Part 10 (1/2)

”I don't exactly live there,” I said. ”But I own a ranch outside of town. We're there a lot on weekends.”

He then explained that he was with McDonald's and they were selling franchises in and around Phoenix for twenty-five thousand dollars for each restaurant. McDonald's wasn't exactly unknown. At the time, there were about five hundred places fronted by golden arches across the country, boasting sales of one hundred million hamburgers. But I thought twenty-five grand for a burger joint was steep. So I pa.s.sed.

Fortunately, I had better judgment with Hollywood than hamburgers. Case in point: Divorce American Style Divorce American Style. It was a sprawling, topical comedy written by Norman Lear, with his partner, Bud Yorkin, helming the production. Debbie and I played a husband and wife whose marriage was on the rocks after they'd carved out a successful life for themselves in the suburbs. In other words, they had achieved the American Dream, but at a cost-their relations.h.i.+p.

The script, which also included parts filled by Jason Robards, Jean Simmons, Van Johnson, and Sh.e.l.ley Berman, was a hefty three hundred pages, more than double the standard length. The studio had told Norman the film couldn't possibly be that long. His response was along the lines of: ”It's my story, and by G.o.d I'm going to make it the way I see it.”

Norman's wife, Frances, was a smart, opinionated woman who, I'm going to guess, gave him good source material on the ever-s.h.i.+fting state of marriage. But then everyone seemed to be going through something something. Debbie was in the middle of her second marriage, and she was, in addition to being a strong woman herself, and a teller of colorful stories about Hollywood, also a handful who regularly informed me that I didn't know anything about making movies.

In a way, she may have been right. One day I did something terribly stupid. I was shooting a scene with actor Joe Flynn, best known as the captain on McHale's Navy McHale's Navy, and I was supposed to get drunk following a frustrating situation with my wife. After a handful of takes, I said, ”What the h.e.l.l, get me a real martini,” and three hours, numerous takes, and a couple of martinis later, I was smashed.

So much so that Norman drove me home. All the way there he asked, ”Why did you do that? Are you crazy?”

I wasn't the only casualty on the movie. One day we shot a scene with Pat Collins, who was known as ”The Hip Hypnotist.” She was supposed to hypnotize Debbie, who then climbed onstage and performed a s.e.xy dance. It was pretend, of course, except that cinematographer Conrad Hall, who later won an Oscar for Butch Ca.s.sidy and the Sundance Kid Butch Ca.s.sidy and the Sundance Kid, and several of the grips actually fell under Pat's spell. Filming stopped while she brought them out of their trances.

At lunch that day, Van Johnson asked Pat to help him quit smoking. They did one session and he never smoked again. I ran into him years later, though, and he was about fifty pounds heavier. He was still off cigarettes, he explained with a smile. But he had a new vice-Haagen-Dazs ice cream.

From Divorce American Style Divorce American Style, I went directly into the movie Fitzw.i.l.l.y Fitzw.i.l.l.y, a light comedy costarring Get Smart Get Smart's Barbara Feldon. Despite Oscar-winner Delbert Mann's direction, the movie flopped and, as film buffs can attest, will likely be remembered only as composer John Williams's first collaboration with Marilyn and Alan Bergman.

Next, I tried to make a movie out of the book Fear on Trial Fear on Trial, John Henry Faulk's nightmarish account of being blacklisted. For whatever reason, I was unable to get it off the ground. Even with Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin attached as producers, the subject matter may have been too controversial for the networks. In 1975, it was finally adapted as a TV movie with George C. Scott and William Devane in the starring roles.

Then it was back to television for me, with my first special for CBS, which aired in April 1967. The network billed it as a homecoming, though it bore little resemblance to The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show. Nor did it resemble a traditional variety show. I wanted to do something different and daring, instead of a theme and a bunch of guest stars, and the most different and daring idea I came up with was to challenge myself to do it all-or most of it, anyway.

Some may have thought it indulgent.

To me, it was fun.

Loads of it. I opened the hour-long show with a zany, silent-film erastyle montage of my trying to get to the studio after my car breaks down. I kayak, roller-skate, skateboard, and ride in a golf cart, finally arriving onstage clinging to my car b.u.mper.

I had only two guests. One was my old Merry Mutes partner, Phil Erickson, who leapt at the chance to take a week off from running his comedy club in Atlanta and reprise our old act on network television. In one bit, we pantomimed to the Bing CrosbyMary Martin hit ”Wait Till the Sun s.h.i.+nes, Nellie” (including the earthquake that punctuated our act nearly twenty years earlier), and in another t.i.tled ”A Piece of Lint, or How Wars Begin,” we played two friends who get into a skirmish after one of them picks a piece of lint off the other.

Whether the audience enjoyed it (and I think they did), we had a blast. Backstage we joked that it was nice knowing our timing was still intact after a fifteen-plus-year break, in case we needed a fallback.

My other guest star was Ann Morgan Guilbert, who'd played Millie on The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show. In one of my all-time favorite skits, I played ”The Great Ludwig,” the world's oldest magician, and Ann was my dedicated a.s.sistant and wife. The skit was supposed to go eight minutes, but funny business kept happening-as she levitated, for instance, I ad-libbed, ”Why are there flies around you?” which made her crack up, and then I lost it. The tails of my tux were set on fire, which was planned, though I pretended not to notice, which inspired more shtick-and, well, it ran for nearly fifteen minutes.

Ann and I left the stage with tears in our eyes from laughing so hard, the tails of my tux still smoking! We thought it was hysterical, brilliant, serendipitous comedy magic. Then the director came up to us and said, ”We're going to have to redo it.”

My jaw dropped.

”What?” I said. ”What's the problem?”

”We saw the boom [microphone] in the shot for a few seconds,” he said.

”We can't re-create that stuff,” I said. ”It just happened. We'll have to use it as is, mistakes and all.”

Stuff kept on happening, too. I played a flamenco dancer who crashes through a piano, a musician reinterpreting Bach as jazz on the harpsichord, and reworking Fiddler on the Roof Fiddler on the Roof's signature number as ”If I Were a Rich Man.” All in all, it was ”a splendid showcase,” said the New York Times New York Times, and the Pittsburgh Gazette Pittsburgh Gazette patted me on the back by writing ”It should have been longer.” patted me on the back by writing ”It should have been longer.”

If only reaction to Divorce American Style Divorce American Style had been as complimentary. It wasn't the critics who blasted the movie, though. It was my fans. They felt I had betrayed them by taking on a role in which my character got drunk in one scene and dallied with a prost.i.tute in another. The headline in the had been as complimentary. It wasn't the critics who blasted the movie, though. It was my fans. They felt I had betrayed them by taking on a role in which my character got drunk in one scene and dallied with a prost.i.tute in another. The headline in the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times captured the shock: captured the shock: NEW VAN d.y.k.e FILM CHANGES HIS IMAGE NEW VAN d.y.k.e FILM CHANGES HIS IMAGE.

I refused to see that as a problem since I wasn't doing anything that crossed the line of decency I had set for myself.

”Let's face it,” I told Roger Ebert. ”Debbie Reynolds isn't Tammy anymore, and neither am I.”

But the question nagging at me wasn't ”Who am I” as much as it was ”Who did I want to be?”

Like a lot of people when they reach their forties, I was trying to figure out the answer. Although my oldest child was headed to college and I still had three others at home, I was mulling a change of some sort. I didn't know exactly what, but I envisioned myself retiring and, if not getting out of show business, then slowing down. In fact, in an interview with Redbook Redbook magazine, I mentioned that I might retire in six years and work with youth groups. magazine, I mentioned that I might retire in six years and work with youth groups.

Why?

I was restless and felt the need for something more. As I explained, I was ”looking for meaning and for value, personal value.”

How could I feel that way when I had a wonderful wife, terrific children, a thriving career, a shelf full of awards, and strangers approaching me every day just to say they were fans?

I suppose those are the nuanced inklings that precede midlife crises and keep psychiatrists in business. In order to deal with them before they turn into full-blown problems, though, you have to be attuned not just to the initial feelings, but also to the need to address them, and I wasn't.

For me it was business as usual. I went to work on the movie Never a Dull Moment Never a Dull Moment, a comedy about an actor who gets into trouble after he's mistaken for a gangster. My pal Jerry Paris directed, and we laughed every day on the set. The picture also allowed me to work with the great character actor Slim Pickens, who showed me how to throw a punch, and screen icon Edward G. Robinson, who grinned at every person who wanted to shake his hand.

It turned out he was stone deaf.

One day I asked if he'd ever tried a hearing aid. Grinning, he pulled out a tiny sack and let me look inside. It contained five hearing aids.

”None of them work,” he said.

”Why don't you get them fixed?” I asked.

”Sorry,” he said. ”Can't hear you.”

From there I went straight into Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a movie that I repeatedly turned down. Based on Ian Fleming's only children's novel, it's the story of an eccentric inventor whose magical automobile is coveted by foreigners with nefarious intentions. The movie's producer, Albert ”Cubby” Broccoli, known for his tight-fisted control of the James Bond movie franchise, desperately wanted to re-team Julie Andrews and me.

I can't speak for Julie's reasons, but both of us turned him down. I thought the script had too many holes and unanswered questions. However, each time I said no, Cubby came back with more money. I'm talking serious money-more than seven figures, which in those days was mind-boggling, plus a percentage of the back end, which I never counted on.

I still wanted to say no, but my manager reminded me that not too many years earlier I was scrambling to win two hundred dollars on Pantomime Quiz Pantomime Quiz. Although I was in a different position now, I understood-and just in case I didn't, he let me know if I turned down this much money I was basically declaring myself officially crazy.

After one more round, I finally agreed.

In the interim, Cubby hired the remarkable Sherman brothers to write the score, as well as my favorite ch.o.r.eographers, Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood. While both additions pleased me greatly, I made one last stipulation. I didn't want to reprise my English accent, which I'd struggled famously with in Mary Poppins Mary Poppins. Not a problem. My character was suddenly an eccentric American inventor.

In lieu of Julie, the role of Truly Scrumptious went to another Yank, Sally Ann Howes, who truly was. From a show business family, she arrived with a long list of stellar credits, starting at age twelve when she worked with Vivien Leigh in the film Anna Karenina Anna Karenina.

Cubby Broccoli wanted an extravaganza, as was his way, and he spent more than double what it cost to make Mary Poppins Mary Poppins to ensure he got one. Spanning ten months, production was headquartered at London's Pinewood Studios, but also touched down in Bavaria and the South of France. For some reason, my hair curled as soon as I arrived in London and few of the English crew even recognized me. In fact, as the film's opening racetrack scene was shot, the a.s.sistant director walked through a crowd of extras, handing out flags they were supposed to wave as the cars pa.s.sed, and he gave one to me, too. to ensure he got one. Spanning ten months, production was headquartered at London's Pinewood Studios, but also touched down in Bavaria and the South of France. For some reason, my hair curled as soon as I arrived in London and few of the English crew even recognized me. In fact, as the film's opening racetrack scene was shot, the a.s.sistant director walked through a crowd of extras, handing out flags they were supposed to wave as the cars pa.s.sed, and he gave one to me, too.

”But I'm in the movie,” I said.

”Not yet, mate,” he replied. ”But you will be if you wave that pennant when the camera is pointed at you.”

I limped through my actual opening scene, having injured myself while shooting the dance routine for the song ”Toot Sweets,” an over-the-top production that took three weeks and involved an army of dancers, singers, musicians, and one hundred dogs. It was my stupidity. While trying to keep up with all the twenty-year-old dancers, I did not warm up properly and paid the price.