I Remember Me
“This dear man wanted to be an Irish Tenor?
What would have happened to television?
My God!…What would have become of me???”
Dick Van Dyke
“I’ve always thought that Carl was everything I would want to be, except 90!..but he makes 90 look pretty good.”
George Clooney
“Funny, touching, and true stories from a living legend and one of my heroes, Carl Reiner. I know you shouldn’t eat in the bathroom (or wherever Goyim read), but you will DEVOUR this book.”
Sarah Silverman
“A treasure-chest of memories from a treasure of a man. This book is so wonderfully filled with life, love, warmth, funny, wisdom, insight, and beauty, it’s like having Carl Reiner himself in your hands to enjoy. Except this you can keep next to your bedside, and it folds in half better.”
Paul Reiser
“I’ve loved Carl Reiner as a writer, a director, a talk show guest and a human being. Now I love him as an author.”
Bill Maher
“Crime and Punishment has always been my favorite book… Until Now!”
Mel Brooks
“Carl Reiner is at that wonderful point in life where he knows absolutely everything. Especially, how to tell a wonderful story. I just love being in his world and this book is the Grand Tour.”
Jerry Seinfeld
“Great stories from the great Carl Reiner. I liked Chapter 29 the best.”
Albert Brooks
“At a time when so much of comedy can be cruel and mean spirited… Carl Reiner is a perfect example of comedy and kindness mixed with just the right amount of biting wit to make for a really satisfying read.”
Jay Leno
“There is no man funnier, more interesting, insightful or delightful than Carl Reiner. He is one of my comedy idols, even though he neglected to mention me on page 264.”
Jimmy Kimmel
I
Remember
Me
I
Remember
Me
Carl Reiner
AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: 1-800-839-8640
© 2013 Carl Reiner. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
Published by AuthorHouse 1/10/13
ISBN: 978-1-4772-6458-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4772-6456-0 (dj)
ISBN: 978-1-4772-6455-3 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012916372
Front cover photo by Oliver DeFilippo
Back cover photo by Michele Reiner
Cover design by Alana Papoy
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Inviting people to laugh at you while you are
laughing at yourself is a good thing to do.
You may be the fool but you are the FOOL IN CHARGE.
CARL REINER—“MY ANECDOTAL LIFE”
Contents
Chapter 01 Today, I Am Almost a Man
Chapter 02 Because of Me, the Prayers of Ten Jews Fell on Deaf Ears
Chapter 03 The Thirty-Five-Year-Old Silver Filling
Chapter 04 The Louder of the Two “Tsk Tsks”
Chapter 05 Irving Shoots Irving Playing Irving
Chapter 06 Meet Mel Brooks, the Man in the Bay Window
Chapter 07 The Truth about the 2000-Year-Old Man
Chapter 08 St. Joan of Arc Is Censored by Sir Mel of Brooks
Chapter 09 Mel Brooks Ate So Many Carrots That…
Chapter 10. Why Did I Let You Guys Talk Me into This?
Chapter 11 Nose to Nose, Eye to Eye, and I to Mel
Chapter 12 “It’s Not the Size that Counts…”
Chapter 13 Estelle Reiner, One Ahead of Humphrey Bogart
Chapter 14 Christmas in Kealakekua, Hawaii
Chapter 15 Our Day in St. Tropez
Chapter 16 The Search for the World’s Funniest Number
Chapter 17 Enter Laughing, Exit Screaming!
Chapter 18 Enter Laughing, Exit Screaming!
Chapter 19 Do You Know Any Commies?
Chapter 20 Subdue the Rattling
Chapter 21 R.T.T. Deeply Loved I.S.
Chapter 22 Estelle, B.C. and A.C.
Chapter 23 The Game Show Shows
Chapter 24 Gotta Go for a Walk
Chapter 25 Father Walsh: Jesuit Private Reiner: Non-Jesuit
Chapter 26 The Deaths of Jackie Cooper and His Priceless Pet
Chapter 27 Barry Lebost Chats with My Badly Toupeed Albert Einstein
Chapter 28 Major Maurice Evans Cannot Play a Butler!
Chapter 29 Albert Brooks Channeled Harry Houdini
Chapter 30 D. D. Eisenhower, M. Twain, H. Holbrook, and Me
Chapter 31 Guilt by Association with Myself
Chapter 32 Georgetown Revisited or Mining Death for Laughs
Chapter 33 My Brush with Five Comedy Icons
Chapter 34 Jolson Hugs Jessel as Jessel Mugs Jolson
Chapter 35 Four Fond Memories of My Funny, Foul-Mouthed Friend, David Burns
Chapter 36 The Pony and the Pool Table
Chapter 37 Speaking Phony Phrench phor Charlie Chaplin’s Son
Chapter 38 Tony Webster Pays His Debt with “God Almighty”
Chapter 39 O.Z. Whitehead Discovers Sex!
Chapter 40 Count Dracula Encounters Lieutenant Kirchner
Chapter 41 My Minor Involvement with Major Stars
Chapter 42 Me and Gregory Peck
Chapter 43 Lucas and The Greatest Story Ever Told
Chapter 44 My Son, the Little League’s Big Leaguer
Chapter 45 Yenemvelt
Chapter 46 Rickles, Kovacs, and Sinatra
Chapter 47 Can a Jewish Kid Be an Irish Tenor?
Chapter 48 Joseph Owens, Guilty until Proven Guilty
Chapter 49 My Personal Road from Here to There
Chapter 50 Three Fond Memories of Julie Andrews that I Most Happily Recalled after Rummaging through a Large Cardboard Carton of Publicity Photographs and Finding a 1974 Color Picture Postcard Promoting a Show Done in Great Britain and Starring Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, and Myself as the Ghost of Covent Gardens Which Was Performed in Both a Film Studio and Also at the Famous London Produce Market
Chapter 51 I Am Cleveland
Chapter 52 Homer’s Major Contribution to Scientology
Chapter 53 Piling It On, Ad Infinitum
Chapter 54 The End
Chapter 55 There Is No End for the Living
Foreword
The first time I saw Carl Reiner was when I was six years old. He made me laugh. Our family loved Sid Caesar’s show, and my dad, who was a comedy maven, let my brothers and me stay up late on school nights to watch the master. Carl, along with Sid and Howard Morris, were doing a takeoff of those newfangled rock-and-roll singing teams. This group was called The Three Haircuts, and all they did was pose and adjust their cufflinks and sing a silly
song. Carl stole the scene just by jumping up and down with a crazy smile on his face. Over and over he would jump, and every time he did, we would laugh and laugh.
As I grew up and started to study comedy—by not only watching television but listening to live comedy albums—I understood that as hilarious as Mel Brooks was as the Two Thousand-Year-Old Man, it was Carl who was feeding him, knowing when to jump in, and knowing when to let Mel go.
Later, as the creator of the great Dick Van Dyke Show, and also making an occasional appearance as Alan Brady, once again it was Carl’s genius and energy that I was attracted to. Yes, Dick and Mary Tyler Moore were tremendous, as well as Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie, but it was Carl who gave them all heartbeats.
When I became a working comedian, I appeared on All in the Family, playing Rob’s best friend. The part suited us well, so Rob and I decided to keep it going. We had just moved from New York to L.A., and Rob really took us under his wing. We were invited to Rob’s thirtieth birthday celebration, which was to be a small dinner party at Carl’s house in Beverly Hills. I would get to meet him. I was so nervous, I called Penny Marshall, Rob’s wife at the time, and asked her what I should wear. She just laughed and said, “Whatever you want. They’re not like that.”
We arrived at his lovely home and Carl wasn’t there yet. “He’s picking up the Chinese food,” Estelle Reiner, Carl’s lovely wife, told us all. The door opened, and there he was, carrying a carton filled with those little white take-out boxes. Once he put those down, he introduced himself, and I couldn’t believe my good fortune at getting a chance to meet a real giant. A giant who gets his own Chinese food. I was thirty when I met him. He made me laugh.
He then announced he was giving Rob his birthday present. He went outside for a moment, and then on a leash, he brought a goat into the kitchen. The frightened, adorable goat started slipping and sliding all over the tiled floor. The more frightened the goat became, the more pellets flew out of his rear. It was like a hairy slot machine that hit a jackpot. Carl was laughing very hard, as were we all. My usual birthday gifts were handkerchiefs and a crisp five-dollar bill. It was a great, fun night, and Carl spent a lot of time talking to me about what he’d seen me do on television, and he was so supportive, charming, and funny. He didn’t have an ounce of pretense, and indeed he felt like the uncle you always wanted to have. I’ve known him for thirty-five years now, and he’s never changed.
The last few years, we’ve had many lunches together, along with a who’s who of comedy: Larry Gelbart, Neil Simon, and Norman Lear. The stories were fantastic, and it was Carl who would not only prompt everyone to tell a story that we hadn’t heard, but also he never stopped laughing with his beloved friends, filling in missing details if they were forgotten. Sometimes comedians are not generous with their laughter. They tend to sit and listen and nod, like the wise men in schul. Not Carl. He loves to make people laugh, of course, but I think more than that, he loves to laugh. When he called to ask me to write this foreword, I was so flattered. From those grainy, black-and-white images of the jumping man to becoming his friend has been a great joy and honestly, an honor.
This book is a great journey as well. It is the not just the story of a show business life; it is the story of a family. From Carl’s parents to becoming a parent himself, Carl takes us into moments of his memory as if we were standing there when they happened. The path that funny people take is often a slippery one, and Carl’s story is no different. He paints with beautiful colors and details all the fascinating family and friends that Carl touched and has been touched by. We also get an intimate portrait of his relationship with his beloved Estelle, from the first time they met until the moment she passes away. I knew them for a long time and spent many a wonderful evening with them both. Well into her eighties, Estelle was still singing in nightclubs, and Carl was her roadie. Making sure her microphone was right, her ukulele tuned, that we were all seated comfortably, doting on her every need, he never sat down. Once she started to sing, I found myself watching Carl watching Estelle, smiling that proud, loving smile that was on his face for over sixty-five years.
Carl Reiner is not just a funny man who has made us laugh in one form or another for a very long time. He has been comedy’s North Star. A constant. I’ve always looked at his career as one of the best ever and one of the most important. He is one of the great sketch comedians of all time; a fantastic master of ceremonies; a great comedy writer; and as a director, he has given us some of the best comedy films of all time. He is an author, of course, a playwright, and author of wonderful children’s books. He has done this for seventy years, never taking his foot off the gas pedal. He knows who he is. He didn’t have to be the star. Always willing to be second if it helped the team finish first, Carl has never had an air about him. He is what he is: a nice genius.
Years ago, I was a guest on the game show, The Ten Thousand-Dollar Pyramid, and I have to tell you I am the world record holder. Google it, you’ll see. In the preliminary round, I was giving the clues to my partner. Names of celebrities appeared on the screen that only I could see, and I had to describe this person in a creative way so my partner could guess who it was. In one minute, you had to guess ten names, and the pace was furious. Sammy Davis Jr. appeared, and I gave this clue: “World’s greatest entertainer,” and my partner immediately said, “Carl Reiner.”
The audience laughed, because they could see the clue, and after I said in haste as the clock ticked away, “One eye, black Jew,” she got it. After I thought about it, she’s not that far off. I don’t know many people who are more entertaining than Carl Reiner. He is a brilliant man, still curious, still interested, and at ninety, probably still can jump up and down like a crazy man. I was sixty-four when I read this book. He made me laugh … and cry.
I Remember Me is the perfect Carl Reiner title. I mean, who could ever forget him?
—Billy Crystal
Preface
I Remember Me offers fifty-five chapters of varying lengths, containing remembrances of things past. It is my theory that these memories are stored in a part of one’s brain that does not allow your mind to access them until you are at least ninety years old. Three months ago, I became eligible, and the following is what my mind had stored in my brain.
Acknowledgment
My heartfelt thanks to: first my family, Rob, Annie, Lucas, my grandchildren Jake, Nick, Romy, Livia, Rose and my daughters-in-law Michele and Maud.
And Lawrence O’Flahavan, Alfredo Ritta, Bess Scher,
John Clark, George Shapiro, Aaron Davis and Al Pivo.
And our publisher Alan Bower who guided us gently into the light.
CHAPTER ONE
Today, I Am Almost a Man
On January 25 of this year, 2011, I received a letter from a Jill Fiorella, who informed me that she was the granddaughter of Yetta and Max Fishman, who, eighty-five years ago, resided in the Bronx, at 665 East 179th Street on the same floor as my parents, Irving and Bessie Reiner. I remembered the Fishmans! They resided in the apartment across the hall and had a son, Murray, who was my very first playmate.
I learned from Ms. Fiorella’s letter that Murray had passed on a few years earlier, and she thought I might like to have an item she had found among Murray’s papers.
“In sorting through some of Murray’s papers,” Ms. Fiorella wrote, “I came across his bar mitzvah speech—it was written so eloquently in such a beautiful handwriting. I knew at once that Murray could not have written it and asked my Mom if she knew who had and she said that it was written by their neighbor, your father, Irving Reiner. I am enclosing a copy of the speech, hoping that it will bring back some fond memories of your childhood. Sincerely, Jill Fiorella.”
Ms. Fiorella could not have imagined the memories that flooded back, and they were more than just fond ones—they were revelatory. As soon as I glanced at the enclosure, I knew exactly what it was, and I was amazed and delighte
d to have it. In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined that this document existed. Ms. Fiorella correctly assumed that it was the speech my father had written for her father to read at his bar mitzvah, which I learned from a sloppily scribbled date on the back, was held on June 26, 1937. What Jill Fiorella could not know is that the speech her brother made on his thirteenth birthday was, word for word, the very same speech I had delivered at my bar mitzvah one year earlier.
The first two words of this speech, “Worthy assembly,” had been emblazoned in my memory. At the time, I remembered thinking how really classy those words were. I had never before heard anyone address a group by saying, “Worthy assembly,” and haven’t since. The rest of the speech was as flowery as its penmanship.
Ms. Fiorella described my father’s handwriting as being “so beautiful,” and I concur. Among other things, Pop was a master engraver, and the Old English lettering he used was replete with curlicues and fancy swirls.
As far as I knew, my father had never been a member of a synagogue or ever set foot in one. He was a believer in the Almighty but not a joiner.
A week before my big day, my father visited the Hughes Avenue Synagogue, an unprepossessing house of worship that was located in one of the Bronx’s less-affluent neighborhoods. For a nominal fee, the elders agreed to allow my father, a non-member, to rent their schul for a Thursday morning bar mitzvah.
That morning, at eight a.m., gathered at the synagogue were my father, my mother, my older brother Charlie, and ten old, Jewish strangers. These mostly bearded men in long prayer shawls were approximately the same wizened group who, four years earlier, had witnessed my brother’s coming of age.
Here now, in my father’s handwriting, is the short, flowery speech that both my brother and I—and later Murray Fishman—delivered on the day we became men: