E-mail a friendDon Rickles
airdate November 2, 2007
Funnyman Don Rickles is one of the most respected talents in entertainment. In a career spanning more than 50 years, he's appeared in top showrooms in Atlantic City and Las Vegas and has starred in features and on TV in primetime series on four major networks. A graduate of New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he also has serious acting chops. Rickles began performing in high school plays and, at age 80, still performs nationally. He recaps his colorful career in the autobiography, Rickles' Book.
Comedian discusses his style and his favorite punch line. (1:16)
Don Rickles
Tavis: So I'm laughing already and that's because look who's here. Don Rickles, the legendary comedian, has been performing stand-up comedy for over fifty years and has enjoyed tremendous success in film and on television. Details of his life and terrific career are told in the pages of the new memoir, "Rickles' Book." Love that title. That's the best you could do?
Don Rickles: Well, I'm on this show, so I figured I got to make up a title. No, we discussed it with David Ritz, a mutual friend of yours who helped me a great deal with this book. We kept banging around a name and a name. Finally, I said, "Why not just say, "Rickles' Book," and that's how it came about. It's a very interesting story.
Tavis: To your point, David Ritz is a mutual friend of ours. I worked with David Ritz, but he didn't put my book on the bestseller list like yours.
Rickles: Well, too bad. What do I care what he did?
Tavis: (Laughter)
Rickles: You ought to chip in and get a bigger studio.
Tavis: (Laughter) You don't really need me here for the next fifteen minutes, do you? What do you need me for? You can just do this on your own. You don't need me.
Rickles: Well, the wife says to get out of the house for fifteen minutes, so you know, I figured I'd come over and kill time with you. I understand nobody watches this unless the wind is blowing. The aerial's on the roof with the guy spitting on a wire. Okay, Tavis.
Tavis: (Laughter) So there's so many funny things in this book. Let me just start putting out the ones that I find funny, at least. I cannot imagine that a guy like you was ever allowed into the armed forces, much less - you were like you?
Rickles: Well, there's was the thing, World War II. Maybe you heard about it. They were short of men. I was the president of my high school and - I'm not proud of this - failing every subject. In those days, they had what they call a war diploma. I said, "I don't belong here in high school. I'm an actor." I got what they call a war diploma because at that time they stamped your papers. I was ready to be graduated, but it was touch and go. You know what I'm saying?
Tavis: Right.
Rickles: So they gave me a war diploma and I went in the Navy. I said, "I'm an actor" and they said, "Keep firing." I wound up in the Philippines. Guys never bothered me, you know. Couple of waiters, nothing. Shooting in the trees, boom, boom, boom. Couple of Japanese kids running around, great Sushi places, bam, bam, bam. I said, "I do comedy." "Keep firing, keep firing." That's how I wound up in the Philippines. You weren't born yet.
Tavis: Why were you not a better student? Because you already knew what you wanted to do and you didn't have time for high school?
Rickles: Well, Tavis, to be honest, I really never had the concentration for it. Reading a book was tough for me. It was always comedy, being the class clown. I had a serious side of my life, but amongst my friends, I was always kidding around and I was always a hyper kind of guy, so I never got into studies. My mother was very intelligent and so was my father, but I never got into studies and I was always kidding around and I had trouble concentrating. I really did.
Tavis: To your point now, seriously, given the nature of the style of your comedy, your comedy styling, because you do move like this, the jokes come, I think that plays into the fact that you couldn't concentrate on stuff for a long time. Has that benefited your comedy over the years?
Rickles: Well, I don't know. I never analyzed it. I just do what I do. It's like some people say to me, "Would you say anything to Tavis?" I say whatever comes through my head and I find funny. I screen myself subconsciously and I find it funny and I never take back what I say because I believe in it and I don't find it offensive or anything like that, so I go with it. I'm on this show and I'm not too happy about it.
Tavis: (Laughter)
Rickles: But I heard the money and, you know.
Tavis: Do you believe -
Rickles: - I'm not finished yet.
Tavis: I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Rickles: No, I'm kidding.
Tavis: Do you really have time, again, back to your styling, do you really have time in your head to screen yourself? I've seen you do stand-up a number of times and the stuff again comes so fast, when do you have time to screen it from here to here?
Rickles: Well, again, it's not something I think about. I have never in my entire career had a writer. In those days, we didn't have tape. I used to write on a little piece of paper something I said, but everything I did on a stage just happened on the stage and it became a performance.
A beginning, middle and an ending was never there at the very beginning. I just got out on the stage and made fun of life, of people, and exaggerated. That's what I do. They call me the King of Insults. I exaggerate.
Again, Tavis, when you think about it, when you stand on a stage, when you're an actor or a comedian or whatever, when you're selling yourself, you can't please everybody. You're selling yourself. If you go for what the guy is doing and if you're kind to the audience and they realize that, you have a good chance.
I always say that you have to be different, which I certainly am. That has brought me a long way. But I never worried about what I said because I always believed in it.
Tavis: What to your mind has made you different than all the other comedians you have been around for these fifty years?
Rickles: Well, because I do a style of humor that's not a joke, I do something that's very aggressive, but it's funny and it's exaggerating and putting down ourselves in a funny way. I'm never mean-spirited, so that's what makes it funny.
Now if I did what I do now after fifty-five years, if I was in the young peoples' mix today, I might have problems. But today, I've established Don Rickles with God's help and my own talent.
I've established what I do in a way that's warm and lovable. Otherwise, I wouldn't be headlining and doing this big opportunity. You don't get chances like this to an empty studio with a sound man reading a book.
Tavis: (Laughter) As time has gone on and our society has become more PC, more politically correct, has that over these fifty-five years challenged you in any way to change your style?
Rickles: Interesting. Not at all. I do what I do. It's like the fighter. I have my best punch and that best punch carried me all the way up to where I am today.
Tavis: You write in the book about one of the best punch lines that you ever heard came from a homeless guy who you gave a five dollar bill to. Tell the story. I love it.
Rickles: Well, we were in a place called Elio's in New York, a restaurant which I love. I was there one night with another actor. We were walking up the street. You know how you have these poor fellows in bad shape. A guy comes running up and says, "Hey, Hockey Puck." They called me Hockey Puck. "Mr. Rickles, Hockey Puck, give me some money, give me some money."
I have a standard thing I do with people in bad shape and I take out a five dollar bill and say, "Here. Buy yourself a ranch" and I walk away. As I do that, I walk up the street and the guy runs after me and says, "Now I need cattle."
Tavis: (Laughter) Everybody's got jokes.
Rickles: Oh, the guy took my sport jacket, got in the car, took it and drove away, and I was in his clothing going, "Give me five dollars."
Tavis: You mentioned your mother earlier in this conversation. I love the story you tell in the book of how your mother - everybody knows you were one of Sinatra's boys. You guys hung out for years. I didn't know the backstory for how you and Sinatra got to know each other, thanks to your mother and his mother. Tell the story.
Rickles: Well, it was in the Fontainebleau Hotel in those days.
Tavis: Miami.
Rickles: Miami, yeah. My mother used to say, "God's little waiting room." You know, everybody who dies in Miami. When I'm ready to go, I got to fly down there, put on a bathing suit, sit in a beach chair and go, "Aarrgh." You know, if you don't die in Miami, you don't make it if you're Jewish. You're Jewish. Oh, forget about it.
Tavis: Me and Sammy, yeah (laughter).
Rickles: (Laughter) Okay, now.
Tavis: So your mom.
Rickles: So my mother. Dolly Sinatra was a very strong woman. My mother, too, was a very strong woman. She was like sort of a Jew Patton. Very strong. Give her a helmet and a gun and that would be my mother.
Tavis: Etta.
Rickles: You got it right. You won a prize. Two weeks. This man won a prize. It's in the book and he got my mother's name right. And I take Byetta. You know, if you have diabetes, you take Byetta. It's a long story. Don't worry about it.
Tavis: Yeah (laughter).
Rickles: So anyway, my mother said, "Sweetheart, Dolly Sinatra's in the Fontainebleau." We're in a little joint called Murray Franklin's. It sat about a hundred people. I had no performance in those days. I just used to stand up and exaggerate and make fun of people and do what I do and make fun of myself and so forth. I did well. All of a sudden, there was a lineup of people because movie stars would come in to hear me say something.
She said, "If I can get Frank Sinatra, darling, to come and see you, it'll be so great. Dolly knows me. I'm going to call her. We're going to have coffee." Make a long story short, fast forward, she goes up to the Fontainebleau, sits down and goes, "Dolly, darling, if you could come and see my sonny boy, if you could get Frank to come and see my sonny boy, it would be great."
I don't know about your folks, but I was always self-conscious. "It's done, Etta. Don't worry." You could be in a room with my mother going, "How are you? How's your father?" and my socks got wet. "How's your brother?" I say, "Mom, why are you hollering?" "Who's hollering?" Very aggressive. So she said, sure enough, they had a meeting.
In walks Frank Sinatra. To this day, I don't know why, but I did it. He walked in with a bunch of guys, those kind of guys. They all think it's a museum. All rocket scientists, Frank hung out with, you know. The mouth was open because the bullets laid underneath the teeth (laughter).
So they came in and I said, "Frank Sinatra. There's Frank. Frank, be yourself. Stand up and hit somebody." The whole audience went whoa. All the guys behind him went, "Is that funny, Frank?" Frank was on the floor laughing and they went, "Yeah, ha-ha-ha, Frank thinks it's funny, ha-ha-ha."
Tavis: (Laughter) All right, one more story.
Rickles: If you get a chance, jump in.
Tavis: I told you that you didn't need me here, man. I'm just sitting here, man. In this same chair not long ago, a guy who you almost met sat. Jimmy Carter sat in that chair just a few weeks ago.
Rickles: Yeah, well, the story goes that we went to the White House. I've met a few presidents. Reagan, I adored, rest his soul. Ford, I loved. Jimmy Carter is one of my favorites. Anyway, got gas.
Tavis: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rickles: So we get invited to the White House and Newhart's with me. Bob's my dear friend, Bob Newhart. We go and his aide - I always get his name wrong. He's a lovely man. Kochinsky? Lasinsky? You're a big help, Tavis. Thanks a million.
Tavis: You don't need me. You're doing fine.
Rickles: Blink if you hear me. I'll do the funny stuff. You didn't have to blink. That was a little humor there about the blinking.
Tavis: I'm a straight guy, I'm a straight guy.
Rickles: So we get to the Oval Office. To make a long story short, we walk in and there's no Jimmy Carter, just a sweater on the chair. Newhart turns to me, "You see? He heard you were coming and he ran out."
At that time, the vice president was Walter Mondale, a lovely man. Walter Mondale said, "The president didn't see you?" I said, "He left a sweater. What did I do?" Mondale said, "I bet the guy was afraid of him," talking about the President of the United States.
Tavis: Afraid of you.
Rickles: Yeah. Well, that's the way it goes.
Tavis: (Laughter) One could be.
Rickles: How long have you had that wa-wa-wa-? Okay.
Tavis: One could be and should be afraid of you when you are on the stage. You never know what's going to come out of that -
Rickles: - no, people show up. If you would come see my show, Tavis, I'm sure you'd enjoy it. But then again, there is a cover, so you might not be there. I heard about you. You don't want to go.
Tavis: (Laughter) On that note, I'm out of here. You are not invited back to this show ever again.
Rickles: Thank you, God! Thank you!
Tavis: (Laughter) I knew that was coming. The book by Don Rickles, appropriately, "Rickles' Book." Don Rickles, an honor to have you on the program, sir. Nice to have you here.
Rickles: Tavis, you're indeed a gentleman and thanks so much for having me.
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