May 3, 2024 • 62 mins
Alec Baldwin joins Paul and Skip on the Our Way podcast to discuss his storied acting career, spanning 'The Hunt for Red October' to his record-breaking stint on 'SNL,' '30 Rock' and beyond. Alec offers the guys an impromptu lesson on method acting, explains why he was reluctant to do his iconic monologue in ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ and how his instant-classic Trump impression impacted his view on the ex-President. Baldwin also reflects on the time he called Paul McCartney an “A-hole” in a yoga class, how he wound up as the first guest on ‘Inside the Actors Studio,’ and his 39 years of hard-won sobriety. Listen to Our Way with Paul Anka & Skip Bronson on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-our-way-with-paul-anka-an-145803075/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our Way with yours truly Paul Anka and my buddy
Skip Bronson, is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, folks, this
is Paul Anka.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
And my name is Skip Bronson. We've been friends for
decades and we've decided to let you in on our
late night phone calls by starting a new podcast and
welcome to Our Way.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
We'd like you to meet some real good friends of us.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Your leaders in entertainment and.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Sports, innovators in business and technology, and even a city
president or two.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Join us as we ask the questions they've not been
asked before, tell it like it is, and even sing
a song or two.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
This is our podcast and we'll be doing it our way.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
But movie making is often challenging, and the behind the
scenes with your friends and colleagues is fun. But movie
making is not always that much fun. It's worked, you know,
how you try to get you know, whenever coming back.
You got to get this scene right now, like today,
and the pressure is very real. I always felt I
got invited to do SNL the first time, and did
(01:08):
it several times, and then thirty five I said to myself,
this is fun. This is where the work itself is fun.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Hey, Skip, Hey, what's going on. Well, you tell me, man,
the Masters. I've been in the studio and working on
the dock and everything. What finally happened there? That was
an incredible tournament. You know, it's not often not I
wouldn't say often. It's not always that the number one
player in the world or even in the field wins
(01:49):
the tournament. But this time Scottie Scheffler, who is in
fact the best golfer in the world, ranked number one
in the world, and he won the Masters. Last year
John rom won the year before Scottie Scheffler won, so
this is two out of three years that he's won,
and he's just a spectacular golfer. But I know what
(02:09):
you're turned on about, and that's you know, hockey playoffs.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Oh man, it's the best.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I mean, I love it, but I can't compete when
it comes to being a fan.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
You know, It's been the most constant thing in my life.
Even after the gun in the business and I got busy,
I would never miss a hockey game. To me, knowing
because I skated as a kid that I involved with
the Senators. Those kids are like ballet dancers with those skates,
and to see where the game is evolved into, you know,
bigger and faster. It's it's its best when it gets
(02:42):
to the playoffs and it really shows you what those
kids are capable of doing. But it gets down to
the goalies. It's a goalie game at that point. If
you got the bad goalie, you're not going to win.
I've been loving it.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, I know you were an owner of the Ottawa Senators,
but I actually don't even know how or why that happened.
What was the genesis?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Well, we wanted a hockey team, and I went to
Bruce McDonald's a buddy, and you know, he had the
Kings and he helped me put it together. And the
group up in Autowa brought me in and I was
just part of a team of guys that brought it there.
And meanwhile, it hasn't been a great hockey team for
all these years as well play soccer, but it hasn't
(03:21):
worked out for the city, you know, except that had
a better year this year. Yeah, and I've loved it.
I just loved it. And I think New York's got
a shot. I love the way New York's playing. I
like like two great goalies, yeah, Igor and Quick. My
kids got Ethan's got uh the Stanley Cup game when
(03:43):
the Kings and New York played. When we went to
the locker room, Quick gave Ethan the hockey the goalie
stick from that wind that night. We've got it up
on the wall.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Oh that's cool.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
A great goalie.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
You know he's older now, Quick, but he's still he's
still got his game going. Speaking of game going, how
about who's coming on here in a few days. Uh,
Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Man, Yeah, I know, Alec Baldwin. This is this is
the Cup. It's amazing that he's actually going to do
it with all the distractions that he's got from that
New Mexico situation. But he says he's going to do it,
and you know when he says he's going to do something,
he does.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
He's that kind of guy. You know, he's a man's man.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
We all know his m O. But that's who he is.
I love the guy anytime, and I don't profess to
no one, but anytime I've been around him. And the
last time was you know, we did something on the
Comedy Channel for that roast, and you know they threw
it at him. With everything else you had to deal
with they wanted to sing my way with me. It's
not easy for singers. Littlone a guy that's an actor
(04:48):
and what have you. And he stepped up and I
think just about thirty minutes before he little apprehends I
loved watching my favorite guys.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
No, I can't do this. I can't do this. No
I can't say this. I can't no, no, no, you do
the whole thing. I'm not going to go on. Calm down.
You gotta just think of who you are. You got
balls of steel.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
We know right you're it man, And I meant it
because he's in the hell of a guy and he
came right out. I thought Frank was there. He took
on that character and he was phrasing it. He did
a great job. So that was a great moment for me.
That's the last time that I saw him. And you're
bringing up this whole situation he's in now, I gotta say,
(05:31):
very quickly without getting deep, I support the guy.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
I think it's bullshit. I really do.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
It's unfortunate.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
It's unfortunate. It's unfortunate for the other dynamics. But I
hate to see a guy like this go through that.
Who shouldn't be going through it. I just leave it.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I'm just gonna leave it like that.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And I don't think we're going to even approach it,
you know, because he's kidding great, great vibe and in.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
But what I will mention is that Edie, who worked
as the photographer at Saturday Night Live for twenty five years,
photographed everybody. She said, if she had to single out
one person who might have been the absolute favorite that
she's photographed multiple times, of course, who would be Alec Baldwin.
She's just absolutely crazy about him and his talent. I mean, look,
(06:16):
this guy can do everything, you know, from very serious
dramatic acting roles Glen Garrett, Glenn Ross, street Cardy and Desire,
you know, to comedy to television series with thirty Rock.
I mean, he's so versatile. I mean he's great.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
He did Stanley Kowalski street car name Desire. I think
it was Frank Rich the New York Times when he
wrote this the first time that he doesn't leave one
longing from Brando. I think that was his code. That's
pretty heavy, you know, that's Brando and he earned a
lot of rave reviews.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
But he's a great actor. You know, he really is actor.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
And he's got including by the way, he has a
very successful podcast. And I don't know where he finds
the time this man has. I mean, I have to
take a pause here. Whenever I whenever say this, seven
children under the age of eleven, I mean, let me
say that again. Seven children under the age of eleven.
(07:15):
I mean, you kidding me. You've got six, but they
weren't all, you know, cramped in like that. But I mean,
seven under the age of eleven is crazy. I'm gonna
ask him, you know what I want to ask him.
I want to ask him if he's done.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I wonder how he did it. I want to ask
him how many times he did it? Bless him?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
All Right, I'm gonna run. I gotta get ready for this,
so I'm gonna take off.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
You have fun.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I'll talk to you before we go to bed.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Please, Well, what time you go to bed tonight?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Ten thirty?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You don't want to call me too, I know you'll
call me at two and say good night. I'm most
calling you at ten thirty.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Good night.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Don't you have it any empathy for your dear friend?
I sitting up and trying to make people happy and writing.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I'm going to get that AI device to call you a.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, great, give me a name. It's still cute. Like
I set my clock tenth theory, I gotta wake them
up and think good night. All right, Skip, I look
forward to it. I think we'll have a good time
with Alec.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, it'll be great.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
All right, Skip, We're gonna talk talk to you later.
Byey bye.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
There's an Alex.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I see hair. I see hair over there. You can't
compare the hair Alex.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
The top of we see the top of his head.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Aleck, I care. I love that here. Hey, Alec, how
are you doing there?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
You go?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Hey?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
You ready to do my way again?
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Actually, when I saw myself recorded doing my were with you,
I'd never been more humiliated in my life.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
You pulled it off.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Man, I'm never singing my way with a legendary vocalist
ever again. That was the one. It was a one
time deal, only one time.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Well, it was a big one time for me because
I've done it with Sinatra.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I'm very grateful to you.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
No, no, I did it with Sinatra and then there
we were thrown into that. But you know, you had
a little hesitation, like what thirty minutes before we were
going to do it, and then you showed the alec balls.
You just went right into the role. You came in
and I couldn't fuck the mooove. I thought Frank was
next to me.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
He had it was like therapy. This is like therapy.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Where does he bring the energy from to sound like that?
Speaker 3 (09:39):
You were great, but you know something funny, but you'll appreciate.
I always tell people if I teach acting, or I
go in and kind of guest to teach. I haven't
really talked that much lately, but if I went in there,
I always tell them learn to sing the best of
your ability. I said, you will cut off so many
wonderful experiences in this business if you don't allow yourself
(09:59):
to at least try. You know what I mean? Yeah,
I agree, don't try to learn how to sing to
do musicals? And said, well that's all, that's where the
fun is.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So that was a stretch for you. I mean, you've
gone from hey, you're one of our great actors and
then the comedy with SNL and Rock. Was that really
a stretch for you to sing that the thing for
a minute.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Well, I think because I have a very raspy voice.
I remember one time I was at a fundraiser and
the guy who wrote nine Maury Yeston, was there. And
Maury Yeston was there, Nathan Lane and my Matthew Broderick
and all these people who sing on Broadway. And Maury
Yeston said to me, do you sing? I said, no,
I don't sing. I can't sing. He says, nonsense, mister Ball,
(10:37):
of course you can sing. And I said, really, why
do you say that. He goes, he said, I'm going
to teach you the same thing I talked Dustin Hoffman.
He said, I want you to sing the Star Spangled
Banner in the style of Jimmy Duranta, and I said, oh.
And then he says, I want you to sing God
Bless America in the style of Louis Armstrong, which are
(10:58):
very similar. He goes, and I'm singing. He goes, You're
on key. He said, you can sing when you're pretending
to be somebody else. That's right, he said, if you
he said, if you can find your own voice, he says,
you can sing you're on key. But my voice is
so shredded I can't sing anyway.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
You know, most singers, most singers aren't great singers al
you know, even Ray Charles is one of my favorite.
If you get down to quality of voice, they've all
got that raspy vibe going, you know most of them,
and most of them are just like singing from the heart,
but they're not great singers.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
They smoke.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
They all smoke.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
When I started with the rat Pack in the early sixties,
I'm this kid just saying, who do I give the
money back to? You know, it was those guys. It
was chicks. It was like, I'm living this life out
of Canada and they're all sitting around starting in the
afternoon and they're smoking, and they're drinking, and they're trying
to get me to join the club, and I with
(11:51):
I got to preserve the business. They all fucking smoked.
It was unbelievable and it was It was kind of
the Unfortunately what happened to Sammy was all smoking. The
Frank you know, he was, and Dean was the one
guy that fooled everybody. He didn't drink a lot, he
didn't smoke a lot. But Sammy and Frank, they were
they were the smokers.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Yeah, but but Dean always had a button his hand
and the glass in the other hand, so you always
talk differently. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Oh, we had the apple juice in the other hand,
is that right?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I sit off stage and he was the one that
fooled everybody. He wasn't a big smoker.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Alec, I've met you before. My wife is none other
than Edie Baskin loves you. She is so crazy about you.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah, she was a doll. I miss her. She was
really really those are the old days and when she
was there, my god, Ei was just a doll. She
was a doll.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Thanks, she said, shed make sure you tell Alec he's
my favorite member of the five timers club, I said,
except in his case, I think it's seventeen times.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Your host it right, Yeah, I'm something more than five.
I know that it's more than five.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
We broke the record, right because he broke didn't he
break Steve Martin's record?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
I think I have one more than Steve. But you
know who's county?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Who's I got to get this out of the way early, though.
Your impression of Trump is so iconic, so famous on
the show, and I was talking to Edie about this,
and Edie was wondering, how did it feel to be
impersonating somebody who despise that much to just go through
that process.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Well, it's funny you say that, because I've come full
circle where I don't have those feelings. I'm not a
Trump supporter, but I don't feel I mean, I feel
like people now who are Democrats or Biden's supporters of
What's what they needed to start doing now is stop
talking about Trump and start selling Biden. Get off that pinata.
It's like a tired thing.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Now.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I did that for four years, but now my attitude
is like, let's I mean a little but that is fun,
but you gotta they got to move on and start
articulating why they want.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
But to vote for not vote against someone else.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Well, yeah, I mean, we all know people who don't
trust Trump or don't prefer Trump. We get it, we
know how you feel.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Now what bothers me with it all today is happy
I'm eighty two years old and I can sit in
the grandstand and look at it. It's just become so tribals.
That's the problem for me. It's just become so tribal
and there's nobody talking and relating.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
It's not helping, that's for sure. It isn't helping.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Not helping at all Man, I think we're in for
a few rough years, but we still got the greatest
country in the world, so we'll pull it together.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
So Paul, I want to know I always ask people.
I'm going to turn the tables on you, guys and
ask you a question, which is I always ask people
in your world, like who's somebody you're standing next to
in a studio or I'm assuming in a studio and
you're recording music with somebody and you just were dying
you thought this is like a dream come true, somebody
you loved that much. Obviously Frank is one.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, well, you know, I did a duet's album with
a lot of good people. I think Willie Nelson right
loved with Willy Ray Charles. I love Ray Charles. I'm
a huge Ray Charles man. And then I got a
big kick out of work with Michael Bubley, who I
kind of found and worked with and watches whole career grow.
(15:01):
And then there I was watching this guy come into fruition,
love him and Michael. That was a big proud moment
for me. The one I haven't been in the studio
with who I'd like to be it would be sting.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Ah.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
I've been around Elton a lot, but I haven't been
in a studio with him. But I think Elton is
the real deal. It's the real deal. Like hey, like
you're the real deal. You're the real deal. What was
comedy one of your ambitions when you got into acting,
because you do so much comedy and a lot of
guys can't do it, you know, it's tough to switch over.
Was that part of the menu for you when you started.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
I think that it's about relaxing, really, because in the
beginning you're not quite sure where you're going to go
because that's not up to you. And then as you
start to make films that are more dramas and thrillers
and things like that and Hunt for Red October these
kind of you know, war technology films and so forth,
that's exciting. But movie making is often challenging. And that
(15:57):
behind the scenes with your friends and colleague is fun.
But movie making is not always that much fun. It's
work and you try to get you know, whenever coming back,
you got to get this scene right now, like today,
and the pressure is very real. I always felt now
when I smoked. It was when I was doing film
after film after film in a row and I was
(16:18):
just nervous. So all the time I was like Jesus,
this is hard to really get it right. And when
I went into that world, I got invited to do
SNL the first time and did it several times, and
then thirty Rocks. I said to myself, this is fun.
This is where the work itself is fun. And I
enjoyed that. I really couldn't get enough of going there.
And there were things they had me do on that
show that no one else would ever invite me to do.
(16:40):
So I loved it.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
And you know what it was when I started, it's
so young, and then put a few years under me,
I found the motivating factor. I wanted to know what
you thought about it for me in a lot of cases,
because it's it's a bullshit business. At the end of
the day, revenge. Revenge motivated me through so much. How
do you feel about that?
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Well, I think that might be the word. I don't know,
but I know for me, it was about having to
prove yourself no matter what I did, no matter what
successes I had or didn't didn't have, I never sat
back and I was satisfied. I thought, I wake up
the next day I got to prove myself all over again.
You know, there's an echelon you can get to where
you're like Cruise and Hanks and these big people Leo,
(17:23):
where you're every time you step up to bat you're
gonna get a double at least, you know what I mean,
You're gonna make money for them. Cruise once said to
me the most amazing thing. He said, so why do
you work so hard. You're the hardest working person I've
ever met in my life. And he said, I got
to give them both their money's worth. I said, what
do you mean? He said, the studio that's paying me
(17:43):
and the ticket buyers that are buying tickets to my movies.
Because I got even both, it goes that's my job.
And I remember, you know, I'm not in that world
of monumental success in films and especially making money, you know,
making a lot of money for the studios, which is
all they care about now more than ever. But I
remember just saying to myself, I go back to zero
(18:04):
every movie I start, I'm back to zero. I got
to prove myself again.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
But as that change, though, you look at the film
business today, it's not a business like it was years ago,
and it's so changed today where there's not a lot
of money being made outther than just certain films. I notice,
you know, it's all about now getting an oscar to
really drive the film home. There seems to be a
whole change of dynamic in the film business. How are
you sensing that?
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Well?
Speaker 3 (18:28):
I think that the awards season is strange because there's
a kind of a there's a kind of hunting for
awards that was kind of vulgar. Thirty years ago. You
wouldn't have done it that way. And I think that
the industry, although there are years where they can't deny
someone's the greatness of someone's performance and they give them
(18:48):
an award, for the most part, the business is straining.
Maybe not the actress, which is why the SAG Awards
are so distinctive, But in the oscars, they're always straining
to give the oscar to somebody they can make money off.
You know, they might want to give it to Roberto
Benini again, you know, I mean, he's really They're not
going to make a lot of movies in this country
with Roberto Benini. But the biggest stars in the movie business,
(19:12):
who are real box office stars, they're dying to put
an oscar in their hands. So when they sell, when
they sell the film, in the trailer, it says Academy
Award winner Bobby Block. That's one thing. The second thing
is that the business, and I think it used to
be as you know, the men and women typically the
men who owned the companies, they were the owners of
(19:36):
the companies themselves, not the management. They installed management out
in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
You know.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
The owners of the companies were in New York and
the people that ran the companies for them were in
Los Angeles. And the ones they hired to run the
company had some sense that had to make a movie,
and they were risk takers like Menivoi. I always quote
and say Menivoy was that guy who'd say, you know,
they were a small studio, a riot that boyd. We
might say, I don't know if we're going to lose
(20:02):
our shirts on this movie, but I'm going to burn
one on the side of the angels and make a
great film. And whether we get out money back, I
don't know. An ego and do you know some really
tough drama, you know, and they would lose money. But
Menavoid was the last of that breed. Now that people
who own the companies have hired people to run the
companies who tried to wigetize the whole business. They want
(20:22):
the movie business to be like the potato chip business.
Everything is the same.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Paul and I on previous podcasts, you know that we do.
We talk about all the things we had to do
before we got to do what we wanted to do.
You know, we all had those jobs. But when did
you decide you wanted to be an actor? How'd that
come about?
Speaker 3 (20:52):
I had a friend of mine, I was visiting a
friend at NYU. I was in Washington at GW and
I visited a friend of mine and her roommate was
in the drama program. TISH was first blooming. You know,
the Tishes has just given a big bag of money
to them to build this school. And I went in
there and she said, you should be an actor. And
I said, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of
in my life. And the joke was with my dad.
(21:13):
I called my mother and father and I said I'm
going to leave GW and go to NYU for acting.
And my mother was screaming at the top of her
lungs over the phone. Are you insane? She was screaming.
And then I said, but you don't understand. When I
go back to New York, I can claim all these
awards and all these tuition stipends, regions, scholarship, all this money.
(21:34):
I said, it'll be cheaper for me to go to
NYU than it is GW, even though it's more expensive.
And my father's on the phone. He goes, okay, let's
hear him out. Let's hear him out, like anything that
would lower my father's costs. He was over fair. So
that's how I went to NYU.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
And then you he would leave Strasbourg, right.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Yes, Well, I studied at the institute. He died. We
had a class with him once a month where he
lectured us, but he died very soon after he was there.
The one year I was there, he was.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
So because I'm not an actor. When they refer to
as method acting, like, what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
What's the technique?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Right?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
What's the technique for that?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Well? To me, it's like a stream, like an arc,
which is that years ago in the silent era, you
had to be beautiful. Then they switched to sound and
you had to be able to deliver a line. Then
the war came and the war wanted. They wanted flint
here people, tougher people, Betty Davis, Joan Crawford, the men
were tough. And you get into the method acting thing,
(22:29):
but they don't want you to indicate emotion. They want
you to really feel that emotion. Think about your dog dead,
think about your grandma died, and you start sobbing, and
then actions say the lines while you're genuinely emotionally packed.
Then we get into the computer age, where the actors
themselves are not necessarily the fizz and the drinks. They
(22:50):
invite you into the theater, a famous star has you commit,
but computers then take over and really to create the
film experience you're going to have. And now we've arrived
at the last installment. Now I think is that the
fittest people are the biggest stars. You gotta be fit.
They want they want that video. If you roll in
a truck tire up a hill, they don't necessarily want
(23:10):
to see you, beside Shakespeare roll that tire up that
hill and we love.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Hey, Alice. Do you find the most actors today don't
bother training anymore? With the way the industry is, I think.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Fewer of them do I think they trained for luck.
I think they want to have it on their resume
that they made an attempt to learn more. And the
the classic education in theater is about understanding material and
studying classic plays to show you how to interpret a character.
And what's great about those classic roles is we know
the material works. It's you know, time honored and you
(23:43):
get in there and you learn how to break down
a character by studying great characters where there's a lot
of meat there on the bone. And then but I
think more and more people who are younger today, they
don't go as long. They don't go to college, or
they don't go to years of training.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Your performance in Glengarry Glenn Ross time still, you know,
being a guy who's been selling his whole life. I've
always been, you know. I like to say I'm not
a salesman, I'm a storyteller, but at the core, I'm
a salesman. That that always be closing that ABC, I mean,
one of the great scenes that I've ever seen in
a movie.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
I never wanted to do that that we get in
there to rehearse that summer we shot it that that
I think that fall I was in there to rehearse
like in August. I rehearsed for a couple of days.
They rehearsed, they had a real rehearsal for a couple
of weeks, and I went in for a few days
and I thought, oh God, I hate this because I
love all of them. I love them, I mean Lemon.
I practicularly cried when I work with Lemon.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I can't believe you're saying that was the thing that
bothered me the most. I felt so badly for Jack
Lemmon me just.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
So.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I was so I was blown away by your performance,
but I was really angry with you the way you
treated him. That was really something.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Well, people go see the play, and the play has
revived periodically in New York all the time, and people
do the play. I've seen many products. I'm Broadway with Glengarry,
and people see the play and they go, well, where's
that scene where Alec Baldwin's character reams out these people
and they have to understand it's not in the play.
And I called Mammott and I said, why did you
win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama? He won the Pulitzer
(25:15):
Prize for that play. And I said, why do you
feel you need to add this character. He said, I
don't believe these men are criminals. He said, I needed
to ratchet up the stakes on them. I want these
are these men are not criminals. I need to motivate them.
This guy comes in and threatens them and the only
way they can get out of it is to commit
a crime. And so I was like, Wow, that was
(25:35):
amazing to me that he made that change.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
And I was surprised when I read that. I read
that you actually prefer to, you know, to perform on
stage as opposed to television or acting in films. That
that's your first love is being on stage? Is that correct? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
I mean anything live like SNL. I guessed it on
Will and Grace a few times. You're live audience. That's
always fun. You get a lot of energy. I mean,
Paul can probably tell you better about this that live
things always gold, magical. Yeah yeah, Well, what's some of
the places you played? What's a room you go into
that was always you just felt at home.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Well, when I started, you know, you're working for the boys,
and they controlled and that was it. And they controlled
places like the Coca Cavana, which was fucking worse. There
was a basement and all the all the mob guys
were in there and you played to them, and there
was no stage. The light boots was just a panel
on the wall. That was a tough room. Then you
(26:30):
got a little better when you went to the Fountain
Blue down in Miami. And then the one I loved
was at the Sands because the boys were there and
it had that magic going for it, and it was small,
it was intimate and anything could happen.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
They had the black Book, which was you know, certain
guys from Saint Louis, Chicago. None of those boys were
allowed in town, so they're all in a black book.
But you wanted them to come to town because there
was a buzz in that little room at the Sands.
So if you're singing up there and few of them
snuck in, however, they got them in town. If the
spotlight went off the stage and hit the front table,
(27:05):
eight guys went.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
Under the table. They didn't want them to see.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
So the magic in that room although that the side
dishes on Friday and the wives were on Saturdays, so
you'd see them with the side dish and then Monday
you'd see them with the wives. So those were the
magic rooms for me, and then you evolved into you know,
when I started traveling around the world into the bigger
stadiums and doing stuff in Italy and you know, go
(27:32):
to Israel. All those places have magical kind of historical places.
But you know, it gets to a point where when
you got your shit together and you know what you're doing,
and you only select the places you want to work in,
you can work in anything. You can work in anywhere.
And that's where I always achieved where I wanted to
get to.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
What's that voice? Who's that guy there playing in that
great scene and that good fellas? What he sings? Pretend
you don't see her.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Oh that's Gerry Fail Jerry Vale. We called him Jerry Fail.
Why always changed everybody's name, Jerry Fayle. I was the kid,
you know, my robe in the health club was the kid.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
Sammy was Smoky the bear.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Dean was a veno the ship they went on in
that that steamer room. But Frank was always changing names,
and you know, he was very judgment He wasn't judgmental.
There's certain singers he didn't like, you know, and he
was very with us. He would bring it out and
I'm not going to mention any names, but he that
was Jerry Vale. I was supposed to be in that scene,
(28:37):
really because I gave I did a Lonely Boy documentary.
It was the first documentary ever done on a pop idol,
and nobody knew what the copo looked like, and a
lot of it was shot at the Copa in the sixties.
So when Marty started putting good Fellows together, he didn't
know what the helicopo looked like. And you know, he
does his research, and you know, nobody like Marty. And
(28:59):
he called, he said, you have a film. I said yeah,
he says, can I look at it? So I gave
it to him. So everything you see in that scene
was taken from my documentary Lonely Boy, And that was
the look of the Copa. This basement. It was. I
was telling the guys the other day, it was you
don't see or feel what we did back then. And
(29:22):
I'm not a guy with a rear view mirror. You know,
I got to move ahead. But you sit there with
all of these different characters, and one night Sammy was
singing and we're all sitting on the floor and Sammy's
on the floor in the band and he starts, sometimes
I feel like a motherless child. And two tables over,
(29:43):
there's a couple of noses sitting there. One guy says,
and you looked like one right now. With that, just
to show you what you get do today, you heard
the lights went out. Three big guys came down. Carmine
sent them down, picked the guy up, took the table out.
Everything was gone. Within one minute. The lights went back up,
(30:04):
and Savvy kept singing. Just removed them, removed them.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
You know, my favorite thing was, I mean when I
like biographies a lot, I try to read a lot
of biographies. I'm reading Streisand's biography now, which is amazing.
Her memory for.
Speaker 5 (30:19):
The new book, but the new book, the new one.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
And but one of my favorite was Nick Tashas wrote
the biography of Dean Martin. And there was a rumor that,
you know, Spielberg or one of these you know, legendary
directors were going to cast somebody as Dean, and they
whether they had the right guy or I don't know.
But the Nick Tasha's book, first of all, the funniest
part is how he meets some I think you said noses.
(30:43):
We'll use that words of noses and he meets some
of these guys and they'd say, we want to sign
you and be your representative all up and down the
Allegheny area. He goes, well, I'm already signed with so
and so on Cleveland, and they'd say, we'll take care
of you. Then he meets some guys in Chicago. He says,
I'm already signed with his we'll take care Then he
moved to New York. He's gonna go New York, and
(31:03):
they like, we'll take care of them. But he did
a thing in the book, if I remember correctly, I
read the book a while ago. He did a thing
where he says he's talking to somebody and he puts
on Crosby, then him on a record. He plays some Crosby,
he plays some of him, and he plays some Elvis,
and he goes as some Elvis and he says, we're
all doing the same thing. We're all doing the same thing.
(31:25):
It's just an updated version of a crooner, you know,
of a crooner. And that book was one of the
greatest books. And it's just amazing that book.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
You know, Dean Dean idolized. He got that whole vibe.
He told me when we were hanging. He idolized the
Mills brothers, and he, the lead singer in the Mills
brother was the one that influenced them. Now they were
all influenced, and Sinatra more so with Bing Crosby. Crosby
was the guy for years. Frank idolized them, Dean idolized them,
(31:55):
and there was always that competitive thing. But being with
Commerce was in those film industries. They brought them together
in a lot of projects, a lot of films. But
Bing was the guy till Frank started to emerge in
the fifties and surpassed him. But he was the guy
for Dean. He was the guy for Frank, and that's
the guy that they wanted to be. But Crosby couldn't
(32:17):
swing or didn't have the attitude the way Frank did.
You know, there was nobody with the lyric like Frank.
He'd go down to the Springs and study a lyric
for like two weeks and nobody could. He ruined it.
For everybody that stood in front of a band, you
were always second to him.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
It's weird how just this morning I was having a
cup of coffee, I dropped my kids off at school,
and a couple of the other fathers out there are
buddies in mine. We all have a cup of coffee
in the morning. And I said to one, I said,
there's no human being alive as in another man or
woman alive. Maybe Ella is close. I said, where Sinatra
(32:52):
understood the tempo and all the beats of the song
and the lyrics. No one could ride and shift those
lyrics in his mind. And I played in the cut
of I Get a kickout of You off of Sinatra
in Paris.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Great album and my favorite album.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
One of my favorite albums I on. I played all
the time, and there he is, see I Get a
Kick out of You, and he goes. If I took
one with it would boil me to riff count four beats.
He goes leap two. I mean he fractured those lines
and played with those lines like dice, like there was
no one who There's people who got close, but never
as good as well.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Tip your two albums that he loved. The best live
album alec he ever made is the one of the sands.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
I got that too. I played that to that.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
That is the best live album with all of us,
every tech guy. That's the base. And I introduced Frank
to my guy that found me when I was a
kid at sixteen, Don Costa and Don than me and
Don I introduced them. In the sixties, he did an
album called Sinatra and Strings. Do you know the album? No,
(34:00):
I beg you get today, get it, And when you're
under the sheets with your squeeze or anyone you want
to be with, you put that album on.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Alex.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
It depends on what day of the week it is.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Well, you pick your week.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
If it's Monday, it's my wife, Come help yourself.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
You're gonna love that album.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I'm learning from you. I'm learning.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah, you're gonna you're gonna love that album. I'll get it.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
I'll get it today.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
You call me, you tell me what you think it's
it's it's brilliant.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
So Paul's got six kids, you have seven under the
age of eleven. I was gonna say to you when
you said it dropped my kids off at school. That
takes a bus, right, you got a small bus to
take your kids.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Well, in my family now, I'm the only person I
know who drops four kids off at school in the
morning and comes home and I still have three kids
waiting for me when I get home. I have seven.
I have eight children. I got my oldest daughter who's
married I always has a baby, and she and her
boyfriend are living in Oregon. And I met my wife
(35:10):
and I got remarried and I had seven kids in
nine years. It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
So that begs the question are you done?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
How dare you ask me that question? I'm dumb, I think, well,
you know, I found that as I got older, work
became less interesting to me, like a deam interested.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
I want to work, and I like to work and
when I go and do, but they just don't make
that many films anymore that I think are interesting. And
plus we're all older, and I've done a lot of
stuff that i've you know, whatever I've done in the past.
I try not to be duplicative of that all the time.
And then all of a sudden I met my wife,
who I love dearly, And every time the baby would
get to be two years old, to go, maybe it's
(35:52):
time for one more baby, one more baby, so we'd
have we have seven kids.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
How old are you know?
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Sixty six? I was a weeks ago, I was sixty
I have a one and a half year old baby.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Babies, you guys, sixty six.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Now your daughter is married to one of my favorite actors.
I'm not just saying I love you.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
I spoke to him yesterday. Was it in New York?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Now?
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Is there for eight months making a film?
Speaker 1 (36:16):
He's making a series with Jude Law.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Wow, I just spoke to I love Jason. He can
do anything. He can do anything.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
He's such a good guy.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
You know that Ozaka. I watched that goddamn show till
I was going to jump off the roof. I couldn't.
It was so tense, you know, so tense.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
He loves the directing vibe. Now he's just good directing away.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
And thankfully we had an end. So he was our
first guest on our very first podcast.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
I was the first guest on Inside the Actors Studio.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Really I did the very first thing. I didn't do
the first airing, but I was the first person to
recorded but Jim for only one reason, and that as
Paul Newman called me another person you can't say no to.
And Newman called me on the phone and said, hey, Man,
don't want to interview me first? And he said, I
can't do it. I got a scheduling confict. He goes,
do you mind filling in from me. And I said,
and I wanted to say, are you out of your
(37:03):
fucking mind that I'm going to fill in for you?
Nobody can fill in for you. But he said, would
you do this to me? And I went in and
I did it. And you know, he's a guy who
he's gone now for quite a while. I think twenty
and eighty died, I can't remember. But man, for a
guy who was as monolithic as he was, I mean,
I met a lot of people in this business who
I love and my peers. I respect many of my peers,
(37:26):
but I only wet my pants when I meet these
other ones, you know, I mean like Paul and Redford
and Warren Batty and Dustin Hoffman and.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
On and on.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
I mean I met a lot of people, Bob and
Al and all those people. Marty I worked with her
for a little while. And I was in an elevator
once with Burt Lancaster. I wrote an elevator with him,
just like six floors in the elevator and I just
stared at him like he was I couldn't believe I
was standing next to Bert Lee. And then Michael Douglas
would come to the US Open and one year he
(37:56):
brought his father with him, and he knew how much
I loved his father, and I up and I hugged
him and I said hi to his wife, and he
just frowned it with Dad's over there, and I just
want to see all that. And I sat with with
Kirk Douglas and I worshiped Kirk. He was cool.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Yeah, man. I used to see him when I was
living with Sammy Kahn, and I come and stay at
Sammy's and they lived across the street from each other,
so I'd go hang over there. But he was he
was just one of those big guys. He filled the room.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Loved him. Very rare to be that biggest star, be
that talented of an actor at the same time, very
Now did you spend much time in New York Hall
Did you live here much at all?
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Well?
Speaker 1 (38:34):
I left Canada at fifteen, so it was down in
New York. You know, that's where it was all happening.
I can only afford to get to New York, so
I hit it got lucky at fifteen years old. So
I spent a lot of time in New York till
I moved west in the seventies, but always returned. You know,
New York's New York. You're not going to duplicate it,
I mean for me. And then it became Paris, you know,
because I got married over there and got the feel
(38:56):
for it. But New York I love, and I got
you know, I got my street smarts in New York,
so I came west.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Now you're you're several children, Are any of them in
the bids?
Speaker 4 (39:06):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Well, I got Amanda, who works with Jason. Yeah, so
she's involved there with Jen two. And I got to
kids in Europe. One's a lawyer in Geneva. I got
a young lady that's kind of a writer in London.
And I got one in Monte Carlo. And then I
have another daughter here. So the answer is I got
(39:27):
a lot.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
I love how none of them were in Chicago, Des Moines.
They my kids are in Monte Carlo.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
They got smart. Well, you know, I was an international creature,
you know, fifteen, sixteen, seventy and eighteen, I was all
over the world. I was traveling, I was in communist countries.
I was an Asian and I took the kids. And
every time I went to Europe, I took the kids,
you know, you know, what that balance is that did
you have to have? You know, But the main thing
is that family always so I insisted on taking them
(39:53):
so they got the taste early.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
I'm gonna tell my kids I want one of them
to become a lawyer and move to Geneva. That idea
sounds like.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Well, it's a good idea. If you want to give
her some money.
Speaker 5 (40:02):
Don't leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Exactly, exactly, exactly, So when you were talking about talking
about Ella, so in Paul Newman, here's an irony. So
when Edie and I were first together, we lived in
Fairfield County and Paul Newman lived close by. We moved
in two thousand to Beverly Hills. The home that we
live in was Ela Fitzgerald's house. She lived in the
(40:25):
house twenty five years. Died in the house directly across
the street. Literally, if you pull out of our driveway
and just cross the street, you go into the driveway
of Paul Newman's house, directly across the street from us.
But he was gone before we got there.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
You guys were in Connecticut for a while, I remember correct,
right then you went to l A.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
I grew up in Connecticut, grew up in Hartford, and
I tried to convince Edie when we were first together.
I was working at Hartford and Edie was of course
at the show in New York City, and we decided
to split the difference wound up on the Westport Fairfield line.
Die never adjusted to Liviyan Connecticut. That won't shock you.
That was not her thing.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Does she like La? You've been there forever now? Does
she like it there?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
She loves La. But if I said to her today,
you know, we were talking to Alec and we're talking
about New York and I was thinking maybe we should
move back, she would leave today and send for her clothes.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah, really, Edie, misses. I never was. I mean, I
loved working in LA. There really is nothing on earth
as great as working in La. Meeting I would go
some films I shot on a lot for quite a while,
we'd be there. One movie we shot there was a
lot of breaks of the holidays. We started in October
(41:42):
and finished like in January. And you always know you're
on a movie, a big movie when the decorations in
the makeup trailer go from pumpkins to turkeys to Santa Claus.
You know, it's like We're there for quite a while
making this. But I love being on the lot. This
was at Universal. I loved it. But I don't like
LA because I'm in a car all the time with
the person I hate the most. You know, I'm driving around.
(42:04):
I can't stand driving. I can't get any work done.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
But you're so be associated with New York. But with
everybody that's out there, you know, Jerry Seinfeld, Billy Joel,
Paul McCartney. I mean, do you hang with do you
hang with people or most.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
I'd see them from time to time. I used to
take a yoga class with Lorne, John Eastman, who's Paul's
brother in law, John Alexander, the painter, Lorne and I
and with the five of us, and we would take
a yoga class. We called ourselves the Yoga Boys. And
the only one who was really adept at yoga was McCartney.
He would do a handstand or a headstand and lead.
(42:38):
He had the most live body you've ever seen, and
he was like in back then. He was in his
late sixties and he was so fit, and he would
I mean, one time he does a headstand before he leaves,
and he gets up and he whispers to me. He goes,
I'm going to go take my daughter to lunch because
I'll see you guys later. And I looked up at
him and after he did the headstand, and I go,
(43:00):
you're an asshole. And I never thought I'd call one
of the Beatles an asshole, you know. But he was
always showing us up with his physical skills. He was
very thick guy. That crowd is out there, and that
crowd has all their rhythms and so on. But we're
actually selling.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Our house, moving to Vermont, right, Yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Bought a place in Vermont, and I'm trying to get
everybody to start to acclimate up therapy when you spend
the predominance of your time out there, and that's the
time it's the toughest, you know, it's crowded, and I
go out there. I used to go out there year
round them. I mean, I loved East Hampton in February.
I loved it. In the dead of winter. We'd make
five Marcie Klein, Marci Klein, are you now? Marci Klein
(43:42):
would have dinner parties at her house. We play scrabble,
We played all kinds of games, watch movies, watch shitty
TV shows, eat, make a fire. February and Eastampton is glorious.
But I think my wife wants a little change of
scenery now because it's so crowded about that.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Well, you'll you'll be very familiar with Interstate ninety one
on your way up.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
From Yeah, I know, I love ver Mount. It's so peaceful.
We got we got a great deal. We got fifty
five acres houses built in seventeen ninety two. It's very pretty. Now, Paul,
where's your getaway like when you're you live in La Now?
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah, I've been out here. I'm a place called Lake Sherwood,
which is about thirty minutes outside of the Action. I
got five acres out here. It's Murdoch built.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
This beautiful is it Malibu?
Speaker 1 (44:28):
It's twenty minutes from Alibau, just over the mountain. It's
a private community and it's got all kinds of stuff,
good schools and one have you near the good airport
that I deleave from. So it's called Lake Sherwood and
I'm you know, I'm here. I come home to what
I call clean sheets. You know, I'm traveling all the time.
So I just got back from Hawaii. I am going
down to Asia next week that I'm starting on a
(44:49):
tour and going to Europe, and so I'm out of
here about four months of the year, and I'm over
in New York seeing my kids. You know, keep moving.
You got to keep moving, alec or they throw dirt
on you.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
Keep I'm going to keep moving.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
You got to keep moving.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Alex. He's eighty two years old and he's still touring.
And I have to say this not to embarrass him,
but I first saw him perform at the Golden Nugget
in Las Vegas more than forty years ago, and the
most recent time I saw him was just a few
weeks ago when he performed here in La The show
is as good or better with as much energy or
(45:24):
more energy.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
I don't doubt it. He's unstoppable.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
The show is phenomenal, and it's just it's remarkable.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
I did the roast and he showed up, and when
I came out, people applauded. But when he came out
and sang, they really applauded. That's when you really heard
the applause.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
I woant to ship my pets if they did.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
My favorite Paul Ank. I mean, other than all the
beautiful songs and all the great songs you wrote. Of course, everybody.
When I grew up, we were kids, someone would say
that Paul Anchor, he wrote the theme song to the
Tonight Show. And they go and he must get paid
every night. They he must be worth a billion dollars.
How much do you think he's worth, fellas at least
(46:03):
a quarter of a billion. They must have paid him
for that goddamn song every night on TV, every night.
And I don't want you answer that question.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
But I'll answer it. I'll answer it. I didn't make
a billion dollars. Well, you know the story beyond no God, No,
you know, listen. It was always a challenge for me
as a young kid. You know, I'm always running into
a wall. And when you're young there nobody's given you
really a lot of help. So I had. I gave
Johnny a job on this TV show I was doing,
(46:30):
and then I ran into him in New York and
you know, what are you doing? Johnny said, well, I'm
going to do this TV show for about a year
or to like and really find something I like. Ha
ha said what is it? He said, Tonight Show thing?
And he said, we're changing some stuff and maybe i'd
like a new theme, and I said, yeah, great. So
I go in the studio, I think two hundred and
fifty bucks and I put my vision down. Dad at
(46:51):
that Dada, and I send him the record and he says,
I love it. We're going to do it. And then
he calls me back. He says, uh, you know, skithead
to Skitch. Henderson has been with the show for years.
He doesn't want some kid coming in here, and I
can't use it. I said, jeez, Johnny. I said, well,
let me ask you something. If I give you half
(47:14):
of the writer's royalty, half of the publishing, I'll give
you half of everything, and whatever happens, you're going to
be my partner. I get called the next day, says,
you know what I think would work this out? He says,
you got it.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
It's a great song.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
So now it's a silly song like eight seconds, just
get it. But anyway, what happened was what happened. He
didn't know he was going to stay on for thirty
some years. I certainly didn't know. I was just looking
for another notch in the belt. It went on for
so many years that these societies BMI and ASKAPT kept
changing the parameters of payments because it was earning too much,
(47:52):
so they drop a new one in every year. But
we earned a lot of money from it. It was unusual
because it was the most played same and it was
the longest running show with a guy that knew his shit.
Johnny was amazing. He was just the best at that.
He was something to work with.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
Well, when I was a kid, there was no cable.
There was no When I tell my kids there's no
cell phones, no cable, no Internet, they look at me like, wow,
you know, you're such a dinosaur in it, like your
childhood sounds like you're so impoverished. And I had a
little Sony TV, a little red plastic small TV you
plugged it in. It had rabbit ears, no cable back then,
(48:32):
in the seventies, and I'd put that TV between my
legs on a pillow and put a blanket over my
head because my father would come up the driveway and
see the TV flickering in the window if I didn't
hide it. And I had a little jack on the
side where you put one little plug in your ear
and you could listen to the thing in silence. And
I would watch the Tonight show Mary Hartman, all these
(48:54):
crazy shows back then, And there were three songs that
are the most iconic songs my childhood. One is Syncopated
Clock that they play for the Late Show in New York.
That's a famous class that was. That was the song
to the Late Show on CBS. The other one was
the Alfred Hitchcock theme song Bump Bump. And the other
(49:18):
one was the Tonight Show. That song you you, that
song made you sit up, You're like, Okay, here we go.
It made you buckle up and go here is this
Here comes Johnny And it was one of the greatest
pieces of music and TV history ever.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
So can you talk about for a minute just about
I mean, I know you're you're about giving back, but
can you talk about like your advocacy, what what causes
are important to you right now?
Speaker 3 (49:54):
Most of the stuff I've advocated was for the arts.
Like for years I was on the board of you know,
based in theatre in Seck Harbor, a guildhall in East Tampton,
gave money to my alma mater and NYU the Philharmonica.
I'm on the board of Carnegie Hall wherever I could
help in the arts because I was really my foundation
was geared toward the arts and still is to a degree,
(50:17):
but I mean some is environmentally related, some health related.
But you know, my dad was the one who kind
of put that curse on me. You know my dad
was My parents got separated right before he died. He
died in nineteen eighty three. He was only fifty five
years old. He had a very rabid form of cancer.
And my dad looked at me one time. I forget
what it was. He had nothing to do with my
family or helping my family. There was some context where
(50:40):
my dad looked at me and said, well, you know,
God didn't give you this money for you, and he
just got to stare at me, like you get it.
He goes, God didn't put this money in your life
for you. He gave it to you to help other
people as well. And I'll never forget that. And that
just changed my whole life. And I started small, but
then eventually I started my foundation in two thousand and six.
(51:00):
No board, no, I mean of the legally required board
of two outside family members. But you know, all my
own cash, all my own tributaries of money like Capital
One bank, car cards that did for five years, and
all kinds of stuff like that match game we did
match game, which was a lot of fun. Actually I
had a lot of fun doing that, more fun that
I can admit. That launched me into that world of
(51:23):
giving money to charities. But I learned a lot, as
maybe Paul probably knows as well from his career, which
is these people sat me down at a conference and
I Credit Sweese and it was a philanthropy conference, and
they said, we don't want you to give you a
million bucks, then you go away. I mean, that's nice,
we'll take it. But what we really wanted, we want
you to give us fifteen thousand dollars a year for
(51:44):
every year, like we want to be able to rely
on your contribution. We want to be able to budget
and make plans knowing you're going to give us X
a year for twenty years or twenty five years. And
I learned a lot about philanthropy from this conference, which
was held here in New York by Credit Swee, and
it really changed my thinking because they just want they
want to be able to make plants. They want reliability.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Do you ever try to convince other actors to do
the same, to be involved or you just stay you
stay in your own garden in that area.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
N see, I wouldn't. I mean to me, I would
buy tickets and tables, and I wouldn't ask anybody to contribute.
I'd buy the table. I'd invite you to come. I mean,
I learned from some of my friends who are wealthier
than I'll ever be, more money than I'll ever have
it ever, And I learned from them is the way
you stay friends with them is you don't ask them
for money. That's right, So I don't.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
What do you do away from your family? Meaning, do
you play golf? Do you play tennis? No?
Speaker 3 (52:38):
I played tennisall summer. A little bit you do? Yeah?
My kids? My kids have. The thing that's happened in
these last ten years, especially the last three or four years,
is my kids are used to be being around. Am
I growing to rely on that? I mean they really
rely When I'm gone, They're like, you know, they're on
the face time. If I travel to go away for
a couple of days to get a paycheck, they were
(53:00):
on my FaceTime going, you know, where are you? What
are you doing? You know, they're completely baffled when I
go away. But I think the thing I like to
do the most, it honestly, is popular music. Ceased to
speak to me in the eighties. It was all I
wasn't young anymore. I was probably in my thirties, mid
you know, thirty years old, and I'd listened to you know,
(53:21):
I love you, I love you, I love you. I
don't love you anymore? How can I stop loving you?
I still love you? I mean all the music was
very prayer isle and very much for young people. I
turned on a classical radio station in La I never
turned back. I've listened most almost exclusively to jazz and pop,
you know, vocalists, frank et cetera. But I listened probably
(53:44):
eighty percent of the music that's downloaded in my phone
that I listened to every day. It's classical music. And
I'm on the board of the Philharmonic, and it just
took over my whole life. I really, really, I've never
listened to music that there's there's a few things that
grab a hold of me like that. I like to
go to the symphony, the theater, and but I will
usually most movies I stream at home. But classical music
(54:05):
is such a big part of my life.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
I listened to a lot of it too. It does something,
it does something so different than everything else that you
listen to, and it's it's the basis of a lot
of the stuff that you hear today. It's just so soothing.
Speaker 3 (54:20):
Peter Frampton did my podcast and he had a really
interesting observation. He said, when I get out there, he goes,
it's all about sounds. He said, it's not just music,
it sounds. He had that little talk that talk box
and he played with that and he said, all I'm
about is making sounds, and that's what music is to me.
The classical music and what it does to you is
on the same part. One of my favorite singers, of
(54:41):
my father's favorite singer was not King Cole.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
Yeah, he was great, great guy, and.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
I listened to him and this the sound of his
voice is so soothing. It's like it's like a drug.
It's like a medication. It just calms you down.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
I used to sit and watch him at the sands
and he was the smoothest and he was the one
guy it never wanted to be around Frank or the
guys as much as they. He wanted to do his
own thing. He was elegant and he had he always
smoked his cigarettes, but with the cigarette holder he'd come
off stage and he had that cigarette holder, and every
(55:16):
time Frank and the guys wanted him to hang, he wanted.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
Nothing to do with Why do you think that is? Why?
Speaker 1 (55:20):
Well, that's a tough crowd. First of all, I mean,
you know when you when.
Speaker 5 (55:24):
You you got to think.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
I remember when Johnny got up with him because he
was scared shitless. He got up there one time at
the Sands and this first time you saw Johnny kind
of not comfortable. But you hang with those guys, you
bring your passport because you never know what city you'll
be in the next day. Frank just threw those parties
and that was not that way. He wanted no part
of that. You're you're you're straight shooter, and you got humor,
(55:48):
you're a man's man. When you're a man's man around
Frank and that's all you ever saw. And I'm a
guy got stories I won't even tell you. But he
was the guy and the laughs all night. You're up partying.
That was Frank's thing. So if you're going to hang
with him, you better be ready. And then they go
to the set, they start shooting Ocean's eleven. They start
(56:09):
like at noon all day and then they go back
on stage to night. So that was not NAT's thing.
Going back to that, there's no way he was going
to get involved in any of that. No, no, no way.
And they could drink.
Speaker 3 (56:21):
I can't even imagine. I can't even admit, are you
a drinker. I don't discuss this a lot. I discussed
it every now and that mony. So when it makes sense,
I'm thirty nine years sober. I got sober February twenty third,
nineteen eighty five. Wow, Because as I tell people, and
you'll appreciate this, I was in Los Angeles. I moved
out there in eighty three, and I had a two
(56:43):
year daily white hot problem. Every day for two years.
I think guy snorted a line of cocaine from here
to Saturn. We did one on the rings of Saturn.
Then we came home. We took it back home. I mean,
cocaine was like coffee back and everybody was doing it
all day.
Speaker 4 (57:00):
Lot.
Speaker 3 (57:01):
I did a lot of coke, and then I and
then February twenty third, nineteen eighty five, by step, and
I just because as I stopped doing drugs and my
drinking increased, which is they tell you that's going to happen,
and that did happen. I just started drinking. I mean,
and the thing, I miss his drinking. I don't miss
Druggs at all, but I do miss drinking. I like
to drink.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
You know, Frank and those guys, it was all drinking.
And what the separation that happened with Sammy and Frank
was Sammy who I've got to tell you it was
the greatest guy. He was the entertainer and we all
loved them. There was nobody to like him. But he
got into coke and that's what separated him and Frank
for a few years. Frank wanted nothing to do with that.
(57:41):
I mean, weed was it, but no way is I.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
Think I think it's great. I'm I'm not going to
say who, but a very famous director. I bumped into
the other day at an event. He was there, and
I think he's doing a movie about Sammy. They're doing
a biography.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
Yeah, they've been talking about it, and I know that
I know Marty's thinking of doing this not the story
again because they wanted to read. They want to be
an advisor on it. But I hear that he's really
seriously looking at it. But hey, whatever he does, Sammy.
They've been talking about this. They've been talking about Sammy
for Broadway, and they've been talking about the film, and
they should because he was the best and you're the best.
Speaker 2 (58:19):
Alec before you run, You've been very generous with your time.
But because you don't drink, and because you don't do drugs,
what do you do you meditate? What do you do
to deal with the pressures of the outside, you know forces?
What do you do to get away from that drink?
Speaker 3 (58:36):
I drink. I lied, I've been drinking stop since nineteen
I lie. I tell people I'm sober and I drink
my balls off. But no, I do miss drinking, I
must say. But one of the things I like to
do is because New York is so convenient. People say,
why do you live in New York? This August I've
been I've had an address. I've had a home in
(58:56):
New York for forty five years. I've lived here, and
I went back and forth to La, you know, all
the time when I was married to my ex wife
and everything, and I would always commuting. I went New
York to LA twenty times a year. But New York
relaxes me. I walk around and I see aspects of
it that I've never seen before. I look at a
(59:17):
building and I'll go, my god, I never noticed that
about that building. Those doors. You know. New York is
like a European city. You walk around you and keep
your eyes open. And I have lunches and coffee and
my friends, and I'd like to get out of here
because the city is chaotic. But we live in the village.
It's a little bit more residential. I love New York.
I love you know. My friend said, you live in
(59:39):
New York if you don't go get tickets and go
see things. I said, this is like opening your Christmas
presents and playing with the boxes. He said, You've got
to avail yourself of everything that's there in New York.
But and I do. I go to the symphony and
the opera and the ballet all the time, you know,
pretty regularly. But I do try to meditate. Meditating with
(59:59):
seven children is like trying to play ping pong on
the deck of an aircraft. It's a real pain in
the ass.
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
It's a real Hey, Alex, you got to get some minooka, honey.
You gotta get some lemon and keep it around the
house because your throat, you can you can do better
if you get that honey, and you get some of
that lemon in you and just do it consistently. It's magical.
Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
I'm gonna sing one day. It might not be to
the next.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Life with me.
Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
You're gonna produce ready, listen. I can't affortunate listen, I
can't afford you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Cost you nothing. Hey, Alec, We're with you, man, We
love you. This this toot, she'll pass.
Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Okay, Thank you, buddy, My love to you too. Thanks
for having me thoughos. I really loved it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
It was really enjoying it, so it was so so great,
really loved it.
Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Thanks, thank you. I have a great day, fellows. We'll
talk to you down the road.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Our Away with Paul Anka and Skip Bronson is a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
The show's executive producer is Jordan Runtog, with supervising producer
and editor Marcy Depinum.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
It was engineered by Todd Carlin and Graham Gibson, mixed
and mastered by the wonderful Mary Do.
Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review.
Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Our Way with yours truly Paul Anka and my buddy
Skip Bronson, is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, folks, this
is Paul Anka.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
And my name is Skip Bronson. We've been friends for
decades and we've decided to let you in on our
late night phone calls by starting a new podcast and
welcome to Our Way.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
We'd like you to meet some real good friends of us.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Your leaders in entertainment and.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Sports, innovators in business and technology, and even a city
president or two.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Join us as we ask the questions they've not been
asked before, tell it like it is, and even sing
a song or two.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
This is our podcast and we'll be doing it our way.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
But movie making is often challenging, and the behind the
scenes with your friends and colleagues is fun. But movie
making is not always that much fun. It's worked, you know,
how you try to get you know, whenever coming back.
You got to get this scene right now, like today,
and the pressure is very real. I always felt I
got invited to do SNL the first time, and did
(01:08):
it several times, and then thirty five I said to myself,
this is fun. This is where the work itself is fun.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Hey, Skip, Hey, what's going on. Well, you tell me, man,
the Masters. I've been in the studio and working on
the dock and everything. What finally happened there? That was
an incredible tournament. You know, it's not often not I
wouldn't say often. It's not always that the number one
player in the world or even in the field wins
(01:49):
the tournament. But this time Scottie Scheffler, who is in
fact the best golfer in the world, ranked number one
in the world, and he won the Masters. Last year
John rom won the year before Scottie Scheffler won, so
this is two out of three years that he's won,
and he's just a spectacular golfer. But I know what
(02:09):
you're turned on about, and that's you know, hockey playoffs.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Oh man, it's the best.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I mean, I love it, but I can't compete when
it comes to being a fan.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
You know, It's been the most constant thing in my life.
Even after the gun in the business and I got busy,
I would never miss a hockey game. To me, knowing
because I skated as a kid that I involved with
the Senators. Those kids are like ballet dancers with those skates,
and to see where the game is evolved into, you know,
bigger and faster. It's it's its best when it gets
(02:42):
to the playoffs and it really shows you what those
kids are capable of doing. But it gets down to
the goalies. It's a goalie game at that point. If
you got the bad goalie, you're not going to win.
I've been loving it.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, I know you were an owner of the Ottawa Senators,
but I actually don't even know how or why that happened.
What was the genesis?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Well, we wanted a hockey team, and I went to
Bruce McDonald's a buddy, and you know, he had the
Kings and he helped me put it together. And the
group up in Autowa brought me in and I was
just part of a team of guys that brought it there.
And meanwhile, it hasn't been a great hockey team for
all these years as well play soccer, but it hasn't
(03:21):
worked out for the city, you know, except that had
a better year this year. Yeah, and I've loved it.
I just loved it. And I think New York's got
a shot. I love the way New York's playing. I
like like two great goalies, yeah, Igor and Quick. My
kids got Ethan's got uh the Stanley Cup game when
(03:43):
the Kings and New York played. When we went to
the locker room, Quick gave Ethan the hockey the goalie
stick from that wind that night. We've got it up
on the wall.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Oh that's cool.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
A great goalie.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
You know he's older now, Quick, but he's still he's
still got his game going. Speaking of game going, how
about who's coming on here in a few days. Uh,
Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Man, Yeah, I know, Alec Baldwin. This is this is
the Cup. It's amazing that he's actually going to do
it with all the distractions that he's got from that
New Mexico situation. But he says he's going to do it,
and you know when he says he's going to do something,
he does.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
He's that kind of guy. You know, he's a man's man.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
We all know his m O. But that's who he is.
I love the guy anytime, and I don't profess to
no one, but anytime I've been around him. And the
last time was you know, we did something on the
Comedy Channel for that roast, and you know they threw
it at him. With everything else you had to deal
with they wanted to sing my way with me. It's
not easy for singers. Littlone a guy that's an actor
(04:48):
and what have you. And he stepped up and I
think just about thirty minutes before he little apprehends I
loved watching my favorite guys.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
No, I can't do this. I can't do this. No
I can't say this. I can't no, no, no, you do
the whole thing. I'm not going to go on. Calm down.
You gotta just think of who you are. You got
balls of steel.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
We know right you're it man, And I meant it
because he's in the hell of a guy and he
came right out. I thought Frank was there. He took
on that character and he was phrasing it. He did
a great job. So that was a great moment for me.
That's the last time that I saw him. And you're
bringing up this whole situation he's in now, I gotta say,
(05:31):
very quickly without getting deep, I support the guy.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
I think it's bullshit. I really do.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
It's unfortunate.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
It's unfortunate. It's unfortunate for the other dynamics. But I
hate to see a guy like this go through that.
Who shouldn't be going through it. I just leave it.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I'm just gonna leave it like that.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And I don't think we're going to even approach it,
you know, because he's kidding great, great vibe and in.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
But what I will mention is that Edie, who worked
as the photographer at Saturday Night Live for twenty five years,
photographed everybody. She said, if she had to single out
one person who might have been the absolute favorite that
she's photographed multiple times, of course, who would be Alec Baldwin.
She's just absolutely crazy about him and his talent. I mean, look,
(06:16):
this guy can do everything, you know, from very serious
dramatic acting roles Glen Garrett, Glenn Ross, street Cardy and Desire,
you know, to comedy to television series with thirty Rock.
I mean, he's so versatile. I mean he's great.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
He did Stanley Kowalski street car name Desire. I think
it was Frank Rich the New York Times when he
wrote this the first time that he doesn't leave one
longing from Brando. I think that was his code. That's
pretty heavy, you know, that's Brando and he earned a
lot of rave reviews.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
But he's a great actor. You know, he really is actor.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
And he's got including by the way, he has a
very successful podcast. And I don't know where he finds
the time this man has. I mean, I have to
take a pause here. Whenever I whenever say this, seven
children under the age of eleven, I mean, let me
say that again. Seven children under the age of eleven.
(07:15):
I mean, you kidding me. You've got six, but they
weren't all, you know, cramped in like that. But I mean,
seven under the age of eleven is crazy. I'm gonna
ask him, you know what I want to ask him.
I want to ask him if he's done.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I wonder how he did it. I want to ask
him how many times he did it? Bless him?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
All Right, I'm gonna run. I gotta get ready for this,
so I'm gonna take off.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
You have fun.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I'll talk to you before we go to bed.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Please, Well, what time you go to bed tonight?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Ten thirty?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You don't want to call me too, I know you'll
call me at two and say good night. I'm most
calling you at ten thirty.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Good night.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Don't you have it any empathy for your dear friend?
I sitting up and trying to make people happy and writing.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I'm going to get that AI device to call you a.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, great, give me a name. It's still cute. Like
I set my clock tenth theory, I gotta wake them
up and think good night. All right, Skip, I look
forward to it. I think we'll have a good time
with Alec.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, it'll be great.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
All right, Skip, We're gonna talk talk to you later.
Byey bye.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
There's an Alex.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I see hair. I see hair over there. You can't
compare the hair Alex.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
The top of we see the top of his head.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Aleck, I care. I love that here. Hey, Alec, how
are you doing there?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
You go?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Hey?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
You ready to do my way again?
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Actually, when I saw myself recorded doing my were with you,
I'd never been more humiliated in my life.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
You pulled it off.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Man, I'm never singing my way with a legendary vocalist
ever again. That was the one. It was a one
time deal, only one time.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Well, it was a big one time for me because
I've done it with Sinatra.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I'm very grateful to you.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
No, no, I did it with Sinatra and then there
we were thrown into that. But you know, you had
a little hesitation, like what thirty minutes before we were
going to do it, and then you showed the alec balls.
You just went right into the role. You came in
and I couldn't fuck the mooove. I thought Frank was
next to me.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
He had it was like therapy. This is like therapy.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Where does he bring the energy from to sound like that?
Speaker 3 (09:39):
You were great, but you know something funny, but you'll appreciate.
I always tell people if I teach acting, or I
go in and kind of guest to teach. I haven't
really talked that much lately, but if I went in there,
I always tell them learn to sing the best of
your ability. I said, you will cut off so many
wonderful experiences in this business if you don't allow yourself
(09:59):
to at least try. You know what I mean? Yeah,
I agree, don't try to learn how to sing to
do musicals? And said, well that's all, that's where the
fun is.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So that was a stretch for you. I mean, you've
gone from hey, you're one of our great actors and
then the comedy with SNL and Rock. Was that really
a stretch for you to sing that the thing for
a minute.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Well, I think because I have a very raspy voice.
I remember one time I was at a fundraiser and
the guy who wrote nine Maury Yeston, was there. And
Maury Yeston was there, Nathan Lane and my Matthew Broderick
and all these people who sing on Broadway. And Maury
Yeston said to me, do you sing? I said, no,
I don't sing. I can't sing. He says, nonsense, mister Ball,
(10:37):
of course you can sing. And I said, really, why
do you say that. He goes, he said, I'm going
to teach you the same thing I talked Dustin Hoffman.
He said, I want you to sing the Star Spangled
Banner in the style of Jimmy Duranta, and I said, oh.
And then he says, I want you to sing God
Bless America in the style of Louis Armstrong, which are
(10:58):
very similar. He goes, and I'm singing. He goes, You're
on key. He said, you can sing when you're pretending
to be somebody else. That's right, he said, if you
he said, if you can find your own voice, he says,
you can sing you're on key. But my voice is
so shredded I can't sing anyway.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
You know, most singers, most singers aren't great singers al
you know, even Ray Charles is one of my favorite.
If you get down to quality of voice, they've all
got that raspy vibe going, you know most of them,
and most of them are just like singing from the heart,
but they're not great singers.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
They smoke.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
They all smoke.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
When I started with the rat Pack in the early sixties,
I'm this kid just saying, who do I give the
money back to? You know, it was those guys. It
was chicks. It was like, I'm living this life out
of Canada and they're all sitting around starting in the
afternoon and they're smoking, and they're drinking, and they're trying
to get me to join the club, and I with
(11:51):
I got to preserve the business. They all fucking smoked.
It was unbelievable and it was It was kind of
the Unfortunately what happened to Sammy was all smoking. The
Frank you know, he was, and Dean was the one
guy that fooled everybody. He didn't drink a lot, he
didn't smoke a lot. But Sammy and Frank, they were
they were the smokers.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Yeah, but but Dean always had a button his hand
and the glass in the other hand, so you always
talk differently. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Oh, we had the apple juice in the other hand,
is that right?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I sit off stage and he was the one that
fooled everybody. He wasn't a big smoker.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Alec, I've met you before. My wife is none other
than Edie Baskin loves you. She is so crazy about you.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah, she was a doll. I miss her. She was
really really those are the old days and when she
was there, my god, Ei was just a doll. She
was a doll.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Thanks, she said, shed make sure you tell Alec he's
my favorite member of the five timers club, I said,
except in his case, I think it's seventeen times.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Your host it right, Yeah, I'm something more than five.
I know that it's more than five.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
We broke the record, right because he broke didn't he
break Steve Martin's record?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
I think I have one more than Steve. But you
know who's county?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Who's I got to get this out of the way early, though.
Your impression of Trump is so iconic, so famous on
the show, and I was talking to Edie about this,
and Edie was wondering, how did it feel to be
impersonating somebody who despise that much to just go through
that process.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Well, it's funny you say that, because I've come full
circle where I don't have those feelings. I'm not a
Trump supporter, but I don't feel I mean, I feel
like people now who are Democrats or Biden's supporters of
What's what they needed to start doing now is stop
talking about Trump and start selling Biden. Get off that pinata.
It's like a tired thing.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Now.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I did that for four years, but now my attitude
is like, let's I mean a little but that is fun,
but you gotta they got to move on and start
articulating why they want.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
But to vote for not vote against someone else.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Well, yeah, I mean, we all know people who don't
trust Trump or don't prefer Trump. We get it, we
know how you feel.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Now what bothers me with it all today is happy
I'm eighty two years old and I can sit in
the grandstand and look at it. It's just become so tribals.
That's the problem for me. It's just become so tribal
and there's nobody talking and relating.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
It's not helping, that's for sure. It isn't helping.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Not helping at all Man, I think we're in for
a few rough years, but we still got the greatest
country in the world, so we'll pull it together.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
So Paul, I want to know I always ask people.
I'm going to turn the tables on you, guys and
ask you a question, which is I always ask people
in your world, like who's somebody you're standing next to
in a studio or I'm assuming in a studio and
you're recording music with somebody and you just were dying
you thought this is like a dream come true, somebody
you loved that much. Obviously Frank is one.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, well, you know, I did a duet's album with
a lot of good people. I think Willie Nelson right
loved with Willy Ray Charles. I love Ray Charles. I'm
a huge Ray Charles man. And then I got a
big kick out of work with Michael Bubley, who I
kind of found and worked with and watches whole career grow.
(15:01):
And then there I was watching this guy come into fruition,
love him and Michael. That was a big proud moment
for me. The one I haven't been in the studio
with who I'd like to be it would be sting.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Ah.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
I've been around Elton a lot, but I haven't been
in a studio with him. But I think Elton is
the real deal. It's the real deal. Like hey, like
you're the real deal. You're the real deal. What was
comedy one of your ambitions when you got into acting,
because you do so much comedy and a lot of
guys can't do it, you know, it's tough to switch over.
Was that part of the menu for you when you started.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
I think that it's about relaxing, really, because in the
beginning you're not quite sure where you're going to go
because that's not up to you. And then as you
start to make films that are more dramas and thrillers
and things like that and Hunt for Red October these
kind of you know, war technology films and so forth,
that's exciting. But movie making is often challenging. And that
(15:57):
behind the scenes with your friends and colleague is fun.
But movie making is not always that much fun. It's
work and you try to get you know, whenever coming back,
you got to get this scene right now, like today,
and the pressure is very real. I always felt now
when I smoked. It was when I was doing film
after film after film in a row and I was
(16:18):
just nervous. So all the time I was like Jesus,
this is hard to really get it right. And when
I went into that world, I got invited to do
SNL the first time and did it several times, and
then thirty Rocks. I said to myself, this is fun.
This is where the work itself is fun. And I
enjoyed that. I really couldn't get enough of going there.
And there were things they had me do on that
show that no one else would ever invite me to do.
(16:40):
So I loved it.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
And you know what it was when I started, it's
so young, and then put a few years under me,
I found the motivating factor. I wanted to know what
you thought about it for me in a lot of cases,
because it's it's a bullshit business. At the end of
the day, revenge. Revenge motivated me through so much. How
do you feel about that?
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Well, I think that might be the word. I don't know,
but I know for me, it was about having to
prove yourself no matter what I did, no matter what
successes I had or didn't didn't have, I never sat
back and I was satisfied. I thought, I wake up
the next day I got to prove myself all over again.
You know, there's an echelon you can get to where
you're like Cruise and Hanks and these big people Leo,
(17:23):
where you're every time you step up to bat you're
gonna get a double at least, you know what I mean,
You're gonna make money for them. Cruise once said to
me the most amazing thing. He said, so why do
you work so hard. You're the hardest working person I've
ever met in my life. And he said, I got
to give them both their money's worth. I said, what
do you mean? He said, the studio that's paying me
(17:43):
and the ticket buyers that are buying tickets to my movies.
Because I got even both, it goes that's my job.
And I remember, you know, I'm not in that world
of monumental success in films and especially making money, you know,
making a lot of money for the studios, which is
all they care about now more than ever. But I
remember just saying to myself, I go back to zero
(18:04):
every movie I start, I'm back to zero. I got
to prove myself again.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
But as that change, though, you look at the film
business today, it's not a business like it was years ago,
and it's so changed today where there's not a lot
of money being made outther than just certain films. I notice,
you know, it's all about now getting an oscar to
really drive the film home. There seems to be a
whole change of dynamic in the film business. How are
you sensing that?
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Well?
Speaker 3 (18:28):
I think that the awards season is strange because there's
a kind of a there's a kind of hunting for
awards that was kind of vulgar. Thirty years ago. You
wouldn't have done it that way. And I think that
the industry, although there are years where they can't deny
someone's the greatness of someone's performance and they give them
(18:48):
an award, for the most part, the business is straining.
Maybe not the actress, which is why the SAG Awards
are so distinctive, But in the oscars, they're always straining
to give the oscar to somebody they can make money off.
You know, they might want to give it to Roberto
Benini again, you know, I mean, he's really They're not
going to make a lot of movies in this country
with Roberto Benini. But the biggest stars in the movie business,
(19:12):
who are real box office stars, they're dying to put
an oscar in their hands. So when they sell, when
they sell the film, in the trailer, it says Academy
Award winner Bobby Block. That's one thing. The second thing
is that the business, and I think it used to
be as you know, the men and women typically the
men who owned the companies, they were the owners of
(19:36):
the companies themselves, not the management. They installed management out
in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
You know.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
The owners of the companies were in New York and
the people that ran the companies for them were in
Los Angeles. And the ones they hired to run the
company had some sense that had to make a movie,
and they were risk takers like Menivoi. I always quote
and say Menivoy was that guy who'd say, you know,
they were a small studio, a riot that boyd. We
might say, I don't know if we're going to lose
(20:02):
our shirts on this movie, but I'm going to burn
one on the side of the angels and make a
great film. And whether we get out money back, I
don't know. An ego and do you know some really
tough drama, you know, and they would lose money. But
Menavoid was the last of that breed. Now that people
who own the companies have hired people to run the
companies who tried to wigetize the whole business. They want
(20:22):
the movie business to be like the potato chip business.
Everything is the same.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Paul and I on previous podcasts, you know that we do.
We talk about all the things we had to do
before we got to do what we wanted to do.
You know, we all had those jobs. But when did
you decide you wanted to be an actor? How'd that
come about?
Speaker 3 (20:52):
I had a friend of mine, I was visiting a
friend at NYU. I was in Washington at GW and
I visited a friend of mine and her roommate was
in the drama program. TISH was first blooming. You know,
the Tishes has just given a big bag of money
to them to build this school. And I went in
there and she said, you should be an actor. And
I said, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of
in my life. And the joke was with my dad.
(21:13):
I called my mother and father and I said I'm
going to leave GW and go to NYU for acting.
And my mother was screaming at the top of her
lungs over the phone. Are you insane? She was screaming.
And then I said, but you don't understand. When I
go back to New York, I can claim all these
awards and all these tuition stipends, regions, scholarship, all this money.
(21:34):
I said, it'll be cheaper for me to go to
NYU than it is GW, even though it's more expensive.
And my father's on the phone. He goes, okay, let's
hear him out. Let's hear him out, like anything that
would lower my father's costs. He was over fair. So
that's how I went to NYU.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
And then you he would leave Strasbourg, right.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Yes, Well, I studied at the institute. He died. We
had a class with him once a month where he
lectured us, but he died very soon after he was there.
The one year I was there, he was.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
So because I'm not an actor. When they refer to
as method acting, like, what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
What's the technique?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Right?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
What's the technique for that?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Well? To me, it's like a stream, like an arc,
which is that years ago in the silent era, you
had to be beautiful. Then they switched to sound and
you had to be able to deliver a line. Then
the war came and the war wanted. They wanted flint
here people, tougher people, Betty Davis, Joan Crawford, the men
were tough. And you get into the method acting thing,
(22:29):
but they don't want you to indicate emotion. They want
you to really feel that emotion. Think about your dog dead,
think about your grandma died, and you start sobbing, and
then actions say the lines while you're genuinely emotionally packed.
Then we get into the computer age, where the actors
themselves are not necessarily the fizz and the drinks. They
(22:50):
invite you into the theater, a famous star has you commit,
but computers then take over and really to create the
film experience you're going to have. And now we've arrived
at the last installment. Now I think is that the
fittest people are the biggest stars. You gotta be fit.
They want they want that video. If you roll in
a truck tire up a hill, they don't necessarily want
(23:10):
to see you, beside Shakespeare roll that tire up that
hill and we love.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Hey, Alice. Do you find the most actors today don't
bother training anymore? With the way the industry is, I think.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Fewer of them do I think they trained for luck.
I think they want to have it on their resume
that they made an attempt to learn more. And the
the classic education in theater is about understanding material and
studying classic plays to show you how to interpret a character.
And what's great about those classic roles is we know
the material works. It's you know, time honored and you
(23:43):
get in there and you learn how to break down
a character by studying great characters where there's a lot
of meat there on the bone. And then but I
think more and more people who are younger today, they
don't go as long. They don't go to college, or
they don't go to years of training.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Your performance in Glengarry Glenn Ross time still, you know,
being a guy who's been selling his whole life. I've
always been, you know. I like to say I'm not
a salesman, I'm a storyteller, but at the core, I'm
a salesman. That that always be closing that ABC, I mean,
one of the great scenes that I've ever seen in
a movie.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
I never wanted to do that that we get in
there to rehearse that summer we shot it that that
I think that fall I was in there to rehearse
like in August. I rehearsed for a couple of days.
They rehearsed, they had a real rehearsal for a couple
of weeks, and I went in for a few days
and I thought, oh God, I hate this because I
love all of them. I love them, I mean Lemon.
I practicularly cried when I work with Lemon.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I can't believe you're saying that was the thing that
bothered me the most. I felt so badly for Jack
Lemmon me just.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
So.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I was so I was blown away by your performance,
but I was really angry with you the way you
treated him. That was really something.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Well, people go see the play, and the play has
revived periodically in New York all the time, and people
do the play. I've seen many products. I'm Broadway with Glengarry,
and people see the play and they go, well, where's
that scene where Alec Baldwin's character reams out these people
and they have to understand it's not in the play.
And I called Mammott and I said, why did you
win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama? He won the Pulitzer
(25:15):
Prize for that play. And I said, why do you
feel you need to add this character. He said, I
don't believe these men are criminals. He said, I needed
to ratchet up the stakes on them. I want these
are these men are not criminals. I need to motivate them.
This guy comes in and threatens them and the only
way they can get out of it is to commit
a crime. And so I was like, Wow, that was
(25:35):
amazing to me that he made that change.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
And I was surprised when I read that. I read
that you actually prefer to, you know, to perform on
stage as opposed to television or acting in films. That
that's your first love is being on stage? Is that correct? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
I mean anything live like SNL. I guessed it on
Will and Grace a few times. You're live audience. That's
always fun. You get a lot of energy. I mean,
Paul can probably tell you better about this that live
things always gold, magical. Yeah yeah, Well, what's some of
the places you played? What's a room you go into
that was always you just felt at home.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Well, when I started, you know, you're working for the boys,
and they controlled and that was it. And they controlled
places like the Coca Cavana, which was fucking worse. There
was a basement and all the all the mob guys
were in there and you played to them, and there
was no stage. The light boots was just a panel
on the wall. That was a tough room. Then you
(26:30):
got a little better when you went to the Fountain
Blue down in Miami. And then the one I loved
was at the Sands because the boys were there and
it had that magic going for it, and it was small,
it was intimate and anything could happen.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
They had the black Book, which was you know, certain
guys from Saint Louis, Chicago. None of those boys were
allowed in town, so they're all in a black book.
But you wanted them to come to town because there
was a buzz in that little room at the Sands.
So if you're singing up there and few of them
snuck in, however, they got them in town. If the
spotlight went off the stage and hit the front table,
(27:05):
eight guys went.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
Under the table. They didn't want them to see.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
So the magic in that room although that the side
dishes on Friday and the wives were on Saturdays, so
you'd see them with the side dish and then Monday
you'd see them with the wives. So those were the
magic rooms for me, and then you evolved into you know,
when I started traveling around the world into the bigger
stadiums and doing stuff in Italy and you know, go
(27:32):
to Israel. All those places have magical kind of historical places.
But you know, it gets to a point where when
you got your shit together and you know what you're doing,
and you only select the places you want to work in,
you can work in anything. You can work in anywhere.
And that's where I always achieved where I wanted to
get to.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
What's that voice? Who's that guy there playing in that
great scene and that good fellas? What he sings? Pretend
you don't see her.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Oh that's Gerry Fail Jerry Vale. We called him Jerry Fail.
Why always changed everybody's name, Jerry Fayle. I was the kid,
you know, my robe in the health club was the kid.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
Sammy was Smoky the bear.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Dean was a veno the ship they went on in
that that steamer room. But Frank was always changing names,
and you know, he was very judgment He wasn't judgmental.
There's certain singers he didn't like, you know, and he
was very with us. He would bring it out and
I'm not going to mention any names, but he that
was Jerry Vale. I was supposed to be in that scene,
(28:37):
really because I gave I did a Lonely Boy documentary.
It was the first documentary ever done on a pop idol,
and nobody knew what the copo looked like, and a
lot of it was shot at the Copa in the sixties.
So when Marty started putting good Fellows together, he didn't
know what the helicopo looked like. And you know, he
does his research, and you know, nobody like Marty. And
(28:59):
he called, he said, you have a film. I said yeah,
he says, can I look at it? So I gave
it to him. So everything you see in that scene
was taken from my documentary Lonely Boy, And that was
the look of the Copa. This basement. It was. I
was telling the guys the other day, it was you
don't see or feel what we did back then. And
(29:22):
I'm not a guy with a rear view mirror. You know,
I got to move ahead. But you sit there with
all of these different characters, and one night Sammy was
singing and we're all sitting on the floor and Sammy's
on the floor in the band and he starts, sometimes
I feel like a motherless child. And two tables over,
(29:43):
there's a couple of noses sitting there. One guy says,
and you looked like one right now. With that, just
to show you what you get do today, you heard
the lights went out. Three big guys came down. Carmine
sent them down, picked the guy up, took the table out.
Everything was gone. Within one minute. The lights went back up,
(30:04):
and Savvy kept singing. Just removed them, removed them.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
You know, my favorite thing was, I mean when I
like biographies a lot, I try to read a lot
of biographies. I'm reading Streisand's biography now, which is amazing.
Her memory for.
Speaker 5 (30:19):
The new book, but the new book, the new one.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
And but one of my favorite was Nick Tashas wrote
the biography of Dean Martin. And there was a rumor that,
you know, Spielberg or one of these you know, legendary
directors were going to cast somebody as Dean, and they
whether they had the right guy or I don't know.
But the Nick Tasha's book, first of all, the funniest
part is how he meets some I think you said noses.
(30:43):
We'll use that words of noses and he meets some
of these guys and they'd say, we want to sign
you and be your representative all up and down the
Allegheny area. He goes, well, I'm already signed with so
and so on Cleveland, and they'd say, we'll take care
of you. Then he meets some guys in Chicago. He says,
I'm already signed with his we'll take care Then he
moved to New York. He's gonna go New York, and
(31:03):
they like, we'll take care of them. But he did
a thing in the book, if I remember correctly, I
read the book a while ago. He did a thing
where he says he's talking to somebody and he puts
on Crosby, then him on a record. He plays some Crosby,
he plays some of him, and he plays some Elvis,
and he goes as some Elvis and he says, we're
all doing the same thing. We're all doing the same thing.
(31:25):
It's just an updated version of a crooner, you know,
of a crooner. And that book was one of the
greatest books. And it's just amazing that book.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
You know, Dean Dean idolized. He got that whole vibe.
He told me when we were hanging. He idolized the
Mills brothers, and he, the lead singer in the Mills
brother was the one that influenced them. Now they were
all influenced, and Sinatra more so with Bing Crosby. Crosby
was the guy for years. Frank idolized them, Dean idolized them,
(31:55):
and there was always that competitive thing. But being with
Commerce was in those film industries. They brought them together
in a lot of projects, a lot of films. But
Bing was the guy till Frank started to emerge in
the fifties and surpassed him. But he was the guy
for Dean. He was the guy for Frank, and that's
the guy that they wanted to be. But Crosby couldn't
(32:17):
swing or didn't have the attitude the way Frank did.
You know, there was nobody with the lyric like Frank.
He'd go down to the Springs and study a lyric
for like two weeks and nobody could. He ruined it.
For everybody that stood in front of a band, you
were always second to him.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
It's weird how just this morning I was having a
cup of coffee, I dropped my kids off at school,
and a couple of the other fathers out there are
buddies in mine. We all have a cup of coffee
in the morning. And I said to one, I said,
there's no human being alive as in another man or
woman alive. Maybe Ella is close. I said, where Sinatra
(32:52):
understood the tempo and all the beats of the song
and the lyrics. No one could ride and shift those
lyrics in his mind. And I played in the cut
of I Get a kickout of You off of Sinatra
in Paris.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Great album and my favorite album.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
One of my favorite albums I on. I played all
the time, and there he is, see I Get a
Kick out of You, and he goes. If I took
one with it would boil me to riff count four beats.
He goes leap two. I mean he fractured those lines
and played with those lines like dice, like there was
no one who There's people who got close, but never
as good as well.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Tip your two albums that he loved. The best live
album alec he ever made is the one of the sands.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
I got that too. I played that to that.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
That is the best live album with all of us,
every tech guy. That's the base. And I introduced Frank
to my guy that found me when I was a
kid at sixteen, Don Costa and Don than me and
Don I introduced them. In the sixties, he did an
album called Sinatra and Strings. Do you know the album? No,
(34:00):
I beg you get today, get it, And when you're
under the sheets with your squeeze or anyone you want
to be with, you put that album on.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Alex.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
It depends on what day of the week it is.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Well, you pick your week.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
If it's Monday, it's my wife, Come help yourself.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
You're gonna love that album.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I'm learning from you. I'm learning.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah, you're gonna you're gonna love that album. I'll get it.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
I'll get it today.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
You call me, you tell me what you think it's
it's it's brilliant.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
So Paul's got six kids, you have seven under the
age of eleven. I was gonna say to you when
you said it dropped my kids off at school. That
takes a bus, right, you got a small bus to
take your kids.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Well, in my family now, I'm the only person I
know who drops four kids off at school in the
morning and comes home and I still have three kids
waiting for me when I get home. I have seven.
I have eight children. I got my oldest daughter who's
married I always has a baby, and she and her
boyfriend are living in Oregon. And I met my wife
(35:10):
and I got remarried and I had seven kids in
nine years. It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
So that begs the question are you done?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
How dare you ask me that question? I'm dumb, I think, well,
you know, I found that as I got older, work
became less interesting to me, like a deam interested.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
I want to work, and I like to work and
when I go and do, but they just don't make
that many films anymore that I think are interesting. And
plus we're all older, and I've done a lot of
stuff that i've you know, whatever I've done in the past.
I try not to be duplicative of that all the time.
And then all of a sudden I met my wife,
who I love dearly, And every time the baby would
get to be two years old, to go, maybe it's
(35:52):
time for one more baby, one more baby, so we'd
have we have seven kids.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
How old are you know?
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Sixty six? I was a weeks ago, I was sixty
I have a one and a half year old baby.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Babies, you guys, sixty six.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Now your daughter is married to one of my favorite actors.
I'm not just saying I love you.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
I spoke to him yesterday. Was it in New York?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Now?
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Is there for eight months making a film?
Speaker 1 (36:16):
He's making a series with Jude Law.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Wow, I just spoke to I love Jason. He can
do anything. He can do anything.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
He's such a good guy.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
You know that Ozaka. I watched that goddamn show till
I was going to jump off the roof. I couldn't.
It was so tense, you know, so tense.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
He loves the directing vibe. Now he's just good directing away.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
And thankfully we had an end. So he was our
first guest on our very first podcast.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
I was the first guest on Inside the Actors Studio.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Really I did the very first thing. I didn't do
the first airing, but I was the first person to
recorded but Jim for only one reason, and that as
Paul Newman called me another person you can't say no to.
And Newman called me on the phone and said, hey, Man,
don't want to interview me first? And he said, I
can't do it. I got a scheduling confict. He goes,
do you mind filling in from me. And I said,
and I wanted to say, are you out of your
(37:03):
fucking mind that I'm going to fill in for you?
Nobody can fill in for you. But he said, would
you do this to me? And I went in and
I did it. And you know, he's a guy who
he's gone now for quite a while. I think twenty
and eighty died, I can't remember. But man, for a
guy who was as monolithic as he was, I mean,
I met a lot of people in this business who
I love and my peers. I respect many of my peers,
(37:26):
but I only wet my pants when I meet these
other ones, you know, I mean like Paul and Redford
and Warren Batty and Dustin Hoffman and.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
On and on.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
I mean I met a lot of people, Bob and
Al and all those people. Marty I worked with her
for a little while. And I was in an elevator
once with Burt Lancaster. I wrote an elevator with him,
just like six floors in the elevator and I just
stared at him like he was I couldn't believe I
was standing next to Bert Lee. And then Michael Douglas
would come to the US Open and one year he
(37:56):
brought his father with him, and he knew how much
I loved his father, and I up and I hugged
him and I said hi to his wife, and he
just frowned it with Dad's over there, and I just
want to see all that. And I sat with with
Kirk Douglas and I worshiped Kirk. He was cool.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Yeah, man. I used to see him when I was
living with Sammy Kahn, and I come and stay at
Sammy's and they lived across the street from each other,
so I'd go hang over there. But he was he
was just one of those big guys. He filled the room.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Loved him. Very rare to be that biggest star, be
that talented of an actor at the same time, very
Now did you spend much time in New York Hall
Did you live here much at all?
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Well?
Speaker 1 (38:34):
I left Canada at fifteen, so it was down in
New York. You know, that's where it was all happening.
I can only afford to get to New York, so
I hit it got lucky at fifteen years old. So
I spent a lot of time in New York till
I moved west in the seventies, but always returned. You know,
New York's New York. You're not going to duplicate it,
I mean for me. And then it became Paris, you know,
because I got married over there and got the feel
(38:56):
for it. But New York I love, and I got
you know, I got my street smarts in New York,
so I came west.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Now you're you're several children, Are any of them in
the bids?
Speaker 4 (39:06):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Well, I got Amanda, who works with Jason. Yeah, so
she's involved there with Jen two. And I got to
kids in Europe. One's a lawyer in Geneva. I got
a young lady that's kind of a writer in London.
And I got one in Monte Carlo. And then I
have another daughter here. So the answer is I got
(39:27):
a lot.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
I love how none of them were in Chicago, Des Moines.
They my kids are in Monte Carlo.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
They got smart. Well, you know, I was an international creature,
you know, fifteen, sixteen, seventy and eighteen, I was all
over the world. I was traveling, I was in communist countries.
I was an Asian and I took the kids. And
every time I went to Europe, I took the kids,
you know, you know, what that balance is that did
you have to have? You know, But the main thing
is that family always so I insisted on taking them
(39:53):
so they got the taste early.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
I'm gonna tell my kids I want one of them
to become a lawyer and move to Geneva. That idea
sounds like.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Well, it's a good idea. If you want to give
her some money.
Speaker 5 (40:02):
Don't leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Exactly, exactly, exactly, So when you were talking about talking
about Ella, so in Paul Newman, here's an irony. So
when Edie and I were first together, we lived in
Fairfield County and Paul Newman lived close by. We moved
in two thousand to Beverly Hills. The home that we
live in was Ela Fitzgerald's house. She lived in the
(40:25):
house twenty five years. Died in the house directly across
the street. Literally, if you pull out of our driveway
and just cross the street, you go into the driveway
of Paul Newman's house, directly across the street from us.
But he was gone before we got there.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
You guys were in Connecticut for a while, I remember correct,
right then you went to l A.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
I grew up in Connecticut, grew up in Hartford, and
I tried to convince Edie when we were first together.
I was working at Hartford and Edie was of course
at the show in New York City, and we decided
to split the difference wound up on the Westport Fairfield line.
Die never adjusted to Liviyan Connecticut. That won't shock you.
That was not her thing.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Does she like La? You've been there forever now? Does
she like it there?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
She loves La. But if I said to her today,
you know, we were talking to Alec and we're talking
about New York and I was thinking maybe we should
move back, she would leave today and send for her clothes.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah, really, Edie, misses. I never was. I mean, I
loved working in LA. There really is nothing on earth
as great as working in La. Meeting I would go
some films I shot on a lot for quite a while,
we'd be there. One movie we shot there was a
lot of breaks of the holidays. We started in October
(41:42):
and finished like in January. And you always know you're
on a movie, a big movie when the decorations in
the makeup trailer go from pumpkins to turkeys to Santa Claus.
You know, it's like We're there for quite a while
making this. But I love being on the lot. This
was at Universal. I loved it. But I don't like
LA because I'm in a car all the time with
the person I hate the most. You know, I'm driving around.
(42:04):
I can't stand driving. I can't get any work done.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
But you're so be associated with New York. But with
everybody that's out there, you know, Jerry Seinfeld, Billy Joel,
Paul McCartney. I mean, do you hang with do you
hang with people or most.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
I'd see them from time to time. I used to
take a yoga class with Lorne, John Eastman, who's Paul's
brother in law, John Alexander, the painter, Lorne and I
and with the five of us, and we would take
a yoga class. We called ourselves the Yoga Boys. And
the only one who was really adept at yoga was McCartney.
He would do a handstand or a headstand and lead.
(42:38):
He had the most live body you've ever seen, and
he was like in back then. He was in his
late sixties and he was so fit, and he would
I mean, one time he does a headstand before he leaves,
and he gets up and he whispers to me. He goes,
I'm going to go take my daughter to lunch because
I'll see you guys later. And I looked up at
him and after he did the headstand, and I go,
(43:00):
you're an asshole. And I never thought I'd call one
of the Beatles an asshole, you know. But he was
always showing us up with his physical skills. He was
very thick guy. That crowd is out there, and that
crowd has all their rhythms and so on. But we're
actually selling.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Our house, moving to Vermont, right, Yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Bought a place in Vermont, and I'm trying to get
everybody to start to acclimate up therapy when you spend
the predominance of your time out there, and that's the
time it's the toughest, you know, it's crowded, and I
go out there. I used to go out there year
round them. I mean, I loved East Hampton in February.
I loved it. In the dead of winter. We'd make
five Marcie Klein, Marci Klein, are you now? Marci Klein
(43:42):
would have dinner parties at her house. We play scrabble,
We played all kinds of games, watch movies, watch shitty
TV shows, eat, make a fire. February and Eastampton is glorious.
But I think my wife wants a little change of
scenery now because it's so crowded about that.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Well, you'll you'll be very familiar with Interstate ninety one
on your way up.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
From Yeah, I know, I love ver Mount. It's so peaceful.
We got we got a great deal. We got fifty
five acres houses built in seventeen ninety two. It's very pretty. Now, Paul,
where's your getaway like when you're you live in La Now?
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah, I've been out here. I'm a place called Lake Sherwood,
which is about thirty minutes outside of the Action. I
got five acres out here. It's Murdoch built.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
This beautiful is it Malibu?
Speaker 1 (44:28):
It's twenty minutes from Alibau, just over the mountain. It's
a private community and it's got all kinds of stuff,
good schools and one have you near the good airport
that I deleave from. So it's called Lake Sherwood and
I'm you know, I'm here. I come home to what
I call clean sheets. You know, I'm traveling all the time.
So I just got back from Hawaii. I am going
down to Asia next week that I'm starting on a
(44:49):
tour and going to Europe, and so I'm out of
here about four months of the year, and I'm over
in New York seeing my kids. You know, keep moving.
You got to keep moving, alec or they throw dirt
on you.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
Keep I'm going to keep moving.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
You got to keep moving.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Alex. He's eighty two years old and he's still touring.
And I have to say this not to embarrass him,
but I first saw him perform at the Golden Nugget
in Las Vegas more than forty years ago, and the
most recent time I saw him was just a few
weeks ago when he performed here in La The show
is as good or better with as much energy or
(45:24):
more energy.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
I don't doubt it. He's unstoppable.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
The show is phenomenal, and it's just it's remarkable.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
I did the roast and he showed up, and when
I came out, people applauded. But when he came out
and sang, they really applauded. That's when you really heard
the applause.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
I woant to ship my pets if they did.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
My favorite Paul Ank. I mean, other than all the
beautiful songs and all the great songs you wrote. Of course, everybody.
When I grew up, we were kids, someone would say
that Paul Anchor, he wrote the theme song to the
Tonight Show. And they go and he must get paid
every night. They he must be worth a billion dollars.
How much do you think he's worth, fellas at least
(46:03):
a quarter of a billion. They must have paid him
for that goddamn song every night on TV, every night.
And I don't want you answer that question.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
But I'll answer it. I'll answer it. I didn't make
a billion dollars. Well, you know the story beyond no God, No,
you know, listen. It was always a challenge for me
as a young kid. You know, I'm always running into
a wall. And when you're young there nobody's given you
really a lot of help. So I had. I gave
Johnny a job on this TV show I was doing,
(46:30):
and then I ran into him in New York and
you know, what are you doing? Johnny said, well, I'm
going to do this TV show for about a year
or to like and really find something I like. Ha
ha said what is it? He said, Tonight Show thing?
And he said, we're changing some stuff and maybe i'd
like a new theme, and I said, yeah, great. So
I go in the studio, I think two hundred and
fifty bucks and I put my vision down. Dad at
(46:51):
that Dada, and I send him the record and he says,
I love it. We're going to do it. And then
he calls me back. He says, uh, you know, skithead
to Skitch. Henderson has been with the show for years.
He doesn't want some kid coming in here, and I
can't use it. I said, jeez, Johnny. I said, well,
let me ask you something. If I give you half
(47:14):
of the writer's royalty, half of the publishing, I'll give
you half of everything, and whatever happens, you're going to
be my partner. I get called the next day, says,
you know what I think would work this out? He says,
you got it.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
It's a great song.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
So now it's a silly song like eight seconds, just
get it. But anyway, what happened was what happened. He
didn't know he was going to stay on for thirty
some years. I certainly didn't know. I was just looking
for another notch in the belt. It went on for
so many years that these societies BMI and ASKAPT kept
changing the parameters of payments because it was earning too much,
(47:52):
so they drop a new one in every year. But
we earned a lot of money from it. It was unusual
because it was the most played same and it was
the longest running show with a guy that knew his shit.
Johnny was amazing. He was just the best at that.
He was something to work with.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
Well, when I was a kid, there was no cable.
There was no When I tell my kids there's no
cell phones, no cable, no Internet, they look at me like, wow,
you know, you're such a dinosaur in it, like your
childhood sounds like you're so impoverished. And I had a
little Sony TV, a little red plastic small TV you
plugged it in. It had rabbit ears, no cable back then,
(48:32):
in the seventies, and I'd put that TV between my
legs on a pillow and put a blanket over my
head because my father would come up the driveway and
see the TV flickering in the window if I didn't
hide it. And I had a little jack on the
side where you put one little plug in your ear
and you could listen to the thing in silence. And
I would watch the Tonight show Mary Hartman, all these
(48:54):
crazy shows back then, And there were three songs that
are the most iconic songs my childhood. One is Syncopated
Clock that they play for the Late Show in New York.
That's a famous class that was. That was the song
to the Late Show on CBS. The other one was
the Alfred Hitchcock theme song Bump Bump. And the other
(49:18):
one was the Tonight Show. That song you you, that
song made you sit up, You're like, Okay, here we go.
It made you buckle up and go here is this
Here comes Johnny And it was one of the greatest
pieces of music and TV history ever.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
So can you talk about for a minute just about
I mean, I know you're you're about giving back, but
can you talk about like your advocacy, what what causes
are important to you right now?
Speaker 3 (49:54):
Most of the stuff I've advocated was for the arts.
Like for years I was on the board of you know,
based in theatre in Seck Harbor, a guildhall in East Tampton,
gave money to my alma mater and NYU the Philharmonica.
I'm on the board of Carnegie Hall wherever I could
help in the arts because I was really my foundation
was geared toward the arts and still is to a degree,
(50:17):
but I mean some is environmentally related, some health related.
But you know, my dad was the one who kind
of put that curse on me. You know my dad
was My parents got separated right before he died. He
died in nineteen eighty three. He was only fifty five
years old. He had a very rabid form of cancer.
And my dad looked at me one time. I forget
what it was. He had nothing to do with my
family or helping my family. There was some context where
(50:40):
my dad looked at me and said, well, you know,
God didn't give you this money for you, and he
just got to stare at me, like you get it.
He goes, God didn't put this money in your life
for you. He gave it to you to help other
people as well. And I'll never forget that. And that
just changed my whole life. And I started small, but
then eventually I started my foundation in two thousand and six.
(51:00):
No board, no, I mean of the legally required board
of two outside family members. But you know, all my
own cash, all my own tributaries of money like Capital
One bank, car cards that did for five years, and
all kinds of stuff like that match game we did
match game, which was a lot of fun. Actually I
had a lot of fun doing that, more fun that
I can admit. That launched me into that world of
(51:23):
giving money to charities. But I learned a lot, as
maybe Paul probably knows as well from his career, which
is these people sat me down at a conference and
I Credit Sweese and it was a philanthropy conference, and
they said, we don't want you to give you a
million bucks, then you go away. I mean, that's nice,
we'll take it. But what we really wanted, we want
you to give us fifteen thousand dollars a year for
(51:44):
every year, like we want to be able to rely
on your contribution. We want to be able to budget
and make plans knowing you're going to give us X
a year for twenty years or twenty five years. And
I learned a lot about philanthropy from this conference, which
was held here in New York by Credit Swee, and
it really changed my thinking because they just want they
want to be able to make plants. They want reliability.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Do you ever try to convince other actors to do
the same, to be involved or you just stay you
stay in your own garden in that area.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
N see, I wouldn't. I mean to me, I would
buy tickets and tables, and I wouldn't ask anybody to contribute.
I'd buy the table. I'd invite you to come. I mean,
I learned from some of my friends who are wealthier
than I'll ever be, more money than I'll ever have
it ever, And I learned from them is the way
you stay friends with them is you don't ask them
for money. That's right, So I don't.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
What do you do away from your family? Meaning, do
you play golf? Do you play tennis? No?
Speaker 3 (52:38):
I played tennisall summer. A little bit you do? Yeah?
My kids? My kids have. The thing that's happened in
these last ten years, especially the last three or four years,
is my kids are used to be being around. Am
I growing to rely on that? I mean they really
rely When I'm gone, They're like, you know, they're on
the face time. If I travel to go away for
a couple of days to get a paycheck, they were
(53:00):
on my FaceTime going, you know, where are you? What
are you doing? You know, they're completely baffled when I
go away. But I think the thing I like to
do the most, it honestly, is popular music. Ceased to
speak to me in the eighties. It was all I
wasn't young anymore. I was probably in my thirties, mid
you know, thirty years old, and I'd listened to you know,
(53:21):
I love you, I love you, I love you. I
don't love you anymore? How can I stop loving you?
I still love you? I mean all the music was
very prayer isle and very much for young people. I
turned on a classical radio station in La I never
turned back. I've listened most almost exclusively to jazz and pop,
you know, vocalists, frank et cetera. But I listened probably
(53:44):
eighty percent of the music that's downloaded in my phone
that I listened to every day. It's classical music. And
I'm on the board of the Philharmonic, and it just
took over my whole life. I really, really, I've never
listened to music that there's there's a few things that
grab a hold of me like that. I like to
go to the symphony, the theater, and but I will
usually most movies I stream at home. But classical music
(54:05):
is such a big part of my life.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
I listened to a lot of it too. It does something,
it does something so different than everything else that you
listen to, and it's it's the basis of a lot
of the stuff that you hear today. It's just so soothing.
Speaker 3 (54:20):
Peter Frampton did my podcast and he had a really
interesting observation. He said, when I get out there, he goes,
it's all about sounds. He said, it's not just music,
it sounds. He had that little talk that talk box
and he played with that and he said, all I'm
about is making sounds, and that's what music is to me.
The classical music and what it does to you is
on the same part. One of my favorite singers, of
(54:41):
my father's favorite singer was not King Cole.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
Yeah, he was great, great guy, and.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
I listened to him and this the sound of his
voice is so soothing. It's like it's like a drug.
It's like a medication. It just calms you down.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
I used to sit and watch him at the sands
and he was the smoothest and he was the one
guy it never wanted to be around Frank or the
guys as much as they. He wanted to do his
own thing. He was elegant and he had he always
smoked his cigarettes, but with the cigarette holder he'd come
off stage and he had that cigarette holder, and every
(55:16):
time Frank and the guys wanted him to hang, he wanted.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
Nothing to do with Why do you think that is? Why?
Speaker 1 (55:20):
Well, that's a tough crowd. First of all, I mean,
you know when you when.
Speaker 5 (55:24):
You you got to think.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
I remember when Johnny got up with him because he
was scared shitless. He got up there one time at
the Sands and this first time you saw Johnny kind
of not comfortable. But you hang with those guys, you
bring your passport because you never know what city you'll
be in the next day. Frank just threw those parties
and that was not that way. He wanted no part
of that. You're you're you're straight shooter, and you got humor,
(55:48):
you're a man's man. When you're a man's man around
Frank and that's all you ever saw. And I'm a
guy got stories I won't even tell you. But he
was the guy and the laughs all night. You're up partying.
That was Frank's thing. So if you're going to hang
with him, you better be ready. And then they go
to the set, they start shooting Ocean's eleven. They start
(56:09):
like at noon all day and then they go back
on stage to night. So that was not NAT's thing.
Going back to that, there's no way he was going
to get involved in any of that. No, no, no way.
And they could drink.
Speaker 3 (56:21):
I can't even imagine. I can't even admit, are you
a drinker. I don't discuss this a lot. I discussed
it every now and that mony. So when it makes sense,
I'm thirty nine years sober. I got sober February twenty third,
nineteen eighty five. Wow, Because as I tell people, and
you'll appreciate this, I was in Los Angeles. I moved
out there in eighty three, and I had a two
(56:43):
year daily white hot problem. Every day for two years.
I think guy snorted a line of cocaine from here
to Saturn. We did one on the rings of Saturn.
Then we came home. We took it back home. I mean,
cocaine was like coffee back and everybody was doing it
all day.
Speaker 4 (57:00):
Lot.
Speaker 3 (57:01):
I did a lot of coke, and then I and
then February twenty third, nineteen eighty five, by step, and
I just because as I stopped doing drugs and my
drinking increased, which is they tell you that's going to happen,
and that did happen. I just started drinking. I mean,
and the thing, I miss his drinking. I don't miss
Druggs at all, but I do miss drinking. I like
to drink.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
You know, Frank and those guys, it was all drinking.
And what the separation that happened with Sammy and Frank
was Sammy who I've got to tell you it was
the greatest guy. He was the entertainer and we all
loved them. There was nobody to like him. But he
got into coke and that's what separated him and Frank
for a few years. Frank wanted nothing to do with that.
(57:41):
I mean, weed was it, but no way is I.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
Think I think it's great. I'm I'm not going to
say who, but a very famous director. I bumped into
the other day at an event. He was there, and
I think he's doing a movie about Sammy. They're doing
a biography.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
Yeah, they've been talking about it, and I know that
I know Marty's thinking of doing this not the story
again because they wanted to read. They want to be
an advisor on it. But I hear that he's really
seriously looking at it. But hey, whatever he does, Sammy.
They've been talking about this. They've been talking about Sammy
for Broadway, and they've been talking about the film, and
they should because he was the best and you're the best.
Speaker 2 (58:19):
Alec before you run, You've been very generous with your time.
But because you don't drink, and because you don't do drugs,
what do you do you meditate? What do you do
to deal with the pressures of the outside, you know forces?
What do you do to get away from that drink?
Speaker 3 (58:36):
I drink. I lied, I've been drinking stop since nineteen
I lie. I tell people I'm sober and I drink
my balls off. But no, I do miss drinking, I
must say. But one of the things I like to
do is because New York is so convenient. People say,
why do you live in New York? This August I've
been I've had an address. I've had a home in
(58:56):
New York for forty five years. I've lived here, and
I went back and forth to La, you know, all
the time when I was married to my ex wife
and everything, and I would always commuting. I went New
York to LA twenty times a year. But New York
relaxes me. I walk around and I see aspects of
it that I've never seen before. I look at a
(59:17):
building and I'll go, my god, I never noticed that
about that building. Those doors. You know. New York is
like a European city. You walk around you and keep
your eyes open. And I have lunches and coffee and
my friends, and I'd like to get out of here
because the city is chaotic. But we live in the village.
It's a little bit more residential. I love New York.
I love you know. My friend said, you live in
(59:39):
New York if you don't go get tickets and go
see things. I said, this is like opening your Christmas
presents and playing with the boxes. He said, You've got
to avail yourself of everything that's there in New York.
But and I do. I go to the symphony and
the opera and the ballet all the time, you know,
pretty regularly. But I do try to meditate. Meditating with
(59:59):
seven children is like trying to play ping pong on
the deck of an aircraft. It's a real pain in
the ass.
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
It's a real Hey, Alex, you got to get some minooka, honey.
You gotta get some lemon and keep it around the
house because your throat, you can you can do better
if you get that honey, and you get some of
that lemon in you and just do it consistently. It's magical.
Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
I'm gonna sing one day. It might not be to
the next.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Life with me.
Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
You're gonna produce ready, listen. I can't affortunate listen, I
can't afford you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Cost you nothing. Hey, Alec, We're with you, man, We
love you. This this toot, she'll pass.
Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Okay, Thank you, buddy, My love to you too. Thanks
for having me thoughos. I really loved it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
It was really enjoying it, so it was so so great,
really loved it.
Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Thanks, thank you. I have a great day, fellows. We'll
talk to you down the road.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Our Away with Paul Anka and Skip Bronson is a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
The show's executive producer is Jordan Runtog, with supervising producer
and editor Marcy Depinum.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
It was engineered by Todd Carlin and Graham Gibson, mixed
and mastered by the wonderful Mary Do.
Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review.
Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.