INT: Let's go back to THE JACK PAAR SHOW, if only to tell me what happened next, because I feel like your life has had many adventures, so… 

HG: In episodic, yes. So I think we got to the point where we were doing this transition shows [referring to Jack Paar’s departure from THE JACK PAAR TONIGHT SHOW], that’s where--[INT: Yes, and everybody's coming in. Before Johnny [Johnny Carson] is going to come in, in seven months.] That's right, and Jerry Lewis was the one I enjoyed the most I think, because he really made me feel important as a Director, because he would sit down and tell me what he had, all he said and I did like him, I did like him. He was terribly full of himself, 'cause I mean, of course he's a big, big star. And I was surprised that he was doing this. [INT: Oh enormous.] That he would be doing this show and I would be sitting down plotting, and one of the things that he introduced me to, and I must say, it was Jerry Lewis. He said, "You know Hal, what I want to do tonight..." First of all, he would come out and run around the cameras, that was kind of a trademark, and he would do it, he would do it on his own show, or on guest shows, and it was one of these, not rehearsed but it was a moment that people said, "My God, can he do that?" He would run off camera, and then they would get shots of him running around, turning the cameras around, spinning me, tickling the cameramen, and so then when he came on when he was doing his own show, he would come out and do that, and I found a way to rig a camera up in the lights, so that--[INT: No easy feat.] No, well we had to hoist it up there, and put it up there, and he couldn't see it. And disabled the light, so he couldn't look up and see it. And so when he ran around, I always had a shot of him, and the whole idea was it was like a child's game of he would run and the cameramen couldn't get him, and then when I knew he was going to do that, so I put the camera up there, and then he kept looking at the monitor he could see he was still on, then he realized that he was being shot from above. [INT: Which is almost so perfect, because what that says is that you gave his action context, and as a Director you had the choice as to when to place it in context.] Yeah. And I was also doing something he could say, "What the fuck are you doing Gurnee? I mean you're just killing my act; the idea is I'm supposed to hide." But he didn't do that, he said, "That was funny, I got a kick out of that." And he kind of, so he made me his ally rather than a foe, and we did--and one day before the show was over he says, "Here's what you're gonna do. Get a campfire, with a light in it, and then just put it under my desk. I'm not going to tell you why I need it." And so I think it was the last show, he takes out, he's saying good night and he takes out the campfire, and asks for an outlet, a plug. And he plugs it in and he puts it in the middle of the production area, between the band and himself, and then he invites everybody from the audience to come down and sit around the campfire, and sing a song to finish the show. He didn't tell anybody. We had to push the cameras back, but I was so thrilled with that, 'cause I was surprised, and you know, when we did Dave's morning show [THE DAVID LETTERMAN SHOW], I had a campfire set up all the time, hoping that I could talk Dave into it; and Dave wanted to do it, and I said, but it was very funny, and we never got to it, but it impressed me, where you can take and just make a moment out of nothing. [INT: Yes. I love where that comes from, and also what's the big deal? So you have a campfire and you don't use it, it's not as if this is wasteful. You know. That's a lovely story.]

INT: I noticed on the LETTERMAN SHOW [LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN] that when you moved to the CBS, to the Ed Sullivan Theater, that there's light on the back of the camera operators, so that when they take a wide shot, you can see them; it's not like this hot spot in blackness, that there's actually a consistency of light throughout, and so therefore when they do break out of the format, they don't have to rush, and that's a simple, few extra lights. 

HG: But you know where that comes from? That doesn't come from any talk show, that comes from THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS. Which to me, is still kind of the breakthrough, the change in television for me. There was a time before, there was everything in front of the camera, and nothing in back of the camera. And they came up with this, I saw it, I was in England at the time, and I saw this and my mouth hung open for the whole hour, I was so impressed and amazed by what they were doing. There's the participants, sitting at long tables and you could hear teletypes going, it was like kind of like a funny newsroom, and then they would do a spot, and you would see the camera move over to get the next shot. It's where SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE comes from; it's where all the shows I've ever done comes from. It comes from that. My god, it's really interesting to see the studio, and what's happening in the studio. And it's almost impossible to describe what it was like before, I mean people who discern these things can see a show, they'll see a show made in the ‘50s [1950] and get that sense of how limited it was, and how kind of flat and so I think all the television has changed since that time. [INT: I always have a memory of visiting television studios, which I would do a lot because of my father's business, and always being shocked at how small everything was. Including The Ed Sullivan Theater. And because of the sheer, just weight of the equipment, in the ‘50s when I grew up, they had, the networks had taken over a lot of the theaters; the Ziegfeld [Ziegfeld Theatre], The Center Theater, and they had flattened the audience, put in the cement thing for the cameras and the booms.] They made a studio. [INT: Booms to back up and there'd be this little bit of audience, and then the giant balconies, left over from the turn of the century, with the green video projection and that's was the experience for the audience. They'd see a little bit of the show [LAUGH] and they'd watch it on a green television set. And it was so interesting to see The Ed Sullivan Theater revived as a complete living organism, where everything's visible, but I don't want to get there yet. I want to stay--] 'Cause that's a good story. [INT: No matter what happens, I have this reel here for that story, because that's as I told you before, that's one of the core stories. It's not about Dave [David Letterman], it's about you and the space.]

INT: Okay, so we are… The Jack Paar period as THE TONIGHT SHOW host ends. He does a variety show [THE JACK PAAR PROGRAM], which I don't remember as being particularly, or he does an evening show. 

HG: He does, I think primetime is important, because it was, primetime means it was more money; he went from making $5,000 a week on THE TONIGHT SHOW to $40,000 a week, six months later on his own primetime show. [INT: Right, which I don't believe was a success, if I remember correctly.] I disagree. It was a success in that it was a continuation of THE TONIGHT SHOW, in that there were some very good interviews done, and people came on the show: B. Lillie [Beatrice Lillie] and people like Cosby, Bill Cosby got his first real... I'm sure he did standup on television before that, but he made a real mark, I mean people talked about him the next day after that, and Jackie Mason got their start with Jack, and he did it because he could, he also gave people a lot of time, you know standup wasn't now, like on the LETTERMAN SHOW [LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN], you try to aim for five, six minutes maybe. But he gave people 10, 12 minutes to do something, so it really was like watching people on stage. Richard Burton, people came on that wouldn't go on other shows, and then Jack was very good at making people talk about themselves or involving them in wacky situations where they would say things they would never say, even if they weren't on camera; it's almost a treacherous act that he does. He'll be wacky and say things and encourage other people, like getting Hugh Downs, I remember on THE TONIGHT SHOW to admit that he had hit his wife. And as soon as it came out of his mouth I could see Hugh, he said, "My God, there goes my career." So Jack was capable of getting people to just open up. Anyway, so that I think that was the Friday night show. NBC, Friday nights at 10 o'clock. [INT: New York or California?] New York. From the same studio, it was done from 6-B, and we just tried our best to make it look bigger. I borrowed from the old Durante show [THE JIMMY DURANTE SHOW] with the spots on the floor. [INT: The "Good night, Mrs. Calabash" exit?] Yeah, he would get up and then walk out and then it would be through these pools of light and he would stop and it was just, without feeling terribly thievish, I said "Durante looked great. It was one of those looks that I just love, why don't we do it?" [INT: Imitation is the sincerest form of television.] You know, people never said, "What are you talking about? Durante used to do that." People don't remember. They don't remember. [LAUGH]

HG: Anyway, so I would say that that Friday night show [THE JACK PAAR PROGRAM], Jack threw all the copies away; there were all these big two inch reels, and he just threw them away. And so the only thing left of those shows, in a funny way maybe, to his advantage, are the 16mm negatives at NBC control. So that when you see the shows, they're in black in white, although they were shot in color, so they look even more kind of removed and oldie. But they're wonderful, I've seen them and... Like Milton Berle would be a big act, but Milton Berle would, and this is another thing that Jack was so good at. Berle, because he was the great American comic icon, thought that every audience he had, he controlled. But Jack also had his loyal audience. I remember, he came on, and then started bouncing jokes off Jack, making Jack the butt of a joke. Got no laughs. Because the audience was Jack's audience, and then Jack used that, and it was one of those great moments for me, where this great comic and Jack, it was like a hand wrestling thing, with a giant and the little guy won. [INT: Yes, I remember that story being told about Dick Cavett. Somebody came out and was just, was using Dick as the foil and it wasn't working because, exactly the same thing.] People came to THE DICK CAVETT SHOW. [INT: Exactly, and so the one person you couldn't attack, was Dick.]

INT: Did you let go of THE TONIGHT SHOW during the transition period? 

HG: Oh yeah, I had to. [INT: So you left when Jack [Jack Paar] left? And you went and did the primetime show [THE JACK PAAR PROGRAM] with Jack?] Right, and Jack, he was told that you know, primetime, we need a primetime Director. And I heard all of this, and Jack said, “No.” He says, "Hal's my Director. If he doesn't do it, I don't do it." [INT: Good. Good for him.] I mean, but he was smart then, he knew that--'cause he had experienced before where the Director came on and kind of told him what to do, and you don't--[INT: Came down from Mount Olympus.] Yeah. And I always found with Jack, I could do exactly what I wanted to do, if the voicing was, you know, a cooperation rather than, “Do this, do that.” [INT: Also you had, you were completely at home in the environment, it was your environment. Could you place that in time for us? Just give me a rough sense of what year?] Would be the '62 [1962] to '65 [1965]. [INT: So it had a run.] Oh, three years. [INT: I guess I was in college.] It never made big numbers, it often was best in it's time period, but it was 10 to 11, and we always had kind of strange lead-ins. CHARLIE'S ANGELS, no not CHARLIE'S ANGELS. It was a wonderful film about Gene Kelly as a dancer with three gals that follow him around through Europe. [INT: Gee, you got me with that.] It's a wonderful film. [INT: I had this blank period when I was in college and we just didn't watch television in college.] Well anyway, the show that preceded us was this show, it was about a dancer and three kind of floozies that followed him around. And it was kind of cute but it was a sitcom that didn't make it, so that the lead-in was always, we always picked up an audience when Jack went on. But one of the lead-ins, the last year, was THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS. I had done the pilot. [INT: This is the American one?] The American version, yeah, which was about 20 percent of the British version. [INT: And you were familiar with the English show because you'd seen it in England, and you thought it was amazing.] Yeah, that's why I wanted to do it. [INT: So what happened?] So that, that show preceded us and I think Jack was jealous of the fact that I'd worked on THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS. It got a wonderful review, reviews; it was reviewed well. And unlike the British version, 'cause Leland Hayward hired all his friends, really high power, Henry Fonda was the host. Nichols [Mike Nichols] and May [Elaine May] did a piece. We had like Hollywood people and it wasn't this, later on they went kind of back to like strange, not strange but kind of unheard of people at the time, so it was a poor lead-in. And I would do, they asked me to fill in as Director when the Director was out, and so I would do shows and then Jack one day said to me, 'cause I was doing the lead-in show and I was doing our show and Jack says, "Pal, you gotta make up your mind," 'cause he hated that show, 'cause it wasn't getting good numbers.

INT: So you didn't do, you didn’t really stay with the series THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS, you did the pilot… 

HG: I did the pilot and they called me in because I was already doing a show, in fact we did it from the same studio, 6-B. [INT: 6-B, this was like they should have given you your own locker.] That’s right, I should’ve gotten a star on the wall. [INT: So what next? It's now the early ‘60s [1960s].] Yeah, so we get to the end of Jack's run, he said at the end of three years. NBC wants him to stay on, he says, "No, I'm retiring, I don't want to work anymore. I'll do a special once in a while." And then I had to look for another job. Before the show went off the air...I get a call from the Producer of THE JIMMY DEAN SHOW, and he said "I’d like to, we're gonna use a different Director this year, and we'd like to have you come in and talk to us." And I did, it was because Jim Henson had done a lot of stuff for us on THE TONIGHT SHOW, and also appeared on the Friday night show [THE JACK PAAR PROGRAM], and he was great. And we got along very well. [INT: Doing small Muppet sketches?] That's right, Muppet stuff, and he also was doing a Rowlf the Dog episode on THE JIMMY DEAN SHOW, and when he found out that they were looking for another Director, he told them that Hal Gurnee would be good for that show, so it was Jim who got me that interview and I went over and then they hired me and I did that show for I think, two years. [INT: And where was that done?] That was at ABC, in New York, a little theater, 55th Street? I don't think it's there anymore, but it was not a bad little--it was an ABC--[INT: Maybe it's that little theater that turned into Studio 54?] No, this is, I know that site was right down the street from our studio at Ed Sullivan [Ed Sullivan Theater]. No, it's further east. But good size, except the roof leaked, I remember we had to stop rehearsal from time to time because water would, you'd have water come down and wet the cameras. So I did THE JIMMY DEAN SHOW for… And I loved, I liked Jimmy; he's a real kind of strange, dysfunctional kind of guy. But very, very smart and also very fast on his feet with quips. I remember, the reason he got the show at ABC, was that he was on THE TONIGHT SHOW with Jack [Jack Paar] and we used to have Fat Jack Leonard, I don't know if you know, he was like the original insult comic. And he would come on and then insult everybody on the panel and people would laugh. And they were kind of crude, they weren't clever jokes, they were just kind of observational jokes. And one night Jimmy Dean came on and Jimmy sang and then he sat down, and he started to do these kind of…Fat Jack started doing the put-down jokes with Jimmy--[INT: Because they'd have a whole panel, everybody would stay.] That was a signature thing with Jack, was to have everybody talk and kind of like a little soiree. And every time Fat Jack would get a line off and get a little bit of a laugh, Jimmy would come back with a devastating put-down of Jack Leonard, and so we had him come back and they would come back together, and Jimmy always got the best, he would have these kind of southern, shit-kicking expressions and all, and they were… And but he was also sophisticated at the same time. And ABC saw this and gave him his own show. And it was a success, it was on for three years; I did the second two years and someone else did the first year. So I did like working with him, but he was lazy, didn't like to rehearse. I remember we got a bumper pool table for the last year, and we spent more time playing bumper pool and I'm convinced that's why the show went off the air, 'cause we would go on, kind of with lackadaisical shows, that Jimmy hadn't put much thought into, or wasn't prepared for. But it was, it was an eye opener; it gave me an introduction to musical production, 'cause we had singers, we had dancers, we had a band; that's where I met Toots Thielemans, he was one of the, he was the guitarist. [INT: Oh that's nice. Did you, so the rehearsal process then, there was a rehearsal process for this show?] It was big time television, yeah.

INT: Could you just take a moment, because people really don't know as to, when you did a weekly variety show, what the rehearsal process was? 

HG: Well, you'd come in on Monday, you would have the guest lineup, you would have a meeting like a little production meeting. And then, on Tuesday then you would have, there’d be scripts, the Writers would have kind of spent the night pulling some of those ideas they had, and they were good Writers; Jimmy Dean [THE JIMMY DEAN SHOW] had good Writers. There would be a script that we would know who the singers were, who the guest was, the major guest and what sketches Jimmy would do. And we would have a real meeting and have a production meeting, and then figure out what we were going to need; then I would break up, we would break up and I would get together with my AD [Associate Director] and maybe the scenic designer and the lighting Director and then work out what was going to be needed. And then on Wednesday we would go in and do a dry run; the dancers would be there, we would block things. Tape the floor. We had a rehearsal hall, forgot where it was. Rehearsal hall I remember for other shows was always downtown on 2nd Avenue over the famous delicatessen at the time. [INT: Ratner's?] Must have been Ratner's. [INT: Must have been where the Tisch School of the Arts is now.] Yeah, and above it. And NBC used it and we used it; he would see Laurence Olivier blocking a show. It was wonderful, but so that would be an intensive day, running through things. And Jimmy was very attentive the first year. The second year, sometimes he didn't even show up for those run through; someone would stand in. And then we would have a dry run day on camera. Not on camera, but in the studio. [INT: In the studio, right.] In the studio with the cameramen watching. It was a way of saving money. And then the day of the show, we would spend, do a blocking in the morning, and then mid-afternoon a dress rehearsal, and then break for dinner and then do the show. [INT: Live?] No, these were taped. [INT: Live to tape in front of an audience?] Yeah, and with no editing at all. [INT: Black to black?] Yeah, I don't remember any editing on those shows. [INT: So you'd do them in real, real time?] Yeah, because I think Bob [Bob Banner], what the hell was the Producer was... famous guy on television for the time, although I never understood why he was famous. He came from Chicago, Bob, Bob, Bob... [INT: Not Bob Finkel?] No. [INT: Just pull ‘em out of a hat.] Yeah. He actually he was the makeup man on GARROWAY AT LARGE, which was a fantastic show. I don't know if you've seen the old tapes of the first GARROWAY AT LARGE shows in Chicago. [INT: No.] They must exist, because I watched that show and it really, it was the first time the camera moved; it was a early, early 50s [1950s] where the camera, he would walk from setup to setup, talking and I said, "How are they doing that?" And everything was coordinated and he would walk into a pool of light and then talk about this and that, it was kind of a cultural and then there would be a bit of music. It was brilliant stuff. But anyway, Bob Banner. Bob Banner, thank you. Bob Banner was the makeup man and then came to New York and became a Producer and he produced that show. And he was also famous for bringing the Allen Funt stuff to THE GARRY MOORE SHOW, so he got at--[INT: Did he produce?] He was producing Garry Moore [THE GARRY MOORE SHOW] at the time, so then he had kind of a franchise with THE ALLEN FUNT SHOW, he was one of the most miserable human beings [LAUGH] the show, the industry had ever coughed up, although fascinating, fascinating guy. [INT: Right, and he'd been doing CANDID CAMERA and CANDID MICROPHONE for years.] Yeah, as a kid I listened, CANDID MICROPHONE I loved, oh god that was great stuff. The voice in the trunk. [INT: It was like THE SIMPSONS on THE TRACEY ULLMAN SHOW, it was like a little moment that turned into a giant franchise. Anyway.]

INT: So we are now at THE JIMMY DEAN SHOW. 

HG: So I'm doing Joey Bishop--[INT: Now this is Joey Bishop’s--] Not Joey, I'm doing Jimmy Dean. And then that's cancelled at the end of two years. And I'm looking for another job... oh yes. And then before that show's over with, the gal... Cheryl Hoffman who was my secretary at the time, had worked on THE GARRY MOORE SHOW and they were looking for a Director; they had a Director, I can't think of his name. He was good. He was a good kind of musical variety Director, but he had a bad temper, and he also drank. So they were looking for another Director. And they wanted somebody who would bring peace to the set. And then, I had a reputation for being calm and Cheryl told somebody over there, and they called me over and I was interviewed and then that was when I met Weaver, Pat Weaver, and the Producer was somebody I had worked with on THE TONIGHT SHOW, had been fired from THE TONIGHT SHOW. And I was hired, to bring peace to the... And the show started and I had a chance to, this was at the Ed Sullivan Theater. When the Ed Sullivan Theater was in the disastrous form of a kind of a studio, with a handful of seats, just what you described before. Not very tolerant for an audience looking at a variety show. And I did my best, but Garry was coerced into, or they were into hiring Writers from the West Coast. And what they did, was they invented a variety show that had nothing to do with the audience. It was like bits and pieces that were pulled together, sight gags and all, and actually what it became was LAUGH IN. It wasn't the same people, but when I think of it now, it was pretty much that format, with Garry just being, standing up introducing people, which wasn't his role. He was really, Garry Moore was a comedian, he was the stand-up for Jimmy Durante; I mean he was Jimmy Durante's partner, I don't know if you knew that, in the late, on radio. And so he did have a persona, comedic persona. And he was all-wrong for it, and it was probably the most horrible period of my professional life. I hated going to work; I hated doing it, because it wasn't working. Garry was unhappy. Durward Kirby, his sidekick, they did the same gags, every day his clothes were ripped off with a trick, and there were no laughs, and I had a very complicated set system so that we blasted tracks in the floor so the scenery would keep coming in, it was a great idea, and something I always wanted to do. But we couldn't use it, because it didn't work with the kind of quick-change sketches that the show became.

HG: So I was living in the country and I would come in by train every day and my fantasy was that a meteor would hit the studio and kill everybody and I wouldn't have to go to work, that's how badly I felt about it [THE GARRY MOORE SHOW]. And sure enough, the numbers were really bad and they fired the Producer. And they hired Joe Cates. Is Joe a friend of yours? Was he? [INT: No, Joe Cates, he and my father were partners in the ‘60s [1960s], very, very early ‘60s. But he's much older than me, so no.] His brother was a friend of mine, 'cause I did shows--[INT: Yeah, I mean I was friendly with both of them, but they're not like contemporaries.] We did the pilot for THE DICK CAVETT SHOW and then I did other things with, not Joe, what's his brother's first name? [INT: Gil.] Gil, Gil Cates. And so Joe came on and he came on with a mandate to make the show successful any way he can, and so he turned it into kind of a circus show, because that's what he knew how to do. It wasn't full circus, and so I rehearsed this stuff, and this is maybe the first time of all the Joey Bishop--JIMMY DEAN [THE JIMMY DEAN SHOW] was kind of like this, where I didn't have real control of the content of the show, or I didn't have any say in the way it was going to be presented. So I was a traditional variety show Director, listening to the Producer. [INT: Who was a Director?] Yeah.

HG: And so, we did the first show [THE GARRY MOORE SHOW] with Joe [Joe Cates] and we had a falling out in this way; there was a, I gave the crew a five in the middle of a very complicated production number, and then Joe came storming into the control room and says, "Why is the crew leaving when we're right in the middle of...?" And I said, "Because they've been on their feet for two hours." He says, "I call the fives." And I said, "No, not in my business you don't. It's the Director who knows when the crew needs a break." And I was being, you know, conciliatory; I wasn't being abrasive. And then he got very abusive about how badly the show was being done, blaming all the problems of the show on me. And so I'm getting very upset and very steamed, and in the middle of it I just said, "Don't talk to me that way." And he said, "Oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it?" And he leaned forward like that, and involuntarily I reached out with my left hand and punched him in the mouth. And his head hit the wall, 'cause I hit him really hard, and that was it. I was alone in the control room with him and the audio man. And then I started to walk out and his lip was bleeding and it was a really ugly scene. And he said, "Where you going?" I said, "Well, obviously I'm not going to be working here anymore." He says, "But who's gonna do the show?" And I said, "Well, you're a Director, you do the show." So, he came over and we made up, and we did the rehearsal and then we did the show the next day. And Garry [Garry Moore] had heard about it, but he didn't say anything, it was like one of those terrible secrets no one talks about. And then, that afternoon, the next day in the afternoon the telegram hits the stands with O'Brian. Jack O'Brian. And the headline is, "Backstage Fisticuffs." And the whole story, someone--I'll bet the audio man. And the story's out, and then Garry calls me and he says, "I'm working for you pal. I don't want you to leave." And then he says, "But CBS is calling me and they can't have that kind of publicity, you're going to have to leave. You'll get paid your full contract, I'll send you on vacation any place you want to go to, but you can't stay." And that--[INT: Sounds like a good deal. Sounds like you made out like a bandit.] Yeah. That was the end of my primetime career. That was it. Any time my name'd come up for a show, they'd say "Oh he's the guy who punches Producers." And so, I could do THE JOEY BISHOP SHOW, I did that, 'cause that wasn't primetime.

HG: And I did a SHOWCASE '68, with variety shows all around the country, I could do that for NBC; that was primetime, but I couldn't do a studio show. And then that's when THE DAVID FROST SHOW came along and I did that. At the end of that, then I retired. [INT: So there's an irony here that you couldn't work in primetime, because you punched out the Director of the--] Producer [Joe Cates], yeah. [INT: Who had been the Director of THE $64,000 QUESTION.] I think that might have been one of the things I brought up. [INT: That's wonderful irony in that. This of course turns out to be really good story, but at this moment it doesn't sound so good, 'cause you're retired now.] I'm finished. I mean, at that point Jack [Jack Paar] calls me and Jack is so good he says, "Hal, I've always said there's too much violence in television." And so my friends were all behind me, and I found out that people would come up I had never seen before, and would shake my hand, and say "Congratulations." 'Cause it seemed like Joe Cates didn't have a lot of friends in the business, that's what I got. He was a powerful guy, but I think he had rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. So I punched the right guy, I mean if I had punched somebody who was beloved it would have been much worse, so I didn't feel bad. And my wife was so good, I called and I said, "You're not going to believe what just happened today." And then she laughed; she thought it was so funny, ‘cause she knew how unhappy I was with that show [THE GARRY MOORE SHOW], and so she saw it as a way out. But it did change my career in that I wasn't going to be a variety show Director anymore, I'd have to find like fringe jobs. David Frost being one of them, which was a--I loved the show, couldn't stand Frost, but it's a wonderful show. [INT: Just quickly as we move forward, THE DAVID FROST SHOW, we're now in?] We're talking '69, 1969 to '72 [1972]. [INT: And THE DAVID FROST SHOW was...?] In context, it was THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW at Westinghouse. [INT: Right, he crossed back and forth over the Atlantic [Atlantic Ocean]; he kept going back and forth and he did the same show in two different continents.] Yeah, we called him Captain Jetlag. He never knew where the hell he was. But he was also a dreadful human being, I mean, he's very good at what he does, he's very good at, he has one of these minds, if you say something, if you're in an edit situation he'll look at a piece of tape, he will remember every single word. And he'd say, "After the word 'but,' we should cut there Hal." And I was always amazed, 'cause I had to watch it a couple times to get it, but he would see it. Probably has an enormous IQ and very smart, but as well as being a dreadful human being.

HG: So, I was hired to do that show [THE DAVID FROST SHOW] because he liked THE JACK PAAR SHOW, and he called me and asked me if I would do it. And I didn’t have a chance in… And because he wasn't interested in the production of it, I was given free reign, so I could put the cameras in back of the house, and also he was dreadful in that he didn't want Billy Taylor, who he hired; he hired a good jazz guy to get a band together, and then when I had the band set up in front like most houses, "No, no. I think it'll be too distracting." So poor Billy Taylor was in the wings, way in the back, and no one ever saw him, which made it tough to do, we did a lot of music. We did a lot of variety stuff. [INT: This was out of the Little Theatre? Next to Sardi's?] That's right. [INT: Where Carl Vitelli went that, I think.] I know Carl, sure. [INT: Yeah I think Carl, I remember visiting it once, it was so tiny.] So the idea of doing, so we did a platform in the back of the house and then the cameras could move around and then one on either corner, and so the audience never saw the cameras in a way, it was like doing stage; and we also had a seating arrangement on the lip of the stage, you could sit on the edge. It was a good show. 90 minutes, and I think that there is a kind of a cache of shows that have great value. Maurice Chevalier for 90 minutes. I don't think he's ever been on any show that I remember. But he was on he told his whole life story, told a wonderful stories of how he lost his virginity and then there's a Louis Armstrong for two 90 minute shows. [INT: I hope those shows are in any form--] Well they're on tape, they're on two inch tape, and I've gotten calls from Westinghouse from time to time saying, “Would you be interested in putting those shows together?” They've never gotten around to it, but there's three years of that stuff, and we got two Emmy awards for the Best Variety Show. I mean, they were well received, I think people were fooled by Dave’s, David Frost's accent. One of these things where he's given much more credit, because he has... it's not a cultured accent; it's kind of like a middle class accent. [INT: Well he's held in some contempt by his contemporaries, who were the Monty Python people, and they would do sketches about his, because he was the successful one, but in college he was not the smartest and the best, he was a hanger-on.] He was persistent. He's the most persistent. And of course he was on THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS, and he managed somehow, he's like Goebbels [Joseph Goebbels], I mean he could take and change history and it was like THE DAVID FROST SHOW, although he was just one of the comperes, and there were much more talented people on the show, and he was never in the sketches he was kind of like a…the British always say the link man, always talking about links, and he was always talking about links but he was very good at taking credit for other people's work. But that's not saying he's not a good interviewer. And he was also smart enough to not pretend to have all the questions in his head. He always worked with a clipboard, and he would be looking at his clipboard; so it was very hard to work with him, you stayed with the person being interviewed and shots of him would be the top of his head looking down at a clipboard. [INT: Right, well that's wonderful, because what that means is that somewhere there's a talking head, and the idea that that stuff's out there is wonderful, because one of the things that inspired this project is when, that the person who is the representative of the entire surrealism movement in Paris in the ‘20s [1920s] is Man Ray, because Man Ray is the one person who's survived.] New Yorker. [INT: And he survived to be on THE DICK CAVETT SHOW, so there's more footage--] Was he on THE DICK CAVETT SHOW? I didn't know that. [INT: Yeah, so there's more footage of Man Ray talking about that era, whereas all the other people didn't do television, so he's like the face of, the significant face and so that, as that footage becomes--] I didn't even know, yeah. But only Cavett would have Man Ray on. [INT: Right, exactly, but as that footage becomes more and more respected, the fact that it's quad or black and white, or kinescopes doesn't make any difference.] Who cares? I think a black and white helps actually. I think it helps with the Jack show [THE JACK PAAR PROGRAM].

INT: So now we're at Frost [THE DAVID FROST SHOW]. And that's as we say, that's a job. 

HG: We're at Forst, yeah. Three years. And I liked the show because I liked the people who were on it. I liked--but there was also, there was a kind of a tension because Westinghouse ran the show and he would come to me and say, "Why don't you have Frost down here?" Frost was always at least a half hour late. And people would be waiting for him and I remember once, famous tough guy Actor. I'll think of his name in a second. [INT: Let's see. Broderick Crawford? Karl Malden?] No, he was in CAPE FEAR, the first CAPE FEAR. [INT: Robert Mitchum.] Robert Mitchum. Mitchum was always a hero of mine; I loved the way he did things. He had great style. Great style. [INT: Me too.] He was booked, and Frost pulled one of his regular being late, but this was really offensive, in that we waited, he came down and then announced to someone, a stage manager backstage that he would be right back, he had to go to the UN [United Nations] to make an address. Typical Frost. And I felt, because the British Producer cared, Peter Baker, wonderful man didn't like to confront the people waiting, I felt someone had to do it, so I would go in and try to kind of take the tension away. And I remember telling Mitchum that Frost was now 20 minutes late, and then he came back and I said, "He's on his way down now, we'll be going soon." 'Cause he was the first one booked on the show. And then I had to go back and tell him, I said, "He's going to be a little bit longer Mr. Mitchum." Did I call him Mr. Mitchum? I think I called him by his first name. "He had just gone over to the UN, to make a quick speech, but he'll be right back." I hear myself saying this, how stupid. And then Mitchum said, "All right,” he said, “Hal.” He says, “When Mr. Frost comes back, would you tell him from me to go fuck himself?" And then he left. And I thought it was so... and so I had to tell when Frost came, and says, "Where's Mitchum?" I said, "He left a message for you, he said for you to fuck yourself." And then Dave just looked down. [INT: There've been some good moments here, you're having these cathartic moments. You get to hit Joe Cates, and you get to say that to David; that's a career in itself. I'd remember every one of those moments.]

HG: Yeah, but David [David Frost] was very, the very last word I ever said to him, and it was really stupid on my part, because we were at Sardi's having the good, you know, when the show [THE DAVID FROST SHOW] was cancelled and we were off the air, and the crew hated him because he made people late and they never got home on time and he never knew anybody's name. He was really... I mean the control room was in the basement of that theater, which was also another unpleasant, and he came down once to look at a piece of film, and there was a, on the bulletin wall was a picture of him, with a big circle and the guys used to use it as a dartboard. And so it was a big table with the crew and my people and Frost came by to say goodbye to everybody, and I don't drink, but I had a few drinks and I said, "Dave, there's something I've for three years I've been wanting to say to you." And he was so used to compliments, and I don't know why I did it, I was doing it, I think to amuse the people at the table, never thinking that it would resonate. And I said, "Something I've been wanting to tell you for three years." "Oh what is that Hal?" I said, "Go fuck yourself." [LAUGH] And he laughed, and we all laughed. But then it got back to me later on he was very offended. Very offended. [INT: Well there's every possibility that he didn't get it in the moment. That he's so used to saying, "Fabulous," or whatever he would do, effusive.] Oh yes. [INT: That he wouldn't quite be prepared for you to say that.] Oh he was thinking it was going to be some slight tribute, and then later on when I was living in Ireland at the time, and William Morris was the Agent, and they said "We're pitching you to David Frost 'cause he's a friend of yours." I said, "Well, I'm not so sure." He said, "Well, Frost is going to interview Nixon [Richard M. Nixon] in California." I said, "God, I'll do anything to be on that. Tell him I'll work for nothing." I never got the job because I had told him... If I had said, "Dave you're just probably the nicest man I've ever met," I would have done; that would have been such a wonderful, juicy thing to be in on. 'Cause the stories I hear about how that was done, do you know? [INT: Well, I know the famous interview, I can't tell you I know who directed it [Jorn Winther] or anything.] Well, it wasn't the Director, it was Frost who was paid a lot of money to do this and ended up on the cover of TIME MAGAZINE, 'cause it was a first interview, but he was throwing such softballs to Nixon that people who were paid for the interview said, "We don't have anything." And so Nixon, who Frost had played up to while he was on the air, in fact I was Frost's guest when we went to the White House for the staff birthday party, it was a great, great moment for me, so he had been wooing him and it finally paid off by getting the first interview after he had left office, which was a big deal. And so he was serving up these cream puffs and softballs and they said, "You're not gonna get your money, this is not what we talked about." And so like the third day, the first question is not "What was it like growing up poor in Whittier [Whittier, California]?" it was "Did you really let the American people down?" It was like a blow to the groin, and you could see, when you see the tape you can see like the wind go out of Nixon, 'cause he knew that he agreed to do this and he was paid a lot of money for it too. And he was finally going to have to--and it was the first time he ever agreed that he had made a mistake. Until then it was all kind of circumstantial. So it was a great moment, I wish I'd been there to hear those conversations.

INT: So we're now in the mid-70s [1970s] and we're working our way towards something interesting here. I'm not actually going to tell you what it is, because I don't really know. I just want to know-- 

HG: Well, the time point of view, there's an important break for me in that at the end of three years of Frost [THE DAVID FROST SHOW], I convinced myself I don't want to work in television anymore, I just want to retire. I have the money, I've invested money, I have an office building that I bought and I'm getting enough money to live comfortably, and my wife and I loved Ireland, we went to Ireland, we bought a house there. And decided we would go there for a year and see if we liked it, and we did. So as soon as I had bought the house and made arrangements to move everybody over, Jack [Jack Paar] called me and said, "ABC just came to me with a project [JACK PAAR TONITE]. They want me to do one week a month at 11:30. Cavett [Dick Cavett] would do another week a month, and the rest of it would be in reruns. So he says, “I'd like to do something again, I don't want to work full time, but this...” and he says, “I know you're going to Ireland, but I'll fly you back once a month and put you up any place you want." I said, "The Plaza [The Plaza Hotel]?" "Yeah, okay, I'll put you up at The Plaza." And so that was my deal, so for a year and a half I would fly back once a month for a week. Stay at The Plaza, and we had a production office there, and then do an ABC late show. [INT: That was that WIDE WORLD OF ENTERTAINMENT I think.] I don't know what the umbrella title was, but it--[INT: It replaced Cavett.] At that point, I think Jack had some warm feelings for Cavett, because Cavett started with Jack, but that kind of disappeared and Cavett was willing to give up his nightly show [THE DICK CAVETT SHOW] to do one week a month. [INT: I think they were putting in other, rock and roll, it was going to be every night there would be a different.nn] No, these were in weekly blocks. It was Cavett for a week, Jack for a week, and then I think they were doing like reruns of prime time cop shows. It was the first time that kind of, what they do; it was almost like becoming a cable entity, in that they were taking stuff that had been on before. And so we did it and it was so confusing, because it wasn't like the first week of the month. Each month it was a different week.

HG: And I remember Jack [Jack Paar] had a wonderful Writer, Jack Douglas, kind of a legendary Writer, dysfunctional Writer. [INT: MY BROTHER WAS AN ONLY CHILD.] Yeah, he was brilliant. He was brilliant. A complete wacko, but lovable guy. And he would send stuff in like two weeks late, 'cause he didn't know which week we were on. [LAUGH] That's how confusing it was. But we did it and we had Clement Freud on, that was a memorable show [JACK PAAR TONITE]. So Jack still had it, he had a few minor problems, like after the opening night show, you can imagine this, being a Director; after the monologue and at the end of the monologue a voice coming from the tape room saying, "We're not getting any audio." So Jack had done the, and I had to stop him in the middle, and say, "Jack, I got a problem. I got bad news." And I had to tell him. He was good about it. And we got the tape going and did it again. But so that was kind of like the first night and the whole season was kind of plagued with, not technical problems, but little things that we couldn't predict. [INT: That was ABC so they were like the poor sisters still.] Yeah we used to call it the push car network. [INT: Right, it was before they really hit big with all the--] Before Silverman [Fred Silverman] came in and then just bloated it up with crap and it became popular. [INT: HAPPY DAYS and all that stuff, and sports.] Yeah, sports, and also had some really kind of sleazy shows to begin with that got an audience. So that was that, the beginning of my retirement, going back and forth to Ireland. [INT: You'd come in once a month.] Once a month, stay at The Plaza. Have a great time, do the show, and we went out to California a couple of times to do it out there. And I thought, maybe you know, I wouldn't mind working every once in a while if it was that way. And I did I think, I remember coming back and doing the Pittsburgh Symphony for PBS. [INT: Really?] With the conductor... he was the London Symphony Orchestra, little, short guy. [INT: European?] No, he's an American. Actually he's European but he grew up in America; I knew his brother, his brother was a violinist. [INT: It's not like Erich Leinsdorf?] No, no, he married a movie actress. [INT: Oh, Andre Previn.] Andre Previn. [INT: There you go, see?] You know it's all there, it's retrieval; the synapses have to be sharp. Lovely man. And I tried for years to get Dave [David Letterman] to book him because he has great stories about the tricks that orchestras play on conductors, visiting conductors; they're great stories. In fact it's something that no one seems to know about. About the tensions and the drama of leading a bunch of... You know, everybody in that orchestra is a, loves himself and loves what he's doing. [INT: Yeah, I directed some young people's concerts, so I know exactly what you're talking about. There's a whole dynamic there that we can't even begin to understand.] It would be a good sitcom; I mean like an intellectual sitcom, it would be good. As well as hearing some good music, which I like. Anyway, so I did that and I got along very well with Andre. [INT: But basically you were having a lovely, sounds like you were having a good time, because you got to live a life you wanted and you do the occasional--] Yeah. I was really retired, so after eight years of that, then my son came back to college in America and my daughter came back to college. My wife said, "We really should be on the same continent with our children." I didn't agree, I loved Ireland, but I moved back and we bought an old farmhouse up in Connecticut and that is where the Letterman part of my life comes in.