Variety (January 1961)

picrrnES * Fiftyfifth P'ARIETY Anniversary January 4, 1961 ‘GOODBYE YOU PRIZE PACKAGE OF HUMAN STUPIDITY!’ Bv ARTHUR KOBER Bear As'tio: Fust off I want to thank you for the letter which you wiete v. i.iXt I wa* in the hospital ret up« rating mv heart condition which, knock wood is now OK. Yes, kid. my doctor tells me 1 an> once more on the brink of pood health, the same Benny Green* pan hearfwive like be¬ fore. else this here letter would be knocked out bv some gho-t writer. You dip? Second off you must think, eh boy. some fine guy Benny Greenspan. Here you po ahead, you sit down and write him a long letter and not even the common curtesy of a four emits post¬ age stamp. Not the case believe me. In fact the past week my *ecrctary Gussie. she’s been laid up with a bad ease flue and rather ‘ban wait she should come bac*k. I’m sitting down wilting this here letter all by myself which will probly be full of all kinds of lauphible mistakes, but what the hell kid, I am not a public steno which is why a public steno knocks down the type dough she pets whereas yours truly, Benny Greenspan 1 pot my own talent agency and considering the way cur¬ rent conditions are today here in Holly wood, namely even more quiet than a door mouse, all the same I could he doing a lot worse which, thank God I am not. You dig? Artie, in your letter you inquired what happened, if my heart condition is something gradual or did it come on. all of a sudden? For your information all of a sudden. One day I’m sitting in my office, I’m busier than a one eyed paperhar.eer with this. that, the other, so without the least bit warning, from left field you mipht *ay. I get * terrible *tk-h in my side and I keel over. I yd! out “Gussie*, Gussie" and Gussie comes busting in and right away she calls up my personal doctor and the next thing >, on kuo.v I am hustled away in a butcher wagon and I wind nit up like you read in the Hollywood Variety, namely a private room in Cedars of Lebanon. Xow that trie whole thing is passed arel forgotten I think it was pure and simply a bad case aggravation and t lie one uny ie*ncn*ihle. he's a cutain English creep who goes by the name Keriuald Metcalf. Mavbe you a*e personally ac¬ quainted with him. Gad forbid for your own sake. It all started with my client Hal Richard* who 1 got set to direct a picture ov« r at Regal which M.-nnie Farber is Ihe producer of. Anyhow one morning Hal comes breezing in my <-‘!:ee vey\ excited like, lie i* In a jam. Wha*’* the matter? He is -uppo-sd to *tart shooting next week and what he needs very (inspirit is a writer who could do a quick po’.i'hdiiv job cm the script. Have I cot auvbedy available who could make some fast changes and .-till and ell st;.- a co :i-’e dry* ahead the camera? Then he goes and (v-hvns ire ti.e s-orv, all about Kir.-: Arthur ard tie kniyit’s v ho sit around the table. Leather it's one of them costume Westerns whereby the characters all dress up in fim' arc ard : ide patted kor-es. <»:.jy in-f* ad of cun* they carry lore spoors instead and they talk a very high class type English. Yea dig? IVrfect Casting Anv-.vt.-ys I r< member a certain client I represent who know the background ti.oroly like a fish being he was fcorn over there in England and being he knocked out a couple history type books where everybody when they wrote, they used feather made pen*. So I tell Hal I got the perfect wider, namely Reginald Metcalf, and he should go and set me i-o a date tomorrow with Mannie Farber at the studio and I will bring my client there unless I com¬ municate him otherwise. Well, kid once Hal blows I call up Reggie and I tell him he should drop whatever he’s doing, it’s absolutely imperative he secs me right away being I got something highly important to discuss. So that afternoon he comes to my office and I go and explain him he can pick up maybe five-six grand or. a quick polishing job. Right away he answers me he can't, being lie's supposed to take his family back to England where he’s got a commitment to pet his new book published and a lot more dribble like that. So I say to him why not postpone his trip two months the very mod. and still in all lie can take his family and his book back plus five-six thousand smackers American money besides? “Believe me. Reg.” I *ays "with all that dough you can afford to buy plcrty raincoats for your whole entire family to use back there in London where it keeps constantly pouring with rain all the time.” Artie, I had to talk myself black and blue in the face before I could convince this here nroken down Noel Coward, which I finally did. Almost a No-Sale So the next day I am in Mannie Farbcr’s private office with Hal while Reggie is cooling off his heel* in the out¬ s’, de office. Meantime Mannie must of looked up Reggie's screen credits on account now he i* not so sure my client 3* right for the job. Mavbe the two writers who knocked out the screenplay should do the brush up work. “Look, .Mannie" I says to him. “I'm sure you're two writers must be pretty good else you wouldn't of used ‘hem in the first place. But leave us face it. They arc strictly Americans. If this here picture v.a* a Western, i! it v.a* about juvenile deirquince” I *ay*. “these here boy* would be great. But thi* *cript has cot ar. English background m> what you mid is a r.a‘ive born Englishman Alter all.” I say-, “when you're dialing with ar. English kina yon need somebody who fcr.i w * the King's English hack and loith which, is why Reiuneic: MtLaif is jn-itiveiy your nan. Don't take mv word,” I *ay*. ‘Why rot call him in here and you will ste ior your own *» .1 what a zauve t; pe man he is and you will hear conn body talk a beautiful grammar wh.ieh he dots.” So Maur-ie ca-rK him in and once Reg starts giving out w “h hi* Ei.chsh l-rnge ar.d talking all about the knights way back there ::i the olden age*. I know we are in. I'm watching Manrle lrom Lie corners of my eyes and no kidding Artie lie *if* there hanging with his tongue out. A.l I can T« 11 yi.u i* that Mr, Reginald Metcalf got* on salary a of that very day. W<11. a v. e(k maybe TO days later. 1 am at the Regal V conducting my Iwn* h. I figure r?« mg I am on Lit* .iji v..v r.t.t drop by Reggie's office to sic how things lack Warner Taps DFZ Paris. In looking back over the years, probably the most interesting event in my career occurred when I was 23 years old and Jack "Warner sent for me to his office to inform me that I was being appointed head of production at Warner Bros. The last story I had wiitten was a disappointment, and I felt that I was going to get the pink slip. We talked for a long while and, for some unfathomable reason, he had confidence In me — in addition to which he wanted to go on a Vacation. His father always sat in the lobby of the Sunset studio, and when I emerged from Jack’s office he was there. I stopped to chat with him, which was. my usual cu*!om, and when I told him what I had just been ap¬ pointed production head of the studio, he burst into laughter and thought it was a great joke! That night 1 began to worry — perhaps it w’as a practical joke. When I entered the studio the next 'tu rning I did so with timidity and hesitation. My name had already been painted on the door of my new olbce. and for the first time I believed it. When I finished, work that evening I .again encountered the father of the Warner brothers, who was a devoted, orthodox Jew and greatly interested in raising funds lor a new synagogue. He said to me: “Now that you've got a new job, I want you to buy 10 ticket* for the Passover services.” He obviously thought I was Jewi*h. I hesitated a moment, wonder¬ ing if I should tell him that I was a Protestant. I de¬ cided to buy the tickets. When, later on. I told the sto>y to Jack he burst into laughter and offered to buy the tickets back from me. With my usual shvness and humility. I declined the offer. Darryl F. Zanuck. are getting along. So I drop by his office and I take one look at the guy and I see his kisser is at half mass and !.i chin i* up against his knees. Before I could even get a "Hello. Resgis” out of my mouth he lets go with a blast all again*! Mannie. “That stupid incomepoop!” he veils on me. “That stupid, bandit! Why don't he go to some tgi-mamicl training school and learn a useful occupation ir.Mcad > e should tell writers how they should write?” You hear? That’s some fine hello I must say. English as She Is Spoke Then it .comes out he and Mannie had a conference that morning whereby they went over ihe new stuff. According the way Reggie tells it Mannie sits there read¬ ing the pages, and .then finally opens his 'mouth and savs to him very sarcasticiike “Mr. Metcalf, in this here picture King Arthur is *upposed to be an Englishman. Correct?” Correct. Reg’s an*wer.' “And the knights around the table they are likewise Englishmen. Correct?" Correct. Reg's amwe-j “In other words." *ays Mannie “they are not Americans, and being they are all Englishmen tliev don't go round speaking American slang. Xow do ;hev?” They certainly don't. Reg’s answer.' “O.K." says Mannie and according to Reggie lie jumps up and start* screaming and caving the pages in his kisser. “Then why the hell do von have the knights saying Yes. sirree and No, s:ree to tiie king" Ye*, sirree and No. sirree that's strictly Ameri¬ can t, Ik." Fo very ea*y and slow-like Reggie explains him that the word* in the script are “Yes. sire” and “Xo, sire", v. "iiich i* how the knights talked to the king in those old time days. If Mannie will go and look up “sire” in the dictionary on the desk, he will see for his own self that it is a term for respect. I guess this must of taken the sails right out of Mannie on account he calms down and tells Reggie after all he read the paces very quick and didn’t have a chance to digest same which he will do later on and lot him know. But Reggie, he is burnt to a crips over this and all he want* is to quit right then and there. He tells me he don't want to work for a man who is supposed to be a producer and can't even read simple everyday languace without he should scream and veil and carry on like some common hog carrier or other. “Take it easy boy.” I says to Reg. “After all we are only human and we all make mistakes else they'd be only winners at the race tracks.” To tell you the honest truth. Arthie if I hadn't of heard with, my own two ears I'd never believe a tea bag dipper like Metcalf could blow' up like the way he went and did. But I should of guessed this was only the beginning of my troubles. About two w’eeks later I get a call from the Regal story . department and like a bolt from the blues they inform me that Mr. Metcalf is no longer on the pavroil as of that day. You hear? Xaturally first thing I asked is why, but nobody there would go and give me a simple little because. Exit Laii*:liinply Xo sooner I hang up the phone but who should come breezing in except Mr. Metcalf himself and he is grinning from one car to the next. He hands me a chock for my commission and lie thanks me very heartily. Being I got him tour weeks work at Regal he can take his family, his cook, the baby’s nurse 'the ninny he call hen and his pets, he can take them all over to England where ha can relax and fini*h his book without no financial troubles whatso¬ ever. “Believe me, Benny” be says, “I appreciate it very much.” Me. I am not one wit interested in his apprecia¬ tion. All I am interested is what happened between he and Mannie which he goes and informs me about. Thai morning he is on the set with Hal who is shooting a *cene whereby the king speaks to the heavy. Xext thing you know there is Reggie scramming the hell over to Mannie’* ofiice and he is starch raving mad. But furious. The minute he sees Mannie he want* to know why they changul his line from, and I quote “Let’s have no more of yesterday's pleasantries” to “unpleasanlries’’? Because, say* .Mannie in the previous day’s shooting the king and the heavy had a big argument and to him a big argument is not pleasant but unpleasant. “Mr. Farber." says Reggie and he commences making with the heavy British accent. “.Mr. Farber,'’ he says. “If you were acquainted with the English language which apparently you don't know from Adam, you will find the word unpleasant rie* not even listed in the dictionary." Right away Mannie reaches for the book on his desk. “Go ahead,” says Reggie. “And whilst you are looking up a word which don't even exist I will go and make me plane reservations back to Eng¬ land. " lie gees out of the door but in a second lie is right back. “The word you have in mind Mr. Farber, is not unplea.-anlrie-. It is unpleasantness. Goodbye, you prize pa<kace ot human stupidity!” Artie, when I heard how this cluck writer who is on a week to week basis without no guarantee what*oever, how lie spoke so iresh to Mannie, no kidding if I had a gun in THE JOKE I NEVER TOLD By EDDIE CANTOR — Hollywood. In the summer of 1909, I told my first joke. I fractured the folks when I said, “There are three means of com¬ munication: telephone — telegraph — and tell-a-woman.** Remember, this was 1909! Since then, I’ve told — oh, I don’t know how many gags — but if they were all laid end to end, it would bt the biggest omelet in the world! Many may find it difficult to be¬ lieve that in almost 50 years of ped¬ dling puns, punchlines anti out-andout gags, there was one I always a\oided. Early in my career. I junked all mother-in-law jokes. Xot that I wasn't up to them. I learned to read Joe Miller even before I knew about McGuffey. And. as a youngster in show business, standing in the wings listen¬ ing to other acts, I’d hear things like: “Doctor, please hurry to my house. My .mother in-law is at death’s door and I want you to pull her through.” or Comedian: “Bartender, I want some mother-inlaw whiskey.” Bartender surprised, as if he’d never heard the line before!: “Mother-in-law whiskey?” Comedian: “Y’es — Old Crow.” Or. there was the sketch where the mother-in-law. in a squabble with her daughter’s husband, said: “Oh. if you were my son, I'd give you poison.” Reply from the son-inlaw: "If you were my mother, I*d take it.” Oh, jes — I know them. As Durante would say. “I gotta million of ’em." but I always refused to include any in my act. The way I look at it — every mother-in-law is some¬ one’s mother and who am I, to get a laugh at the expens# of your mother? "When I went into radio, back in 1931. the writers— taking the easy way out — would bring in a llock of mother-, in-law jokes, i turned them down, explaining that from an economic standpoint, it would be bad — that t lie adverti*ing agency and rating service had told us we were Xo. 1 on the lists, with a listening audience of almost 40 million people. I pointed out that, in many a home, the motherin-law did the buying of the product we were trying to sell. Why antagonize her? I was credited with good think¬ ing. In a way, it was. I had hit on the only argument that would forever discourage mother-in-law gags. Mothers-in-law can be pretty nice people. My own case may lia\e been exceptional, but I doubt it. Ida's mother — as a cook — would have been tough competition for Oscar of the Waldorf. She passed all her secrets on to Ida. say¬ ing: "Eddie has a sensitive stomach — lie needs good food — and go easy on :iie spices, they're not good lor him.” Beeau-e I lo\td a certain type coffeecake, once a " eik, ior many year*. Ida's mother would spend hours baking one — their travel another hour on the subway to bring it to me. In family arguments, it was two-again*t-or.e— my mother-in-law and me, against my wife. Poor Tda, she never had a chance! A few week* ago. in a hospital lunchroom, my doctor introduced me to a young couple who were, baling a sandwich and a cup of col Ice. The doctor informed me that the lady had ju*t given a blood transfusion to her motherin-law. I said to her. “That was wonderful — giving your mother-in-law a transfusion." She put her arms around her husband's shoulder and said, “Not half as wonderful as what she gave me." Further proof of my point, is one of our most popular television shows — “December Bride" — which glorifies the mother-in-law. We have a “prune week" — a “dunk-your-doughnut week” — a “be-kind-to-homcless sardines week”— all silly stuff. Of course, we alo have two very important days 'outside of national holidays’ — "Mother’s Day”— and “Father’s Day.” But I believe that the man who will introduce a bill in Congress t hat will give us a special day to honor the mother-in-law — *ay, y’knovv something — that man could run for President! mv hand I would of blasted the creep. Anyways I rush out, jump in my car and in no time flat I’m over at Regal. When Mannie’s secretary tells me to go right in without wailing, I know right away I am in trouble, which I was. Y'es, sir. for one *o:id half hour I was like standing in a street shower only in*tead of rain water pouring over me it was word*. The insults, the abuse, the curses this man came down on me with, Artie you simply got no idea. And to cop the climax lu» tells me from now on I am barred from the lot Jor recommending a no-good limey who is not a writer but a teacher who belongs in some classroom with a piece chalk, and I should get the hell out. What could I do? I got the hell out. Yes, sir for one whole entire week I couldn't hardly close my eyes. Kill me, I just couldn't get me.no sleep. And when it came to food, you should excuse me. I simply could not hold *,«mc. After all. Artie a person like Mannie Farber is the Jerry Wald of Regal who makes thrce-lour pictures a year whereby he uses plenty talent. So now I am blacklisted Lem the studio. Well, with or.e tiling on top another prayma on my mind it is no wonder I ktcled over. I must say alter I wa* in the hospital Mannie behaved a perfect nt’Ie gentleman. Very nice, lie sent me a gor¬ geous basket in,’! and ’lien he come up to see me. lie’s very sorry he l>h w hi* top and lie don't blame me one bit. In his estimatirn i'\s all Metcalf’s fault. In fact if that beanbag wa*n't now in London, he say*, he would go ahead and get him deported over there. Which is likewise how’ I lelt. Well, Artie Thanks a lot for writing me. You arc a good friend even if ; mi are a bad client, 'Only kidding) My best to you always. With kindest regard*. • Benny Grccnsitan P.S. Mannie’.* r< *carch department inform* him “unpleasanlries” is *o listed in the big dietiomuy only it's an old word, not modern. Inasmuch his picture takes place in King Arthur * time it wasn’t necessary he *hould go to the expense i (-shooting the scene which lie went ahead and did. It all cue* to prove that smart Alex e.\i*t all over the world, opcci;. !y if they are English. Eddie Cantor