Back together with my brothers on the roof of 111 Lee Avenue in Brooklyn. Irving (far right) and I (far left) are still in uniform, but Bernie (next to me) and Lenny (next to Irving) had been honorably discharged and wear shiny gold lapel buttons sporting a proud eagle, sometimes referred to as “the Ruptured Duck.”
When I was at Fort Dix, I got a phone call from my brother Irving saying that he was going to be there the next week for his own processing and discharge. Wow, my brother Irving! I was told which bus he would be on and when he got off the bus, I spotted him immediately. I grabbed him and we fell to the ground in a heap, rolling around in happiness. Two MPs jumped on me and pulled me off him. It seems that corporals are not allowed to tackle first lieutenants. My brother quickly explained that we were brothers and had not seen each other for a long time. They let me go.
I was discharged—honorably, I might add—in June of 1946. Being a civilian once again was wonderful and terrible. I didn’t have to eat in a mess hall anymore; I could eat Chinese, Italian, or deli anytime I wanted to. But what to wear? In the Army it was easy. You put on the same clothes every day. But I had actually grown about an inch and put on about twenty pounds while I was overseas, so I had to get a whole new wardrobe. My favorite wing-tipped black-and-white shoes were heartbreakingly too small to wear anymore. I had grown up.
The Army didn’t rob me of my youth; but actually, come to think of it, they really gave me quite an education. If you don’t get killed in the Army you can learn a lot. You learn how to stand on your own two feet.
Chapter 4
Television—The Sid Caesar Years
In 1947 I answered an ad in The Show Business Daily, which at the time was a broadsheet newspaper featuring auditions and casting calls for Broadway shows and other theatrical productions in New York City. “Wanted: Production Assistant for Benjamin Kutcher Productions.” His office was on Forty-eighth between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. I knocked on the door and went in. It was a typical down-on-their-heels Broadway producer’s office, replete with shabby furniture and featuring a big half moon window looking down on Forty-eighth Street.
Unfortunately, I’d caught Mr. Kutcher taking down his underwear and socks from a hastily strung clothesline stretched across his office.
He shouted at me, “Don’t you wait for a ‘Come in!’ before you come in?”
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry,” I said; I was flustered and didn’t know what to do. So I said, “I’ll go out and come in again!”
And I went back out and knocked on the door. He got even by making me wait awhile before he said, “Come in.” I came back in and he pointed to a chair and said, “Sit.”
I didn’t know it then, but this was the birth of The Producers, and Benjamin Kutcher was Max Bialystock.
He said, “Okay, tell me…what did you see when you entered the office the first time? What was I doing?”
I thought quickly. If I said, “Taking down your underwear and your socks from a clothesline” I knew I’d be in trouble. So I said, “Nothing! I saw nothing.”
“Good.” He said, “You’re a liar. That’s a good beginning.”
In a short time, he told me of his adventures as a producer on Broadway. He’d never had an actual hit. But somehow, he made enough money to stay in business. Like many other producers, he always raised a little more money than the budget called for, just in case of unforeseen troubles.
Somewhere in the back of my mind was the phrase “You could make more money with a flop than you could with a hit.” Without my realizing it, The Producers was actually taking shape somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind.
My first job was to place show cards in store windows that told of the appearance of Mexican born singer and actor Tito Guízar, who was doing a one-man show at Town Hall in a few weeks. In addition to putting on plays, variety shows, musicals, etc., Mr. Kutcher also presented single performers in one-man shows.
Kutcher was smart. He said, “If they say no, give them a couple of passes to the show.”
They all said no, and pretty soon, I was out of passes. So I went back, got more passes, and dutifully covered the neighborhood with the rest of the Tito Guízar cards.
Mr. Kutcher raised most of his money from a bevy of backers consisting of elderly women that he would flatter to pieces. I don’t think that he ever went as far as Bialystock in The Producers, who when asked what the name of the play was would answer, “Cash. The name of the play is Cash. Make it out to Cash.” That was my own invention.
Sometime later that year Mr. Kutcher bought the rights to a play called Separate Rooms. It was written by a well-known actor, Alan Dinehart, and was originally performed by Alan Dinehart and Lyle Talbot. It was an old chestnut, a backstage comedy that appeared at the Plymouth Theatre for almost a year in 1940–41. It was fraught with a lot of bad jokes. My job was to help put a cast together and take the show on the road. I decided to give myself a part in the play, which was okay with Mr. Kutcher, and we debuted the road company of Separate Rooms at the Mechanic St. School theater in Red Bank, New Jersey. (By the way, Red Bank is famous for being the birthplace of the talented swing band giant Count Basie.)
The part I had chosen for myself in the show was that of Scoop Davis, the press agent for the play within the play in this backstage comedy. I think I chose it for my opening line. All the other actors are onstage, anxiously waiting for me to come in with the reviews.
As I hit the lights they ask: “Well? Well!”
I shout, “Not to worry, not to worry. It’s a hit! It’s the greatest thing since pay toilets.”
I got my reward: a great big laugh.
I worked for Benjamin Kutcher Productions for almost a year. I still remember an unforgettable image of him wearing his navy blue double-breasted coat, a white silk scarf, and on his head was perched a well-worn dusty gray homburg hat. He wore spats and was always sporting a black walking stick with a fake gold tip. What a guy. Thinking back, I was probably the precursor of Leo Bloom—The Producers na?ve accountant who just dreams of being in show business.
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