Paul Dooley

[00:00:00] A.E. Guy: Welcome to Phil and Ted’s Sexy Boomer Show with your hosts, Phil Proctor and Ted bonnet. Phil in Ted's guest is movie television and Broadway actor writer and comedian Paul Dooley. And now your Sexy Boomer hosts, Phil Proctor and Ted Bonnitt.

[00:00:21] Ted Bonnitt: Welcome to Phil and Ted’s Sexy Boomer Show. I'm Ted Bonnitt.

[00:00:26] Phil Proctor: And my middle name is George.

[00:00:27] Ted Bonnitt: Hi George.

Phil Proctor: And today we have a man of many names and many talents.

[00:00:32] Paul Dooley: One of my many names is my middle name is George

[00:00:36] Phil Proctor: That’s right. Your middle name is George. Your birth name is George…

[00:00:42] Paul Dooley: Brown. Brown was my name.

Phil Proctor: Yeah. And how did you come up with the name Dooley?

Paul Dooley: Well, and I was a boy cartoonist in high school and college.

[00:00:50] I drew cartoons for the humor magazine, but just on my own when I was fooling around and doodling. I started signing pen names. He used to sign everything PB, Paul Brown PB. The reason I didn't keep Paul Brown was when I was five years old, a woman on a streetcar said, what's your name? It’s Paul Brown?

[00:01:08] Or are you the coach at Ohio state? And I said to my mother, I said, no, I'm just Paul Brown, five years old. I remember she said, that's the famous man who worked for the football team. I said, I didn't want him having my name. I didn't want to have his name even at five. I didn't know what I would do, but I wanted my identity.

[00:01:31] Became Brown stadium. Cleveland Browns is still named after he had six winning seasons in high school. So he was a legend in high schools and I wanted to bring him into professional world. And he said, this one thing I want the team to be named after me. I want them to be at the Cleveland Browns. Okay. And now there's a Brown stadium, everything.

[00:01:51] Wow. But then I found a guy on Broadway in South Pacific he had the same name. And I said, I can't use that. So I'd been doodling. I liked the Irish name. It's a comedic thing. So I used to draw a doodle, a face or something that I've read. Clancy. They all seem like comedy names to me and I, I liked Muldoon.

[00:02:15] I like the double O's and finally, I, I used Dooley. Then in college, they asked that speech department, the, um, the local high school called over to the college that could just send some actors over to be in our annual fair. So I dressed as a clown on, he called him Dooley and this stuck with me all these years.

[00:02:32] Phil Proctor: You stepped into show business with big shoes.

[00:02:36] Paul Dooley: I did. Right.

[00:02:37] Phil Proctor: Right. And you were performing for kids when you started?

[00:02:39] Paul Dooley: Yeah. I couldn't get an equity SAG and after I couldn't get in the union, it was a catch 22 to get the card without the job. So I did Alibaba and the 40 thieves and Simple Simon and whatever.

[00:02:50] Phil Proctor: I was Lenny the lobster. I did plays about venereal disease in New York.

[00:02:57] Paul Dooley: I think Lenny had the clap, the lobster had crabs. You know, I was telling you about w orking at the Village Vanguard and I saw Lenny Bruce very early in his career. He said, they asked me to do a marathon on television. I said, okay, but I don't know if I'm qualified.

[00:03:12] It was the Clapathon

[00:03:16] the guys I observed at the Village Vanguard Lenny Bruce. This has career was taking off also. I saw the first day that Mike and Niner (Nichols and May) came to New York. They did one week and their manager, the famous Jack Robbins, greatest manager in the business took them immediately. Within a month they were known to all the

[00:03:38] The all society was falling in love with them. They went on NBC the radio.

[00:03:42] Phil Proctor: Okay, so you were clowning around. And how would you, would you say you got into this extraordinary career that you've had of doing so many different characters, a part of it because you were working with like Second City people and develop the art of improv.

[00:03:59] Paul Dooley: I met Andrew Duncan and. Got so good at intuiting. Each other, knowing where the guys going, we became, it was almost like a mystical. Andrew Duncan. Yeah. Was one of the original, original Second City.

[00:04:16] Phil Proctor: Thank you. There's an echo in here. Second City performers, but then later you got did commercials with him.

[00:04:22] Paul Dooley: They teamed us up together for some reason,

Ted Bonnitt: Was this Chicago or this New York?

Paul Dooley: Well, when they came to Broadway to do a show, they needed to understudy to do it. And then the village and I became their understudy. That's how I got into improv without knowing how to do it. I said, you don't need to get 400 studies if one guy's gone for two weeks and comes back, I'll do the other guy.

[00:04:48] Phil Proctor: but you have a gift that you remember comedy, you remember everything,

[00:04:55] Paul Dooley: everything you remember acts, I'm cursed some wrinkle in my brain. You know how it is, you know, I'm not exactly a idiot savant.. If I've seen 800 comedians and they each had 50 jokes, I'd remember two or three of the ones I like best.

[00:05:16] And so if you say fat Jack Leonard or anybody, it is Milton Berle. I remember, you know, I never, I never liked Berle because they stole from everybody.. And he invented television. I mean, he made Uncle Milty. He did everything that had been done before. He stole from vaudeville. He made fun of stealing the other comics, known as the Thief of Bad Gags.

[00:05:38] He said, I went to see Jesse the than night. He was so funny. I dropped my pencil. So he knew that people thought he was, and he did every standard vaudeville scene and burlesque scene. And he stuck his nose in everybody else's act. If there was an actor, a backpack, they wouldn't let them finish. He wouldn't let them do just what their act.

[00:05:56] He come out. And, you know, try to jump up in the air or do something with them. Uh, dancers are dancing. You can come out and dance. He could not stop showing off. Even as a young age, I said, I don't like that kind of comedy. I loved Buster Keaton as a minimalist as well. Buster is a leitmotif in my life because I saw him first and film when he was, I was 15 and 30 years later, I met him and did a commercial with him.

Ted Bonnitt: What was he like?

Paul Dooley: Very quiet, reserved, silent type. It was a silent thing. It was for the economy vans and a bunch of Keystone cops. I was one of them chased him through a bunch of vans in one door and out the other. It's funny. And it was all silent of course. And there were four Keystone cops. One was Barney Martin who became Seinfeld’s dad.

[00:06:46] Phil Proctor: Uh, wonderful actor.

Paul Dooley: It's a great story about him. He was a cop in New York and his beat was to be outside the ed Sullivan theater and to keep the crowd and people in control so that when the stars came in and out, they didn't bug them. And he was surrounded so much. He knew the people inside. And one day they said to him, are you an actor at all?

[00:07:06] He said, no, but I think I can be a funny. It's a cop. They said, ah, we're looking for an understudy for Gleason, Colin Gleason, doesn't loan, every Hertz, this isn't the first year of Gleason's show his TV show and, and he became his understudy and he would rehearse with the wife. Audrey Meadows.

[00:07:25] He did it for a long. And he got him to show him that's how he got into show business.

Phil Proctor: So he was a stand in really for Gleason because Gleason didn't want to do the rehearsals for the camera blocking.

[00:07:37] Paul Dooley: Well, Gleason is supposed to be able to read a script and know it and know it. I know well enough to get through it, but you can see when he's just stretching.

[00:07:45] For example, she'd said, do you think you're going to that convention in New York? Am I going to that convention? You're asking me if I'm going to the convention? She wants to know if I'm going to New York convention in New York. Why do you think. I guess you knows you go into the convention in New York, I'm going to him.

[00:08:03] He just found jokes and laughs and underneath has great comedy. It's a secret to it as he was a great actor. Yes, he was anybody who's ever seen. The, uh, the hustler where he played Minnesota Fats ,comes in, takes control of the room without speaking. takes off his gloves and his coat. And he's a king and he does it all with. He's a great actor.

Phil Proctor: Now, did you study acting in school?

[00:08:26] Paul Dooley: I did, but it was a little limited. I was in the state of West Virginia, the only other person that ever went there, that anyone knows is Don Knotts. And I was a good company. I was a freshman. He was a senior. So I knew that he had done the first three years of college then got drafted, but luckily put into special services because as a 15 year old, he had an act with a ventriloquist doll and he was already a little comedian and then college, he did comedy. And so he got to entertain the troops for two years. And that's a great gig. Never carried a gun, never dug a foxhole.. But he also improved his chops. By the time he came back to college where I met him, he was a professional, skilled, perfect professional comedian that an act of all kinds. I had so much fun with him.

[00:09:17] Don had a very high voice and he was married at that time to one of his wives. Her name was Kay. When I called there, he answered. Hello, I’d asl of Don’s there. He’s say, “This is Don”” But I said that every time I called. He taught me my first magic trick, which is the French drop.

I developed a clown act after I was in children's theater for $45 a performance. While I figured out that the lady who ran this little company, oddly called the Rockefeller players, she was one of the cheap relatives. So anyway, I found that she charged a hundred dollars to the school for an hour a show. I decided I could make a show and I would sell it to them for $45 for 45 minutes, but I couldn't stretch a clown act. I used to juggling and magic, but it couldn't stretch it out.

Phil Proctor: Then you juggle also?

Paul Dooley: I taught myself to juggle. I lived on a gravel road, but as the gravel road has traveled a lot, a lot of the gravel is thrown to one side and are all over here.

[00:10:22] And sometimes they're not just small pieces of gravel to their sort of rock size. I found some that had the same way then I, and after dropping them a thousand times, usually you have to keep chasing them because you throw it in front of you. Right. I learned three. Juggling, but something interesting happened when it did the movie Popeye.

Phil Proctor: And you played Wimpy in that.

Paul Dooley: Yeah. And a lot of the people in the cast had been clowns.

[00:10:48] There were clowns. The blank, small parts. There were a lot of circus performers.

[00:10:55] Phil Proctor: Uh, yeah, it was like a Fellini movie in many ways.

[00:10:57] Paul Dooley: in fantasy, you know, and Bob, uh, audition clowns, Bob, Bob Altman, the director,

[00:11:05] Phil Proctor: the connection with Bob Altman was something that happened because of a play you were doing?

[00:11:09] Paul Dooley: Jules Pfeiffer evening at Jules Feiffer in, in New York, nothing but cartoons, but Bob Altman saw me there and hired me for five movies in a row. Also Jules wrote the screenplay for the movie Popeye.

[00:11:21] Phil Proctor: When you did the Popeye movie, it was, you guys were on location n Malta. I can't imagine what a bizarre experience that must have been for you.

[00:11:28] Paul Dooley: Well, it was like unreal in that. It's not something you could do in that place to go to town in the evenings. First of all, it was speaking multis mixed up with Sicilian, which it was in the middle of the Mediterranean between Sicilian north Africa, Libya. But we had such a talented group of people that were 50 actors all together, small parts, medium and large. And of course, Robin Williams, Robin and parts and himself, somebody let's put on a show for ourselves.

[00:11:58] So we'd sit in the audience. And when your turn came you’d go on stage, and Robin said, I won't be in it. I'll just be the MC. But of course he emceed every, every act and he was in it more than anybody, but he'd come out as Ed Sullivan and introduced characters for a while and go back after the next act, he come back and either do another dialect, another imitation.

[00:12:21] He would do what he thought was Maltese dialect, because he could do anything. Oh, he was amazing and it lasted four hours and it was great.

Phil Proctor: This was just something you did to entertain yourselves.

Paul Dooley: Yeah, just for ourselves. I did stuff for my old act. I recreated Smith and Dale's Dr. Cronkite with Libertina. And the Shelley Long is sing a song and play guitar. Uh, Bill Irwin was there. I did clown routines. Yeah. Wow. It was a very special place to be. We lived in a small village called Malia on the outskirts. We never felt we were in Malta or Malia, acting 12 hours a day. And then watching dailies.

[00:13:04] We thought we lived in breathe in sweet Haven. Sweet Haven.

Phil Proctor: How long were you there?

Paul Dooley: Six months.

Phil Proctor: Oh, wow. That's amazing.

Phil Proctor: That's a long time long shoot.

Paul Dooley: The interesting thing is that we would get all dressed up in her costumes and go to a little island off of Malta. The island of go, go, go a little island off of Malta. A caretaker had a cabin. There was nothing else there, but that's where we would hang the boats anchored. And we would, we'd get all dressed up with the big feet and the mustache and the, a fat suit eyebrows. And they shaved my eyebrows and gave me a mustache. And then the next two days it would rain and we couldn't work, but he always went out there to see how the weather was.

[00:13:46] We wasted a lot of time for bad weather, but tread explained that the paramount, of course I say, he's just back there smoking pot with all of his actors, you know? Well, that part was true.

Phil Proctor: Oh, it was? Good.

[00:13:57] Phil Proctor: Uh, one of the things I heard about Altman was that he might each of you actors individually so that he could actually mix

[00:14:05] [00:14:04] Paul Dooley: You had a great continuous shooting, right. Everybody was on mic, and he could record them separately on a tree. And later he could lower one and raise the other, or take them both out or keep one person and nothing. He had great control the editing process with sound.

He always had huge cast. There were 24 people in Nashville and 50 people in wedding.

Ted Bonnitt: Was there a lot of improvisation?

Paul Dooley: Uh, well, he's sort of known for improvisation, but being an improviser. I know that it really wasn't that much. It just, people knew that they were free to change things. I was doing a scene in The Wedding, in the dance room and there was the orchestra playing.

[00:14:40] And during it, we're all on mic and I'm dancing with Dina Merrill, who was one of the characters, a rich lady. And I said, you want to run the lines? Cause we were nowhere near a mic. And I didn't even know I had a mic. I just didn't think this was our coverage. I just thought we were in the background.

[00:14:58] I saw camera's over there. And she said, sure. So running the lines, just throwing them away as you will, if you're running lines, you're not acting, you're just saying the words going then later, he said, okay, that's a wrap. Every of them moved to the cake room with the cake. And I said to the lady, I said, uh, uh, you didn't get our conversation yet.

[00:15:17] He said, oh no, we picked that up. Camera has a long lens. We had three cameras at one point, we picked you up in a two-shot. We got it. So then, and I said to each other, we weren't even acting. So when we watched the dailies the next day, it was pretty good acting.

[00:15:35] Cause we weren't acting, we were just saying the thing, you know, that's true. Yeah.

[00:15:39] Ted Bonnitt: When you became part of Altman's ensemble, what differentiated him from all the other directors you worked with? He was always regarded to be unique.

[00:15:48] Paul Dooley: Well, the script was a very loose thing. He sort of knew what scenes he wanted and what the information was in it.

[00:15:56] And I remember Wedding the first one I did with him the first day we got there, gave everybody a notebook and the notebook had listed all the characters in their backstories, and one person would have a one page. And the last page is a violin. I said she plays the violin. They were a little bios and we all have a notebook, but there was no script yet.

[00:16:19] He just knew what he wanted to do. Other movies. There were scripts. In fact, I helped write a script with him once.

[00:16:25] Phil Proctor: Why did you get into your writing? And when did you meet you wife, Winnie Holtzman is a writer and you met her in improvisation

[00:16:32] Paul Dooley: There was a little company of improv people. They're all friends of mine from the commercial world.

[00:16:38] Phil Proctor: Out here in LA.

Paul Dooley: No, it was, uh, in the village, in the village in New York years ago, this 25 year old was there who was winning. And she's very funny and charming. Later became this huge writer. Great writer. Yep. So then, you know, over six months we fell in love and got married.

[00:16:56] Phil Proctor: Oh, that's wonderful. Where did she get the idea for Wicked?

[00:16:59] Paul Dooley: how does it's based on a book?

[00:17:01] Phil Proctor: It was based on a book, but how did she get the opportunity to do that?

[00:17:04] Paul Dooley: Well, she had done a musical in New York called birds of paradise. Her training was the NYU. She was in a charter class of a thing called the musical theater world.

[00:17:15] What an opportunity. She got a scholarship. And her teachers, her Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Lawrence, Stephen Sondheim, please. Every big name on Broadway Cayman. Because there were so many of them, they wouldn't have to teach every week or every day they come in and once every two weeks, but those are the, her teachers.

[00:17:35] And can you imagine having those people teach you about.

[00:17:39] Ted Bonnitt: It seems like he spent so much of your career in New York, where will buy coastal, where you going back and forth all the time or were you bi-coastal?

[00:17:49] Paul Dooley: Uh, I came out here to do a series over at Universal. It was the only series ever had the lead in.

[00:17:55] I always play these guys who don't smile because my father never smiled and I love Buster Keaton. Right. It's all connected.

Phil Proctor: Your father never smiled?

Paul Dooley: Never laughed. Never smiled. Never hardly talked to me. Yeah. He worked in a factory, but his he's a remarkable man that I just learned to admire more after I was grown up.

[00:18:20] Uh, my father got married and he wanted to have a home, but it had, it didn't have enough money. So he bought two lots out of town, you know, almost a rural area, two lots for $25 each in 19 oh, something. Wow. And by himself he built a house and did everything himself. It took him two years to do all this. He worked from seven to three, seven to three and nearby factory came over.

[00:18:48] And worked until dark for two years .. When they put an electric poles in there, he stayed there and slept on the floor and just worked like a dog. He was a genius, but no one knew that. I thought everyone's father built his own house. You're in therapy, years and years later, I said, I don't know how my father knew all that.

[00:19:07] He said, well, your father had to be highly, highly, highly intense. To do all that. He had bad eyes. He wore these thick glasses glasses, right? How does a guy like that measure a quarter of an inch or half an inch or an inch with bad eyes, but he did it, but he only cared about was work. Come home from work, put down his lunch pail, go to his workshop called in for dinner, you know?

[00:19:31] He hardly ever talked to anybody. He was just a curmudgeon in that way. Not a mean guy. I think he was afraid of people. His father left. And left the family. Uh, you know, he was a young kid he's I think he was afraid of being close. A fear of intimacy. Even with his family. I never got a hug from him .

[00:19:51] Phil Proctor: did your mother make up for?

[00:19:51] Paul Dooley: She was loving, but. She came from a family where the father was more, her father was more like that. Men would just work. Guys. They didn't spend a lot of time talking to their kids. You know, it's not manly after you're two or three years old to hug a boy, you know, those kinds of cultures.

[00:20:11] Anyway, you can bond is to take them fishing or hunting. Well, I never even got,

[00:20:16] Ted Bonnitt: was there no laughter in the house?

Paul Dooley: No.

Ted Bonnitt: So where did it come from?

[00:20:21] Paul Dooley: I don't know. In fact, I'm not a big Laugher, I just enjoy comedy. You know, a lot of times, you know, this comedians are the sincere, strangest people in the world.

[00:20:31]And if there's a group of them and one of them says something funny, they don't laugh. They say that that's funny, but they don't laugh because they're too close to.

[00:20:40] Ted Bonnitt: It's interesting that you said all that because watching you perform, you're very deadpan. You're always very serious, which makes it really funny. Cause it's a little dangerous watching you.

[00:20:50] Paul Dooley: My DNA from my father. And I had uncles and I had neighbors. Uh, they're all kind of stoic types and a lot of men who are macho, I think about just work and being a masculine, the laughing is even laughing is a little bit, a little feminine, silly.

[00:21:08] Ted Bonnitt: So this is reverse conditioning.

[00:21:10] Paul Dooley: A lot of parts I've gotten are my father and I, if they're not my father, I make them, my father.

[00:21:15] Phil Proctor: How many fathers have you played?

[00:21:17] Paul Dooley: About 25. This book I wrote called “Movie Dad.” When it's coming out in October, the hook of the book while I was becoming the most well-known dad in movies and asked for all the time.

[00:21:32] My crazy ex-wife kidnapped my children. Then took them away. And they were gone for 10 years. Three children that you had with her, they've gone for 10 years. One of them was 18 years old. Came back. Had you not seen them? I didn't see them for 10 years. Not to that.

[00:21:50] And look at the irony of this. Here's everybody's dad who can't talk to his kid and a reviewer of a scene candles said duly turns in another great performance as the father. He's the perfect father. I don't know if there are any little Dooleys out there, but if there are, they have a great debt and they're all gone.

[00:22:10] They were in Europe for awhile. Then they're in this country. They were just unreachable. You know, I was bad mouth to the point that they thought I was a bad guys.

[00:22:19] Phil Proctor: Of course. Did they know you were an actor?

[00:22:21] Paul Dooley: Did they see you eventually? I don't know how that came about, but my son was maybe 14. He went to see breaking away.

[00:22:29] I started hugging Dennis Christopher as my son and he's and he's tears in his eyes for the whole movie. And he sees me hugging my son and he can't hug me. And he leaves the theater.

[00:22:42] Paul Dooley: Years they came back and one kid who was only three or four when they left, uh, didn't want to return to me.

[00:22:51] And he's a stranger. He heard to his mother's propaganda too much. And he didn't remember his mummy as much, but the other two are in. For a, now for 30 years, it came to my wedding 37 years ago. It's wonderful.

[00:23:06] Phil Proctor: But let's get back to some of your inspirations. You mentioned Buster Keaton and working with Buster Keaton

[00:23:12] Ted Bonnitt: Buster Keaton was my favorite. I'm wondering why he was your favorite too.

[00:23:16] Paul Dooley: I saw Chaplin and Lloyd and all those people. I never cared for Harold Lloyd. I knew that he was successful and he made a lot of money. And it was as popular as those guys, practically, maybe a little under Chaplin, but he was even more financially successful than Keaton.

[00:23:35] But I could admire Chaplin from afar, but I could not imagine sitting down and having a beer with him. Yeah. He didn't seem like an average guy. He might've played a tramp, but he was the smartest tramp you've ever met. And there's a certain superiority in his tramp. Like he was never the underdog. He might've dressed like a bum, but he was smarter than the audience smarter than the other actors.

[00:24:01] Keaton seemed to be every man. Yes. He, it seemed like this was a guy you could sit down with and you have a beer.

Phil Proctor: a comic victim

[00:24:09] Phil Proctor: in a way to life.

Ted Bonnitt: Life happened to him.

[00:24:11] Paul Dooley: Yeah. And the funny thing is. Once in a while, especially in his early days, if somebody challenged the chaplain's tramp, he would quit and take his coat off and throw it on the ground and do this.

[00:24:22] Right. It starts battling, you know, that's right on a dime. Yeah, that's true. If anybody ever threatened Keaton in any way, he ran, he was a pacifist, right? He never got into fights. He would never attack anybody. If guys are chasing him, take the fall. He'd take the fall. Literally. I only learned later that he was a better filmmaker than Chaplin.

[00:24:47] He created things in movies that are still going on in a movie Sherlock Jr. He walked down the aisle of the movie theater. Here's the projectors walked into the movie and later Woody Allen stole it in Rose of, Cairo. And you can call. but it was Keaton. And he did things where you opened the car door and bust.

[00:25:11] He was doing things chaplain never did with film and cinema.

[00:25:17] Phil Proctor: I have a second hand Keaton story that I want to tell you. Uh, and if you've heard it before, don't stop me. Uh, this is through Jack Riley by dear late friend, who I did rug funny guy. Oh, Jack was wonderful.

[00:25:29] He was doing a red skeleton. With Buster Keaton, this guest star and the gag was a pizza parlor with one of those big ovens. And they had the pizza paddle that put, put the pizza into the oven and then pull it out. And the gag was Jack was the boss and Keaton was the apprentice and he had to handle the paddle.

[00:25:50] And you went too far with the paddle, went into the oven and then came out all smoking and the. In the rehearsal for this, they hadn't finished the set completely, but they had the frame and most of the oven built in the rehearsal. He did the gag and then they said, okay, onto the next setup. And Jack noticed as they were walking back to the dressing room that his knees were bleeding through his pants.

[00:26:17] He had skinned his knees because they hadn't finished the wood on the bottom of this oven. He skinned both of his knees in the gag and Jackson, oh my God, we got to get a nurse. And he grabbed his hand. Buster Keaton grabbed Jack's hand and squeezed it so hard. Jack said that he had a bruise on his arm and Keaton said, no, don't tell anybody it was my fault.

[00:26:44] Paul Dooley: And he's been bruised his whole life.[00:26:46] He broke his collar bone in that gag with the water tower.

[00:26:49] Phil Proctor: and he broke broke his neck and didn't know it.

[00:26:52] Ted Bonnitt: Maybe that's why he always had that dour expression on his face. He was just in so much pain.

[00:26:57] Paul Dooley: He grew up being in pain.

[00:27:00] Phil Proctor: He, and they tossed him around. That's what that's, that's why they call him Buster, right?

[00:27:02] Paul Dooley: Yeah, because he's not in the act, but even when he was younger, he'd had a fall. And the legend is that Houdini who knew the father said. That's quite a Buster, meaning a fall. The father said, yeah, that's a good name for him, but he wasn't yet in the app. He wasn't in the act yet, but some people say that's apocryphal and maybe the father made it up.

[00:27:26] But if the story isn't as Houdini, because before he was involved Vaudeville there was a show called the medicine show. You know, it was called the Houdini Keaton Medicine show. It was Buster's father Joe Keaton and Houdini, the handcuff king. They gathered a crowd. They sold snake oil, which cures anything and moves on to the next city.

[00:27:48] And they only had a performers because it was a to gather a crowd and Buster's mother was on the stage. Uh, Joe has. Was around about which means like a grip and he would help pack a truck or so not a truck, but a stagecoach with horses. He was helper. Yeah. And his only talent was he could kick high at very long legs, proportionately to his torso.

[00:28:11] And he got kick a man's hat off of his head. And just to go on stage with a guy with a hat and they kick it off and that's enough to grow crowd, the medicine show. And then he married this girl, they became Buster's parents.

[00:28:24] Ted Bonnitt: On YouTube, you can search Buster Keaton, candid Camera.

[00:28:29] Ted Bonnitt: The bit was some unwitting customer at a luncheonette in New York sits next to Kaitlin and Keaton starts to clumsily just destroy himself with coffee.

[00:28:41] Paul Dooley: I know that bit. And one of the things that happens is eating soup. Yeah. And leaning in very closely and he engineered it. So his wig fell in the suits. He engineered it. Yeah. You gotta be smart to know how to do that without looking off. No, I know I did a couple of those.

[00:28:58] One of them was they had rigged up a machine that gives you a drinks, but they rigged it so that I was inside. It took out parts of a guy goes in and it puts in a car. And a cup comes down, but no drink. And he rattles the thing. I said, I don't pound on the machine.

[00:29:15] I'm inside here. What? I said. Yeah, I'm a repairman. I'm repairing it. What happened? What's your problems? Well, I got a cup in Indiana and drink. I said, let me fix that. What did you order? You said a ginger ale and I poured in a Coke. I mean, I could control it. So it was putting him on having a conversation with a guy inside.

[00:29:33] The thing, another one I did was I had my head in a bird cage. And there was a Canary in there I'm in a parking lot. And I see, could you give me a hand what I was trying to feed my bird, you know, from my lips. And I put my head in, I got stuck. I can't get out. Well, most people walked away from it cause it looked too fuckers were bigger than my other influencers.

[00:29:55] Uh, I thought Sid Caesar was head and shoulders above almost everybody doing comedy. I like comedy, but I like sketch playing more.

[00:30:05] Phil Proctor: I don't know how they did that. 90 minute, your show of shows

[00:30:09] Paul Dooley: every well, it was his genius, but what a writing style and what he did the typing. Yeah, I know. Well, they brought Woody Allen in cause they knew he was writing and funny.

[00:30:18] There was a secretary, but she couldn't really keep track of it. Cause there was a crazy shouting match and a Caesar didn't like a joke. He didn't say no, he would pant on my machine gun to shoot it down. That's how I shot down at night. But he was loud and aggressive.

[00:30:36] Phil Proctor: I worked with him. My partner, Peter Bergman and I worked with Sid because he wanted to get back on television 30 years ago, 20 years ago, I guess.

[00:30:44] And, uh, so we were at his house. We worked with him at his house and no in the Hollywood down here during our writing sessions, he would have a big souvenir mug filled with. We asked him about it. He said, well, you know, I used to have a really big appetite. We do the show. Then we'd go out and have something to eat.

[00:31:03] And I'm sitting there one day getting ready to order and wait, it goes by with a tray, with stakes on him. And I stopped him. I said, not that I want that put the plate here. And he said, well, Mr. Caesar, these people ordered their dinner. I don't care. I'll pay for their dinners that put it here. And Reiner who was with him said, said, said, you're really out of control.

[00:31:25] He said, okay. Okay. So he went to a psychiatrist and he worked with a psychiatrist for awhile. And one day the psychiatrist said to him, said, you know, your problem is you have an enormous appetite and it says, you, you don't have to drink alcohol or beer. You don't have to eat, you know, everything. All you need is to satisfy that appetite.

[00:31:49] You could be drinking water. And so Caesar says, thank you. And he gets up off the couch. He said, wait a minute. We said, we still have another 15 minutes to go. He said, Nope, I'm cured. I got it. And he changed his whole life.

[00:32:00] Paul Dooley: Then he was skinny boy. Caesar was one of the first people I admired because I could feel it was a good actor .

[00:32:08] Phil Proctor: That company that he had.The way he nurtured his ensemble.

[00:32:11] Paul Dooley: They were doing a Japanese movie. Once Reiner was playing the Japanese warlord, they heavy and his name was Gunza misspoke, the whole family. That was in it, or they were brilliant. But that writing team is what did all that.

Ted Bonnitt: I grew up in New York and I kind of romanticize what New York was like the show business world in the fifties and sixties, when television was coming up and Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Jackie Gleason had an impression on you as well.

[00:32:43] Paul Dooley: And before he did the honeymooners, which is mostly, nobody knows me sent for that, but he had a variety of. Regional ventless poor soul,

[00:32:51] Phil Proctor: poor soul.

[00:32:52] Ted Bonnitt: Could you perhaps draw a snapshot of what it was like to be in New York?

[00:32:57] Paul Dooley: Well, here's the thing that tells you what it was like in those days, early, early, early television, we're talking 1950s, 52 when I got there.

[00:33:04] They still then worked out a system to have audiences coming, to watch a television show live. There was no system in place. So if you walked up sixth avenue, there would be ushers out there from NBC. Saying one tickets to a show. It's a soap, opera hairs, tickets free and Sid Caesar, you know, and I would go see it and shoot it in the afternoon. And I got this, a lot of the Sid Caesar shows .

[00:33:26] Ted Bonnitt: You're still working ?

[00:33:27] Paul Dooley: well, not in the pandemic. Before the pandemic I would do about guest spots and about eight shows a year and I was on a show called kids are all right. And I did four of those and I'll be in another.

[00:33:42] Maybe that's one, maybe it's two. Maybe, maybe I do six guest stars. That was the way I was working. Those things are worth five grand. So you'll make 50 grand a year. Just as an older actor.

[00:33:53] Phil Proctor: You've always been a character actor because you're an actor and you play characters.

[00:33:55] Paul Dooley: I made my first movement when I was 49 with Altman to first movie

[00:34:02] Phil Proctor: seems late in your career, right?

[00:34:03] Paul Dooley: I was an improviser and a commercial actor. I had also done the odd couple on Broadway. Y one Broadway show, you were understudying in that, and then you took over. Is that right? Well, I got an audition for the odd couple. I never had no district for robbery for, cause I was stuck in the commercial business.

[00:34:20] Didn't have an agent for legit. Want to be familiar with it? You know how it is with an audition. You don't have to know every. But hell I had, I became so familiar with it. I, I knew it cold. Then he learned all the cues cold. I could do all the cues too. I didn't need the script, but of course, as an actor, you know, you're gonna go on and he'll hold it because if you're nervous and you miss one line right there.

[00:34:43] Yeah. I knew it cold. I knew I didn't have to have a script, but I needed to hold it. So it looks, it looks right. It's perfect. You don't look, you don't look like you're bragging. So I go on stage and, uh, it's for the art Carney row, Mike Nichols, sit there with his entourage and the producers. And there were a couple of chuckles cause they have good timing and all that.

[00:35:06] But then at a certain point, Oscar does align to Felix, which is angering him picking on him. Right. So I took the opportunity to throw my script in the air, anything valuable, torn it in half or thrown away. It's a funny, so I got the last bite, throwing my papers in the air, having the papers in the air, allowed me to get on my knees and pick them up, like feelings, cleaning up the floor.

[00:35:30] And I still know. I could do my lines and pick up and become the fussy guy. There's a couple of big laughs when I threw it away and started picking it up. And Mike came down to the foot lesson that Mike didn't know me, but he had seen me down at the, in the village. He dropped in once in a while to that second city.

[00:35:50] He dropped in occasionally, but my can see me do a routine with, I replaced Alan Arkin and a sketch. We called selling fallout shelters door to door. It was an old second city sketch. Mike said, I saw you do that thing in the fallout shelter thing. It was very funny and said, could you do a little of that for us?

[00:36:06] I said, it's hard Mike, because the other actor had lines, not a monologue. So that's all right. Then I left and I never had this happen anywhere. No. I'm going up the alley next to the theater and the stage of it runs after man says you got it. Oh, he said that one. So my throwing papers in the air that's what did it and even saying, uh, I don't think I can do the thing you're asking me for, but he already must've liked what I did.

[00:36:30] Anyway, I got the job. Then they told me that indeed, I would be the understanding Carney. So when we're doing the rehearsals, once in a while, Nichols would say, I'm finished with the poker players. We're going to work with Walter and an art. Now you guys can take like a three hour lunch and then come back.

[00:36:47] So the poker players to leave, but I stayed because I'm understanding. And I figure, I learned by watching rather than read from the book. And I learned the blocking art Carney in ultra math out art was an alcoholic. And out of town, we were in six weeks in three cities and he never missed a show a week after we opened, he missed the show, but never called him and said, I'm not coming here.

[00:37:08] So I got into his outfit and I did the part, but I was word perfect. I got all the laughs boy, that must've been fun. Oh, you're kidding. A laugh a minute. Except a laundromat that was not easy to get along with. Oh really? Was he a grouchy, tough guy? I had a run in with Walter because it was too mischief.

[00:37:29] Everybody in that poker player group had been complaining about him backstage after we went off, what did he do wrong tonight? Well, he stepped on my line. He did this, he changed that and we all saw him as a heavy pain in the ass. And so they called a meeting, the stage manager between shows and a matinee.

[00:37:46] I said there was a bad morale going on. I heard people changing lines, people stepping on people's lines and it was mostly Walter, not us. So what's the problem. Well, Carney didn't speak up. The poker players didn't speak up. They're intimidated by the fact that Matthew had just won the Tony and he was the defacto star.

[00:38:02] And I would have, must have had a great week in therapy. For some reason. He goes, I'm not confrontational. I said the problem. Walter is fucking up for play everyday. And he starts making excuses saying, well, if you mean, I like to change things a little. That's just the way I work. I loosen myself up. It's, you know, I opened, I come into the scene, maybe I'll say something it's not in the script and said, and maybe you'll step on somebody.

[00:38:26] Else's. You'll cut the laugh, but coming into soon, but nobody was stepping up and man, he was giving lame excuses and he would say things like, well, perhaps you all should just, you know, vote and get a better alcohol. Well, he that's the main nap. It was just bullshit. And that's what he used to do with Mike Nichols.

[00:38:43] He would not take his notes and he would bullshit about it. He'd say to me, maybe I'm not a good enough actor. Remember, do your notes or, you know, I think I'm going to do the note, but then it just comes out the other one. Oh, But he was just a very, very big bullshitter. Five years after that, I had a little job.

[00:38:59] I directed sketches on a show called the David Frost report. One day in that show, art Carney came on as a guest star and we went out to lunch together and he says to me, you know, that day when you call. Ultra math ELA on the carpet. He said, I wanted to ask you something. Are you ever a boxer? And I said, no, hardly why?

[00:39:18] He says, I thought you were going to pop in one because I was outspoken. I says, no, well, I said, I feel bad now. And I felt bad then that I shouldn't have spoken up about him because he was suffered more from it than any of us, because he would upstage him in art. Didn't understand upstaging. He would step up stage.

[00:39:36] All right. We'll turn upstage to face them. And you have your back to the audience. A normal actress is move up there with you. And every two weeks he had missed to perform. All right. And I had done it maybe 22 times and one day he missed them. The next day he missed the next day missing, ever came back.

[00:39:53] He had checked into a rehab. His wife didn't know where I was as agent and where he was. It was a mystery. Wow. So I got to play the lead and be above the title in the show. Plink field. Great. And then after a couple of weeks, I said to me, oh, we wanted to tell you, we found the new Felix and I'm thinking what, Felix, I never missed a line.

[00:40:12] I got . I said why? They said, oh, well, you know, the producers we felt we needed in. You know, it's the odd couple with this. Can't say Walter Mathilde, then someone else down here, the people don't know very much. Well, they get us put me above the title as they wanted to while I was there. Anyway. So the new guys who is it, they said Eddie Bracken.

[00:40:33] I said, okay, I know who he is. I said, well, he hasn't been very many movies lately. They said, yeah, but older people buy tickets, people from out of town, buy tickets. And now. They said you can go back to the table. Bang. Uh, Jesus, what was his name? Speed was his name? Mike Nichols told me you're the engine of the poker game.

[00:40:51] No matter what the other guys are doing, there'd be distracted with conversation. Come on, let's play. Let's play you go back to the table and be speed. And I said, you know, I think I'll be moving on. I'd been in it a year. Sure. Well, if they're going to demote me, fuck ‘em.

[00:41:04] Phil Proctor: is What was it like working with Matthau when, after, you spoke out?

[00:41:07] Paul Dooley: Well, I know one thing when he walked upstage, I went with him to take a step up. I go up there, I go with him, we'd end up at the back wall and he knew I could hold my own.. And then it was a little bit, yeah, even though I had. Curious about

[00:41:24] Phil Proctor: There was a begrudging respect for you

[00:41:24] Ted Bonnitt: Carney worked off of somebody strong Jackie Gleason and iconic role. And he was a drinker.

[00:41:29] Paul Dooley:[00:41:30] But he was, he held his own with Jackie. He was strong and everything, but Art was a very shy person. He respect the Art.

[00:41:43] Phil Proctor: All the stories I've heard about. Uh, Jackie Gleason, I never got to meet him. Was he had a really big heart.

[00:41:47] Paul Dooley:[00:41:48]He knew it had a gold mine there.

[00:41:51] Phil Proctor: Well, there was one story about Gleason in New York that I heard he's having dinner out. And at the end of the thing he says to the waiter, “So how much is the biggest tip you've ever gotten?” And he said, oh, it's $50, Mr. Gleason. He says, here's a hundred. This is by the way, who gave you the $50? He said you did, Mr. Gleason .

[00:42:11] Paul Dooley: Gleason was very generous.

[00:42:16] Phil Proctor: I think you're finished.

[00:42:18] Paul Dooley: In the business?

[00:42:21] Phil Proctor: It's been a good. You know, and you've talked about it. So we've got that. So, and you've got a book coming out. Okay. So I think, I think you could, you could just, you just quit there.

[00:42:31] Paul Dooley: Pack it in. I told my wife about 10 years ago, if I never get another job on a sitcom or I have 10 lines, I don't care. I said, I proved my,

[00:42:41] Phil Proctor: You are having the most amazing career and a wonderful life. I only, I only hope that I. Live as long and as, as joyous now,

[00:42:51] Paul Dooley: How old are you by the way?

Phil Proctor: I'm 81

Paul Dooley: 93.

Phil Proctor: You're 93.. You're in great health. Great fun. You got your mind. Most of your mind.

[00:42:59] Paul Dooley: In ever smoked and I never drank and I never did drugs. I don't drink coffee or a tea. No stimulant. And I was breast fed till I was five years old. And don't think you don't get some cholesterum, not cholesterol, which has immunity from the mother's milk. So all these things put together, may account for my longevity.

[00:43:20] Phil Proctor: They need to put you on the cover of AARP immediately.

[00:43:24] Paul Dooley: If I knew how to spell it, they would.

[00:43:27] Ted Bonnitt: It’s remarkable in terms of how vital you are and still so. How do you stay relevant? Any secret to that?

[00:43:34] Paul Dooley: A curious mind, my mind is busy, active, and thoughtful.[00:43:39]

[00:43:39] Phil Proctor: That's the way to do it. Yeah.

[00:43:40] Ted Bonnitt: Plus you have all those jokes memorized. You can amuse yourself constantly.

[00:43:42] Phil Proctor:, Phil and Ted’s Sexy Boomer Show came out of the same kind of instinct. Ted and I have been friends for a long time. And we basically got to a point where we used to have these lunches, regular lunches, just to have a ball. Let’s make a show. You know, my mom's got a barn!

[00:44:03] Phil Proctor: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Brown for, uh, this wonderful walk through your personal history.

[00:44:11] Paul Dooley: Thank you. Thank you. I've enjoyed your, both a great deal and it's wonderful to reminisce about things. It's sure. And I know listeners are interested in trivia.

Ted Bonnitt: I learned a lot, actually. Thank you very much.

Paul Dooley: You already knew a lot cause I know that you’re a guy has his ear to the ground for this stuff.

[00:44:26] Phil Proctor: Yeah.

[00:44:26] Ted Bonnitt: Terrific. Well, thank you so much.

[00:44:27] Paul Dooley: Thank you, Paul.

[00:44:30] Phil Proctor: Well, Ted, this was a fascinating trip through a history and histrionics at the same time.

[00:44:38] Phil Proctor: And I'm very grateful that that, uh, Paul and I who have spoken often over the years could actually do it on the radio.

[00:44:46] Ted Bonnitt: All right until next time.

[00:44:38] Phil Proctor: Will there be a next time?

[00:44:49] Ted Bonnitt: Let's hope so. Bye!

[00:44:53] A.E. Guy: you've been listening to Phil and Ted’s Sexy Boomer Show, featuring Phil Proctor and Ted Bonnitt and their special guests Paul Dooley. Music by Eddie Baytos and The Nervis Brothers. I'm A. Earnest Guy.

To hear all the sexy boomer shows visit our website, SexyBoomerShow.com. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast for free by clicking the subscribe button in your app or webpage and never miss an episode.

[00:45:19] Please tell your friends about Phil and Ted’s Sexy Boomer Show. Produced by RadioPictures.com. The makers of fine podcasts for seasoned hipsters, man.