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Sometime in late 1947 I reconnected with Don Appell. He called to tell me that one of his discoveries when he was a social director at the Avon Lodge, a guy by the name of Sid Caesar, was actually going to be opening at the Copacabana as the leading comic. He asked me to join him on opening night to catch Sid’s act. As we were headed to the Copacabana, Don told me that back in the Borscht Belt Sid was actually a saxophone player in the band, but Don had caught him telling jokes and breaking everybody up so he pulled him out of the band and decided to make him a comic in his variety shows. Don told me that even though he was a wonderful saxophone player, he was an even better comedian and that he always scored. He also told me that Sid was in the Coast Guard during the war and was the starring comic in a film about the Coast Guard called Tars and Spars. (Which I got to see later, and was very impressed with Sid’s performance.)
When we arrived at the Copacabana, Sid had arranged a front-row table for Don so we got to see his performance unimpeded by other people’s heads. Needless to say, Sid’s performance was absolutely terrific. His comedy was completely different. He had an amazing range of talent. In his monologue that night, he did a satire of a war picture playing both the good-looking American pilot and the evil-looking German pilot. And the sounds he made were amazing: the plane’s engines, the machine guns, and the hero’s dialogue as well as the villain’s guttural crazy German. In addition to that he played a sad pinball machine that was sick and tired of getting hit by heavy metal balls. Once again, the sounds he made were incredible. I don’t remember laughing so much in my life.
We went backstage at the Copa, and I met the guy that I was to spend nearly the next decade of my life writing jokes for. We bonded immediately. Sid’s comedy was not a bunch of one-liners, but a satire of the human race. He loved that my comedy also had to do with people and their stories, not a series of punch lines. And I loved his comic take on everything in the world. We were instantly on the same page.
Sid invited me to come backstage and hang out with him at his next gig, which was in the stage show at the Roxy Theatre. In those days, movie houses on Broadway featured, in addition to the film itself, a stage show, which followed the movie and was replete with a big band, singing, dancing, and a comic. Sid told me he would be the comic in the stage show following the showing of a new film, called Forever Amber. He said, “It’s a silly costume movie. It’ll probably last about two weeks.”
He was dead wrong about Forever Amber. It set a house record at the Roxy and months later, the Linda Darnell and Cornel Wilde period piece was still running and I was still going backstage to hang out with him. It was good and bad. Good because a lot of people got to experience the comic genius of Sid Caesar, and bad because he was going nuts doing five shows a day all featuring the same material. He begged me to come see him as much as possible, probably because I always came up with some new situations and comic avenues for him to pursue. As a result, we became close friends.
Funny things happened during my visits to the Roxy that I would later use in my own stand-up comedy. There was a drummer in the Roxy band that I bonded with, as I was also a drummer. His name was Al, and he was blessed and cursed with a stammer when he spoke, which he brilliantly used to get laughs. One of his surefire laugh makers was “M-M-M-Mel, c-c-call m-m-me.” Then there was a long pause and he said, “If n-n-nobody answers…” another pause, “…it’s m-me!” It was the kind of comedy from real life that was so much better than tired stand-up jokes.
One day, Sid told me that he had gotten a call from a guy by the name of Max Liebman, who had seen Tars and Spars and thought he was terrific and wanted him to star in a new variety show that he was producing for television. Max Liebman was well known for his stewardship of the entertainment at a resort hotel in the Poconos called Tamiment. Out of Tamiment came a Broadway show called The Straw Hat Revue, which starred Imogene Coca—who Max brilliantly decided should co-star with Sid Caesar in his new TV show. Max had an eagle eye for talent and was gifted in his picking of unknowns who would become stars. He discovered Danny Kaye, and also Sylvia Fine, a great comedy writer who would later become Mrs. Danny Kaye. Sid was very excited about doing the TV show. It was going to be called The Admiral Broadway Revue. In those days both radio and television often had the sponsor’s name in the title of the show. Popular examples included The Maxwell House Hour, Texaco Star Theatre, and The Kraft Music Hall starring Bing Crosby. Admiral was a well-known company that made television sets. Max brought his Tamiment writing team to The Admiral Broadway Revue—Mel Tolkin and Lucille Kallen. Mel, together with Lucille Kallen, had written wonderful material for Max’s Tamiment shows. Later Mel Tolkin was to become the head writer of the famous Saturday night blockbuster called Your Show of Shows.
At the time, Mel and Lucille were the only billed writers on The Admiral Broadway Revue. Sid immediately said to me, “I want you to be my own writer, no matter what.” He offered me forty dollars a week out of his own pocket. I think I said yes before he even finished talking.
He invited me to a rehearsal of the first Admiral show, which was at the International Theatre on Columbus Circle. I got to the stage-door entrance and announced my name and told them I had been invited by Sid Caesar, the star of the show. They promptly threw me out.
Unfortunately, Sid’s manager was in charge of the list of Sid’s backstage guests. He had seen me with Sid and thought that I was just a hanger-on, a pest, and told them, “No dice, don’t let him in.”
Undeterred, I immediately found out where Sid’s dressing room window was and shouted up to the open window, “Sid! Sid! It’s Mel! Mel! Sid! Sid! It’s Mel! Mel!”
Luckily, he heard me and stuck his head out the window. “Mel! Mel! What are you doing down there? Why aren’t you in the theater?”
I said, “They won’t let me in!”
Sid said, “Go back to the stage door.”
Dutifully, I ran around back to the stage door and I waited for Sid to appear. He did, and gave heated instructions to everybody that I was his writer and I was to be admitted to every place that he was performing. They apologized and said they were told by his manager that I was just a pest. I came up to Sid’s dressing room with him and he said, “Wait here.”
I could hear him just outside the door, dressing down his manager. “I can always get another manager,” he shouted, “but good writers are hard to find. Besides, he’s my pal.”