Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the one and only producer Bert Sugarman. Bert,
Speaker 1: good to have you on the podcast. So you just
Speaker 1: put the Midnight Special up on YouTube? How did this
Speaker 1: come to happen after fifty years or actually forty nine years.
Speaker 1: About a year ago, my wife said to me, what
Speaker 1: happens to YouTube? So many of our friends and our
Speaker 1: younger friends, all our YouTube YouTube. Why don't we put
Speaker 1: the Midnight Special on YouTube? Thought about a little bit.
Speaker 1: It seemed like the right thing to do. Talk to
Speaker 1: our son. He loved the idea, said go for it,
Speaker 1: and here we are Bob. Okay. Those in the music
Speaker 1: business know they're huge rights issues. Did you have all
Speaker 1: those rights issues in the original contract to do whatever
Speaker 1: you wanted with Midnight Special? Or do you have to
Speaker 1: go back to these acts and get the rights? Well?
Speaker 1: I had the rights from the get go, but to
Speaker 1: go back to as many acts as we've had on
Speaker 1: the show, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds would
Speaker 1: have not been practical. But then years ago, in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two to nineteen eighty one or two, we really
Speaker 1: did get the contracts working right and signed properly, and
Speaker 1: I have every single one of them that I have kept. Okay,
Speaker 1: so is every performance from the Midnight Special on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Not yet, that will come in the future. Some performances
Speaker 1: are and we've put them up early, but as time
Speaker 1: goes on. It's only been two weeks since someone had
Speaker 1: to type in Midnight Special TV show to find our channel.
Speaker 1: But now we're ready to go, and every Monday we
Speaker 1: had new songs, new artists, new people, and it's been fun.
Speaker 1: And I read the comments and I really really enjoy them.
Speaker 1: The comments are terrific. They're intelligent. They're people who said
Speaker 1: I was ten years old and watched that show and
Speaker 1: hit under my covers with a little small TV, and
Speaker 1: I remember so much of it. And other people say
Speaker 1: that I'm just getting used to it now for my
Speaker 1: own family, and it's very exciting to me. It really
Speaker 1: is truly exciting to go back and look at some
Speaker 1: of those performances. I remember of the over four hundred
Speaker 1: ninety minute shows, I was at every single show and
Speaker 1: down on the floor with the artists. So how are
Speaker 1: you so pressing to get all these musical rights, because
Speaker 1: this has certainly been an issue in movies when they
Speaker 1: wanted to go to DVDs to streaming, they could include
Speaker 1: certain songs. Do you just have a good lawyer or
Speaker 1: did you see the future? Well, maybe a combination. But again,
Speaker 1: the performance on Midnight Special, I have the copyright too.
Speaker 1: If it's a matter of the song. On occasion I
Speaker 1: have to go back on the song and take a look,
Speaker 1: or someone will contact me and say we have to
Speaker 1: give you the rights to this song or charge you
Speaker 1: or this or that. And when that's happened, which hasn't
Speaker 1: been much, when it's happened, we've worked with them. But
Speaker 1: the performances, I have the copyright too. And the show okay,
Speaker 1: if one goes on YouTube, there are many performances from
Speaker 1: the Midnight Special that are not on your channel. So
Speaker 1: are you compensated on that? Are you planning to take
Speaker 1: those down? What's going on there? Well, from what I
Speaker 1: understand from YouTube and our attorneys, we have the right
Speaker 1: to take them down. Somebody has a club with an
Speaker 1: awful lot of people on and I called him up
Speaker 1: and talk to him and after having a great phone
Speaker 1: call with them, we're going to work together. He's going
Speaker 1: to let his fan club know about what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: which is terrific. And he's building that fan club and
Speaker 1: I'm behind him. So we've got a good relationship. But
Speaker 1: they have to subscribe to the Midnight Special TV show
Speaker 1: to come on Mine. No issues. I've not run into
Speaker 1: any issues that I've been unhappy with so far. Now
Speaker 1: there are many different deals with YouTube. Did you negotiate
Speaker 1: a deal with YouTube? Or is just this the straight
Speaker 1: compensation deal that YouTube gives. I know that our attorneys
Speaker 1: have been in touch with YouTube, know them, talk to them,
Speaker 1: have other deals with them, and I'm not really versed
Speaker 1: on that yet. I will be in the future. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the origination of the Midnight Special.
Speaker 1: How did it come together? Johnny Carson was on at
Speaker 1: that time every night until one pm and or one am,
Speaker 1: actually one in the morning, and I would watch the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show and then I had to look at one
Speaker 1: in the morning an American flag and something like that,
Speaker 1: which was beautiful. But there was no television. There were
Speaker 1: no movies all night. There were no television shows, and
Speaker 1: it made me wonder, what the heck I'm up. I
Speaker 1: can't watch any more TV. I'll read a book and
Speaker 1: I did that often, but I thought, what could I
Speaker 1: put on there that people could be interested in? And
Speaker 1: I thought music. Music, music, that's what to put on.
Speaker 1: Johnny always had on comics that were terrific occasionally some
Speaker 1: good musicians, and I came up with the idea of musicians,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to put that show on. And the
Speaker 1: first person I actually talked to about it was Johnny Carson.
Speaker 1: He was my neighbor and he and I played tennis
Speaker 1: two three days a week before he went to work.
Speaker 1: And Johnny would go to work around five thirty and
Speaker 1: shoot that show around six. And I started talking to
Speaker 1: him and mentioning that I was thinking of putting a
Speaker 1: TV show on, and he said, well, if you do that,
Speaker 1: that'll help my last half hour. Obviously, my last half hour,
Speaker 1: the ratings kind of go down as people Paul fall asleep,
Speaker 1: but they may stay up to watch your show, and
Speaker 1: it'll be good for me and good for you. Develop it,
Speaker 1: work on it and tell me how I can help.
Speaker 1: I gave it a lot of thought, talk to some
Speaker 1: friends about it, and I went to NBC and told
Speaker 1: him when I had mine, I expected a wonderful, warm
Speaker 1: welcoming because I knew them all at NBC from the
Speaker 1: president down, and I had put television shows on NBC,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to be on NBC to follow Johnny
Speaker 1: And the immediate answer was no, No, we can't do that.
Speaker 1: They'll never show up. Those rock people they're they're on
Speaker 1: drugs and they're drinking, and they're bands are falling apart.
Speaker 1: They'll never come. I said, they will come. Maybe one
Speaker 1: or two or three might not come, but I think
Speaker 1: a group of them will come. Well. Meeting. After meeting
Speaker 1: and talking to the right people, a friend of mine
Speaker 1: said to me, you know, Bert, NBC and everything everybody
Speaker 1: else in that business wants to be on the good
Speaker 1: side of the FCC. Why don't you talk about getting
Speaker 1: out to vote? Because remember last year, eighteen year olds
Speaker 1: were voted to be able to vote, and not many
Speaker 1: of them are right now. I thought that was a
Speaker 1: wonderful idea. My next meeting with NBC, I said, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have my host and some of the
Speaker 1: guests discuss the fact that we want to get young
Speaker 1: people out to vote, and you'll be a real help.
Speaker 1: They're an NBC that really did get their attention. Bob.
Speaker 1: Once I said that, they started thinking more seriously, and
Speaker 1: they were still on the fact that maybe all the
Speaker 1: acts wouldn't show up. But all right, how do how
Speaker 1: do we solve the problem? I said, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: I will pay for it. I'll do the show at
Speaker 1: your NBC studio and I'll pay for it. You will, yes,
Speaker 1: I will. Well, we own the tonight show, I know,
Speaker 1: but you won't own this one. If you want me
Speaker 1: to pay for it. You want to pay for it,
Speaker 1: you'll own it. We don't. We are not sure it's
Speaker 1: going to work, but if you're going to pay for it,
Speaker 1: we'll give it a chance. What about the advertising time,
Speaker 1: I said, I'll sell it. I will go to some sponsors.
Speaker 1: I've got sponsors from all the different shows I've done,
Speaker 1: and I'll get advertising. I will sell it. It can't
Speaker 1: be too expensive that time, because it's never been on before.
Speaker 1: How do you sell advertising on one thirty and two
Speaker 1: and two fifteen in the morning. Finally, after I'm going
Speaker 1: to say, three months of meetings, it got put together. Bob.
Speaker 1: So at that point in time, what did you budget
Speaker 1: for the initial show? I budgeted about one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty thousand to do the first show, and I also
Speaker 1: felt that if I went to the record companies and
Speaker 1: asked them about the acts as well, they would want
Speaker 1: the axe on because if you're on television and these
Speaker 1: rock acts really they toured, they traveled, they flew around,
Speaker 1: they were in busses. The country acts especially were always
Speaker 1: touring live. But I felt that the record companies could
Speaker 1: help me get the acts because they knew that next
Speaker 1: day Saturday Sunday money they would start selling more records.
Speaker 1: So they were helpful, and I thought for one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty thousand I could put that together as well
Speaker 1: as sell airtime to some sponsors. I had used, example,
Speaker 1: Chevrolet for a lot of my shows, and I went
Speaker 1: to them and talked to him. There was a fellow
Speaker 1: whose name is well known. His name was John Delian,
Speaker 1: and John Delian I can't remember at this moment if
Speaker 1: he was still at Pontiac or had moved to Chevrolet,
Speaker 1: but he thought the idea was great because he said,
Speaker 1: young people have an influence on their parents about what
Speaker 1: kind of park car they buy. So there we went,
Speaker 1: and that helped me sell the time, and I built
Speaker 1: a show around it. It was one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars of your own money, which is like a
Speaker 1: million dollars today. Did you ever think of taking in
Speaker 1: a partner or you wanted to go all in on
Speaker 1: this yourself. I really wanted to do it alone. I
Speaker 1: had been doing television shows and really game shows for
Speaker 1: years and years, a lot of specials, and I had
Speaker 1: made some money and done well with it, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to do it alone. I felt that I had
Speaker 1: an idea of it. I was creative with it. I
Speaker 1: love rock and roll, I love country music, all kinds
Speaker 1: of music. I just really loved so much deep in
Speaker 1: me that I thought I'm gonna do it myself and
Speaker 1: not have somebody tell me what not to do. Okay,
Speaker 1: you get the green light? Was the show already formatted
Speaker 1: or did then you say, well, now I've got the time,
Speaker 1: let me figure out how to do it. That's exactly
Speaker 1: what happened. Now I've got the time, how do I
Speaker 1: do this, Let's go. I brought a couple of people
Speaker 1: in to talk to about it. Some of them have
Speaker 1: had terrific careers. Dick Ebersol, the name of NBC. Dick,
Speaker 1: was a friend of mine. When he came from the
Speaker 1: East Coast. He actually stayed at my house for a while.
Speaker 1: When he first came out there, I knew him well,
Speaker 1: and Dick was absolutely terrific. He then went on to
Speaker 1: go to NBC and run sports for them for years
Speaker 1: and years and years. But Dick was involved in suggesting
Speaker 1: acts and timing on. It was great. Another fellow named
Speaker 1: Kenny Erlick, who now is the producer of the Grammy Show.
Speaker 1: Another fellow named Rocco or BC, a young guy that
Speaker 1: came in who knew a couple of the acts. We
Speaker 1: all sat around tables, and Susan Richards was the booker
Speaker 1: with Titia Fine, and Tisha still books the Grammys. And
Speaker 1: I'm talking about back in nineteen seventy two when we
Speaker 1: did this show in August of seventy two, the pilot,
Speaker 1: we talked about who might be the host, why this
Speaker 1: person should host it. We had to get some people
Speaker 1: who could talk because we wanted to talk about get
Speaker 1: out to vote, And over a couple of weeks we
Speaker 1: came up with a show. And I did some of
Speaker 1: the softer rock earlier following the Tonight show, and the
Speaker 1: harder rock would come on at one forty five maybe
Speaker 1: or later. I thought those people might be up a
Speaker 1: little bit later, and that came the first show. But
Speaker 1: then we had to find a host. Okay, tell us
Speaker 1: the story. Well known producer at the time named Jerry
Speaker 1: Weintraub knew I was working on this show, and he said,
Speaker 1: I've got a young guy named John Duchendorff. And he said,
Speaker 1: John's name is being changed now. He's just come out
Speaker 1: with one or two records. They've done very well. We're
Speaker 1: calling him John Denver. Beautiful voice, whitebread looking, young fella,
Speaker 1: not rock and roll, with funny looking and tattoos on
Speaker 1: his forehead, none of that. He'd be a great host. Well,
Speaker 1: he brought him over. I met him and liked him,
Speaker 1: and he actually sang some works in the office, some
Speaker 1: things he wrote, and he was terrific and he could
Speaker 1: talk and enjoy the conversation. I started asking him about
Speaker 1: Get Out to Vote. He knew about it. He said, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I can talk to some of the acts about that.
Speaker 1: So I said, you know what, Jerry, Let's have him on,
Speaker 1: but not have him host. Jerry said, no way. If
Speaker 1: I could do something with Elvis Presley, I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: this kid's going to be a major star, and you're
Speaker 1: going to look back and say he was the right one.
Speaker 1: So Jerry talked me and do it, and John Denver
Speaker 1: was the host of the very first show. Okay, do
Speaker 1: you remember who was on the first show. Well, we
Speaker 1: had Mama Cass, Linda ron Stat and the Everly Brothers Argent.
Speaker 1: We had some great acts on that show. I called.
Speaker 1: Some of them had little trouble with the agents, but
Speaker 1: then the record companies pushed and they helped. And then
Speaker 1: on one or two of them, when I told Johnny,
Speaker 1: he said, I'll book them a week in front and
Speaker 1: just sit there and talk to him and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about what's going to happen to the show. And they
Speaker 1: get on and Johnny was extremely helpful, very supportive, very
Speaker 1: helpful and a good friend of mine. So it worked
Speaker 1: out well. And that's how the first show obviously did
Speaker 1: absolutely terrific because the NBCM immediately came to me and said,
Speaker 1: this is working. Everybody liked it. The FCC liked it
Speaker 1: because get out to vote, all of our executives liked it.
Speaker 1: The ratings were there. When can you start and do
Speaker 1: a weekly Well, I said, give me a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks to think that over. So I really started terrific
Speaker 1: and I said I need five or six months. Let's
Speaker 1: put it on late January, early February, and that's what happened. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go sideways for a second. To Johnny. He had
Speaker 1: his public persona and then he had his off screen persona,
Speaker 1: and different personalities have been described since you knew him
Speaker 1: so well. What was Johnny like off camera? Johnny was
Speaker 1: an extremely competitive person. The days that we weren't playing tennis,
Speaker 1: he actually went into his downstairs what he called his
Speaker 1: man cave, and he played the drums and he was
Speaker 1: absolutely terrific at it. Johnny was much of a loaner,
Speaker 1: very much so competitive a tennis We had a wonderful
Speaker 1: time playing and if he didn't win, he was very
Speaker 1: very vocal about it. He wanted to win every game.
Speaker 1: I was less vocal because I wanted to promote the show.
Speaker 1: But we had We really did have some laughs in
Speaker 1: a great time, and I enjoyed him a lot. Do
Speaker 1: you remember how you met him? Let me think back
Speaker 1: to that one. I don't think i've been asked that question.
Speaker 1: I think I met him pulling into the driveway where
Speaker 1: I was pulling in in a fancy car, and he
Speaker 1: had his little Mercedes Coop that he drove, and he
Speaker 1: wanted to take a look at the car I was driving,
Speaker 1: and he came over and visited and introduced himself. Of
Speaker 1: course I knew him and he knew me because I
Speaker 1: was the neighbor. And we sat there and talked. We
Speaker 1: literally sat there for over an hour just talking generally.
Speaker 1: And was he aware of who you were once you
Speaker 1: told him what your name was. He didn't know which
Speaker 1: shows I had produced, but he know I had knew
Speaker 1: I had produced some, especially because they were at NBC
Speaker 1: and I often used the NBC studio across from Johnny's
Speaker 1: to do my shows, even though we never got together.
Speaker 1: Then he knew the name and he knew I was around,
Speaker 1: so it was he was comfortable with talking to me.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what kind of car it was you
Speaker 1: were driving? I do. It was called a Gia Gia,
Speaker 1: a Gia four fifty SS that I was driving, and
Speaker 1: he just loved the car. How'd you end up getting
Speaker 1: that car? It's another show, Bob. I actually had that
Speaker 1: car built in Italy, and I had fifty eight of
Speaker 1: them built because I saw one on a cover and
Speaker 1: Gia made bodies but not the engines. And drive frame.
Speaker 1: And again it's a long, long story, so we'll do
Speaker 1: that one another time. Okay, just to stay for one
Speaker 1: more second. If you had fifty eight built, what happened
Speaker 1: to the other fifty seven? They got sold? They were sold,
Speaker 1: I would say roughly half of them in Europe and
Speaker 1: half of them in the United States. And I had
Speaker 1: a retail sales operation right on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills,
Speaker 1: willsher and Cannon, the Ferrari dealer happens to be in
Speaker 1: that building now, and that's where I sold him from.
Speaker 1: And it did not take very long. I sold him
Speaker 1: very very quickly. You remember what the price was, approximately
Speaker 1: thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars. And do you still have
Speaker 1: your Gia? I do? And was it a good car?
Speaker 1: Irrelevant performance? A lot of these Italian cars are known
Speaker 1: for being for breaking down. Shall we say it's another
Speaker 1: it's another show, I'm telling you. But it was a
Speaker 1: Chrysler drive train and it was terrific. And are you
Speaker 1: a car collector? You just had that one experience with Gia.
Speaker 1: I was a collector, Bob. At one time I had
Speaker 1: sixty two cars and I collected them and enjoyed them
Speaker 1: and loved it, and I know you enjoy the midnight special, right,
Speaker 1: And what you do with all the cars over over
Speaker 1: the period of years, I've sold about fifty five of them.
Speaker 1: And what was the favorite car you ever had? A
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three Dusenberg. Wow. Okay. So this neighborhood we're
Speaker 1: meeting Johnny is approximately where for those of us it was,
Speaker 1: it was in bell Air. Okay, So you have this
Speaker 1: relationship with Johnny you put on the show. I'm just
Speaker 1: interested since you did the first show, when you sold
Speaker 1: the advertising yourself, how did the economics end up working out?
Speaker 1: They worked out well. I think on the first show
Speaker 1: all over, I broke even and I was happy about that,
Speaker 1: but I actually broke even. Okay. For those of us
Speaker 1: who weren't in the business, there were a number of
Speaker 1: shows at the time. There was your show, There was
Speaker 1: in concert, There was ultimately Don Kirshner's show. Do you
Speaker 1: believe you were the first? What was going on there?
Speaker 1: They basically came after me. There was one for me,
Speaker 1: and that was Dick Clark's show. And if you were
Speaker 1: on Dick Clark's show, you were lip syncing. And when
Speaker 1: I watched it, and I noticed that the voices and
Speaker 1: the faces were not matched to the words always, and
Speaker 1: I thought it was so great of Dick to be
Speaker 1: able to do that so early and have some terrific
Speaker 1: acts on. But I wanted everybody to sing live. If
Speaker 1: they felt they couldn't sing live, I couldn't put them
Speaker 1: on the show. That's how I felt, and that's what
Speaker 1: I did, and everybody sang live, except just a couple
Speaker 1: of over the years. A couple of acts were in
Speaker 1: another country or somewhere, so they sent me a tape
Speaker 1: a tape of them doing it, and I knew that
Speaker 1: one or two or three of those tapes they were
Speaker 1: lip syncing on their own tapes, and I would have
Speaker 1: Wolfman Jack say something about that because I wanted everyone
Speaker 1: to sing live. And I also had to go and
Speaker 1: find the best audio people to work on the show
Speaker 1: show for me who were working on records. They worked
Speaker 1: for Universal, for Warners, for an M, etc. And I
Speaker 1: would bring them in to help make the audio as
Speaker 1: good as I possibly could. And that was really important
Speaker 1: to me because I knew the acts cared about that. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you know, even back then, an act would come
Speaker 1: in for a sound check when they're playing a live
Speaker 1: gig and the acts usually would not be good from
Speaker 1: the very first note. So how long would it take
Speaker 1: to record an act? Some country acts immediately they were
Speaker 1: just ready. They had been the night before someplace, working
Speaker 1: live on a stage and they were ready. A few
Speaker 1: of the acts needed a little bit of time and
Speaker 1: we were patient, and to tape a ninety minute show.
Speaker 1: Of course that included commercials, so the show itself went
Speaker 1: about one ten. We took about six hours to do
Speaker 1: that show because of exactly what you're saying. Some acts
Speaker 1: needed a little bit more time than others get the
Speaker 1: voices right. I mean, I can just remember somebody like
Speaker 1: Paul Anka, who was also on Dick Clark some years before.
Speaker 1: He'd come out in the first note. He was sensational.
Speaker 1: He just did it. He knocked it out and I
Speaker 1: had him host a couple of times, and he was
Speaker 1: involved in booking the acts and who they were and
Speaker 1: who he wanted, etc. But there were a lot of
Speaker 1: acts that just came out and did it. David Bowie,
Speaker 1: I went to England and the Marquee Club was very
Speaker 1: hot at the time for some of these acts and
Speaker 1: the Stones etc. And I taped him there and from
Speaker 1: the first note, David Bowie was on it, just on it.
Speaker 1: During that taping in or the Little Things, you remember,
Speaker 1: Mick Jagger came in and under his arm was merry unfaithful. Wow.
Speaker 1: That probably might mean more today than it did then.
Speaker 1: And then David had a long haired lady come in
Speaker 1: named Dushenka, and Dushenka was just beautiful and sang. And
Speaker 1: then I found out later that Dushenka was a man. Wow,
Speaker 1: We've got some tape on that that's really really interesting
Speaker 1: and we'll put it up on Midnight Special So rock acts,
Speaker 1: we'll all acts at this point in time, are never
Speaker 1: happy with their performance and they want to tweak it
Speaker 1: after the fact. Did people who want to do that?
Speaker 1: What was the Midnight Specials policy? I didn't find that.
Speaker 1: I really didn't the acts when they came on. I
Speaker 1: think they had rehearsed with the record companies before in
Speaker 1: order to get whatever songs they were going to sing.
Speaker 1: And of course many of them had number one or
Speaker 1: top ten hits. They were ready, a lot of them,
Speaker 1: a few of them that weren't, and we'd take a
Speaker 1: half hour, forty five minutes whatever it took to make
Speaker 1: it right. And the name Richard Prior, I know, of course,
Speaker 1: you know. And Richard was a dear and close friend
Speaker 1: of mine and I hadn't yet, but I had produced
Speaker 1: Richard Pryor's for NBC television shows, and Richard and I
Speaker 1: were dear friends, and he would come to a lot
Speaker 1: of shows and if we were having a little issue
Speaker 1: with an act of some kind or another, Richard would
Speaker 1: knock on their door, walk inside, talk to him, relax him.
Speaker 1: Nobody could believe that was in Richard Pryor, but he
Speaker 1: did that, and he was hanging around the show. And
Speaker 1: then I had three stages going at the same time,
Speaker 1: and one would be lit and that's where we would shoot,
Speaker 1: and the other two were kind of rehearsing quietly getting ready,
Speaker 1: and Richard would be standing around getting the audience up
Speaker 1: and happy because they were all sitting on the floor.
Speaker 1: People lined up outside to come to the tapings. And
Speaker 1: so I didn't have a lot of trouble like that.
Speaker 1: I think I was fortunate, Bob. So it was all
Speaker 1: shot in one day. Yes, yeah, at NBC. Yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: what was the commitment? How many shows for the year?
Speaker 1: When once NBC said yes, roughly forty eight. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: so it's old school, Yes, yes, old school, and we
Speaker 1: repeated about four shows. Okay, yeah. How did Wolfman Jack
Speaker 1: get involved in sitting with that group of people that
Speaker 1: I told you about? The Susan Richards, that Tisha, that
Speaker 1: Dick ever saw all of them? One of them, I
Speaker 1: don't know which one, said you know, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a DJ that works out of Tijuana by the name
Speaker 1: of Wolfman Jack. He's got an incredibly unique voice. The
Speaker 1: artists are just crazy about him, and of course they
Speaker 1: want him to play their songs. So if we could
Speaker 1: get him involved, the artists would like to come and
Speaker 1: meet Wolfman they didn't all go to Tijuana, and he
Speaker 1: would know them more apt to play their songs during
Speaker 1: his DJ week. And then he was in a little
Speaker 1: thing all American graffiti, and because of it, I just
Speaker 1: felt that was a great idea. They showed me some
Speaker 1: pictures of him with a big smile on his face
Speaker 1: and I loved it, called him, had him come out
Speaker 1: to the studio, met him, and instantaneously we really connected.
Speaker 1: He was always always a favorite of mine. He and
Speaker 1: his wife, Lew were wonderful people, and wolf Man was there,
Speaker 1: and he would call acts to come to do the show.
Speaker 1: If somebody was shy, he'd get him on stage, or
Speaker 1: he'd talk about him on his radio show. Come on,
Speaker 1: you gotta come out and see me on this night
Speaker 1: I'm taping and you gotta be there, things like that.
Speaker 1: So Wolfman was part of my life for those ten
Speaker 1: years and a welcome part. And in terms of ratings,
Speaker 1: although at that lead time, it's a whole world unto itself.
Speaker 1: Did it Bill? Did it fade? Over the ten years?
Speaker 1: What were the ratings? Like? The ratings seem to get better,
Speaker 1: and I think what we call sets in use, and
Speaker 1: I think that what happened is sets in use were growing.
Speaker 1: So I was part of that and part of the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show afterwards. And for a while I was the
Speaker 1: only thing on the air after one pm and one am.
Speaker 1: I keep saying PM one am. That was it. And
Speaker 1: then later all of a sudden you saw some people
Speaker 1: talking doing not podcasts but videocasts a little bit, and
Speaker 1: you had a couple of alternatives. But I was the
Speaker 1: only game in town. And so if you like music
Speaker 1: and Wolfman Jack all the acts we had, the music
Speaker 1: was being promoted by the record companies themselves. So it was,
Speaker 1: I must say, a party, and I never missed a show.
Speaker 1: To what degree did Johnny going to an hour affect
Speaker 1: the show because you were on a half hour earlier
Speaker 1: that after that, it did not affect it, And I
Speaker 1: was fortunate that that happened. But I'm glad you mentioned
Speaker 1: that because I was concerned talked to John about it.
Speaker 1: He was tired. He was just getting tired of doing
Speaker 1: it constantly, constantly, didn't know where he'd find the next act,
Speaker 1: the next person. So as you probably know, he had
Speaker 1: a lot of regulars who were wonderful there. Don Rickles
Speaker 1: was a regular, and some of these people were just
Speaker 1: wonderful regulars because he was tired. So I was fortunate
Speaker 1: that he did talk about the show even after when
Speaker 1: it was not my lead in. John talked about it,
Speaker 1: and of course he beat me at tennis all the time. Then,
Speaker 1: to what degree were in concert in Don Kirshner's rock
Speaker 1: concert competition? They were not. Donnie Kirshner was a very
Speaker 1: good friend of mine. I adored him. We talked about
Speaker 1: the acts, and I would always say, look, if you
Speaker 1: go back to the East Coast near New York go
Speaker 1: to rock concert. It'll be great for you. He did
Speaker 1: the same thing for acts coming out the West Coast,
Speaker 1: and I never looked at them as competition. I just didn't.
Speaker 1: Some of those shows, like in concert, had to lip sync.
Speaker 1: They couldn't get quite the audio that I did. And
Speaker 1: one of the reasons was because I had the sound men.
Speaker 1: So many of the records were coming out of Hollywood,
Speaker 1: out of the recording studios in Hollywood, a few of
Speaker 1: them in the Valley, and there was a guy named
Speaker 1: Bill Cole who everybody said, can you get Bill Cole?
Speaker 1: And I kept saying, no, I've asked Bill, he just
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to want to. And in the pilot, the
Speaker 1: pilot was done by a fellow named Bill Davitski, who
Speaker 1: was very well known. He did it, but he couldn't
Speaker 1: do it anymore. He was too busy during records and
Speaker 1: then fortunately starting a show too, I had Bill Cole.
Speaker 1: So the acts were as happy as can be, and
Speaker 1: they love the fact that the sound was sensational. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is a business that's reactive, So at first you
Speaker 1: get a certain number of acts and as you say,
Speaker 1: then the records start to move on Saturday and Sunday
Speaker 1: did then the relationships change such that acts were hounding
Speaker 1: you to be on. That really happened. Of course, if
Speaker 1: he looked at the top six or seven acts in
Speaker 1: the world, they all they came and they did it,
Speaker 1: but they didn't hound me. But other than that, it
Speaker 1: wasn't a matter of hounding. An example, somebody said to
Speaker 1: me one of the I think it was Susan Richards, said,
Speaker 1: you got a book Christopher Cross. Well, who's Christopher Cross? Well,
Speaker 1: this record company is saying that he is going to
Speaker 1: be the next big thing. We've heard of. His record
Speaker 1: coming out, I believe was called Sailing and listen to
Speaker 1: this and listening to it it was absolutely terrific. Well
Speaker 1: what does he look like here? Let me get a
Speaker 1: picture from the record company. Took a look at Christopher
Speaker 1: Cross and he can sing. Let's book him. So I
Speaker 1: would put him on at two fifteen. He wasn't well known,
Speaker 1: but he just knocked it out. I mean I could
Speaker 1: see the audience sitting on the ground there and the floor,
Speaker 1: and Richard Pryor there, etc. And a comic or two
Speaker 1: that we had a Steve Martin would say, Wow, this
Speaker 1: kid is fabulous. And that's what would happen on new acts.
Speaker 1: I did put them on often for the record companies
Speaker 1: because they wanted to break them, because they believed in him,
Speaker 1: and they were usually right. Okay, so you said you
Speaker 1: were there at every show. A lot of people don't
Speaker 1: know how these shows are ultimately created. What were you
Speaker 1: doing at every show? Well, the director, who was a
Speaker 1: Stan Harris or Dick Eversol or Kenny Erlick or Rock
Speaker 1: or BC whatever, they would be upstairs directing. I would
Speaker 1: basically be on the floor, but moving from around the
Speaker 1: dressing rooms, talking to the acts, making sure they were comfortable.
Speaker 1: Did they have anything they wanted? If they drank something,
Speaker 1: whether it was a mountain dew or whatever it might
Speaker 1: have been, did we have enough for them? Could we
Speaker 1: do anything for the people who brought them over? Just
Speaker 1: make everybody comfortable. I guess you'd call me the executive
Speaker 1: producer and I would walk around and if I saw
Speaker 1: something that I didn't like, if it might be a
Speaker 1: drug or something, I made sure that I put a
Speaker 1: stop to that immediately and would not allow that that
Speaker 1: didn't happen often NBC could not believe it, but it
Speaker 1: didn't happen. Often, and I was a floor manager. Then
Speaker 1: what I was doing was making sure everybody was ready
Speaker 1: to come out on one of those three stages. Next,
Speaker 1: when we went live, you talk about drugs, What about alcohol? Yes,
Speaker 1: same thing, same thing, And you know, you can't really
Speaker 1: control it. You can't tell somebody who's twenty five years
Speaker 1: old what to do or how to do it. But
Speaker 1: they wanted it. They wanted to look good, and especially
Speaker 1: they wanted to sound good. And then a lot of
Speaker 1: them brought their own sound people and they went and
Speaker 1: talked to Bill Cole about what they wanted a little
Speaker 1: more trouble here and this part of it, and cut
Speaker 1: it down to bass over here, and here's what I
Speaker 1: want you to do here. And Cole was a pro
Speaker 1: at it. And so when an act like that, who's
Speaker 1: a hit on records, is happy with their sound, the
Speaker 1: evening goes, well, okay, how did you end up getting
Speaker 1: comedians on the show? That stem from Johnny? Johnny said,
Speaker 1: you know, I break it up off and with a comic.
Speaker 1: You know, it might be a Rickles, it might be
Speaker 1: this one or that one. So I decided I'd do
Speaker 1: the same darn thing, and the comic might be a
Speaker 1: little different For me. It might be a George Carlin.
Speaker 1: Steve Martin was young and new. Then Bill Caused was on.
Speaker 1: Andy Kaufman was on, and I just had fun with him.
Speaker 1: It was just like a little bit of a break.
Speaker 1: For some people it might have been a bathroom break.
Speaker 1: Other people it might have been a music break. But
Speaker 1: I at home and I just thought, that's terrific. Theyre
Speaker 1: if they're fun. Everybody loosens up a little bit. The
Speaker 1: music can stop for twenty thirty minutes and everybody relax
Speaker 1: a moment. And it worked out well in the studio
Speaker 1: as well. Now this is fifty years ago, and the
Speaker 1: younger generation may not be able to comprehend. It aired
Speaker 1: once and then you couldn't see it again. Right, It
Speaker 1: aired once. I did repeat some shows because I did,
Speaker 1: as I said, about forty eight a year, and that
Speaker 1: was it. That was it, and I put him away,
Speaker 1: locked him up, and for whatever got me really seriously late,
Speaker 1: after about six or seven years, I decided that I
Speaker 1: was afraid of the tape. Johnny had told me that
Speaker 1: some of the tape of his early shows, which he
Speaker 1: didn't really own because NBC paid for his show, the
Speaker 1: tape went bad, and they looked, try and look at
Speaker 1: an old show or in our act to bring back,
Speaker 1: and the tape went bad. So I looked for the latest,
Speaker 1: which I did then I have done since then, put
Speaker 1: on what they call hard drive, and now it's all protected.
Speaker 1: Every bit of it's protected. And every time we had
Speaker 1: a signed contract, they went in these boxes and took
Speaker 1: care of those things and stored them in storages that
Speaker 1: I paid for. And you were that much of a
Speaker 1: music fan at that time. You were just shy of forty,
Speaker 1: which sounds young when you're on the other side of it.
Speaker 1: But that was an era where it was you say
Speaker 1: was driven by twenty five year old Well, I think
Speaker 1: I started around thirty two or thirty three is where
Speaker 1: I started. And then of course, obviously age went, but
Speaker 1: the music stuck with me, and I was a major,
Speaker 1: major country fan as well. I respected the country acts
Speaker 1: when they came in and talked, and I remember sitting
Speaker 1: down with Loretta Lynn and knowing that she wrote most
Speaker 1: of her songs. How in the world you do this?
Speaker 1: She said, Well, you know, he'd come home drunk at
Speaker 1: night and I'd just sit there all night and he'd
Speaker 1: give me a little whack on the side of the head,
Speaker 1: and I'd write a song, and if you listen to
Speaker 1: those songs, that's what happened. It's exactly what happened. She said.
Speaker 1: It was life. And then when one or two people
Speaker 1: got killed in these plane crashes, and I would write
Speaker 1: very much about them, how I loved them, and what
Speaker 1: happened and how I lost them. And it was wonderful
Speaker 1: listening to that. And then somebody like Chris Christofferson, who's
Speaker 1: still around. I don't think he's ever really been appreciated
Speaker 1: for the songs he wrote, some of the songs that
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash covered in George Jones and whoever it might
Speaker 1: have been. Chris just had a way with lyrics, and
Speaker 1: you know, I put on my dirt, my clean his
Speaker 1: dirty shirt, remember some of that stuff that was all
Speaker 1: out of Christofferson. So sitting with these people I really
Speaker 1: really enjoyed. I think I learned a lot from them
Speaker 1: about their life and how they banged around and how
Speaker 1: Chris said he worked in a hotel in Nashville when
Speaker 1: he went there, and just these stories about these people,
Speaker 1: where they came from, how they were brought up. I
Speaker 1: was just knocked out by it. And it made me
Speaker 1: just be so sympathetic to where they came from, and
Speaker 1: they remained good, good people. Okay, to the degree you
Speaker 1: can slice and dice. Tell us about a couple of
Speaker 1: peak experiences on the show. I had never gone on
Speaker 1: camera and never wanted to. I felt that I was
Speaker 1: always behind the camera, not in front of the camera.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, I'm sitting out there with
Speaker 1: the audience and I'm watching it, watching an act and
Speaker 1: he was getting a record, he was getting a gold
Speaker 1: record on stage, and he said, where's Bert. I don't
Speaker 1: want this record company to hand it to me. I
Speaker 1: want I want Bert Sugarman to give it to me.
Speaker 1: I said, no, no, no, I don't really, I don't
Speaker 1: go on camera. I just I just don't. But let's
Speaker 1: we'll tape it with a record company and I'll make
Speaker 1: sure we shoot it beautifully. And Jim Croach he said
Speaker 1: to me, well, then I'm leaving. What if you can't
Speaker 1: hand it to me, and you're the boss of the
Speaker 1: show and I'm your star here, I'm out of here.
Speaker 1: I said, where are you going? He said, I'm going
Speaker 1: to my next gig. Are you serious? I'm very very serious.
Speaker 1: I got up out of the audience. I took the
Speaker 1: record from the record person and I handed it to him,
Speaker 1: made a little speech for him, and that's in the show.
Speaker 1: And I gave Jim Crochey his gold record and he
Speaker 1: said to me, I love it. I love you coming
Speaker 1: up and doing this, and you don't know how much
Speaker 1: I appreciated Bert. And I want to come back and
Speaker 1: host again. I said, you got it, no question, you
Speaker 1: will come back and host, give me some dates your
Speaker 1: free and will do it. And unfortunately he was then
Speaker 1: killed in a plane crash, and so he could never
Speaker 1: do that again. So it started out as the Midnight Special,
Speaker 1: but ultimately was build as Bert Sugarman's Midnight Special. How
Speaker 1: did that happen? I didn't realize that was ultimately. I
Speaker 1: thought that was in the beginning. You know something that
Speaker 1: I don't know about it, Bob. Well, as I say,
Speaker 1: my memory only works so well. But when you go
Speaker 1: on YouTube, it does say Bird Sugarman's and on some
Speaker 1: of the early videos I think it doesn't. But let's
Speaker 1: leave that alone for a second. So where are you from?
Speaker 1: Where were you born and where did you grow up?
Speaker 1: Born in Beverly Hills. My father was a pharmacist, and
Speaker 1: I lived in a one bedroom, a two bedroom apartment,
Speaker 1: a tiny little apartment right off Sunset Boulevard, and my
Speaker 1: dad would go to Sunset and Vine where he worked
Speaker 1: in a drug store. And my wife and I recently,
Speaker 1: just recently, we're looking through old pictures of her family
Speaker 1: and my family, and I've got some pictures of my
Speaker 1: dad would Tyrone Power, who wrote a note on this
Speaker 1: picture saying, al you give me my prescriptions when I
Speaker 1: really want them, And my dad would tell me that
Speaker 1: Sinatra was in there all the time, Tyrone Power, all
Speaker 1: these major actors I'd always heard about, and they had
Speaker 1: their own drugs, and he said, yes, we'd give them
Speaker 1: a drug here, into something there and this and that,
Speaker 1: and they came and hang around, and they were absolutely
Speaker 1: wonderful coming in the drug store that I worked in.
Speaker 1: So I was a local. Then I didn't go to
Speaker 1: Beverly High. I thought it was a little snooty and
Speaker 1: the kids had money, and we didn't have too much
Speaker 1: money off any kind. And so I went to school
Speaker 1: not far on Fairfax and Melrose called Fairfax High School,
Speaker 1: and that's where I went to school and grew up there,
Speaker 1: and then went to USC and didn't go to the
Speaker 1: film school. And that's my that's growing up. Okay, So
Speaker 1: were an only child. I was an only child, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: And you've had a lot of success. Were you always
Speaker 1: the straw that stirred the drink that made things happen?
Speaker 1: What was your personality in these aerience is growing up?
Speaker 1: I think I could say nicely aggressive. I was a
Speaker 1: self starter, extremely curious about whatever I was going to do.
Speaker 1: I was very very curious, and that led me to
Speaker 1: go into things like hamburgers, later, paper companies, cement companies,
Speaker 1: all just different kinds of things. Something about these different
Speaker 1: businesses appealed to me. Later when I was young, it
Speaker 1: was pretty much the same thing. I had friends who
Speaker 1: were in the entertainment business. Glenn Campbell was a friend
Speaker 1: of mine from the time I was very very young,
Speaker 1: and Glenn and I would travel and goof around. And
Speaker 1: he was not known then because he was a guitar
Speaker 1: player for some of the major acts. He was known
Speaker 1: as the real guitar player in the studio, so he
Speaker 1: wasn't known as Glen Campbelly didn't have a TV show then, etc.
Speaker 1: I do remember Glenn's TV show in on the air
Speaker 1: and he came to meet me in Aspen, Colorado, so
Speaker 1: we could ski for a three day weekend. And John Denver,
Speaker 1: this is later John Denver was having a party. We
Speaker 1: ran into him and asked, but he said, look, here's
Speaker 1: where I live, etc. Etc. Come on out to my party.
Speaker 1: It'll be tonight. Well, it started snowing in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: a massive snowstorm. So Glenn and I. I'm driving and
Speaker 1: Glenn's looking and we're having trouble seeing the front of
Speaker 1: our car. And he said, look, there's a light there.
Speaker 1: Let's pull into that light. We'll find something. This looks
Speaker 1: like a little ranch house. I said, Glenn, up here,
Speaker 1: you'd get shot. It's now eight thirty nine at night.
Speaker 1: You just don't walk into something. He said, come on,
Speaker 1: come on, you're a city slicker. Pull in. So I
Speaker 1: made a right turn. I stopped about twenty feet away.
Speaker 1: He opens a car door, and I opened my door
Speaker 1: and I'm just standing in the door of my car.
Speaker 1: He knocks on the door and a little lady, probably
Speaker 1: seventy five years opens the door, looks at him. She said, hi, Glenn,
Speaker 1: come on in. Well, you could have knocked me down.
Speaker 1: I started realizing the power of television there. It was
Speaker 1: amazing to me. So we went in sat with her.
Speaker 1: She had no idea where John Denver lived. We spent
Speaker 1: an hour with her and went back home. Never went
Speaker 1: to the party. Okay, so you go to USC before
Speaker 1: you graduate from USC, are you already an entrepreneur? Or
Speaker 1: did that not starting to laughter? You graduated from college?
Speaker 1: That started off after I joined a zb. I joined
Speaker 1: a fraternity and I was there a year and I
Speaker 1: didn't like it. Everybody was drunk. I was stunned at
Speaker 1: that At USC, they were drinking every night and it
Speaker 1: was it was a mess. They didn't study very much,
Speaker 1: and I was not a real good student. I was
Speaker 1: what you would call a C student sometimes when it
Speaker 1: was a something math, trigonometry, math, I was good. Other
Speaker 1: that history, English, those wonderful things I barely got to see.
Speaker 1: So I had to study and I didn't didn't want
Speaker 1: to stay, so I dropped out of the fraternity. I
Speaker 1: wanted to graduate, which I did with that kind of
Speaker 1: a weak scholastic record. And then I just started looking
Speaker 1: around TV trying to come up with something I could.
Speaker 1: I saw game shows I thought were cute. How could
Speaker 1: I come up with one? And do one. I started
Speaker 1: doing that stuff. So what was your first break? What
Speaker 1: was your first show? First show? I can't answer that, Bob.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the exact first show right now. I
Speaker 1: had one cost celebrity sweepstakes. That was one of the
Speaker 1: early ones. You're an outsider. How you go from outsider
Speaker 1: he grew up in Beverly Hills to having a show
Speaker 1: on network television. Well, I had a lot of friends
Speaker 1: in the business. Ronnie Burns, who was George Burns's and
Speaker 1: great see Allen's son. Ronnie was my buddy Glenn I
Speaker 1: was with all the time. And I ran into a
Speaker 1: lot of these young people that were in the business
Speaker 1: at the time and would spend some time with them,
Speaker 1: learn a little bit, go on a movie set, going
Speaker 1: a TV set, And I realized that I liked TV
Speaker 1: much much more than I liked films, because you could
Speaker 1: be working on a film and it was, as you know,
Speaker 1: a year before it came out by the time the
Speaker 1: editors finished six months later. And this and that I
Speaker 1: didn't like that you could do a game show, a
Speaker 1: quiz show, and if you did it on Monday, and
Speaker 1: you taped a few of them, they aired starting the
Speaker 1: Monday after many of the mayor the same week. I
Speaker 1: love that. I love that instantaneous thing happening, and so
Speaker 1: I just gravitated towards TV. A fellow named Chuck Barriss
Speaker 1: was a friend of mine, and Chuck started the Newlywood Game,
Speaker 1: the Dating Game, etc. And I bought those shows from Chuck.
Speaker 1: He had been doing him a few years, got tired
Speaker 1: of it, and I bought those shows and I produced
Speaker 1: him and I started working on those shows and I
Speaker 1: owned them then, and then I created some of my own.
Speaker 1: I did a special call Miss Black America. There was
Speaker 1: Miss America, and I did Miss Black America out of
Speaker 1: the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. I enjoyed the Philharmonic, and
Speaker 1: when Zubin Maida was our conductor years and years ago,
Speaker 1: I produced Zuban Maide in the La Philharmonic. I had
Speaker 1: Jack Benny as a guest and got some emmies on
Speaker 1: that show and did that. They just came out of
Speaker 1: relationships and this and that. Henry Mancini, how's that. Hank
Speaker 1: was a good friend of mine, and he's always said,
Speaker 1: you do all these shows? What should I do? I said,
Speaker 1: do you be yourself? Come on. He had a wonderful personality,
Speaker 1: just so likable. He was just a terrific guy. And
Speaker 1: so I produced one year of shows with Hank, which
Speaker 1: I have protected and still have them, of course, and
Speaker 1: I enjoyed every single thing I did with him. So
Speaker 1: what you told me earlier really tickles my heart, because
Speaker 1: he was a knockout man. He was terrific and things
Speaker 1: like that. And I did things that have not come out.
Speaker 1: Did a show called City Versus Country. I did a
Speaker 1: bunch of those, and I would take country people from
Speaker 1: the south against city people from more in the north,
Speaker 1: and I would have them do athletics together and see
Speaker 1: who won. Just a silly show, but it went on
Speaker 1: the network and did well. I remember in seventy one
Speaker 1: and seventy two I used to produce the Grammy Awards,
Speaker 1: and I remember how I got the show. I knew
Speaker 1: a man named Bob Wood. Bob Wood at the time
Speaker 1: was president of CBS, and I would see him socially
Speaker 1: because of friends and liked and he liked me and
Speaker 1: another man well known in the business named George Slaughter.
Speaker 1: George produced the Grammy Awards, but he didn't air him
Speaker 1: till a week later. They were just shot on tape.
Speaker 1: I wanted to do him live, so I went to George.
Speaker 1: I said, what do you want. I want to buy this.
Speaker 1: He said, well, gimme X and you own it. It's
Speaker 1: a pain to do it anyway. I gave him X.
Speaker 1: I owned the show. I immediately went over to Bob Wood,
Speaker 1: talk to him a little bit and said, I want
Speaker 1: to put this live on your network. He said, let
Speaker 1: me look at one of them on tape. Showed it
Speaker 1: to him. He said, I like it. I'll bet you'll
Speaker 1: do a great job. I saw you do X and X,
Speaker 1: and that's how I got seventy one and seventy two.
Speaker 1: I did the Grammys live on CBS and they stayed
Speaker 1: live after that. Just unusual, unusual things would happen, and
Speaker 1: I would I don't want to say I fell into it,
Speaker 1: but I was friendly and aggressive, and if I saw
Speaker 1: something I thought might work, I would jump at it,
Speaker 1: jump at it. So you were involved with Richard Pryor
Speaker 1: from an early day before most people knew who he was.
Speaker 1: How did that come together? I met Richard when he
Speaker 1: was doing something at the comedy show and Sunset Boulevard,
Speaker 1: and I went late at night a couple of nights
Speaker 1: and met him, and I thought he was the best
Speaker 1: talent comedity talent I had ever seen. I went backstage,
Speaker 1: talked to him, introduced myself Tom, I've done some TV
Speaker 1: shows and this and that. And from that we met
Speaker 1: the next day and the next day and the next day,
Speaker 1: and we just became pals, just became buddies. I know
Speaker 1: Richard did drugs and I never ever, in all the
Speaker 1: years with Richard, ever saw him take a drug. He
Speaker 1: did not allow me to see him take a drug.
Speaker 1: He respected me for that, and I respected him for that.
Speaker 1: We did shows together. Boy one day he called called
Speaker 1: me up and he said, can you come on over?
Speaker 1: And he had MS at the time. This is later,
Speaker 1: and he said, I've got a friend that'll answer the
Speaker 1: door that you've known for years and years and haven't
Speaker 1: seen him in a long time, but come on over
Speaker 1: the house. And I said, I want to bring my wife.
Speaker 1: He said, okay, And my wife is a lady named
Speaker 1: Mary Hart who was on Entertainment Tonight for twenty nine years.
Speaker 1: So Mary and I go over to Richard's house, knock
Speaker 1: on the door, and Mary didn't want to go. She said,
Speaker 1: Richard of all the people in twenty nine years. Richard
Speaker 1: was the worst interview I ever had, just horrible. I
Speaker 1: don't want to go, don't want to go, and I said,
Speaker 1: you gotta come, come on, you'll see a different Richard.
Speaker 1: He's my pal. I want you to see Richard with me,
Speaker 1: please Mary. So Mary came along, not happy about it,
Speaker 1: and I knock on the door and who opens the
Speaker 1: door but Muhammad Ali And I knew Muhammed had met
Speaker 1: him early, and he also was not real well at
Speaker 1: the time. So we had Richard Mohammed there, and Mohammed
Speaker 1: was great, and Richard was my buddy still, and he
Speaker 1: was a little bit weakly talking, and he said, come on, Mary,
Speaker 1: come on, Mary. I know I was with you one time.
Speaker 1: And Mary looks at me and she goes over and
Speaker 1: sits next to him, and I go off with Mohammed
Speaker 1: and Mohammed and I are talking for about thirty minutes
Speaker 1: in another room and I come back and see Richard
Speaker 1: and Mary, and I swear to you, they both had
Speaker 1: tears in their eyes. I said, what in the world happened?
Speaker 1: Look at the two of you? And Mary said, Richard
Speaker 1: asked me, who was the worst interview I ever had
Speaker 1: and I told him him, and I told him why
Speaker 1: and what had happened. And I was in Oklahoma then
Speaker 1: on a talk show working and Richard came through early
Speaker 1: in the morning and he hadn't gone to bed, and
Speaker 1: this is not where he wanted to be. And we
Speaker 1: discussed it, and he put his arms around me and
Speaker 1: started crying and said, I oftentimes hurt the people I love.
Speaker 1: And I just started to crying. Here we are. And
Speaker 1: after that, when Mary would interview Richard for entertainment tonight,
Speaker 1: which he did, He'd always got a couple of hundred
Speaker 1: letters and she would go over to the house, oftentimes
Speaker 1: without me, and read the letters to Richard. They were
Speaker 1: sent about him to the studio and they became best
Speaker 1: best friends. At his funeral, he left directions that he
Speaker 1: wanted Mary to be the speaker and the host at
Speaker 1: his funeral, which she did. And I loved him. I
Speaker 1: just loved him, and so did Mary, and he was
Speaker 1: a dear, dear friend till the end. I once gave
Speaker 1: him as a gift, I gave him a miniature horse.
Speaker 1: I had a ranch out in Hidden Valley and had
Speaker 1: a couple of miniature horses, and he admired when he
Speaker 1: came out, So I gave him one and his great
Speaker 1: dane ate it the little miniature horse. You can't talk
Speaker 1: that story, and you can't make it up. I can
Speaker 1: hear him telling that story. Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Bob, Wow,
Speaker 1: there's some things that happened. They're just mind boggling. Now
Speaker 1: you have a long history of being involved and married
Speaker 1: to very famous, desirable women. You talk about Mary Hart.
Speaker 1: You were married to Mary. Mary is thirty four years married, Bob. Okay,
Speaker 1: but there were people before. Supposedly you were engaged to Anne,
Speaker 1: Margaret married to Carol Wayne. What's your magic for the
Speaker 1: guys out there? Well, do us a trick? Oh wow,
Speaker 1: Bob left Sets asked me that question. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's any magic except maybe me being me an. Margaret
Speaker 1: was on stage with George Burns in Las Vegas. Ronnie
Speaker 1: Burns told me about her, said, come on, let's go
Speaker 1: see the show. My dad says, she's a wonderful, wonderful talent.
Speaker 1: I went up there backstage afterwards, George and Margaret, Ronnie
Speaker 1: and I, and then she and I went out a
Speaker 1: few times. You know, when you're around town, like that,
Speaker 1: and you're in different nooks, different corners, different shows here
Speaker 1: and there. You meet a lot of people, and you
Speaker 1: have a few dates. But you had more than a
Speaker 1: few dates. You say you're married. How'd you meet Mary?
Speaker 1: I had produced a movie called Children of a Lesser
Speaker 1: God for Paramount, and Paramount wanted the producers of three
Speaker 1: or four of the films coming out that next year
Speaker 1: to go to Las Vegas to meet the theater owners.
Speaker 1: They had a couple of thousand come to Las Vegas
Speaker 1: every year, and the producers would talk about their films. Well,
Speaker 1: I get on a Paramount plane and I look across
Speaker 1: the aisle and there's Mary Hart, who I watch on
Speaker 1: TV every night and always saw it. Gosh, I'd sure
Speaker 1: like to go out with Mary Hart. And she's sitting
Speaker 1: alone with papers on her lap. I go over. I
Speaker 1: sit down in the chair next to her, and I said,
Speaker 1: and there's only a few of us producers and then
Speaker 1: Mary and I said, Hi, I'm Bert Sugarman. Mary. It's
Speaker 1: nice to meet you, she said, Hi. Say can we
Speaker 1: talk to a few minutes? She said, no, we can't.
Speaker 1: I'm going through all of these papers about your movies.
Speaker 1: Of you producers who you are what the names are,
Speaker 1: so I can't right now, maybe another time. Thank you. Well,
Speaker 1: that was a great one. I went back to my
Speaker 1: seat and sat there, and then on stage I couldn't
Speaker 1: talk to her, just couldn't. And she was working and
Speaker 1: I was getting ready for my speech. All these theaters
Speaker 1: her owners, and that was the end of it. And
Speaker 1: going home, I went home a different I didn't go home.
Speaker 1: I went to New York, and I guess she went
Speaker 1: back to Hollywood, so I didn't see her for quite
Speaker 1: a while. And then what was next? Right next was
Speaker 1: I'm in New York laying on the beach, and my
Speaker 1: host at their house says, you got a phone call, Bert,
Speaker 1: come on, get up here. You got a phone call.
Speaker 1: I go up and it's a friend of mine at
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills. Do you even know what the share party is, Bob, Yes,
Speaker 1: I do, Okay. The share Party is where it's a
Speaker 1: charity and everything goes to mental health and it's tied
Speaker 1: to Cedar sign I Mental Hospital, and the wives of
Speaker 1: many male executives and a few of the husbands of
Speaker 1: female executives run this group called Chair and they give
Speaker 1: a party where you were tree Western clothes boots, guns
Speaker 1: and all kind of Levi's fun party to go to
Speaker 1: every year in Los Angeles or Beverly Hills, usually at
Speaker 1: the Hilton. And this friend of mine says, listen, I'm
Speaker 1: going to the share party. And this is on a Wednesday.
Speaker 1: And he said, you know it's Saturday night. And he said,
Speaker 1: I'm taking Mary Hart and Jackie Smith. I'm really mad
Speaker 1: about Jackie Smith. I'm just I'm in love with her,
Speaker 1: and Mary's gonna come along. Would you like to join us?
Speaker 1: I said absolutely positively. Okay, he said I'll come by.
Speaker 1: He doesn't even know where I am. He said, I'll
Speaker 1: come by and pick you up about six thirty or
Speaker 1: six o'clock and we'll go get married first. And then
Speaker 1: Jackie I said, great, wonderful. Well, I'm thrilled. I fly
Speaker 1: right back to LA and we go by and pick
Speaker 1: up Mary. Hi, Mary, how are you? Hi? Bird? You
Speaker 1: never called me? Oh my gosh, what a start. Mary.
Speaker 1: I feel terrible. I never called you. Thank you for
Speaker 1: saying that. Okay, we go out that night. He goes
Speaker 1: over with Jackie, leaves the table, so I'm sitting with
Speaker 1: Mary and we talk all night long, had a great time.
Speaker 1: Go home, drop Jackie off, drop her off. Next morning,
Speaker 1: about ten o'clock, my phone rings and it's Mary Hi Bert, Hi, Mary.
Speaker 1: Weren't you gonna call me? We had a great time
Speaker 1: last night. Of course I was gonna call you. How
Speaker 1: about dinner Tuesday? And Mary Hart says, how about dinner tonight?
Speaker 1: I said, Wow, you have got it. I'll pick you
Speaker 1: up tonight. We're going to dinner. We literally have never
Speaker 1: been apart since that dinner. Wows that incredible love story,
Speaker 1: and it's true, it's one hundred percent true. Thirty four years, Bob,
Speaker 1: thirty four years. That's a long record. Did anybody never
Speaker 1: mind Hollywood? So you talk about producing children the lesser gone?
Speaker 1: How'd you get into movies by reading a couple of
Speaker 1: scripts that I like? I read the script. I didn't
Speaker 1: read the script. That's a real interesting question. Because I
Speaker 1: heard about the play, and I was in New York
Speaker 1: and I heard about the play, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: see the play. So I went to see the play.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting there and I see Norman Lear sitting
Speaker 1: in front of me, Ray Starks sitting across the aisle,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, Wow, these are two of the biggest
Speaker 1: producers in the business. I knew them both, Ray extremely well,
Speaker 1: Norman Little and I watched the first half and it
Speaker 1: broke for fifteen twenty minutes. I went downstairs. I called
Speaker 1: the playwrights agent Stan Cayman at William Morris and Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills and the phone downstairs, and I said, I love this.
Speaker 1: I want to buy the movie rights. He said, well, Bird,
Speaker 1: you may not know, but but Ray Stark is there,
Speaker 1: and Lear is there, and he named another producer I
Speaker 1: never heard of. And he said they're all there and
Speaker 1: I'm probably going to hear from him. And I said,
Speaker 1: I want to buy it, and I want to buy
Speaker 1: it now, right now on the telephone. What does he
Speaker 1: want for the rights the film rights? And he said,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Hold on, I said, not too long.
Speaker 1: I got to go back. He obviously called the playwright
Speaker 1: and he called me back and he said, look, I
Speaker 1: think from one of those guys he'd take three to
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand. But you you've you're not known for
Speaker 1: producing a film. He wants a million dollars. I said,
Speaker 1: you got it. A million bucks, he's got it. I
Speaker 1: want the film rights, he said, but he's got to
Speaker 1: meet you. I said, where is he? He said, New Mexico.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, I'll meet him for breakfast wear Los
Speaker 1: crucis New Mexico. I said, let me call me later
Speaker 1: and tell me where to meet him. I'll be flying
Speaker 1: in private. I'll go there. Okay. I saw the play,
Speaker 1: said a load to Norman's said a load of Ray,
Speaker 1: how are you? What's doing? Went back to the hotel,
Speaker 1: checked out, flew to Las Cruces, New Mexico, and I
Speaker 1: had an airplane. Then flew there. I met the playwrights,
Speaker 1: sat with him for an hour. He said, we're going
Speaker 1: to get along, but will you let me write the
Speaker 1: first draft to the screenplay? I said one hundred percent yes,
Speaker 1: of course. I owned the rights and that's how I
Speaker 1: got involved. How long from that date till the movie
Speaker 1: is made? Well, it was probably a year till the
Speaker 1: film was made, but a couple of things. The next day,
Speaker 1: I get a phone call in La from my friend
Speaker 1: Ray Stark. He said, I'm gonna do you a big favor.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm going to give you the million dollars back,
Speaker 1: You'll have nothing invested, and we'll co produce it together.
Speaker 1: I said, I can't do that. Ray, you're terrific. Well
Speaker 1: why not. You won't have anything invested, I said, I know,
Speaker 1: but you're one of the biggest producers. You produce Streisand's films.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows it. They'll never know me. I'll never get
Speaker 1: a reputation of any kind. This is a quality film
Speaker 1: that I want to make, and I appreciate it very much,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to do that because I want
Speaker 1: my name out there so I get some reputation to
Speaker 1: make more films. He said, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 1: I then went back to New York and I wanted
Speaker 1: Robert Redford to play to play the star in it,
Speaker 1: and Bob Redford and I were together for about two
Speaker 1: weeks in a row, day in and day out, going
Speaker 1: over what the play would be like and what would
Speaker 1: happen in each scene. And he was fabulous to work with.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was such a gentleman. And one day,
Speaker 1: sitting there after about two weeks, he said, Bert, I
Speaker 1: can't do it. You know where the lead climbs up
Speaker 1: this tree and look at her and tries to make
Speaker 1: noise and get her attention on the second floor. I
Speaker 1: said yes, he said, Bob Redford wouldn't do that, and
Speaker 1: I said, I know, but you're the character. You're not
Speaker 1: Bob Redford there. He said, no, but I've got to
Speaker 1: live with being Bob Redford. And he just wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: He'd shoots somebody, he'd do this with Paul Newman, but
Speaker 1: he wouldn't do that. I can't do it. I thanked him,
Speaker 1: We hugged, and I thanked him so much for spending
Speaker 1: all that time with me. And that was it. So
Speaker 1: we cast it Marley Matlin. Yeah, this is Marley Matlin's
Speaker 1: big breakthrough. How'd you end up using Marley? Because she
Speaker 1: came through with other non speaking and not hearing actresses
Speaker 1: and there was a light about her. There was something
Speaker 1: about Marley that was absolutely amazing. Now you know that
Speaker 1: that was thirty eight years ago, thirty nine years ago,
Speaker 1: and she was wonderful. And I will also tell you
Speaker 1: that last October Mary and I took Mary and her
Speaker 1: husband to a Dodger baseball game. We are still friends
Speaker 1: with Marley. She's as wonderful now as she ever was.
Speaker 1: But we met her. She went to god Debt College,
Speaker 1: I believe it part of Juilliard, and she just she
Speaker 1: was alive and then of course she gets nominated for
Speaker 1: an Academy Award for Best Actress. I go to the
Speaker 1: Academy Awards and Marley wins Best Actress of the Year.
Speaker 1: Non speaking and non hearing lady. Nothing like that had
Speaker 1: ever happened, and I was so proud of her. She
Speaker 1: was wonderful. And if you've seen Coda, then you know
Speaker 1: Marley was in Coda just terrific, as wonderful as ever. Okay, hey,
Speaker 1: the playwright, he wrote the original script. How close was
Speaker 1: that to the shooting script? Not that close. It was interesting,
Speaker 1: it was good, but it didn't quite hit me. And
Speaker 1: when we went over talking about it, he understood it
Speaker 1: and he was terrific about it. He just I didn't
Speaker 1: know how he'd act. And I felt I did know
Speaker 1: because he was such a gentleman. But it just didn't
Speaker 1: get there. And then after a couple of drafts and
Speaker 1: this and that, I felt we had it. Okay, you
Speaker 1: went on earlier than you were a TV guy. It
Speaker 1: was very immediate. Now you're working in the movies, are
Speaker 1: you still ultimately disillusioned because my interestandings, you don't go
Speaker 1: on to make a whole bunch of movies. That's true.
Speaker 1: I made about five movies, and I really liked TV better.
Speaker 1: It was it suited my personality better, which was immediate
Speaker 1: and go for it and do it and aggressive, and
Speaker 1: so TV fitted better. But I had to deal with that,
Speaker 1: and I had. Then I saw a script and I
Speaker 1: went to see a play called Extremities, and Extremities was
Speaker 1: absolutely wonderful. It was a story about a woman that
Speaker 1: was watched by a man who wanted to get her
Speaker 1: and beat her and rape her. And he watched her
Speaker 1: leave her house, go to work, come back and work,
Speaker 1: and so he goes and captures her, gets her in
Speaker 1: the apartment, and lo and behold, this woman turns the
Speaker 1: tables on him and somehow you got to see the film.
Speaker 1: What she does is take him prisoner, and it was
Speaker 1: fair a faucet in the film. And she did a
Speaker 1: fabulous job, just fabulous job. I did another film called
Speaker 1: Crimes to the Heart with Jessica Lang's Sissy Spacek and
Speaker 1: just some fun things that I did because I liked
Speaker 1: the scripts. And then I after that, I started getting
Speaker 1: out of that business and kind of leaving the entertainment
Speaker 1: business and going in some businesses, Like I say, I
Speaker 1: went in the hamburger business. How do you do that? Well,
Speaker 1: I did it when the hamburger business a little slower.
Speaker 1: What was the name of your hamburger, Jane? What were
Speaker 1: you doing in the hamburger business? I went. I was
Speaker 1: in New Orleans and I had a meeting in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: I was in Nolands and I wanted to get a
Speaker 1: quick burger and go by McDonald's. And I was driving
Speaker 1: by this McDonald's and I see in their line there
Speaker 1: was like twenty five cars and I didn't have that
Speaker 1: much time. And across the street was a little place
Speaker 1: that had a line on each side of the building
Speaker 1: double drive through. This is like nineteen eighty six, eighties,
Speaker 1: eighty seven, eighty eight, and I had never seen that.
Speaker 1: In the line were only four or five cars. I
Speaker 1: went there, I got a burger, I got fries, milkshake.
Speaker 1: I loved it. I ordered some more fries. Loved that.
Speaker 1: You couldn't sit out inside. He had two or through
Speaker 1: tables outside. There was no inside. Small little building called Rallies.
Speaker 1: Oh well, Rallies. So I went back that night after
Speaker 1: my afternoon meeting with a man named al Copeland, who
Speaker 1: owned some restaurants in New Orleans dinner restaurants and was
Speaker 1: very well known. And I went back and I said
Speaker 1: the guy who's a manager, He said, I am, and
Speaker 1: I own it. Talked to him for a while, and
Speaker 1: I bought that store. You bought it? Yes, I bought it.
Speaker 1: And from there I started a chain called Rallies. And
Speaker 1: after I had about forty of them, there was a
Speaker 1: chain that was similar, double drive through called Checkers, and
Speaker 1: that started in Alabama. I bought that and I merged
Speaker 1: it with Rallies, kept both of their names, and I
Speaker 1: went from that one store to about nine hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty stores and sold the two chains. How do you
Speaker 1: decide when to sell? Gut? That's it? Gut? Did I
Speaker 1: want to continue to build them? Mary and I, and
Speaker 1: as I said, I had an airplane used to fly
Speaker 1: to two and three cities a day, because before I
Speaker 1: built a store which was a Rallies or a Checkers,
Speaker 1: I wanted to see the location, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: be on the proper corner, and I wanted to know
Speaker 1: what traffic was under thirty eight miles an hour going
Speaker 1: by there, and I wanted to be near a McDonald's
Speaker 1: right if there was McDonald's close by with one drive
Speaker 1: through who they'd always have a line and I'd get
Speaker 1: some of their business. And so I was really working
Speaker 1: at it, and I thought, that's enough, that's okay maybe now,
Speaker 1: and gut told me to leave it and do something else.
Speaker 1: So it was obviously very successful. What was the thrill
Speaker 1: relative to entertainment personally? Major? Major? Because I enjoyed what
Speaker 1: I was doing. I thought the product was terrific. I
Speaker 1: had battered fries and I thought they were absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1: And I told my staff in there, and they didn't
Speaker 1: all know me because I had so many, so I
Speaker 1: could go buy them and mystery shop, I could walk
Speaker 1: in make sure that John's were clean and the place
Speaker 1: was okay. They didn't know I was. And I found
Speaker 1: out a few things. I found out that my managers
Speaker 1: were better as female than male. There was less thievery,
Speaker 1: almost none with females males. They would be given up
Speaker 1: twenty burgers out to their buddies or this or that,
Speaker 1: and you had to watch that kind of stuff. And
Speaker 1: so I love to have female managers at the stores.
Speaker 1: And I just enjoyed the fries. I thought they were
Speaker 1: really good, better than McDonald's and the burgers. We were
Speaker 1: careful to make sure we had the right amount of meat,
Speaker 1: that it had the proper heat, and how we put
Speaker 1: burgers with automatic heaters on top of them so nobody
Speaker 1: ever get eat kohli or whatever. I enjoyed the whole process.
Speaker 1: I just really loved it. How are your arteries? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm still around today, right with you, Bob, And then
Speaker 1: mine are not that great. So you said you got
Speaker 1: in the cement business. Another another podcast, Bob. Okay, just
Speaker 1: I love talking to you too, because you ask me
Speaker 1: wonderful questions that really make me think back, and I
Speaker 1: really appreciate that I do. But we've got another part
Speaker 1: of my life maybe again. Okay, but before we wrap
Speaker 1: up a couple of things. With so much experience in hindsight,
Speaker 1: what do you think about today's television business? What do
Speaker 1: we know? Television drives the culture in a way that
Speaker 1: no other art form does movies or music. It's moved
Speaker 1: to streaming. There's a plethora of product. What do you
Speaker 1: think about today's landscape? I think streaming. I just think
Speaker 1: streaming is absolutely the way to go. There used to
Speaker 1: be a show that you could look at at eight
Speaker 1: o'clock on a Tuesday night and it was wonderful. But
Speaker 1: the next Tuesday night you couldn't. You weren't in town,
Speaker 1: you were working, you had a meeting, you had a
Speaker 1: birthday party something, and so you'd missed the week's later show.
Speaker 1: Streaming you see him when you want to see him.
Speaker 1: I think that so many of them do it well.
Speaker 1: Netflix has done it well. And the management and Netflix
Speaker 1: look back where they started from. You know, read hastings,
Speaker 1: ted surrenders. They started out with DVD's in the store
Speaker 1: and they're still putting out music and product and great shows.
Speaker 1: But a lot of them do you know, they're not
Speaker 1: just that paramount. Plus, my friends all watch Yellowstone love it.
Speaker 1: Who are these people? Who are some of them? Who
Speaker 1: are the writers of some of them? It's just streaming
Speaker 1: is the way to go. And if I was going
Speaker 1: to go back in that business now, which I never
Speaker 1: know what I'm gonna do next, streaming is what I
Speaker 1: loved to do. Chess love to do. Make a show
Speaker 1: that you can let ten of them out on the
Speaker 1: same day and people can watch all of them on
Speaker 1: a weekend if you love it, or watch them when
Speaker 1: they can watch them. So and there's so many gray
Speaker 1: have you seen Yellowstone, Bob tell you the Truth? That's
Speaker 1: one show I haven't seen. Yeah, it's worth looking yet.
Speaker 1: It really is. Kevin Costner's terrific. The show is just great.
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty three, and where it goes from there
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty three, all spinoffs, all terrific. I think
Speaker 1: that's paramount plus. But I'm pretty familiar with it. You know.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like succession. You fall behind and then
Speaker 1: it's monolithic to start up. And you know, I have
Speaker 1: a list of all the stuff that I'm watching. There's
Speaker 1: so much good television from around the world. Especially you
Speaker 1: mentioned that you don't know what you're doing next. Are
Speaker 1: you still actively involved in businesses? Absolutely, morning to night,
Speaker 1: seven days a week. You can call me and tell
Speaker 1: me you've got an ID and let's try and do
Speaker 1: it together. The other thing, especially in this era of
Speaker 1: financial unpredictability, you've made a lot of money. Where do
Speaker 1: you invest your money? I don't think I'll go there.
Speaker 1: I will tell you. The philanthropy is very important to
Speaker 1: Mary and I. Right now, Mary sits on the board
Speaker 1: of Children's Hospital Los Angeles. That's important to us. And
Speaker 1: there's a group of charities that are really really important
Speaker 1: to us. We're always looking for others and we focus
Speaker 1: a lot on that and if there's something that we
Speaker 1: can do in the entertainment business to make some of
Speaker 1: these things better known. While Vince Scully was alive, Mary
Speaker 1: talked to Vinny and he was the voice of Children's Hospital,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and I have videotape of Annie and Mary
Speaker 1: on the floor at Children's Hospital with Paul Viviane, the president,
Speaker 1: playing with some kids whose hair is shaved because of operations,
Speaker 1: who are healing and this and that with these children,
Speaker 1: and that just gets my heart just so wonderful to
Speaker 1: see in Vince Gully's voice. And now a lot of
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Dodgers come over, and it's interesting because
Speaker 1: the six years olds, six years and seven and eight
Speaker 1: year olds, they don't know who the players are. The
Speaker 1: fourteen year olds that are in the hospital they do.
Speaker 1: So it's seeing some of them come over there and
Speaker 1: they're attracted to the little bit the older ones. So
Speaker 1: we just enjoy that so much. Now, you mentioned your
Speaker 1: health is good. What's it like having so many of
Speaker 1: your contemporaries pass. It's depressing, that's what it is. I
Speaker 1: see some of them do, and I see some of
Speaker 1: them are alive. I talked to a fellow yesterday by
Speaker 1: the name of David Permott. David's been a producer around
Speaker 1: for years. He just called me and said, I saw
Speaker 1: the midnight special TV show on YouTube Bert fifty years congratulations,
Speaker 1: Why did you wait so long? And we were on
Speaker 1: for forty five minutes last night, late last night, with
Speaker 1: him telling me about a show that he's gonna stream now,
Speaker 1: which I can't tell you about. I wish I could,
Speaker 1: but it sounds fabulous and the star that he's got
Speaker 1: gonna be in that it's wonderful. And again, I just
Speaker 1: really enjoy streaming, whether it's looking Have you looked at
Speaker 1: by the way Succession there in their last year, right,
Speaker 1: And of course Mary and I watched Succession. Love it.
Speaker 1: Have you seen poker Face? You'll get a kick out
Speaker 1: of that, you know, I know poker Faced. I've watched
Speaker 1: about a few episodes. I must say, I'm very into
Speaker 1: this foreign television. The Israelis in the Danes I find
Speaker 1: make you know, have the reputation of making the best
Speaker 1: international television like foud Oh found unbelievable. Unbelieve one of
Speaker 1: the best ever, right, and then the show that Homeland
Speaker 1: was based in Israeli show Schu Green. We're watching on
Speaker 1: Amazon right now, an Indian show South Asian, shall we say,
Speaker 1: called Fakes Farsi. It's really good. There's a new season
Speaker 1: of this English show. It's not in America yet. That
Speaker 1: I always say is my number one recommendation called Happy Valley?
Speaker 1: Have you seen Happy Valley? It's a crime. Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't even know the title. This is a number one
Speaker 1: show in England. Mary sitting next to me writing that
Speaker 1: down right now, Okay, how about Spiral Have you seen? Spiral? No?
Speaker 1: No is a French show co production with the English
Speaker 1: basically the best cop show you'll ever see on what streamer?
Speaker 1: Do you remember? I think you know? These things move around.
Speaker 1: I watch one or two seasons for free on Amazon.
Speaker 1: I think the restaurant m ac Mega hurts. Okay, Spi
Speaker 1: r ala absolutely. Now, let's be clear, since you're a pro,
Speaker 1: they don't make them every year, and they've now made
Speaker 1: the final episode, so when you watch the first season,
Speaker 1: the transfers won't be as possibly good, but they're great.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could go. The other classic show is
Speaker 1: called a French Village, which is another French show about
Speaker 1: during the Resistance. If we know that one. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we know French Village, Yes, great and tremendous. The original
Speaker 1: border in the Killing from Denmark. They've been remade as
Speaker 1: American shows. Mary is shaking her head. Yes and I
Speaker 1: can't remember it. How about Occupied? If you watched Occupied Occupied? Yes, Occupied,
Speaker 1: we know exactly I mean these show. How about Fauda?
Speaker 1: How about this last season of Fauda? Wasn't that amazing? Okay,
Speaker 1: explain that guy Duran so much charisma. He's like an
Speaker 1: anti hero because by American standards, they wouldn't even cast him.
Speaker 1: You're right, good, look, right whatever. You know that he
Speaker 1: used to be a bodyguard in America before he was
Speaker 1: the Starfire. I didn't know that his name is Lere
Speaker 1: and boys something. Wow, he's a star. It's just you know,
Speaker 1: usually when the shows play multiple seasons, they get worse,
Speaker 1: but not this show, and it's sad. Second, Mary, come on, Mary,
Speaker 1: come on one second. We're not using the video so
Speaker 1: it doesn't just no videos. Just come up, just come
Speaker 1: take a peek to see you. We can television forever,
Speaker 1: you know. There there's just so many good shows and
Speaker 1: you and you see it there and I you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people depend on the algorithm. I study it.
Speaker 1: I say, it's such an investment to watch these shows
Speaker 1: that I want to owe the other show that is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Did you watch this French show The Bureau? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: we don't write it down on the Bureau. No. The
Speaker 1: Bureau is the French Cia. Okay, now I'm gonna warn
Speaker 1: you right up front. It starts off slow. It's an
Speaker 1: intense show, but it is just like a movie. It
Speaker 1: is unbelievable. The Bureau. Yes, okay, while we're talking, did
Speaker 1: you watch Borgan? Yes, yes, yes, unbelievable. There's this sweetish
Speaker 1: show called Bonus Family. It's on Netflix about a blended family.
Speaker 1: Really good. I don't know that one. You've watched narc obviously, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: Could I give you a book? I have a book
Speaker 1: for you to read, Okay, well, I know you. I
Speaker 1: know you'll love it. It's called Easy Writers Raging Bulls.
Speaker 1: I read it, of course, I read it. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: Peter watched his name Peter begins, Yes, yes, Peter biskind right, right.
Speaker 1: I've even seen him speak about that really phenomenal Oh,
Speaker 1: this is a magical show Ethos. Did you watch Ethos? No,
Speaker 1: we've seen it advertised, but have not seen it. Oh
Speaker 1: it's really intense Turkish show. Listen. I'll leave you with that.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know that's my highlight of the day
Speaker 1: watching streaming television. No. And I love these suggestions, honestly,
Speaker 1: I really do. But most of all, I like your
Speaker 1: questions because they've never been asked some of these before.
Speaker 1: And I really enjoy this, this hour or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: I love it. Thank you are you know you've been
Speaker 1: the air and done that. To me, that is fascinating.
Speaker 1: I mean we didn't go really deeply into it, but
Speaker 1: I know how hard it is to be successful, and
Speaker 1: most people are a successful saying, oh, it wasn't that
Speaker 1: big of a deal. Oh, believe me, it was. So
Speaker 1: I'm a student of the game. What is the personality?
Speaker 1: What the relationships? You know, I grew up on the
Speaker 1: East Coast and the East coast, it's all about where
Speaker 1: you went to college, who your parents are whereas in
Speaker 1: LA the most important thing is what kind of car
Speaker 1: you drive, which is just phone enough. But none of
Speaker 1: that matters. Everybody's a self starter and the people who
Speaker 1: have made it to the top. They're always very intelligent
Speaker 1: and they have an amazing story. I won't keep you
Speaker 1: any longer. Bird, it's been wonderful talking to you. Thanks
Speaker 1: for taking the time to speak to my audience. Bob,
Speaker 1: a pleasure visiting with you. Thank you so much. And
Speaker 1: as we say, you know I was watching last night
Speaker 1: that I not that I haven't watched them. Some of
Speaker 1: these performances are just utterly riveting. I mean there's stuff
Speaker 1: you see. You know, forget the big hits, you know,
Speaker 1: like Linda Ronstad doing Long, Long Time, etc. But Redbone
Speaker 1: come and get your Love. I mean, I know that's
Speaker 1: on to see them perform that live. And there were
Speaker 1: a couple of old Jerry Wright doing Love Is Alive.
Speaker 1: That's my favorite song. And to watch him play you know,
Speaker 1: the keytar, the keyboard. You know, it's very hard to
Speaker 1: turn off. And I'm not blowing smoke up your Rearran,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's great that this stuff is available.
Speaker 1: Well every week, every week on Monday mornings, I'm going
Speaker 1: to put up another ten or fifteen that are unique,
Speaker 1: and you love you all love them all. But there'll
Speaker 1: be some that will be favorites of yours. Okay, just
Speaker 1: to be very clear, because I was in preparation, I
Speaker 1: was going on you Tube to watch your channel. Specifically,
Speaker 1: you have to search to me on your channel. What's
Speaker 1: the name of your channel? Again? Midnight Special TV Show,
Speaker 1: So for those at home, go to Midnight Special TV
Speaker 1: Show for the authorized versions. Although Bert is very up
Speaker 1: to date, he doesn't want to kill the other people.
Speaker 1: He's realized in building the audience, he's in business with
Speaker 1: them and Bert. I'll leave it at that, Thanks again,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. Until next time. This is Bob left Sets