Chapter Seven
Some Show Business on the Side
I hate blind dates. The last blind date I had, the girl was ugly. Only once in her life was she whistled at. It was right before the train hit her.
I was doing better as a comedian the second time around. I was older and wiser, yeah, but I was funnier, too. I was really working hard on my jokes, and polishing all that material I’d stored in that duffel bag for twelve years. My timing was better, my jokes were better, and my name was better. Yeah, I was no longer Jack Roy.
One of the biggest changes I’d made in my act was my name.
Early in my comeback, I visited a club I’d worked at years before, hoping I could get booked there because I’d been one of their favorite comics. I hadn’t worked there in quite a while, though, and the club had new owners, but they knew of me from the people who’d been coming in there for years. I talked to them, and they finally booked me.
At that time, if you were working in a club, they’d put your name in Friday’s edition of a newspaper called The Mirror. There were hundreds of nightclubs at the time, and the Friday Mirror had the names of all the acts and where they were working.
I said to the owner, “Do me a favor, will ya? I haven’t worked in a long time, and I don’t know how I’ll do, so put a different name in The Mirror. Any name at all. Just don’t put in Jack Roy, okay?”
He said, “Okay.”
So he makes up a name and runs it in the paper.
Despite my attempt to perform “anonymously,” word got around the neighborhood that I was appearing there, and plenty of people who’d dug me years ago showed up, which led to some confusion. When it was time for me to go on, the emcee said: “Here’s Rodney Dangerfield.”
I walked out on that stage and it felt weird. I saw all the same faces, only now they were twelve years older. And they looked at me, then looked at one another, and said, “Rodney Dangerfield?”
I said, “Hey—if you’re gonna change your name, change it!”
My show went fine, despite my nervousness, and afterward I asked the owner, “Where’d you get that name?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I made it up, just like that.”
All my friends said it was a funny name, so I decided to keep it. My wife told me, “With a name like Rodney Dangerfield, if you don’t hit, you’re an idiot.” She said I should write a bit about my new name.
One day I had nothing to do, so I gave it a try. I wrote it in one afternoon.
This is jumping forward a few years, but a while later I made an album called The Loser. It became popular in England because of the bit about how I got my name. I called it “What’s in a Name.” It went like this:
When I went into show business, I saw an ad in the paper. It said: “Improve Your Personality.” So, I went to see the man.
He told me my personality was okay, but my name was my problem.
I said to him, “My name? How could a name be a problem? Even William Shakespeare said, ‘What’s in a name?’”
He said, “Who?”
I said, “William Shakespeare.”
He said, “Look, do you want to listen to me or do you want to listen to your friends?”
I said to him, “I don’t understand. Is it good to change your name?”
He said, “Of course. I always keep changing my name. In fact, now I can give you a very good deal. I have a new name coming in next week, and I need the space. I can give you a new name for five hundred dollars.”
I said, “Five hundred dollars? That’s a lot of money.”
He said, “It’s a great name. It’s a name once people hear it, they’ll start saying it.”
I said, “What’s the name?”
He said, “Rodney Dangerfield.”
I said, “Rodney Dangerfield?”
He said, “See, you just heard it, and you’re starting to say it! Listen to me, take the name.”
I said, “Wait a minute. Suppose I use the name and I don’t like it. Can I bring it back?”
He said, “Of course. All I ask is one thing. While you’re using the name, don’t give it a bad name!”
So I decided to call myself Rodney Dangerfield. As soon as I got home, I thought to myself I made a mistake. I called the guy up. I said, “Look, I want my money back. This is Rodney Dangerfield.”
He said, “Who?”
I said, “Dangerfield! Don’t you remember?”
He said, “Oh, yeah, Shakespeare’s friend.”
I said, “Look, I don’t want the name.”
He said, “Don’t be foolish. You have to get used to it. Sit in hotel lobbies, have yourself paged. Try it for two weeks, I guarantee you’ll like it.”
So I tried the name for two weeks. I still didn’t like it. I went to bring it back. I couldn’t find the guy.
He had changed his name.
My stock publicity photo when I reentered show business.
Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.
Around this time I bought a new car and I picked a manager for a strange reason. I was still doing a lot of one-nighters in the Catskills, and after my show I liked to get drunk. It was about a ninety-minute drive back down to New York, and I was usually in no condition to drive myself home, so I started looking for a manager who was a good driver.
In 1963, after a couple of tough years into my comeback, I got a big break, a chance to audition for The Ed Sullivan Show, the biggest variety show on television back then. I went on in the afternoon, after the dress rehearsal. I followed Dame Judith Anderson doing a death scene from Macbeth.
I can still remember some of the jokes I did that night:
I live in a tough neighborhood. When I plan my budget, I allow for holdup money.
I tell ya, in my building, nothing but robberies. Every time I close a window, I hit somebody’s hands.
The Ed Sullivan Show audition was a tough test, but I was rehearsed and ready, and everyone said that I had done well. Now I had to go home and sit by the phone, waiting to see if Sullivan would book me on his show.
Three weeks went by and I heard nothing. Then I got the call. He booked me on the show for March 5, 1966, for $1,000. I was broke—and the happiest guy in the world.
When that big night came, I remember sitting in my dressing room, waiting for the show to start. I looked out the window. It was raining, but the streets of midtown Manhattan were crowded and I thought to myself, Look at all those people who are gonna miss seeing me tonight on The Ed Sullivan Show.
My bit went great, and they booked me for a second show at $1,500. That second performance also went well. I was finally getting somewhere.
Time and tide and hookers wait for no man.
One night when I was doing The Ed Sullivan Show I lost my place. What happened was I didn’t sleep the night before. I was okay at the dress rehearsal in the afternoon. Then at night, just before the show started, I was exhausted. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I walked out and did three or four jokes, and all of a sudden I thought, What’s next?
I just kept saying, “I don’t know. What can I tell ya? What can I tell ya?”
I looked at Sullivan. His face looked like he knew something was wrong. I figured he knew I lost my place. I felt terrible.
I was going through torture trying to think of the next joke. Now, in my head I am groping to find any joke, any joke at all, and finally I thought of a joke. I told it. Then I realized I jumped about three jokes ahead. I just lost those and went with the rest of it.
I took my bow and went over to Sullivan. He said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Rodney Dangerfield.” Then he turned to me and said, “If there’s any more like you at home, bring them over here.” I was surprised. Then I went backstage and everyone told me how good I did. No one even realized that I lost my place. But me, I’m too strict with myself. I’m still not over it.
I tell you, I can’t take it no more. My dog found out we look alike. He killed himself.
My career was heating up, but I was still selling siding, a strange combination that led to some funny experiences. At that time I was talking to a big agent, Dee Anthony, trying to get him to represent me. Dee was going to visit the great singer Tony Bennett at the Copacabana. He asked me to join him.
After the show, we all hung out backstage, had a few drinks, and had a great time.
I told Tony I had an aluminum-siding business in Englewood, New Jersey, and Tony said, “Hey, that’s only about ten blocks from my house. Give me a call sometime. We’ll get together, bullshit a little.”
I called him the next day, and he said, “Come on over.”
So I go to his house, and we’re talking about this and that for about an hour when I remembered that I had a siding job I had to check on. I said, “You wanna take a ride with me?” He said okay.
When we got to the job, I said to one of the siding mechanics, “You know who I got in my car? Tony Bennett!”
He goes over to the car and starts talking to Tony.
The other workers see this, and they want to talk to Tony Bennett, too. Next thing I knew, the woman who owned the house came out with a camera. Then the neighbors wanted autographs. It became a circus.
I got in the car and said, “A lot of fun, hey, Tony? We’ll do it again sometime.”
Since then he don’t return my calls.
Another time, I sold a siding job to a couple on a Saturday. That Sunday night, I did the Sullivan show.
The following Monday morning, the woman asked one of the guys on the installation crew, “Is Mr. Roy in show business? I think I saw him on The Ed Sullivan Show last night. But they called him Rodney Dangerfield.”
The guy said, “Yeah, that was him. He does some show business on the side.”
Not long after those two appearances on Sullivan, I was working at the Copacabana Club in New York when Ed Sullivan came in with a small group of friends. The Copa show went well, and as I walked off after my act, Sullivan jumped in front of me with a big smile and shook my hand.
“You must do our show!” he said.
“Mr. Sullivan,” I said, “I’m already doing your show.”
After that, I got four more shots on Sullivan. I still had plenty of problems, but I knew I was going to make it in show business.
I told my dentist my teeth were all getting yellow. He told me to wear a brown necktie.
My appearances on the Sullivan show led me to come up with another key part of my new act—my wardrobe, if you’d call it that. For the past forty years, I’ve always worn a red tie, white shirt, and black suit onstage. That happened mainly because I have no taste in clothes, so I’m not real confident when it comes to matching ties and shirts and shoes and all that other stuff you have to worry about if you want to dress nice.
When I did my first Sullivan show, I thought, What should I wear? It was my first time on television, and I wanted to look good, so I picked something safe: red tie, white shirt, and black suit.
Things are tough. Now I’m taking in laundry.
Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.
Worked just fine. Nobody complained about my clothes. Nobody complimented them, either, but…
Two months later, I’m on the show again. What should I wear this time? I don’t know. So I said, “I’ll wear the same thing. Who cares?”
My third shot? Same thing.
Any other television show? Always the same thing.
Black suit, white shirt, red tie. By now it was like a uniform.
One of my outfits is now in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington—right next to Lindbergh’s plane. I hope they’re not using my shirt to clean Lindbergh’s plane.
With me, nothing goes right. My psychiatrist said my wife and I should have sex every night. Now we’ll never see each other!
Thanks to my “What’s in a Name” bit, I got booked on the biggest TV show in England, The Eamon Andrews Show. That was on a Sunday. Then I had to fly back to the States to do The Ed Sullivan Show the following Sunday. I thought, Boy, I guess I’m in show business—Sunday the best television show in England, and next Sunday I’m doing the biggest television show in the U.S.
After a few shots on Sullivan, it was easier for me to get booked in clubs, and I was now earning $4,000 a week on the road. The television talk shows would now put me on, too—Merv Griffin, Joey Bishop, Mike Douglas—which made it much easier for me to get booked in bigger clubs, where I made better money. Then my agent made a deal with The Dean Martin Show for me to appear on twenty-eight shows. I signed on to do some short skits—just me and Dean—and I would write all the material.
Dean only came in once a week to tape his show—no rehearsal. (The set for our bits was always the same—me, Dean, a table, and two chairs.) For our first show together, it took Dean and me just three or four minutes to film our routine and we were done. “Okay, great, see ya next week, right?” Wrong. That was the last time I saw Dean. For the next seven Sundays, I flew from New York to California, went into an empty studio, sat down at that table by myself, and did four skits while talking to an empty chair. Later, the crew filled in shots of the audience laughing, and they filled in Dean Martin, too.
After the taping, it was back to the airport and back to New York. Many times I thought, Is this show business? Doing jokes to nobody, piped-in laughter, no audience?
I used to have to fly quite a bit back then because I was doing shows all over the country. I used to tape-record my act so that I could polish my jokes. When I’d make changes in my act, I’d play the tape back so I could hear how they went over. I’d be sitting on the plane with the earplug stuck in my ear, listening to my act. Nine times out of ten, I’d fall asleep this way.
Dean was such a big star that he didn’t even have to show up for his own show. Most of my bits “with” him were done in an empty studio. And he was edited in later.
Courtesy of Dangerfield’s, New York
While I was dozing, I’d hear one of my jokes, and think, Hey, wait a minute, that’s my joke! Then I’d hear this guy tell another two or three of my jokes, and I’d think, What the hell? Who is this guy? He took my whole act!
I’d be so upset that I’d wake up.
Then I’d realize that I was listening to myself.
My old man was dumb. He picked a guy’s pocket on an airplane and made a run for it.
You meet all kinds of people when you’re traveling. Once there was a guy sitting next to me on an airplane bothering me with all kinds of questions. Then he said, “It must be rough for you with all the people who bother you.”
I said, “Nah, it’s all right.” Even though he was the one who was bothering me.
And he kept doing it, so I finally decided to smoke a cigarette, which was allowed on planes in those days. I took out a cigarette and started smoking it so that I wouldn’t have to answer any more of this guy’s questions. Just to make sure, I leaned back against my pillow and closed my eyes. The guy looks over at me and he doesn’t know what to say—it was the first time he’d ever seen a man smoking while he’s sleeping.
With my wife I get no respect. I fell asleep with a cigarette in my hand. She lit it.
On one of my flights, I happened to sit behind Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s wife, Muriel. We were sitting there for a while when she pushed her seat back a few inches. She thought maybe she hit my leg, she didn’t know, and she quickly turned around to ask if I was okay.
I said, “Hey, baby, don’t worry about it. No problem.”
The guy next to me said, “You called her ‘baby’?”
Oops. I felt guilty. I turned first class into low class.
My dog, that’s another one. All day, he keeps barking at the front door. He don’t want to go out. He wants me to leave.
Things were really falling into place for me now, but there was one door I couldn’t pry open. The biggest show for a comic, the one that could make your career, wouldn’t book me. Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show wouldn’t use me because my manager—the good driver—had offended Johnny. Without telling me, he sent Johnny an offensive letter that accused him of using one of my jokes on his show. The next night Johnny read the letter on the air, made fun of it…and my manager.
I felt sorry for my manager, so I sent Johnny another offensive letter. So you can understand why he didn’t want me on his show.
About two years later, some people from The Tonight Show came to see me at a club in Greenwich Village. (I remember that the job only paid $50 a week, so I told the owner to keep the money, and I drank for free that week.) The booker from The Tonight Show loved my act. He came backstage and told me he wanted to book me on the show, but I told him about the nasty letters and said that Johnny might still be angry at me. This guy said, “Nah. That was years ago—he’s forgotten about that.” So I get booked on The Tonight Show.
The night before I was supposed to appear, I got a phone call at my office in New Jersey from the man who booked me. He said, “You’re right. Carson is still angry. You’re not on the show.”
But I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I understood.
The next time I crossed paths with Johnny Carson, it was a couple of years later, under unusual circumstances. I had worked the Copacabana for a week and had closed the night before. My aluminum-siding pal Tony Bennett was the new headliner, and I’d come down to catch his show, which was sold out. When I got there, the place was a madhouse—there was a crowd outside, people pushing and shoving, trying to get in.
As I’m walking up to the club, I see my old friend Stan Irwin, who’s now a producer for The Tonight Show, sitting in a car with Johnny Carson. They’d come down hoping to see Tony Bennett but were about to go home because they couldn’t get in. I said, “Come on, follow me.”
I took them in the back way, through the kitchen, then led them to the main room, where the maître d’ took care of them. During the entire walk, I said only five words to Carson: “I’m sorry, I was wrong.” And I meant it.
I went on to do seventy appearances with Johnny. Carson did a great straight for me, and he has a great wit. To give you an idea, one time on his show, I did this joke: “Johnny, the most important thing in life is to have friends, good friends.” I pointed to his announcer-sidekick, Ed McMahon. “Like you and Ed are good friends. How long have you been friends?”
Johnny Carson was a class act. I guess he put me on the show for contrast.
Courtesy of Dangerfield’s, New York
Carson said, “About twenty-four years.”
And I said, “No children, huh?”
That got a laugh.
Then Carson came back with, “It’s not that we haven’t tried.”
That got a huge laugh.
I remember before we were married, I told my wife, “Honey, I love you. Will you marry me?” She said, “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t ask me to do that.”