My Happy Days in Hollywood (6 page)

Sometimes on Sundays we would get the day off and go into the city of Seoul to buy cigarettes and stationery to write letters home. On the walk into town I would daydream and think of new radio shows we could put on the air. I came up with
Evenings with Elaine
, which would become one of our most popular shows. I found an American girl who was working at the officers’ club and convinced her to come down to the station and read letters written to the soldiers by their girlfriends back home. The show was a big hit until some officers discovered that the girl I hired was African American. They shut down the show immediately. When I asked why they said it was because they couldn’t have a black girl on their network.
It was one of my first experiences of censorship, and I thought it was ridiculous to pull someone off a popular show just because of race. Censorship seemed incompatible with creativity to me, but I had bosses I needed to answer to and salute to, so the show went off the air permanently.

We all had to get special security clearance to write the news and work for the radio station because sometimes we would handle sensitive and secret information. This required filling out a series of forms and questionnaires that seemed cumbersome but essential. One day Gordon, who was now our news announcer, received the paperwork for his high-level security clearance. He called me over to look at it with him.

“Well, would you look at this,” he said.

I looked at the form but didn’t see anything unusual.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Says here I’m adopted,” he said.

“So, what’s wrong with that? Plenty of people are adopted,” I said.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it. My parents never bothered to tell me,” he said.

Getting security clearance turned out to be quite a surprise for Gordon, who was more fascinated than disappointed by the revelation. While he was adopted, his sister, Monica, and brother, Jerry, were biological siblings. Gordon finally figured out why he didn’t look like his brother and sister.

I worked with another writer named Fred Roos (who later became one of the producers of the
Godfather
movies). Back then he was just a recruit from Los Angeles. When we weren’t writing material in the station, we sometimes sat on guard duty together on the night shift for the TV station they were building. I would make up jokes and tell them to Fred to pass the time.

“I think we need a password,” I said.

“What kind of password?” he asked.

“Something that people need to say in order to walk by us,” I explained.

“Okay. What is the password?” he asked.

“Matzo. Now you say the password,” I said.

“Matzo,” he said.

“You may now Passover,” I said.

Fred laughed and he wasn’t even Jewish.

The TV station contained so much expensive equipment that our bosses worried it might get stolen in the middle of the night. We were on guard to protect it. Although we had guns, we didn’t usually shoot at anyone, because if you shot your gun you had to fill out a lot of paperwork afterward. However, if you just threw rocks at the intruders, they usually ran away in fear and no paperwork was required. So we ended up saving our bullets and throwing a lot of rocks at people and at sounds in the dark.

The winters in Korea were terrible, even worse than the winters I spent in Chicago. I remember freezing while Fred and I sat diligently outside the base of the TV station with our rifles and rocks.

“What are you going to do when you get out of here?” said Fred one night.

“I want to write jokes,” I said.

“Really?” he asked.

“Yes. I went to journalism school, but I don’t do ‘serious’ well. I do ‘funny’ much better,” I said. “I think I could be an entertainer.”

“Well, give me a call in Los Angeles,” he said. “Maybe I can help.”

“What do you do?” I asked.

“I work at the William Morris Theatrical Agency.”

“Are you an agent?” I asked.

“I work in the mail room. But not for long,” he said. “If you ever get out to Los Angeles, I can introduce you around to some show business people. I’m going to be a producer.”

Walking on the midnight-to-8:00
A.M
. shift with a gun in the middle of Korea, I had made my first real-life Hollywood contact.

Shortly after I arrived at the radio station, another soldier, named John Grahams, joined our group. He was from Milwaukee and had graduated from Marquette University. He was a professional radio announcer and a professor of radio history at Marquette. We hit it off right away. He had a great radio voice, and although I didn’t have the best voice, I could write for the two of us. It took a long
time, but we finally convinced the army brass to give us our own show. We created the
Uncle John and Uncle Garry Radio Show
, in which we discussed different army topics and news of the world. We did radio salutes with a comedy twist to Valentine’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and other holidays. Whatever holiday it was back in America, we would do a tie-in for the troops in Korea. We also did a sports-style play-by-play of a chess match that was quirky but the troops liked it. Finally the AFKN network was known for comedy.

From time to time, like in journalism school, I made mistakes when trying to be funny. Our boss, Mark Smith, told me one day that one of our radio shows was too long. He wanted me to cut our material down to make it fit. But I thought, Why cut our funny material when it is easier to cut the endless Korean song we were required to play in the middle of the show? So I tightened up the song. What I didn’t know was that the song was the Korean national anthem, and I’d offended a whole country. Instantly I was demoted for a few weeks. I had learned a valuable lesson: Ask for help in translation before cutting anything.

I redeemed myself during the Academy Awards a few weeks later. Sometimes when we were broadcasting a particularly popular show, the North Koreans would jam our airwaves just to frustrate us. This is what they did the night we were to air the Oscars. Everyone on our base was looking forward to Bob Hope’s opening monologue, but I knew ahead of time that the North Koreans had messed up the broadcast. So I tried to come up with some way to fix it. As I sat down to listen to it, Bob Hope’s opening monologue was completely chopped up by dead air. However, I already knew from experience how the jokes went from hearing them performed in clubs. So I was able to re-create the punch lines or straight lines. Then I hired a local guy who could imitate Bob Hope and had him fill in the blanks. Suddenly we were back in business broadcasting the opening of the Academy Awards. The other guys in the station thought I was a wizard, and they loved what I had done. So did my commanding officer.

I was always looking for a new project to work on. Another
soldier I made friends with was Jimmy Anglisano, who also was from New York. Jimmy was a pleasant type who later became a banker. He wanted to form a band and heard I played the drums. I told him all I had to offer was the snare drum I had brought with me, not a complete kit. This information did not deter him. One night he picked me up in a jeep. We crawled under barbed wire and entered the back door of a large building. When he turned on the lights I saw the entire room was filled with musical instruments. He helped me carry out a complete drum set, and we transported it piece by piece underneath the barbed wire back to our jeep.

“I’m a little nervous,” I said.

“Why? What’s the problem?” Jimmy asked.

“I want to form the band, don’t get me wrong. But won’t we get in trouble for stealing? There are people in charge of this building.”

“The person in charge of this building is me,” he said. “And I’m fine with us taking it.”

Jimmy played the accordion and was also a good leader. He also found a good guitar player to join us. He said our band could benefit from a southerner, so we recruited Marv Dennis, who was from Nashville. To round out our band Jimmy brought in a soldier who was known for doing Elvis Presley impersonations. His name was Jack Larson, and he often performed at the officers’ club. Jack, an energetic, gyrating kid with the moves of Elvis Presley, later changed his name to Lars Jackson to give himself a more European flair. As a band we did very well with Jack. Eventually, however, Jimmy and I made the decision to reinvent ourselves as a two-man team so we could enter the army’s network of variety contests. Jimmy did mime-style humor while I narrated like a circus barker with a metal crowbar instead of a cane. For some reason, our act was a big hit with the soldiers. They seemed to find it not only funny but also unique. Maybe they wanted to laugh more than they wanted to listen to music. We entered our act in a few contests. Much to our surprise we won the All-Korea Event, followed by the All–Far East Competition. Before we knew it we were being invited to fly to Washington, D.C., to compete in the All-World Entertainment Competition.

I never thought doing the act with Jimmy would be a way to get out of the army. I just thought of it as a way to make my time in the army more interesting. However, once we were in Washington, we found ourselves performing for the secretary of defense. I had only two months left on my two-year service contract. Jimmy and I did our routine in the All-World event, and we came in third as a specialty group in the nonmusical grand finals of 1958. We celebrated, and then they offered us the opportunity to continue in an army show called
Rolling Along
, which would tour all over Europe. The catch was that I had to sign up for another two years of service.

Although I liked performing, I did not want to do two more years in the army. I was just months from getting out, and I wanted to be done and go home. When I declined, I think they didn’t see the point of sending me back to Korea, so I was restationed to Fort Belvoir in Alexandria, Virginia. At my new post I met Barry Kurtz, who was a good basketball player from Hostra University. Barry helped me get on a basketball team at Fort Bevoir, and I volunteered for the newspaper, where I wrote a sports column. I got up every day and wrote about national sports and played basketball. Not a bad job in the army during peacetime.

I wanted to get out of the army, but I have never been the best at navigating paperwork. One day on the basketball court I started talking to Barry Kurtz, who was the company clerk. Barry was an athletic con man always looking for a deal. He told me that because of my service and circumstances, if I filled out the right paperwork I could get out by springtime. So that’s what I did after two years of service. In the spring of 1959 Barry helped me fill out the proper forms and I was released. I grabbed my duffel bag, snare drum, and the plaque Jimmy and I had won, said goodbye to my friends, and headed off on the next train bound for New York City.

I arrived at Penn Station and then boarded another train for the Bronx. I got off at Bedford Park on 204th Street and walked the five blocks to my house. By the time I got home, dragging my duffel and drum, it was 11:00
P.M
., but I remember feeling so happy to finally be home. I rang the bell of my apartment, and my mother and father opened the door to welcome me. Then Dad said, “It’s late. Go to
bed,” and we all went to sleep. But as I got undressed in my room, with my dog tags and army uniform, there was only one thing on my mind: How was I going to make a living now? In the army, I could play sports, write articles, and perform music. But now, without the clear structure of camp or the army, I wasn’t sure where I fit in or who would pay me to fit in.

That night I lay awake looking at the sports stars who still lined the walls of my childhood room. It was obvious that a career as a professional athlete was still not a possibility for me, but maybe I could forge a career as a sportswriter. After all I did have a degree from Medill, Northwestern’s journalism school and one of the best. The problem was that most of the top-notch Medill graduates got sent right out of college to small-town newspapers in places like Boone, Iowa, and I didn’t really want to live in Boone, Iowa. So I came up with another plan. I would apply as a copyboy at the New York
Daily News
. I also decided that I would call my college writing partner Fred Freeman and tell him I was back in town, ready to write some new comedy material. I wasn’t sure whether journalism or comedy writing was going to be a profession for me, but I knew I had to try to make a living at something.

Writing for Stand-Up Comedians and Being Paid in Corn Beef

W
HEN I CAME
back from Korea I lived in my parents’ house in the Bronx and I was out of work for two weeks.

That was literally the only time in my life that I was unemployed against my will. I hated it. I felt lost. I didn’t want to rely on my parents to support me, so I felt constant pressure to find work. I decided right away that the best road would be to get a newspaper job and save money by moving in with my writing partner Fred Freeman, who had an apartment in the East Village. I went to
The New York Times
and was told they wanted only journalism graduates from Ivy League schools. So I headed over to the
Daily News
, where I was hired right away. They didn’t even care where I went to journalism school. As long as I could carry a cup of coffee without spilling it, I could be a copyboy at the
Daily News
.