Rickles' Book by Don Rickles and David Ritz Read Free Book Online Page A

my sets were midnight, 2 A.M. and 5 A.M.
    The setup was strange. Right in front of the stage was a pit where the waiters and bartenders walked back and forth serving food and drinks.
    I looked down at someone’s plate and said, “I don’t know how to tell you this, fella, but don’t eat the eggs. The board of health just condemned the kitchen.”
    I spotted a girl working on a guy’s ear. “Honey,” I said, “stop blowing in his ear. His tie is going up.”
    I watched a guy taking double shots with beer chasers.
    “Hey, buddy, keep that up and you’ll think you’re a beaver and start eating the bar.”
    At the 5 A.M. show, if I saw that the lounge was empty, I ran offstage, ran into the casino, stood by one of the crap tables and yelled, “Hold down the noise! I’m trying to do a show in there!” Then I ran back into the Casbah with a new following of fans eager to see what this nut case was screaming about.
    Word got back to the hotel boss, Milton Prell, that I was running into the casino and carrying on. “Rickles is a nice kid,” he remarked, “but what kind of problems does he have?”
    Problems? What problems?
    I was in my mid-thirties and thought I was Mr. Casanova. The girls thought otherwise but still wanted to take care of me. I had that kind of personality. I looked like I was always in need. If they could read my mind, I’d be arrested.
    As the fifties rolled into the sixties, one fan in particular became a regular. He stood in the corner of the bar and kibitzed. He could afford to do this because he was headlining in the main room.
    Meet Johnny Carson.
    I met Johnny doing my first appearance on the Tonight show in New York. To the outside world, Carson looked like an all-American kid from Nebraska. But believe me, he was no square. He caught on to me immediately. He looked at the notes his producer had provided about me but never stuck to them. Johnny just let me go.
    At the Sahara Hotel, Carson would get off work and relax by having a few drinks at the Casbah. He loved zinging me.
    “Hey, Rickles,” he’d say, “when’s Louis Prima coming on?”
    “Johnny, do me a favor. Go to the Hilton and light Liberace’s candles.”
    “That’s all you got, Rickles? That’s your dynamite stuff?”
    “Johnny, do what you do best. Sit behind a desk and annoy your guests.”
    With that, Carson walked the length of the bar, stood in front of me, looked me in the eye and mimicked my every move.
    “Rickles,” he said, “only a miracle can get you in the main room. And I’ll make sure that miracle never happens.”
    The miracle is that Johnny was the one who made it happen. When he got sick and had to cancel his next date, he recommended me to replace him.
    You can imagine my reaction.
    I wet my pants.

    Burgess Meredith takes Rickles to The Twilight Zone.

“Rickles Deserves the
Academy Award!”
    T hat beautiful quote about my role in The Rat Race , a movie I did with Tony Curtis and Debbie Reynolds in 1960, does not come from the film critic of the New York Times . It doesn’t even come from the New York Post . It actually comes from Lou Schwartz, a plumber in Cleveland. Decades after the movie came out, he wrote his review in a film chat line on the Internet. I didn’t read it myself—I don’t even know how to turn on a computer, much less find a chat room—but friends have told me my old movies are getting great reviews in cyberspace. Thank you, Lou.
    I played a tough guy in that film, and another bully in an early episode of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone with Burgess Meredith.
    Was I afraid of being typecast?
    I was afraid of not being cast at all, so, like most actors, I grabbed whatever came along. That’s how I got to play an army soldier on Wagon Train , a hit television series.
    Here’s the setup: Albert Salmi and I are trail masters. We’re supposed to drive an ammunition wagon pulled by four hungry horses down a hill to save an encampment from attacking Indians.
    “I’m not a