, you see where this is going. The guy in the photo? Russ. Before that revelation, I only admired him as a great artist.
Russ was a joy to know. His work was a joy to see. He'd been very sick the last few years, often dependent on the kindness of his many fans and admirers. He passed away Thursday evening at the age of 91 and the cause of death appears to have been cancer. But his work will live on and those of us who were lucky enough to know him will never forget him.
Ezra Klein asks the not-insignificant question, "Did Trump unleash an economic miracle, or take credit for Obama's work?" The answer, as you might imagine, is mostly the latter.
Here's a helluva find. This is color footage of Johnny Carson's monologue from The Tonight Show for Friday, August 24, 1964. To put this into context, Johnny started on that show on October 1, 1962 so he was in his second year.
The show in those days was an hour and 45 minutes per night. It started at 11:15 on stations that ran a fifteen-minute newscast at 11 PM. Because some stations had a half-hour of news there, there would be a second opening of The Tonight Show at 11:30 with the theme music and a repeat billboarding of the guests and then Johnny would welcome the viewers who were just joining them.
Those viewers missed the monologue and as more and more local stations went to a 30-minute newscast at 11, fewer and fewer viewers were seeing the first fifteen. This ticked off Mr. Carson who felt the monologue was important to the program. Beginning in February of '65, he stopped appearing in the first fifteen minutes. At first, he went on strike (more or less), announcing shortly before tape time each night that he was ill but would probably recover in time to the do the monologue for the 11:30 segment.
NBC got the message and agreed to have The First Fifteen hosted by announcer Ed McMahon and bandleader Skitch Henderson. They would play games, have a band number, chat, sometimes interview a guest who wasn't important enough to be on with Johnny. Not television's finest programming. Then when the show restarted at 11:30, Johnny would come out and do his monologue for the entire nation. You'll catch a brief glimpse of Henderson in this clip. Ed McMahon was off that night and filling in, they had Jack Haskell, a former big band singer who was heard announcing half the shows that came out of New York in the sixties.
The First Fifteen lasted until the beginning of 1967 when NBC lined up all its affiliates and The Tonight Show became a 90-minute program starting at 11:30 PM. By then, Skitch was gone, replaced briefly by Milton DeLugg and then finally by Doc Severinsen.
Anyway, here's a peek at some of the oldest surviving color footage of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show…
