Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny (10 page)

Dancing with Linny Crosby at my eighth grade graduation party. You can see how sweet he was.

DID YA HEAR THE ONE ABOUT . . .

Two Beverly Hills women are shopping on Rodeo
Drive when one of them notices a child in a baby carriage.

“Oh, look at that beautiful baby!” says the first woman.

“Aww, how adorable,” says her friend.

Then the first woman gasps.

“Oh my God, that’s
my
baby!”

“How do you know?”

“I recognize the nanny.”

Chapter 16
My Dad

H
e was an old-fashioned dad. For all the fame and money my father had earned, at his core he was a working-class guy, the middle son of a large family from Toledo, Ohio.

I’ve listened to many sad “dad tales” from some of my women friends—about their distracted, non-demonstrative or simply unloving fathers. These stories have always sounded so foreign. My father truly enjoyed the company of his children. He hugged and kissed us daily, he told us that he loved us, he was emotional. We used to kid him that he cried at basketball games.

Through the years, whenever I called home, it was always a boost. When he’d hear my voice, I could hear the pleasure in his. “How’s my beauty?” he’d say. I once said something to him that I was sorry about later, and when I called to apologize, he said, “Mugs, you know you can do no wrong with me.”

In 1965, Dad’s pal, Joe Robbie, asked him to partner with him to buy the Miami Dolphins, the first expansion team of what was then the American Football League. Dad was a big sports fan, so this was an irresistible opportunity for him.

Dad greets Joe Auer in the end zone. They’d both run 95 yards, Joe with the football, my father with the cigar.

In their first game, the Dolphins received the opening kickoff from the Oakland Raiders, and running back Joe Auer sprinted an amazing 95 yards for a touchdown. My dad was so excited that he jumped off the bench and ran along the sidelines the entire way with Auer, his cigar clenched in his teeth, his change falling out of his pockets, yelling “Go, baby, go!” When Auer finally crossed into the end zone, my father grabbed him and kissed him. He was a different kind of owner.

Dad brought that childlike enthusiasm to everything he did. When I was at USC, I got a 3.8 average one semester. He was so proud, he took my report card onto
The Tonight Show
with him, and boasted to Johnny Carson, “This is my kid—3.8! I have to talk to her through an interpreter.” Dad was a frequent guest of Johnny’s, and spoke to him like he was sitting next door with a friend. It was there that he made the announcement to Johnny (and America) that I had gotten my first bra, the audience howling at his vivid description of it. I didn’t leave the house for a week.

But most of all he was a storyteller, and he found an audience to tell his stories to wherever he happened to be. I was on a plane once, going from Los Angeles to New York, and the flight attendant told me that she’d recently had my father on a flight, and what a delight he was. She said she saw him get up to stretch, then walk around and talk to a few people in their seats. Before long, he was enrapturing all of First Class with his tales, and they were howling. He had turned an American Airlines flight into his own personal dinner show. Most celebrities board a plane and try to hide themselves for a little privacy. Not my dad. Where else can you find a captive audience . . . for five hours?! He was in heaven.

And sometimes he couldn’t let go of my boyfriends, even after I had. In college, I was pinned to a boy named Jimmy Pugh, a basketball player on a scholarship who was going into dental school. My father adored Jimmy and respected him for trying to make a better life for himself. I know in his heart, Dad had hoped I would marry Jimmy, but I was restless to get to New York and start studying acting. So that was the end of Jimmy and me. What I didn’t know was that it wasn’t the end of Jimmy and Dad.

After I had already moved east, Jimmy would still come to our house and have beers with Dad, and they’d talk for hours. After one of these visits, Dad walked Jimmy to his car—but it wasn’t out front. Somewhat sheepishly, Jimmy explained that his car was such a “heap” that he’d parked it near the alley, rather than having it sit in front of our house. When Dad took one look at that awful jalopy, he exploded.

“You’re going to be a dentist!” he said. “You can’t let anything happen to your hands. You’ll break every bone in your body in this wreck!”

Dad had just been sent a brand-new pickup truck from a company that he’d done a favor for, so he opened the garage and said to Jimmy, “Here, take this. I’ll never drive it.” I wouldn’t learn about this until years later, after my father died, when Jimmy wrote me a condolence letter telling me the whole story.

“I was overwhelmed and reluctant to accept it,” he wrote, “but your father got furious with me and made me drive it away on the spot.”

I read the letter in awe, amazed that Dad had never mentioned this to me. But how typical of him—Jimmy may have lost the girl but he gained a V-8 engine with an automatic transmission.

WHEN I WAS AT
Marymount High School, my best friend, Moya, and I were always up to some kind of mischief. We had to do something with all those unexpressed hormones. Not only was the school girls-only, but all of the teachers were nuns. There was hardly a male presence, except for the gardener—and the prettiest nun ran off with him. And there was the daily visit from FATHER from the nearby parish to say the Mass for us. The nuns were very respectful, adoring—and terrified—of FATHER.

“Oh yes, FATHER. Oh no, FATHER. Oh, thank you, FATHER.”

In a regular church Mass, the priest is assisted by altar boys, who bring him the chalice of wine and place the bells. Back then, females were not permitted behind the altar rail. No female—not even a nun. So when Father came to say Mass at Marymount, he had to do it all on his own. God forbid any female should be let past that rail.

This really irked Moya and me. So one day, just before Mass, we decided to remove the altar bells. These bells are used at a very important part of the Mass. They are rung three times, one after each “Lord, I am not worthy.”

The service began, and while all of the other girls were focused on the Mass as they should have been, Moya and I waited excitedly for the moment when Father would reach for the bells—which were always placed directly to his right. When the time finally came, we watched his hand reaching in vain, fumbling for the missing bells.

And then he did something that made us choke to keep from laughing. He called out in a loud voice, “Ding-a-ling-a-ling.” We couldn’t believe it. And then again, “Ding-a-ling-a-ling.” And then a third time, “Ding-a-ling-a-ling.”

The two thirteen-year-old girls doubled over in the back row were promptly suspended.

My father was summoned to a conference—“about your daughter”—with Reverend Mother Emmanuel. Unfortunately, I was invited, too. I was terrified of Reverend Mother. She was tough, no-nonsense. Her face squeezed by her binding, starched white habit, she looked out at you with severe green eyes.

On this particular day, that look was aimed at Mr. Thomas, as she told him in very strong words what a very bad girl I had been. She then rose proudly, determinedly, to her feet and pronounced her final sentence—the death sentence for Mr. Thomas’s daughter.

“I’m afraid, Mr. Thomas, that Margaret does not have the poise for a Marymount girl.”

Then my father rose. “I know, Reverend Mother,” he said humbly. “That’s why I’ve given her to you.”

Check. I could see a glint in those severe green eyes. Reverend Mother knew she had met her match.

When we got in the car to drive home, I told my father how brilliant he was, and laughed at how he had checkmated Reverend Mother. But Dad didn’t smile back. He looked at me sternly.

“I don’t ever want to have to face off with that woman again,” he said. “And I don’t ever want to hear that you have done something unfitting at a Mass. Mass is not the place for jokes.”

I felt awful. He was disappointed in me. We drove in silence for a few minutes, and then he said, “I was good though, wasn’t I?” Then we laughed. It was good to have a dad on your side.

DID YA HEAR THE ONE ABOUT . . .

A Catholic teenage boy goes to confession, and confesses to a night
of mortal sinning with a girl. The priest tells him that he can’t be forgiven unless he reveals who the girl is.

“I promised not to tell anyone!” he says.

“Was it Mary Patricia, the butcher’s daughter?” the priest asks.

“No,” the boy says, “and I said I wouldn’t tell.”

“Was it Mary Elizabeth, the printer’s daughter?”

“No, and I still won’t tell!”

“Was it Mary Francis, the baker’s daughter?”

“No!” says the boy.

“Well, son,” says the priest, “say six Hail Marys
and ask God’s forgiveness.”

Outside, the boy’s friends ask him how it went.

“It went great,” he says. “I got six Hail Marys and three good leads.”

Chapter 17
Harry and the Parakeet

T
here’s an old joke that Harry Crane loved to tell us when we were kids.

A woman goes into a drugstore. She walks up to the salesman—an uptight, condescending sort—and asks him if they have any talcum powder. The salesman walks prissily in front of her and says, “Walk this way, madam.” And the woman says, “If I could walk that way, I wouldn’t need the talcum powder.”

Terre, Tony and I loved that joke. The poor maître d’ or hostess who led us into practically any dining room across America with the words “Walk this way” was always followed by giggles of laughter—and not just our giggles, but the giggles of the great instigator himself, Dad.

When I was just a little thing, I’d be in an elevator with my father, and I’d snuggle close to him.

“Please, madam,” he’d say in a loud voice. “I’m a married man.” Everyone in the elevator would laugh. The laughter made the world seem small and friendly.

Harry Crane was a wonderful comedy writer who worked with most of the boys, a lot for my dad. They were great pals. Harry had a very dry delivery, and he was fun to be around. Good thing, because he was always at our house for dinner.

Deadpan and sarcastic, Harry had a tender heart and I loved him dearly. He knew I wanted to be an actress from an early age, so when I was around twelve, he gave me a subscription to the Fireside Theatre book club for Christmas. Fireside sent a different play every month. I had never read plays before, but I immediately got hooked. Once I had read the first one, I couldn’t wait for the next one to arrive. Odets, Hellman, Miller. Harry opened a whole new world of ideas and feelings for me.

He was also a true New Yorker, impatient and aggressive, and he’d never wait in line for anything. Once, Dad, Harry, and I were on a plane to Las Vegas when the pilot announced that the equipment had a problem and that we’d have to disembark and change planes. Our tickets were still usable, the pilot said, they just had to be stamped at the next gate.

All of the passengers rushed out to get in line for the other plane, but by the time we gathered our things, the line was quite long. Harry took one look at it and snapped into action. He grabbed the tickets out of our hands, marched to the front of the line and angrily approached the attendant.

“You didn’t stamp these tickets!” he said to her accusingly.

The attendant, clearly contrite, apologized to Harry and immediately stamped the tickets. Then he turned around with that impish twinkle of his and walked back to us, his adoring audience. Pure Harry.

Even in the worst of circumstances, Harry was genetically incapable of resisting a punch line. He had hypoglycemia and often needed to get sugar into his system. One day, he was shopping in Beverly Hills, and feeling an urgent need for sugar, he ran into Nate ’n Al’s deli and said to the guy behind the counter, “Quick, give me an orange!”

“We don’t sell oranges here, sir,” said the counter guy, who was too busy making pastrami double-deckers to help a man about to go into a serious swoon. “Have the hostess give you a table and your waitress will be right with you.”

“Can’t wait,” Harry said frantically. “Please give me an orange right away!”

The counter guy stuck to his guns, but before he could even get out another word, Harry keeled over in a dead faint. He was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.

Joey Bishop heard about the news and called Harry at the hospital.

Joey:
“How are you feeling?”

Harry:
“I’m fine now. Thanks for calling.”

Joey:
“Where are you?”

Harry:
“You know where I am. You just called me here.”

Joey:
“No, no—I mean, how do I get there?”

Harry:
“Just go to Nate ’n Al’s and order an orange.”

Harry also loved practical jokes. He and Jerry Lewis would concoct outrageous crank telephone schemes, tape the calls, then bring them over to our house for us to listen to. They’d go through the newspapers looking for ideas. The transcript that follows is from a call they made answering a classified ad placed by a guy who’d found a stray parakeet and wanted to locate the owner. In this one, Harry got to be the caller, while Jerry hung in the background, laughing and egging him on.

Most people get crank calls out of their system during adolescence. But The Boys were like big kids—they’d do anything to make each other laugh. And this is how they entertained themselves when they weren’t entertaining an audience.

T
HE
L
OST
P
ARAKEET

Guy on Phone:
Hello?

Harry Crane:
Hello. Did you advertise that you found a parakeet?

Guy:
Yes, we did. It’s a green bird.

Harry:
That’s right. How long have you had it?

Guy:
We found it Monday, I believe.

Harry:
Oh, you’re so kind. What did it do, fly in the window?

Guy:
No, my sister was out on the back porch and she saw it. Then my mother came out, and it jumped onto her finger and we brought it in.

Harry:
Isn’t that nice. I hope it’s my bird.

Guy:
I hope so, too.

Harry:
Has it been talking?

Guy:
No, it hasn’t talked, but . . .

Harry:
Is the bird there right now?

Guy:
Yes.

Harry:
Put the bird on so I can talk to him.

Guy:
Well, I don’t know if it’ll talk on the telephone.

Harry:
The bird will talk—if it’s my bird.

Guy:
Well, it’s in a strange house. We had a bird that talked, too, and we lost it. It flew away and some people caught it, but they couldn’t get it to talk.

Harry:
I see. Well, can you have the bird fly over to my house tonight?

Guy:
Well . . .

Harry:
I’ll tell you what to tell the bird. Do you have a pencil?

Guy:
Yes, I do.

Harry:
Tell the bird . . .

Guy:
Yes.

Harry:
To fly straight down Beverly Boulevard.

Guy:
Fly down Beverly Boulevard.

Harry:
Right. Go down Beverly Boulevard to La Cienega.

Guy:
To La Cienega.

Harry:
Yeah. And tell the bird not to go during rush hour. Then tell him to make a left turn on La Cienega . . .

Guy:
Left on La Cienega.

Harry:
Yes, to 1213 South La Cienega. He knows the apartment.

Guy:
Oh.

Harry:
And if you’ll be so kind, can you tie a little birdseed to his leg? Because he’s just a baby. Has he been crying?

Guy:
No.

Harry:
Has he been yelling “Nat?” That’s my name, Nat.

Guy:
Uh . . . no.

Harry:
I’m heartbroken. You haven’t hit him, have you?

Guy:
No!

Harry:
That’s good.

Guy:
Can we call you in case he seems reluctant about . . .

Harry:
Flying here?

Guy:
Yes, because it’s a long ways, and he may not be up to flying back. It’s a pretty hard flight. And there are cats around and such.

Harry:
Well, I don’t know. I mean, he’s never soloed at night. But he’ll do a day flight. If you let him fly at about four o’clock, he can make it in an hour.

Guy:
But that’ll be during rush hour.

Harry:
He’ll be fine if he doesn’t stop to fool around or anything. My bird can go pretty good, you know. And if he gets lost, he can always call me.

Guy:
Well, he hasn’t asked to use the telephone yet, and we have some other people who think this bird belongs to them . . .

Harry:
I’d like to see them take that bird.

Guy:
Well, there’s a lot of green birds and . . .

Harry:
I’d like to see them take my bird.

Guy:
Well, I can’t say if it’s your bird. What is the number on his band?

Harry:
Does he have a band on?

Guy:
Yes. Doesn’t your bird have a band?

Harry:
No.

Guy:
Oh. This bird has a band.

Harry:
Well, somebody put that band on, damn it!

Guy:
Well, we talked to some bird owners down the street, and they say it’s impossible to get a band on or off once the bird is grown.

Harry:
No, that’s not true. Look, if I give you my number, will you call me?

Guy:
Yes.

Harry:
At five o’clock sharp?

Guy:
Uh-huh.

Harry:
You sure?

Guy:
Yes.

Harry:
OK. I’m at Hollywood three . . .

Guy:
Hollywood three . . .

Harry:
. . . five, two, one, five.

Guy:
. . . five, two, one, five.

Harry:
Can you read that back to me?

Guy:
Hollywood three, five, two, one, five?

Harry:
No. It’s Hollywood three, five, two, one, five. You’ll call, right?

Guy:
Yes.

Harry:
At five.

Guy:
I’ll call at five.

Harry:
You won’t fail, no matter what?

Guy:
No.

Harry:
Because I’m so crazy about that bird.

Guy:
Okay.

Harry:
You won’t let me down?

Guy:
No.

Harry:
Okay. [
Laughs
]

(Click.)