Episode 851 - Elliot Gould
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck nicks what the fuckocrats
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Thank you for joining me on the show today.
Marc:Elliot Gould, master movie star and actor from days gone by and the present time.
Marc:Elliot Gould is here.
Marc:I don't need to explain to you who Elliot Gould is, do I?
Marc:Do I?
Marc:One of the great actors of the screen in the 70s.
Marc:Now he does a lot of TV work, some screen work.
Marc:But when I was growing up, he was...
Marc:The best.
Marc:He was like a movie star, man.
Marc:Elliot Gould.
Marc:And he did a couple episodes of Marin.
Marc:One episode.
Marc:I shouldn't say a couple.
Marc:One episode.
Marc:So we worked together, him and I as actors.
Marc:He came by finally, because honestly, well, I'll get into this in a minute.
Marc:Anyways, we're a week and a day away from when Waiting for the Punch comes out.
Marc:Everywhere.
Marc:The book is coming.
Marc:It's exciting, people.
Marc:Brendan and I just want to thank everyone who's already pre-ordered the book.
Marc:We can't wait for you to read it.
Marc:It's exciting.
Marc:And if you haven't pre-ordered the book yet, but you've been listening to me talk about it for the past few months, and you've been thinking that you might get it, if you're a longtime fan of this show and want a great representation of what we do here, or if you're a new listener and you want to get an idea of what's been happening in this garage for the past...
Marc:eight years if you have any inkling of getting the book do us a favor and pre-order it now like now hit pause pre-order it now uh this is actually a big week for the book and pre-orders mean a lot in the publishing industry it really helps stores decide whether they're going to order more copies of the book which is a huge deal so if you're planning on getting a copy for yourself or as a gift
Marc:Go do it now at markmarinbook.com, and you can still upload your pre-order receipt to enter the sweepstakes to win a Casper mattress and a luggage set from away.
Marc:All right?
Marc:And as I told you before, the book looks great.
Marc:It looks great.
Marc:I'm very excited about it.
Marc:So I did something kind of amazing.
Marc:Like, look, is it amazing to go see live music?
Marc:Sometimes.
Marc:I just don't do things, as I've expressed to you before.
Marc:But I'll tell you, man, last week I had a real idol of mine in here.
Marc:And I don't know if I talk about him much.
Marc:And we recorded a podcast.
Marc:You'll get that eventually.
Marc:And you might not know this guy, but John Hammond Jr.
Marc:is one of my favorite blues performers and artists, to be quite honest with you.
Marc:And somehow or another, you know, we managed to... You know, he was out here.
Marc:He's playing McCabe's guitar shop down in Santa Monica.
Marc:And he stopped by the garage.
Marc:We had a great conversation.
Marc:He's a real good guy, sweet guy.
Marc:But he's a real deal.
Marc:I mean, he's been making records since the mid-60s.
Marc:And he was playing down there at McCabe's.
Marc:And I just had to go.
Marc:I don't always go.
Marc:I try to go more.
Marc:A lot of times, I just stop myself from doing things.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:But I'll tell you, man, I had these...
Marc:Realizations about especially acoustic music, because he he plays an acoustic guitar and a national dobro style guitar, national steel resonator guitar.
Marc:Those are his two things.
Marc:And he plays harmonica on a harmonica holder around his neck that he blows into with his face.
Marc:And I had seen him years ago, once or twice, and he just sort of mesmerized me that he just summons this spirit of the blues, of the acoustic blues, that you just do not hear that much in a very honest way.
Marc:There's no affectation about what John Hammond does.
Marc:And I'm sitting there with a bunch of people who are about a decade older than me,
Marc:that looked like they might have been seeing him in the late 60s as well.
Marc:It was that kind of crew, some old hippies, some old blues heads.
Marc:But it was just sort of fascinating to feel the power of straight-up, powerful, acoustic music and realize that that...
Marc:That is the touchstone of the human heart there, you know what I mean?
Marc:I was starting to think about the 60s a little bit, starting to think about, because I don't listen to a lot of acoustic music, but just when somebody is up there alone with just an instrument and wrenching the guts out of himself through that instrument, even if he's repeated it over and over again, he's playing slide guitar, he's blowing out those notes on that harmonica, and he's just pounding, man.
Marc:He's just pounding that national guitar.
Marc:And I tell you, man, it just really connects me with something.
Marc:I don't know what it is.
Marc:I don't know why it is.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:Because I don't go see a lot of blues music.
Marc:I don't listen to a ton of it anymore.
Marc:I do tend to play it because I enjoy playing it.
Marc:But I was listening to those old John Hammond records and I just went down there and I saw him.
Marc:And, you know, I hung out with him and his wife Marla before the show.
Marc:And it was just sweet.
Marc:No big backstage scene.
Marc:Just the three of us sitting there talking about the old days.
Marc:and then he just got up there and just opened it up man he just opened up the valve and that guy is a portal and I'm probably going to repeat myself you know at the beginning of the podcast with him but it's fresh in my mind that just the acoustic guitar just touching those strings and he's pounding them just how that vibrates into the sort of organic spirit of humanity the acoustic instrument
Marc:Maybe I'm maybe I'm like, look, I know there's other things to talk about.
Marc:Our president's a disaster.
Marc:Everything's horrible.
Marc:He embarrasses us daily.
Marc:But like, I just I got out there and I just listened to some blues and I played some blues and later.
Marc:And I just just it just blew my mind.
Marc:This guy's commitment to touring for the last 50 years to putting out 30 records to relative obscurity.
Marc:And he still gets up there and he puts us all into it.
Marc:It was inspiring.
Marc:It was inspiring.
Marc:That's what I'm trying to say.
Marc:So I found it moving and I feel all right today because of that.
Marc:Because of John Hammond Jr.
Marc:Go check that shit out.
Marc:Check out the first 10 years of that guy's career.
Marc:Go look him up.
Marc:John Hammond.
Marc:Guitar.
Marc:Wikipedia.
Marc:Listen to those records from 64 to 70.
Marc:All of them are great, but listen to those.
Marc:Just to get started.
Marc:You dig?
Marc:How about some emails?
Marc:I've got a few emails.
Marc:Pulling me through subject line.
Marc:Hey, Mark, I got out of the Marine Corps about a year ago and was really struggling internally with depressing and suicidal thoughts.
Marc:This summer, I was introduced to your podcast by a professor that I worked for.
Marc:Now, whenever I'm having those thoughts, I listen to your podcast and you somehow make it all better and the feelings go away.
Marc:I've never told anybody about these thoughts because I'm not sure how they could really help me.
Marc:But I'm glad that now I can escape into the world of your podcast and let all of my thoughts dissolve.
Marc:Thank you so much for what you do, Austin.
Marc:You're welcome, man.
Marc:There's no better.
Marc:Nothing makes me more humble and grateful than hearing that.
Marc:Man, if I can quiet that darkness.
Marc:You're welcome, buddy.
Marc:Thank you for telling me that.
Marc:Subject line, all roads lead to New Jersey.
Marc:Good afternoon.
Marc:I was listening to your interview with Tom Colicchio today, and I had what can only be described as a moment of serendipity.
Marc:At one point, one of you made the comment that sooner or later, everyone is from New Jersey.
Marc:At the time, I got a nice light chuckle out of it.
Marc:listening to two jersey expatriates talking about their family roots so cut forward to just now i studied history in college and have recently started obsessing over genealogy and my family history i'm sitting here in some off time going through records and making connections and there it is clear as day with enough documentation to make it indisputable my great great great great great grandfather
Marc:David Elston Sr., born 1738, Woodbridge, lived much of his life in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Marc:So I guess you were right.
Marc:Eventually, no matter how far back, we all wind up in New Jersey.
Marc:Love your show.
Marc:Can't wait for the book, Ryan.
Marc:Yep, dude.
Marc:It's inevitable, man.
Marc:We're all Jersey genetically.
Marc:Genetically Jersey.
Marc:Subject line, Pete Davidson's gaping asshole almost got me fired.
Marc:Hi, Mark.
Marc:Thought you might get a good chuckle out of this.
Marc:I'm a high school teacher.
Marc:Yesterday, I was listening to the Pete Davidson episode on my commute to school, getting choked up about 9-11 camp.
Marc:I get to school, pause the episode, put my phone in my pocket.
Marc:A couple hours later, I'm sitting in my office with a few 10th graders and a female colleague.
Marc:Out of nowhere, a loud voice coming from my pocket blares.
Marc:I've got an asshole like a porn star.
Marc:It's a gape.
Marc:I fumble the phone in the air like a cartoon.
Marc:It's a podcast.
Marc:It's a regular podcast.
Marc:It's about a 9-11.
Marc:I had no clue how to explain the comment because I had no idea how you got from 9-11 to Crohn's disease.
Marc:I had to do a lot of explaining.
Marc:Thanks for the laugh, Roy.
Marc:Glad to help out, Roy.
Marc:Sounds like an exciting few minutes for you.
Marc:Huh?
Marc:What a day, right?
Marc:What a day.
Marc:All right, so Elliot Gould.
Marc:Come on, Elliot Gould.
Marc:Elliot Gould was in some of the greatest movies, I was going to say of the 70s, but probably ever.
Marc:When I was a kid, I always looked up to Elliot Gould, a Jewish leading man, a funny Jewish leading man from the age of Jewish leading men.
Marc:Let's narrow it down.
Marc:From the age of James Caan and Elliot Gould and Dustin Hoffman, the Jewish leading men.
Marc:Back in the day, huh?
Marc:But think about it.
Marc:Elliot Gould, MASH, Altman's MASH, The Long Goodbye, Altman, California Split.
Marc:I believe that's another Altman.
Marc:He was in Nashville briefly.
Marc:He was in Capricorn One.
Marc:Capricorn won.
Marc:Harry and Walter go to New York.
Marc:I remember that movie.
Marc:That was with James Caan.
Marc:But Capricorn won with James Rowland when he comes running after he finds James Rowland in the desert.
Marc:The government couldn't kill him.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:That's good shit.
Marc:Of course, he's in the Oceans movies.
Marc:He's done a lot of movies.
Marc:A lot of people love him for the long goodbye.
Marc:Bugsy was in The Player, but briefly... Look, I'm not going to list his credits because there's too many, but I was very excited to talk to him.
Marc:One of his credits was he's appeared on Marin, the television show, as a...
Marc:He plays himself, and he introduces me to my agent.
Marc:Played by the amazing Alex Rocco, who is no longer with us.
Marc:I think that might have been his last role, but it was great working with him.
Marc:Great working with any of these guys.
Marc:Great talking to Elliot Gould.
Marc:He's in the new CBS sitcom 9JKL.
Marc:It premieres tonight and airs Mondays at 8.30, 7.30 Central.
Marc:This is me and Elliot Gould.
Guest:Move the mic in a little bit for your face.
Marc:Oh, God, you're so bossy.
Marc:I'm a little edgy.
Guest:Why?
Guest:That's part of your thing?
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:I got off the nicotine.
Marc:I was eating those nicotine lozenges.
Marc:I haven't smoked in years, but I was eating nicotine.
Marc:Do you have kids in the world?
Marc:I have no kids.
Marc:Do you have a wife?
Marc:I don't have a wife.
Marc:I've had a couple, but I have no kids.
Marc:I did not put more of my genetic line out.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:How many do you have?
Guest:I have four grown kids and two grandkids.
Guest:Four grown kids?
Marc:You have really from two different wives.
Marc:Two wives.
Marc:Don't get too far away from the mic.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:Because you're edgy.
Guest:No, I'm not.
Marc:I just want to make sure.
Guest:And one who I'm a biological father to.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So in the process of this, if I have to pee, do we stop or do I pee where I'm sitting?
Guest:We can stop.
Marc:I mean, I've never had anyone pee where they're sitting.
Marc:Maybe you can do that and tell me after.
Guest:Steve Martin did in the movie.
Guest:He's so funny.
Guest:Have you worked with him?
Marc:No, I've never gotten him on.
Marc:Because all he wants to do is talk about banjo.
Marc:And he's sort of like, he holds a line about it.
Marc:He's sort of like, I don't want to talk about comedy.
Marc:I just want to talk about banjo.
Marc:And I'm like, I don't know if I could do that.
Marc:And I'm sure, I imagine I could pull him around to comedy, but he just wants to talk about banjo.
Marc:Would that be like you saying, I just want to talk about the Talmud?
Marc:Do you want to talk about the Talmud?
Marc:No.
Guest:I like the letters.
Guest:T-A-L-M-U.
Guest:Mud.
Guest:I like mud.
Marc:Do you remember we had a good long talk?
Marc:Great.
Marc:Back in the day.
Guest:When was it?
Guest:When you worked with me.
Guest:When was it?
Guest:You can be specific.
Guest:Was it like three years ago?
Guest:I like to be specific.
Guest:I remember it.
Guest:And I wasn't sure about when we did that scene with that fabulous actor.
Guest:Alex.
Guest:Alex Rocco.
Guest:The great Alex Rocco.
Guest:Wasn't he great?
Guest:He was so great to work with.
Guest:I'm so happy to.
Guest:I don't even know if I ever met him before.
Guest:That was great.
Guest:It was a good time.
Guest:It was fabulous.
Marc:He was so good.
Marc:When did you start the acting?
Marc:Where did you grow up?
Marc:Oh, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York.
Guest:Brooklyn.
Guest:I was conceived in Far Rockaway.
Marc:Far Rockaway.
Marc:How did you get that information?
Guest:How do you know where you were conceived?
Guest:Because my parents lived in a house of the Posners.
Guest:There were three families.
Guest:There were the Posners, the Goldsteins, that was me, and the Greensteins.
Guest:And my parents lived in, it may have been Beach 126th Street, but that's where I was conceived.
Guest:And then I was born and brought up in Brooklyn, New York.
Guest:And this is the show.
Guest:We're doing the show now, aren't we?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is the real show.
Guest:Cool.
Guest:Real is a good idea, isn't it?
Guest:I try to.
Guest:I try to do it.
Guest:How are you being real?
Guest:Good?
Guest:I have found recently that what's true and what's real is not necessarily the same.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To me, what's true is life.
Guest:Nature is true.
Guest:What's real, sometimes we make it up.
Guest:and that can really can I be colloquial or sometimes say where it's gonna like fuck me up yeah of course in terms of sometimes I could be involved in something that's not real and that really fucks me up it takes me a lot of time to get my get oxygen but it's but that's also kind of your job
Guest:Now you're talking about responsibility.
Guest:No, I'm talking about acting.
Guest:I'm talking about responsibility.
Guest:Okay, all right, yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I find when you mention something, sometimes what's funny is sad to me, and what's dramatic is fucking hysterical to me.
Guest:So you're growing up with three families in Brooklyn?
Guest:No, I grew up close to families, but my mother and my father, all they had was me.
Guest:And that was what was motivating me.
Guest:So I was extremely, because they didn't seem to get along.
Guest:I'm sure they got along well enough to have me.
Guest:And talk about responsibility.
Guest:So when I was nine years old, I was extremely repressed, inhibited,
Guest:I didn't know how to communicate, and so I was taken to a song and dance school in New York.
Guest:To break you of those?
Guest:Not to break that.
Guest:My mother would talk about breaking habits.
Guest:And now I could see it all.
Guest:I said, you don't break me of anything.
Guest:I'm not a horse.
Guest:I mean, what you have to do is embrace it and really care for it and love it so it can evolve.
Guest:Otherwise, you're going to break it.
Guest:It's like...
Guest:No, no, no, you're not breaking me of anything.
Marc:Well, the caring and loving, enabling someone, nurturing someone and enabling them to evolve was not part of some parents' mode of operation.
Guest:I still love them for it.
Guest:Actually, my...
Guest:One of the families.
Guest:There was Eddie Posner.
Guest:He was born three months before me.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Then me, Elliot.
Guest:And then Stevie, who was my very closest friend.
Guest:He was born three months later, and Stevie became a psychiatrist.
Guest:Still your friends?
Guest:He's dead.
Guest:But yes, he is.
Guest:I'm close with his children and his grandchildren.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, no, this is a family.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Okay, so he's born, you're born.
Guest:So now he became successful in a psychodrama for families.
Guest:And he said to me in the latter part of our time, he said, how could you be so forgiving?
Guest:And I said, who am I angry at?
Guest:And he said, your parents.
Guest:And I said, oi, gave me an opportunity.
Guest:Why am I angry at my parents?
Guest:And he said, because you were so exploited, used, and manipulated.
Guest:And I said, I don't deny anything that you think or say, but I would have thought you were going about your work the same way I try to go about my work, which is scientifically.
Guest:I was my parents.
Guest:I am my parents.
Guest:To blame my parents, I would say to myself, how could things...
Guest:be like this how did things come to this right you know and i understand it they did the best they could so you you uh you you took responsibility as well i took it all you took the hit well it's worth it i mean you know i have a daughter that's more than everything to me and she's the mother of my grandchildren and she
Guest:And Andrew, her husband, are the first happily and functionally married people in my family since the families came from Eastern Europe.
Marc:Oh, so they did it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Success.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Finally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:Where did you start actually doing the gig of actor?
Guest:The gig of actor.
Guest:I mean, I went to song and dance school.
Guest:Right, and then after that.
Guest:Not to act.
Guest:I mean, I was a tap dancer.
Marc:How were you?
Marc:Did you know Christopher Walken?
Marc:Very well.
Marc:Did you ever dance with him?
Guest:No, but I acted with his brother, Ken.
Guest:And Christopher, he's the only one that followed me from that group of younger people.
Guest:I mean, he's Hungarian.
Guest:His family may still have a bakery in Long Island.
Guest:They do?
Guest:The Watkins family starts at Baker?
Guest:Oh, that's nice.
Guest:And so, Christopher, I saw him in Baker Street.
Guest:He was also in the chorus where I started singing and dancing in vaudeville with kids.
Guest:And then I saw him in Baker Street, which was a musical about...
Guest:Uh, Sherlock Holmes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh, he was great.
Guest:And then of course, in pennies from heaven and, and talking about pennies from heaven, Bernadette Peters was my first student.
Guest:Her mother brought her to me and I, I, I gave her a routine to honey bun when she was 10 years old.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Was she from the neighborhood?
Guest:No, but I was working.
Guest:Actually, you know where David Letterman used to have his show from?
Guest:At Sullivan Theater?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That was right underneath where there's a, on the first floor or the second floor, when you see the picture of the marquee, that's where there were studios called the Goldfarb Studios and they could be rented.
Guest:And so Charlie Lowe, who was an old vaudevillian,
Guest:And we put him on a Saturday Night Live with me so you could see him because they then taught me the time step and the hop-hop and the strut.
Guest:And it's not what I had in mind.
Guest:It's really not what I had in mind.
Guest:For your life?
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:But my rationale, because I've been thinking forever, was that if I could memorize a routine, that perhaps if I could memorize it, I could communicate through that which I had memorized.
Guest:And I remember almost everything.
Marc:So you mean you thought about that retroactively or you think that now?
Marc:Like, I mean, at the time.
Guest:I don't know retroactively, but I do remember I have my conscious, my first conscious memories were 14 months old.
Guest:on the boardwalk in Far Rockaway.
Guest:Even though we lived in Brooklyn, we would visit.
Guest:It was a nice beach.
Guest:And Posner walked.
Guest:He was, as I told you, three months older than me.
Guest:But then Greenstein walked before me and my parents were...
Guest:freaked out that I wasn't walking.
Guest:I'm 14 months old.
Guest:You should be walking.
Guest:But of course, Posner and Greenstein were blood relations.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:The father of Posner was the brother of the mother of Greenstein.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so that was the moment that I found my balance.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Because how can you walk without balance?
Guest:We take everything for granted.
Guest:We think that what we think is the truth.
Guest:We only make it the truth.
Guest:It's not necessarily the truth.
Guest:And so I remember this in the moment that I was standing there.
Guest:My parents were there.
Guest:Someone took pictures, too.
Guest:That's how I know exactly what the date was.
Guest:And I was looking through the railing on the boardwalk over the beach...
Guest:Over the ocean to the horizon.
Guest:I found my balance.
Guest:I found it by feeling it.
Guest:I'm balanced.
Guest:I don't know what balance means, but I feel it.
Guest:Then I know I'll walk.
Guest:Don't push me too fast.
Marc:You just had to find your balance.
Guest:I had to find my balance, of course, and not even knowing what is it.
Guest:You know, I mean, expectations are sometimes not very healthy.
Guest:Security is terrible.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, expectations.
Guest:So then I remember.
Guest:They're killers.
Guest:We lived at 6801 Bay Parkway, Brooklyn, New York.
Guest:The phone number, if you want to go back and call me, was Beachview 25524.
Guest:We can call you.
Guest:You can call me anytime.
Guest:How's it going?
Guest:Around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are you walking?
Guest:Uh...
Guest:If I call?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is little Elliot there?
Guest:Is he walking?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I'm there and we had like a chair.
Guest:My father was making $20 a week.
Guest:Doing what?
Guest:Working in the garment center.
Guest:That's what he did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Schmata guy?
Guest:He also played, he used to play ball.
Guest:He batted right and fielded left.
Guest:Bernard Goldstein.
Guest:And he was a great guy.
Guest:In the league?
Yeah.
Guest:At school.
Guest:He went to New Utrecht.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And did your mom work?
Guest:My mother became a comparison shopper at Macy's.
Guest:She was brilliant and really talented.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:I don't know that, John.
Guest:You have to go and see what's selling.
Guest:If you have some products, who's selling it for that.
Guest:Now we've got computers, so you don't have to send people out.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But she was a pre-computer comparison shopper.
Guest:Exactly right.
Guest:Very talented.
Guest:She had a millionaire shop, Lucille.
Guest:Lucy was my mother.
Guest:Ah, good names.
Guest:Lucy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so then there I was like in a chair like around two-ish.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I obviously, no, I'm sure I walked.
Guest:And the two of them, Bernie and Lucille, were standing over me.
Guest:And they said to me, and I quote, you don't know how to feel and you don't know how to think and will tell you.
Guest:And I thought,
Guest:not only don't I know the difference, if you say so, I don't have a problem, you know, okay, I don't know how to feel, I don't know how to think, and you'll tell me.
Guest:That's not right, but that's true.
Marc:They said it in those words?
Guest:I'm telling you the words.
Guest:Would you ever forget that?
Guest:And then the other statement was, one of them, it may have been my father, I'd say, and you won't ever have better friends than us.
Guest:And I thought, you're my gods, so if you say so.
Guest:This is it too.
Guest:They're laying it down.
Marc:That's a heavy rap.
Guest:Well, you can understand that in terms of laying claim on it.
Guest:Also, there's concern.
Marc:I may grow up to be the way I am.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:We don't want you to be the way you are.
Guest:We want you to be the way we want you to be for your own good.
Guest:And so we won't be scared.
Guest:so we won't be replaced or so you know or whatever yeah right right so so you tap dancing so also then i go into song and dance school and my rationale the same kid baby that's thinking okay i mean i don't know how to feel it i don't know how to think and isn't it depressing my parents don't know how to love one another and they stay together and i slept in their bedroom not in their bed
Guest:for my first 11 years until we moved upstairs to the third floor.
Marc:You slept with your parents until you were 11?
Guest:I didn't sleep with them in the same room.
Marc:You're yelling at me.
Marc:I mean, I heard you.
Guest:Of course, I mean, I know how you are.
Marc:We were in the same room, but was there another room available?
Guest:No.
Guest:Okay, all right.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:And so I went into song and dance, and now I'm 12, and I've done some Milton Berle shows,
Marc:You were part of the chorus or you did a group of kids?
Guest:Yeah, they were kids.
Guest:And then they once put on a show because, you know, he was a superstar on television.
Marc:So you do some Milton Berle shows.
Marc:But like I'm trying to like I remember you as I'm 53.
Marc:So when I was a young kid coming into my own, you know, you were you know, you were a big star.
Marc:That's that's interesting, isn't it?
Marc:Well, no, you were the guy, right?
Marc:So there were movies I remember seeing that were odd movies when I look at the catalog of movies that you did.
Marc:I remember MASH, obviously, but I remember Harry and Walter go to New York because I loved James Caan.
Marc:I loved you.
Guest:Diane Keaton.
Guest:Don't we all love Diane Keaton?
Marc:Of course.
Marc:But there was that period in Hollywood history where the Jewish leading man...
Marc:I understand.
Marc:But let's go back.
Marc:So when do you start doing movies?
Marc:When do you start sort of becoming?
Guest:Okay, great.
Guest:Charlie Lowe, song and dance, 12 years old.
Guest:I play the palace.
Guest:I play the palace as a participant in somebody's act at the palace for a big show there that also had a movie with it, Acts of Vaudeville, the first anniversary of the return of Vaudeville to the palace.
Guest:This is May of 1951.
Guest:I'm 12.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And you're on the show.
Guest:I'm in the show.
Guest:I'm a delivery boy.
Guest:The opening of the act for Bill Callahan is when there's a blackout of the act before.
Guest:And the act before was Smith and Dale, the original Sunshine Boys, Joe Smith and Charlie Dale.
Guest:And I had to be in back of the house and watch Dr. Cronkite...
Guest:four times a day for two solid weeks.
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:And that's what the Sunshine Boys was based on, these two guys.
Guest:Now, the blackout, a beat, two beats, and then I'm coming down, telegram for Callahan, telegram for Bill Callahan.
Guest:And I'm walking down to the conductor.
Guest:Telegram, and the conductor says, where are you going?
Guest:What do you have?
Guest:I said, I've got a telegram for Bill Callahan.
Guest:And he said, I'll take it.
Guest:And I then say, and now there's a music, a downbeat.
Guest:uh of a song which is i'm dancing and i can't be bothered now yeah he said he'll take it i said no i have to give it to him myself and i go to the stage i've got some stills of this and i'm saying here and you see i say telegram for callahan paging callahan and then there's a scrim where there's a silhouette and you see him and he's a very very attractive male manly guy who could really uh dance yeah
Guest:And he says, I'm dancing and I can't be bothered now.
Guest:I do it three times and I'm off.
Guest:And now I've got the last dressing room at the palace.
Guest:And people would come in because it's the first anniversary of the return.
Guest:And I met so many people, a guy who you may not know, who you should know, although I'm not into shoulds, a guy named James Barton, who was a great, he created the part in Paint Your Wagon on the Broadway musical that Lee Marvin did in the movie.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Lee Marvin was great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is James Barton.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was there.
Guest:Bela Lugosi came.
Guest:I got his autograph.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Milton Berle came, too, but I had already known him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I did it.
Guest:Fifty dollars a week.
Guest:I was going to Seth Lowe Jr.
Guest:High, and that was interesting and fun.
Guest:And then I went to the professional children's school, and I met some other people, including David Carradine, who we became really good friends.
Guest:And then I felt my parents had put so much into giving me this road to where I am that I wanted to see if I could fulfill, because we had no money, and I didn't know anything.
Guest:I graduated high school.
Guest:When I was in kindergarten, they told my mother and me that I had a little bit of extra intelligence because I was the only one in kindergarten that knew that I didn't know the difference between my right and my left side.
Guest:Because everything to me, and it still is, I can't conform, but I don't like conforming unless it's necessary, that it's all one thing to me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But this is something that you always felt?
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:Therefore, I told you about being 14 months old.
Guest:I told you about being about two years old.
Guest:I had three and a half.
Guest:And that's about it in terms of my literal memory of things that were going through my head that I...
Guest:I mean, to know something doesn't mean to understand something.
Guest:I didn't read.
Guest:I didn't write that.
Guest:I knew one night I woke up.
Guest:I was three and a half.
Guest:And of course, very disturbed.
Guest:But my parents did not know how to love one another.
Guest:Yeah, that was to me, blew me away.
Guest:You felt it.
Guest:I knew it.
Guest:I didn't understand it, nor until now could I accept it.
Guest:It didn't sound acceptable to me in terms of being begat and all of that.
Guest:And my thought was, and I was so scared, or ascared, so ascared of the dark, which I understand now, that everything had been written and everything had been read, and that fame and fortune really had no meaning, and if there wasn't peace and harmony,
Guest:I was going to have a lot of problems.
Marc:You knew that at three?
Marc:Three and a half.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:I knew that.
Marc:These are all very important.
Marc:The 14 months balance, two years.
Guest:No, 14 months balance, two years.
Marc:Yeah, two years.
Marc:They're trying to shape me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I don't trust it.
Marc:And then three years, got to find harmony or else you got nothing.
Marc:Peace and harmony.
Marc:So what was your first film role?
Guest:It was called The Confession.
Guest:I played a deaf mute with Raymoland and Ginger Rogers.
Guest:You worked with all these great old actors.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:The director's name was William Dieterle, and he directed Charles fucking Lawton in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Charles Lawton.
Guest:Blows me away.
Guest:He's, to me, like the precursor to Marlon Brando.
Guest:He's a sensory genius.
Guest:And so I'm a deaf mute.
Guest:I have no experience.
Guest:I mean, I was, let me see, by that time I'd been in the chorus, Barbara and I had already been married.
Guest:Really?
Guest:So I was no longer a virgin.
Guest:And yeah, now it's called on late, late night television, quick, let's get married.
Guest:When did you get married?
Guest:How old were you when you married Barbara?
Guest:25.
Guest:And she was...
Guest:19.
Guest:No, no, she was 25, so she must have been, let's see, this was 1963, she was 21.
Marc:Uh-huh, and you met her on stage in a show?
Marc:Yes, yes.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You guys still, you talk.
Guest:She's the mother of our son.
Guest:How's he doing?
Guest:He's great.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:He's so decent, and he's divine.
Guest:oh good so okay so you do the mute with no training deaf mute deaf mute and my first shot yeah my first shot and my partner in it uh uh was a guy named carl shell maximilian and uh maria shell's brother who was going with a woman from colgate who was financing this picture on the island of jamaica at the same time that dr no and high wind in jamaica were being done and this is at the time
Guest:called The Confession.
Guest:And I want to act.
Guest:I didn't know how to act.
Guest:I'd never been in a movie.
Guest:I'd done a little television.
Guest:How'd you get cast?
Guest:They introduced me to a guy named Victor Stoloff, who was casting and assisting William Dieterle, who came to America with Max Reinhardt, and they collaborated on A Midsummer Night's Dream, which starred James Cagney and Mickey Rooney.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And so he cast me.
Guest:And in my first shot, I'm supposed to be drunk and it's not done in sequence.
Guest:And I'm sort of acting like a method actor or something because I'm supposed to be drunk and we're trying to rough up this guy, Ray Moland.
Guest:And I'm like that.
Guest:And somebody behind the camera, it was the sound man, says, cut.
Guest:he walks to the director and points to me said he's breathing too loud just like you and when I was doing that with your with your computer right I thought I don't I don't breathe right how will I ever fucking learn to act you know that was my first experience but did it were you taking acting classes no no there was classes probably I did I went to Lee Strasburg a couple of times yeah no thank you I went to see uh oh my god Stella Adler yeah she'd worked with Brando sure
Guest:And I thought, I don't know how to act.
Guest:I don't know what to do.
Guest:And I went to see her.
Guest:And I made an appointment and she was teaching a class.
Guest:And I walked up to her and very quietly I said, I'm playing the lead in a Broadway musical and I don't know how to act.
Guest:And she said...
Guest:speak up she said speak up why is it that uh american actors uh mumble and don't talk up and british actors and i thought i'm not going to be here you know then go fuck yourself you know what i mean you know i mean i you know so but she was great i have a great friend who's going on 103 norman lloyd
Guest:I mean, who worked in the group theater, worked in the theater of action with all of these people, including Stella Adler and her husbands and her family.
Guest:She was great, but that's not what I wanted.
Guest:I mean, theatricality was interesting.
Marc:Well, what did you want?
Marc:How did you end up figuring out your craft?
Guest:I told you what I wanted when I was three and a half, Peace and Harmony.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Through the darkness.
Guest:Well, through the darkness.
Guest:One has to because it's dark inside.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And that's where I live.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Marc:What do you feel?
Marc:Yeah, but you're keeping everything pretty well arranged.
Marc:Well, I never gave up.
Guest:I never gave up.
Guest:It is.
Guest:A lot of resources.
Guest:I thought you were going to say research.
Guest:A lot of experience.
Guest:Experience, sure.
Guest:And I totally believe in modesty and humility.
Guest:I mean, with all my heart and soul.
Marc:So, how did you ultimately learn how to act?
Marc:Just by doing?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then, like, I guess the big break was with the Mazursky movie, right?
Guest:That was a first because in Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice, I found my first objective relationship, which was a camera.
Guest:Again, literally, because each of the four characters had a fantasy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and Diane Cannon, who at the time was Cary Grant's wife.
Guest:And she's, we're friends, we're friendly.
Guest:She played my wife, and her character's fantasy was that every man in her mind wanted to dance with her.
Guest:And so Mazursky staged a scene, Tucker and Mazursky, Larry Tucker, who was his partner and collaborator, staged a scene with about three or 400 male extras, me and Diane Cannon.
Guest:And then for union regulations, I'm a union person.
Guest:I really appreciate and love the union.
Guest:We had to break for five or ten minutes.
Guest:And everybody left the soundstage as usual.
Guest:I had no place to go, so I stayed.
Guest:They turned the lights down.
Guest:They left the camera where it was.
Guest:The set was there.
Guest:Lights are out.
Guest:And I thought...
Guest:Oh, the camera doesn't give me problems.
Guest:I give me problems.
Guest:The camera will never manipulate me, will never lie to me.
Guest:They will only report what I'm doing.
Guest:My first objective relationship, my first friend, you know, the camera.
Guest:So that saved me.
Marc:so that alone time with the camera turned off in the dark you had that moment the realization when the camera was resting and what the camera is what it represents yeah yeah and i didn't mean to i didn't want to just jump over that you worked with friedkin too billy friedkin yes i recently had dinner with him and his fabulous wife uh sherry lansing he's been in here and you did that the night they raided minskies yes and bert lahr took me home bert lahr took you home yeah
Guest:He gave you a ride?
Guest:No, we went home.
Guest:He had a ride, but, I mean, he brought me home with him.
Guest:He was great.
Guest:What was that about?
Guest:Did you hang out, talk?
Guest:Bert Lahr was such a great actor.
Guest:Great comedic actor.
Guest:Great comedic actor.
Guest:He died in the picture.
Guest:We didn't finish his role.
Guest:And so, I mean, I'd be there.
Guest:I...
Guest:i love us yeah and then i mean he was great he was a hypochondriac also yeah and when when his dresser would be dressing him he would fart in the in the in the dresser's face and get hysterical and so he i went home with him when i took me home he brought me upstairs i think they were on park avenue and he said to his wife look what i brought he was great and then what happened
Guest:I sat there, I saw him, and I maybe had a glass of water and said hello to his wife, and I went home with him, you know, and then left.
Guest:Nothing happened.
Guest:He, like everyone else, died.
Guest:We're all there.
Guest:We're getting there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, okay, yeah, but Friedkin at that time, was that his first?
Guest:No, he had done a picture with Sonny and Cher.
Guest:And, uh, he's a, he's something else, that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What is he?
Marc:He's a, he's, he, he, you know, a little different in how he formulates the narrative of his life.
Marc:You know, when I talked to him, you know, there was the, the, an element of fate ran through it.
Marc:He's of what fate, fate, fate, fate that, you know, that things had him, uh, they, that they happened for reason and
Marc:You know, when he tells his story and I sat here with him for like two hours and, you know, he'll string the story through, you know, things that happened.
Guest:Oh, he's such an asshole.
Guest:I mean, you know, Billy Freakin is an asshole.
Guest:He's very bright.
Guest:He's talented and all that.
Guest:His wife is great, but he's a fucking asshole.
Guest:But he's a good one.
Guest:He did some good pictures.
Guest:We had dinner.
Guest:I saw him at my friend's 102nd birthday.
Guest:And he was pitching somebody from one of the big independent...
Guest:channels or something he was wanting to do a movie no a 10 part series based on his movie that he did which was based on a play called Killer Joe with Matthew McConaughey I know that one yeah and so I wasn't crazy about the picture and Billy and I played Killer Joe you didn't love it no I think Matthew McConaughey is really good it's probably a great play
Guest:Maybe it is.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Killer Joe.
Guest:There was a guy in the Catskills where I also did tap dancing and stuff.
Guest:His name was Killer Joe Pyro.
Guest:He danced the mambo.
Guest:He was great.
Guest:Killer Joe Pyro was great.
Guest:Killer Joe, the movie, is not great, and I would be willing to see it again.
Guest:But then Billy said to me, once I said, oh, a 10-part series, that would be better than the movie.
Guest:And I didn't know that he's talking business, and I'm there at my friend's 102nd birthday.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he said to me, Billy said, you had a drug problem.
Guest:I said, what the fuck is that?
Guest:I said, no.
Guest:Barbara said the same thing.
Guest:We never did drugs together.
Guest:I never had a drug problem.
Guest:I've said it on national television.
Guest:I had a problem with reality.
Guest:And now that I accept it, it's my friend, whether I like it or not, I always want to know where I am.
Guest:But believe me, because Barbara said the same thing to me.
Guest:You had a drug problem?
Guest:I didn't have a drug problem.
Guest:I had no perspective.
Guest:I had no judgment.
Guest:But I didn't have a drug problem.
Marc:What was the drug?
Guest:Life.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Which one did you enjoy?
Guest:Liberty.
Guest:When I did, I would smoke some weed.
Marc:Not a coke guy.
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, I had to experiment with that.
Guest:I don't like it.
Guest:It drives you up.
Guest:Didn't like it.
Guest:And I didn't like what I saw it do with my wife.
Guest:Not good.
Guest:Not good.
Guest:Sigmund Freud, I think, used it to get off of heroin.
Guest:I never did heroin.
Marc:No, no good.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So the mash thing, because when I talked to you when we did my show, there was, you know, the conversation was interesting because, you know, now, you know, we were talking about Time magazine.
Marc:We were talking about, you know, what you what I perceived as, you know, the image of you to the public now.
Marc:And then, you know, the sort of blasting off of the career and the ego and how you dealt with that.
Guest:Oh, ego.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One of my worst enemies, Ego and Vanity.
Guest:No, thank you.
Guest:But when did that happen?
Guest:In the process of me getting here, you know, me getting here.
Marc:Okay, so let's talk about MASH.
Marc:I mean, I've talked to a few people that work with Robert.
Guest:Prior to doing Bob Carroll and Ted and Alice, I auditioned for a play by Murray Shiskell called The Way of Life that was being directed by Alan Schneider and being produced by...
Guest:One of the brothers of Angela Lansbury.
Guest:And I remember Ron Liebman was a great actor.
Guest:He was auditioning for it and I auditioned for it.
Guest:And then I did Bob Carroll, Ted and Alice, found my relationship with the camera, did really well.
Guest:I was fortunate to be in that movie.
Guest:and then went into rehearsals for A Way of Life.
Guest:And they fired Alan Schneider, and they brought someone else in.
Guest:And then I went to rehearsals, and as far as learning the words and doing it, Murray Shiskell, who had written Love...
Guest:and who I knew, very close to Dustin Hoffman, he said to me, why can't you be as good, we're getting up to Robert Altman, why can't you be as good in rehearsals as you were when you auditioned for us?
Guest:And he said, because when I auditioned for you, I could show you what's possible for me to do with this, but I've got to structure a performance that I'm going to do eight times a week for you, and I've got to be able to be comfortable, and like Sterling Hayden said to me, hand in glove,
Guest:With the material, with the words.
Guest:And so I now know I'm going to have to get a haircut because I let myself grow out.
Guest:It's great to grow out.
Guest:And I went to rehearsals.
Guest:And I'm going to know these words by our technical rehearsal.
Guest:And the door's locked.
Guest:Oh, and I think to myself, I'm not supposed to be locked out of rehearsals at this time.
Guest:How could they fire me?
Guest:I better get a haircut.
Guest:So I went to Carmine's to get a haircut.
Guest:And at that point, I was starting to produce because that's what I really thought I would do to produce.
Guest:And then when you get to Ingmar, I'll tell you what he said to me about directing.
Guest:And Brodsky, who was my late ex-partner, he came and was there.
Guest:And it's a two-chair barbershop, a mirror in between the two chairs.
Guest:So there's a chair on the other side and a chair where I'm sitting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the phone rings and it's a guy named Mark Merson who was representing the producers.
Guest:And he said, now they just cut my right side off.
Guest:I no longer have long sideburns.
Guest:And he says to me, I don't know how to say this, but...
Guest:It's just not working.
Guest:And I said, wait a minute.
Guest:Don't talk to me.
Guest:Call my agent.
Guest:Don't tell me what's working and what's not working.
Guest:But I wish you'd called me five minutes earlier because now I'm going to have to cut the other side off to be even with me.
Guest:and uh so that that was that and so i came back out here to los angeles and was asked to meet robert altman who was preparing to do a movie called mash and i met bob at fox and he gave me the script just the two of us and then i read the script and i came in and bob said to me how would you feel about playing the american southerner duke tom scarrett's yeah i said i've never questioned an offer uh but uh
Guest:Because all I want to do is work, but I'll be very intense.
Guest:I mean, to validate me as an American Southerner, I could do it.
Guest:I have a musical ear.
Guest:I could do it.
Guest:But this guy, Trapper John, if you haven't cast Trapper John, I got the juice for it.
Guest:I got what that guy, what do you want from that guy?
Guest:He gave me the part.
Guest:It's like he let me cast myself.
Marc:I got the juice for it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You knew that guy.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I am that guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But Donald Sutherland.
Marc:The comedic dynamic between you and Donald Sutherland is something to behold.
Guest:Oh, that's so kind of you.
Guest:Because Altman said, have lunch with him.
Guest:I want you and Donald to have lunch alone in the commissary.
Guest:And I thought we had lunch at Fox.
Guest:We're both cast now.
Guest:And I didn't know Tom Skerritt at the time, but I'd never met Donald.
Guest:But I saw Donald in...
Guest:a dirty dozen yeah and I'd seen him maybe in a horror movie or two and we sat down just the two of us and I felt right away at the beginning yeah he didn't like me there was somebody I don't know you know whatever but we became just it was just the two of us yeah and Bob and everyone except we were working for Bob but we were like just the two of us and that was great we became quite close
Guest:You and Sutherland.
Guest:Donald, yeah.
Guest:He played a part for me because I produced Little Murders.
Guest:It's really good.
Guest:I just saw a review and I'm not into reviews for Little Murders.
Guest:Do you know Little Murders?
Guest:Uh-uh.
Guest:Jules Feiffer?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, it was shot by Gordon Willis and operated by Michael Chapman.
Guest:and Donald is the priest, and Alan Arkin directed it.
Guest:I produced it.
Guest:I had done the first stage production of Little Murders.
Guest:It's fabulous.
Guest:I think it's worthwhile.
Guest:Norman Lloyd, my soon-to-be 103-year-old friend, brought Jean Renoir.
Guest:You know Jean Renoir's work, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Rules of the Game and The Grand Illusion to see it at a screening when we were opening up.
Guest:And Jean wrote a letter to Alan Harkin.
Guest:It took 35 years for Alan to share the letter with me.
Guest:But, I mean, Pfeiffer is fucking brilliant.
Marc:What do you mean it took him 25 years to share the letter?
Guest:Some of us don't know how to share.
Guest:I work with Cher.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:She's great.
Guest:What a beautiful woman.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But Alan Arkin, are you okay with him?
Marc:Of course.
Marc:He's so good, isn't he?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:It's funny.
Marc:But now I want to see this movie.
Marc:I'm mad.
Marc:I didn't know you produced it.
Marc:Jack Brodsky is your production partner.
Guest:And then we also, the other thing that we produced was everything you always wanted to know about sex but was afraid to ask.
Guest:For Woody.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, we gave it to Woody.
Guest:I mean, I was so successful in that, but I had other people do it.
Guest:I've never done business.
Guest:And I had told and I read someplace that supposedly Ingmar Bergman said I was difficult to work with, and that's not true.
Guest:But I can talk for Ingmar.
Guest:I was impossible to do business with because I didn't understand myself.
Guest:So I couldn't do business with us.
Marc:What were you going to tell me about Ingmar Bergman in terms of what he told you about directing?
Guest:Oh, he said to me, when you direct and you will direct, you mustn't act.
Guest:And no matter who's doing it or who's done it, you'll understand.
Guest:And then I came back from America and talk about rolling the dice.
Guest:I thought I was in charge and I went way beyond boundaries and I didn't know I had no perspective and no judgment, so I had to give a lot up.
Marc:When was that?
Guest:1971.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:After MASH?
Guest:Well after MASH.
Marc:But what about, was it after the Time Magazine cover?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Time Magazine came out on September 9th, 1970.
Guest:The day that I went to Stockholm to be the first one of us to work with Ingmar.
Marc:So you're feeling it, right?
Marc:Things are rolling.
Marc:Things are happening.
Guest:Time Magazine...
Guest:Bruce Dern is a friend and he said one of the things that meant a lot to him because Jackie Nicholson said to me that I would never dunk a basketball and I dunked a basketball once and I was driving and he was running on Vicente and I pulled up and I said, Bruce, I dunked a basketball.
Guest:I was able to do it.
Guest:Do you miss the time?
Guest:No.
Guest:I'm curious about what time you're thinking about because to me it's all one time, you know.
Marc:I laugh because whether you mean it to be funny or not, I find it funny.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:Why not?
Guest:What's funny, that's great.
Guest:I wouldn't mind dying, die laughing, you know.
Guest:I'm not going to die right now.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Well, how do you know?
Guest:You didn't.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:Right now is a long time.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right now is forever.
Marc:Keeps going.
Marc:But when you say that, like, you know, were you humbled?
Guest:Oh, God.
Marc:1971.
Marc:Humbled.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I'm more than humbled.
Guest:I paid for everything.
Guest:I had to find out.
Guest:I had to find out.
Guest:I thought I knew.
Guest:That's what I said.
Guest:you know to ingomar before i left stockholm yeah i said i don't know that you know what how things are in the united states you know and so i had chosen the director for the next project what happened is the the material was taken and what's up doc was made from the material but that was nothing to do with what i wanted to do what were you doing
Guest:I was doing something that was called at the time A Glimpse of Tiger.
Guest:And the way I saw it, it was the little prince in urban America right now.
Guest:And I was the aviator and the prince is this girl.
Guest:And I didn't know that I should have tried to cast my wife, Jenny.
Guest:And I wanted to cast Kim Darby.
Guest:And I said to her...
Guest:it's going to be difficult.
Guest:I've never done this before to be playing a part, and this is a different part.
Guest:The character can be really frightening.
Guest:It's just like this.
Guest:And so if you get frightened or you don't understand where I'm coming from, just say, time out.
Guest:Make a T with your hands.
Guest:Call me over to the side.
Guest:I'm like a doll.
Guest:I mean, I need you to be happy, secure, and comfortable, but...
Guest:uh she got she was scared and i didn't know that i was way beyond limits uh in terms of the comprehension of the people i was working with because i put my heart and i it's my life you know and the movie didn't get finished or did no it didn't then they made what's up doc which was profitable the movie was never made and i paid for everything that was spent uh-huh and that was the beginning of the humbling
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Oh, yes.
Guest:Oh, yes.
Guest:That was the humbling.
Guest:And that was 72?
Guest:Humbling.
Guest:That was 71.
Guest:And then I even had Carradine and Barbara Hershey came to stay with me for a while.
Guest:And he had two dogs.
Guest:And I loved Carradine.
Guest:And I felt guilty.
Guest:Look at Carradine and the Carradine family.
Guest:They're great American actors.
Guest:And look what I'm doing.
Guest:How do I get in this position?
Guest:to do this but I mean there was nobody really there with me Jenny was there but I can't say that she understood and I certainly didn't understood but I and I didn't know that I didn't yet have the right to create I thought that I could and and so I had to pay for it I had to find out that there are boundaries and I'm fine with it I paid for it
Guest:But then you went on and like Altman.
Guest:Well, then Altman, Robert Altman, he at first, no, I'm just a guy, a union man who's looking for to continue to make a living with my family.
Guest:And so Peter Bogdanovich, we thought, was going to direct The Long Goodbye.
Guest:And David Picker was running United Artists, and he was friendly with me, or like a friend.
Guest:And so I went to see him looking for a job, and he gave me the script.
Guest:of The Long Goodbye that was written by Lee Brackett, who had collaborated with William Faulkner on Humphrey Bogart's The Big Sleep.
Guest:And I read it, and it's old-fashioned, and it was like he called it a pastiche.
Guest:I like candy, you know, pastiche, like chuckles and dots and stuff.
Guest:That would be pastiche to me.
Guest:And so I said, sure, I mean, you know.
Guest:And then Bogdanovich couldn't see me in it.
Guest:Or whatever.
Guest:I was told by the head of the studio.
Guest:He had an idea that Lee Marvin or Robert Mitchum.
Guest:I said, they're like my uncles.
Guest:I can't argue with them, but we've seen them.
Guest:You haven't seen me.
Guest:And I understand Peter.
Guest:It's Peter's picture.
Guest:So Peter's off the picture.
Guest:And I get a call from Robert Altman, who's now been put on the picture.
Guest:And Altman calls me from Ireland.
Yeah.
Guest:He was doing a picture called Images with Susanna York, and he says to me, I'm at 58 Morton Street in the West Village, and he says, what do you think?
Guest:And I said, I've always wanted to play this guy, Philip Martin.
Guest:He said, you are this guy.
Guest:That was the beginning of the picture.
Guest:Can you imagine?
Guest:You are this guy.
Guest:Bob, oh my God, so it's okay with me.
Guest:That picture, oh my God, it's an American jazz piece.
Guest:Yeah, it's beautiful.
Guest:Oh, thanks.
Guest:There's a sequel to it.
Guest:And Bob, with M.A.S.H., he called me because Donald and I complained about him.
Guest:And we complained because I'd never worked that way before.
Guest:Which way?
Guest:Improvisationally.
Guest:I've never worked leaving the script.
Guest:And I took a lot of it.
Guest:gave me the room and the space to live.
Guest:And he said two things to me, Bob Altman.
Guest:Once he said to me, why can't you be like someone else?
Guest:And we had just broken for lunch and he was having a problem.
Guest:Bob had had problems with management sometimes.
Guest:And I had my lunch on my tray.
Guest:I hadn't ingested it.
Guest:And we were at the ranch, the Fox Ranch in Malibu.
Guest:And he pointed to one of the terrific guys from the committee, from the improvisational group in San Francisco, Corey Fisher.
Guest:He said, why can't you be more like him?
Guest:I started to shake and I threw my lunch up in the air.
Guest:I said, you cocksucker.
Guest:I said, I'm not going to stick my neck out for you again.
Guest:I mean, I was in the theater.
Guest:I'm a tap dancer.
Guest:I'm a chorus boy.
Guest:I understand repetition and I understand precision.
Guest:Tell me what you want and that's what you'll get.
Guest:I'm not going to stick my neck out.
Guest:He said to me then, I think I made a mistake.
Guest:I said, I think so.
Guest:He said, I apologize.
Guest:I said, fine, let's carry on.
Guest:And at that moment,
Guest:The people, the production crew from the next picture, which was Getting Straight, that was Richard Rush's picture, came because we were going to have a meeting.
Guest:One other time, he says to me, because we're playing poker, and I played poker for almost all my life.
Guest:It took me almost all my life to realize I'm not a very good poker player because I can't represent something I don't have.
Guest:But bluffing sounds good to a kid.
Guest:I'm going to bluff you.
Guest:I'll bluff you.
Guest:And so there's a scene and a lot of the guys didn't know how to play poker and I'm putting energy into this and I'm in character.
Guest:And he said, I can't keep my eyes off of you.
Guest:He said, it's distracting to me.
Guest:I said, don't look at me then.
Guest:I'm always in character.
Guest:Look at me when you see the film.
Guest:I'm in concert with everything else that's going on.
Guest:If you see it before you kill it, I'll die happily.
Guest:And he came to me the next day, Bob Altman, and said, you're right.
Guest:But he published me as being his enemy.
Guest:Because when we complained, he thought we wanted to have him fire.
Guest:We being Donald and me.
Guest:And we couldn't get him firing.
Guest:We wouldn't, but we complained.
Guest:Because I didn't know how to work like this.
Guest:And then we met with our agent.
Guest:And then Bob allowed us to reshoot...
Guest:one part of a scene.
Guest:And from there on, I couldn't do McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
Guest:Warren is a friend.
Guest:I love Warren.
Guest:Great movie.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:And Bob offered it to me.
Guest:And he said to me, and I said, no, I couldn't.
Guest:I had to do I Love My Wife.
Guest:at Universal, it's the only Universal picture I did.
Guest:And he said, you're making the mistake of your life.
Guest:And I said, well, it's not my life yet, Bob.
Guest:And you can't take away that I was your first choice.
Guest:And I'll look at the picture sometime and say, oh my God, what a masterpiece.
Guest:And meanwhile, Warren and Julie Christie, they're so beautiful, and that's great.
Guest:That's really great.
Guest:It would have been interesting, but I don't want any woulda, coulda, shouldas here.
Marc:No, but you came back around.
Marc:You did The Long Goodbye.
Marc:You reinvented Philip Marlowe.
Marc:You got to work with Sterling Hayden.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Sterling Hayden.
Guest:Sterling Hayden.
Guest:And you know that the cottage that his character, Roger Wade, was in in the picture.
Marc:What is that, Malibu?
Marc:Or was it right on the beach, right?
Guest:No, that was like near, oh no, no.
Guest:But that was the actual, that was in Pasadena at a real place.
Guest:That was a real place.
Guest:The whole place was real.
Guest:That wasn't a set.
Guest:Where was the beach show?
Guest:Wasn't there a beach show?
Guest:That was in Mal's Shore, where was Garrick the Drowns?
Guest:But the cottage where I find him is the cottage where W.C.
Guest:Fields lived the last part of his life.
Guest:He lived in that cottage, W. fucking C. Fields.
Marc:Over here in Pasadena.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No kidding.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, Sterling Hayden, what did he lay on you?
Guest:At one point, I went into Pasadena because I had a little time when we were working at that place.
Guest:And I went into a shop and I found a set of checkers with swastikas on them.
Guest:And I said, can I buy them?
Guest:I still have one.
Guest:I'll give it to you.
Guest:Okay, I don't have to.
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:Again, I told you.
Guest:I want you to keep it.
Guest:keep it thank you and so I came in and there was again sometimes Bob could be not as we progressed but this was the long goodbye because Bob also said that I scared him in the picture because he would give me so much room and there was even more because Soderbergh had asked me about a scene where I put ink on my face and I'll tell you about that but so Bob was a little difficult and Sterling said to me as the old man giving you making it hard on you I said
Guest:little and he said vamp just vamp and vamp means holding time just hold just hold it because it worked out great for us and even in the scene where sterling's character drowns bob had asked me if i thought we could do that scene that was scheduled to do for two nights in one night and i nearly drowned i really really
Guest:really drowned and I was there because we waited for a high tide and I played basketball all day and even at that point I mean in terms of conditioning and stuff with Nina Van Palen and Bob said to me Nina Van Palen is going to beat you down to the beach and I thought I don't think so I think it's important in terms of what's ever left for men I mean we should be able to get down there I mean unless you want her to tell me you want her to but otherwise I'll get down there I'm in pretty good shape
Guest:Now we wait for high tide and I run into and I take off my tie because when we tested Nina Van Palen, that's where I was able to get my wardrobe that mismatched blue jacket and pants, the simple white shirt and a tie that has American flags on it.
Guest:And you don't even ever see it, but that was my message.
Guest:You know, the American, we can revisit the American, too.
Guest:And so I'm running in, not even knowing it's not Sterling out there.
Guest:There's a property man who had once swum back from 14 miles, and I'm just this kid who would go to Coney Island and Rockaway and play in the surf.
Guest:And I love Sterling.
Guest:I have my shoes on, my jacket on.
Guest:All I do is give her the tie, and I run in to get to where the waves are breaking high tide.
Guest:and i have now losing it and and i look up where the cameras are and the lights and they're like little peas up there and and i want to go down and my voice in my first time i ever heard it says to me elliot you can't go down there's no one here to bring you back up and i had to pull myself out and then get back and bob came to see me you know because then i had to take a hot shower to do it again
Guest:And we did it again.
Guest:It was so scary.
Guest:I mean, I almost died.
Guest:I mean, if I had gone down, there was no one there.
Guest:I may have drowned.
Guest:But Bob Altman?
Guest:It was like my father.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, so great.
Guest:Soderbergh says to me on Ocean's Eleven, where we've got the whole gang together now and Clooney's going to tell everybody what we're doing there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And now it's about 1.20 in the morning and we're at a house that was owned by Jerry Weintraub, who was the producer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm tired, and I don't like being tired because then I can be a little vulnerable.
Guest:And this is vulnerable.
Guest:And so at 1.20, I've got my little scene that I'm looking forward to with Matt Damon, and everybody's there, and it's about 1.20 at night.
Guest:And Soderbergh walks up to me and he says, the ink on the face.
Guest:Just out of nowhere, the ink on the face.
Guest:Was that an improv?
Guest:And I'm thinking, what the fuck?
Guest:Huh?
Guest:I mean, I'm about to do this scene for us.
Guest:And I think, oh, oh, okay.
Guest:I had it.
Guest:And we say the same, the long goodbye.
Guest:I said, yeah, the scene where I'm in jail and the police, the fascist police are roughing me up and I've got my fingerprint stuff on and I put it under my eyes.
Guest:And the cop says to me, this isn't scripted.
Guest:He says, what are you doing?
Guest:You know, I said, I got a big game.
Guest:I got a big game.
Guest:And then I went even further and did Al Jolson.
Guest:I said, yes, it was.
Guest:Was that behavior okay to you?
Guest:He said, yeah, he said, but it was so unexpected.
Guest:I said that reflected Altman's trust in me because, I mean, we hadn't rehearsed that.
Guest:I was just, I'm going with it like now.
Guest:I said, but so if I had stopped with that stuff on my face, it would have cost us about 20 or so minutes in production time.
Guest:And that's what movies is about.
Guest:time management and money yeah so that you know i really really oh robert altman and we went on to do more and and there was more that we had planned including uh the sequel to the long goodbye so um one other thing because we obviously we could talk for hours and i know you have a new tv show and you've worked and you've done millions of friends of yours who's friends of yours
Marc:John Mulaney, I know.
Marc:I love John Mulaney.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:I have to make contact with him.
Marc:Noah Baumbach was in here.
Marc:Oh, my goodness.
Guest:His first picture.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Does he like me?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:That's honest.
Guest:Great.
Guest:He should, I think.
Guest:How could he not?
Marc:You know, I don't know Soderbergh, but he loves you.
Guest:Oh, he's great.
Marc:So this new show you're on, you enjoy doing television?
Marc:Are you okay?
Guest:I enjoy working.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It's even more humbling.
Guest:I mean, you know, it's a process in a certain period of time.
Guest:The show was conceived and written and executive produced and starring Mark Feuerstein and his wife, Jennifer.
Guest:Dana Klein, she's a genius.
Guest:And we now, on Wednesday, in a couple of days, we start our fourth segment.
Guest:And after every take, because we do it in front of a live audience for the last, when we've got her all done, they rewrite.
Guest:And so, whoa, I mean, talk about humbling.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:And Linda Lavin is...
Guest:Great.
Guest:So funny, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's a Walton, David Walton.
Guest:He's terrific.
Guest:He plays my younger son.
Guest:And Liza LaPera, she's in it and plays David Walton's wife.
Guest:And there's a fellow named Matt Murray who plays a very good part.
Guest:He's very, very talented.
Guest:And so, I mean, the work is amazing.
Guest:And I'm so grateful.
Guest:I'm all in.
Guest:I thought, okay, I mean, I do this.
Guest:It's about the family.
Guest:You tell me what's funny.
Guest:I don't sell anything.
Guest:I couldn't, you know.
Guest:I mean, like sometimes somebody may stop me on the street and say, are you serious?
Guest:And I can now say I don't have to be so serious any longer.
Guest:I know I'm honest, and it's taken me forever to get here.
Marc:yeah and it's it's an interesting journey i mean when i saw you do the you know the oceans movies were were must have been a great thing for you it was great to work all with all those guys and just to have that kind of that camaraderie don't you like the big cast of the fellas
Guest:Oh, it's great.
Guest:Clooney's a great guy.
Guest:I love Brad Pitt.
Guest:Everybody.
Guest:And, of course, we lost Bernie Mac.
Guest:That was bad.
Guest:I'm in Ocean's 8 with the girls.
Guest:Do you know of that?
Guest:You don't.
Guest:Sandra Bullock.
Guest:Oh, it's Stephen is producing it.
Guest:And Gary...
Guest:Ross is directing it, and it's Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Rihanna.
Guest:Wow, geez, that's exciting.
Guest:Helen Bonham Carter.
Guest:I play the same guy.
Guest:I'm Ruben Tishkov.
Marc:You're the guy.
Marc:Well, I love talking to you.
Marc:I think we've got a lot.
Guest:Well, that's good, thanks.
Guest:Do you feel all right about it?
Guest:If you feel all right about it.
Guest:I feel great about it.
Guest:Do you edit it now?
Guest:Do you edit it or just play it as it is?
Guest:That's what my producer does.
Marc:I remember we talked about that some... Was there a big sort of arc that we... I remember there was some undercurrent that we talked about where you had said something that offended somebody and you thought it had repercussions that lasted years.
Guest:During my process of humility, Tony Harvey, who I behaved terribly with, but I said to Tony, I want to do this in preparation as Ingmar does his work.
Guest:We test things.
Guest:And the timing, it's just perfect for us.
Guest:And when I got there, Tony was already with my crew, because they'd done Little Murders with me.
Guest:I'd like you to see Little Murders.
Guest:I said, give me a chance just to come here.
Guest:This is my life.
Guest:You're the director, but you're directing before I show up.
Guest:And I've got to be able to see where I am, because I've always had a problem with authority.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:And so I screamed at him.
Guest:I behaved badly.
Guest:And he walked off.
Guest:And then that night, I didn't know anyone.
Guest:I knew two producers, David Merrick, the great David Merrick, who produced me in the chorus and then produced I Can Get a Few Wholesale, where Barbara and I met.
Guest:And...
Guest:And David Beigelman, the agent who I had loved, who wound up killing himself, there was then Ray Stark.
Guest:So I said, ask him to come because I need somebody to tell me what to do.
Guest:Now I've caught everybody with their hands in the cookie job and they don't understand me.
Guest:They don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
Guest:And this is my life.
Guest:understood now I could teach a course perhaps in stardom I could find some institution that would make a new course so I could talk with people in relation to who anybody is in relation to what it is that we are so Ray came down sitting behind my desk and I've got people there and I just wanted to exhibit all this stuff that I've the way I am and Ray said to me what do you want me to do jump out the window
Guest:I was on the first and foundation floor of this building that I wound up not buying, but it's where I lived.
Guest:Peter, his sole son, had jumped or fallen, but jumped out of the 20th story.
Guest:And Ray say to me, what do you want me to do?
Guest:Jump out the window.
Guest:And I said, no, we lost Peter that way.
Guest:And I don't want to lose you too.
Guest:And that was the end of my career.
Guest:I knew I'd gone too far.
Guest:All I needed was to just hear, to listen selectively for Ray to come down there, for him to say to me, what do you want me to do?
Guest:And then cut.
Guest:Okay, Ray.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Tell me what to do.
Guest:tell me i'll do it i mean i'm more than just a professional and uh what do you want me to do jump out the window and i i mean i said no we lost peter that way and i don't want to lose you too sam cohen who was a big time agent meryl streep's agent big big big time agent was there he was going to be my connection uh with uh in new york after about eight seconds now we come back to appena costello and totally slowly i turn
Guest:He says, you can't talk to Ray like that, which then got Ray up on his feet, came around my desk.
Guest:And I'm thinking, I'm going to have to let this cock sucking motherfucker throw a punch at me because he doesn't understand where I'm coming from.
Guest:And what I said, I'm saying that life is more important than anything, than any fucking movie.
Guest:Life at, you know, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the whole concept of what it is we think we're doing here.
Guest:And he walks around.
Guest:I back up as far as I can.
Guest:to my the armoire uh where my music components and at that point i was very agile so he throws a punch it's the only time anyone ever i hope we're not uh inviting people to come and throw a punch at me right it's okay and and and i sort of was very agile and he sort of missed and was down then down on the floor and i like huh you were down on the floor no he wasn't yeah
Guest:He wasn't.
Guest:I mean, I could step aside.
Guest:And then I stepped over him, and I thought, oh, oh, oh, no one has ever tried to really hit me.
Guest:And so I had people take him home.
Guest:We became friends afterwards.
Guest:But I went too far.
Guest:And you see what I'm saying.
Guest:He had lost his only son.
Guest:What do you want me to do, jump out the window?
Guest:No, Ray.
Guest:No, but not to make anything personal.
Marc:His son had jumped out the window?
Yeah.
Guest:Not my window.
Guest:But that's what Ray was saying, what do you want me to do, jump out the window?
Marc:And Ray's position in show business at that time was?
Guest:He produced the way we were.
Guest:He was Barbara's producer.
Guest:Ray Stark was Fanny Bryce's son-in-law.
Guest:We became friendly.
Marc:But do you think that that exchange, that moment, fucked you?
Guest:That was it.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:Because then also I couldn't compromise.
Guest:I had to find out for myself.
Guest:What am I going to be afraid?
Guest:Here's big.
Guest:And I say it to the universe out there.
Guest:Anybody who thinks they want to be here and be a star or be somebody is that in relation to what we are, don't allow your identity.
Guest:or your success inhibit your growth or understand what it is because it's so acutely political and it's all about money and position and identity.
Guest:So that was, that didn't work for about a year.
Guest:And I was told that they had psychiatrists look at briefs without my being examined and said I was crazy.
Guest:And
Guest:And for me to get back to work on The Long Goodbye, I had to meet a psychiatrist, Judd Marmer he was.
Guest:And he said, you know that you exhibited poor judgment.
Guest:And I took a moment, too, and I said, yeah, if I had judgment, I wouldn't fucking be here, you know.
Guest:And so it's all right.
Guest:It's all right.
Guest:And I need to continue to practice humility.
Guest:I've thought about writing and I've told you more than everything that I've told anyone about this, but that's the truth.
Guest:You know, that's really the truth.
Guest:And my crew, I mean, we love me.
Guest:I mean, if I had been able to play the game, Cosell was a friend of mine.
Guest:My father couldn't stand Cosell because he bought into Cosell's act.
Guest:And Cosell had me in his room that he was interviewing Ira Burkow from the New York Times.
Guest:And he said, you know, I said, I got to go.
Guest:He said, no, no, no, I want you to be here when I interview him.
Guest:I said, this is his interview.
Guest:He said, this is my room.
Guest:This is my interview.
Guest:I really want to call Ira Burkow because then also Howard wanted to bring me or offered to bring me to meet Ted Williams with him because he was going to see Ted Williams.
Yeah.
Guest:And Ellie, his wife, said that there was only one other person that she had asked for an autograph for the family, which was Mayim Ali.
Guest:And the night before the first Fraser fight, Jim Brown brought us to meet Ellie.
Guest:It was a Sunday night in New York.
Guest:After 10, he had different rooms and different suites.
Guest:This was the Americana Hotel.
Guest:No one there.
Guest:Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, me, Jenny, and a guy named Vic.
Guest:And Jim whispered something into Muhammad's ear.
Guest:And Muhammad looked at me and he said, you do what you do as well as I do what I do.
Guest:which was my second best review ever, and I think I may have told you my first best review.
Guest:Which was?
Guest:Groucho Marx, after I changed a light bulb over his bed, he said, that's the best acting I've ever seen you do.
Guest:All right, man.
Guest:So you know I'm not acting.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Well, thanks.
Guest:This was great.
Guest:It was great to see you.
Guest:See you again.
Marc:All right, that was the amazing Elliot Gould.
Marc:9JKL is on tonight and airs Mondays, 8.30, 7.30 Central.
Marc:Don't forget to pre-order Waiting for the Punch, Words to Live By from the WTF podcast.
Marc:It comes out next week, but go buy your copy now and you can enter to win a Casper mattress or a three-piece luggage set from Away.
Marc:Go to markmarinbook.com to pre-order and enter.
Marc:And on Thursday, we have a special show for you folks.
Marc:There's no audio book of Waiting for the Punch, but we're going to take the entire first section of the book and turn it into a podcast for you.
Marc:So that will be a little unique peek at the book on Thursday.
Marc:Dig that.
Marc:Now I'm going to play some loud guitar.
Marc:Got to put my earplugs in.
Guest:guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives.