INT: Continuing on, we were just in ROOM 222 and you were let go… by that wonderful network.

GR: Yes, I was let go because the show wasn’t funny enough, and I was replaced by a network liaison man, a guy who was the liaison man on ROOM 222, which is really naughty because clearly he was in there saying, “I can do a better job with this.” [INT: Isn’t that interesting?] Yeah, it is. It’s not so nice. At any rate, Fox [20th Century Fox], I remember Bill Self [William Self] calling me up there and sitting me down; he says, “They're renewing ROOM 222,” I said, “That’s great.” He says, “Except they don't want you to go along.” So, I stayed at Fox. But evidently, Fox had faith in me because shortly after that they handed me a novel called M*A*S*H. [INT: Oh my goodness.]

INT: Oh, my goodness. Tell about that [M*A*S*H]. What a magnificent series that was.

GR: I'm indebted to Bill Self [William Self] for having that kind of faith in me. [INT: Now were you first or was Larry [Larry Gelbart] first, Gelbart?] Oh, I was first. [INT: You were first.] I hired Larry. [INT: Did you really?] Sure. [INT: Another brilliant stroke. Tell me about that.] I’ll tell you all I know about it. I was given the novel and they said, “Okay, we want to do a half-hour on this,” and CBS had guaranteed a pilot. They had wrestled--ABC wanted it really badly and fortunately Bill Self [William Self] said, “No, this goes to CBS.” Evidently, ABC kind of wrestled him for it, with him, over it and he said, “No.” At any rate--and I’m grateful that he did. At any rate, I read the novel a number of times. All the stories had been used from the book, for the most part, had been used in the feature. At any rate, I needed a Writer. And the first person I called was Ring Lardner, Jr. Ring had written the movie and he says, “I’m busy, but I’ve got a suggestion for--I’ve got a wonderful Writer who can do a great job.” And he mentioned the name and I said, “Well, thanks very much, but I didn't know that Writer,” and I said, “I called you because, indeed, you had done such a brilliant in the feature, but I’m going to keep thinking about it.” “Okay.” And of course, the first--as soon as I hung up the phone, I thought of the man who is, to my mind, is the finest comedy Writer available that I--if not the finest, one of the finest, and that was Larry. Now Larry and I knew each other--I knew Larry since he was 18 years old. I knew his father. I used to go to their barbershop all the time and so forth. I knew Harry Gelbart very, very well. And I thought of Larry. And the summer before, my wife and I were in London, and we had dinner with Larry and Pat. And Larry had said, “I’d love to do a pilot with you sometime, he said, “You get an assignment,” he says, “you come over here, we spend a couple weeks, we work out the story and I’ll write it and so forth.” I said, “Great idea.” And I had no idea that it would happen.

INT: Well, what had Larry [Larry Gelbart] been doing? He’d been a playwright, of course.

GR: He was in England for 10 years. He went over there with A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM. And it played there. He and Pat fell in love with the place. They took their kids. They went to London. He did THE WRONG BOX. [INT: Oh, I remember that.] Remember THE WRONG BOX? He wrote that. He wrote, he wrote off and on, he wrote some features over there. And THE WRONG BOX, I think, made the most noise. At any rate, I call Larry and I said, “How would you like to write the pilot of M*A*S*H?” “I'd love it,” he said, “I'm producing THE MARTY FELDMAN SHOW here for BBC,” he says, “Come on over, we'll work at night, we'll work around it, and we'll work out the story.” I said, “Great!” So, CBS okayed the deal in a flash. As a matter of fact, several guys there were saying, “It was my idea,” [LAUGHS] naturally. [INT: Of course.] “Not only do we okay it, but it’s my idea.” Okay. At any rate, so I went over there and we would work after--he would work with Marty [Marty Feldman] all day long, and I’d meet him at six o’clock, whatever, and we used to walk Hampstead Heath and we’d sit on a park bench. It was during the summer… when was it? I guess it was--[INT: About 1969.] It was about '72 [1972], I think. At any rate, I forget what time of year it was, but it was mild weather and light, it was that late light, that twilight that lasts forever, so we would sit and talk about it. And after about four or five, six meetings, nights, we had the story. So I came back to L.A. to cast the show. And that was a problem.

INT: Why was that such a serious problem [casting M*A*S*H]?

GR: It’s a problem. Well, ‘cause you had to cast it right. First of all, we interviewed a lot of guys. Now, we had to cast Hawkeye and Trapper. We got about six Actors and none of them really was a Hawkeye. Hawkeye had to be extremely articulate, extremely intelligent, a guy with a lot of tension, kind of a light comedian. So it doesn’t take the average joker. It takes a guy highly literate, the editorial voice of the piece. [INT: Some depth.] Some depth. So they don’t grow on trees, those guys. At any rate, we sent--I tested six guys, none of whom were quite right. But some of them were likely Trappers. The network looked at it and they said, “Wayne Rogers is terrific.” I said, “Okay, fine.” So Wayne became Trapper. Meanwhile I did not have a Hawkeye. I had--the first guy I cast was Burghoff, Burghoff, Gary Burghoff, because he’d been in the feature and he’s a beautiful Actor, beautiful talent. And then I think we may have cast--[INT: He was Rader, wasn’t he?] He was Radar. And I think we got Loretta [Loretta Swit] for Hot Lips. Burt Metcalfe came up with Loretta and with Larry Linville who was excellent as Frank Burns. We cast somebody for the priest who didn’t work out. We recast the priest in the actual run of the show. I did not have a Hawkeye and it was getting close. It was getting close. Meanwhile, I didn't have a script. I called Larry up and I said, “I needed a script. I need pages and so forth.” [INT: Was he still in London?] Oh yeah, he was in London. I didn’t expect him to come over at all. So he says, “Oh, I just mailed it,” and he sat down and wrote it. [INT: “It’s in the mail.”] “It’s in the mail,” and he sat down in two days. Of course the story had all been carefully worked out, but still, it was a brilliant two days. He was--those were a hot two days. And he sent this wonderful script and I was on the stage; we were putting up the sets in stage nine, and an Agent came up to me named Mickey Freiberg, and he said to me, “Do you know Alan Alda?” I said, “Alan Alda is a wonderful Actor. I saw him in THE APPLE TREE. He’s a beautiful Actor, but he lives in New York, he's got three daughters and he's looking after them and wants to be with them.” He says, “He will come out for the right show.” So I said, “Well, let's hope this is the right show.” And I sent him a script; he was up in Utah shooting a two-hour movie. He read the script and he called us, he said, “Love it! I want to do it, but I want to have a little talk with you first,” he said. I said, “Well, when are you going to be able to come out. He said, “I really like it very much. I want to get certain assurances,” and I had a sense of what he was talking about. So I said, “Fine. I’d be happy to meet with you.” He says, “I’ll be down there this Sunday night,” he gave me a date. It was the next Monday--the following day I said, “Well, let’s just start rehearsing.” So I’m like this. [Crosses fingers] I met Alan. And you meet this wonderful guy. He liked-- Larry [Larry Gelbart] and I met him. He liked us and of course, you know, you can't help but like him. [INT: What were the assurances that he was looking for?] Is it going to be fun and games, are we going to make a giggle out of the war [Korean War] or are we going to deal with what's really going on in terms of the wastefulness of war. [INT: It’s horrific.] And I said, “Well we're there. We’re there.” Absolutely we had this kind of agreement.

INT: By this time Larry [Larry Gelbart] has shown up from England?

GR: He has come over. Just for the shooting of the pilot. [INT: Wow.] Just for the shooting of the pilot. And so, once Alan [Alan Alda] was cast, we woke everybody up and we shot the pilot. [INT: Wow, what a near miss!] Quite right. Because as I said, you know, we had kind of a M*A*S*H reunion, on which I said, “If we don't get Alan Alda, I don't think we'd make it with M*A*S*H,” because he had the intelligence and the integrity; he's the real spine of that show. Now there some other beautiful Actors in it--[INT: Oh, they’re all great.]--and brilliant writing and so forth, but you needed someone to fulfill the writing, to fulfill the writing, to be able to say those words. A highly articulate, highly indignant, extremely funny, comedy lead. Attractive, I mean, a lot of necessary elements in it. Not an easy part to cast. So anyway, we shot the… we shot the pilot and the pilot was assured to go on. Larry went back to England and then he said, “I will stay on the show,” and so he came over and he worked with us for four years. Four years. Very, very gifted man, very hard working, very talented, and he really had, he really had a place… he really had a focus on that show. He commented later that he thought it was the best work that he's done. As you know, with M*A*S*H, it has subtext, and we were dealing with some wonderful subject matter: medicine, the war, the military, authoritarianism, the Korean culture and we had wonderful characters. Hawkeye’s a great character; Trapper’s a great character; Radar’s a great character; Henry Blake was a great character; Hot Lips, Frank Burns, Mulcahy. And then on top of that, Larry invented Klinger. He had read that Lenny Bruce went on watch during the war dressed as a waif. Got thrown out of the navy. You know that story? [INT: No I don’t. [LAUGHS]] True story. So, I read one script and this colonel s walking across the compound very indignantly. Klinger, dressed as a wack and with a gun, jumps out and says, “Halt! Who goes there?” The Colonel says, “Still bucking for a discharge, Klinger?” At any rate, when that first scene was shot, we're sitting in dailies, Klinger jumps out and in a very camp and feminine voice said, “Stop, who goes there?” And so we’re saying, “What the hell is that?” The Director had had Jamie [Jamie Farr] playing it extremely effeminate. So I’m waving at the screen, “Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.” So I went down to the stage and I said, “We're going to reshoot all the close-ups of him.” And the Director stood there shaking his head, kind of like, “Jesus, I don’t buy this.” Klinger is a guy. He’s a very virile, crazy guy that wants to get the hell out of the army, so he's dressing as a nurse or whatever in order to--bucking for a discharge. [INT: Section 8.] Section 8.

GR: The reason...I'll tell you why I picked Jamie Farr. When I read the script with Klinger, I had done, as you know, as we’ve talked, I did comedy shows around town. And as you do a whole lot of them you encounter a lot of wonderful comics. I did a show called F TROOP, which I enjoyed doing. [INT: I love that show.] And on day--[INT: Larry Storch, Larry Storch, wasn’t it?] F TROOP? Larry Storch, Larry Storch, wonderful. Ken Berry. [INT: Ken Berry, yeah.] And Artie Julian [Arthur Julian] was writing that show. [INT: Excellent show.] So, there’s an Indian from the Catskill tribe [LAUGHS] who’s always doing one-liners and that was Jamie [LAUGHS]. A joker, a joker Indian from the Catskill tribe. And so I remembered this guy. And this guy had a lot of hair coming out of his chest, this heavy voice, wonderful nose, and skinny, bony, hairy legs, you know. I said, “This guy's perfect for Klinger.” And so I brought him in and Larry [Larry Gelbart] loved him. [INT: Good choice. You know, I have a Klinger story. I gave Jamie one of his earliest roles, as a young Actor, on THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW. He was delivering coffee and he said, Morey Amsterdam in the scene says, “My coffee is the one with eight sugars.” And his line is, and he's a very young Actor, “Eat candy. Why ruin good coffee?” He could never get the intonation. Jamie had it wrong from the word ‘go’. “Why ruin good coffee? Why ruin good coffee. Why ruin good coffee.”] [LAUGHS] “Why ruin good coffee?” [LAUGHS] [INT: Yeah, all of that. We finally had to do it in the pick up after the audience had left. 35 years later, I was changing planes in O’Hare, in Chicago, and here comes Jamie. Now he's a big hit on M*A*S*H. And without--visually we make contact--] Lock eyes, right. [INT: But without stopping I just pointed at him and he said, “Why ruin good coffee?”] [LAUGHS] Still hadn’t gotten it right. [INT: I said, “We’ll get it in the pick up. And we kept on moving.] Oh, that’s so cute! Still didn’t have it. [INT: Still didn’t have it. But he remembered, it’s amazing--] That's great. As soon as you look at one another, this is where we were; this is where we left off. [INT: That’s exactly right.] That’s great. [INT: But he was wonderful.] Yeah, Jamie--

INT: That whole cast, how you were able to integrate those people and all the while do that metaphor on the Vietnam War, that was the cleverest part. How did that come about, to decide on Korea?

GR: Well in a way, M*A*S*H was about all wars, because it was the wastefulness of war--in detail. [INT: Particularly when it was running, when it was running, it was really, in my view, about Vietnam.] It really meant a whole lot. It was very pertinent; it was very relevant. But in detail, we often used stuff that was going on in Vietnam. I remember I talked to a doctor one time, and he had served in Vietnam on a carrier, and he said, “These pilots--“ The old story about the Navy, the great thing about the Navy, it's a dry sack and a hot meal, whereas the poor grunts, the guys in the… it's wet and cold and whatever, the foot soldiers and so forth. And in a way this was a case with pilots flying off of these carriers; they’d fly and do their run, drop their bombs, strafe their village or whatever they did, come back and they had a good meal for them and they had a dry sack and so forth. These guys had a certain kind of contempt for the whole scene over there. So there was a lack of compassion, a lack of--whatever--and he talked about that. And so I said, “That's great, that's a story alright.” It was actually one of the curves in one of our stories in which a pilot is shot down, parachutes down and he ends up in a MASH unit. He’s nearby, and they rescue him, and they bring him into a MASH unit. I don’t think he was wounded or anything. He was just recused and brought in there and so forth. And he talked with great kind of detachment of the whole action of what was going on. And he said, “If it wasn’t for”--he was living in Japan, which a lot of the air force--and they fly over the Sea of Japan, strafe or bomb or whatever and go back to Japan, which was very cozy. You know, you’re living on the Japanese--whatever. You know, they had dates, they had great meals, they had whatever. He was speaking with a certain kind of distance and a kind of contempt for what was going on and Hawkeye tried to make some points with him saying, “Well people are really suffering.” The guy says, “Listen, if it weren't for the air force,” he says, “I wouldn't touch this war.” So Hawkeye said, it touches when I think about it, he says, “I want to show you something,” takes him into OR, takes him through post op, shows him the trauma of Koreans--Koreans--who are subject as friendly fire, of our boys who are in the middle of it and humbles the guy. So he made a very good point, very good point. And that I got from some doctor. At any rate, that was a case that actually was happening in Vietnam, but we had it Korea. [INT: That’s a wonderful translation.] We had it Korean. [INT: It was a magnificent show.]

INT: You know you were part of our Saturday night. I was in ALL IN THE FAMILY, you were behind us, and MARY TYLER MOORE [THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW] and NEWHART. What a powerful Saturday that was.

GR: That’s right. And that lineup, following your show, is what really assured M*A*S*H its success. The first year, we didn't have good lead-ins. [INT: But ultimately, you out shown us. I mean that was the greatest show, I think, on television, M*A*S*H. You certainly had the highest rating at the finish of any show in history. Is that right?] I guess we did. Yes, it did on that final show, that hour and a half--that two hour show, whatever it was--two and a half hour show had phenomenal ratings. That’s right. [INT: I'm just in awe of what you did during that time. Anything more you want to talk about M*A*S*H, because it’s one of the favorite--] There’s a lot of stuff. Perhaps it’ll come up as we talk about other things. [INT: There’s so much in there. I mean it’s such a rich vain that you guys touched.]

GR: The wonderful thing about M*A*S*H, for a Director, was that, like with--I had the same thing in HOGAN'S HEROES, just in terms of the mechanics of the directing, you shot a couple of days inside and you shot a day, almost invariably, a day outside, which opens up the show, gives you some blue sky. But with the one camera, and the one camera show, we could have sometimes, we had available to us 15 or 16 sets, which you don't have in multiple camera. 15 or 15 sets. We wouldn't go in all those sets all the time, but they were there and sometimes we'd go into six or eight different sets. We'd be in the mess hall; we'd be in the OR, in the post op, in Blake's tent or Blake’s office or Blake’s tent or the swamp. And then when we'd go outside, it was another opportunity for a Director to really, to cut loose.

INT: I love the opening [of M*A*S*H]. Did you conceive all of that?

GR: I shot that. Yeah, I shot--[INT: Magnificent opening.] Shooting across Radar and the guy’s coming down--[INT: And the nurses running and the helicopter--] Now the nurses running is a story. I had an idea that I wanted to have nurses running to the boys. And so I told several Directors, I said, “Look, go out there and get me a shot of these nurses running at camera.” They'd all come in with this big loose shot and they were just kind of trotting along. [INT: [LAUGHS]] So I said, “I'll get it.” So I went out one day, as another Director was shooting, I said, “I have to steal them for five, 10 minutes.” He says, “Okay.” So I laid back with a very long focal length lens, right down the middle of this road with the tents all along side. Took them to the end tent, and I took four or five girls in there. By this time these girls had been working the show for quite a while. And it touches me to talk about this, but I said, “They need you.” [INT: Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s wonderful.] They came flying out of that goddamn tent. They came flying out. [INT: And the expressions on their face… Yeah, wonderful.] They knew, they had the idea. [INT: It's one of the most moving shots, I think, I mean it brings tears to my eyes.] It’s only this long. [INT: Huh?] What you see in the main title is this long. [INT: Still, it sticks with me every time I think about the show. I think about those faces.] It’s about two feet. There was one girl; there was a brunette. Hair pulled like this, a brunette, dark girl, very handsome girl, and she always won. She was shorter than some of the others. There was a big, tall blonde girl; this girl was, rushed out a couple of times, she was always in the front, and she beat them every time. Then, I would be out there directing, whatever, and I’d look around for her. I never saw her. I didn’t see her for a couple of years. She just disappeared. And one night I came out of the old Writer’s building and she was sitting in a car waiting for somebody. I said, “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you for a couple of years.” She said, “Oh, I had a baby.” [INT: [LAUGHS]] [LAUGHS] Very sweet. [INT: Great story. That’s a very appealing story to me because it brings up something that I’ve had a problem with from time to time and that is…]

INT: When you're producing, to deal with a colleague, a friendly Director, how do you talk to them? Discuss that a little bit, because at times you’ve got to crack the whip and say, “Wait a minute, this is not right.”

GR: Well, I know when I first started producing there was a good friend of mine, a Director, Bill Wiard [William Wiard], God rest his soul, wonderful guy. [INT: He used to be an Editor.] He was a fine Editor. [INT: He was my Editor for many years.] Then he became a Director. Sure, very good. Good guy. Great guy. And he said to me, says, “You're going to be hard on Directors.” He says, “It’s going to be tough for you when you start producing because you’ll be hard on Directors.” And I didn't realize what he was saying, but I was a little hard on Directors because I was expecting complete commitment. A lot of commitment. There was one Director, who’s a damn good Director and he had done a 100 shows, very experienced, and a very nice guy, and a good Director. He used to get very nice stuff with people, but every time I edited a show, he’d go off, shoot the show and go. Alright? [INT: That was unforgivable to me. I always wanted them to stay.] He would shoot the show and go and I'd never see him in the cutting room, although he was always invited of course. And I would sit there and invariably, as good of a Director as he was, in handling comedy, handling people, he'd get in trouble. I say, “Wait a minute. How are we going to get here?” The Editor would say, “Well, I don’t know. I can make a cut here and so forth.” And we would play with it and fight with it and play with it. And finally, we’d figure out, “Well, we can go here and then come back here.” You know, you can finally, somehow, work your way through it, sometimes not ideally. So I said to him, I called him, I said, “Look,” I said, “you're a wonderful Director. You got to come in and watch and sit with us and face the music on these things because each time I do one of your shows I get in trouble someplace, maybe once, sometimes twice.” I said, “But you should get there because you’ll prob…” “Well Gene,” he said, “I respect you very much. If that's the way you feel about it fine, but I don't quite agree.” And for a year or two he wouldn't speak to me. He was offended by the fact that I said to him, “You need a little work here.” [INT: You know, I’m sorry to hear that.] He was offended, yeah. I won’t say who he was. A good guy, but somehow he felt that I was being unnecessarily critical or personal or something.

INT: That’s so interesting because as a producer I think I was more aware of the Director's problem and always saying, “Give me your cut first. I don't want to touch it, until you finish.”

GR: Right. Oh, I would always do that. I always did that. I would say to these guys--[INT: I didn't want Directors back who didn't edit. I would just say, “I’m sorry. You’ve got to come up." That’s part of their job. I think that’s most important… More guys that are fleeing from show to show have to learn to finish their job. It's not just a requirement of our Guild [DGA]; it's an obligation, I feel.] It is an obligation, but it’s an obligation most of all to themselves. [INT: Exactly.] Nobody knows the film as well as they. Nobody knows that the leading lady really had it in the close up and didn't do quite so well in the master. They are the ones that say, “Wait a minute, I pictured this starting on the cup and falling back whatever.” They're the ones that had the concept, why not come in and make sure it's fulfilled? Absolutely essential. [INT: Very important part of directing in my opinion.] Now I think a lot of it, you know, we got to this point where we were punishing the Directors for not… and you know, we said, “You have to stay on the show for seven days,” and all that kind of stuff. Fortunately, we set that aside. Most of it comes from the Producers and the Editors and so forth, laying the Director out. Had we gone chronologically I would have touched about that. In my early days directing--[INT: It’s okay to back up.] Okay. My early days directing, I--and I directed all over town. I directed a lot of different places, but I was thrown out of a lot of cutting rooms. I was thrown out of a lot of cutting rooms. I’d show up the day after I shot and I’m sitting there with the Editor and the guy got a call, he says, “Gee Gene I'm sorry, but Mr., you know, Mr. Jones, the head of editorial, says we got to get through this show and you're slowing us up, and get him out of there.” I would get thrown out. [INT: I can’t believe that.] Oh yeah. [INT: I would insist on staying.] I mean I wasn't that strong in those days. I didn’t know, but I was denied access. A lot of people--In one way or another they would say, “We'll call you when we get the assembly.” They'd come out, you’d sit in the room, and they’d run it once. “Any suggestions?” “Well, I’d like to do this…” “Listen, you got a terrific show here. Don't worry about it.” I'd get that kind of stuff. I’d get that often. They’d run it for you once and so forth. So thanks to Elliot Silverstein, we began to get the thing that you’ve got… And eventually, we got the point where the Director can go through the material and not only make suggestions but have them implemented. Actually, the cuts had to be made and shown to the Producer. And when that’s turned over, the Producer can do what he wants. But, if those cuts are made, at least the Producer looks and says, “Ah! Ah!” [INT: That’s what you had in mind.] That’s it. Fine, I buy it. But if you just go and say, “Well look, I think this and that and the other thing…” But at any rate, that's what we eventually got. But, for a long time there, very much of a… Now on, when I got into HOGAN’S HEROES--

INT: I want to talk about HOGAN'S [HOGAN’S HEROES], ‘cause that’s a very interesting series. I happen to have directed some of them as well, but I know you did a lot more.

GR: I loved working HOGAN'S. I loved working HOGAN’S. Werner Klemperer became a very dear friend. [INT: A wonderful man.] Clary’s [Robert Clary] still a good friend. And of course Eddie Fel--[INT: John Banner?] John Banner was a good man, dear man. A wonderful Actor. No question he was the best Actor on the show, wonderful Actor. He had been a leading man at one time. [INT: I know.] He had been a leading man. He was with a company of Actors from Vienna [Vienna, Austria]. [INT: Our audience wouldn’t know who we’re talking about. He played Schultz.] John Banner played Schultz. [INT: Yeah, fabulous.] And at the time, he was a leading man. Thin and black and so forth. He was a, he was a Viennese, and he went with an acting troupe and they were playing in Bern or Zurich, Switzerland. Probably, one of the two. Both German speaking, so one of the two. And Hitler moved into Austria. He called his family, he says, “I'm coming back for you.” And they said, “No! Stay where you are. We'll get out, we’re coming out. Just stay where--don’t come back. It’s not a good idea.” Well, the parents were taken off and he never got over that. He never got over that.

INT: Now, the reason I want to talk about it is that one day, when I was directing, I sat next to Robert Clary at lunch. And it was served outdoors, of course, during our break. And I was horrified to see he had a tattoo on his arm. Did you know this? [GR: Of course.] That he was a resident at Auschwitz [Auschwitz concentration camp]? [GR: Of course.] I had no idea. And I asked him, I said, “Robert, how could you do this series, which makes buffoons of the Nazis? How can you work around these flags and these arm bands and all of that?

GR: And Werner Klemperer. [INT: Well, all of them.] No, I’m kidding. It was a prisoner of war camp. It was not a concentration camp. [INT: I understand that, but still…] That's where they rationalized the difference. Same thing with Werner [Werner Klemperer]. [INT: Clary said, “Well, it's a job. I can do it.” But many years later he told me--] Oh, that’s the point, yeah. I’ll tell you something--[INT: He told me he was affected]. I'll tell you something about that. I knew Clary for several years, ‘cause I did HOGAN'S [HOGAN’S HEROES]--I did 36 HOGAN'S. He, at that time, when I first met him, he never discussed his experiences. He never discussed this. Never discussed it. But when the revisionists began to be vocal, and to get into print, saying, “There never was a Holocaust. The whole idea of Jews, this great number of Jews being annihilated is Jewish propaganda,” and so forth, “is not true,” and so forth. That he couldn't stand and he never had talked about it until then. [INT: I know that.] He went to the Simon Wiesenthal Foundation [Simon Wiesenthal Center] and said, “May I talk?” Because he saw it happen. He saw these people going off and dying and so forth. It was a miracle that he survived. I'll tell you a story about that. There was a guy in the camp who was a musician, I guess. Older than--he was just a kid. He was like 12 or 13. And the guy said to him, “Get back, stay there, keep your mouth shut. Just turn around. Okay, now walk away.” He kept coaching him to avoid problems. So, years later I was in Paris with my wife, ran into Clary--we knew we were going to be there and we had lunch. He said, “I found this pal of mine from the camps, the musician. I'm going to call him this afternoon.” I’ve got another story I’m going to get touched by. He said, “I’m going to call him this afternoon.” So I saw him… He said, “Perhaps I’ll see him.” So I call… and we ran into each other a couple of days later. Didn’t run into each other. You know, we met for lunch or dinner and I said, “How about your friend? Did you see your friend?” He says, “Well, I dialed,” he says, “He came on the phone, ‘Hello’, and I said, ‘Hi! Do you know who this is?’ Long pause. ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Yes.’” Now he hadn’t seen him for 30 years. [INT: He recognized the voice?] Yes. Just from “Hi! Do you know who this is?” Long pause, “Yes.” It’s a killer. [INT: My goodness.] So these people had really, relationships. Relationships. Personalities. They had… they were really…

INT: Well, I was in awe of that whole group [cast of HOGAN’S HEROES], that they could play this farce, knowing what some of their backgrounds were.

GR: Banner [John Banner], Klemperer [Werner Klemperer]. Klemperer left Germany in 1934. His father was in England; he called his wife in Cologne [Cologne, Germany] and said, “Get out. Bring the kids and get out.” So the wife got… packed up, they got in the train, they’re sitting at the border. You could only leave Germany with 50 marks. And the Germans are going through all the clothing and so forth. They're sitting there having some tea and some cake and so forth. They go through everything. They search you and so forth. They go on into France. The money was in the cake. She had taken the marks--she’d gone to the bank, got a roll of marks, stuck it in the cake; baked the cake. [INT: I didn’t know--I never heard that story.] And they were sitting there with the cake. And they said to the Germans, “May we offer you some cake?” [INT: [LAUGHS] It’s a lovely story.] Yeah. So they got the hell out. [INT: Werner just passed away.] Yes, I was very close to him. We had a memorial for him here at the Guild [DGA]. [INT: Yeah, I know. He’s quite a guy. I always enjoyed working with him.] Yes.

INT: Talk about some of the production people, Feldman [Edward H. Feldman].

GR: Well, Eddie Feldman, Eddie Feldman was extremely devoted to that show. [INT: Yeah, I know.] A very sweet man. A very kind man. The Actors loved him. He was an excellent Producer to work with. Very compassionate, very appreciative. He had some wonderful people working for him. He had… Jerry London and Michael Kahn who was Spielberg's [Steven Spielberg] Editor. Is it Michael Kahn? [INT: That’s Danny Kahn’s son, I think, wasn’t it?] No, that’s somebody else. That’s Danny Kahn. This Michael… Kahn. It’s not Danny Kahn, Jr. No. There is a Michael Kahn Jr., Danny’s son--no. No, there is a Danny Jr. Michael Kahn is Spielberg’s film Editor. [INT: Oh, I didn’t know that.] And he’s done beautifully. But at any rate, again with HOGAN'S [HOGAN’S HEROES], we shot in studio for two days and then we would go out to what they call Forty Acres [RKO Forty Acres], out there, what use to be RKO-Pathe and has had nine names since [INT: Ince Blvd.] Ince Blvd., exactly. And we'd shoot the compound out there. But the idea of being able to shoot inside and outside was wonderful for a Director. Some days I would drive out there, which was invariably the third day, with my shot list had 36 cuts on it--36, which is an enormous day. Enormous. I would say, “I will never get though today. I will never get through today.” And somehow, by scratching and scraping and scrambling and so forth, you get through it. [INT: It’s a tough show to do, but it was also very rewarding. I enjoyed it very much.] Yeah, I did too.

INT: We talked about Bill Wiard [William Wiard] before as Editor. What do you look for in an Editor, when you’re working?

GR: Well, what you look for and what you get are often two different things. But occasionally--[INT: Yeah, once in a while.]--occasionally, that's perhaps unkind. But what you look for--[INT: No, no. By the way, I’m right with you. But development.] What you look for, basically, is perception--perception. A guy that can look at the film and see what you see in it. And not just say, “Well, now I’ll cut into the close-up and I’ll go to this and I’ll go to that.” A guy that looks at the film and looks at a couple of takes and can see what you see in it, which is the performance, which is the relationship, which is does it work or doesn't it work? Also, of course, you need, I mean, you need one Editor… Some Editors have a marvelous sense of the flow, of when to go in and when to go out. They have… Some guys, their work, they put a piece together and it really, whatever is there they're making the most of it and enhancing it with their choices. They understand--their perceptive, they understand performance, and they understand story. They understand story and they understand relationship. They know when to go to a character that is listening because what this person is saying, it means something, and not all Editors get that. I had an Editor one time, a marvelous guy… Jim Galloway [James Galloway], wonderful Editor. Wonderful Editor. He worked LOU GRANT. And he was doing a show one time and we had this… a girl who was a hooker. And Billie was doing an interview with her, and people came in and started to give her a bad time, and Billy stuck up for her and began arguing with them. And he went to this girl at a moment when the girl realized there was somebody fighting for her, and it was just so tasty. It was such a perfect moment. It so enhanced the event. This girl glanced over and realized this girl’s fighting for her. I mean, you don't get those guys everywhere. [INT: It’s very rare.]

INT: But don't you find that when you've been given a rough cut, you have to dictate the edit?

GR: Oh yes, oh yes. I'm saying that the collaboration--[INT: You’re hoping that somebody will add, right.]--is enhanced because of what they add. Because of what they add. [INT: It seldom happens, unfortunately.] But you go in; you can get very depressed over a first assemblage. Very depressing. Oh my god, this isn’t working at all. And then you begin to get in there and work and work. See, the better the Editor is, the better chance you have of ending up, up here, because he's moved it that far forward. Because when you start from here, you come a long way, but sometimes you don’t get all the way. But if it’s in a good, some lovely ideas, so the collaboration really works. [INT: Very good point. But to me it seems so rare that it almost never happens. I like working with Editors who have facility, that are mechanically adept, but most of them do not have that story sense or that relationship. The ones that do become Directors very fast. Have you noticed?] Yeah. They often do. [INT: Bob Wise [Robert Wise], perfect example. Great Director who started out as an Editor for Orson Welles and he moved up and moved on. But he had the taste right from the beginning. It’s fascinating.] But it's interesting how it's recognized. There was a guy on HILL STREET [HILL STREET BLUES], I think his name is Rosenbloom [David Rosenbloom], and he had a way of making the damn thing flow, beautiful choices, and so forth. I think he became a Director. [INT: No, duh.]

INT: Now what about working with the Director of Photography-Cameraman?

GR: That too is extremely important. I mean you get--there’s such a variety of guys. You get, you know, the cranky old guy that, you know, you can't move with a hammer. And then you get someone that is right in there with you digging and so forth, making suggestions. Again, the Director of Photography [DP] can be extremely, extremely helpful. Extremely helpful. I mean there's some Directors, I know they find a Director of Photography that does add--that does add--and so forth and they just, they cling to him because they know that what they're doing in addition to what this person is contributing--[INT: I've had that fortunate relationship before, have you? I mean I’ve had some guys that stayed five or six pictures.] I’ve had, I’ve had occasionally, occasionally--not often. Not often. Usually, it's kind... “Okay. Where do you want to start and what do you want to start on? You know, where are we? Where do we end up?” [INT: It’s not just that. You also look for somebody who will add something. But they also have a facility in speed, because some of them, the really great ones are so slow sometimes you can’t handle, because there’s no way to get over the budget.] That’s right. That’s right.

INT: Speaking of budgets, how do you handle yourself with respect to budgets?

GR: Pretty badly. But the budget thing, you know, very often it's pinched right at the wrong place and at the wrong time and so forth. [INT: Good point.] Where you really lose some value in a show because of, for example, I'm thinking about, of an episode I did of a television series, I shot a few… I guess about five or six shows in Utah. There was one problem where I had a graveyard sequence which was written for night. And the Assistant Director [AD] came in and said, “Well we can't do this at night, because we just can’t get it--we'll never get the show finished, and so forth, so it’s got to be a day scene, because by the time…” Well, it weakened the show. I had to shoot it in daytime. [INT: Did you shoot it day for night or?] I shot--no, I shot it, I shot it day for day. I did all I could to kind of keep the atmosphere proper, but--[INT: It’s too harsh. You wanted that darkness.] Yeah, there was a guy sitting by a grave and he lite some candles and the who thing, it was just, it was the difference of day and night. And that was a case of, if you waited and shot at night, the next day you'd have a later turnaround, and you know, it was one of those things where it had to go into the day schedule in order to get through the show. But there was a case where--and this happens very often and this is a life lesson--where I was amenable. I should have said, “No. It's night, night, night. And let’s find a way to do it.” I think that is something for anybody, if anybody is watching this that they should recognize, get your own way. [INT: And get the cut some place else.] Get your own way as much as you can. Yield only when the guy pulls a gun at you. That's very important. And with an Actor, sometimes you say, “Well, I told her to do this and I told her to do that and somehow she didn't...” It's your responsibility to make sure that it's communicated properly and eventually the Actor or Actress and so forth, is doing what you want. Now, that doesn't mean to be bending them or breaking them or whatever. But, if there’s something that you know that they can do, you know that they can do, and that it is something within their canvas, but somehow, for some reason, there’s a reluctance or an omission or a kind of--usually, often, it’s an omission. She was thinking about this and forgot about that and so forth. But you must do everything you can, do everything you can to fulfill your concept in all those little ways.