It's So Hard To Type With A Gun In My Mouth (36 page)

HARVEY TURNS FROM THE ROXY AUDIENCE AND FACES THE REAL AUDIENCE.

HARVEY (TO AUDIENCE)

I bombed in front of Barbra Streisand. I told

myself  I didn't bomb...but when you're

scheduled to do fifteen minutes and it

takes you fourteen to get out

"hamma-hamma", you bombed. Big time. Nagasaki...

HE RUNS OVER TO A BOX. KICKS IT OPEN WITH HIS FEET AND PULLS OUT SOME NEWSPAPERS. HE FLIPS THEM OPEN WITH HIS TOES.

HARVEY

The reviews weren't bad though,. Here's one. Dolly

Parton shone last night in her cross over

performance...blah, blah, blah..Ah! Here it is. Opening

act. Eddy Baniels. Huh works. Nobody remembers nothin'.

Six months after my

fiasco at the Roxy, my agent is telling producers, "Is he

good? Manny, he opened for Dolly at the Roxy". From

that night on I never stopped working. I was warmer that

hot... I was working. Vegas...Reno...Tahoe... I

was earning five grand a week. I was becoming

established. I had the career I'd always wanted.

I'm telling you I was happening. It went on that way

for a decade...and then one day my agent called me

into his office to give me the good news about my  TV series.

                            
End scene

When I finally did meet Dolly she gave me a huge hug and captured me in her ample bosom. She couldn't have been nicer to me and said, "Well, I hope we can follow ya-all" She was being kind! Trust me.

AUGUST 28, 2006
- RITA MORENO

There have only been a couple of stars I have worked with repeatedly. Makes you kind of wonder if I'm a pain in the ass on the road, don't it? But I think it's more likely the nature of my business.  When a star is available to work, I'm not and vice versa. However, there was one lady that I worked with repeatedly. I remember her fondly; Miss Rita Moreno.  Rita is one of the only actors in town who has won an Oscar, Toni, Emmy, Grammy and shopper of the month at Macy's.  She is a true triple threat dancer, actor, singer and her long career is a credit to her resiliency and talent.

In the late 70's she had a nightclub act that was getting rave reviews. She was going into Vegas but needed to tour to make sure the material worked in the hinterlands not just in hip LA and NY.  They booked her into the Blue Max in Chicago and since I was one of the approved comics there, I was paired with her and got to spend two weeks at the airport hotel, stranded alone with nothing to do. We got to see a lot of each other and I've got to tell you, there's no one finer.

Let me tell you about the first time we worked together. I was doing the Merv Griffin Show. Merv was out and Mel Tills, the stuttering country singer, was the host. Merv was either out sick or had to stay home and count his money. Mel and I had never worked together before. I knew from country like he knew from chicken soup. There was no chemistry there and we both felt it.

I did my stand-up set and walked to the panel where I'm supposed to sit and do more preplanned talk/jokes. Mel has the lead-in questions on 3 X 5 cards in front of him and he asks the first question. I answer and the audience laughs. Mel gets thrown like he didn't expect me to be funny and goes off on a tangent about his family and leaves me in the dust. He's asking me questions about stuff that was not on the cards. I'm looking at him like a deer in the headlights. "What the fuck are you doing?"  Rita Moreno is seated to Mel's left and has a clear view of his cards. She interrupts. "Steve, I understand you just got married."  And we're back on track and I'm doing the preplanned material. She saved my ass on national TV and I thanked her profusely backstage.

The next week I'm working the Sahara in Tahoe and Rita's across the street working the other casino. I leave her a note and she calls me. I go to visit and we spend some time together. Right after that I learn that I'm opening for her in Chicago, and I know she's asked for me. It was a good feeling.

I guess we were working there Christmas week. I say that because I remember having a Christmas Party with her and her two back up dancers. Like I've told you before, when you work with someone on the road you become very tight for that week and then never see those people again. That's what happened with our little troop, Rita, her back up dancers and me. Rita held a little party in her suite for all of us where we exchanged gifts. I had found this really wonderful costume jewelry necklace in the hotel gift shop that I gave it to Rita as a gift. I will never forget the expression on her face when she opened it. You'd think I just gave her the crown jewels. And as a joke I gave her a second gift. A box filled with silverware, towels, soap, dishes and glasses from the hotel. Rita laughed and said, "You joke. I'll use these." and put the entire collection in her road trunk. (I also had the Marriott make up an official badge that said, "Rita" Front desk)  She loved it.

Rita gave me a travel bag that folded down into itself to the size of a pack of cigarettes. And I carried that bag with me for twenty years until it finally gave up from exhaustion and fell apart at the airport in Rome. Talk about a good gift. But there was one gift that was given to me that day that sits next to me as I write this. The date on it is December 24, 1978 and it was given to me by one of Rita's back up dancers. It is a leather bound journal. I had just gotten divorced and everyone knew about the baby. This wonderful man, whose name was Cordell gave me this journal and said, "You need to write about what you are going through."  And from that day on, I have written in that book when I was profoundly sad or wildly happy or depressed or angry or needed to vent.

The pages in the book have turned brown but I will not part with it for a million dollars. As a matter of fact, when the mudslide destroyed my office, the first thing I grabbed was that book of memories. It was my pre-book record of my emotions over the years. And although I have never seen Cordell again and do not know where he is, I thank him daily for the most wonderful gift I was ever given, a place to remember.

Working with Rita was a piece of cake. She had a wonderful act and we attracted the same kind of audience.... Middle America. The only time it got a little tense was after I had had a really good show. Rita came into my dressing room and said, "I want you to follow me. You close the show."  "Huh? What? What's going on?"  Turns out that my style of talking to the audience made it difficult for her to work because the audience then wanted to then talk to her. She had a different kind of act, it was mapped out and scripted. There was no room for Improv and so when the audience interrupted her, it threw her. Knowing that if I closed the show it would be the kiss of death for me I said, "Rita, this is your show. And I am here as window dressing for YOU! I will stop talking to the audience."  And that's exactly what I did. We never had the problem again and the rest of the gig went smoothly.

No matter how big the star, the insecurities are still there. One night I had just gotten off stage and Rita came in the wings ready to go on. She looked magnificent. She turned to the mirror and said to me, "Not bad for 50 huh?" and waited for assurance. Her comments didn't make an impact on me for years... then I turned 50.  You see, to me, Rita was ageless. It didn't matter when she was born, it only mattered that she looked beautiful then!

Rita continued to be a joy to work with and was a giving person. She was invited to the Playboy Mansion for a Christmas Party. She invited me along. When we were at the Mansion, the booker of the Playboy Clubs came over to meet her. Rita, without any coaxing from me, said, "This is Steve Bluestein. We're working at the Blue Max this week. He's wonderful and you should really have him booked in your club." Three months later I had a four gig contract with Playboy. It was all because of the generosity of Rita Moreno.

Rita and I also talked about a show idea I had. She helped me develop it. It was a reality show where we would go from city to city and tape the street performers, in the street, live as they did their act. It was a variety/reality show and it was way ahead of its time. I wrote the treatment in my room at the hotel and put Rita's name on it. When I showed it to her she said, "Steve, this is your idea. I was only the catalyst." And told me to take her name off the treatment. I never did and it sits in my book of projects I never did anything with.

When we got back to LA I crossed paths with Rita several times. Rita was always warm and sweet to me. She invited me up to her home on Capri Drive in Pacific Palisades.  We would bump into each other at TV tapings and award dinners. And it was always like seeing an old friend. I later learned that she had sold her house in California and was buying an apartment in NY.  And that was the last time I saw her, right before she moved to The Big Apple.

I miss seeing her, miss talking with her and miss working with her. I just miss her. But that is what show business is like; you are close for a while and then your friendship never existed.  You get used to it... but it is never a comfortable place for me. I love my friends and want them around.  Show biz... Screw everybody that ya know biz. It's not just a song lyric.

AUGUST 31, 2006 -
DONNA SUMMER

Had an interesting night last night. The battery in the smoke detector in my bedroom started to give out around 4:00 a.m. The fucker beeped every 30 seconds from 4:00 a.m. to six when I finally gave up and got out of bed. Every time the smoke alarm beeped, the dog barked... so it was. "beep" "bark" "beep" "bark" "beep" "bark" "beep" "bark" all flipping' night. When I got up at six, the beeping stopped and the Goddamn dog went to sleep... IN MY BED. God has a very strange sense of humor.

So I've been thinking about what to write about and it's occurred to me that I never wrote about Donna Summer.  That gig was the beginning and the end of a chapter in my life.  During this time I was burning up Las Vegas with great reviews, for a new comer, and lots of high profile gigs. I landed yet another one opening for Donna Summer at the magnificent MGM Grand. 

As I reported before, when I got to Vegas my name was on the marquee in letters ten feet high. There was a billboard on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles with Donna Summer's name and my  name for the world to see. I was on lobby cards and menus and my face and name were everywhere. And each time I'd see it I'd think, "It doesn't look like it belongs there." No matter how much success I had I still didn't feel I deserved it.  I was doing TV shows in Vegas to promote my show, radio interviews and was the darling of the press... I still didn't feel I deserved it. Why? Not a single acknowledgment from my family... nothing. Not a single word!

OK so it's opening night and I'm in my dressing room. The MGM gave the opening act a huge dressing room and unlike Manilow, Donna did not take it away from me.  And so I sat in this huge living room with a basket of fresh fruit every night and wondered how I got there and what they would do when they find out that I was a sham. Unlike other entertainers, I always kept my door open so that the guard outside my door wouldn't feel I was too good to talk to him. I always invited him in and told him to sit and have some fruit. My friend from LA flew in for the opening, actress Janet Wood.   She's a member of my family of friends and having her there meant the world to me. Later in the week others came, Stephen Michael Schwartz, Wendy Shaal and there were others but who can remember.

The opening show was gangbusters and the audience responded to me like they had been following my career for years. It was huge laughs and wild applause when I finished.  I was walking on clouds. Donna was at the height of her disco fame and the audiences were throbbing to love to love her. Her show was short on production value but the power of her voice overshadowed any visual you could ever want. When she sang you didn't care if she was standing in a cardboard box in quicksand, all you wanted to do was bathe in the glory of that voice.

After the second show the well-wishers came backstage. I opened my door and Robert DiNiro was standing there. He was going in to visit Donna. OH MY GOD! This is the big time. I was in my dressing room when an agent from William Morris came in to greet me. At the same time my agent from ICM came in. Now Janet was sitting there and can testify to this. The William Morris agent said, "I think you are wonderful. I'd like to represent you." To which the ICM agent said, "He's mine." And grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away from the William Morris agent. The William Morris agent grabbed my other arm and pulled me toward him. "No, he's mine!" "No, I signed him first." "No I want him." And the two of them played tug of war pulling me back and forth between them. I looked over at Janet and we both laughed. This is what we had wanted all our lives, to have agents fighting over us.  Six months after the MGM gig, neither agent would return my call.  Why? That was six months ago, they were only interested in today.