Interview with Robert Hays: Part 1

<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody, this is Robert Hayes and you're listening to
<v Speaker 1>the Surely you Can't Be Serious podcast.
<v Speaker 2>When I was a little boy, he brob me so
<v Speaker 2>much joy and the music kick but like nothing today.
<v Speaker 3>Then the world went insane.
<v Speaker 4>But that's when.
<v Speaker 2>Surely came Indeed, be joy in that saying all the way,
<v Speaker 2>say there's a time to see, say we won't cross
<v Speaker 2>the streets. Surely this can be the best there is,
<v Speaker 2>say to my rocket queen com back against the recon scene,
<v Speaker 2>surely you can you can't be serious.
<v Speaker 1>I just look up and I said, surely you can't
<v Speaker 1>be serious.
<v Speaker 5>Well, honestly, we've had we've had multiple guest hosts before,
<v Speaker 5>and I think this may have been the smoothest.
<v Speaker 3>Oh look at that.
<v Speaker 6>Hey, look at that.
<v Speaker 3>That's awesome.
<v Speaker 4>That is great.
<v Speaker 1>This is my little office, my little my little hovel.
<v Speaker 4>And how are things. How's the weather over in Hawaii?
<v Speaker 4>Right now?
<v Speaker 3>It's good.
<v Speaker 1>I mean it's windy. It's really windy last night and
<v Speaker 1>this morning, and that's kind of overcause I had a
<v Speaker 1>little sprinkle going on.
<v Speaker 3>But uh but it's uh, it's.
<v Speaker 4>Way So are you a wahoo? Do I remember that?
<v Speaker 5>Right?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 4>And how many years have you been over there now?
<v Speaker 1>Uh? Just over five years, okay, so it's not too
<v Speaker 1>long after the fires.
<v Speaker 5>I was gonna say, Yeah, I'm trying to think if
<v Speaker 5>there are any other big scares. When was the missile
<v Speaker 5>strike scare?
<v Speaker 1>Well, in California, we had earthquakes, of course, so we've
<v Speaker 1>been through earthquakes, had the fires. That was the huge
<v Speaker 1>one that everyone's forgotten about now because of the Palisades Fire.
<v Speaker 1>But the big one before that was the Malibu Wolsey
<v Speaker 1>fire that wiped out, you know, fourteen thousand homes in
<v Speaker 1>Paradise and twenty five hundred in Malibu and all through
<v Speaker 1>that area. And that's the one that got me. And
<v Speaker 1>so we've been through that. And then let's see, we've
<v Speaker 1>had a tsunami warnings over here. We evacuated up into
<v Speaker 1>the hills, but nothing happened. So we're waiting for locusts
<v Speaker 1>brimstone next on the checklist. Yeah, I forgot the brimstone,
<v Speaker 1>like some's falling up there.
<v Speaker 6>But yeah, well we are super super excited to eat you.
<v Speaker 3>My name's Jason.
<v Speaker 4>This is D, like the letter D.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Jason, one's got to be D.
<v Speaker 4>That's it.
<v Speaker 6>We are thrilled to talk to you, sir. We are
<v Speaker 6>so glad that you're joining us today.
<v Speaker 1>Well that's what I thought when I when I heard
<v Speaker 1>that you had Shirley Can't Be Serious. And my first
<v Speaker 1>thought was, surely you can't be serious, not a show
<v Speaker 1>called Ley Can't Be Serious. So you could go on
<v Speaker 1>and on with that one, but it was, it was,
<v Speaker 1>it was fun.
<v Speaker 5>We I when this finally got confirmed, I was just like,
<v Speaker 5>could could you imagine that seven years ago? Because he
<v Speaker 5>was the one that suggested the name, And I was
<v Speaker 5>like that when you suggested that that in just six
<v Speaker 5>years we would be interviewing the man who said the
<v Speaker 5>line incredible, immortalized forever, and here we are.
<v Speaker 6>A date in destiny right here.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, so I'm going to introduce the show even though
<v Speaker 4>we're still rolling on here.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah yeah, but we will, uh, we'll have lots of
<v Speaker 5>fun on this one. I'm really really do appreciate. I
<v Speaker 5>want to say thank you again for joining us for.
<v Speaker 1>This my pleasure.
<v Speaker 5>Okay, everybody, welcome back to the Shirley you Can't Be
<v Speaker 5>Serious Podcasts.
<v Speaker 4>I MD.
<v Speaker 5>This is Jason, and we're both giddy like little schoolgirls
<v Speaker 5>because today we have with us, mister Robert Hayes, the
<v Speaker 5>man who uttered the line surely you can't be serious
<v Speaker 5>into immortality in the movie Airplane. Mister Hayes, thank you
<v Speaker 5>so much for joining us today.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you, this is great to be here, this is
<v Speaker 1>this is going to be a special woman all the
<v Speaker 1>ones I've ever done, obviously.
<v Speaker 3>Thank you.
<v Speaker 1>I was gonna have. I just about reached down to
<v Speaker 1>get my mug of my tea, my mixture of everything,
<v Speaker 1>and I thought, no, I can't, I can't do that.
<v Speaker 4>I better not.
<v Speaker 1>Get a drink. Got a lot of creamery and pros.
<v Speaker 1>I have that all over my face.
<v Speaker 6>I'm so excited, I'm going to pinch the guy next
<v Speaker 6>to me.
<v Speaker 1>Make sure I'm not dreaming. So you know who the
<v Speaker 1>bartender was in that scene?
<v Speaker 3>Oh Rod m.
<v Speaker 1>Do you remember Rob McEwen and the poet, the poet
<v Speaker 1>and the writer he had. He was like in the
<v Speaker 1>sixties and seventies. He was like, you know, all the
<v Speaker 1>beat Nick's and all the people in the coffee house
<v Speaker 1>reciting Rod McEwan's poetry, and he was like the big
<v Speaker 1>deal back then. So I didn't even know that at
<v Speaker 1>the moment. I didn't know that I just kept thinking, God,
<v Speaker 1>he's so you know, he reminds me of somebody. And
<v Speaker 1>and then I was looking on the cast credits just
<v Speaker 1>for something one time, and I saw, you know, the bartender,
<v Speaker 1>and I went, Rod mu Rod McEwen. Didn't you even
<v Speaker 1>know it at the time?
<v Speaker 4>I would have been, Well, we were, we were talking
<v Speaker 4>about it, and I was specifically talking about that scene
<v Speaker 4>because you have that fantastic dance scene, which is a
<v Speaker 4>pro back to uh Saturday Night Fever over there, and
<v Speaker 4>you had just you were you were literally were you
<v Speaker 4>still doing Angie at the time that you signed up
<v Speaker 4>to do this, and so you had acted with Angie
<v Speaker 4>and all of a sudden you're recreating the scene that
<v Speaker 4>she was splendid in and that may have been the
<v Speaker 4>only good part of that movie. Honestly.
<v Speaker 1>He was great friends with Johnny and he was doing
<v Speaker 1>a film, you remember, Urban Cowboy. He was doing that
<v Speaker 1>at the same time at Paramount, and on our lunch break,
<v Speaker 1>she said, come on, come with me, and I said
<v Speaker 1>where are we going? She said, just come on, and
<v Speaker 1>so we got into I don't know if she got
<v Speaker 1>a golf cart or something to get us over to
<v Speaker 1>the other side of the lot, or if we just
<v Speaker 1>walked over. I don't remember. But anyway, so there's Johnny
<v Speaker 1>and he's on his lunch break. He says, john Bob,
<v Speaker 1>I just figured you guys had to meet, and so
<v Speaker 1>we met. He is the greatest guy, so fun. He
<v Speaker 1>was just the greatest, love that guy. And I think
<v Speaker 1>I'm not sure if he brought it up. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>hear you're doing this movie or something. I said, oh, yeah, Well, anyway,
<v Speaker 1>there's a scene in it. And he just looked like
<v Speaker 1>a little kid. He was all and I told him
<v Speaker 1>about the scene and he's laughing, and then you know,
<v Speaker 1>you know there's another because there's a scene in every
<v Speaker 1>single you know that you want to talk about. And
<v Speaker 1>Army Archer you don't probably know the name, but he
<v Speaker 1>was maybe the biggest film critic. He had a column,
<v Speaker 1>the Army Archer Column. Right inside of it was a
<v Speaker 1>Variety or Hollywood Reporter. Those are the two main pages,
<v Speaker 1>and right inside was his column and every day, oh,
<v Speaker 1>here's another thing that they're apparently doing in this new
<v Speaker 1>film Airplane. And they had all these scenes. So it
<v Speaker 1>was building up in the in the industry and all
<v Speaker 1>around town. And I think he might have heard about that.
<v Speaker 1>But so then they started. They called him, okay, John,
<v Speaker 1>we're back and he said, oh, okay, and I said,
<v Speaker 1>oh another there was another scene and he said what,
<v Speaker 1>and so I told him the scene and we laughed
<v Speaker 1>and laughed, and then they said, Johnny, we back. He
<v Speaker 1>said all again.
<v Speaker 3>I said, oh gosh, there was another scene.
<v Speaker 1>He says what, and he wanted to hear every single one,
<v Speaker 1>and then finally there's one John. And then I was
<v Speaker 1>about to tell him about the dance sequence and I said, oh,
<v Speaker 1>there was another scene and he said what, and I said,
<v Speaker 1>I'll tell you later. I just suddenly realized maybe I
<v Speaker 1>don't want to see. So that was.
<v Speaker 3>That was a lot of fun.
<v Speaker 1>That was.
<v Speaker 4>That's great.
<v Speaker 5>So just when you I know, I've heard the story
<v Speaker 5>that you read the script on an airplane m hm.
<v Speaker 5>And then a flight attendant I probably called him stewardess
<v Speaker 5>back then.
<v Speaker 4>Still you gave her the thing.
<v Speaker 1>He looked like, she looked like she ate alum for
<v Speaker 1>breakfast and lunch and then you know, just puckered and
<v Speaker 1>she had her hair back and a tight bun. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>all of this is like out of a movie, but
<v Speaker 1>it was all real. And when they had the little
<v Speaker 1>seats and the stewardess as would sit on the seats
<v Speaker 1>that popped down, you know, up against the the cockpit.
<v Speaker 4>Wall and cockpit what is it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, pilot said, yeah, that's another important right now. But
<v Speaker 1>she came up to me. This was on a flight
<v Speaker 1>back to Minneapolis. We were going back there with Howard
<v Speaker 1>Cosell and a whole bunch of people from ABC shows.
<v Speaker 1>And ABC was flying all of us back there, a
<v Speaker 1>whole bunch of us back there because it was like
<v Speaker 1>one of those things. It was like a major uh,
<v Speaker 1>like if a party was turning from a Republican to Democrat,
<v Speaker 1>or Democrat to Republican or something. You know, it was
<v Speaker 1>that huge of a deal. Someone has gone to the
<v Speaker 1>other side. They were going from NBC, they have the
<v Speaker 1>oldest TV station west of the Mississippi, and they were
<v Speaker 1>going to ABC. So it was a big deal. So
<v Speaker 1>they flew us all back and I'm sitting there and
<v Speaker 1>I'm reading the script because the fallowing Tuesday, I'm going
<v Speaker 1>to go in and meet with the guys, and literally
<v Speaker 1>every single page there was something that made me laugh,
<v Speaker 1>made me make a sound out loud, you know, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>you can smile through pages and pages, but when you're going,
<v Speaker 1>you know, can make some little sound or a big
<v Speaker 1>laugh or whatever. And there was something on every single
<v Speaker 1>page that made me laugh. And the stewardess came up.
<v Speaker 1>She said, I couldn't help, but notice that you seem
<v Speaker 1>to be enjoying what you're reading. And I said, well,
<v Speaker 1>it's a script and I'm going in on Tuesday to
<v Speaker 1>read for a role in this. Would you like to
<v Speaker 1>read it when I've done? And she said that would
<v Speaker 1>be nice, thank you, And she goes back and she
<v Speaker 1>goes back to her work and I finish everything, and
<v Speaker 1>then I said, hey, you know here, so she gets it.
<v Speaker 1>She goes and she pops the seat down, She sits
<v Speaker 1>down in her knees or tightly together, and she puts
<v Speaker 1>the script on her lap. She starts to she looked,
<v Speaker 1>said it. She turns the page. She's looking and I'm
<v Speaker 1>looking up at her and there's no reaction. She just
<v Speaker 1>kind of looking. And then after a few pages I
<v Speaker 1>look up again and she's got a smile on her face.
<v Speaker 1>And I thought, boy, this it takes a lot to
<v Speaker 1>crack that nut. I mean even the needle, right, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and uh, And then I just kind of went back
<v Speaker 1>to whatever I was doing. Then I looked up a
<v Speaker 1>little later and I saw her kind of she was giggling,
<v Speaker 1>and you know, and I looked back down, and when
<v Speaker 1>I looked up the next time, her knees were splayed
<v Speaker 1>her her bun had come undone, and she was and
<v Speaker 1>then and then when she finished, she was putting her
<v Speaker 1>hair all back together. Came back up. Thank you, thank
<v Speaker 1>you very much. That was very nice. She was trying
<v Speaker 1>to put herself back together.
<v Speaker 3>But that was all true.
<v Speaker 1>That was all Uh. It was just like a scene
<v Speaker 1>in the movie. It was very very funny.
<v Speaker 3>That is fantastic.
<v Speaker 5>So as you were doing the movie, you know, you've
<v Speaker 5>you've got the part, and I mean, I'm getting all
<v Speaker 5>out of order here, of course, but well we'll do
<v Speaker 5>some other questions before all of this. But as you're
<v Speaker 5>making the movie and you have all of these wonderful comedicy,
<v Speaker 5>I mean, I think I saw something that there's there's
<v Speaker 5>a joke like every five seconds. Basically, it was just
<v Speaker 5>one after the other. And you can't just listen to
<v Speaker 5>it because so many of them are site gags that
<v Speaker 5>are going on while the dialogue is going on as well.
<v Speaker 5>But as you're making it, are you thinking to yourself,
<v Speaker 5>this is really something special. I know that this is
<v Speaker 5>going to be great or was it just well, this
<v Speaker 5>is my first movie and we'll just see how it does.
<v Speaker 3>Well.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I say, this is my first movie, and my god,
<v Speaker 1>can you believe it? I'm working with all these people,
<v Speaker 1>and Juliet is so great and this is so fun
<v Speaker 1>and and uh as it was. As it was going along,
<v Speaker 1>I started I started thinking, Wow, you know, this has
<v Speaker 1>a chance to be like one of those films that
<v Speaker 1>gets a cult following on college campuses, you know, And
<v Speaker 1>I thought, which would be really cool to me. It's like,
<v Speaker 1>because those things last forever. You know, they have a
<v Speaker 1>smaller audience, but in the campuses and they just keep
<v Speaker 1>going every you know, I don't know how long they'd
<v Speaker 1>last a decade or something, you know, but that was
<v Speaker 1>really cool. And then as the days went by and
<v Speaker 1>I started hearing from when they were going into the producers,
<v Speaker 1>John Davison and the rest of the guys were going
<v Speaker 1>into watch the dailies along with the boys. It got
<v Speaker 1>to where I used to hear that sometimes they would
<v Speaker 1>send their secretaries in and you know, I got a
<v Speaker 1>meeting or I've got some stuff here. Go look at
<v Speaker 1>that film and just tell me how you think it's going,
<v Speaker 1>and then give me a report back, you know that
<v Speaker 1>kind of a thing. Well, with this, everybody wanted to
<v Speaker 1>see the dailies, and they had to run the dailies
<v Speaker 1>over and over times or you know. And so when
<v Speaker 1>the word like that started coming back, I thought, whoa,
<v Speaker 1>and all a bunch of us were thinking this might
<v Speaker 1>really this might really be more than that, you know,
<v Speaker 1>just but you don't want to say anything out loud.
<v Speaker 1>So then we all just got real quiet, and we
<v Speaker 1>talked about, Hey, how about the Dodgers, Yeah, what do
<v Speaker 1>you think the Lakers are going?
<v Speaker 3>Hey, what do you think? You know?
<v Speaker 1>Anything else? And or you know, when we do this scene,
<v Speaker 1>maybe we should try or what about this? Or how
<v Speaker 1>are we going to So everything was like like that,
<v Speaker 1>And I remember a young kid, a young guy came
<v Speaker 1>up and he was uh. I would imagine he was
<v Speaker 1>a day player, you know, maybe there for day or two.
<v Speaker 1>And we had a circle, about five of us standing
<v Speaker 1>in the circle. He came up and just jumped right
<v Speaker 1>in the circle.
<v Speaker 7>Hey, I hear this thing is going to be a
<v Speaker 7>huge block. Us put their heads down and we just
<v Speaker 7>turned and walked away. The poor guy is left there
<v Speaker 7>like what did I say?
<v Speaker 1>And so, yeah, it was just something that you just stopped,
<v Speaker 1>you know. And then I had friends when it started.
<v Speaker 1>They started showing the trailers, you know, upcoming. So they
<v Speaker 1>go to the movies and you see a trailer. And
<v Speaker 1>they called me up to say I saw a trailer
<v Speaker 1>for the film. I said really, I said, yeah, those
<v Speaker 1>are all the jokes, right, And I said, no, not
<v Speaker 1>even scratching the surface. That's incredible. Yeah.
<v Speaker 6>How does it feel to be a part of something
<v Speaker 6>that's gonna I mean, like it's going to be around
<v Speaker 6>for one hundred years, Like this is maybe one of
<v Speaker 6>the best movies in the nineteen eighties. I mean we're
<v Speaker 6>talking back to the future, die Hard and Airplane, you know.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, I always I mean it it's just crazy.
<v Speaker 1>It's like you feel like you won the lottery, you know.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, you know the old thing about you get
<v Speaker 1>you get compartmentalized, you know, and type cast and and
<v Speaker 1>I I always loved doing light comedy, and I mean
<v Speaker 1>I did. And I remember in acting classes. I remember
<v Speaker 1>friends of mine would tell me they'd say, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>everyone's talking about all this stuff. But they didn't see,
<v Speaker 1>you know, when you did that full rain or I
<v Speaker 1>didn't see the scenes out of that where it was
<v Speaker 1>just really gutting wrenching and your you know, heroin addict
<v Speaker 1>and all that. Yeah, but that's when they were really good.
<v Speaker 1>And don't tell them, don't tell anybody, right, but you know,
<v Speaker 1>they just they it's it's difficult to break away. But
<v Speaker 1>if you didn't have this happen and you say, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but this way, I get to be a complete actor,
<v Speaker 1>and said, yeah, no one knows anything about you. You're
<v Speaker 1>getting fifteen bucks a day, you know, or you get
<v Speaker 1>to go do regional theater for you know, a hot
<v Speaker 1>dog or something. You know, So that's the thing you paid,
<v Speaker 1>you know what, you have to pay the price. And
<v Speaker 1>for me, gosh, I got to work with these guys
<v Speaker 1>that I mean, Leslie Nielsen, the old what the what
<v Speaker 1>the casting director said when they were having a hard
<v Speaker 1>time casting that role. Finally they saw him. The boys
<v Speaker 1>saw him on an old Bonanza episode or some old
<v Speaker 1>you know, and he was playing the you know, kind
<v Speaker 1>of stern kind of guy that he played uh so often.
<v Speaker 1>And so they came in and they said, we found
<v Speaker 1>the guy, Leslie Nielson, and the casting Georges said, Leslie Nielsen,
<v Speaker 1>So you find that's who you finally cast the night
<v Speaker 1>before you got to filming. You can't find anybody, and
<v Speaker 1>he winds up being, you know, probably the biggest thing
<v Speaker 1>in the whole film. And the first guy that they
<v Speaker 1>thought of when they started writing the script was Bob Stack,
<v Speaker 1>and so that's who they wanted, and uh, when they
<v Speaker 1>finally were able to and then they you know, went
<v Speaker 1>on and got the rest of the guys. And here
<v Speaker 1>I grew up with him, you know, with Elitness and
<v Speaker 1>all of the things that he did. And then Peter
<v Speaker 1>Graves when I was a little kid. Fury was the
<v Speaker 1>show when I was a little little little guy, a
<v Speaker 1>little tyke. And then after that Mission Impossible and Sea
<v Speaker 1>Hunt with Lloyd Bridges and uh, you know, and Leslie.
<v Speaker 1>Leslie did a show for Disney when I was little,
<v Speaker 1>and it was called Marion's Marauders and he played at
<v Speaker 1>Captain Marion and it was he had a company of guys.
<v Speaker 1>It was sort of like Seal Team six, but in
<v Speaker 1>the Revolutionary War, so he'd be fighting against the British
<v Speaker 1>and go in and do and learn Indian techniques of
<v Speaker 1>fighting and sneak in and you know. And he to
<v Speaker 1>me that was like.
<v Speaker 3>Oh man, he's the coolest guy.
<v Speaker 1>I want to get into his group, you know, bring
<v Speaker 1>her five years old. And here I am in, you know,
<v Speaker 1>in a movie with him and doing immortal lines with him.
<v Speaker 1>You know.
<v Speaker 4>So it's amazing.
<v Speaker 1>I remember Keith Richards said that, didn't you He said,
<v Speaker 1>I was doing mortal lines with somebody. I think that.
<v Speaker 4>What.
<v Speaker 6>I'm sorry to cut in, but uh, I gotta ask you.
<v Speaker 6>I don't know how long he was on the set for,
<v Speaker 6>but I mean, Kareem Abdul Jabbar was a humongous star
<v Speaker 6>at the time when you were working with him.
<v Speaker 1>Massive, massive, yeah, super. I mean uh when he when
<v Speaker 1>he graduated at UCLA, he went to uh uh Minnesota,
<v Speaker 1>I mean to Wisconsin. He played for the Milwaukee Bucks,
<v Speaker 1>which of course they're very pissed off that he got
<v Speaker 1>him back. We all went there for something. They were like,
<v Speaker 1>you know, we never did forgive you for that having
<v Speaker 1>you here. So uh.
<v Speaker 6>I saw that commercial you did, the Wisconsin tourism commercial.
<v Speaker 4>That was really fun.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah with Kareem.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that was that was that was on the first
<v Speaker 1>one I did was with David and he directed them.
<v Speaker 1>He called me up and said, hey, you want to
<v Speaker 1>do a commercial for Wisconsin Tourism and then we'll go
<v Speaker 1>and we'll just shoot a funny thing. I said, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>why not, it's fun and we had so much fun
<v Speaker 1>and it wound up being very funny and it got
<v Speaker 1>a lot of views and stuff.
<v Speaker 3>It's still on YouTube.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's a Wisconsin's Summer Tourism, David Zucker and
<v Speaker 1>Robert Hayes. I think if you put in YouTube. But
<v Speaker 1>it's just I mean, he said one time he told
<v Speaker 1>me he said, yeah, pain, pain is funny, and I thought, man,
<v Speaker 1>you must be getting some good laughs because you're beating
<v Speaker 1>the crap on me. It was well, if you just
<v Speaker 1>watch it, you'll see, I mean, it's it's it was nuts,
<v Speaker 1>but it was. It was a lot of fun. Kareem
<v Speaker 1>was great. Kareem was very quiet, and I think he's
<v Speaker 1>opened up a lot since airplane because of airplane. I
<v Speaker 1>think because he's very he's very sensitive. And he told
<v Speaker 1>me growing up he was very shy and very very quiet,
<v Speaker 1>and the worst thing that you could do is to
<v Speaker 1>go up.
<v Speaker 3>And say, whoa great cool man, how's the weather up?
<v Speaker 1>There. That was he was so self conscious about that
<v Speaker 1>and that hurts so much whenever people would say that.
<v Speaker 1>So he I think he took it out on the court.
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 1>He was very aggressive and very you know, the enforcer
<v Speaker 1>kind of whatever guy. I think having Like when when
<v Speaker 1>I'm in a group of people and you walk on
<v Speaker 1>a plane, we're all kind of the same size. I'm
<v Speaker 1>slightly taller than you know, a lot of the people
<v Speaker 1>that go on. But but I would get invited up
<v Speaker 1>all the time, and they recognize me and they come up,
<v Speaker 1>would you come up to the would you take a
<v Speaker 1>picture with us in the cockpit?
<v Speaker 2>Or was it?
<v Speaker 1>You know, all this stuff? And if I'd go up
<v Speaker 1>to use the bathroom and the stewardess.
<v Speaker 3>Would say, do you mind forget a picture? I said, no, okay,
<v Speaker 3>can I go to the bathroom first?
<v Speaker 1>And then and then they close the curtains and then
<v Speaker 1>we take a picture back there and then and but
<v Speaker 1>it was it was really fun. But with Kareem, you know,
<v Speaker 1>here's a guy that's bent over so he can walk
<v Speaker 1>through the fuselage of the plane. Yeah, and so you
<v Speaker 1>don't miss him. And man, he got lots of lots
<v Speaker 1>of attention Peter Graves also Peter uh said he was
<v Speaker 1>in a supermarket and a little kid. He was over
<v Speaker 1>there in the vegetable section, and he's just the sweetest guy.
<v Speaker 1>Peter is just one of the kindest, sweetest people. And
<v Speaker 1>he looked down and there's this little guy. Said well,
<v Speaker 1>hello there, young man, and the mother looked up at
<v Speaker 1>him and grabbed the sun and yeah, I mean I
<v Speaker 1>introduced my folks, my dad, my dad. Mom and dad
<v Speaker 1>are gone.
<v Speaker 3>I love him.
<v Speaker 1>But she was a little thing, five to two and
<v Speaker 1>dad was six three, big marine fighter pilot. And I thought, well,
<v Speaker 1>Peter's kind of a you know, conservative kind of guy,
<v Speaker 1>and he maybe they'd get along, you know. And I said,
<v Speaker 1>and this was at the Director's Guild and we were
<v Speaker 1>having a screening of it. It was a big, huge deal, really,
<v Speaker 1>and and I said, Peter, this is my dad, and
<v Speaker 1>I thought, you know, put in Colonel John Hayes. So
<v Speaker 1>it was my mom and dad John. But I said,
<v Speaker 1>Colonel John Hayes is thinking that would be cool, you know.
<v Speaker 1>But it's like, well, hello, colonel, how are you. And
<v Speaker 1>this is Peter Graves. It's nice to meet you. And
<v Speaker 1>Dad's very kind of stoic and very reserved. Amazing guy
<v Speaker 1>and wonderful guy, but very but he wasn't the kind
<v Speaker 1>of you know, he wasn't. I don't know where I
<v Speaker 1>got this because I didn't get it from him. But
<v Speaker 1>just you know, I think they cast me because I
<v Speaker 1>talk so much. I think, but because I am ted striker.
<v Speaker 1>But uh but they they you know, they said, how
<v Speaker 1>are you doing?
<v Speaker 3>Well? Fine?
<v Speaker 1>Well, fine, well, well this is great. Thank you, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>thank you. And then we're standing and I'm thinking, I'll shoot, well,
<v Speaker 1>that's it. There's no more talking for you guys. And
<v Speaker 1>I said, so, Peter, how you been And he said,
<v Speaker 1>he said, well, I've been fine, I've been really good. Well,
<v Speaker 1>I got a strange hankering for little boys lately.
<v Speaker 2>Dad.
<v Speaker 1>I could see the dad's look on his face, you know,
<v Speaker 1>but he's very he's very subtle. But it was like
<v Speaker 1>in size and my mom was like, what was that.
<v Speaker 1>Immediately I immediately turned it's in the movie. It's in
<v Speaker 1>the movie.
<v Speaker 3>It's he'll understand.
<v Speaker 4>Gosh.
<v Speaker 5>So it's and it's incredible that he delivers that line
<v Speaker 5>to your parents, because that's I mean, that's a wonderful
<v Speaker 5>part about the movie, is that all of those guys
<v Speaker 5>that you're talking about, all of your you know, the
<v Speaker 5>guys you watched in your childhood. There were all in
<v Speaker 5>these very serious like things, and it was that serious
<v Speaker 5>delivery delivery that made the joke so much funnier.
<v Speaker 1>That was their whole point. And the boys really stressed
<v Speaker 1>that from the moment we began play this seriously, this
<v Speaker 1>isn't a comedy. We want to play this seriously. And
<v Speaker 1>one of them, I can't remember if it was Lloyd
<v Speaker 1>uh or Bob Stack, I mean, I don't know who was,
<v Speaker 1>but when they came in to meet with him and
<v Speaker 1>they were trying to think about, you know, well, comedy,
<v Speaker 1>and he says, well, I was on an episode of
<v Speaker 1>mash that.
<v Speaker 3>Help a little bit.
<v Speaker 1>And the boy said, don't worry, we won't hold that
<v Speaker 1>against you. And because what they wanted was they wanted
<v Speaker 1>Elliott Ness, and they wanted Mike Nelson from Sea Hunt,
<v Speaker 1>and they wanted you know what's his name from from
<v Speaker 1>Mission Impossible. You know, that's what they wanted. And then
<v Speaker 1>and Leslie, they wanted that big booming voice. Leslie told
<v Speaker 1>me he always wanted to do this wacky lunatic stuff,
<v Speaker 1>but he just never quite had the guts. He got
<v Speaker 1>up to the door and he could open the door
<v Speaker 1>kind of look through into the world of insanity over there.
<v Speaker 1>But it was the boys that pushed him through. And
<v Speaker 1>once he went in, I mean then it was like
<v Speaker 1>the reins broke, the horse was running wild.
<v Speaker 4>You know, he was crazy.
<v Speaker 5>So Robert, let me ask you this. You know, you're
<v Speaker 5>watching these guys as a young kid. Are they inspirational
<v Speaker 5>and you deciding to become an actor?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah? Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>My uncle, my mom's uncle, my great uncle, Hal had
<v Speaker 1>worked at Universal for thirty years and he was in
<v Speaker 1>the PR department and he just all different areas of that.
<v Speaker 1>And I remember when I was little, we had come
<v Speaker 1>back from living in Turkey for three years, and immediately
<v Speaker 1>my dad was shipped over to Japan, and so we
<v Speaker 1>were there for a year. While he was in Japan,
<v Speaker 1>Uncle Hal got us a tour of Universal Studios. But
<v Speaker 1>the tour of Universal Studios back in nineteen sixty was
<v Speaker 1>a black Caddie limo and the driver just drove you around.
<v Speaker 1>He'd say, look at that set, and look at that set.
<v Speaker 1>Now we can walk in here be real quiet, and
<v Speaker 1>they're the rehearsing, and there was Boris Karloff and he
<v Speaker 1>was hosting a show called Thriller and he was leaning
<v Speaker 1>up against the set, which was the mantle of a fireplace,
<v Speaker 1>and he was going over his lines. And we got
<v Speaker 1>to see that and the said, okay, now they're going
<v Speaker 1>to shoot it, so let's leave. So we'd leave and
<v Speaker 1>then we go into the cafeteria, you know, the commissary,
<v Speaker 1>and we'd have lunch. And for me, there was Maureene Corcoran.
<v Speaker 1>The Corcoran You wouldn't ever know them, but it was
<v Speaker 1>like they had I don't know, five kids, and all
<v Speaker 1>of them were child actors, Kevin Corkoran and Marine Corkoran
<v Speaker 1>and I mean all of that. I mean we knew
<v Speaker 1>all these and I'm a little kid and I'm you know,
<v Speaker 1>looking at him.
<v Speaker 3>And going god, oh wow, that's Gorgon.
<v Speaker 4>She was.
<v Speaker 1>And you see guys, you know with Indian outfits going
<v Speaker 1>over and going through line getting their food, just like
<v Speaker 1>you see in the movies. And that's what the Universal
<v Speaker 1>Studios Tour was. It was just a VIP thing. And
<v Speaker 1>so he got us that little thing. Then he got
<v Speaker 1>me these pictures that he had people that had worked
<v Speaker 1>there signed for me, and I had pictures of Tony
<v Speaker 1>Curtis and Janet Lee and a picture Carrie Grant, and
<v Speaker 1>I mean it was fantastic. I was crazy. The ones
<v Speaker 1>that were my influence most of all, because I mean
<v Speaker 1>I absolutely that was of my favorite actors is William Powell.
<v Speaker 1>I love him, and and Spencer Tracy and Jimmy Cagney,
<v Speaker 1>all these guys. But the ones that were my special
<v Speaker 1>for were the ones I always thought I could do
<v Speaker 1>those kinds of roles I couldn't do, you know, Jimmy Cagney, Huh,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, yank you do o Dandy. It's a little
<v Speaker 1>fire plans, full of energy. I'm a different kuy and
<v Speaker 1>you know, a tall, lanky guy.
<v Speaker 3>And it was.
<v Speaker 1>It was Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda and Gary Cooper
<v Speaker 1>and Carry Grant. Those were the guys that were I
<v Speaker 1>could do those kinds and that was what my brain
<v Speaker 1>always was sort of, you know, my version of those guys,
<v Speaker 1>which would probably be a little strange.
<v Speaker 3>That's awesome.
<v Speaker 4>So did you do j You do theater in high
<v Speaker 4>school and in college.
<v Speaker 1>I stumbled into it. In college I transferred. We were
<v Speaker 1>in Nebraska and and I transferred from there. We came
<v Speaker 1>back and Dad was shipped to Vietnam, and I stayed
<v Speaker 1>home because we had horses. So I stayed home and
<v Speaker 1>took care of the horse. I'd been a stable boy
<v Speaker 1>back in Nebraska and so doing all the feeding and
<v Speaker 1>all the mucking the stalls and you know, medicines they
<v Speaker 1>needed whatever. And so I stayed home, lived with Mom,
<v Speaker 1>and I got into this small little college in alcohol
<v Speaker 1>in O Mesa area and called Grossmont College. And the
<v Speaker 1>only class I could get into was a beginning acting class.
<v Speaker 3>Wow.
<v Speaker 1>How there were a couple of a couple of other classes.
<v Speaker 1>There was a pe class, a track and field, there
<v Speaker 1>was an elective. And I thought, why would I want
<v Speaker 1>to do something? Why do I want run around a
<v Speaker 1>track when I don't have to. I'm too lazy for that.
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to do that.
<v Speaker 4>It's too hard.
<v Speaker 1>It would have been great if I'd done it, but
<v Speaker 1>it was But you know, at the time, you think,
<v Speaker 1>and I know, and.
<v Speaker 3>I did I want to go surfing? Oh, I got
<v Speaker 3>hanging the beach.
<v Speaker 1>And so anyway, I took the acting class just to
<v Speaker 1>get into the school. And it was kind of like
<v Speaker 1>an excuse because you know, the weird nerds are the
<v Speaker 1>ones that go into acting, and you know, and I thought, well,
<v Speaker 1>but I have no choice because that's the only class
<v Speaker 1>that's open.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, that's it, you know.
<v Speaker 1>So so I thought, Okay, if anybody asked me, I said, well,
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to do it, but I just want
<v Speaker 1>to get in the school. So I wound up going
<v Speaker 1>to school. I was there fourteen to eighteen hours a day.
<v Speaker 1>I was doing everything. I was running lights, I was
<v Speaker 1>you know, building sets and learning all the taking every
<v Speaker 1>class I could find, history of theater, history of costuming
<v Speaker 1>in the theater, and makeup and you know this, you know,
<v Speaker 1>scene writing, playwriting and and everything. I was just taking
<v Speaker 1>everything that they had. And then I went over to
<v Speaker 1>the Old Globe Theater there in San Diego in Balbo Park,
<v Speaker 1>and it's a nationally recognized theater, wonderful theater, and that's
<v Speaker 1>where I extended it and grew into that, and then
<v Speaker 1>from there came up to LA.
<v Speaker 5>Basically, so, what was your first once you got to LA,
<v Speaker 5>what was your first time? I mean, I'm sure you
<v Speaker 5>did several auditions, but what was the first time you
<v Speaker 5>get cast?
<v Speaker 1>The first thing that I did was in San Diego
<v Speaker 1>and there was David Jansen had a show called Harry
<v Speaker 1>Oh and the first season of it was shot in
<v Speaker 1>San Diego and then later they moved it up to
<v Speaker 1>La And our friend, boy, this is this is like
<v Speaker 1>a Ted Striker story is rambling. We had we had
<v Speaker 1>a guy that became a family friend and he was
<v Speaker 1>our building inspector and we when dad was in Vietnam,
<v Speaker 1>he read an article the magazine and the cover popular
<v Speaker 1>Cannos or something and said, build your own home for
<v Speaker 1>one third the cost. And so he says, well, my
<v Speaker 1>Scot's blood said that sounds like a good idea. So
<v Speaker 1>so he said, honey, find some land. So we got
<v Speaker 1>some land, got the guy to design the home, and
<v Speaker 1>he and his brothers would design homes, Adobe homes for
<v Speaker 1>people that wanted to build their own or anywhere from
<v Speaker 1>you want to do absolutely on everything yourself up to
<v Speaker 1>you don't want to do anything, just have them build
<v Speaker 1>it for you, and anywhere in between that come and
<v Speaker 1>help you a little, to help you a lot, to
<v Speaker 1>do it all, or you do it all.
<v Speaker 3>And so.
<v Speaker 1>He came out showed us this land that he found
<v Speaker 1>because we where we the place that we had found
<v Speaker 1>was it was the city was growing into it all
<v Speaker 1>over it, you know, encroaching right. So he he found
<v Speaker 1>a place, came out, took his leather sold flat shoe
<v Speaker 1>and just turned it because it had brained the day
<v Speaker 1>or two before and it just creamed. And he said,
<v Speaker 1>this is perfect. This is the perfect land for making
<v Speaker 1>adobe and DG kind of decomposed grantite. And so the
<v Speaker 1>very first thing we put a bit on their equipment
<v Speaker 1>because they were splitting up. The brothers were We got it.
<v Speaker 1>We got the little skiploader tractor and the very first
<v Speaker 1>thing I did was to learn how to drive it.
<v Speaker 1>I just dug up dirt and made a huge pile
<v Speaker 1>about ten feet high, and then we got a mulcified asphalt.
<v Speaker 1>We got the forms they had and we started digging
<v Speaker 1>it up, mixing it up the right way, pouring it,
<v Speaker 1>and the forms. We made our own bricks. We made
<v Speaker 1>over sixteen thousand bricks in the house, eight by twelve
<v Speaker 1>by sixteen, and so it was really an amazing thing
<v Speaker 1>to do, and this kind of thing my dad would do.
<v Speaker 1>And of course we're all along for the ride. And
<v Speaker 1>while we did that, this guy Don Kennedy was our
<v Speaker 1>building inspector, and he's a real He was the same
<v Speaker 1>as my folks, and they just got along great. But
<v Speaker 1>he was a real storyteller. His dad was Tom Kennedy.
<v Speaker 1>His dad was a heavyweight fighter. He fought the last
<v Speaker 1>fight in Europe before World War One broke out and
<v Speaker 1>came back and he was looking around, what do I
<v Speaker 1>do now? And he was standing outside the Paramount I
<v Speaker 1>think it was, and a limo pulls up to go
<v Speaker 1>in through the gate and it's Douglas Fairbanks Senior, and
<v Speaker 1>he says, he says, aren't you Tom Kennedy. He says yeah.
<v Speaker 3>He says, I saw your last fight.
<v Speaker 1>Because you know, Fairbanks was a big, big athletic guy,
<v Speaker 1>and he said.
<v Speaker 3>What are you doing?
<v Speaker 1>He said, I thought I would just I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>looking to see if I can find a job. Go
<v Speaker 1>talk to the studio head and tell him I sent
<v Speaker 1>you in there. And so he became one of the
<v Speaker 1>original Keystone Cops and then off of that group he
<v Speaker 1>started his own Tom Kennedy One Reelers and two Dealers,
<v Speaker 1>and then he got into the films where he was
<v Speaker 1>like the big mug that's the sergeant or whatever, that's
<v Speaker 1>the sidekick of the detective. In those old thirties movies.
<v Speaker 1>So Don grew up in the business, and Tom's best
<v Speaker 1>friend was Eddie Foy Junior. We all called big Eddie,
<v Speaker 1>but he was a little tiny guy. But Eddie Foy
<v Speaker 1>and the Seven Little Foys, he was junior, and Eddie
<v Speaker 1>Foy the third his son and Don were best friends.
<v Speaker 1>And he was a very famous casting director, Eddie Foy
<v Speaker 1>the third. And I don't know if you remember the
<v Speaker 1>Flying None he discovered Sally that and so he was
<v Speaker 1>casting Harry Oh, and Don said, I want you to
<v Speaker 1>go over there, and I want you to meet this
<v Speaker 1>friend of mine and I go way back.
<v Speaker 3>We're old friends.
<v Speaker 1>And so just tell me that you know me, you know,
<v Speaker 1>because I'm gonna call him and tell him that you're
<v Speaker 1>coming in.
<v Speaker 3>So I went in and.
<v Speaker 1>I was waiting, and finally I went in the office
<v Speaker 1>and I said hi. He says, done, Bob, and yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Don Kennedy says, say hello, and he said who. I said, well,
<v Speaker 1>Don Kennedy. He said that you guys were friends, and
<v Speaker 1>he said, say hello, is it never heard of him?
<v Speaker 1>I stick in my foot in my mouth already, And
<v Speaker 1>so he started in saying, so tell me about yourself,
<v Speaker 1>and I said, well, I'm working over here at the
<v Speaker 1>Old Globe Theater and there I don't know about that.
<v Speaker 4>What do you what do you do?
<v Speaker 1>Well, we're I'm helping my folks. We're building this house.
<v Speaker 1>Tell me about it. Oh okay, well if you do this.
<v Speaker 1>And it was very smart what he was doing. He
<v Speaker 1>wanted to get you out of thinking about selling yourself
<v Speaker 1>and just describing things so he could see what you
<v Speaker 1>were like, just as what would you be like naturally,
<v Speaker 1>you know, as a human what we want to capture that,
<v Speaker 1>you know, at the end of that whole thing, he said, okay,
<v Speaker 1>that's great. Well, okay, be here tomorrow at such and
<v Speaker 1>such a time and whatever. And as I'm walking out
<v Speaker 1>the door, he says, by the way, Don Kennedy's one
<v Speaker 1>of my best friends. And I looked at him, like you,
<v Speaker 1>and he said, get out of here. So he's the
<v Speaker 1>one that gave me my first gig. And then he
<v Speaker 1>said call me when you get to LA and I did.
<v Speaker 1>And he got me in shows so that I could
<v Speaker 1>these these Sunday morning soap operas, Lamp Onto My Feet
<v Speaker 1>and all these shows that were kind of soap operash
<v Speaker 1>like little episodic things with a religious tone and.
<v Speaker 3>That's where we just a.
<v Speaker 1>Martinez was in those you and I did his show
<v Speaker 1>together Pepy Cernos in a whole bunch of people, and
<v Speaker 1>and and then from there it was just more and more.
<v Speaker 1>But it was all because of.
<v Speaker 8>Donnin and and.
<v Speaker 1>And the third Eddie Eddie Tray. So you know, anyway, gosh,
<v Speaker 1>let's see what week did I start telling you that.
<v Speaker 4>I was actually thinking.
<v Speaker 5>I was like, this is like one of the stories
<v Speaker 5>that I tell, because usually I will go well back
<v Speaker 5>in eighteen twelve started.
<v Speaker 6>You know, where we're sitting right now is Norman, Oklahoma.
<v Speaker 6>And one of our hometown heroes is Jim Garner.
<v Speaker 1>And I know that you were on the Rocket Files.
<v Speaker 1>God we're the coolest guys I've ever met. Oh my god,
<v Speaker 1>all right, tell me about him. It was another one
<v Speaker 1>of those.
<v Speaker 3>It was.
<v Speaker 1>It was one of the early things when I got
<v Speaker 1>a little you know, some you know, moving up from
<v Speaker 1>one line to two. So it was shooting at the
<v Speaker 1>Charitan Universal over there next to Shardon the Universal Studios,
<v Speaker 1>and it was up on the top floor and we
<v Speaker 1>shot the scene and then we cut We're going to lunch,
<v Speaker 1>and then I'm standing in line, you know, with the
<v Speaker 1>getting food and and Jim comes up and he's right
<v Speaker 1>next to me, and he said everything.
<v Speaker 3>Good, and I said, gosh, yeah, that's great.
<v Speaker 1>And he turns to the director and said, he says
<v Speaker 1>to me, did they get you close up? And I thought, uh,
<v Speaker 1>I don't remember close up. I think they got everything
<v Speaker 1>they needed, you know. Uh, it's basically what I said.
<v Speaker 1>And he turns the director and said, she gets close up.
<v Speaker 1>And I looked at the director, and the director look
<v Speaker 1>up and he said, yeah, they got it. He said, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>we got the close up. I looked at him and
<v Speaker 1>I went, I didn't cause any trouble. Good. He was
<v Speaker 1>just uh he was one of the great guys that
<v Speaker 1>you think about Hollywood all the you know, and he
<v Speaker 1>was one of the great guys. He was just excellent.
<v Speaker 1>Bob Stack was like that, and I became good buddies
<v Speaker 1>and and Peter and Lloyd a little less, but I mean, uh,
<v Speaker 1>because I didn't se him as much, but but he was.
<v Speaker 1>He was really wonderful. So I just feel blessed that
<v Speaker 1>I got to, you know, work with people like that
<v Speaker 1>and others.
<v Speaker 5>You know, I was gonna say he wanted to know
<v Speaker 5>about Jim Garner. I wanted to know about Linda Carter
<v Speaker 5>because wonderful, wonder so sweet.
<v Speaker 1>She was really nice and still is when i've seen her.
<v Speaker 1>She's really really nice. Lady Uh Harris Eulen. That was
<v Speaker 1>the name of the guy. He played the bad guy
<v Speaker 1>on it. He was the Nazi undercover Nazie was playing
<v Speaker 1>it being a masquerading as a producer in Hollywood. And
<v Speaker 1>I was a Medal of Honor recipient. And there were
<v Speaker 1>four of them. One of course was Lyle Wagoner, who
<v Speaker 1>is you know in the show, so he had to
<v Speaker 1>be one of those. They would write him, you know,
<v Speaker 1>that's what Another really funny guy, actually very funny, and
<v Speaker 1>then Ross Biquel and we hung out for a while together.
<v Speaker 1>And I can't remember the fourth fourth guy, but that
<v Speaker 1>was what the thing was. We were making a film
<v Speaker 1>about these Medal of Honor recipients, and I was this
<v Speaker 1>young little guy that didn't feel like he really deserved
<v Speaker 1>it and felt guilty about, you know. And wonder Woman's
<v Speaker 1>younger sister was visiting her from the island in that show.
<v Speaker 1>That episode she would come and go yeah, and she
<v Speaker 1>became my sort of love interest kind of a thing.
<v Speaker 1>And that was Deborah winger.
<v Speaker 8>Yeah nice and and oh god, well Linda was late
<v Speaker 8>coming on the set.
<v Speaker 1>Apparently her personal manager was a guy that he his
<v Speaker 1>stable was all the beautiful young starlets. That was like,
<v Speaker 1>you know, you had to be a beautiful young starlet
<v Speaker 1>to be one of his clients, I guess, but a
<v Speaker 1>tough life. Yeah, all the ones that you can think
<v Speaker 1>of back then, it seems like for all his clients.
<v Speaker 1>But he would tell them, you make them wait, you
<v Speaker 1>show them who's the boss. It's like making a statement.
<v Speaker 4>You know.
<v Speaker 1>There's a lot of stuff I think was wrong and bullcrap.
<v Speaker 1>But so she would be late to make sure she
<v Speaker 1>was the last one on the set, and she was
<v Speaker 1>I think I think it was like, now do this
<v Speaker 1>and don't screw this up. Do it the way I'm
<v Speaker 1>telling you. So she would. I don't think she would
<v Speaker 1>normally have been that late, you know. Anyway, So she
<v Speaker 1>was late a lot. And here's Harris Eulen, who is
<v Speaker 1>an incredible actor, wonderful actor, and he's got this vul
<v Speaker 1>double breasted coat, you know, just massive amounts of material
<v Speaker 1>and a cigar about this long. I mean, it was
<v Speaker 1>a huge thing. He's standing in the middle of the thing. Now,
<v Speaker 1>you got to understand you remember her her costume, mm hmm, vague,
<v Speaker 1>you got it. Well, these these cups were like fiberglass cones,
<v Speaker 1>big fiberglass volcanoes. You know, that's the way that wardrobe
<v Speaker 1>was made. And I don't even know if I should
<v Speaker 1>tell the story, but standing there and we're waiting and
<v Speaker 1>waiting and waiting, and he pushes his coat back with
<v Speaker 1>the one hand and grabs the cigar and the other
<v Speaker 1>pulls it out and he says, where's eagle tits? And
<v Speaker 1>excuse me for saying that, but that's what it was.
<v Speaker 1>And then he puts the cigar back in his mouth.
<v Speaker 1>He was he's like a producer, he was character. And
<v Speaker 1>then she comes out, and you know, we get chewting
<v Speaker 1>the thing. And as we finished that and we moved
<v Speaker 1>back to the sound stage from where it is that
<v Speaker 1>we were, and Rick Waite, who became really big as
<v Speaker 1>a cinematographer, he was the cinematographer on the show, and
<v Speaker 1>he had this classic jag that he had just I mean,
<v Speaker 1>showroom quality finished, you know, mirror glass finish and everything,
<v Speaker 1>and he was coming back driving it back to the
<v Speaker 1>sound stage and Deborah jumps up on the hood and
<v Speaker 1>she's laying on the hood as he's driving, and you
<v Speaker 1>saw his heart sink like eh. And as they go
<v Speaker 1>by that diaphorus, little skirts flying all around, and she
<v Speaker 1>had her smaller you know set of yeah yeah, and
<v Speaker 1>hills and the botanic hills and uh. Anyway, as she's
<v Speaker 1>going past, I said, ah, wonder lumps.
<v Speaker 3>That became the joke on the set.
<v Speaker 1>Uh and and uh. And then I go over to
<v Speaker 1>Ross's house and have dinner with me and his wife,
<v Speaker 1>who was this black haired, dark haired, uh, really beautiful gal.
<v Speaker 1>And later she she bleached it blonde and and uh
<v Speaker 1>they were divorced not too long after, but she bleached
<v Speaker 1>it blonde, then became she became Lonnie Anderson. I mean
<v Speaker 1>she was already but she she was dark hair, and
<v Speaker 1>then she became Wow. We remained friends for a long time.
<v Speaker 1>She was wonderful. She was really great. So, yeah, there's
<v Speaker 1>all kinds of just little little things stories and things.
<v Speaker 6>You were in, Uh, you were in Laverna Shirley.
<v Speaker 1>As well, right, Yeah, yeah, how was that it was?
<v Speaker 1>It was it was on h I play a bus
<v Speaker 1>driver and I'm LaVerne's boyfriend and she needs a date
<v Speaker 1>for Shirley, and so I get my body Moose, who
<v Speaker 1>my friend Mike McManus played Moose. And obviously I've taken
<v Speaker 1>everybody on the bus and driven to the bowling now
<v Speaker 1>where a heat is going to be. And we walk
<v Speaker 1>in and as we're getting ready to do it, you know,
<v Speaker 1>to shoot the scene, and we walk in and I
<v Speaker 1>just grabbed my changer and I, you know, pushed a
<v Speaker 1>little button. I don't think people don't even know anymore.
<v Speaker 1>They had these metal things and you push a button,
<v Speaker 1>they get the nickels or dimes or whatever you push order,
<v Speaker 1>and I went, chink here, get yourself a soda. And
<v Speaker 1>the riders fell off the chairs. They loved it, and
<v Speaker 1>so they left that in and and then the rival,
<v Speaker 1>her rival Angie something or another was there with her,
<v Speaker 1>like motorcycle gang boyfriend and his guys. So it became
<v Speaker 1>a big brujaha that when you see it's coming and
<v Speaker 1>then it cuts and you know realize that it was
<v Speaker 1>a big the big brawl. But that was the first
<v Speaker 1>episode that introduced that character that became LaVerne's nemesis. You know,
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna rip that l right off your sweater. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>touch that l and your teeth go to beat Peoria,
<v Speaker 1>you know that kind of thing. Well that, like, I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, a year, two years later, whatever it was.
<v Speaker 1>Three years later, they did a spin off with that character,
<v Speaker 1>but they made her more petite and and they cast
<v Speaker 1>on a Pascal and that was the show Angie.
<v Speaker 4>Wow, that is crazy.
<v Speaker 3>I did not know that.
<v Speaker 1>That's great And I was in the episode that introduced
<v Speaker 1>Angie that character.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 6>Great, Well, tell so I know that the TV show
<v Speaker 6>Angie kind of was your stepping stone to airplane. What
<v Speaker 6>are the memories of that show?
<v Speaker 1>Well, that was that was what I was doing at
<v Speaker 1>the time, and they'd never seen it. They didn't know
<v Speaker 1>anything about it. Oh, okay, they Angie was. I went
<v Speaker 1>in and I read for it. I was living in
<v Speaker 1>a little unit that was built over a garageless studio
<v Speaker 1>up in Laurel Canyon, built over a garage in the
<v Speaker 1>main house. A kid was ranting that and he got
<v Speaker 1>cast as Brad and they shot the pilot, but they
<v Speaker 1>didn't like the way it was exactly that we cast
<v Speaker 1>several of the people. He was one of the roles.
<v Speaker 1>He was just really he's a good actor and a
<v Speaker 1>wonderful guy and then they called me in with some
<v Speaker 1>other people, Mark Harmon and well guys, somebody else. I
<v Speaker 1>can't think right now, so I think it was the
<v Speaker 1>three of us. Might have been for but I think
<v Speaker 1>it was the three of us. And he called called
<v Speaker 1>me in. They called me in. And then one day
<v Speaker 1>he was coming home and I was, you know, walking
<v Speaker 1>down on the sidewalk or something, and he said, I
<v Speaker 1>understand that you're going into read. You could see he
<v Speaker 1>was just I felt so bad for me. This is like,
<v Speaker 1>oh god, this is a harsh business. And I said, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but they're not going to cast me. I mean, they're
<v Speaker 1>not going to cast me any Well said yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>don't worry about it. And I was leaving because I
<v Speaker 1>was going up to Mammoth Ski and I got back
<v Speaker 1>on the weekend, like after being up there day or so,
<v Speaker 1>and they said, you got the role. I had to
<v Speaker 1>see what I uh, I just wanted to tell you, well,
<v Speaker 1>they cast me. He just he just looked at me
<v Speaker 1>and his head dropped around and he walked away, and
<v Speaker 1>I thought, God, this is this is terrible.
<v Speaker 3>I don't.
<v Speaker 1>Then we did it and it was really fun. We
<v Speaker 1>really had a lot of fun. Donna and I Oh
<v Speaker 1>my god. We made people, you know, each other crack
<v Speaker 1>up a lot. And the cast was wonderful. You know.
<v Speaker 1>Doris was the mom, and Sharon Spellman was my sister,
<v Speaker 1>who was wonderful.
<v Speaker 3>The rich.
<v Speaker 1>I was the rich guy. She was the poor girl,
<v Speaker 1>and she was the rich spoiled you know, trust fun child.
<v Speaker 1>I was the one that didn't want to follow my
<v Speaker 1>dad's foot prince, you know, and became a doctor instead,
<v Speaker 1>a pediatrician. And then Deverley Scott was her sister, and
<v Speaker 1>she had these slight ut teeth and they were always
<v Speaker 1>putting things in about her buck teeth in the show.
<v Speaker 1>Was it was a funny banter but she was like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>but it was. It was really fun.
<v Speaker 3>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>We had we had a bunch of great people doing it.
<v Speaker 1>Oh gosh, the guys that did I can't even think
<v Speaker 1>of their name. They got their faces. They came in
<v Speaker 1>on the show and it was some of my best stuff,
<v Speaker 1>I thought. And they had done Cheers and you know
<v Speaker 1>or later on the Cheers. Anyway, it was it was
<v Speaker 1>just a lot of fun. But it was during that
<v Speaker 1>time that they had cast pretty much everybody. I think
<v Speaker 1>they had they had everyone or just about the main people. Anyway,
<v Speaker 1>they cast Julie back in New York and she was
<v Speaker 1>in an elevator, got an elevator with them, and they
<v Speaker 1>were going up and she didn't know that they were
<v Speaker 1>the guys that she was going, oh wow, because she
<v Speaker 1>was just she was talking with them and they were
<v Speaker 1>looking at each other like, I hope she's going up
<v Speaker 1>to an audition because she's just great. And then she
<v Speaker 1>gets in there and there's a room packed with women,
<v Speaker 1>and then they go in the other office. You know
<v Speaker 1>it's connected, and so when she walks in and then
<v Speaker 1>she sees them, it's like what you see is that's
<v Speaker 1>where she is. I mean, that's the way she talks,
<v Speaker 1>she sounds, she's just darling. And so they got they
<v Speaker 1>got her. They got Bob Stack, like we talked about.
<v Speaker 1>And Peter Graves, after he threw the script down, said,
<v Speaker 1>was the biggest piece of piece of garbage I've ever
<v Speaker 1>written that I've ever read. And his daughters said, Dad,
<v Speaker 1>but they're really talking about this is going to be funny.
<v Speaker 1>You got to read it again. The agent said, Peter,
<v Speaker 1>there's buzz about this. You got to read it. So
<v Speaker 1>he said, okay, whoa Julie Haggardy.
<v Speaker 5>Go ahead, answer yeah, go ahead and answer Julie.
<v Speaker 6>All right, guys, that's going to do it. For part
<v Speaker 6>one of our interview with mister Robert Hayes. I know
<v Speaker 6>what you're thinking. We couldn't believe it either. Yes, that
<v Speaker 6>is the Julie Haggerty from Airplane, his co star, and
<v Speaker 6>she called right in the middle of her interview and
<v Speaker 6>we actually get to speak with her. Come back next
<v Speaker 6>week for part two, where we talk to her and
<v Speaker 6>continue our conversation with mister Robert Hayes. Don't forget to
<v Speaker 6>hit subscribe give us a five story review. We sure
<v Speaker 6>appreciate it. Thanks so much, guys, We'll see you next week.