My Anecdotal Life: A Memoir
By Carl Reiner
4/5
()
About this ebook
More than once, Carl Reiner has had friends say, "Hey, Reiner, you ought to write those things down." And at eighty, he finally has.
In this funny and engaging memoir, one of the best raconteurs on the planet recalls his life in show business in short comic takes. Reiner tells of how, after answering an ad for free acting classes on his brother Charlie's advice, he forsakes a budding career as a machinist for an acting career. In "Sidney Bechet and His Jazz Band Meet Franz Kafka," he captivates the legendary jazz man and his band with an unusual reading of The Metamorphosis, during a thunderstorm at a Catskills resort in 1942.
Reiner also recalls the highlights of the succeeding decades: his first sweaty audition, impersonating a dog impersonating movie stars; his forays into the theater; his work on Your Show of Shows and The Dick Van Dyke Show during TV's golden days; and his long friendship and collaboration with Mel Brooks which gave birth to the Two Thousand Year Old Man.
In "A Recipe to Remember," he recites a recipe for cream cheese cookies to a star-studded audience that includes Paul Newman, Leonard Bernstein, and Barbra Streisand. In "The Gourmet Eating Club," he gives an insider's take on the now-legendary group that included Mario Puzo, Joseph Heller, Zero Mostel, and other luminaries.
Mary Tyler Moore, Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney, Johnny Carson, Cary Grant, Dinah Shore, Ann Bancroft, Jean Renoir – the list goes on and on – also appear in what Reiner calls the "literary variety show" that captures the highs and lows of his extraordinary life. Through it all, Reiner displays the wit and warmth that have made him one of the most beloved figures in the entertainment business. This charming memoir will delight anyone who wants a behind-the-scenes look at five decades of Hollywood and television history.
Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner created and costarred as Alan Brady in the classic, multiple EmmyAward-winning The Dick Van Dyke Show and later began directing major feature film comedies, including The Jerk, Oh, God?, AII of Me, Where's Poppa, and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. He recently was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame and, with Mel Brooks, won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album of the Year for The 2000 Year OId Man in the Year 2000. He lives in Los Angeles.
Read more from Carl Reiner
How Paul Robeson Saved My Life and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5NNNNN: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Enter Laughing: A Bio-Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll Kinds of Love Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Adolf Meistermann: the Devil’S Legacy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to My Anecdotal Life
Related ebooks
Fat, Drunk, and Stupid: The Inside Story Behind the Making of Animal House Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5All About All About Eve: The Complete Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Luck or Something Like It: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brief Encounters: Conversations, Magic Moments, and Assorted Hijinks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It's Always Something Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Fine Romance Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Up Till Now: The Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What's So Funny?: My Hilarious Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys? Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Elephant to Hollywood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Growing Up Again: Life, Loves, and Oh Yeah, Diabetes Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Knock Wood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Here We Go Again: My Life In Television Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Your Huckleberry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloris Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hope: Entertainer of the Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Furthermore Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I, Rhoda Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ernie: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Watch Me: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wired: The Short Life & Fast Times of John Belushi Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Almost Interesting Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Humor & Satire For You
Mindful As F*ck: 100 Simple Exercises to Let That Sh*t Go! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5101 Fun Personality Quizzes: Who Are You . . . Really?! Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sex Hacks: Over 100 Tricks, Shortcuts, and Secrets to Set Your Sex Life on Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tidy the F*ck Up: The American Art of Organizing Your Sh*t Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love and Other Words Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best F*cking Activity Book Ever: Irreverent (and Slightly Vulgar) Activities for Adults Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anxious People: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51,001 Facts that Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pimpology: The 48 Laws of the Game Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 2,548 Wittiest Things Anybody Ever Said Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best Joke Book (Period): Hundreds of the Funniest, Silliest, Most Ridiculous Jokes Ever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer: A Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing to See Here: A Read with Jenna Pick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solutions and Other Problems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shipped Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Soulmate Equation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Screwtape Letters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Dies at the End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Favorite Half-Night Stand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for My Anecdotal Life
33 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Loved it.
Always knew Carl was hilarious on various shows/series, but it turns out he's brilliant in print too. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was a simple, fun read by a very creative, very funny man. It was really just a series of essays rather than a memoir or autobiography.
Book preview
My Anecdotal Life - Carl Reiner
1
Sidney Bechet and His Jazz Band Meet Franz Kafka
It was the summer of 1942, I was twenty years old, World War II was raging, and in four months I would be a member of the U.S. armed forces. I spent that last, hot summer at Allaben Acres, an adult summer camp somewhere in the Berkshires. For ten dollars a week, as a member of a resident troupe of performers, I was required to and eagerly did the following:
Tuesday Night Games
I emceed such popular audience-participation games as pass the orange and a half dozen others that I have blotted from memory. I do remember being told that I was very good at it.
Wednesday Night Campfire
I did a dramatic reading from Richard Wright’s play, Native Son. My rendition of the defense attorney’s impassioned summation to the jury never failed to garner me a sitting ovation.
Thursday Night Classic Musicales
Accompanied by a full chorus, I sang the baritone solo in George Kleinsinger’s and Earl Robinson’s Ballad for Americans
(Paul Robeson’s version was far superior). Later that season, I soloed again in Walt Whitman’s I Hear America Singing.
The pianist-conductor, Vivian Rifkin, complimented my voice and my ability to sing on-key and in rhythm for many of my solos.
Friday Nights
I acted as host for the extraordinary jazz concerts.
Saturday Nights
I performed in the weekly musical revue, doing comedy sketches and acting as straight man to comedian Bernie Hern. One year later, Bernie acted as best man at my one and only wedding.
The Friday night concerts and the Saturday musical revues were extraordinary for many reasons, the foremost being that they featured the legendary Sidney Bechet and his band. It was unusual for a jazz artist of Sidney Bechet’s renown to be performing at a resort as unrenowned as Allaben Acres. Sidney Bechet had just returned from Europe, where he had been widely admired and lauded. A street had been named after him in Paris, and in Antibes a bronze statue was erected in his honor. So why would such an esteemed artist accept so lowly a gig? Well, it was 1943, and Sidney Bechet and his great sidemen were Negroes,
and Negroes were still waiting for their slice of the American pie. The integration of the armed forces and all professional sports, including baseball, football, basketball, tennis, and golf, was still a dream. The management at Allaben Acres, being a progressive lot, offered the jazz icon Sidney Bechet the opportunity to break the color line
by signing on as band leader and bringing his sidemen to live amongst and perform with white folk, for much less money than they deserved, I’m sure.
All of the cast members, especially jazz aficionados Bernie Hern, scenic designer Paul Petroff, and his assistant, Estelle Lebost, were thrilled to have Sidney Bechet in their midst. Even though I knew little about jazz, their enthusiasm was so contagious that I was thrilled to be among people who seemed to know what to be thrilled about. It was their appreciation of the Arts that led to my involvement in introducing Franz Kafka to Sidney Bechet and his jazz band. Here now is how it came to pass:
It was a dark, humid, Thursday—the cast was onstage in the casino rehearsing for our Saturday night revue. We had just finished staging the song Oh, You Can’t Make Love in a Bunk for Eight,
a comedy number written by Lewis Allan (a.k.a. Abel Meeropol, the composer of Strange Fruit
), when the black, roiling clouds that had been threatening to explode all morning exploded. Lightning and thunder heralded the torrent of water that fell from the sky and crashed onto our casino roof, the dining room, and the dozens of roofs that housed the two hundred guests.
Herewith is an exchange that led to this fond remembrance.
What’s for lunch today?
someone asked.
Meat loaf!
someone else shouted above a thunderclap.
I love meat loaf,
I think I said, but not enough to risk getting my ass singed by a lightning bolt.
Summer storms usually don’t last too long,
the amateur weatherman among us suggested. It’ll let up.
Yeah,
an optimist concurred, it’s one of them cloudbursts that unbursts itself fast.
We soon learned that it was not one of them cloudbursts
but a cloudburst of biblical proportions.
Any of you cats know how to build an ark?
one of the musicians quipped.
After fifteen minutes of steady downpour, it was apparent that the heavy rain was not only not letting up but coming down harder and harder.
Hey, I got an idea,
I distinctly remember Paul Petroff saying, "I got this great book, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka."
It’s sensational,
Bernie concurred.
Did you read it?
Paul asked.
I gave it to you!
Oh, that’s right, you said it was a classic! I just started it,
Paul continued excitedly, and it’s a gas! Bernie, while we’re waiting for the storm to pass, why don’t you read it to us?
Good idea, but Carl’s the actor, let him read it,
Bernie suggested, he’s got better diction.
Right! Carl, you’re on!
Paul announced, C’mon, we’ll go to my room!
Spurred by Paul’s enthusiasm and lacking anything better to do, like lemmings, Bernie, Estelle, Sidney Bechet, trumpet player Bill Goodwin, trombonist Sandy Williams, two other members of the esteemed Bechet band, and I followed Paul and shoehorned ourselves into his bedroom. Think stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers’ movie A Night at the Opera and you’ll have a picture of how cramped the quarters were.
Paul Petroff, a most creative artist, lived backstage in a reclaimed storage room. To relieve the claustrophobia he must have felt sleeping in a dollhouse-sized bedroom, Paul had painted a blue-skied mural on the walls and, with phosphorescent paint, had created a star-studded ceiling. A single bed, an end table, a ratty club chair, and a jerry-built drawing board took up four-fifths of the floor space. Paul deferentially offered Sidney Bechet the stuffed club chair and bade his other guests to plop down anywhere!
which they did—on the bed, on the floor, and on the wooden folding chairs our host dragged into the room. Paul then placed a stool at the foot of the bed and said, Sit!
Here,
he said, handing me a slim book, you’re on!
Remember, Kafka is a genius,
Bernie warned, so read with expression.
Paul and Bernie were respectively seven and eight years older than I. I so admired their sophistication, knowledge, and intellect that I would do anything to please them. Hungry for their approval, I was not sure that my sight-reading Kafka’s classic was the way to get it, mindful that my reading the book badly could reflect negatively on Bernie and Paul’s literary judgment and my reputation as an actor. I scanned the first few sentences and then looked at the faces of my querulous audience. They seemed to have as little faith in me as I should have had in myself. So, unarmed, unprepared, and for some reason, undaunted, I summoned up my best stage diction and began to read.
‘The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, and transferred into a monstrous vermin.’
Into a what?
Sandy Williams interrupted, wincing.
A monstrous vermin,
Bechet explained, that’s a big rat!
I know what vermin is, but how did this Samsa guy turn into a monstrous rat?
Or a big cockroach—roaches are also vermin,
Bernie Hern volunteered.
Is that what the guy turned into?
If you let the man read,
suggested the quiet-mannered trumpet player Bill Goodwin, maybe we’ll find out.
That opening sentence hooked everyone, including me. From the first few pages we learned that Gregor Samsa was a fabric salesman who one morning found that he was unable to turn over and get out of bed. He would be late for work, because his back had become a hard shell of armor
and his two legs had been replaced by many wretchedly thin legs
that danced helplessly before his eyes.
Subsequently, we learned of his painful attempts to roll off the bed and onto the floor, and of his unsuccessful tries at manipulating his many skinny legs in climbing up the side of a wooden wardrobe. At this point we all agreed that Gregor had metamorphosed into a cockroach who was trying to convince his parents and boss through his locked bedroom door that he was fine, even though he was late for work and his voice sounded strange, like an animal voice.
As the bizarre tale of a man turning into a giant cockroach unfolded, the rapt attention of my captive audience was often disturbed by someone needing clarification.
Hold on, hold on,
I recall Sandy Williams, calling out, read that part again—where he climbed up the wall to that picture of a lady—and squeezed himself against the glass.…
I read it again, and he shook his head.
What’s he got on those weird little legs,
he asked, some kind of stickum, or little suction cups?
Let the man read!
Bechet said gently.
Sandy allowed me to read a bit but jumped when I got to the part where Mr. Samsa tried to get his son out of the room by throwing little red apples at him.
Whoa, did you just say,
he asked in disgust, "that one of them apples lodged in roachman’s back?"
I nodded.
How the hell,
he asked, disbelievingly, "could an apple get stuck in his back? What kind of back does that cockroach have?"
Maybe he got quills like a porcupine,
Sidney Bechet suggested.
Sidney, did you hear Carl read anything about quills?
Sandy argued. I didn’t.
I suggested that if I read on we might get some useful information about his back. In Chapter Three, we did—we learned that the imbedded apple was, a serious injury from which he suffered for over a month
and since no one had the nerve to remove the apple, it stayed lodged in his flesh.
"Lodged in his flesh! Sandy shouted,
Not on his quills!"
Rotting there for a month!
Bechet added, pretty damned disgusting!
A lively discussion ensued, and all contributed.
Howd’ya like to have a rotten apple festering in your back?
I wouldn’t want a rotten apple festering anywhere in my body.
How about a festering peach on your butt?
Hey, you’re all making me nauseous!
Not wanting to spoil anybody’s appetite for lunch, I suggested that I stop reading.
Over my dead body,
Sandy Williams threatened, I gotta know what happens to the cockroach-man.
Carl, you just keep reading!
Bechet ordered.
There are more than forty pages to go,
I said, and the rain seems to be letting up.
Let it let up!
Sandy argued, You ain’t goin’ nowhere till you finish this muthuh!
We may miss lunch,
I warned.
If you don’t start readin’,
Bechet warned, we’ll miss dinner, too.
I had never had a more attentive or appreciative audience in my young career. I read the last half of the book with a feeling of pride and empowerment. Until that afternoon, I had no idea that I could sight-read a whole novel without making any major gaffes. From the applause and the continuing discussion, I felt that I had done very well—but maybe not. That was sixty years ago and until recently, when the president of New Millenium Audio asked me if I would like to record A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, no one had asked me to read another book. Unlike Paul Petroff, who only asked me to read that one book, New Millenium Audio has since contracted with me to do a half dozen of Mr. Twain’s great works. To be honest, though, Paul Petroff has done more to make my life richer and fuller than any audio company ever could. Besides suggesting I read The Metamorphosis aloud, Paul had earlier, at one fateful Saturday night dance, told me about his new, late-arriving, shapely brunette assistant, Estelle Lebost. His exact words were, Be nice to her, ask her to dance!
I did as I was told—I asked her to dance, and I was nice to her all that summer. That was fifty-nine years ago, and I am still being nice to her, as she is to me.
2
The Phar-Reaching Phart
I have had many heightened moments in my life, some pleasant, some painful. This is one of the painful ones. I am aware that the spelling of the word phart is not the commonly accepted one. I chose it to avoid offending the more gentle of my gentle readers.
* * *
I was born in apartment number 27 of a Bronx apartment building on the corner of Belmont Avenue and 179th Street. In 1922, my mother, like most immigrant women, chose to give birth at home where she could be sure that the child she breast-fed and smothered with love would be of her and her husband’s blood and not some total stranger’s. Horror stories of babies being switched at birth by careless nurses in overcrowded wards were too rampant to ignore. Home delivery, of course, posed some dangers, but my parents were comforted by the knowledge that three years earlier my mother had successfully delivered my brother, Charlie, by the same Dr. Neuschatz in that same apartment and in that same bed. Charlie, in effect, was my stalking horse, and in the years to come, he continued to be that for me.
I spent my kindergarten and first-grade years attending the ancient, overcrowded Public School 57, which was located two blocks away between Belmont and Crotona Avenues. By the time I was ready to enter the third grade, the construction of a new school, just a scant three hundred yards from my home, was completed, and I became one of the first pupils to attend P.S. 92.
Before I entered kindergarten, I was considered a bright child simply because my father, whom my mother called Irving and I called Papa, took the time to teach me how to print my full name, recite the alphabet, and fill a page with numbers from one to a hundred. For appearing to be gifted, I was invited to skip half of first grade and go right to second grade. My parents proudly accepted the invitation. This decision and a later one that sent me to rapid-advance classes at Junior High School 45, by which I gained a full year, had a profound effect on me.
I graduated from Evander Childs High School in June of ’38 at the age of sixteen. Being a year and a half younger and light-years less mature than my sexually adventurous peers made me feel like an outsider, a feeling that still dogs me. But hey, who’s complaining! Being an outsider
has given me the quiet time to ponder ways to behave like an insider,
which I think I have mastered.
My first day at P.S. 92 was a traumatic one. That morning, I awoke with a slight nausea and no appetite. My mother, or Bessie, as my father called her, was able to coerce me into eating a big bowl of hot cereal by reminding me that all over Europe people are starving to death!
After wiping stray grains of Wheatena from my face with a damp dishtowel, my mother straightened my knitted blue tie and then walked me to school. Before abandoning me in the schoolyard, she ran a comb through my hair and warned me to be careful!
and "pay attention to the