It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs (13 page)

Celebrating our tenth year at Dangerfield’s, with my partner, Tony Bevacqua.

Courtesy of Dangerfield’s, New York

Being thrown off an elephant was bad enough, but my ankle got stuck in the stirrup, so the elephant was dragging me around.

I was scared. “Hey, help me!” I’m yelling. “I’m stuck!”

But nobody took me seriously. People in the crowd were laughing, waving. “Hey, Rodney, how ya doin’?” They thought it was part of the act.

When the elephant was walking, every time his rear left foot came down, I had to make sure it missed my head.

Finally, two guys who worked for the circus saw it was serious. They stopped the elephant and got me untangled. When I got to my feet and had smacked all the hay off me, I gave the elephant a dirty look.

Then I thought,
Ah, forget it. He don’t know what he’s doing. He’s a dumb animal.

To show the elephant I wasn’t mad at him, I started feeding him peanuts. Two minutes later he left me for a guy who had cashews.

I tell ya, I know I’m ugly. My dog closes his eyes before he humps my leg.

I
got another big break in 1970, when I did my first Lite beer commercial. That was a good gig for me—I went on to do fifteen or twenty more. I mostly hung out with
Bob Uecker, Deacon Jones, and Bubba Smith—all funny guys. And they were former professional athletes, so there was nothing I could teach them about having a good time.

There were a few things I could stand to learn, though. We were shooting one of those commercials on a beach in Florida and I noticed that all the girls were
amazingly
beautiful and the guys were all so handsome. I turned to the guy next to me and said, “Wow, have you ever seen a beach like this? No fat people. Only young beautiful people. This is the place to hang out. Maybe I should buy a condo down here.”

This guy looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “They’re all actors. They were hired for the shoot.”

I remember my first meeting with the famous Canadian hockey star Boom-Boom Geoffrion when we did a beer commercial together. When they introduced me to him, they said, “Rodney, say hello to Boom-Boom.”

I said, “Hey, Boom-Boom, I know your sister, Bang-Bang.”

I was doing a baseball bit for another beer commercial, and Bob Uecker had to throw the ball between my legs. He throws the ball pretty hard. I was worried that he might hit me with it.

So I said to him, “Be careful.”

He said, “Don’t worry. I’ll throw it around your knees.”

I said, “That’s no good. You’ll hit my cock.”

When I go to a nude beach, I always take a ruler, just in case I have to prove something
.

O
ne night after the show at Dangerfield’s, I mentioned to some people at the bar that I was having a bad night, that I was really feeling down. I got plenty of advice on how to get rid of my depression.

Of course, I got the usual “it’s all in your mind,” which was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. That’s like telling an ugly girl, “It’s all in your face…”

A girl said, “Hire a limousine and have the guy drive you around Manhattan. After half an hour, you’ll have no more depression.”

I said, “Don’t tell me that the forty-eight Austrian psychiatrists I’ve seen, all the money I’ve paid them, their advice meant nothing, that all I got to do is ride in a limousine, and I’ll be cured?”

A Mob guy gave me his solution for depression. “Come with me,” he said. “We’ll go to Vegas. We’ll fuck whores. You’ll feel better.”

I didn’t hire the limo…or the hookers. But I got a good laugh at the advice, which made me feel better.

You’re a great crowd. That’s it folks, show’s over. I’m going backstage now and take a shower. Maybe I’ll get lucky with the soap
.

Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.

In my life, I’ve talked with many psychologists and psychiatrists. It has cost me a lot of money, but at least I got a few jokes out of it. I think the first one was: “I told my psychiatrist, ‘I keep thinking about suicide.’ He told me from now on I have to pay in advance.”

One day I was on my way to see my psychiatrist, but I had to make a deposit at my bank. While I was standing in line, the bank guard started talking to me. After a few minutes, I said, “Hey, I gotta run. I’m late to see my psychiatrist.”

He looked at me kind of puzzled and said, “You need a psychiatrist? A husky guy like you?”

I told my psychiatrist, “Doc, I keep thinking I’m a dog.” He told me to get off his couch.

O
ne night I was in my dressing room at Dangerfield’s before the show, and the maître d’ told me that Johnny Carson was on the phone.

Carson said he wanted to come down, see the show, and asked if I had room. I told him, “Johnny, it’s Saturday night, first show—we’re full. But for you, whatever you want, as many as you want, you got it. How many will there be?”

Hanging at Dangerfield’s with that wild and crazy guy, Steve Martin.

Courtesy of Dangerfield’s, New York

He said, “Just me.”

I said, “Come on down, Johnny. No problem.”

Back then, I had a buddy, Dave Goldes, who had worked for Johnny on
The Tonight Show
. Dave was an original, funny guy, and brilliant—a Rhodes scholar and a poet—but quite weird. He’s an excellent comedy writer, and he wrote several jokes for me. One I still use in my act: “I feel sorry for short people. When it rains, they’re the last ones to know about it.”

A couple years before, I got Dave a job writing for
The Tonight Show
. Carson liked Dave’s jokes but had a little trouble with his personality. Dave was always depressed, always down. He was not sociable. He wouldn’t sit with the other
Tonight Show
writers at the big table. He’d sit off to the side. And he wouldn’t dress up for anybody. I liked him, but let’s face it—he was a weirdo. So after a while, they let him go.

At the time I said to Johnny, “Who cares if he’s not social and he doesn’t dress right? He brings in the jokes, right? Who cares if his socks don’t match?” So they hired him back, but a few months later they let him go again.

Despite this history, I knew Johnny liked Dave, so I called Dave and told him Carson was coming down in case he wanted to drop by and say hello.

Twenty minutes later, Carson’s in my dressing room. We’re sitting there talking, and I said to Johnny, “Wanna drink?”

With a young Robin Williams, back in his Mork days. What I went through to get him to stand still for this picture.

Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.

He said, “No, no.”

“I know how it is,” I said. “I like to have a drink…or two…too. So if you feel like having a few drinks, I’ll make sure you get home all right.”

Carson smiled and said, “Okay, give me a double Scotch.”

Pretty soon he was feeling good, and the show was about to start, so I took him upstairs. We put a small table off to the side, where no one would bother him, and I go up to do my act.

After a while Dave showed up. I guess he was just trying to be funny, but his clothes for the evening were a burlap bag and a pair of sandals. The club was jammed, so the maître d’ put Dave at the same table with Johnny.

When I finished my act, I joined them. I sat down, and Carson called the waiter over. “Let me have another Scotch,” he said, then looked at Dave. “And a pair of socks for my friend.”

You wanna really confuse a guy? Join him while he’s taking a leak in the street.

A
couple of years later, the Dangerfield’s maître d’ called me in my dressing room. He said Jack Benny was on the phone from L.A. When I pick up the phone, Jack said he’d seen me on
The Tonight Show
that night.
“Rodney,” he said, “when I’m watching someone three thousand miles away and they make me laugh, I have to call them. There was one joke you told that would have been perfect for me. You were talking about your wife’s cooking. You said, ‘And the way she serves a meal. You put down a steak. How do you forget the plate?’”

I told him he could use the joke, but he said, “No, I wouldn’t do that.”

He was right, though. The joke was better for him.

One of my most memorable nights at Dangerfield’s was when Jack Benny came in. After I did my act, I joined him at his table. He was very complimentary, which was, in my mind, like getting praise from God.

Benny was class, a real gentleman. After we’d talked for a few minutes, he said he and his friends were going to a nearby restaurant to get a bite to eat, and asked if I’d like to join them.

I told him, “Gee, I’d love to, but I’m writing something that I have to finish tonight.”

He said, “I understand. That’s okay.”

The truth was that I didn’t go because I knew I couldn’t be myself with Jack Benny. I mean, I’d have to play a part and be a gentleman. Can you picture me saying to Jack Benny, “Man, I’m so depressed. It’s all too fucking much”?

My wife can’t cook at all. She made chocolate mousse. An antler got stuck in my throat.

Chapter Eleven

A Night with Lenny Bruce

With sex, my wife thinks twice before she turns me down. Yeah, once in the morning and once at night.

H
anging out with Jack Benny and Johnny Carson—you can’t do any better than that. But my first brush with fame was back in the early forties, when I did a show with Al Jolson.

I was working at a nightclub in Atlantic City called the Paddock. One night the boss told me that Jolson was in town doing a benefit show and needed a couple of acts to go on before him.

I said, “Sure.” Anything to be on a stage with Jolson.

A few hours later, I was backstage in a theater looking at Jolson standing in his underwear, reading a telegram. He was disappointed. He said, “Why couldn’t it be from a girl?” It’s been rumored that Jolson liked to have sex before he did a show. Apparently that night he struck out.

Even stars can’t get lucky every night.

The day my wife and I got married—that was a beauty. I gave her the ring and she gave me the finger.

A
few years later, I was working at a nightclub called the Queen’s Terrace on Long Island. One night Jackie Gleason walked in. He sat down at a table all by himself and watched the show while he drank a whole fifth of Scotch. Then he got up, gave the waiter a $20 tip, and walked out, straight as an arrow.

Gleason had quite a reputation as a drinker, and he liked to enjoy himself. He proved that night that he could do both. Jackie had an appetite for other pleasures as well.

One night I was in Bobby Byron’s room at the Belvedere Hotel with Joe E. Ross. There was a knock on the door.