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As Harry Gelbart expertly cut and coiffed my hair, I thought this must be more like a hobby to him than a job. In New York he would be going to work every day like everybody else. In Hollywood he was having some fun. Then I wondered, what do you tip a man whose son the comedy writer has just written
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
?

“By the way,” Mr. Gelbart said. “Have you met Brad Dexter?” He pointed to the man in the next chair, reading a paper.

Should I know Brad Dexter?
I thought. People had names out there that sounded as if you should know who they were. They often seemed to have first names that were famous by themselves, and then when the second name was mentioned it’d just confuse me.

“Brad, this is Jerry Stiller. He and his wife are opening at the Crescendo next week.”

How did Harry Gelbart know that? I asked myself.

Brad looked like an actor I was sure I’d seen on TV or in the movies.

“Jerry, how are you?” He shook my hand. It was a very macho grip. A Hollywood grip. “I’ve really enjoyed you and Anne on
Sullivan
.”

“Well, thanks,” I said.
He’s probably a producer
, I thought.

“Good luck at the Crescendo next week. I’ll be down to catch you.”

He got up and said good-bye to Mr. Gelbart.

“Do you know who he is?” Mr. Gelbart asked a moment later.

“No,” I said.

“He saved Frank Sinatra’s life last week. Frank was swimming off Malibu. He got a cramp and Brad went in after him. Didn’t you hear about it?”

“No, I didn’t,” I said, acting amazed, trying desperately to be part of the event now past.

When Mr. Gelbart was finished fixing my hair, I took no chances and put down $10 as the tip. I knew I was overtipping, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be well thought of, like Willie Loman.

When I got home I showed everyone my haircut.

“It’s great,” Charlie Robinson said. “As good as Sebring, and half the price. Who did you have? Larry Gelbart’s father?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Yeah, I told him all about you,” Charlie said. “I gave him your credits. This gets around, you know. He’ll tell everyone you’re opening next week. It’ll get a lot of important people in.”

“He knew all about us.”

“This is California,” Charlie said.

The next day Charlie asked if I wanted to go out to 20th Century-Fox to see him shoot. “I’m doing a couple of days on
77 Sunset Strip
. It’ll be good for you to come watch. They give me a limo, and you can meet some of the people on the show.”

“Okay,” I said, “but I don’t want to embarrass you. I’m going to wear my best suit, the one I wear in the act. It’ll go with the limo,” I told him.

The next day the temperature was close to 105. I wore my black shantung, got in the chauffeur-driven, air-conditioned limo, and Charlie and I headed for the lot.

“How did you manage the limo?” I asked.

“It’s in the contract,” Charlie said. “My agent, Paul Kohner, put it in. You’ve got to fight for it. They respect that. It’s like being seen in the right restaurants.”

What he was saying ran totally against my grain. I could never fight for stuff like that. When we reached the studio gates the car window moved down electrically. “Jerry Stiller and Charles Robinson,” Charlie informed the guard.

“Go right in, Mr. Robinson,” the guard dutifully replied.

“They seem to know us,” I said to Charlie.

“They treat everybody like he might be the head of the studio. It’s called fear.”

On the set, Charlie introduced me to the makeup man, who greeted me with startling warmth and enthusiasm. As Charlie changed, the costume lady, a woman with a Cockney accent, mentioned that her parents were British music-hall performers. She talked as if she knew me. I was fascinated. She said she’d been raped backstage in Birmingham, England, by an acrobat, when, as a six-year-old, she’d been watching her parents perform. This was more information than I wanted to know. By
the time Charlie came out to shoot his scene, I knew everything about her. I thought of Hollywood in a new way. It’s a place where everyone has a story and is willing to share it with strangers.

“You look fine, Charles,” the costume lady said.

“Come on,” Charlie said to me. “You’ll meet Edd Byrnes.”

“Nice meeting you,” the costume lady said as we went off.

“Same here,” I said.

I was introduced to Edd “Kookie” Byrnes, the kid with the duck’s-ass hairdo. He seemed in a rush but was very nice. Charlie then short-circuited Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., who was changing costumes. Zimbalist stopped everything, came over, and made me feel at home. I couldn’t get over his warmth and hospitality. I was sweating profusely. The heat was unrelenting and my shirt was wringing wet. I did not dare unloosen my tie. I wanted to look good for Charlie.

“I’ve got to get ready for my next scene,” Zimbalist said apologetically. “Nice meeting you, sir.”

“Same,” I said.

When Charlie finished shooting we headed back to the limo.

I said, “Charlie, I can’t get over how everyone treated me. You must’ve said something. They told me stories about their lives. They called me ‘sir.’ They were all over me.”

“That’s because you were wearing that suit and tie in 105 degrees. They all thought you were Jack Warner’s son.”

“You’re kidding?”

“I’m not. The costume lady told everyone you were Jack Warner’s son. It got around the studio.”

Our opening at the Crescendo in December of 1964 was a Hollywood dream. Every TV name in the business came to see us. Our “Jonah and the Whale” routine, which we changed to a man visiting his daughter at Laguna Beach instead of Miami Beach, stopped the show. The trade papers gave us raves. Before the run ended we were signed for a return engagement. By the end of the week, we were signed for
The Danny Kaye Variety Show
and three more
Sullivan
shows. Oscar Marienthal booked us into Mr. Kelly’s in Chicago with Helen O’Connell; Shelley Berman had us on his “The Sex Life of the Primate” album; and we had an engagement with the Supremes at the Flamingo.

We opened for the Supremes in Vegas.

On one
Sullivan
show we had written a sketch in which I played a
forty-year-old son telling his mother he was in love and wanted to marry a girl. But he had some qualms because the girl was of a different ethnic background.

“That’s all right, she’ll convert,” Anne said in a typically motherly way.

“But, Mom, you don’t understand, she’s …”

“Bring her around, we’ll talk,” Anne says. “What does she do?”

“She’s part of a group, a singing group.”

“What do they call themselves? I know them all.”

“The Supremes,” I would say. Blackout. Huge laugh.

After doing the sketch on the
Sullivan
show we received a postcard with an illegible address and the following message: “We used to like youse people but since you had that sketch where the white guy wants to marry the colored girl we’re writing CBS and Sullivan to take youse off the air.” The postcard made me wonder whether Sullivan too had received bad mail about the sketch. When I mentioned the card and its content to Ed, he looked at me and said, “You let me take care of that.” At that moment, he was our mountain.

Seeing the sketch on
Sullivan
must have given some imaginative booker the bright idea to put Stiller and Meara and the Supremes together at the Flamingo. We did the Supremes sketch in the show. None of the Supremes ever mentioned seeing it.

T
he tour was over. We were back in Washington Heights. Our careers were in high gear. With all the good things happening we decided it was time to have another child. And we had saved enough money to think about moving to a better address.

“We’re doing
The Ed Sullivan Show
,” Anne said, “and we’re living like we’re broke. If we paid more rent we’d make more money,” she argued. “What you put out, you get back, and more.”

She scared the hell out of me. What had I married? She wasn’t like this when we first went out and she stole the silverware from Longley’s Cafeteria.

“We’ve been here five years. Find another place before I go into the hospital.”

“Otto Harbach, George Gershwin—they all lived here in Washington Heights,” I said

“And they all moved,” Anne said. “Gershwin didn’t write ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ on 160th Street.”

I could see she wasn’t kidding. “You don’t know what we’re giving up,” I said.

“Me. If you don’t find another apartment, you’re giving up
me
.”

I took the subtle hint. I started by bribing janitors on Riverside Drive. I’d do this every time I saw a janitor who looked like he might come through for me. The farther downtown I got, the more I’d
shtup
. I was hoping some superintendent would recognize me from
Sullivan
, and like the act enough to give me an apartment on the spot.

I’d ring a super’s bell and introduce myself. “I’m looking for an apartment,” I’d say. “We have an infant daughter and my wife is pregnant.”

I’d stand there for a second, waiting for some response. Invariably there was a language barrier followed by, “My wife talk to you.”

I would explain to the wife that I desperately needed an apartment and I would be willing to give them one month’s rent as a gift.

“Dinero por una apartment,” I’d say in broken Spanish.

“You give me your telephone number.”

I’d write down our phone number, then take out $25 to show I was serious and that there was more where that came from.

“Gracias,” they’d say.

“My name is Stiller. Jerry Stiller,” I’d say in a loud voice.

They’d repeat, “‘Jerry Stiller.’ Thank you.”

I put seed money in about ten apartment buildings. I figured if even one of them called it’d be worth it. I got no calls. Meantime Anne and I were working on our next
Sullivan
date, scheduled for two weeks after the baby was due. We couldn’t afford to cancel the date. On our last
Sullivan
show, Anne had been in her fifth month. This time it was conceivable the baby could be born on the show. It would be a first for
Sullivan
. “But could you do it in six minutes?” Sullivan might ask.

A week before Ben arrived, Arthur Brendel, a real-estate agent, called and said that Dick Shawn had said we were looking, and there was an apartment on Riverside Drive in the 80s that Dick had turned down. It had just become available. “Get right over.”

I raced over. Five rooms, three facing the river. “How much?” I asked the agent.

“Two hundred and fifty dollars plus a month’s rent in advance and a month’s security. You paint it yourself, but you must meet the building agent.”

I called Anne to tell her the great news. “We have just enough to cover the first month’s rent plus the security,” she said.

“We’ll have enough once we do the
Sullivan
show.”

Ed Sullivan had just bought us for five shows. He had no idea we were hanging by a thread financially.

“I’m supposed to go see the building agent,” I told Anne. “Right now.”

Mr. Brendel was Viennese and his office was on Fifth Avenue. A secretary asked me to sit. A few minutes later he walked in and introduced
himself. He seemed proper, authoritative, and sensitive. He wore a brown business suit that matched his eyes.

“What do you do, Mr. Stiller?” he asked.

“I’m an actor,” I said.

“Have I ever seen you in anything?”

I could see that somehow I had to prove I was not unemployed.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Do you watch Ed Sullivan?”

“Sometimes,” he said, “but I don’t recognize you.”

“My wife and I have been on a few times,” I said.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a comedian,” I said. This was like Claude Rains, the chief of police in
Casablanca
, interrogating Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo. I was being interrogated, but I desperately needed the apartment.

“What kind of comedian?”

“My wife and I are a comedy act, Stiller and Meara.”

“Who’s the funny one?” he said.

“She is,” I said quietly.

“Where is she now?”

“She’s home.”

“Why isn’t she with you?”

“She’s pregnant,” I said. I suddenly felt a wave of guilt sweeping over me, as if I had impregnated some innocent woman.

His eyes examined me like a man who knew he was in charge of another person’s fate. “I know a little about show business,” he said. “I worked at a nightclub in London. I like show people.”

I looked at him soulfully.

“You know who had this apartment years ago? Lou Walters.”

“The owner of the Latin Quarter,” I said.

“That’s right. I’d come to the apartment and put Barbara on my lap and play with her when I collected the rent. She was a nice girl. And now she’s on the
Today
show.”

I listened, captured by his sudden eagerness to talk show business.

“This apartment, you know, was most recently leased by a man for his girlfriend. He decided to give her up and she couldn’t meet the rent, so I need someone right away to take it over. Are you willing to paint it yourself?”

“Of course,” I said.

Landlords were supposed to paint when an apartment was turned over, but I was not going to quibble.

“One month’s security and one month’s rent in advance. But I must meet your wife.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I want to meet her. I have a right, don’t I?”

“Yes,” I quickly agreed. I was beginning to like him.

I picked up the phone and told Anne we had the apartment if she could get down to say hello to the renting agent.

“I’m writing something for Sullivan,” she said.

“You gotta come down,” I said.

“Okay.” She sensed the urgency in my voice.

“Go out and get yourself a cup of coffee,” the agent said to me. “I’ll see you and your wife in an hour.”

An hour later Anne, all 185 pounds of her, walked into the office.

“Sit down,” the man from Vienna said. “Your husband told me you’re comedians.”