Budd Friedman from 2012
Guest:But Friedman.
Guest:I know I sound great.
Marc:You do sound great.
Guest:I can't believe you're here.
Guest:Listen, Mark, I am so hip that, yes, I was in the celebrity poker tournament at Commerce, and there were some people that I knew, and some people recognized me, and the guy says, yes, I'm doing an iPod tomorrow.
Guest:And they liked it?
Guest:Were they surprised?
Guest:I'm doing an iPod.
Guest:Oh, the wrong thing.
Guest:Podcast.
Guest:I'm doing a pod.
Marc:Did they figure out what the hell you meant?
Guest:Well, obviously you didn't, so they certainly... I was trying to be polite.
Marc:I wasn't sure if you were still calling it that.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Marc:Well, you know, it's weird because it's hard to begin talking about what you've contributed to our business here.
Marc:I think you invented the comedy club.
Marc:Would you say that?
Marc:Oh, I would say that definitely.
Marc:By accident, but I certainly invented it.
Marc:Well, I don't think a lot of people realize that the original improv on 44th Street, I mean, when did that start?
Marc:49 years ago, 1963.
Marc:And where did you come from before that?
Marc:How did you get into show business?
Guest:Well, how did I get into show business?
Guest:I was always a ham.
Guest:You might have noticed that.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:I'm surprised there's no monocle tonight.
Marc:Hello.
Marc:Well, there's always the monocle.
Guest:Of course, the monocle.
Guest:I was working in advertising in Boston.
Guest:I was living in New York, and I moved to Boston to work in advertising.
Guest:And I was almost 30, and I said, I've got to give show business a try.
Guest:I always wanted to be an actor, but I didn't have the, you know, too middle class to starve, I think was my line.
Guest:So I said, I know, I'll produce a show on Broadway in there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's easy.
Guest:Yeah, that was easy.
Guest:I had no money, no contacts, and very little taste.
Guest:So I moved back to New York.
Guest:I didn't want to work in advertising, which I had been doing in Boston, because it would be too full-time.
Marc:What were you doing, copywriting?
Guest:I was a copywriter.
Guest:I was an account executive for a couple of small accounts.
Marc:But you grew up in Boston?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I'm from Norwich, Connecticut.
Marc:Isn't that odd?
Marc:You're not a traditional New York Jewish person.
Guest:Yes, well, then I moved to New York when I was nine, looking for work.
Guest:And did you go to college?
Guest:Oh, yes.
Guest:I went to City College, I went to Brooklyn College, and I went to NYU.
Guest:And you were also... For one degree.
Guest:And you were in the war, too.
Guest:I was in the big war, the Korean War.
Marc:But that was a pretty nasty war.
Marc:I think a lot of people don't realize.
Guest:Well, I was only there for one... I was only in battle one day.
Guest:Really?
Guest:How did that... I was on the front line.
Guest:I was...
Guest:Which army?
Guest:In the army infantry.
Guest:How did that happen as a Jew boy from New York?
Marc:We'll never know.
Marc:How did that happen?
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Did you enlist?
Guest:I did enlist, yes.
Marc:You thought it was the right thing to do?
Guest:No, I knew I was going to be drafted.
Guest:I didn't want to waste time in college because I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Guest:So I volunteered with the draft thinking the war was going to last forever.
Guest:Right.
Yeah.
Guest:Schmuck that I am.
Guest:Three weeks after I was wounded, the war ended.
Guest:So what do I know?
Marc:So the first day in battle, you got hit?
Guest:One day and my only day in battle.
Guest:And what happened?
Guest:We were trying to take Porkchop Hill back.
Guest:You probably saw the movie.
Guest:I kept turning around looking for the cameras.
Guest:You got hit.
Guest:And I didn't see that grenade, and boom, I got nailed.
Guest:Did you lose a lot of friends and whatnot?
Guest:Yeah, that's where I was confirmed my atheism.
Guest:Really?
Guest:How so?
Guest:Well, the battalion was approximately, I don't know, 1,000 men.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we were going to go back to try to take the hill back, Porkchop Hill.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the, what was he, Presbyterian chaplain was going to bless everybody.
Guest:And I said, no, no.
Guest:And I walked away.
Guest:Not because he was Presbyterian, because I believe in God.
Guest:And in my company with the guys that I knew, 220 guys, 11 or 9, I can't remember exactly, escaped unscathed.
Guest:And you were one of them.
Guest:No, I was wounded.
Marc:I'm saying they were either wounded or dead.
Marc:I didn't die.
Marc:And that was it.
Guest:And I said, I know.
Guest:Now I know there's something to atheism.
Guest:I believe in something.
Marc:Because that guy, he blessed us and we still got married.
Marc:So you came back and did you get a...
Guest:Then I had the G.I.
Guest:Bill.
Guest:Did you get a Purple Heart?
Guest:I got a Purple Heart.
Guest:I was supposed to get a Bronze Star, but I didn't.
Guest:That's another story.
Marc:You still have your Purple Heart?
Guest:Oh, yes.
Guest:Alex, my wife, took my Purple Heart, my Combat Infantryman's badge, a pin I had made up for the one show I produced, What's a Nice Country Like You, doing a state like this,
Guest:And a pin that I had won when I was 16 in the Bronx in a Tarzan swim meet at Cascade Swimming Pool, Lowe's 167th Street, did a swim competition.
Guest:I won.
Guest:I was very proud of it.
Guest:I am very proud of it.
Guest:To this day, you're proud of it.
Guest:Anyway, so I came back and I started at City College.
Guest:I'd already gone to Brooklyn College for a semester and left going to the Army.
Guest:And while I was at City College, I called home or something and I was living with my mother in Queens and she says,
Guest:you're not getting, I was disabled, disability.
Guest:He says, you're not getting, you're getting $118 a month.
Guest:I said, that doesn't sound right.
Guest:And I came home and it was my GI Bill giving me money.
Guest:No, no, that was my disability, not for the school.
Guest:So I became a disabled veteran.
Guest:I found out a month out.
Guest:How were you injured?
Guest:I got hit by a grenade.
Guest:Right, but I mean, what was your disability?
Guest:Oh, I got my right elbow under my armpit, my rear end, my right thigh.
Marc:Shrapnel?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's all out now?
Guest:No, it's not.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:There's a little left in there.
Guest:We don't know.
Guest:I read the report once years ago, but it was so technical.
Guest:I didn't know.
Guest:I have no idea where the shrapnel is.
Guest:You know, it keeps surprising Alex all the time.
Yeah.
Guest:It keeps popping out, what's this?
Guest:So anyway, so I got the GI Bill, so I said, hell, I'm transferring out of the city college, I'm going to NYU.
Guest:And so I did, and I got my degree in about three years.
Guest:In advertising?
Guest:In marketing and advertising.
Guest:And I worked for a while in New York.
Guest:But I couldn't go to work in an agency because they start you out at $35 a week, which I couldn't afford to do.
Guest:I was older than most of these guys are.
Guest:a year older.
Guest:So I got a job in a small agency in Boston called Marvin Leonard Advertising.
Guest:You probably knew them as young.
Guest:Sure, of course.
Guest:That's a joke.
Guest:There were two guys from New York who had moved up there to work for a small agency, and they bought it.
Guest:The guy retired.
Guest:And they hired me, and I was very happy.
Guest:It was very nice.
Guest:And if I were married, I might have stayed there longer, but I was a little restless.
Guest:So I decided I'm gonna get into showbiz now or never.
Guest:I'm gonna produce a Broadway show.
Guest:Come back to New York and I'm not gonna work an hour.
Guest:I'll give myself a year to do it.
Guest:And that didn't work out too well.
Guest:Did you try to produce your show?
Guest:At that point, I did.
Guest:And one of the highlights, or the highlight,
Guest:was sitting down face to face with Lottie Lenya.
Guest:For the younger folks out there, Lottie Lenya was this legendary American-German singer-actress who was married to Kurt Weill, who wrote the show that I was interested in, Knickerbocker Holiday.
Guest:And I knew nothing about theater, but I read the script.
Guest:And I'm sure you're not familiar, it's before you.
Marc:I know Latalania, I know the name, but I can't connect.
Guest:So it's about Peter Stuyvesant in Manhattan.
Guest:And Peter Stuyvesant had a wooden leg, and then there was a young guy in it.
Guest:And on Broadway, the older guy was played by Walter Houston and John.
Marc:John Houston's father.
Guest:Angelica's grandfather.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he sang September Song, a very famous song.
Guest:And the younger guy forgot his name and played it.
Guest:And I said to Lenya, I said, well, you know, I feel that for, you know, this is gonna be summer stock show.
Guest:They used to have big, these musical tints.
Guest:We could book a younger guy as the lead.
Guest:I think we get more box office that way because the roles seem to be equal.
Guest:Do you think that would work?
Guest:She said, well, you know, the show was originally written for Burgess Meredith.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:You know who he is from Rocky.
Guest:Yeah, the manager.
Guest:Well, of course, he was the young.
Guest:Rock.
Guest:He was a young actor, you know, and she had a fall.
Guest:He had a falling out with him.
Guest:So he switched the show over to Walter Houston.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But yes, we could do that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, Needle said, I didn't sell it.
Guest:I couldn't sell him.
Marc:But it was nice meeting her.
Guest:Oh, that was that was great.
Guest:And I was looking at people like Arthur Godfrey, so the older guy.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It was hilarious.
Guest:So I was working as, I was selling magazines on the telephone.
Guest:And I met on the phone, well, you know who Bullitt Sturgam was?
Guest:No.
Guest:He was Jackie Gleason's manager.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And, I mean, how can you forget the name Bullitt Sturgam?
Guest:I'm a kid in the Bronx.
Guest:I knew who Bullitt Sturgam was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You met him cold calling?
Guest:I met his divorced wife.
Guest:Ex-wife.
Guest:She was so nice.
Guest:She bought every magazine.
Guest:And then I finally met her when I moved out here years later.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And you told him the story?
Guest:Told her, not him.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:No, he was, I think, dead already.
Guest:But anyway, I worked at my brother-in-law's luncheonette on 45th Street and Madison Avenue.
Guest:Little goatee, little mustache.
Marc:You've had a lot of facial hair.
Marc:I've seen the pictures.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Guest:You did a lot of things.
Guest:And people would say to me, so you're an actor?
Guest:I said, no.
Guest:You're a writer?
Guest:No.
Guest:An artist?
Guest:No, no, I'm a waiter.
Guest:Just to embarrass them.
Guest:Oh, what?
Guest:No, I'm sorry.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:No, I love it.
Guest:So anyway.
Guest:What was the birth of the, how'd you get the improv?
Guest:So the improv.
Guest:I met this young lady who was in Fiorello, hit Broadway musical, and I was dating her, and Silver, and Zoe's mother.
Guest:I knew Silver.
Guest:We go out, yeah, and we go out with her friends from the show, and they would say, hey, remember when we were in Chicago trying out in the show, and we'd go to Harry's bar after the show and get up and sing, and then there was a place in Boston, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:I said, gee, there's an idea.
Guest:I'll open up a coffee house with food in the theater district, and the kids will come in, get up and sing.
Guest:I'll make a few bucks, and I'll expand my knowledge of Broadway people.
Marc:You smooze a little bit?
Marc:You meet some people?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:They'll come in, show people.
Guest:Exactly, Mark, exactly.
Marc:So you want to show people.
Marc:You want to have an after-hours club and after- Not after-hours, after theater.
Marc:After theater that wasn't Lindy's or one of the other places.
Guest:Some place the kids would go to and sing.
Marc:And hang out.
Marc:And sing, yeah.
Marc:But the hope was to get the big people in.
Guest:Like to have a place where maybe.
Guest:Never thought of the stars.
Guest:No.
Guest:No, just thinking of the chorus kids.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, I think it'd be a good part-time temporary venture.
Guest:Sure, like a coffee shop.
Marc:A coffee house.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:With food.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so that's what I did.
Guest:I opened it and then we got.
Marc:What was the original location?
Marc:Where'd you get the?
Marc:44th.
Marc:Right, no, but I mean, what was it before?
Marc:How'd you get the deal on that?
Guest:Well, I smile because in 1962, when I rented the end of 62 and opened in 63, it was a Vietnamese restaurant.
Guest:1962.
Guest:Think about that day, right?
Guest:It had all red-locked walls and mirrors.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Ripped all the shit off the walls and there was the brick.
Guest:Cleaned up the brick and that's how the brick wall became.
Guest:The original brick wall.
Marc:The original brick wall.
Marc:The first brick wall.
Marc:The original brick wall.
Marc:Which is now sort of a symbol of stand-up comedy.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Marc:I remember performing there.
Guest:Thank God I got a royalty each time.
Marc:Oh yeah, every brick is on TV.
Marc:That's my thing.
Marc:No, I got to New York in 89, and silver still had the place, and by that time, there was a letter missing, I think, and one of them was falling off.
Guest:Oh, well, there are always letters missing.
Guest:Well, you've seen that famous picture of John Lennon in front of the emperor?
Guest:Well, it says half of the M, it's a vertical sound, half of the M is missing, and there's no N on the bottom.
Guest:I think it was great.
Guest:No one fixed it.
Guest:How come no one fixed it?
Guest:You didn't want to fix it?
Guest:I never had the money.
Marc:You know, for 10 years, I didn't make a penny.
Marc:But who was coming around, like, right away?
Marc:Because, I mean, Silver did a few shows, right?
Marc:She was a dancer.
Guest:By the time we opened, she was in How to Succeed in Business.
Guest:And the kids came in and Bobby Moss came in.
Guest:Rudy Valli even came in.
Guest:It's amazing Bobby Moss on Mad Men now, right?
Guest:And he's playing the same role.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Chairman of the board, which is the last job he had.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:Who else was coming in?
Guest:Well, Charles Nelson Riley.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Who's just fantastic.
Guest:And all the kids in the show.
Guest:This is 63, 62.
Guest:63.
Guest:Who was the first comic to come around?
Guest:Ah, the first comic was Dave Astor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Dave Astor was the comic's comic.
Guest:He was playing the Blue Angels.
Guest:You certainly heard of that.
Guest:And he wanted in one night.
Guest:And he got up and performed.
Guest:I didn't know who he was.
Guest:And he was brilliant.
Guest:He was really.
Marc:And you had regular crowds.
Marc:People would start to come in.
Marc:It was all show people.
Marc:What was it?
Guest:In the beginning, it was mostly just show kids coming in.
Guest:And then, you know, word got out very quickly.
Guest:But I'll get to that in a minute.
Guest:But Dave Astor, you know, so he's playing the Blue Angel.
Guest:And the comics would come to see him.
Guest:He would bring them over.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So he became sort of a regular.
Guest:That's how he became a comedic genius.
Marc:Yes, that's it.
Marc:Dave Astor showed up one night.
Marc:And you're like, I got it.
Marc:Were you a fan of comedy?
Guest:Oh, yes.
Guest:And I found that I prefer to hear the same joke over again than a song over and over and over again.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:Yeah, these kids would sing the same fucking songs all the time.
Marc:All the time.
Marc:And who were those kids singing?
Marc:Do we know these people?
Marc:I mean, I know that some of the people we know as comics were singers originally, some of the women.
Guest:Oh, well, no, we had Liza Minnelli.
Guest:She would come by regularly?
Guest:Absolutely, when she was 16.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Judy Garland ever come?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:We were talking about the kids first.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Bette Midler, of course, when it was 1969, Bette showed up.
Guest:I'm trying to think of other singers.
Guest:Well, we had everybody.
Marc:Didn't Elaine Boosler sing initially?
Guest:Elaine Boosler was a singing waitress.
Marc:Was that something you initiated?
Marc:Did everyone have to perform?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, as many as we could, yeah.
Guest:So in case somebody didn't show up, hey, go on up.
Marc:It was not a hook or anything, it was just a backup plan.
Guest:Exactly, and she was a terrible waitress, so she became a singing hostess, and then she met Andy Kaufman and decided to become a comedian.
Guest:Later, and that was what, 1971?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So in the early 60s, did Woody Allen come by?
Guest:Woody was there once or twice.
Guest:Dick Cavett came in for the second time he performed stand-up, and I think you'll like the story.
Guest:He says, does this joke, it's a classic joke.
Guest:He says, my friend from Yale was so rich that when he got married, instead of throwing rice, they threw Uncle Ben.
Guest:I mean, hysterical.
Guest:The next joke was he was so rich that they had the caviar flown in from Beluga.
Guest:Well, what did this Jew boy from the Bronx or Connecticut know about caviar?
Guest:And I said, where's Beluga?
Guest:I looked it up the next day and found out that Beluga was the whale, not him.
Guest:He came back a week later and he does his recette, but he doesn't do the Beluga joke.
Guest:I said, Dick, why don't you do that Beluga joke?
Guest:He said, people just didn't get it.
Guest:I said, I thought it was brilliant.
Guest:I'm not sure how pretentious I can be, right?
Guest:But you learned.
Guest:I learned, I learned.
Marc:So when you started this, did you see it as a money-making venture?
Guest:No, no, and it wasn't for some years.
Guest:But I saw it as a part-time temporary venture.
Marc:And when did you start to, did Lenny Bruce ever come in?
Guest:Lenny came in once.
Guest:To work or to hang out?
Guest:No, just hung out.
Guest:And he, we had all the reviews of the Broadway shows stapled to a wall, a petition when you came in.
Guest:And there were like six newspapers.
Guest:And one of the shows that opened was the sign of Sidney Brustein's window.
Guest:by Lorraine Hansberry, and it starred Gabe Dell.
Guest:You know who Gabe is?
Guest:Gabe was the original dead-end kid, and he became a very successful actor, and he was starring in the show on Broadway.
Guest:And as Lenny was leaving, we were chatting, and he looks at the picture of Gabe, and he says, what's this old opium eater doing?
Guest:Which I don't doubt that he was.
Guest:And I said, Lenny, he's the star of a hit Broadway show.
Guest:Didn't you read the reviews?
Guest:And he says, Bud, they don't have Broadway reviews in the Law Journal.
Guest:That's all he was reading.
Marc:Oh, so he was at the end of it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Was he a mess when he came in?
Guest:No, it didn't seem to be.
Marc:So when was the shift?
Marc:When did you start to realize that comedy was what was bringing people in?
Marc:How did that shift around?
Marc:When did Carlin come in?
Marc:When did Pryor come in?
Marc:When did...
Guest:Well, Richard, let's go back to Judy Garland for a minute.
Guest:Liza one day comes to me, and I picture this, I never forgot.
Guest:Remember how the old coffee urns in the restaurant, she'd pour the water and then pour it over on the top?
Guest:I'm just circulating for those people.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:They still have those.
Guest:Making coffee, and Liza comes up to me, she's 16, she says,
Guest:Bud, Bud, can I sing tonight?
Guest:My father's here and he's never heard me sing.
Guest:And I'm saying to myself, holy cow, Vincent Minnelli's in my shithouse.
Guest:I can't believe it.
Guest:I said, no, I'm sorry.
Guest:We're all booked.
Guest:She's so pleased.
Guest:I said, oh, okay for you.
Guest:And then what happened?
Guest:She didn't bring Judy in.
Guest:One of my ex-piano players was dating her and playing for her and making arrangements for her.
Guest:And he brought her in.
Guest:So we had nights where Liza sang with Judy doing duets with Peter Allen playing the piano, Liza's boyfriend, husband.
Guest:And then when John brought her in, John Meyer, the piano player, I sang duets with her.
Marc:With Eliza Minnelli?
Guest:No.
Marc:With Judy.
Guest:With Judy.
Marc:And how was your voice?
Marc:My voice was pretty good.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Anyway, we're singing, and my friend Jack Knight, do you ever meet Jack?
Guest:Uh-uh.
Guest:Jack is a 6'1", Stark, an actor, and good voice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we're doing, remember the Chirazzo floor?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had there, and it was very smooth, right in front of this little stage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm sitting in a chair and Jack is pushing the chair and Judy and I are singing on the boardwalk in Atlantic City.
Guest:It was really, I mean.
Guest:Unbelievable.
Guest:And then these two couples are sitting there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Gypsies.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Not Broadway gypsies.
Marc:Real gypsies.
Guest:Fortune tell gypsies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the woman says, I want to sing next.
Guest:I said, I'm sorry, but Miss Golland is singing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't care who, I want to sing.
Guest:I said, get out.
Guest:I threw them out.
Guest:She had no idea who she was.
Guest:I don't think she did.
Marc:Were you thinking that maybe you were going to actually get into show business?
Marc:I mean, in terms of singing?
Guest:Oh, I thought about it, but it's always in the back of my head.
Guest:I've done a few movies, but of course I'm always playing myself, which is a stretch.
Marc:But at the beginning, was that one of your angles?
Marc:No, in opening a
Marc:The club?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:It was just to be part of it.
Guest:I wanted to be a producer, and I was going to do that.
Guest:And I did produce a show, you know, finally.
Marc:And how did you decide who went on and what happened?
Marc:Was Silver part of that?
Guest:Well, she was my conscience, I guess, sometimes.
Guest:But for the most part, I was once referred to as benign dictator.
Guest:And you would come in and say, hey, bud, can I go?
Guest:Sure, Mark, you'll be on next.
Guest:Oh, I'm sorry, Rodney just came in.
Guest:You're going after Rodney.
Guest:And while Rodney's on, Robert Klein, you'll be after Robert.
Guest:And you'd be on at four in the morning, finally.
Guest:Because Richard Pryor would come in and the whole thing.
Marc:He had some young, unknown, neurotic Jew hating you by the end of the night.
Guest:Oh, a lot of young, neurotic Jews and Gentiles hated me.
Marc:Well, you had that reputation.
Marc:You ran sort of a tight ship.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you know, I ran it.
Guest:I wasn't making a fortune.
Guest:I was barely getting by, and I said, you know, at least I'm going to enjoy it.
Guest:I didn't know.
Guest:You know, I had no... The only experience I had in food was working as a waiter, so I had no idea what food costs and drink costs and all of that was.
Guest:You didn't think to hire somebody that might understand that stuff?
Guest:I didn't have the money, you know, and I was always...
Guest:Alex says, oh, cut that crap.
Guest:I say how poor I was and how it still to this day colors the way I think about things.
Guest:When did it become a comedy club?
Guest:When did you realize that this was the racket?
Guest:I would say that after I came out here.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:But no, but there were all those guys at the improv.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Guest:Well, it was singer, comic, singer, comic.
Guest:So it was a variety show.
Guest:Singer, comic, comic, singer, and then singer, comic, comic, comic.
Guest:And I could walk into the bar and tell whether a singer or comic was on, because if a comic was on, all the singers would be- Watching?
Marc:In the bar.
Guest:Or just sitting there when I had nothing to do with it?
Guest:They hated each other.
Guest:They did?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Singers hated comics, comics, comics.
Guest:In this particular case, because they vied for the stage time.
Marc:But who were the guys that you, like, you know, because I know, you know, the story about Jay Leno.
Marc:Well, going back, the first comic.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Dave Astor?
Guest:Yeah, after Dave.
Guest:The first comic to make it out of the improv was Robert Klein.
Guest:and Robert was in a show called Appletree, and he brought in, and everyone, can I curse on this?
Guest:Sure, of course.
Guest:And everyone knows I'm a stage, a stage, a star fucker.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he came in with Alan Alda, somebody, Larry Blyden, and Barbara Harris, the three stars of Appletree.
Guest:He was in the chorus.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To watch him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm impressed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he was great, you know, and he just.
Guest:What year was that?
Guest:That would be, uh,
Guest:66, 65, maybe.
Marc:And he was just coming into his voice.
Guest:To break out, to break in material.
Guest:And then he started to come in almost every night with his Wolinject tape recorder, which was this big, like 30 inches wide.
Guest:Whole table.
Guest:And he'd stick it up in the back.
Guest:Ugh.
Guest:Get over the shelf and record the show and go home and listen to it, which is the important thing.
Guest:But Robert was the cream of the crop for me and then Rodney came in, Dangerfield that is, and fell in love with Robert and became his mentor.
Guest:And then they just started sprouting out.
Guest:And Pryor, I forgot how the first time he came in.
Guest:But it was pre the shift in Pryor, right?
Marc:It was late 60s Pryor.
Guest:He was still doing Bill Cosby.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I didn't know because I never got outside to see anyone like Bill Cosby.
Guest:Was he funny then, though?
Guest:Oh, he was very funny.
Guest:And he was playing in the living room, and we went to see him.
Guest:That's a nightclub.
Guest:It was a nightclub on the east side.
Guest:And he's performing, and it was very crowded, the little place.
Guest:So they sat Nipsey Russell at my table, which is fine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all during the show, Nipsey's, and the answer, what the fuck's wrong with you, Nipsey?
Guest:He says, he's doing Bill Cosby.
Guest:I said, what?
Guest:He's doing Bill Cosby.
Guest:And he went over and he blasted Richard.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And Richard never did it again.
Marc:That was it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The end of the Cosby shtick.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When did that generation, who would you say were the guys that, if you were going to name five or 10 comics that came out of that late 60s that you think were improv comics, who were they?
Guest:Well, it would be Robert Klein, Richard, Rodney, Lily Tomlin.
Guest:Lily came in.
Guest:My piano player was Louis St.
Guest:Louis, and he was from Detroit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Louis says, I got a friend of mine from Detroit who just came in.
Guest:She'd like to audition.
Guest:I said, all right, tell her to come in Thursday night at 11.
Guest:And we didn't get started until 11.30 after the shows had broken and people came in.
Guest:So I happened to be standing out in front, and the limo pulls up.
Guest:And in those days, it meant something.
Guest:And this young lady gets out putting on white gloves, fitting them up.
Guest:Mr. Friedman, I said, yes, I'm Lily Tomlin.
Guest:I said, oh, come right now.
Guest:I'm very impressed.
Guest:She went on, blew me away.
Marc:So she was already somebody.
Guest:No, completely unknown.
Guest:Why was she in a limo?
Guest:I'll tell you.
Guest:So three weeks later, after she's a regular at the club, she tells me the story that a block east of the improv was the St.
Guest:James Theater, a big Broadway musical house.
Guest:And as I say, the theater didn't break till 1130, so she went down there.
Guest:Gave the guy, limo driver, $5 to drive her around the block so she can make an entrance.
Guest:Anyway, well, there are a lot of guys like Elaine, Ed Bluestone, who was also Elaine's boyfriend, and Andy Kaufman came along a little bit later.
Guest:Lewis?
Guest:Richard?
Guest:Oh, of course, Richard Lewis.
Guest:Yes, thank you.
Guest:But Richard, you know, funny story, didn't audition.
Guest:Killed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, stick around for the second show, kid.
Guest:He said, oh, thanks a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you do as well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He told me later, again, three weeks later, well, I had 30 friends at my auditions.
Guest:And then they left, they didn't stick around for the second show.
Guest:I said, oh, okay.
Guest:And what about Jimmy Walker?
Guest:Oh, Jimmy Walker, I'm sorry, thank you.
Guest:Jimmy Walker, Freddie Prince.
Guest:Right, all started with you.
Guest:Yeah, Freddie was 15 and a half.
Marc:And this was like the late 60s?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And what was the culture like?
Marc:I mean, obviously you were open when JFK got killed.
Guest:Oh, that was, yeah, that was the first time we closed.
Guest:And we opened, I mean, we were there, all our regulars came in, we sat around drinking wine and commiserating.
Guest:And that and the blackout, and I forgot what year the blackout was, but I was living a block west of the club, and lights went off, which wasn't unusual for my apartment, I figured we couldn't pay the bill.
Guest:And I walked down the street, it's all dark, and I get to the club,
Guest:And I went sitting around doing nothing.
Guest:I said, light some candles and open the line.
Guest:Did you have a show?
Guest:We had people getting up and talking.
Guest:Well, we didn't have a microphone in the beginning.
Guest:You didn't have any?
Guest:No.
Guest:We got one maybe six, eight months into it.
Guest:And we did story theater long before Second City did story theater.
Guest:And we had Dave Asher sitting on a chair on the stage with a microphone.
Guest:And Richard Pryor, and I left out the most important guy, Ron Carey.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who was the funniest man in the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, Ron?
Guest:I don't.
Marc:Well, I mean, I've heard the name.
Marc:I remember seeing.
Guest:Okay, so he was the short cop on Bonnie Miller.
Marc:Yeah, I remember seeing him.
Guest:He was in.
Guest:He had the twitch.
Guest:He was kind of twitchy, right?
Guest:Very nervous.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:High anxiety.
Guest:And he was a chauvinist.
Guest:When he's getting the bags, he goes, I got him.
Guest:I got him, I got him, I ain't got him.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, funny guy.
Guest:And he was hilarious.
Guest:And he and Richard Pryor would act out the story that David would be telling.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:It was brilliant.
Guest:And then Ron would go on every Friday and Sunday night doing two shows a night.
Guest:packed, doing all this Catholic material in the late 60s, very avant-garde.
Marc:Is that when it all started to sort of break out?
Marc:In the late 60s, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and you could see people changing like Carlin.
Marc:Did Carlin come in?
Marc:A couple of times.
Marc:When did Calvin come in?
Marc:What was that like?
Marc:Was that the most amazing thing ever?
Marc:What was it?
Marc:Let's start.
Guest:Andy Calvin came to me through a guy named Eppie,
Guest:Epstein, who owned a rock place, a rock coffee house thing it was, in Great Neck, where Andy was from, and he calls me up, I knew him slightly, he said, listen, I've got this guy, you should take a look at him, very funny guy, and I never asked questions, I said, fine, okay, send him down,
Guest:comes in, Mr. Friedman?
Guest:I said, yes.
Guest:He says, I am Andy Kaufman.
Guest:I look at him, I said, where are you from, kid?
Guest:I am from an island in the Caspian Sea.
Guest:And he's doing The Foreign Man.
Guest:And I'm biting.
Guest:I'm hook, line, and singer.
Guest:He's got me.
Guest:So I said, okay, if he says you're funny, go on.
Guest:We'll put you on.
Guest:So he goes on.
Guest:He's doing The Foreign Man.
Guest:Everyone's looking at him.
Guest:They don't know what to do.
Guest:The nervous Twitter, the whole thing.
Guest:And then he does Elvis.
Guest:Now,
Guest:And singing Elvis was no big deal for me because when I was in the army in Japan, the Japanese women could sing the American songs perfectly.
Guest:Couldn't speak a word of English.
Guest:So I figured this is the same thing.
Guest:And then he finished the song and he goes, well, thank you very much.
Guest:And I go, I fell off the chair.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I knew I had been had.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I loved it.
Guest:And I, you know, we had adopted Andy and I used to stay in the back of the room and particularly out then, I brought him out here for a month when I opened the club because all my guys had already moved out here and they were playing in the company store.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was Jay Leno and Freddie Prince and
Guest:uh jimmy walker well jimmy never came back to ungrateful fuck but anyway so uh mitzi says uh to jay you can't play both clubs and he says well if that's the case since bud used to manage me i'll go to the improv yeah oh okay you can play both clubs and of course freddie princey wouldn't dare say anything to um but um andy came out
Guest:Andy comes out, and he's wrestling women and the whole thing.
Guest:And I have to watch.
Guest:I became an expert on body language from behind because I'm watching the guys' shoulders because they want to go up and beat the shit out of Andy on the stage.
Marc:Because he's notorious for this, yeah.
Guest:With the women and all.
Guest:And, of course, it was all set up.
Marc:But when you were looking at people, I imagine the reason you put people on was because they did well with the crowd, right?
Marc:I mean, even at the original club.
Guest:Went over with the crowd?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely, Mark.
Guest:It was, you know, it was my taste and the crowd's taste.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But, I mean, Andy sometimes would push the limit.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But I knew Andy and I didn't give a shit, you know.
Guest:Sometimes, you know, doing Gatsby got a little tiring, you know, about that, right?
Marc:Reading great Gatsby.
Guest:And now it's a hit Broadway, off-Broadway show.
Guest:You know that?
Guest:No, I didn't know that.
Guest:There's a company called the Something Elevator Company.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And they do it.
Guest:And the guy reads the book, the whole book.
Guest:But they have people acting out the parts, too.
Guest:It's hilarious.
Guest:I think of Andy and it just... How I met Zamuda was he was part of a comedy team.
Guest:And they were terrible.
Guest:And to this day, I can tell them they used to use fake blood.
Guest:Fake blood in their mouth.
Guest:But they also did carpentry work.
Yeah.
Guest:And they were helping me fix up the place.
Guest:You know who Zamuda's partner was?
Guest:Chris Albrecht, who became president of HBO, right?
Marc:Isn't it interesting that a lot of these guys, even the door guys went on.
Marc:And Howard Klein, too, right?
Guest:Howard Klein, Jimmy Miller, who handles Jim Carrey, and he met Jim.
Guest:Who's the most successful comedy director now?
Guest:The comedy director?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Adam McKay?
Guest:No?
Guest:Judd Apatow?
Guest:Judd Apatow was a doorman.
Marc:Out here, though.
Guest:Yeah, out here.
Guest:Oh, in New York, we had Kenan Wayans, Joe Piscopo.
Guest:Danny Aiello was a bouncer.
Guest:Piscopo was a doorman?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Before he was a comic?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Well, when he was a struggling comic.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Attell was a doorman later when Silver had it.
Marc:Oh, was he?
Marc:Yeah, and Kevin Brennan was a doorman when Silver had it.
Marc:Yeah, but you came out here when?
Guest:I came out here in 1975.
Guest:Well, it was late 74.
Guest:We opened in 75.
Guest:So you basically, most of your guys left New York.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:That's one reason.
Guest:Well, I want to live here for other reasons.
Marc:Right, and you sort of followed the business out.
Marc:New York kind of dried up a little.
Marc:And you had competitors in New York.
Guest:No, New York was doing great.
Guest:It was a gold mine.
Guest:It was doing very, very well.
Guest:I moved out here because I wanted to live in Los Angeles.
Guest:That was my pacemaker.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Did you need to plug it in or what?
Marc:I'm joking.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I'm joking, too.
Guest:Oh, I didn't know you were a joker.
Guest:Because I've seen your act.
Guest:I know, I have felt that you have felt that way my entire career.
Marc:Wandering into the improv.
Marc:So the improv then by 1970 was profitable.
Guest:1970.
Guest:71, when did it start?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It was, Silver and I went to Europe
Guest:For the first time, we took a vacation, because everyone said, if you leave the club, buddy, it'll fall apart.
Guest:And I hired Chris Albrecht to be the manager.
Guest:And we were away for three weeks, and we came back.
Guest:The place was still in business.
Guest:And Chris is younger than I am and had a great rapport with the Young Comics.
Guest:And I said, this is my chance to move to L.A.
Guest:because I just started to make money.
Guest:And so I had come out here.
Guest:I came out in 74.
Guest:My friend Jack Knight was on a series.
Guest:And he was also a carpenter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And knew what I was looking for.
Guest:And he took me around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we went to what is now the Improv, and it was called The Pitcher of Players.
Guest:It was owned by a guy named Joe Roth, who went to become a very successful movie producer, still is.
Guest:And we went in, it was just the great bones, Greer Bones, but it was nothing, even a bar.
Guest:and no kitchen.
Guest:But they, you know, it wasn't for sale or anything.
Guest:So when I went back to New York, I saw this act there, this duo that used to work for me in New York.
Guest:They were now out here.
Guest:Who's that?
Guest:In L.A.
Guest:This is the punchline.
Guest:All right, go ahead.
Guest:And I get a call from one of the guys.
Guest:He says, I'm back in New York because I'm a writer on this new show called Saturday Night Live.
Guest:And you're still interested in a place because the pitchers want to sell.
Guest:And here's Joe Ross' phone number.
Guest:And it was Senator Al Franken.
Guest:And I always do a list of alumni.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I've left them off until last week.
Guest:And I'm watching the convention.
Guest:I saw him.
Guest:I said, holy shit.
Yeah.
Guest:And me, the biggest name dropper in the world.
Guest:A senator, right?
Guest:So anyway, so I called up Joe, made a deal on the phone for the lease.
Guest:But the only problem was it was only a three and a half year lease.
Guest:And I had to come out and meet the landlord.
Guest:And finally, we got a 10 year lease.
Marc:But were you aware of the comedy store?
Guest:Of course.
Guest:The Comedy Store started.
Guest:Do you know how it started?
Marc:Yeah, I do.
Marc:Yeah, tell me.
Marc:Sammy Shore started as sort of a clubhouse for his buddies.
Marc:Yeah, and who was his partner?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Rudy DeLuca.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You know who Rudy is?
Marc:No.
Guest:Remember High Anxiety, the killer with the, what do they call those things on his teeth?
Guest:Braces on his teeth?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's Rudy.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay, Rudy writes all the movies with Mel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So Rudy was writing for Sammy.
Guest:And he calls me up, Rudy, and he says, listen, bud, this is in when they opened 72, 73, 72.
Guest:He says, I'm thinking of opening a club like the Improv in Hollywood.
Guest:Would you be upset?
Guest:I said, no, I'll never come out there.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:And of course, two years later, I did.
Guest:But by then, Rudy was out of it and Sammy was out of it.
Guest:Because, yeah, he let her have it.
Guest:And she accuses me of stealing her idea.
Guest:So... The tension.
Guest:Oh, well, I have no tension.
Guest:I just, I enjoyed it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I enjoyed the, you know, her anxieties.
Guest:Her high anxieties, yeah.
Marc:But when you came out, so you got the 10-year lease.
Marc:I know some things.
Marc:But your guys from New York were working for her, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you set up shop, and you're like, I need you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And most of them came home.
Marc:Yeah, they all came, except Jimmy Walker.
Marc:Right, and you still pissed off at him.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Because let me tell you, Mark, of all the people, I used to say, I used to think that they all owed their career to me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I realized finally, after 30 years, it's not that's true.
Guest:They would have made it.
Guest:Jay would have made it anywhere, anytime.
Guest:Maybe take a little longer, but he would have made it.
Guest:So you've let some of that go.
Guest:I let it all go, except Jimmy Walker.
Guest:He really owes his career to me.
Guest:Because if I didn't put him on, and once I saved his life because I was going to beat the shit out of him...
Guest:If I didn't help Jimmy, he... Yeah.
Guest:Is that the only one you got?
Guest:The only grudge?
Guest:The only grudge.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Really.
Guest:It's pretty amazing.
Guest:It is pretty amazing.
Guest:I think there must be others back there.
Guest:Maybe I blocked them out of my mind or they're no longer in the business.
Marc:So you and Silver split up when you moved out here.
Guest:No, we came out here with Zoe and her sister Beth.
Guest:We lived here from 74 to... Who was running the New York club?
Marc:Chris.
Marc:Oh, he just stayed there.
Guest:We sold him a piece of the club.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And we lasted about 275, 77.
Guest:We started...
Guest:And 78, we were going to get a divorce, and I agreed to give her the New York Club because I knew she wanted to go back to New York.
Guest:And I kept this club, and the New York Club was really worth about 10 times what this club was at the time.
Marc:And you had no vision of franchising or anything.
Marc:No.
Marc:No, it was just this was going to be a nightclub business.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:It was going to be it, you know, and then.
Guest:I got out of the management business.
Marc:Who were you managing at the time?
Guest:Bette Midler and Jay Leno, those unknowns.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then I had Lenny.
Guest:Lenny Schultz.
Guest:You know John Mendoza.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So one night in the bar with John here, it was four or five years ago, and we're talking about Jay's name.
Guest:I said, you know, I used to manage him.
Guest:You manage Jay Leno?
Guest:I said, yeah.
Guest:And I also managed Batman.
Guest:You managed Jay Leno and Batman.
Guest:He's about to put me up on a pillar.
Guest:And I said, I also managed Lenny Schultz.
Guest:And he almost fell on the floor lamp.
Guest:He said, oh, God almighty.
Marc:I thought Lenny was going to be the next Sid Caesar.
Marc:Yeah, he was something.
Marc:I really did.
Marc:His son was hanging around for a little while.
Marc:I think his son was doing comedy a little bit.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:So you start the improv in L.A.
Marc:in 75, 74, 74, 75, and then it burned down very quickly?
Guest:Coincidentally, it burned down during the comic strike, and it wasn't the comics who did it.
Guest:Not...
Guest:Was that 76?
Guest:No.
Guest:So here's the story.
Guest:So Silver goes back to New York in 78.
Guest:The divorce is final in 79.
Guest:And the strike is in 79.
Guest:That's when the fire came.
Guest:The strike started at the comedy store because Mitzi wasn't paying anybody and she was fighting them.
Marc:And she was making a lot of money.
Marc:I had no idea until I read the book recently just how successful that place was at that time.
Marc:And she had this big room that was Ciro's.
Guest:The main room, yeah.
Guest:And so she put in names, I used quotes, and they didn't draw flies.
Guest:Then she put in three of her best unknowns.
Guest:And packed the place.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she's packing it every Friday and Saturday night, and she didn't want to give him any money.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Tom Dreesen and... Oh, it was David Letterman, and probably Jay went on, and, you know, good acts.
Guest:But the strike was, like, spearheaded by, you know, a group of comics, and Tom Dreesen led it.
Guest:Yeah, well, Tom was the union organizer.
Guest:And they came to me, and I said, look, what do you want?
Guest:I'm in the middle of a fire here.
Marc:Yeah, but you weren't paying guys either?
Marc:No.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:And, you know...
Guest:Anyway, so I said, look, come back to me after I open.
Guest:I'll negotiate in good faith.
Guest:I said, fine.
Guest:Believe me, in hindsight, if they had come to me first, I would have thrown them out on their ass.
Guest:You wouldn't have paid them either.
Guest:No, because I struggled so long in New York.
Guest:And I remember Jimmy Walker, again, was making in the 60s.
Guest:He was working as an engineer in a radio station, WMCA.
Guest:And he, remember Alex Bennett?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:He worked for Alex in New York.
Guest:He was making $250 a week.
Guest:$250.
Guest:I was a fortune in those days.
Guest:I wasn't making that.
Guest:I was really pissed.
Guest:Anyway, so I resented it.
Guest:But by the time I got up and running again, I felt a little differently.
Marc:And you made an agreement that whatever she pays, I'll pay.
Marc:The strike, when it's finished.
Guest:I paid...
Guest:Yeah, about the same or a little less.
Marc:Why was there an idea that these guys should work for nothing?
Guest:Well, when I started the club, and since I wasn't making any money, why the fuck should they make any money?
Guest:But it was also, when I opened the club, it was the only comedy club in the world.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Who knew?
Guest:As I say, you want to come in, you go on, and you'll wait.
Guest:So I wasn't hiring anybody.
Guest:It was just who was there.
Marc:Right, and they needed the stage time.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And wait, so when the club burned down, you suspect it might have been arson?
Guest:We suspect that it might have been somebody from Sunset Boulevard, a devotee of somebody from Sunset Boulevard.
Guest:And you got a name on that?
Guest:Yes, we do.
Guest:He's dead, too.
Guest:Ollie Joe?
Guest:I had nothing to do with it.
Guest:No.
Guest:Is Ollie Joe dead?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, I don't know.
Guest:Who do you think it was?
Guest:I'm not going to mention any names.
Guest:It's a suitable libel.
Guest:Not that this guy had any family.
Marc:But you have a pretty strong sense it was a comic.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Who was caught up in the fervor of that situation.
Guest:Well, she was like a Meso... What was it?
Guest:Medusa?
Guest:No, Masonic.
Guest:Yeah, Messianic.
Guest:Messianic.
Guest:You know, idol.
Guest:These guys, you know, those...
Marc:I was a doorman there.
Marc:Were you?
Marc:In 1988.
Marc:Oh, I didn't know that.
Marc:Yeah, for a year.
Marc:And even then, after it was over, there still is that thing there where it's sort of like Mitzi said.
Marc:And she's ill.
Guest:She's not... A great story is Alex and I went to The Tonight Show to see Charles Nelson Reilly about something.
Guest:And I had no idea who else was on the show.
Guest:And we'd go backstage after the show had started.
Guest:We're walking down the hallway and there's Mitzi's boyfriend.
Guest:What's his name?
Guest:Which one?
Guest:The handsome blonde guy.
Guest:Argus.
Guest:Argus Hamilton.
Guest:Who I had double dated with before I met Alex after I had divorced Silva.
Guest:Anyway, some guy.
Guest:I know.
Marc:He still goes on every night first.
Guest:I know, I know, I know.
Guest:So I go, hey, how are you?
Guest:And we start talking to him, and then she sticks her head out over his shoulder.
Guest:And so we walk out.
Guest:We're backstage by the bar, and he comes to get a drink.
Guest:Now we're talking for five minutes to Alex and all of that.
Guest:And Alex and I are just dating.
Guest:We're serious, but we're just dating.
Guest:And when he leaves, I said, you know, that's Mitzi's boyfriend.
Guest:And she says, what?
Guest:Alex says, you're telling me that a woman who looks like that has a man who looks like that?
Guest:And I, who look the way I look, have you?
Guest:I said, oh, I got to marry this woman.
Marc:Did she ever, was there ever any sort of men's maid between you and Mitzi?
Marc:No.
Guest:No, I mean, when I used to come out here, before I opened the club, she was very friendly and very nice.
Guest:But once I stole her idea, that was it.
Marc:Really?
Marc:And did you have the same resentment of her that she had of you?
Guest:No, no.
Marc:No, I didn't care.
Marc:You know, it's, I mean, it's fleas.
Marc:Outside of the initial sort of like you need, we got to share talent.
Guest:You didn't care.
Guest:Yeah, that was the other thing.
Guest:That's what I really resented in the sense for the comics because I remember Carol Siskind.
Guest:Yeah, I remember her with the I.
Guest:It was working with the improv, and she couldn't go to the comedy store.
Guest:And she went to New York for a week.
Guest:She came back and says, but I did 12 shows in one night.
Guest:She was beaming, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:In New York.
Guest:Running around doing the strip.
Guest:Anyway, that's the only thing.
Guest:The comics didn't get a chance to work out as much as they could because how many spots can we give them?
Marc:And she was the one that was creating all the tension.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because by the time I got there, it was sort of hanging on and dark, and it always had sort of a dark energy.
Marc:And that was still some sort of weird unspoken rule.
Marc:And I remember when I got here, I was 20 years old, and we wanted to work at the improv.
Marc:So me and my friend Jimmy, we actually went over there during the day.
Marc:No one was in the showroom, and we did a set for each other just to break the rules.
Guest:When I was finishing off the club on Melrose, and we hadn't opened yet, this young couple walks by, and they come in, they're looking around.
Guest:Is this the same improv from New York?
Guest:I said, yes, it is.
Guest:I said, yeah, but how are you?
Guest:And we're chatting, and so who's gonna perform?
Guest:The same people who perform in New York?
Guest:I said, yeah, more or less.
Guest:She says, Jay Leno, I said, yeah.
Guest:Freddie Prinze, I said, yeah.
Guest:Steve Lannisberg?
Guest:I said, no, no, Steve won't be performing here.
Guest:Oh, why is that?
Guest:Well, because he's living with the owner of the comedy store.
Guest:And the woman says, oh, no, not Steve.
Guest:Like, he's gay.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I said, are you a chauvinist lady?
Guest:Couldn't the owner of the comedy store be a woman, which it is?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, thank goodness.
Marc:Now, Steve, I don't know him as a comic, but he was great, right?
Guest:Oh, he was brilliant.
Guest:Brilliant.
Marc:Did you remain friends with him?
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:And Alex met him later on and just fell in love with him.
Marc:So most of that stuff is faded.
Marc:You're friendly with comics in general?
Marc:Who, me?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:And there may be guys out there.
Guest:I'm sure there are guys out there that are nice to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But they hate me.
Guest:Why do you think they hate you?
Guest:Because I wasn't the most diplomatic person in the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I admit that.
Guest:And I was also...
Guest:Very nervous, very uptight.
Guest:When I met Alex, you know, 32 years ago, you know, she'd come into the club with me, and I'd look in the dining room, and I'd go, slam the chairs around, moving them into place.
Guest:Just out of, looking for attention.
Guest:And also, you know, this is my baby.
Guest:Your personality drove the place.
Guest:Yeah, but now my personality's changed, thanks to, you know, all the comics, because Alex's ass, because she made me a nice guy.
Guest:Yeah, well, people were afraid of you.
Marc:yes they were yeah and now in terms of like okay let's get to this franchise into the like because it was clear that now we're talking yeah yeah so the you know the comedy store was its own thing but you don't acknowledge that as a comedy club like you acknowledge the improv is the first comedy club really yeah the comedy store was some weird experiment no there was a comedy club is a comedy club no
Marc:No, no, no, no.
Marc:Now, you didn't set out to franchise.
Marc:No.
Marc:But what was the idea?
Marc:When did you realize, like, I've got enough comics to do this?
Guest:It wasn't enough comics.
Guest:There was always enough comics because, you know, Mitzi had the Dunes Hotel.
Guest:She had the main room.
Guest:No, I did, yeah.
Guest:She still had it by the time I got there.
Guest:Yeah, so I had a comic who worked out of the club who just passed away by the name of Mark Anderson.
Guest:and mark came from the the part of the the arizona one that was exactly he was did he have did he did he have the san francisco one too yeah yeah i remember that guy yeah he's a very sweet guy and uh my friend bud robinson was managing him and mark was a psychiatrist psychologist phd from princeton
Guest:But he was crazy.
Guest:But a sweet guy, and he had an interesting different act.
Guest:And he said, well, you know, so I'm sorry.
Guest:So the big turning point for the improv was Evening at the Improv, a television show.
Guest:I did that twice.
Guest:Yeah, 1980.
Guest:That's when it started?
Guest:Yeah, so we did 14 years of that.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So that became, that's what made us.
Marc:And that's when you knew you could branch out because the brand had become so established.
Guest:And Mark Anderson came to me and says, I'd like to open an improv in San Diego in Pacific Beach.
Guest:I'm from somewhere down there.
Guest:And I said, okay.
Guest:And so we went over, looked for sites, found a place, built a club.
Guest:And we had the most fantastic opening.
Guest:We rented a car on the train
Guest:And before we went down, I did something I've never done before, never really talked about this on the air before, haven't done since.
Guest:I went to Robin Williams and I said, Jonathan Winters is coming to the opening and he'd love to see you there.
Guest:And Mark Anderson knew Jonathan to his family and went to Jonathan and said, Robin Williams is coming and he'd love to see you there.
Guest:And we got them on the stage for the first time.
Guest:Ever?
Guest:Ever.
Guest:Oh my God, and that was Robin's hero.
Guest:Yeah, that was part of the, then we had, so on the train we had an unknown, Bill Maher, who as the train pulled out of the stage, went into the men's room and came out wearing a smoking jacket, which he proceeded to wear.
Guest:And we put everybody up in the night.
Guest:We had Bea Arthur, who was the hottest one on television, Ruth Buzzy from Laugh-In.
Guest:Laugh-In, yeah.
Guest:And it was just great.
Guest:A caravan of comics.
Guest:Yeah, it was just wonderful.
Guest:And the show was terrific, obviously, with Robin and Jonathan closing it.
Guest:And it ran for a number of years.
Guest:I never, to this day, figured out why it closed.
Guest:What, the San Diego one?
Mm-hmm.
Marc:Yeah, it was just, like, I remember the evening of the improv, and then, you know, I did that in 89, in 91, I did the shows, and you were there, and, but like, Robin's another one, like, I don't think anyone anticipated, did you anticipate when you opened that, what?
Marc:That Robin would become a superstar?
Marc:Well, yeah, you knew that, but that comedy would get so fucking hot.
Guest:Oh, I never, that's a good, yeah, that's a good point, because I never thought that comedians would become like superstars.
Marc:Rock stars, and that's what the early 70s was like, or the mid-70s.
Marc:Yeah, late mates.
Marc:It was crazy.
Marc:What do you think that was?
Guest:More the 80s.
Marc:Why'd that happen?
Guest:It's cable.
Guest:Remember the Hot Channel?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right?
Guest:And what was it?
Guest:Chris's boss.
Guest:Anyway, the president had a- Michael Fuchs.
Guest:Yeah, Michael Fuchs.
Guest:At HBO.
Guest:At HBO.
Guest:At HBO had a champagne breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel, and there were about 400 people in the room.
Guest:And he said, you know, thanks to HBO, there are now over 300 comedy clubs in America.
Guest:I yelled out, thanks a lot, Michael.
Guest:But it was cable.
Guest:It was a success of the improv.
Marc:But do you think, like, because a lot of people, like my generation, and certainly when the collapse of the boom happened and clubs started hurting...
Marc:you remember that oh yeah but they blamed overexposure and they blamed that you know there was a watering down that there were comics that maybe not we're not that great or we're too mediocre like it used to drive me nuts i go into the improv and you had that fucking sign on the wall over a million jokes told and i'm like he knows who he's comparing it to it's fucking mcdonald's yeah i know i know i got the joke but do you think on some level oh no i didn't never here's my theory on that
Guest:You know, guys would look at my success and see the show, and they'd say, ah, if Bud Friedman can do that, I can do it.
Guest:And I'm gonna cover over my bowling alley and make it a comedy club.
Guest:And they did.
Guest:And who am I gonna get to perform?
Guest:Who do I have here in Des Moines?
Guest:I know, Harry.
Guest:Harry's a funny guy, the guy at the gas station attendant.
Guest:And so the people would go in Des Moines to see Harry perform who was not, you know, less than adequate.
Guest:And they say, well, this is what comedy clubs is all about.
Guest:Why should I go to the improv when I go to L.A.
Guest:or to Vegas or something like that?
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you think it was regional comedy scenes that were built on happy hour performers and aspiring comics.
Marc:yeah and the recession right right but i mean but did you do you consider like were you ever intrusive like i know like the you know mitzi you know was you know guiding everybody through their act and telling them what they but i never got that from you were there guys did you ever step in and creatively coach anybody i did they never listened i
Marc:thank goodness so even at the beginning because i remember silver was always very you know when i even when i was there and the place was was sort of dying you know in the late 80s yeah you know she was always very proactive and very sort of like you know coddling and oh i was always we're always encouraging yes i was always encouraging and i i did give notes occasionally you know what but it was mostly the encouragement yeah they needed do you think it's an art form
Guest:Yes, definitely.
Guest:And I would go, I have a big laugh, as you probably noticed, and I would go to the Tonight Show in New York and the Ed Sullivan Show when any of the comics were on and laugh it up for them.
Marc:In your life, who were the guys that, like, you know, you just, like, outside of Ron Carey, the guys that just, you know, forever made a mark?
Marc:Robert Klein, Richard Pryor, Rodney Dangerfield.
Guest:Rodney came in.
Guest:He worked at the living room, the same place that Richard went to eventually.
Guest:And I saw the write-up.
Guest:I had no idea who he was.
Marc:And this is when he just sort of reinvented himself.
Guest:He just came back as Rodney.
Guest:After like 12 years of aluminum siding and selling jokes.
Guest:And I heard Rodney Dangerfield.
Guest:I'm expecting this Ivy Leaguer come in with a little narrow lapel suit on.
Guest:And this guy walks in, a middle-aged drunk, and he's drunk, and he goes on stage, and he bombed.
Guest:Probably the only time he ever bombed the Empire.
Guest:He came back the next night sober, as if to say, I'll show these young fuckers.
Guest:And he wipes out the room.
Guest:Just brilliant.
Guest:And he became my unofficial house emcee for two years.
Guest:And when did he open his own club?
Guest:After two years.
Guest:And he asked me to run it for him.
Guest:And I said, I can't leave my club.
Guest:It'll fall apart.
Guest:A year later, I left.
Guest:And the first year Chris was running it, business increased 15%.
Marc:But when you look at the arc of show business, you look at somebody like Robert Klein, who some people think did not get the dues or the respect that was owed him as a comic over time.
Marc:Do you believe that?
Guest:Yes, I do.
Guest:Why do you think that happened?
Guest:Well, there was something about his persona, which I did not see, but his manager said it, that he was a little arrogant, and I thought he had the right to be.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So he was pompous, and maybe he screwed up opportunities for himself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There are a lot of guys like that.
Marc:Because when I was at the improv, by the time I was working at the New York improv, Marty was hanging around.
Marc:Bob Shaw was hanging around.
Marc:Ron Darian was still around.
Marc:Mike Ivey and Uncle Dirty.
Marc:Bob Altman was still around.
Marc:I mean, all those guys started with you.
Marc:Do you know what it... Why did they make it?
Marc:Well, Bob Altman claims he had the biggest selling comedy album ever at that time.
Marc:That's what he used to talk about.
Marc:Uncle Dirty.
Marc:He used to say, like, you know, he had a big myth.
Marc:Quizzical look on Bud Friedman's face.
Marc:But why do you think, do you think there are guys that were great that just didn't make it?
Guest:Well, I didn't think Uncle Dirty was great.
Guest:I thought he was a little, what's the word, derivative.
Guest:But people used to say to me years ago, who hasn't made it that should have made it?
Guest:And the only answer I had at the time was Jay Leno.
Guest:All the time.
Guest:But now I feel that anyone who's made it
Guest:has made it because they deserve to or they're lucky.
Guest:But I don't think there's anyone that hasn't made it.
Guest:I can't think of anyone that, you know, I can't understand why they didn't make it.
Guest:Right, usually there's a story there.
Guest:There's a story, you know, just not good enough.
Guest:But also like their own demons, perhaps?
Guest:That happens occasionally, yeah, sure.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:I can't think of, you know, I thought of this many times.
Guest:I can't think of anybody that... That should have made it, that didn't.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Without a reasonable explanation.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And what do you think of the state of comedy now?
Guest:Well, I think it's very good.
Guest:You know, it's interesting because there are thousands of comics where there used to be hundreds.
Marc:And that's a good thing.
Guest:Yeah, for me.
Guest:When I started the improv, here's our regulars.
Guest:I'm just trying to think of Ron Carey, Stiller and Mirror, Richard Pryor, Robert Klein, Rodney Dangerfield, Lily Tomlin.
Guest:you would never mistake one voice for the other.
Guest:You knew, the minute you heard these people, who they were, they were unique, or they are unique.
Guest:Well, maybe they were unique, they're not anymore, because cable, and... No, they were always unique.
Guest:Yeah, but the exposure on cable and on television became such a thing that people started to copy.
Guest:And how tough is it, you know, you're a comic, to come up with original material that nobody else has touched.
Guest:But I say that although...
Guest:there are thousands of comics, there are still the people who, like Cream, will rise to the top.
Guest:With unique voices.
Guest:You know, the unique voices who, you know, still the same number of breakout people.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:They're just more chafe, wheat from the chafe, whatever, you know.
Marc:But you need those guys too, right?
Marc:I mean, especially when you're running a franchise business, you've got to have the...
Marc:Well, we hope we only take the top people for our clubs.
Marc:Yeah, but I mean, you got to have openers and middles and you got to have a farm system of some kind.
Guest:Yeah, and it works out and you see people developing and it's very gratifying.
Marc:And where do you stand on the people that are derivative?
Marc:I mean, when you see people that are obviously stealing people's work and that kind of
Guest:Well, we've called out a few people on that, but they don't rate too highly.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And they won't work for me for the most part.
Marc:So what's the status of the situation?
Marc:I see you over there.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:What's your involvement in the club now?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, my partner Mark Lano and I have, in 1999, I can't remember, the decades are flying by, 1999, we franchised or licensed all the clubs, including Melrose, to a guy named Al Copeland.
Guest:And he had great plans, great ideas.
Guest:And he was a guy who created Popeyes.
Guest:Chicken.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But they had no anti-homosexual policies.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:They were okay.
Guest:On the level.
Guest:So, you know, and they had a great plan.
Guest:And, you know, we discussed it.
Guest:And they were working with Robert Hartman, who had worked for us for many years.
Guest:So I thought it was in safe hands.
Guest:And it is.
Guest:But then Al died.
Guest:But before he died, we had to sue him because it wasn't opening the number of clubs he was supposed to.
Guest:So my involvement is we own the name.
Guest:We get a piece of the action.
Guest:But we don't have the day-to-day aggravation, which is why I can sit here and smile and go crazy driving out here wherever we are.
Guest:It's not that.
Marc:We're right by Pasadena.
Guest:Nothing?
Guest:Yeah, I don't want to get into that.
Guest:You know, the two Jews mean, what do you spend the first two hours talking about how I got here?
Guest:That's one thing I decided after I was out in California a few years.
Guest:I wasn't talking about how I got someplace.
Marc:Because that could go on forever.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:So you're doing all right.
Marc:And you and Lana are friends?
Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah, as a matter of fact, we're going next week, the 20th, Alex and I and Mark and Joanne are going up to Boston for the Comedy Festival.
Guest:And Mark and I are going to be judges.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:For fun?
Guest:To go up there, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's nice up there.
Marc:He was very funny.
Marc:Like, years ago, when I was a lot more angry, you know, I did some set at your club, and, you know, I was up there storming around, and it was clearly not a great set.
Marc:And I got off, and Lionel said, it's very uplifting.
Marc:You can be a little sarcastic, yes.
Marc:But the weird thing is, is I read the book, you know, I read both Zoglin's book and I read the I'm Dying Up Here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I tell you, I just had no, because I'm only, I'm 49, so I don't have any context of what you guys were like when you were young.
Marc:And, you know, and just, it's hard for me to ever imagine you guys as young men, and not in a bad way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I mean, like, you know, when things, when you were at the- Well, I was never young, no.
Marc:when you were at the beginning of something yeah right yeah and you know and his like you know like he what he comes from you know in his place like he was sort of on the periphery of the strike and his wife was he and his wife were very involved yeah and like you know and he said something about you know mitzi at the end of that book that was taken from testimony it was so genius and it's just so amazing to me that like you know jay leno and dave letterman all these guys were 22 23 year old guys
Marc:I know, that's the amazing thing.
Marc:Who were insecure.
Marc:But it was like the beginning of rock and roll here.
Marc:I mean, you were the source of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And there was that changeover from the old guard.
Marc:I mean, what's your relationship with them?
Marc:I see pictures of the improv, you know, Shacky Green, Buddy Hackett, and those guys.
Marc:But they were done, right?
Marc:Well...
Guest:By the time you started.
Guest:Oh, yeah, they were very well established.
Guest:They were semi-retired or mostly retired, but I was a member of the Friars, and I met all these guys, these legends, Milton Berle and Jan and Shecky and Buddy Hacken.
Marc:Did you see them when you were younger at all?
Marc:Did you ever do the hills and go to the Catskills?
Guest:I worked at Catskills for years.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Doing what?
Guest:I did everything, lifeguard, boat boy, waiter, bus boy, stagehand.
Guest:So you saw all those comics?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Joey Bishop tipped me a dollar once, you know.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you have those memories.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But isn't it interesting how there's such a shift in the style of comedy and when stand-up became its own thing as opposed to just those guys.
Guest:Yeah, those are the guys who, you know, a handful of guys who were names who could headline.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:But for the most part, there are two aspects I feel that I've changed in the world, and that is comics were no longer opening acts.
Guest:Besides those guys, they became comedy stars.
Guest:And two, because of me, comics started to get laid.
Guest:Talking about rock and rollers.
Guest:They never got laid before that.
Marc:That's right, and that was a big driving force, and the improv was like a... I'm sorry, but that was the other thing I could measure
Guest:a comic's potential by how successful he was with the women.
Guest:Yeah, who were some of them?
Guest:Richard Lewis, Robin Williams, when he was completely unknown, and Jay Leno.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were cocksmen?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You were like, those are the guys.
Guest:I said, this guy's going to be great.
Marc:Well, thanks for making the sweat, bud.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Good talking to you.
Guest:I hope I get home.
Guest:Yeah, we'll figure it out.
Guest:I saw a little hotel down the street.
Guest:I'll wait till daylight.
Guest:Let's set you up in Pasadena.
Thank you.