May 5th, 2005

 People are always asking me what actors are really like. I usually answer that they are like anyone else, only different. I think Jackie Gleason gave the best definition ever of an actor in the foreword of my biography of him, How Sweet It Is.
  Here it is: “Dear Jim: I have read the book and now it is time for me to cop-out. An actor is a romanticist, and the mentality of a romanticist is stored in the heart—a dangerous locality for such an important faculty. His vanity is a worthless gem, timelessly polished by pride. However, vanity is an actor’s courage.
  “Self-deception thrives in the compost of flattery. He looks in the deceitful mirror of publicity and envisions himself a genius, a hero, and a pundit. There is something noble (and pitiable) about an actor’s conceit; it is such a petty weapon with which to wage a war for dignity. An actor goes through life with failure snapping at his heels like a mongrel, but his ego transforms failure into adversity, and the mongrel into a mere puppy.
  “Iguess there is no way to elude your drinking stories. Many are the times I have ended up wounded by a deep and ugly hangover after a day of wishful drinking. That, Jim, is the extent of my excuses. However, my philosophy of life is still intact: Just play the melody, live, love, and lose gracefully. —Jackie Gleason.”
  Does that describe an actor, I ask you? Jackie was a great comedian, but he was also a great actor. He was nominated for his role in The Hustler, but didn’t win because of West Side Story. (George Chakiris won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.)   While reading the book Tallulah! by Joel Lobenthal (an editor of Ballet Review), I learned that playwright Mary Chase originally wanted Tallulah Bankhead to star in her Harvey, a classic monument of American theater.
Frank Fay was a memorable Elwood P. Dowd when the play opened on Broadway in 1944. Fay, like Tallulah, was no stranger to the bottle.
  The play was a hit for years afterward. I saw the road company in Chicago, starring Joe E. Brown, in 1946 or 1947 (maybe 1948), when I worked back there for A.P. Jimmy Stewart gave one of his better performances in the movie version in 1950, but he later admitted to me that he thought he was too young looking for the role. He was a youthful 42 at the time.   The great-grandchildren of the von Trapp family, on whom The Sound of Music was based, are performing all over the world. Next July, the “von Trapp Children” will perform at the Hollywood Bowl in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the blockbuster movie, which starred Julie Andrews as Maria von Trapp.
  The death of Pope John Paul II revived the Catholic hymn If Though But Suffer God to Guide Thee. The Bach hymn was sung at some of the masses for the dead pontiff. It is now a major offering on the von Trapp Children’s repertoire. They sing it in its original German. It was a personal favorite of Baron von Trapp, who was played by Christopher Plummer in the movie. It was sung at his funeral.   The new version of Little House on the Prairie got better reviews than the original hit series, which starred Melissa Gilbert (who is now grown-up and president of the ScreenActors Guild).
  Ed Friendly, executive producer of the original series and also of the new one, is hoping ABC picks up the option on the other eight books of the Little House collection for a weekly series.
  The new version got the highest Nielsen ratings of any Wonderful World of Disney program this season, so it looks good. It will be refreshing to have a family-oriented show back on TV, which is now filled with sex and violence.   Author Boze Hadleigh told this Burns and Allen anecdote at a recent luncheon of the Round Table West at La Quinta. Linda Fresia, visiting from Vancouver, sent it along.
  “Gracie Allen came home one day loaded with beautiful flowers. Hubby Geroge Burns asks, ‘What did you do today, Gracie?’ She says, ‘I visited Marge at the hospital.’ So George asks, ‘Where’d you get all the flowers?’ Gracie answers, ‘George, don’t you remember? You’re the one who said Ishould visit Marge in the hospital and take her flowers. So I did.’”
  Ibet George put that incident into the act. I know he did with one of mine. One late afternoon, I dropped by their house for an interview about their TV show. Gracie met me at the door and said: “You don’t want to talk to me. Talk to George. He’s the one who is all showbusiness, not me.”

  I miss those weekly calls from Henny Youngman. He’d call fromNew York, but would never say “Hello.” Instead, he always opened with a one-liner.
  “My wife and I just celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary. Took her to a place she’s never been: the kitchen.”
  Or...“A guy goes to a psychiatrist who tells him he’s crazy. The guy says, ‘I want a second opinion.’ The psychiatrist says, ‘Okay, you’re ugly too.’”
  He once old me Marilyn Monroe had asked him “out.” He explained, “I was in her house at the time.”
 
  I lost two good friends in recent weeks: producer Greg Garrison and Prince Rainier of Monaco.
  Greg, of course, was Dean Martin’s TV producer, but he also produced a number of specials. I was privileged to appear on one of them. The sketch I was on was set in Caesar’s Rome, depicting a news conference by Julius Caesar himself, acted by Rich Little in a perfect impression of Ronald Reagan, who was president at the time. I was “Jacobus Bacon” of the Damascus Herald and had some lines. Also in the sketch was Orson Welles. A good friend, he took me aside and in that rich voice gave me direction on how to say my lines. I followed his advice to the letter. After all, he was the director of Citizen Kane, one of the best movies ever.
  But Greg immediately yelled, “Cut!” He said, “I want you to deliver those lines faster—like you’re a reporter for the New York Daily News.” Orson had advised that I speak them slowly, like his commercials for a winemaker. (“We sell no wine before its time.”) I then did as Greg commanded, because he was signing the checks. Orson commented, “Et tu, Brute.”

  I first met Prince Rainier when he was courting Oscar-winner Grace Kelly, who later married him. She was filming High Society with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. She invited me in her dressing room at MGM and introduced me to Rainier, who I found very charming and down-to-earth. “The prince and I want you to come to our wedding,” she said. The prince added, “Please do.” Naturally, I accepted and a formal invitation came in a week or so.
  I was working for the A.P. at the time, but like many big companies, the bosses back in New York said they would send a reporter from New York. It would be much cheaper airfare and they asked me to give my invitation to the New York reporter. I refused, saying my invitation was personal and let the New York columnist get her own (expletive) invitation. That didn’t endear me to the New York brass or to the local brass.
  The New York columnist went to the wedding and stood behind the barriers with the rest of the world media—hundreds of them. My invitation included not only the wedding itself in the cathedral, but all of the nuptial parties before and after. I never stood behind barriers, before or since.
  I saw Prince Rainier many times over the years, and once was mistaken for him. Not long after the tragic death of Princess Grace in a car accident, the prince invited a Hollywood contingent to a cocktail reception in the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo. He didn’t show up for his own party, because Grace’s Hollywood friends would have brought back too many sad memories.
  The prince and I were the same build, and had the same white hair. At the party, I was chatting at the bar with the late Herb Caen, the famed San Francisco columnist, and tennis-great Don Budge, when the maitre d’ brought a tab for me to sign. I didn’t have my glasses, so I signed it perfunctorily with my name and room number, never reading it. As the maitre d’ rang it up, Herb startled me by exclaiming, “You just signed a tab for 5,000 francs—a thousand bucks!” The maitre d’ thought I was hosting the party. Wendell Niles, who had brought us over for his annual Monte Carlo Grand Prix tennis tournament, got me out of that one.
  A few days later, I was in the Nice airport when some American tourists approached me and said, “Prince, may we take a picture with you?” I posed gladly with them. I have often wondered how many times their friends in Keokuk have looked at that picture and told them, “That’s not Prince Rainier.”