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Taking care of yourself feels great. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results. May vary.
See website for details. This is Hoda Kotb from Joy One Hundred One with Hoda Kotb. Every purchase is a financial decision, so it's worth asking, "What am I getting out of this?" If you're using the Chase Freedom Flex Card, you can maximize your cash back on things you need. More ways to earn, more ways to get rewarded. Sign up for the Chase Freedom Flex Card.
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Offers subject to change. Terms apply. If you remember listening to this and this and this, then listen to this. Your immune system weakens as you age, putting you at higher risk for flu, pneumococcal pneumonia, RSV, and COVID. Ask your doctor about getting your recommended vaccines and how they can help protect you from getting really sick.
You can also check your eligibility and book at VaxAssist.com. Pfizer outdo yesterday. This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people coming to you from the city where the West begins, Fort Worth, Texas. Our next story is about a comedian whose jokes came so fast that when you laughed at one, you were probably going to miss the next. Here's Greg Hengler with a story.
Anybody can repeat a Rodney Dangerfield joke, but nobody could tell one like the man himself. That's because his humor was drawn from a life so hard that the only way to survive it was to laugh at it, and we all do. In fact, Rodney is one of the very few comedians whose act connects and appeals to every generation. This is his story. When all people say to me, "How did you get a name like Rodney Dangerfield?" I'll tell you what happened.
Hi, I saw your ad in the paper. I want to improve my personality. Good luck. What's your name? I'm Jack Roy.
Jack Roy, you got two first names. Your name is your biggest problem. What's the name? Rodney Dangerfield. Rodney Dangerfield.
With a name like Rodney Dangerfield, you have to either be really funny or you have to be an idiot. And you were really funny as Rodney Dangerfield. If you look at his image and his material and the way he dressed, the way he conducted himself, the name Rodney Dangerfield just fit. Suppose I use the name I don't like it. Can I bring it back?
Okay, just do me one favor. While you're using the name, don't give it a bad name. This persona is what made this man special. What a crowd! Rodney was totally unique.
He was a different kind of performer. There was never one like that before, and there's never been one like that since. He was funny, and he was every man. And Rodney Dangerfield, if he was anything else, was authentic. Rodney's jokes were all true.
They were all based on his real perception of himself. I tell you, it's not easy being me. And this whole thing, it's not easy being me. It wasn't. He always felt someone was trying to take advantage of him.
I tell you, can't get help today. More going to betray him, or you know that he'd been somehow wronged. But then that just was something from his childhood. He's so wronged by his parents that he can never overcome it. Rodney Dangerfield was born Jacob Cohen on November 22, 1921, in Long Island, New York.
He was the son of Jewish parents, vaudeville performer Phil and housewife Dorothy. Here's comedian Argus Hamilton, Rodney's second wife, Joan Dangerfield, and literary agent Chris Calhoun.
Well, I told my old man never took me to the zoo. He said if they want you, I'll come and get you. He was born a really poor, rejected kid. His father, who adopted the stage name Roy, was on a comedy team in vaudeville and always on the road. Rodney's dad was absent from his life, which was a real source of heartache for Rodney.
His father saw him twice a year for about two thirty-minute visits. What a child that I had! My mother never breastfed me. She told me she liked me as a friend. His mother, a beautiful Hungarian Jew, couldn't stand him.
Didn't even tend him. Hardly even babysat him. He told me she never gave him a hug, or a kiss, or or even a compliment. Last week I looked up my family tree. I found out on the side he was really left to just go play in the backyard.
And there'd be half a sandwich on the on the porch, and he had to fend for himself. Even though his mother didn't show him much affection, it didn't stop him from being a loyal, devoted son. He worked at a newsstand before school, when he was in grade school, and he took every job he could get his hands on, and was actually the breadwinner of the family. He was starved for affection, attention. He tried to do good things.
He worked very hard to get good grades, and he presented his mother with a report card. She wouldn't even look at it. She just says, "Give me that sign," and she says, "You know what? You got to do.
Well, who are you trying to get good marks for? If your mother don't want to look at it." When Rodney was twelve, his mother Dorothy moved them to Q Gardens in Queens. Here's Chris Calhoun. His aunt Pearlie and Rodney's older sister were going to the movies, and he begged them to go. Aunt Pearlie said, "Well, if you scrub up, you can go." So he ran up the stairs and washed his face and hands.
And he came back down, and they were halfway down the block, laughing and running away from him. And he screamed out, "Please, I want to go! Please, I want to go!" And they never came back. He actually got his first laugh at five years old. He was still hungry after dinner and told his mother that he'd like some more food, and she said, "Well, you've had sufficient." And he said, "I didn't even have any fish." Sadly, everybody laughed, but he noticed that that mood lifted, and he never forgot that.
And kind of spent the rest of his life trying to get that good feeling back. I was very unhappy, so you try to think of comedy relief. You try to think of some way to write a funny joke or get a funny thought, and just to break up the how unhappy you are, I guess. He told me many times that when he would get laughter from the audience, that was the closest warm feeling he could compare to love. At the age of 15, Rodney Dangerfield began writing jokes.
When he turned 18, he took his father's stage name, Phil Roy, and started his comedic career under the stage name Jack Roy, in hopes of becoming a professional comedian like his idols W.C. Fields, Groucho Marx, and Laurel and Hardy. It all started when he was working as a young man in a club in Brooklyn called the Polish Falcon. And when the comic got off stage one evening, he got up and did a few jokes. Boy, when I arrived, you don't know what you go through in show business.
You kids in show business. At the time, I was a kid and doing what the kids do. I lacked maturity. I lacked an image. Here's comedian Harry Basil.
When Rodney started in show business as Jack Roy. He didn't know what he was doing yet. He sang on stage. He even used props for a while. He didn't know what type of a comedian he wanted to be.
As Jack Roy, he was really doing impressions—Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant and Jimmy Durante—and they weren't that good, really. And you've been listening to our own Greg Hangler and so many other voices telling the life story of Rodney Dangerfield, and of course, as is often the case with comedians—not always, but often—when we come back, more of the story of Rodney Dangerfield here on our American Stories. This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories. And all of our history stories are brought to us by our generous sponsors, including Hillsdale College, where students go to learn all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that matter in life. If you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.
Go to hillsdale.edu. That's Hillsdale. Edu. Power Slab Twenty Four arrives in Las Vegas on Friday, October ninth, at the Chelsea Theater at the Cosmopolitan. If you've never been to a Power Slap event, now is your chance to see one of the most exciting live sporting events on the planet.
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Terms apply. Don't, please don't tail this guy. I know it's easier. He sounds sure, but listen, you don't want to chase another guy's picks, man. You should see the way he dresses.
It's all a monthly subscription where he gets his clothes chosen for him. That's the guy you want to make the pick after? No, the pick should be yours. Do something you actually believe in. And if you're on underdog and you lock in, you can let him chase your tail.
Now you're a dog, underdog. Make your pick. Terms may apply. Fall savings are happening now at the Home Depot. Save up to five hundred dollars on select appliances.
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U.S. only. See store online for details. And we continue with our American stories, and our story of comedian Rodney Dangerfield. Let's pick up where we last left off with our own Greg Hengler.
Here's the former producer for the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Stan Irwin, former William Morris agent Ed Summerfield, and comedians Tommy Smothers and Rob Schneider. Jack Roy was also known as Mad Jack. Mad Jack comes from his attitude. He was angry on the street all the time. I said, "What are you so mad about?" Ah, you don't know what I go through, Eddie.
Every day it's something else. This agent and this girl and this club owner—can't they see I'm funny? He said, "I appeal to everyone who could do me absolutely no good." He was an angry man, but a sweet, angry man. I never saw him happy. He was always complaining.
Always complaining about this, complaining about that, and it sounded like a routine, but it wasn't a routine. Rodney suffered depression his whole life. He wasn't kidding. He was a depressed guy. He was down.
I mean, this afternoon I was in a bar. They told me get out. They wanted to start the happy hour. In 1949, Rodney is 28, having been on the comedy circuit for over 10 years and with nothing to show for his efforts. But things started to look up for Rodney when he met a beautiful jazz singer named Joyce Indig.
The two decided to get married, quit show business, and settle down. Rodney went out and became a aluminum siding salesman in the 1950s. And a lot of comedians made day money selling aluminum siding across the river in New Jersey. And Dangerfield was an excellent aluminum siding salesman. He believed that making the customer like you was an important part of getting the sale.
And so he he kind of you know used his humor to help him get his foot in the door. I live in a town called Bergenfield, New Jersey. And my best friend, Mark Levine, his parents' claim to fame was that Rodney Dangerfield did the aluminum siding on their house. And he told Murray and Gloria Levine, "I'm going to be a stand-up." And he told them a joke about an egg. Sex with me?
That's ridiculous. My wife makes love to me. There's always a reason for it. One night she used me to time an egg.
So he tells them that joke and gets in his car and drives away. And Mrs. Levine goes, "Murray, he'll never make it." When he was out of show business, working this square. Gig as a aluminum siding salesman, and living in the suburbs, and going on the road, and taking orders, lining up contractors. He continued to write jokes, and he kept a duffel bag in his bedroom at home, and he would just write funny jokes, funny jokes, funny jokes for 11 years.
He filled up this duffel bag with funny jokes.
Well, the other night I felt like having a few drinks, so I went to the bar. Tell him it's a surprise. Me, he showed me a naked picture of my wife. Joyce kept her promise; she quit the business. Rodney Jack Roy still had the bug in him to perform.
Rodney and Joyce would have two children, Brian and Melanie, but Rodney's inability to leave show business was breaking up his marriage. I got divorced, and life sort of caved in on me, and I said, "I'll go back in show business." You can't find perfection in relationships; I can find it in my work. He had filled, as he said, a bag of jokes that he had been writing, so he had a wealth of material.
So even though he had not been on the stage, he had been working, working on his act and working on his jokes. In 1962, at a failed stint in comedy, a failed marriage, and no money in the bank, Rodney returned to the comic circuit at the age of 40. But these struggles, along with his maturity, made Rodney a better comedian. His stage name, on the other hand, Jack Roy, was lacking. He went to a club that he had worked in the past, and and the club owner always ran the names of the acts in the Friday paper, the Mirror.
And Rodney wasn't sure he'd do very well, so instead of using the name Jack Roy, he told the club owner George McFadden to just make up a name.
So he made up a name. Rodney Dangerfield. Rodney Dangerfield. See, you just heard it. You're starting to say it.
Listen to me. Take the name. He was surprised that the name was Rodney Dangerfield, but it went so well that night. He killed, and he thought maybe maybe that's the name for him.
So it stuck and kind of became his lucky charm. The name change helped. But the angry guy routine also needed a makeover. The first thing he came up with is, with me, nothing goes right. I'll tell you, with me, you know, nothing works out.
And then he would write jokes accordingly to that. Every time I leave my house, my wife tells me to call her in case something goes right. Rodney's new routine was working. Earning him bookings in more prestigious venues, but at the age of 44, Rodney knew he needed more exposure. Live from New York.
There was no better venue at the time than the Ed Sullivan Show, but unknowns had to audition.
So Rodney auditioned in 1966, and he killed it. But Sullivan proved to be harder to win over. Sullivan never called after that. I said, see what do you have to do, man? I say I don't get a break with nothing.
After three long weeks, Rodney got the call to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show on March 5, 1967. I'll tell you, with my wife, we got nothing but arguments, and I can never get a word in. The other night, I told her, I said, "There's another side to that argument." She said, "I know, my mother's coming right over." Here's owner of Rodney's comedy club, Dangerfields, Anthony Bavacchia. The Ed Sullivan Show. If you did well, if the ovation was good, Ed Sullivan would call you back to take a bow.
That's it.
So his ovation was good.
So as the ovation is starting to dip a little bit, Ed Sullivan would be getting ready to bring on the next act. Rodney would, from behind the curtain, would peek his head out. He applause went sky high, and Sullivan encore take a take a vow, Rodney.
So Rodney would come out and take another vow, and then he would run back behind the curtain. And Sullivan never knew that. Rodney earned a thousand dollars for his first appearance on Sullivan. When it went well, he was booked more times at fifteen hundred dollars a pop. Here is Joan and comedians Harry Basil and Dennis Blair.
For Rodney, it was a very, very slow climb. In fact, even when he was doing Sullivan, he was still selling aluminum siding. He shows up at this guy's house to do aluminum siding, and about six o'clock he's doing the side and he says to the guy, "Hey, you mind if I come in and watch the TV for a little while?" The guy goes, "Okay." He turns on the TV and Rodney's on TV and he's watching himself, and the guy at the house is standing there and looking at him and looking at the TV, going, "What kind of alternate universe am I in?" The guy who's doing my siding is on Sullivan. Rodney also established his signature look and manic style of delivery. Here's Rodney, Stan Irwin, Pat Cooper, and producer George Schlatter.
First time I did the Ed Sullivan Show, I got dressed. I wore a black suit and a red tie and a white shirt. Then I did well, and he brought me back to do another show. What am I gonna wear the second time? I thought to myself, I don't know what to wear.
I can't figure it out. I wear the same thing.
So I got known for a red tie and a white shirt, a black suit, quite by accident. His mannerisms were individual. I mean, the reaching for the tie. No one else did it because if you did do it, you thought of Dangerfield. He was a fidgety guy.
The sweat was real. The ticks were real. He was constantly pulling, constantly nervous.
So that was just part of him that worked for the character. He walked out, and it looked like, hey, I just came in here. I want to tell you something, and it would look like an accident, but it was no accident. He prepared those jokes. The routine of those jokes.
The construction of the jokes. Are you kidding? Are you kidding? I know I'm ugly. I asked the bartender to make me a zombie.
Told me God beat him to it. The classic Rodney Dangerfield joke is, "Oh, I was ugly." Will you set it up? I came out. That's the middle. The doctor slapped my mother.
You know, and it reverses right at the end, and it has a meaning. And he loved that type of joke. I tell you my wife, she never went through it. The first time I called her up, she told me, "Come on over." There's nobody home. I went over.
There was nobody home. And you've been listening to our own Greg Hengler and many other voices tell the story. Of Jack Roy Rodney Dangerfield, known then as Mad Jack, because he was mad all the time, always complaining, and of course suffered depression throughout his life. But people liked him. It wasn't that kind of anger that put people off.
It was just who he was. He was at it for ten years, and then fell in love, got married, and sold aluminum siding in New Jersey, in Bergenfield, New Jersey, where my own dad was a teacher, and I lived one town. Over, he was good at it too. When we come back, more of the story of Rodney Dangerfield on Our American Stories. Power Slab Twenty Four arrives in Las Vegas on Friday, October ninth, at the Chelsea Theater at the Cosmopolitan.
If you've never been to a Power Slap event, now is your chance to see one of the most exciting live sporting events on the planet. Power Slap tickets in Las Vegas start at sixty dollars and can be purchased on Ticketmaster or Powerslap dot com. That's Friday, October ninth in Las Vegas at the Cosmopolitan. Tickets are on sale now. Don't miss out on this one of a kind live event.
If you're ready to feel confident again, visit orderlymeds.com to learn about which GLP-1 you may be eligible for. Getting started is fast, easy, and happens virtually through telemedicine from licensed professionals. Gain confidence, choose healthy habits this fall. Check it out for yourself. Go to orderlymeds.com.
That's orderlymeds.com. Taking care of yourself feels great. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results.
May vary. See website for details. This is Danielle Fischel from Pod Meets World. Every purchase is a financial decision, so it's worth asking: What am I getting out of this? If you're using the Chase Freedom Flex Card, you can maximize your cash back on things you need—groceries and gas, cash back.
Dinner, cash back on that too. More ways to earn, more ways to get rewarded. Sign up for the Chase Freedom Flex Card. Learn more at chase.com/getflex. This is a paid collaboration with Chase Freedom.
Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA, member FDIC. Subject to credit approval. Offer subject to change. Terms apply. Oh my gosh, you can't be serious!
You think making the pick is the hard part? No, it's not. The pick takes like three seconds. You know what's hard? The sweat, the time between locking in and cashing out.
Yeah, you have a take, but in the end, it's not about the winners or losers. This is about us, man. Whether we're brave enough to sit through it, don't fight the sweat, live in it, because you are an underdog. Underdog, unleash your dog. Terms may apply.
Fall savings are happening now at the Home Depot. Save up to five hundred dollars on select appliances. Plus, enjoy free delivery when you spend nine hundred ninety-eight dollars or more. Whether it's cube, crushed, or craft ice, LG keeps drinks cool for every occasion. And with twenty-six cubic feet of capacity, you'll have room for groceries, leftovers, and more.
Shop fall savings on appliance brands like LG at the Home Depot. Offer valid through October twenty-first. U.S. only. See store.
And we continue with our American stories, and the story of Rodney Dangerfield. Let's pick up where we last left off. Armed with a new name, look, and delivery, Rodney was gaining fans all across America. But his rocket didn't actually launch until he stumbled upon the greatest hook in the history of comedy. Here's comedians Domerera, Robert Townsend, Phyllis Diller, Fred Willard, George Lopez, Brad Garrett, Louis Anderson, and Dennis Blair.
It was just perfect. It was the most brilliant hook ever. He tapped into a brand that spoke to everybody in America. He had those wonderful bulgy eyes. And the tick, and the great delivery, and of all things, that wonderful line: "No respect, I don't got no respect at all." You've been the greatest story in my life.
No respect, I don't got no respect. And the audience just cheered. It's like Tony Bennett starting out with "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." Edel, here it comes. This is what we're waiting for. It's the same thing when I was a kid.
No respect. The time my old man took me to the zoo, they thanked him for returning me. From a kid who doesn't get to stay out and play longer, or the housewife and mother who works all day. At some point during the day, they go, "I don't get no respect." Jack Benny just thought that Rodney had probably the best image there ever was for comedy. Jack Benny came down to Rodney's dressing room once and said, "You know, my image is an image of a cheap guy.
It's okay." And he said to Rodney, "But your image gets into the soul of everybody. Everybody thinks they're not being respected." He knew he was starting to get a good reaction from the audiences, and he had booked this gig in Long Island with 400 people, and he he brought his dad to that show. His dad said, "You know, I think you've got something." And Rodney never forgot that, and he was so glad that that that approval came before his father passed. Rodney's hard work was paying off, but there was only one gig guaranteed to land his rocket on the moon: the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Here's comedian Richard Lewis.
That five and a half minutes, more people will see you. On that monologue, then if you played say this nightclub here three times a day, you know for like fifty years, so you better treat that six minutes like it's like gold. Johnny Carson got twenty to twenty-five million viewers a night. The whole country watched the Johnny Carson show, and most importantly, the whole industry watched the Tonight Show. You didn't get on the Tonight Show.
You weren't happening. You also could end your career there too. And if he said sit down, that was the ultimate. But to have a chance at a sit down, you first had to book the show. But that was impossible for Rodney because of a mistake he made years earlier.
Now I tell you, I'm all right now. But last week I was in rough shape, you know. He had been at the improv and he wrote a very funny joke, and it got a pretty good laugh at the club. And yet, a few days later, it was coming out of Johnny Carson's mouth. He was so upset that he wrote a letter to Johnny Carson.
Johnny Carson was very upset with the letter. Didn't really know Rodney, and he said, "Who is this guy that's saying I have a thief on the staff?" And Johnny did not want to use Rodney for the longest time. A few years later, a couple of the talent bookers came up to him after a performance and said, "Okay, you got you got to do Johnny's show." And Rodney said, "I'd like to, but you know, he doesn't want me." And they said, "Oh, he's forgotten about that. He's forgotten about that by now." And so they booked a date. And Rodney was like, "Oh, so happy and telling everyone, calling everybody," and then his phone rang.
And well, guess what? Johnny's not over it. One night, Rodney was at the Copacabana where Tony Bennett was on in 1969, and Johnny Carson pulled up in a limo with Stan Irwin, his producer, and saw the crowds just trying to get in, decide to give up. Rodney personally set him up with a table for two, and Rodney looked at at Johnny and said, "I'm sorry, I was wrong." Johnny said, "Forget about it." And the next thing he knew, "Would you welcome Mr. Rodney Dangerfield?" And Rodney became a national institution, just from just from how much Johnny liked him.
I tell you, last week was a rough week for me. Last week. I saw my kid in a milkman going to a father and son dinner. It was great. Did he come in?
Six minutes of all home runs. Rodney was not interested in entertaining an audience. He wanted to pulverize him. He wanted to kill him. Ladies and gentlemen, Rodney Dangerfield.
We wanted to leave him on the floor. Left. I tell you, I'm all right now. But last week I was in rough shape, you know. Last week I saw my doctor.
I told him, doctor, every day I wake up, I look in the mirror, I want to throw up. What's wrong with me? He said, I know, but your eyesight is perfect. He used to tell me, when you go on the Carson show, you got to do damage. You got to do damage.
There was a stand-up and there was the panel part. Which can I deliver to Johnny, and which do I want to play to the audience with? This was all part of the crap. He just killed Johnny. I mean, Johnny would literally cry and.
And he was one of the few that could do that in the industry. I'll tell you what you hear is sex with sex. I had it up to here. Yeah, not lately though. I don't think I ever saw Johnny Carson laugh as long and as loud as.
Hasn't Rodney was next there? Here's Jeff Ross.
Well, those are the best clips, you know. When you see Johnny Carson laughing, and he was such a great set up man with Rodney, so they had a fun chemistry. It used to take me three months to prepare a talk show between the stand up and the panel. I needed thirty two new jokes that were all funny, this and that, and and that's how long it would take me to prepare six or eight minutes. When he would write a joke, he would literally write a joke.
I mean, he would start maybe with a with a thought and write that down, and then he'd keep kind of adding to it and reworking it and reworking it. Last week I went to the track. I shot off the opening gun. They killed my horse. Every show that he did on television, his handwritten, Mike Douglas, Mer Griffin.
Steve Allen's show, every show that he did. By 1969, at the age of 48, Rodney's success on Carson made him a national phenomenon. He could now command tens of thousands of dollars in Vegas, but he was about to be confronted with an event that would force him to choose between his family and his career. His ex-wife Joyce was suffering with debilitating arthritis, and she began drinking heavily to deal with her condition. Here's comedians Harry Basil and Paul Rodriguez.
And Harry was famous. He was Rodney Dangerfield, and there was a big demand for him to go on the road. The job of a stand-up comic is crowded, so crowded, and just to get a little bit of attention is so difficult. And when you have a little of attention, you want more. You don't just walk away because you got to raise some kids.
Who does that? Rodney did. But he decided to open up his own club and put his name on it, kind of like Ricky Ricardo with the club Babalu. You know, just going to work every day and being there for the kids, and just going and working at nighttime. Rodney opened Dangerfields on New York's Lower East Side.
The comedy club was a success, but it still failed to get him any respect. He said to me, "He says, you know, I'm here. I am. I got my own club. I'm trying to do well.
And this woman came up to me, Eddie, and she said, 'Rodney, could I have your autograph and some more butter?' Joyce's condition continued to deteriorate, and she passed away, leaving Rodney the single father of seven-year-old Melanie and eleven-year-old Brian. He had his priorities right. Raised his children. Once they were adults, once they had their own their own lives, once his responsibility was over, he went back, and became even bigger than he was. The first step after Rodney's return to the world of comedy was a chance meeting with a young director and writer named Harold Ramis, who was about to shoot a low-budget movie called Caddyshack.
And you've been listening to our own Greg Hengler and a panel of voices tell the story of Rodney Dangerfield. That tagline making all the difference. I don't get no respect. And in the end, getting on the Tonight Show, delivering on the biggest show in America, as he put it, "When you go on the Carson Show, you've got to do damage," and boy, did he! And the amount of work that went into it—six months, he said, for six minutes of stand-up and six minutes of sit-down—and of course, then came the tragedy in 1969.
His wife, his ex-wife, got sick, and he had to raise his kids. He walked away from it all, only to come back. Big. And better. When we come back, the rest of the story on our American Stories.
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See. And we continue with our American stories and the story of Rodney Dangerfield. Let's pick up where we last left off. So we worked on his first day's shooting, and I said, "All right, action." Rodney, action. He says, "You want me to do the bit?" I said, "Yeah, do the bit." Okay, so he didn't.
He was so raw, he didn't even understand that action was the the signal to start. But the the punchline to that is, by the end of the shoot, he finished the scene and he came over to me. He said, "I guess I'm an actor." The first scene he ever shot. He starts to sweat. I say, Oh my God, this guy's gonna have a heart attack.
I go, you know.
So in between takes, I go, Rodney, you okay? No, no. He said, What's what's the matter? I suck. I'm suck.
I'm I'm dying out there. I said, What do you mean? Nobody's laughing. Nobody's laughing. I said, Rodney, they can't laugh, right?
Because I suck. I said, Rodney, they can't laugh because they won't be able to use the soundtrack.
So let's dance. Caddyshack was released in 1980 and was a smash hit, but its true success is found in the avid cult following it's developed over the years. Here's Everybody Loves Raymond co-star Brad Garrett. The man's a menace. Most comedians, that's probably one of their top 10 movies of all time, and it's it's what we call a road movie.
It's something when we get on the bus or get on a plane, we take literally with us and we watch, and it stands up still today. In 1983, at the age of 61, Rodney was asked to play the role of a hard-living derelict and degenerate named Monty Capuleti. Here's the writer for Easy Money, Dennis Blair. This was like the height of his popularity, and he goes, "So they want to do a movie starring me." So if you come up with an idea, let me know.
So by the next night, I had this idea: just you know, a guy has to stop drinking, smoking, and gambling for a year to get ten million dollars. He thought that's a good idea. I'm very familiar with him, and there's a part of me that's part of him too. You know, the idea that a good time is going to the track and having a few drinks and gambling. That's part of me too, my personal life.
It's hard to contain myself. That's where we got the idea for the movie. Comedy comes from tragedy, and that could not be more true about anyone, more than Rodney Dangerfield. He really was a tortured soul, who turned it into a lot of jokes and making everyone else laugh. But he didn't laugh a lot himself.
Rodney's next movie was his greatest success and earned him a new generation of fans. Back to School dropped in 1986, ingrossed more than 100 million dollars at the box office, and became another cult hit with the college kids, a group that would become one of Rodney's most enthusiastic fans. At 65, Rodney had finally climbed to the top of the comedy world. Mindful of his struggles, Rodney used his status and his HBO comedy show to help jumpstart the careers of talented and up-and-coming comedians. I know how tough it is for a comedian when he starts.
If I see a guy who I think is funny, it's my pleasure to try to move him along. Here, let the people see him. Key, appreciated talent. In this thing called showbiz, he's one of the guys who's coming up real fast, and I like that about Rodney Dangerfield. He admired other comics because he loved the art of of comedy.
Robert Townsend is really dying, my daughter. Rodney had a lot of empathy for comedians, so he knew how difficult it was. Give it up for Robert Schimmel, okay? He genuinely had a daddy motivation where he kind of felt the the need to nurture. I'm gonna hire both of you.
Rodney was. Offered by HBO, a series of stand-up comedy specials where he would bring in stand-up comics and feature them on his HBO specials. He was the doorkeeper. He was able to open doors for guys that he really liked. I give it up now for Tim Allen.
Okay, here we go. All right, Tim, here we go. Most of the people that were on those shows became superstars. All right, was a big break for them in show business to be on a show with Rodney Dangerfield. Rodney was responsible for a whole bunch of superstars.
Seinfeld, Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey was his opening act, which he was very proud of. Andrew Dice Clay, Roseanne Barr, just all of these people became superstars. You're gonna get a kick out of Bad Sam, okay, Sammy? Sam Kinison was.
Rebellious. Sam was having a tough time in the business because he was different. It just shows how generous he was. Most comics are very threatened by other funny people. He would help us out.
Sometimes we would sell him jokes that he'd never use because he knew we needed the money, and he allowed us to keep our dignity. You know, some really bad material I sold him over the years. Just having Rodney. Know you and think you're funny was like, you know, you carry it with you like a badge of honor. As a young guy back then, it was like that was huge for me and for my confidence.
After a ten-year courtship, Rodney, the 72-year-old Jew, married the 40-year-old Mormon Joan Child in 1993. His act was selling out all over the country. Everyone wanted to see Rodney. As the 1990s came to a close, Rodney was approaching his 80s, and his years of hard living were beginning to catch up with him. On August 24, 2004, Rodney had heart valve replacement surgery.
When asked how long he'd be hospitalized, he said, "If all goes well, about a week. If not, about an hour and a half." After Rodney's final heart surgery, he slipped into a coma and was in the coma for 40 days. They pretty much let me try everything to try to bring him out, and and part of that included they gave me permission to bring in beyond family, other people that had strong emotional connections to him, and I. I got on the phone and called a few comics, and they all knew the mission. Try to say something that maybe Rodney would react to.
I heard some of the best material in the world from Jay Leno, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler. Louis Anderson came almost every day. Bob Saget, Andrew Dice Clay, Roseanne, and we just thought there was there was hope. You know, I love here's Jay Leno on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Yeah, you know, I'll tell you a great Rodney story.
I was pretty close to Rodney, and. When Rodney was in the hospital, he was in a coma, and his wife Joan, God bless her, she was by his side the whole time. And I go to visit Rodney, and we're standing there, and she goes, "Well, Jay, take Rodney's hand." So I take Rodney's hand, and she says, "Rodney, if you know Jay's here, squeeze his finger, okay?" So I feel my finger get squeezed, and then I leaned. I said to Rodney, "Rodney, that's not my finger." And Rodney, and I could see Rodney kind of, you know, he just, you know, and I felt, I felt good, made one of my favorite guys laugh. On October fifth, two thousand four, at one twenty p.m., Rodney Dangerfield passed away at eighty-two.
A funeral was held for him a few days later. What a crowd! What a crowd! Rodney is the only comic I can think of, where guys get together and they'd all start quoting jokes of his. You know, my family during the Civil War they fought for the West.
My wife, she's a lousy cook. At my house, we pray after we eat. I miss Rodney. God, it's tough not to. I don't think he really believed he was that good, but the audience said, "Yes, you're wonderful," and he was.
And that's it. And you know, he always said, "Hey, you got no respect." You don't know respect. In reality, all he did was get respect. I just wish that everyone had the chance that I had to spend so much time with him and to. See his humanity and his generous spirit.
I was the luckiest girl in the world. Like everyone else in this thing called showbiz, I like applause. But I'll tell you, there's something to me that's more important—applause. Maybe nothing to you, but a lot to me. It's just when I walk off.
If if you're all just give me one of these. One of these is Rodney holding up the OK sign, and a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And we learned that the movie business really catapulted Dangerfield into another stratosphere. Caddyshack first, which became a comic's favorite—I mean, America's favorite—and of course, Back to School, which a young generation fell in love with. Dangerfield was never better in anything.
And then, of course, his promotion of other talent—the daddy factor came out in him. The nurturer came out in him, and he just loved opening doors for other guys in the business through his HBO show. People like Jim Carrey and Seinfeld and Roseanne Barr. The story of Rodney Dangerfield, an hour American stories. Power Slap 24 arrives in Las Vegas on Friday, October 9th at the Chelsea Theater at the Cosmopolitan.
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