The hotel suite was filled with cigar smoke and it was hard to breathe. One night I asked Sid to open the hotel window, which was jammed shut. I tried with all my might to open it but it wouldn’t budge. So I said, “Please, Sid, I can’t breathe in here. I need some air! Please open the window.”
Sid went over to the window, and with one hand yanked it wide open. (He was very strong.) Then, with a crazy look in his eye, he said, “So you want some air? I’ll get you plenty of air.”
He picked me up by my collar and my belt and hung me out the window! There was State Street directly below me! I could see the traffic so clearly; I knew which taxis were empty by the lights on the top.
Sid said, “Got enough air?”
In a very calm voice I said, “Oh yes. Plenty! I’ve had enough.”
I was very calm. I didn’t want to make him any more crazy than he already was.
He brought me inside, sat me in a chair, and said, “Let’s go to work.”
Out of sheer panic, I think I must have written twenty new jokes that night. And I never again asked him to open a window.
One night, we were driving in a rented car with Sid at the wheel. Out of nowhere, a Chicago taxi appeared, and Sid avoided crashing fully into it, but the fenders of the two cars touched slightly. When they came to a stop the cabdriver rolled down his window and shouted, “What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you learn to drive, you stupid son of a bitch!”
Sid immediately got out of the car. I ran around and grabbed him and said, “Sid, please! Forget it! We’re in Chicago! We don’t know anybody here. Let it go! Let it go!”
But there was no stopping him. I knew trouble was brewing.
When Sid walked over to the taxi, the cabdriver, who saw how big he was, immediately rolled up his window. But Sid, undeterred, spoke to him in a rather pleasant voice through the little triangular clipper window that allowed air to circulate.
He said, “Excuse me, I’m not mad—I just have one question…”
The cabdriver looked at him strangely and said, “What?”
Sid said, “The question is very simple. I just want to know, do you remember being born?”
The cabdriver again said, in a slightly louder voice, “What? What the hell are you talking about!”
Sid said, in a strange calm-crazy manner, “Well, you obviously can’t remember being born. So I’m going to help you by reenacting your birth.”
He reached in and grabbed the cabdriver by his black leather bow tie and began shoving his head through the little clipper window. I had to bite Sid’s hand before he let go, otherwise he would have pulled all of that taxi driver through the little window and turned him into one long taxi-driver snake! We got back in the car and drove away. Sid seemed satisfied.
Another testimony to Sid’s incredible strength was one day when we were going to lunch at Al & Dick’s restaurant—a smart eatery on Fifty-fourth Street. We called in advance, which allowed for somebody to go outside and reserve a space in front of the restaurant for Sid’s car. They usually did, but that day when we arrived, a yellow Volkswagen Beetle was parked there. Sid surveyed the situation and quietly went to work. He put his hands under the bumper at the back of the Volkswagen and with one heave lifted the back of the car onto the sidewalk. He walked around to the front, grabbed the bumper, and did the same. He then parked in the space that was now free. We walked around the Volkswagen, now parked on the sidewalk, and went into the restaurant for lunch.
Sid Caesar sparing my life.
There were lingering thoughts in my head. What would people think to see a Volkswagen on the sidewalk in the front of the restaurant? Even more interesting, what would the driver who had parked the Volkswagen think when he saw his car on the sidewalk? I thought, I guess he’ll have to drive on the sidewalk until he hits the street again so he can go about his business.
No doubt about it—Sid was really strong. I was taking my life in my own hands one day when Sid and I were having an argument about a sketch I wrote that he wanted to cut. I was adamant and demanded that the sketch stay in. To emphasize my feelings, I took the two fingers of my right hand and I savagely poked them into his shoulder. A giant mistake. Sid looked at me strangely, and I realized what I had done. I waited for what could be the end of me.
Sid just smiled, and in a crazy Russian accent said, “I let you live.”
Believe me, I never poked him again.
* * *
—
Around this time, I got an offer from a producer to write a sketch for a new Broadway revue called Curtain Going Up. Even though I was incredibly busy with Your Show of Shows I couldn’t say no—Broadway was always my ultimate dream. I sat down and wrote a takeoff on Death of a Salesman, stealing a title from a beloved Russian author, Ivan Turgenev—Fathers and Sons. I called it “Of Fathers and Sons.” It was a ten-minute satiric sketch having fun with the characters in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Unfortunately, Curtain Going Up came crashing down during its out-of-town tryout in Philadelphia and never made it to New York.
However, luck was with me. Another revue was trying out in Philadelphia at the same time as Curtain Going Up. It was called New Faces of 1952. The producer, Leonard Sillman, and the creator and star, Ronny Graham, saw my sketch and loved it and wanted it for their revue. In addition to Ronny Graham, appearing in New Faces were future stars like Eartha Kitt, Carol Lawrence, Robert Clary, Alice Ghostley, and Paul Lynde.
Alice Ghostley was cast in my sketch as Willy Loman’s long-suffering wife. The Willy Loman role was played by the incredibly gifted Paul Lynde. The son was my creation. He was neither Biff nor Happy. He was a strange, strange child played by Ronny Graham. Ronny was hilarious.
The sketch begins with Paul Lynde telling his wife: “Alice, I don’t know. I’m no good anymore. I can’t do it. I was the best pickpocket in Philadelphia, the best! So smooth, nobody even knew things were missing for days. I can’t do it anymore. Too many cops. My hands sweat and I can’t do it.”
She says, “Sure you can, Harry. Come on. I’ll make some spaghetti. You’ll have a glass of wine. You can do it.”
He says, “Oh, well, maybe. Where’s my boy? Where’s the light of my life? Where’s my son?”
And in comes Ronny Graham. And he’s carrying a bat and tossing a ball. His father, a petty crook, was dreaming that one day his son would follow in his footsteps and become a world-renowned criminal. Paul says to Ronny, “What are you doing? He’s supposed to be learning how to pick pockets. What are you doing? What’s with the bat and ball?” And then Paul says, “Show me your report card.” Ronny stalls, and finally reluctantly gives it up. Paul reads it hoping to see bad marks like F’s and D’s. Instead, it’s a bunch of A’s. Paul exits the stage while heartbreakingly moaning, “A. A. A. A!”