I remember first appearing on Regis’s show in Los Angeles in the seventies. The movie Heaven Can Wait had come out. Regis said there was talk of my getting an Academy Award nomination and asked if I was going to do anything to promote that idea. I said, “Other than the blimp, no.”
The movie received eleven nominations. I wasn’t nominated. Maybe the blimp wasn’t a bad idea. I’ve never really been able to get behind the whole award thing, although I’ve never turned one down. I mean, you could have an elderly man competing against a teenager for Best Actor. Maybe if everyone played the same part I could buy it, but, of course, there are drawbacks to that concept.
Through the years I continued to appear with Regis and a number of different cohosts. Kathie Lee and I had and have a warm relationship, as I do with Kelly. Somewhere along the way, I became friends with Regis and Joy, who by the way is a joy. The degree of interest she has in what I say is deep and sincere, and in that way she reminds me of Peter Falk. She is Regis’s protector in every way you can imagine. “Don’t have that dessert,” and just love—lots of love.
Regis is special. What you see is what you get, which is great. Recently, I asked him as a joke to be part of my senior advisory board, and he asked, “Why does it have to be called senior?”
Regis, Joy, my wife, Elissa, and I have dinner together every couple of months and Regis and I have lunch together around the same number of times. These are memorable occasions for me. I’ve been out in public with household names, but I’ve never seen anything like it is with Regis. It seems as though everyone knows him, and it sure feels like everyone loves him. He stops at a number of tables before he gets to me at a back booth. Everyone greets him, and he greets everyone. There are continuous warm exchanges, and he never hurries to get away.
Then, when he’s seated with me, he’s recognized by more people. He always points to me and says, “You know who this guy is sitting here? Did you see Midnight Run with Robert De Niro? This is Charles Grodin, the guy with De Niro.” Often the people start to fuss over me. The whole thing is a trip. Not only that, Regis is either funny or interesting and mostly both, and if there’s a problem, usually with my talking about social issues, here’s what happens. Recently, I asked him to join me in a benefit for our veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, some of whom need everything from health care to housing. Regis immediately jumped aboard with me to do a benefit. He suggested we add Marty Short, who was remarkable. We raised a lot of money, and it all went to an organization that helps the veterans in every way—Help U.S.A. That’s Regis. He’s a one-of-a-kind package.
Maybe the best thing that Regis did for me was introduce me to Jack Paar. For you younger readers who possibly don’t know, Jack Paar is considered the father of the talk show. I met Jack at a New Year’s Day party Regis and Joy gave several years ago, and we immediately became friends. Regis and Joy, Jack and his wife, Miriam, who was as gracious a woman as I’ve ever met, and Elissa and I would regularly go out to dinner at a restaurant in Greenwich called Valbella. Management there would never let us get a check, but after a while we insisted. Of course, we then went there less frequently. That’s a joke. Sometimes we would have dinner at Jack and Miriam’s house, where I met several people who remain my friends today.
I recently was invited to a golf club to have dinner with some people Jack and Miriam had introduced me to. All the club members know each other. I got there early and went to the bar to have a drink. A woman seated there asked me who I was with. I told her, and she said, mentioning the hostess’s name, “Oh, she wouldn’t want you to be drinking that!” She asked the bartender to bring me something so upscale, even I could tell the difference.
Jack would hold forth at these dinners at his house where so many of us first met, and I loved it. Once there was a brief pause, and someone started to say something. Jack interrupted and said, “I’m forming my next thought.”
At another dinner at Jack’s, I was sitting next to Phyllis Diller, then in her eighties. I whispered into her ear, “I’d like to get you alone in a hotel room.” She said, “I’ve had a hip replacement.” I growled into her ear, “I don’t care!”
About a year after all this, Jack saw a snake in his garage and fired a gun to scare it away. He later told me that snakes don’t have ears, but the shot caused a hearing loss in Jack. He once wrote me a letter saying he felt I was going to ask him to appear on my cable show, which he would do only if Johnny Carson appeared. Of course, I had no intention of imposing on either one of them. Jack had said, “The way to remain a legend is not to appear.” However, he chose to join me and Regis on my five-hundredth show. Regis credits Jack with his concept of host chat, a huge thing to all of Regis’s fans.
Eventually, Jack’s health began to fail. He had major surgery and someone left a sponge in him, which didn’t help matters. Sometimes being a celebrity is a negative, because people get distracted. Not long after that he suffered a stroke, which took away his ability to speak. Jack—of all people.
I would regularly visit him at a rehabilitation center and often take Gene Wilder with me. Jack once said that introducing Gene to him was the best thing I had ever done for him. Gene would kiss him on the cheek and hold his hand while I did my latest riffs.
Jack couldn’t speak, but he could smile, which he often did when Regis and I visited and tried to entertain him. When he passed away, I was given the honor of being the last speaker at the service. Earlier in the day I was on the phone with Ethel Kennedy, who was also a friend of Jack’s. She said, “Jack’s in heaven with Jack and Bobby.” I asked her if I could quote her in my remarks and she said yes.
When my turn came, I told some humorous stories about Jack and then finished by quoting Mrs. Kennedy. Afterward one of the other speakers, an atheist, said he really liked my speech, “Except for that last part.” There’s always a critic.
I miss Jack so much as well as Miriam, who is also gone. I doubt there will ever be anyone like him. Regis and I have never stopped talking about Jack and how much we loved him, and how much he did for us by loving us.