INT: We were talking about the role of a Stage Manager at the time; your role. And what I'm interested in is, you were now next to the people who actually--you're up in the booth. [JR: No.] You're next to the people who are actually doing this; [JR: Actors and Technicians.] you're next to the Actors. Now here's a question for you. This is, I assume, the first time you were getting exposed to Actors. [JR: Oh yeah.] What was that? Who are these people? What do they do?
JR: It was kind of wonderful to watch them prepare, to watch them act. I mean, they were a curious breed. As Zero Mostel said in the film, THE PRODUCERS--I think it's in the play too, as well--you never ate with them. He said, "You never eat with an Actor." "Why?" "You ever see one eat?" [laughs] So I was never cozy with Actors. I tended to hang out with technicians; with the camera guys, and sound guys. The Technical Director was as close as I could get to the booth, 'cause there were no ADs [Assistant Director] at NBC [National Broadcasting Company] at that time. That was an interesting thing. But I hung out with other Stage Managers to the extent that I could and we created a union. There was no such thing. There was a Radio Directors Guild. And then somebody said, "We ought to have a radio and television directors guild [Radio & Television Directors Guild, RTDG]," but it was not a requirement. It was not a closed shop. You could belong, you didn't have to belong, whatever. Jack Shea and I were the agitators. We decided we're gonna make a union out of this thing. So we started to write rules, and we would say things that were really not there. We would say, "This is a rule. You can't do this." And people would listen to us. They'd say "Why?" I said, "Well, our union says that you can't--" We made things up, which became [INT: The rules?] actually part of the genesis, our own bible, in a sense. I remember one day we filled in for--remember Sutton Roley? [INT: The name's familiar, but--] Sutton Roley was a Stage Manager. He became a Director. And Sutton had been the Stage Manager on a show that was an outside show when the Director was a crazy man from an agency. By the way, speaking of names, the undertaker from the ALL IN THE FAMILY story was Jackie [Jack] Grimes, a wonderful Actor. [INT: Now I want to go to the Actors. These are the people that you were now being exposed to.] Let me finish my thought about Sutton [INT: Okay, go.], 'cause it's a union thing. [INT: Alright, go.] And Sutton was married and he wondered if he could trade places with Jack Shea and me; would we cover for him and his other Stage Manager, also Larry, on this outside show. And we said, “Okay, 'cause he would go home for--I think it was Christmas. We said, “Well, we're young and single, we'll work.” So we were on the PL, you know the private line that they had, the headset. And we heard this woman's voice and we said--Jack and I looked at one another and said, "Who's that?" And they said it was the secretary to the Director and we said, "Oh, we're sorry, but you can't be on this line." And she said, "What do you mean?" She said, "This is a line that's exclusively for the Director, directly to his Stage Managers, which we are. We can't have any interference.” I said, “If you want to make a telephone call, go somewhere else." "Oh no, no. I'm helping with the shots." And we said, "No, no, sorry. Our union does not permit that." So we started that, and they bought it. [INT: Great.] They got off the-- And we told Sutton when he got back, we said, "Sutton, for god's sakes, enforce that rule. We just made it up." [INT: Great. Great. Great.] Now back to the Actors, yes.

INT: Actors; here you're seeing Actors for the first time--really, for the first time, I think, in your experience. And you're also seeing how they do what they do. What do you learn?
JR: Well I learned to date the prettier ones. I mean, that was the big objective at that time in my life. I learned, as opposed to our beloved prior president, Mr. Clinton [Bill Clinton], I learned as a Director that you never, ever have an interview with a woman in your office without the door being open, or a female on your staff being present. If he had learned that, he would have had a great presidency. [INT: That's true.] But during my early salad days, so to speak, when I was a Stage Manager and not responsible for much other than myself, there was some wonderful young, pretty, very lovely young ladies that I used to see in a social way. [INT: Now--] That was great. [INT: ..would they talk about what acting was? To you?] No, they usually talked about sex. [INT: Talked about it? That must have been really disappointing.] Oh, no. [INT: This wasn't just talk.] No, it wasn't just talk. [INT: Well I feel better now, 'cause when they talk about it--] No, no, no. [INT: That’s something--you’re in big trouble.] There was active participation going on. And that was great fun. No, they didn't talk about acting very much, but I would eavesdrop sometimes on conversations between Director and Actor. I would try to sidle over, having done my work, and say, "What are they talking about?" So I would hear instructions that were--. Sometimes, as I said, once I got better as a Stage Manager, I could do my work quickly, I was in on more conversations than I really was supposed to be in on, I dare say. But I would say, "You know, I think that's the wrong approach." And I would practice, mentally, what would I say given this circumstance? This Actor is having a problem. How do you approach what's going on, given the text? And I would say, "I think the Director is wrong" and frequently, he'd be right. And I'd say, "Oh, I missed that point." As I got better, and as the Directors got worse, I became better in my mental exercise to say, "I think I would say the following," and some Producer who would come to the rescue of that Director, [INT: Would actually say that.] would actually say it out loud.

INT: Now here's the interesting thing. Were you learning--and again, this is subtle--were you learning a language that worked in general? Or were you learning that in fact maybe tell them what this scene means? What kind of things--if you took a meta-perspective on what you may have been learning then--?
JR: I learned that it's best to have bright people who are well read, because you could take shortcuts. You didn't have to explain to an Actor--if you had--if an Actor were in trouble on some scene and say, "You know what? This is not too dissimilar from what Ophelia went through in HAMLET." And you wouldn't have to say any more. There was a shorthand route through literature. And if you had a dumb Actor, that was always a little bit tougher. You'd have to get other metaphors. I also learned you don't give line readings. I would see that Actors would bristle at that. And they were right, because frequently, I want to hear a line that I would interpret a certain way, but I had a New York accent. So I would be wrong. I'd say, "Hey, that's a novel approach." I really like what that Actor found. And I've gotta remember that. That there are differences in interpreting--I'm certainly thinking about Alan Mowbray. Do you remember him? [INT: No.] He was a British Actor, very popular in the 30s [1930s] and 40s [1940s]. And I directed him in a series called COLONEL FLACK [COLONEL HUMPHREY FLACK] about a--wonderful series--really ahead of its time; a wonderful series, kind of a conman with Frank Jenks as the sidekick. And I remember one day he had pronounced the word bouillabaisse [a traditional Provençal fish stew originating from the port city of Marseille] as "bouille-baeeze." And I said, "Alan, I don't think anybody would understand that." He said, "That's the way I say it." I said, "Yeah, but I really think it should be bouillabaisse for the great unwashed who only know that word in that particular locution." And take after take, “bouille-baeeze.” And I really became insistent. And I regret it to this day; I should have let him say it. If that's what that character thought, leave him alone. And it's one of the only regrets I have with an Actor, of all those years, that I insisted on a pronunciation that wasn't that important in the overall scheme of things. And I terribly regret--I mean he died, and I always thought, "My god, Alan, I wish you were alive so I could apologize." [INT: You did. He's got it.]

INT: Now here's a question. These Actors--I assume for these television actors most of them were all coming out of theater, 'cause I assume--
JR: Oh yes, they were theatrical, yeah. [INT: Now here is an interesting issue. Is there a difference between--and I don't know if you were a theater fan.] Oh, I was indeed. [INT: So if you sat you know between the theater performance that this guy or gal may be giving Saturday night, and here's this performance on the television show. Were you noticing any--? ] Oh, absolutely. [INT: And what were you becoming aware of? ] Well, they had to tone it down, obviously. They weren't reaching the back seat. My favorite...José Ferrer drove me crazy when he played Cyrano [Cyrano de Bergerac] on Broadway. One of my favorite, favorite pieces of work is Rostand's [Edmond Rostand] play. And the last line-- and in those days, I used to buy standing room for a dollar. And I would stand, the best seat in the house, standing, in a--funny way to put it but, it was orchestra'd and you could lean on the thing, and it was very comfortable for a young person. I couldn't do it today. But I saw all the plays in those days. And he died onstage, you know, when he came in and he said, [INT: This is the--my white--"] "And there's one thing that is unsullied." And he's dying. [INT: Right.] "And that is...my...white..." I never heard the word "plume." And I was furious. "You've gotta get that word out!" He just--he ran out of air. And it drove me crazy. To this day, I say, "Why couldn't you finish--Rostand would be whirling in his grave, if you don't say "white plume." You know, it reminds me-- [INT: Well he did say "white plume" in the movie version.] What did he say in the movie version? [INT: He did say white plume.] Oh yeah, of course he did. [INT: He got it right then [laughs]] He had a sound technician. "Can't hear ya, hold it." [INT: And the Director, although I think it was himself.] No, he couldn't direct himself in that. [INT: I can't remember. I actually think he did, but anyway, go on.] Anyway. [INT: So you were--I understand. But it's interesting, 'cause I didn't realize, 'cause I actually know this, 'cause I remember every now and then we'd go from DGA [Directors Guild of America] meetings in New York, and who would be sitting in the theater alongside me? Over in the back would be you with Pat. So I realize that this is--]

INT: Now, were you a fan--I want to go back and element. Were you a fan of theater when you were in college? Now I know you were a fan of the classics, but were you also going to--and I also don't know whether it was available to you.
JR: Nothing was available, no. [INT: So New York was your first theater experience.] New York--the first play I saw was my girlfriend in high school, I took her to New York and we went to the Fulton Theater where I had bought two tickets for 55 cents each; Broadway. And we sat in the third balcony, the last row of the Fulton. You know the theater? [INT: Yeah.] And the play was something I'd never heard of before. It was called ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. You want to know about comedy? Where does it come from? The enjoyment of something--at first I thought, "Oh god, am I in trouble." I'm sitting there with this girl and I'm laughing, you know, we'd had lunch or something nice, but now I've taken her to a play and it's about people drinking tea; you know how it begins. And then when the character Teddy runs up the stairs and yells, "Charge!" I said, "Uh oh. I know I'm on safe ground now." But you asked about comedy before. [INT: Yeah.] And it had to do with listening to radio. My father loved Eddie Cantor. I couldn't stand him. It was the kind of humor that did not appeal to me at all. He loved it. And Parkyakarkus [Harry Parkyakarkus Einstein], you know, that character, Bob Einstein. It’s the--he's the father of Albert Brooks, whose name really was-- [INT: Albert Einstein.] His real name is Albert Einstein! What a curse. I did not like those characters, but my father-- we used to stare at that big radio that said Fada on it. F-A-D-A. And I didn't like it. But FIBBER MCGEE AND MOLLY, that was another story OUR MISS BROOKS, which I later directed on television, those shows, JACK BENNY [THE JACK BENNY SHOW]. Oh my god. Bob Hope in those days. Those shows just put me away. I used to laugh my head off. [INT: Great. As did ARSENIC AND OLD LACE.] Oh, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. God, that was so wonderful. What an experience. That made me a theater fan for life. Then I couldn't get enough. In fact, I think I--don't know if you know, in 19-- about a year or two ago, 1999 I think at the end, I directed a play in New York for the Actor's Theater [National Actors Theatre]. It was called LIGHTING UP THE TWO YEAR OLD. It was about killing horses for profit, lighting up, killing for the insurance. Kind of a grim play, but great fun for me 'cause I had three--four--three Actors. Excellent. Bob Hogan [Robert Hogan], you know him. He's a lovely Actor. He played the lead. Anyway, this was for Arthur Penn, my old friend who was running the Actor's Theater, the Actor's Studio. He asked me to do it. And I had great fun. And one night, I took the cast, after the run was on, and their wives, to dinner. And my wife Pat [Pat Rich] was along with us. And as we were seated around the table, some of the wives were saying to me, "Well John, what plays have you seen since you've been in New York? And I said, "I've seen nothing." "Really? Why?" I said, "Well, by design." "Why?" I said, "Any town that will support MISS SAIGON for ten years is not a serious theatrical community." I said, "So I'm passing." They laughed at that. I said, “Besides, I come from, I guess, a background where I saw the original MY FAIR LADY. The original--[INT: OKLAHOMA! SOUTH PACIFIC.] What do you call it? I can't think all of a sudden. I'm ahead of myself on the punch line. I saw MY FAIR LADY; I saw the original GUYS AND DOLLS; I saw the original OKLAHOMA! And my wife said, "The original OUR AMERICAN COUSIN." Well, she put me on the floor, because all these Actors knew about the play that was running when Lincoln [Abraham Lincoln] was shot. [INT: Mr. Lincoln, yes, right. What did you think of the--what was it--what was the joke?] “Oh, aside from that, what did you think of the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” A very old joke. But Pat [Pat Rich] put me on the floor with that one because she really had my number.

JR: But comedy--I had a smattering through radio by listening. Jack Benny, particularly, would put me away. [INT: Now why?] There was something so wonderful about his timing that just grabbed me. I said, the guy had such courage. I haven't seen such courage since--you know, my friend, Sid Caesar is one of my neighbors and we have dinner with him frequently. And I talk about some of his sketches on THE SHOW OF SHOWS. Both of them had the exquisite ability to take a moment and stretch it beyond which any sane person would have let go a long time ago, but they knew how to do it. For example, Jack--can I do a little tangent here? [INT: Yeah.] Jack once did a radio show--and it could only work on radio 'cause they used the imagination--where he said to one of his cohorts, "Take the rehearsal." You heard the music tuning up. "I have to go out for a moment." And he went and the microphone stayed with his footsteps in the halls of CBS as the microphone--as the orchestra fades away, and you hear ‘click, click, click, click.’ And he says, "Boy, it's a hot night." He's musing to himself. "I'd like to get a drink. Oh, there's a Coke machine." Well, okay. So he's already--because that character is so well set-up, that you know that the next line which--the machine--"I only have a quarter." That was the line. Well the minute the man says, "I only have a quarter," you know there's a confrontation between cheap Jack Benny, the character--by the way, he was anything but cheap in life--and this machine, this inanimate object. The courage to say, "Oh wait, the machine makes change. Good, good." [INT: [laughs]] Now he goes to the following. I mean, it's embedded in my mind. I can't tell you. He said, "I'll just drop the quarter in here." You hear the sound effect: “pa-ch-ch-dom”. And then they hear: “pa-ch-ch-chong.” In those days, the Coke bottle came out. He says, "Well, there's my Coke." And then you hear “plink, plink.” "And there's my change. A dime and a nickel." “Plink.” There's an extra ‘plink.’ The audience goes crazy. He says, "Well, the machine made a mistake!" Oh okay. He's invested 25 cents, he's got his Coke, and he's got the full 25 cents back. And he says, "I think I'll just try that again." Well that's a roar. Now I want you to think in terms of the comedic approach, how un-staccato-like that delivery is. Like today, if you had that much dead air--we haven't said the magic F-word enough, let’s somebody throw in a curse, or do something sexual. No. Benny just allowed the air to fill--the audience filled it, and it’s a live, present audience. There was no laugh track. "I think I'll just try that again," he says, "I'll just deposit another quarter." And you hear “ca-chunk.” And then pa-ch-ch-chong.” "There's my Coke." [pauses] That's it. That silence. Well, the longer he held that silence, the bigger the laugh, because the audience understood the machine is not giving him back his change. [INT: And they also understood his response to it.] Nothing! And then he says, "Wait a minute. That Coke bottle is empty." [laughs] Another laugh. And there's a note in it. He's got toppers. And then you hear the sound effect of the note being unfolded. "You had your chance." [INT: [laughs]] Well, moments like that stick with me, or had stuck with me, so that there was a propensity already to enjoy, not just the silliness, but the reality; the truth of that character. By the way, that was a word that inhabited all my work when I was doing comedy. Tell the truth; don't go for the obvious. Don't get the cheap laugh; go for the laugh that grows out of what's real. That was DICK VAN DYKE [THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW] and ALL IN THE FAMILY, particularly. Those were--'cause I there a total of seven years: three years on VAN DYKE [THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW] and four years on FAMILY [ALL IN THE FAMILY], gave me a chance to really experiment with that. But to go on, part of my assignment when I was not doing Kraft Television Theater, they assigned me to THE JACK CARTER SHOW. Now, that was a live, big extravaganza of a one-hour show with dancing, singing, joke telling, sketches. And it preceded the SHOW OF SHOWS [YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS].

INT: Now you were a Stage Manager?
JR: Still Stage Manager. In fact I was Second Stage Manager to start with. There was an older man who was there. So NBC [National Broadcasting Company] assigned me to that, and that was madness. Jack [Jack Benny] was crazy. He was a young comic who was in a constant funk; he was constantly angry. He was very funny. I mean, he's a very funny man, but he does it in a strange way. He's still a very angry man. By the way, he’s become a friend of mine through the years. In fact, he came today for instruction when he was given the job of directing I LOVE LUCY, at one point and he said, "What am I gonna do?" After I had been a Director. I had been his Stage Manager. But for years, I used to watch Jack and Ernie Glucksman was the Producer. And the Director made very little sense. He was the technician. I can't remember who it was, can you imagine? Isn't that awful? [INT: Not really, when you consider the number of other people that you worked with over the years.] No, no, no. But that amazes me because he never stuck because the whole content of communication came from Ernie Glucksman, Producer. [INT: To you?] Not to me, no. The Director gave me cues for camera, and I would deliver a cue to Jack. But only the Producer would talk to Jack Carter about the comedy sketch. And Carter, I remember we used to rehearse in the seven arch room of the Edison Hotel. That I remember. And Carter would do his monologue as a mumble. He would say, "And then I'll say [mumbles]." He didn't want anybody to hear it. And then one day he looked up and said, "Boy look at everybody. Everybody looks so glum. I've never had flops sweats in a rehearsal before." Well, he wasn't saying anything. I'll never forget that. "I've never had flops in a rehearsal." He wasn't doing the monologue. What did he expect? And he wanted it to be cleaned so the orchestra would laugh, that was the big thing. And he was funny, but he was desperate. He was always sweaty when he worked. And I remember one day, we were in his dressing room and he was very bright. And we had finished our dress rehearsal. We’re going on the air live. I guess it was 8 o'clock. And it was like ten minutes to eight, we were in Jack's dressing room and Ernie Glucksman is saying, "We're gonna cut part of the sketch—Now I got it, we’re gonna cut Donald Richards' song. And he's gonna cut out a chorus. And we go “ah-d-da” [motions] and a dance and a--" He was giving those notes. And Jack was taking it all in, as he was tying his shoelace, "Yeah, yeah, I got it." And I mean, very quick. I was in awe 'cause I was the Stage Manager. "Geez, how are these guys doing it? How are they getting all this information together? How are they understanding it?” I said, “I've gotta remember this." But something else happened that was so traumatic because as he was tying his shoelace, it broke, and Jack stopped, and the hubbub in the room stopped as he did this [holds two hands up]. It got very quiet. And he looked at the shoelace and said, "You too. You're against me, too." Oh geez. And I said, "Put this with your memory bank.” Because that's what some of these comics are; they're crazy. They could be dangerous. Jack [Jack Benny] always came in on a Saturday morning and we would hang the set. And he would come in with his coat draped over his shoulders. And he would look at the set and he said, "What a piece of garbage this is. What's going on here? Look at that truck." We’d say, "Jack, it isn't hung yet. It isn't lit." "Yeah, but look at it. They spent all that money on Caesar [YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS] and for me they give me this." Yalmer Hermison was the Art Director. He'd say, "Sid, it'll be nice with the lights…" "No, it looks terrible, why are we having--?" And it was always alright, you know. We had a nice orchestra. And but it was a bit of a trial and we couldn't wait to finish the night because where we would run at nine o'clock was next door to the blue ribbon cafe where we'd get dark beer and German food and watch the SHOW OF SHOWS [YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS]. That was our--that was really my university. [INT: Now why that?] Oh, Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner; their sketches were true. They lived on truth. You know, the sketches that Jack did, they're mildly funny, but they were frequently based on nothing. It was just, "Let's get a laugh." It reminds me of--years later I was doing a program--this Producer shall remain nameless, but I said, "You know, that joke doesn't work. It's not funny." He said, "What do you mean, it's not funny?" I said, "It doesn't work. We have to call it something else." He said, "Are you kidding? We'll put a laugh in it. It's perfect." Well, I didn't want to work with those people again. I don't believe in that. On ALL IN THE FAMILY and on VAN DYKE [THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW], if we had a thing that was a clinker--and there were many, of course, in the original drafts, or in rehearsal--I said, "You can't do that. That violates the character." Or sometimes the cast would stumble into something hilariously funny. And we'd all fall down laughing. It was great. And we said, "Boy, I can't wait to say that." I said, "You're not gonna say that." "What do you mean? Wasn't that funny?" "It was hysterical, but you can't say it." "Why?" I said, "First of all, it's not true. Second of all, it violates everything that your character’s all about. You must not do that. But stay with the truth and we'll find something better." And we always did. Now I learned that from Carl. [INT: How so?] Well, because he would always say, "Let's be true" in VAN DYKE [THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW]. But by that time, I had already done a lot of comedy.

INT: But SHOW OF SHOWS [YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS] had that in it, you could sense.
JR: Well, similar to--I said this to, we had, Sid [Sid Caesar] likes to eat at the Hamburger Hamlet, our neighbor. And he invites us down. They love him there. He loves it. It's a place where nobody bothers you. And so we go down, I have my salad, he has his stuff. He eats big although he's very thin now. [INT: I know.] I said to Sid the other day, I said, "I remember one of the things you did that will always stick in my mind--" Now when I was a Stage Manager watching the show, and it reminded me of Jack Benny in its simplicity and its danger. What's the word I'm trying to say? It's courage. In taking a dangerous route, I said, "I don't know if you recall, but you did the spoof on HIGH NOON." He said, "Oh yeah, I remember that." By he way, Sid speaks in such a whisper that I have to wear a hearing aid and Florence [Florene Caesar], his wife, is always saying, "Sid! Speak up!" The last time we had dinner, I said, "Sid, it was wonderful seeing you again and watching your lips move." [Laughter] Anyway, I guess that's what reminded me of this particular sketch because he was doing Gary Cooper and you saw him being very stern and concerned and he's marching down the street. It was HIGH NOON. And he's looking for people to be in the posse. To help him with these guys. And he goes into the bar and he looks around and he sees Howard Morris. Howie is sitting there, small Howie. What a dear man he is. He's a pretty good Director. And Howie is sitting there, having a drink, and Sid goes over to him and Howie looks up and Sid goes like this [whispers inaudibly]. And he goes on like this, this under your breath mumbling. Nobody could hear. And he went back [whispers inaudibly]. [INT: [laughs]] Now, it's far beyond to me the point of no return. Certainly in today's so-called comedies. They wouldn't dare! But here's what they did with this. He mumbled for what seemed like an endless mumble. And finally, Howie looked at him and he said, "I'd like to help you, Tex, but I can't hear a word you're saying." [INT: [laughs]] And Sid says, "Oh." And then he goes into a normal voice. He said, "Here's what I need." But how about that for taking a plunge off the high diving board? It's like--

INT: You know, it seems to me--this is a real jump--but it seems to me in the last fifteen years, Andy Kaufman is the only guy who's gone in that direction.
JR: Who has? [INT: Andy Kaufman. You know, the comic.] Oh yeah. He was crazy though. [INT: Agreed, but the fact is that one of the things you're suggesting is that the rapidity of output where comedy has gone] But Kaufman was different, because he didn't go for truth; he went for bizarre. [INT: True, but I was even thinking the slowness of the timing. I was sort of dealing with--'cause you're dealing with truth and timing.] Right. That was it. It's timing. What Sid [Sid Caesar] did one day--I don't know if you ever remember the classic, when he was singing Pagliacci [opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo], and he was the distraught clown and he's making up in the white face and he's got, what you call it, eyebrow pencil, and he's drawing the tear and the pencil breaks. Now this wasn't planned. Now you're live. He breaks the pencil, he never drops a note, but he continues the line and then he draws another line and then he does crossed lines and he plays tic-tac-toe on his face. It was an ad lib! I mean, I talked to Sid about that. I said, "How did the--" He said, "I don't know. It just happened." I said, "Yeah, but how do you not drop a line? How do you keep--" Were you at the Directors Guild dinner? Carl Reiner as the master of ceremonies for the seventeenth time, his hearing aid went dead. He said to the audience, "My hearing aid went dead and he was able to change the battery. It can't be done by a normal human being without stopping to talk. Without stopping your talk. He kept talking, and he changed the thing, he put it back in his ear, he said "That's better." There's a delight in seeing that kind of operation. It's so pure. And it's what inhabited all the work I tried to do, having learned this from Carl, and Sheldon. Sheldon Leonard was another one who was very strict about the truth. Oh, except in one truth, and I just wrote this in my book. I had to take issue with Sheldon about something. He wrote in his book something that happened to me and he declared it had happened to him and I said--[INT: To be stolen from his account?] I said, "Oh my god." So I wrote in the book, I said, you know, I first met Sheldon Leonard when I was directing DENNIS DAY [THE DENNIS DAY SHOW] on live television. I don't know if anybody remembers DENNIS DAY. But I'd gotten my start as a Director doing the opposite week. DENNIS DAY was on one week and EZIO PINZA [THE EZIO PINZA SHOW] the next. Remember the great singer? [INT: Sure.] I was the Associate Director, live, in Hollywood at that point, on the THE EZIO PINZA SHOW and Sid Smith was the Director. And Sid grew violently ill one day at about four o'clock, something like that. And they were running around tearing their hair out saying, "We're live at five! Where are we gonna get a Director?" And they're running around like crazy. I said, "I could do that." They said, "Who are you?" I said, "I'm the Associate Director." I said, "I know the whole book, I've been readying cameras, but I could get this thing on." "Are you serious? You can?" I said, "Yeah." "Wow." So with great trepidation, they said, "Try it." Zsa Zsa Gabor was the guest, I had a stupid Stage Manager who said to her, in the car, he said, "I don't want you to worry about anything, but you know you're going live? There are millions of people out there. If you make a mistake, you can't come back." And she went whiter than she is, or was. And I said to this guy, "Why did you tell her that? That's not very smart." Anyway, I had my usual set of nerves, but I had David Rose Orchestra, live. Lovely man, young man. So I got through the night. I think it went rather well. In fact it went so well that I became a regular Director. So I was now directing the opposite week, which was DENNIS DAY [THE DENNIS DAY SHOW]. And Sheldon came on as an Actor. That's the first time I met him. And through the years, we sat on the boards of the Directors Guild. He wasn't on 'cause he hadn't been a Director yet. And the story that happened to me was in 1953, early on, I was directing Joan Davis. It was my first film show; multiple camera film. I'll tell you about how we got there later, but we used to rehearse five days, and on the sixth day which was a Saturday, we would convene for the first shot at 8am, and we would shoot until midnight. No audience. Multiple cameras. Break-away props, very difficult stunts, comedy stunts. I mean, oh boy, she was brilliant in her own way, too, but she was also very crazy. Okay, so here I am and the first shot, which I didn't understand--I had never seen a film being made before. Literally, I had never visited a set, and I was now a Director. Now I'm on the stage and we have three cameras, two booms, these enormous scoop lights, and Hal Moore, the award winning Cinematographer, was our Cameraman. And he had been paid a lot of money to make Joan look good. He used to grumble all the time, he'd say, "I don't like this stuff, like piss on a griddle. It's gotta be so hot on television." Grumble, grumble. He wanted shadows and shade. Nobody wanted shade, they wanted to see the faces. He accommodated it. Got paid a lot of money. I accused him one day of being a card-carrying Republican. He chased me around the set. Which he was, by the way. So here's the first day of shooting. And I did not know that they always got started with something very simple to give Joan a little bit more time in dressing, so on, make-up. Jim Backus was at a telephone booth. Okay. And we'd rehearsed it, I knew what to do. It was happened to just be just rolling with one camera. So it was very noisy, and all of a sudden Joe Depew [Joseph Depew] who was the Assistant Director, "Quiet everybody." It got quiet. "Roll 'em." Cameras rolled. Sound man said, "Speed." Guy came out with the sticks [claps] clap. Another silence ensued. I was fascinated by what was going on. Just looking around, you know. It was very still. I said, "Gee, I've never heard it so quiet." Joe Depew tapped me. "Yeah? What?" He said, "You've gotta say 'Action.'" "Oh, okay." So I said, "Action." This appeared in Sheldon's book, a story that I had told him. So Sheldon, I love you, you're gone now and you can't argue with me, but you didn't become a Director, I said in the book, until 1956, I believe And this happened to me in 1953. It's my story, and I'm gonna stay with it.

INT: I want to go back a little bit [JR: Yes, sir.] from that because you were working stage managing these shows. This was, there's a transition here because you got to California. So you were doing these live theater shows, you were watching these other Directors work with Actors [JR: Yes.], you were obviously seeing theater all the time [JR: Completely. Right.], so getting really exposed to what was going on in terms of writing and I guess getting really familiar with it.
JR: And the young Actors who were acting at that time became huge stars later on. They were good. I mean they had the cream of Broadway. Actors, they're always looking for work and there were some wonderful Actors, my god. It was a pleasure to watch--Jack Lemmon, very young. I said, "God, that guy's good." But go ahead, I'm sorry. [INT: No, where I'm going is. When are you going to get your first experience working with some of these people, as distinguished from watching other people work with them?] I was a bit of a curmudgeon in the Stage Manager group. They had put us into a little crazy little room. There were 26 of us, I think. Now, the idea was, we only use this office to write reports and we weren't there, obviously at the same time. But, occasionally, six or seven people were in there and it was an enclosed space .There was no air. It was like, it had been a stationary closet, I think, at some point and they just said, "Well, what's a Stage Manager? Throw them in there." Roy Pasbit [unverified] was the head of the Stage Manager unit for the network. And I went to him and I said, "Roy, our union says--" I'm making it up, "We've got to have air in that room." He says, "What union?" I said, "The Radio and Television Directors Guild." "I've never heard of it." "Well, it's there and more and more people are joining everyday. It's not compulsory yet, but it will be. But the fact is, it's just a humane consideration. We need air." And he went and looked at it and said, "Ah, it's alright." So one day, I got a prop. It was a parrot. And I hung a dead parrot prop upside down in a cage and we hung it on the front of our door. And we'd say, "Here he comes." We'd have a lookout when Pasbit [unverified] came to work. And I had written a note--see if you remember this. "For the love of god, Montresor." [INT: I don't know.] It's the last line of THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO, [INT: Oh, okay.] as the last brick is being put in [INT: Got it.] and the guy's being suffocated in the Edgar Allan Poe story. [INT: Right, right, great.] We were far too literary. All our guys knew it. "For the love of god, Montresor." [INT: Right, right, great.] And Pasbin [unverified] would come by and he read this thing and said, "I don't know what that means." I said, "Well, our canary just died." I said, "You've got to give us some air." So he got that message and within a week they were breaking out part of the wall. Now, only the top was broken out and it offered into a another room which was filled with accountants. NBC what do you call them? [INT: They're accountants] bookkeepers. Mavens of arithmetic, you know. Well that was not really the answer. We were now sharing somebody's mild coolness, it was not a great--. We lived with that for awhile, then I got the scenic department to paint a 28th floor perspective. We were on the 28th floor of the city of New York. [INT: For a window.] For a window. And we had the lookouts. We said, "Here he comes." And we had as many guys as we could seated almost on top of one another, staring out the window which was painted. And these are college hijinks. And Pasbin [unverified] would come by and mutter something. That was before they had broken this hole up. So they broke the hole open, it was hardly enough. So we used to stand up on this ledge and lean over into the other room and we'd say, "One million, two million five, three million." And these people were over there with their adding machines, seeing all these faces staring up. Anyway, I was enough of a nuisance, I guess, until one day, Pasbin [unverified] called me in and he said, "Listen, you're single aren't you?" I said, "Yeah." "And Arthur Penn, he's single." "Yeah." "I'm gonna send you guys out to California."