Speaker 1: Hi everyone, it's Moe. We'll be back with an all
Speaker 1: new episode of the podcast next Wednesday, but this week
Speaker 1: we're reaching into our archives all the way back to
Speaker 1: season one to share the very first episode of Mobituaries,
Speaker 1: Von Meeter and the Death of a Career. This November
Speaker 1: twenty second marks sixty years since the assassination of President
Speaker 1: John F. Kennedy. Pretty Much anyone who is alive on
Speaker 1: that day remembers where they were when they heard the
Speaker 1: devastating news out of Dallas, Texas. But no one experienced
Speaker 1: that day or its aftermath in quite the same way
Speaker 1: that von Meeter did. He was the comedian who'd skyrocketed
Speaker 1: to fame with his uncanny impersonation of jfk In an
Speaker 1: instant that dark day, his livelihood ended and his life
Speaker 1: radically changed. It's an episode we're proud of. We hope
Speaker 1: you appreciate it, and be sure to tune in again
Speaker 1: next week for an all new deep dive into the
Speaker 1: people and things who never got to send off they deserved.
Speaker 2: I think we have time for one final question.
Speaker 1: In the late fall of nineteen sixty two, one of
Speaker 1: President John F. Kennedy's closest advisors Arthur Schlessinger Junior was
Speaker 1: driving in his car when all of a sudden, he
Speaker 1: heard the following question come over the airwaves.
Speaker 2: That's in office.
Speaker 3: What do you think the Chans offer Jewish president?
Speaker 1: A familiar voice answered.
Speaker 2: Well, I think they're pretty good.
Speaker 4: Now, let me say, I don't see why a president
Speaker 4: of the Jewish faith not be President of the United States.
Speaker 4: I know, as a Catholic I could never vote for him.
Speaker 1: But other than that, his confusion was cleared up when
Speaker 1: he learned the voice belonged to Kennedy impersonator Vaughon Meeterer,
Speaker 1: but was concerned enough that when he returned to the
Speaker 1: White House he drafted a memorandum to the President. He
Speaker 1: wrote the following, This raises the question of what in
Speaker 1: hell a president of the United States ought to do
Speaker 1: about mimicry. I'm guessing many of you have never heard
Speaker 1: of von Meder, but for one brief shining moment, Okay,
Speaker 1: a twelve month period between late nineteen sixty two and
Speaker 1: late nineteen sixty three, he was a really big deal.
Speaker 1: He had this parody album called The First Family, a
Speaker 1: spoof of the Kennedys. In old video clips, he looks
Speaker 1: like a distant Kennedy cousin, young, clean cut with a
Speaker 1: thick head of hair, and his JFK impression he's uncanny.
Speaker 4: Just listen today will be in nuclear de Shamelin, followed
Speaker 4: by the un bond issue and a matter of the
Speaker 4: trade agreement. Now first, there is a most important matter
Speaker 4: to settle, mister gall yours was the chicken, Salad and coffee.
Speaker 2: That's a dollar forty.
Speaker 5: Family well in five weeks, this album has broken all
Speaker 5: records in the history of the recording business.
Speaker 3: It's sold well.
Speaker 5: Get this, three and a quarter million copies in five weeks.
Speaker 5: It took My Fair Lady album five years to sell
Speaker 5: that many copies. I had.
Speaker 1: That was late night King of his day, Jack Parr
Speaker 1: marveling at the popularity of this one album. And the
Speaker 1: star of the album, Von Meeter, was just about everywhere
Speaker 1: until all of a sudden he wasn't.
Speaker 6: From Dallas, Texas. The flash apparently official President Kennedy died
Speaker 6: at one pm Central Standard time.
Speaker 1: I'm Morocca and this is mobituaries. This mobent jfk impersonator
Speaker 1: von Meeter November twenty second, nineteen sixty three. Death of
Speaker 1: a career.
Speaker 7: Oh are we recording.
Speaker 8: Now, Okay, I've worked across the street from this building,
Speaker 8: and I had no idea. I thought it was maybe
Speaker 8: some NSA storage unit. I don't know how people's final
Speaker 8: It's okay.
Speaker 1: The CBS News.
Speaker 3: Archives, O lock, Hey, it's Joe.
Speaker 1: N That's Joe Alessi. He's managed the CBS Archives for
Speaker 1: twenty two years now. He's the go to guy if
Speaker 1: you need anything that was shot by CBS News during
Speaker 1: the twenty first, twentieth century. Even the nineteenth.
Speaker 9: First thing we have is eight from eighteen ninety seven,
Speaker 9: and that's William McKinley's inauguration.
Speaker 1: You're kidding, Let's go to the back.
Speaker 9: And then when I say to the back, we're going
Speaker 9: to the vault.
Speaker 4: Are the vault?
Speaker 10: Vault?
Speaker 2: It's the vault.
Speaker 9: It sounds it sounds very mysterious.
Speaker 1: It smells like pastrami or something. Well, I've realis lunch.
Speaker 5: So you're correct on that.
Speaker 2: No, what that is?
Speaker 9: That's sometimes all right, Let's go this way.
Speaker 1: What are CBS's sort of greatest hits.
Speaker 9: Well, the thing that people ask for most is the
Speaker 9: assassination of President Kennedy. That seems to be a story
Speaker 9: that fascinates people from the beginning right up until today,
Speaker 9: people ask for at least once a week.
Speaker 1: And for good reason. That horrible day in November nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three ended the president's life and changed the life
Speaker 1: of the nation. That's what mister Oakes taught us in
Speaker 1: high school. There was America before the assassination and America
Speaker 1: after and before comedian Vaughan Meter was a household name,
Speaker 1: So surely the CBS archives would have something on the man.
Speaker 1: My friend Joe did not disappoint.
Speaker 8: Three tapes of a von Meter interview sounds promising, because
Speaker 8: that's unless those tapes are super short.
Speaker 1: That's a significant interview.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think it's a good find.
Speaker 1: And so I took a look. But what I saw
Speaker 1: and heard wasn't exactly funny.
Speaker 3: So it looked like, you know, I could do this forever.
Speaker 3: There was no end to the thought of gold, but
Speaker 3: there was no rainbow either. It was had no idea
Speaker 3: it was gonna be that months.
Speaker 1: This is von Meter in nineteen ninety eight. On these
Speaker 1: tapes he looks haggard and shake him sixty two years old,
Speaker 1: but a rough sixty two. This was all recorded for
Speaker 1: a short lived CBS cable network called Ion people. Meter
Speaker 1: was being profiled as part of a where Are They Now?
Speaker 1: Type series. Little of this footage made it to air.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: I was born in Waterville the Night of the flood.
Speaker 1: Abbot von Meeter was born in nineteen thirty six in Waterville, Maine,
Speaker 1: and by all accounts, had a harrowing childhood. His father
Speaker 1: drowned when he was one, and his young mother moved
Speaker 1: from Maine to Boston to work as a cocktail waitress.
Speaker 1: Meeter had to shuttle between Maine and Massachusetts for much
Speaker 1: of his youth, spending some of that time in children's homes.
Speaker 1: He says he started entertaining people to avoid punishment. When
Speaker 1: he got into trouble near the end of high school,
Speaker 1: his mother was institutionalized and Meter ran away to the army.
Speaker 1: He ultimately was stationed in Germany, where he met the
Speaker 1: first of his four wives and played in a band.
Speaker 1: After his time in the service, he did a risque
Speaker 1: piano act around the New York City area and then
Speaker 1: moved on to Greenwich Village, where he owned a politically
Speaker 1: themed comedy routine. It was at this point that he
Speaker 1: dropped his first name, Abbott. He became Vaughan Meeter and
Speaker 1: then one fateful night, a voice came out of Meter.
Speaker 1: It was the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy.
Speaker 5: Yes, the gentleman over there, sir, When are we going
Speaker 5: to send a man to the moon?
Speaker 3: Whenever, mister Goldwater wants to go right with.
Speaker 8: Meter started to reserve the last ten minutes of his
Speaker 8: routine for an impression of Kennedy's live television press conferences.
Speaker 10: My name is Bob Booker. I've just been in the
Speaker 10: entertainment business all my life, and I've been very lucky.
Speaker 10: And I also forgot to turn off my phone.
Speaker 2: Now, that's fine.
Speaker 1: If it's a gig, pick it up.
Speaker 10: I don't even know this Bruce.
Speaker 1: Back in the nineteen sixties, Bob Booker was a disc
Speaker 1: jockey who, along with his partner Earl Dowd, wanted to
Speaker 1: capitalize on the fascination with the new president as well
Speaker 1: as the popularity of comedy albums. These were the days
Speaker 1: of Stan Freeberg, Shelley Berman, Nichols and May, and the
Speaker 1: great Bob Newhart, who had just won Album of the
Speaker 1: Year at the Gram's, a first for a comedy album.
Speaker 1: That classic bit with Newheart as President Lincoln's press agent
Speaker 1: still holds up.
Speaker 5: I sweetheart, how's jEdit Bert.
Speaker 9: Sort of a drag?
Speaker 10: So we were looking for the next thing to do, like,
Speaker 10: you know, so we could have a meal the next day.
Speaker 10: We said, you know, Kennedy make a great album.
Speaker 1: So what was your concept for this album.
Speaker 10: You've got this giant star. He's a movie star, he's
Speaker 10: a political star, he's he's a world star. I got
Speaker 10: in such a good looking man with this beautiful wife. Right.
Speaker 10: We said, if you take this character and the family
Speaker 10: and put them in everyday situations, that's funny.
Speaker 1: This was the beginning of what would become the First
Speaker 1: Family album. The only problem was they had no idea
Speaker 1: who could play the head of this First Family, That
Speaker 1: is until they turned on the TV the evening of
Speaker 1: July third, nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 11: No, but he's from the New school and has served
Speaker 11: his apprenticeship in the little clubs that feature you know,
Speaker 11: the topic of comedians, the kids with the rye offbeat
Speaker 11: comments on life today.
Speaker 1: Does that voice sound familiar? It's Jim Bacchus aka mister
Speaker 1: Magoo aka Thurston Howl, the third from Gilligan's Island. He
Speaker 1: was hosting a summer replacement show called talent Scouts on CBS.
Speaker 11: And I know, I know you're going to be delighted
Speaker 11: with the TV debut of mister Vaughan Meeter.
Speaker 1: Meeters started off with his take on the news headlines
Speaker 1: of the day.
Speaker 4: There's one that might be a little more familiar to you.
Speaker 4: Congressman read Write of Alabama was quoted as saying, literacy
Speaker 4: test ain't proven nothing.
Speaker 1: Listen, I have no idea how funny or fresh is
Speaker 1: topicals stuff actually was. There's that old quote from playwright
Speaker 1: George S. Kaufman, satire is what closes on Saturday Night.
Speaker 1: But his impression of Kennedy was and is nothing short
Speaker 1: of sensational.
Speaker 4: He's doing my act, he's doing my gestures, and he's
Speaker 4: using my lines. Do not ask what this country can
Speaker 4: do for you.
Speaker 2: That's one of my original lines.
Speaker 10: When he did Kennedy, it was perfect, absolutely perfect.
Speaker 1: Bob Booker and Earl Dowd had found their man. But
Speaker 1: there was something else striking about that performance, A kind
Speaker 1: of disclaimer he made at the end of his starmaking routine,
Speaker 1: something I can't imagine any comic doing today.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'd like to make one final statement at this time,
Speaker 4: and I would like to make that final statement as
Speaker 4: myself von Meta, and that is the thing. Thank you
Speaker 4: for the United States, a country where it is possible
Speaker 4: for a young comedian like myself to come out on
Speaker 4: television before millions of people and kid leading citizen, thank
Speaker 4: you good night.
Speaker 12: It was very interesting to me because he was to
Speaker 12: me non controversial.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get the perspective of a modern day
Speaker 1: presidential impersonator.
Speaker 12: I decide how big my failures are, and they're.
Speaker 1: The biggest way Meet Anthony Tammanik. He impersonates President Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: most recently on Comedy Central's The President Show.
Speaker 12: I wonder if that caution was sort of to say, listen,
Speaker 12: I'm making fun with him, not of him.
Speaker 8: This is a telegram that right after von Meter made
Speaker 8: his television debut, he wrote a telegram of the White House.
Speaker 12: He wrote this to you President. Yeah, dear mister President,
Speaker 12: I respectfully call your attention to the Talent Scouts Show,
Speaker 12: which we taped last night for viewing on CBS Television
Speaker 12: Tuesday night, July third, at ten pm. I impersonated you,
Speaker 12: but I did it with great affection and respect. Hope
Speaker 12: it with your approval, respectfully. Von Meter. Wow, that is wild.
Speaker 10: We actually went through eleven I think turned down.
Speaker 1: Booker and Dowd had their concept, their Kennedy, and a
Speaker 1: demo of the album. No One was biting, though. Booker
Speaker 1: remembers one meeting at ABC. In the room that day
Speaker 1: was Jim Haggerty, who was the vice president of News
Speaker 1: and a former White House Press secretary under Eisenhower, Kennedy's predecessor.
Speaker 10: He said, I think the Communists will love it. I
Speaker 10: think Russia will love it, and every communist country in
Speaker 10: the world will love it. And he slammed the door
Speaker 10: behind him and going out. He was outraged, right, So
Speaker 10: we were just insulting the president and his family. He
Speaker 10: was not a man with a great sense of humor.
Speaker 8: Mister, it doesn't sound like it. But did it give
Speaker 8: you any doubt? Did you for a moment, go, boy,
Speaker 8: maybe this is disrespectful. Maybe we should didn't do it.
Speaker 8: This was place number twelve that we'd been thrown in
Speaker 8: the street. Okay, didn't discourage us at all.
Speaker 10: We knew we had a hit record. I would have
Speaker 10: bet anything on it. We did bet everything on it.
Speaker 1: While ABC passed, the president of the network suggested they
Speaker 1: try a smaller label called Cadence, run by Archie Blyier.
Speaker 10: Picked up the phone, called him set the meeting. The
Speaker 10: next morning. We went over and they bought it instantly.
Speaker 1: They'd overcome one hurdle getting a record deal, but as
Speaker 1: it turned out, recording the album before a live audience
Speaker 1: came with its own set of challenges.
Speaker 11: This is a special report from CBS News the Cuban Crisis.
Speaker 10: Talk about an evening. Oh what an evening.
Speaker 1: That's the night of President Kennedy's big speech about.
Speaker 10: The Cuban crisis. And we had the TV sets in
Speaker 10: the back room and we watched the speech where everybody
Speaker 10: believed going to.
Speaker 3: War within the past.
Speaker 7: We unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series
Speaker 7: of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that
Speaker 7: imprisoned island.
Speaker 1: So the show starts.
Speaker 8: The audience has no idea that President Kennedy is on
Speaker 8: TV addressing the nation about this.
Speaker 1: Really terrible crisis. Yes it was, And how does the
Speaker 1: show go?
Speaker 10: Perfect? And I did have a fear that the cast
Speaker 10: had heard this speech also, so we did. We did
Speaker 10: a quick little speech right before Hey, it's showtime. We're
Speaker 10: going out there and kill okay, and everybody did it.
Speaker 10: Didn't affect anybody.
Speaker 1: After making it through that crisis within a crisis, Bob
Speaker 1: Booker handed off the album to a DJ friend at
Speaker 1: WIS Radio in New York, and.
Speaker 10: He was going on the air in ten minutes, and
Speaker 10: I said, look what I've got and he looked at
Speaker 10: it and he played one cut and he said, Jesus, Pob,
Speaker 10: that's a satial. He went on the air for three hours.
Speaker 10: He played the album continuously.
Speaker 2: No more Family for a while. Now, I promise, now
Speaker 2: turn off the light.
Speaker 4: Good Night, Jackie, good night, jack Night, Bobby night, ethel.
Speaker 10: Every light in the place lit up. I mean it
Speaker 10: was crazy. The phone calls from the other stations were
Speaker 10: coming in, television bookings for all in three hours, broke
Speaker 10: it wide open, wond Jockey.
Speaker 1: The First Family album took off like a rocket, and
Speaker 1: Von Meeter was in for the right of his life.
Speaker 1: Von Meeter was playing a gig in Detroit and didn't
Speaker 1: know what hit him.
Speaker 3: I couldn't leave until I get back to New York.
Speaker 3: And I walked down the street and heard my voice
Speaker 3: being broadcast and I just couldn't keep up.
Speaker 10: With it, man, I mean, it was on fire.
Speaker 1: Can give me a sense of what that felt like?
Speaker 1: What did you think?
Speaker 10: No, there's no way insanity.
Speaker 1: Everyone wanted von Meeterer to appear on their show, including
Speaker 1: beloved singer Andy Williams, who was hosting a popular new
Speaker 1: variety series on NBC.
Speaker 6: Welcome to our show.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, Andy.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to be here. You know, I've been looking.
Speaker 11: Forward all week to working with Vron because I wanted
Speaker 11: to sit right next to the guy who.
Speaker 4: Was sold well.
Speaker 11: He's had the most successful album in the history of
Speaker 11: the recordiness, the First Family Album.
Speaker 8: Okay, there's a good reason The First Family was the
Speaker 8: best selling album of its time.
Speaker 1: It's a total blast. It's not really a sad tire.
Speaker 1: It's parody the kind of fun zany takeoff that I
Speaker 1: used to love reading in Mad Magazine when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, Like when they turned chips into chimps, or
Speaker 1: the Godfather into the Odd Father. That kind of a thing.
Speaker 1: It's not really meant to make you think, it's meant
Speaker 1: to make you laugh. Okay, so some references may not
Speaker 1: play for today's audiences.
Speaker 2: Eva, you drive a hard bargain.
Speaker 1: Like monopoly with Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirkson.
Speaker 2: I'll show you a boardwalk and park place, but.
Speaker 1: A surprising amount of it really holds up.
Speaker 10: I'd like to ask the following question, faultois philipp.
Speaker 2: Now speak English? Jackie?
Speaker 8: Sure, the Jackie sounds more like Marilyn Monroe, which probably
Speaker 8: didn't make the first lady very happy. But come on,
Speaker 8: to be fair, who didn't think the real Jackie sounded
Speaker 8: a little like Marilyn during that famous TV tour of
Speaker 8: the White House.
Speaker 5: Yes, this room is everything in it really is from
Speaker 5: the time of President Monroe.
Speaker 1: Of course, the album does its own take on that.
Speaker 13: Tour and left at the Dai Madison Pinakorom.
Speaker 1: While most of the jokes are pretty gentle, there are
Speaker 1: a few digs.
Speaker 14: Ask the Richard Nixon dam way.
Speaker 8: One of the biggest laughs comes here when the President
Speaker 8: divvies up Caroline and John John's bath.
Speaker 4: Tool nine of the pet Boach, two of the Yogi
Speaker 4: Bear of beach Balls, the Yah Ball of Hilly Putty
Speaker 4: belonged to Caroline, nine of the pet Boach, one.
Speaker 2: Of the Yogi Ya bearra.
Speaker 4: Beach Balls, and the two Howdy Duty plastic bouncing clowns,
Speaker 4: Ah Baby Johns.
Speaker 2: The rubbishwan is mine.
Speaker 1: I'm imagining people everywhere look at home, around the water cooler,
Speaker 1: at work, repeating that rubber Swan line, and apparently they did.
Speaker 10: I thought it was pretty funny.
Speaker 1: Anthony A. Tamanik, who impersonates President Trump, knows the album well.
Speaker 1: His grandfather played it for him when he was growing up.
Speaker 1: But I also wanted his take on how Meeter looked
Speaker 1: as Kennedy. Is it a good impression?
Speaker 10: Yeah, it is a good impression.
Speaker 12: It's a good impression, becau because a good impression doesn't
Speaker 12: require any makeup or accoutrement. The idea should be that
Speaker 12: the presence of the person is what you feel like.
Speaker 12: There's a will that presents Kennedy in that moment.
Speaker 10: There is not, and I say this with a great pride.
Speaker 10: There is not one ugly joke in the entire thing.
Speaker 10: There's not even a really nasty political joke anywhere in
Speaker 10: the album.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's all very safe from today's vantage point. Turns out,
Speaker 1: and this was a surprise to me. The producers in
Speaker 1: cast were pushing the limits of comedy.
Speaker 5: I had the first I must level with you, I
Speaker 5: had some misgivings about this idea for reasons of my own.
Speaker 1: That's late Night host Jack Parr again he was Johnny
Speaker 1: Carson before Johnny Carson, issuing a disclaimer before inviting von
Speaker 1: Meeter on stage. Parr then goes on to quote famed
Speaker 1: Anthwer apologist Margaret Meade. She too had weighed in on
Speaker 1: the First Family album because well why not, she told
Speaker 1: Life Magazine quote, this making fun of people in authority
Speaker 1: is very healthy. It is the difference between democracy and tyranny.
Speaker 1: End quote. The album continued selling like crazy. But what
Speaker 1: was the White House thinking? Remember presidential advisor Arthur Schlessinger,
Speaker 1: who was so concerned about that voice on the radio
Speaker 1: that he wrote a memo about the dangers of impersonating
Speaker 1: the president. He wrote, the radio listener twirls his dial,
Speaker 1: comes in in the middle of things, and rarely listens
Speaker 1: with full attention. Anyway, Schlessinger concluded on an ominous note,
Speaker 1: remember Orson Wells and the Martian invasion. Again, this comedy
Speaker 1: seems completely benign today. But boy, it raised an alarm
Speaker 1: in the president's inner circle.
Speaker 10: Well, it got dangerous because the people around Kennedy, around
Speaker 10: any president, are so protective the minute they heard someone
Speaker 10: doing Kennedy on the air so accurately, Because Vaughan was
Speaker 10: really good with it. They went screaming. They even went
Speaker 10: to the FCC to try and stop the album.
Speaker 1: Clearly and thankfully, those attempts weren't successful. But I was
Speaker 1: fascinated to learn that Schlessinger took the time to go
Speaker 1: back to the days of FDR to seek out some
Speaker 1: kind of precedent with regard to presidential impersonations. It turns
Speaker 1: out Franklin Roosevelt's press secretary, Stephen Early, had directly asked
Speaker 1: media outlets not to give airtime to Roosevelt impersonators.
Speaker 15: It's been a long time since a president and his
Speaker 15: family have been subjected. It was such a heavy barrage
Speaker 15: of teasing and fun poking and satire. And there have
Speaker 15: been books on backstairs at the White House, and cartoon
Speaker 15: books with clever sayings, and photo albums with balloons and
Speaker 15: the rest.
Speaker 2: And now I smash hit for record.
Speaker 15: Can you tell us whether you read and listen to
Speaker 15: these things and whether they produce annoyment or enjoyment.
Speaker 1: Annoyment, No, they yes, I have read them and listened
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 7: Actually I listened to mister Meta record, but I thought
Speaker 7: it sounded more like Teddy than it did me.
Speaker 1: But that's not von Meter as JFK. That is the
Speaker 1: actual President of the United States talking about von Meter
Speaker 1: in one of his live press conferences. According to many accounts,
Speaker 1: the President did enjoy the album and even gave out
Speaker 1: copies for Christmas.
Speaker 10: Do you know why he loved it? Made a human
Speaker 10: being out of him, took him down off the pedestal.
Speaker 10: He was one of us. He just looked a lot
Speaker 10: better than all of us.
Speaker 1: Von Meter went on to win a Grammy for Best
Speaker 1: Comedy Performance and First Family one Album of the Year.
Speaker 1: The First Family beat out the likes of Tony Bennett
Speaker 1: and Ray Charles. Von Meeter was living the dream, right.
Speaker 3: It just took over.
Speaker 1: The voice you're hearing now is the older Meter from
Speaker 1: that nineteen ninety eight interview that I got from the archives.
Speaker 3: You know, I go on Sullivan. I'd asked him if
Speaker 3: I could play a sing a song. I wanted to
Speaker 3: desperately play some music, sing some songs. No no chance,
Speaker 3: no chance, no chance. So I just sell in line,
Speaker 3: you know, and did it. And I had to get
Speaker 3: sued to do a volume two because I didn't want
Speaker 3: to do a volume two. They sued me for a
Speaker 3: million dollars.
Speaker 1: In early nineteen sixty three, while Meter was on a
Speaker 1: concert tour of the album, Bob Booker and Earl Dowd
Speaker 1: began developing fresh material for a second volume of the
Speaker 1: first Family album.
Speaker 10: At twitch time, Vaughan said, I don't want to do
Speaker 10: Kennedy anymore.
Speaker 1: You heard that, right? Meeter, who almost overnight went from
Speaker 1: barely scraping buying clubs just storing in the country's most
Speaker 1: popular album, was sick of the Kennedy act.
Speaker 3: But I wasn't very content with any of it, and
Speaker 3: maybe it was the Kennedy thing that I couldn't get
Speaker 3: out of.
Speaker 1: But album producer Bob Booker was having none of it.
Speaker 10: I said, we have a deal to do it. He said,
Speaker 10: I don't care about that. I don't want to have
Speaker 10: to do Kennedy the rest of my life, he said,
Speaker 10: I want to do my act. And this is the
Speaker 10: time I had to save on. You don't have an act,
Speaker 10: you never had an act. If you give this up,
Speaker 10: you not gonna be working anywhere.
Speaker 1: Was that hard for you to say no?
Speaker 10: Because it was the truth, and I wanted the album
Speaker 10: and just do what we have contractually and then go
Speaker 10: do anything you want in your life. If I never
Speaker 10: see you again, that's fine, and just do what you
Speaker 10: promised you would do.
Speaker 1: How did he take it when you told him you
Speaker 1: don't have an act?
Speaker 10: How did he? Oh? No, he was offended by that.
Speaker 10: He said, no, so I can go do my act.
Speaker 10: Said there was no act. There was no act in
Speaker 10: Talent Scouts right, it was Kennedy, that was it.
Speaker 1: Volume two was released in the spring of nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: three and sold fairly well, but nowhere near the original album.
Speaker 1: One of the sketches, which today seems pretty haunting, imagines
Speaker 1: the Kennedy's enjoying retirement in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 4: I shertinly enjoyed being president. Bobby enjoyed being president. Jeddy
Speaker 4: enjoyed being president. Then I enjoyed being president again.
Speaker 3: Once I was in, I couldn't find the way out.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I'm sorry, he found the way.
Speaker 1: On the morning of November twenty second, nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: the Associated Press published a story by veteran Hollywood columnist
Speaker 1: Bob Thomas, which started as follows, It's always a bit
Speaker 1: surprising to find a new star in show business trying
Speaker 1: to run away from the thing that made him famous.
Speaker 1: Today's example is von Meter. Thomas then goes on to
Speaker 1: write he also is searching for ways to destroy his
Speaker 1: image as a jfk imitator. Meter didn't have to search
Speaker 1: much longer.
Speaker 6: Here is a bulletin from CBS News in Dallas, Texas.
Speaker 6: Three shots were fired at President Kennaday's motorcade in downtown Dallas.
Speaker 6: The first reports say that President Kennedy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the older Von Meter.
Speaker 3: Well, I just got booked at the Democratic Club and
Speaker 3: in Wisconsin. And I flew into Wisconsin from New York.
Speaker 3: And when I got in the cab, the cab driver said,
Speaker 3: you hear Kennedy got shot in Dallas? And I said, no,
Speaker 3: how does it go? Because I thought it was another
Speaker 3: Kennedy joke because people, you know, everywhere I went, people say, oh,
Speaker 3: do you hear about jack who did this? And Jackie
Speaker 3: out of the punchline, you know, So I thought it
Speaker 3: was just another being set up. Somebody recognized me, was
Speaker 3: setting me up for another Kennedy joke, you know. I said,
Speaker 3: how's ago? And then I heard on the taxi cab
Speaker 3: radio that that's what happened. So I went to the hotel,
Speaker 3: got drunk, got the next plane out and went back
Speaker 3: to New York, and I guess they stayed drunk.
Speaker 1: Bob Booker was having lunch in Greenwich Village when he
Speaker 1: heard the news.
Speaker 10: The phone rang and it was my secretary and she said,
Speaker 10: Kennedy's been shot. And I just threw some money on
Speaker 10: the table and left. It was devastating, absolutely devasating. If
Speaker 10: I called Archie Bleyer the minute I got back, and
Speaker 10: I said, get the albums wherever they are, because they're
Speaker 10: out with distributors all over the gun. I said, get
Speaker 10: your hands on all of them. We're going to chop
Speaker 10: them up. I want no part of cashing in on
Speaker 10: this man's death.
Speaker 1: And just like that, Vaughn meeters meteoric rise to fame
Speaker 1: was over. Did you ever see Vaughan again?
Speaker 10: Well, I talked to him a couple of times. I
Speaker 10: don't think I ever did see him again.
Speaker 3: Well, it was over. It's over over. You know, John's gune.
Speaker 3: So I don't want to hear me playing him if
Speaker 3: it isn't me, I don't want to, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't want to be him. Let's say I am.
Speaker 12: I think his issue on this armchair analysis was that
Speaker 12: he did not have a good division between the character
Speaker 12: and himself.
Speaker 1: Trump impersonator Anthony and Tammanik. But he basically doesn't know
Speaker 1: where he ends where Kennedy ends. And he begins, yeah.
Speaker 12: He might have just been a person who just didn't
Speaker 12: think about his psyche before he got into it.
Speaker 3: Well, it broke my heart really at the time. But
Speaker 3: I thought to myself, well, now I can go on
Speaker 3: to something else. But I couldn't. It was I mean
Speaker 3: that they didn't want nobody else. Nobody wanted nothing else
Speaker 3: from me. That's what they wanted, and they couldn't let
Speaker 3: go of that. I'll never forget New York City, as
Speaker 3: cold as it is. I'm walking down Second Avenue and
Speaker 3: a steel riveta, a riveta with a hard hat, sees
Speaker 3: me and stops his rivet and walks over and squeezes
Speaker 3: my hand. It's says, oh so sorry, man, And like,
Speaker 3: you know, I was getting that, you know, like almost pity.
Speaker 3: And I think I had to go to a great extent.
Speaker 3: I know I did. I stayed drunk, and after that
Speaker 3: I stayed drugged to get away from pity feeling sorry
Speaker 3: for me, you know, so then I get to feeling
Speaker 3: sorry for myself.
Speaker 12: I don't know, so imagine if like the one thing
Speaker 12: that you were getting your momentum on just got pulled
Speaker 12: from you, and then everyone's like, oh, that's so bad,
Speaker 12: almost as if also it's like everyone was like, your
Speaker 12: career is over.
Speaker 8: And maybe almost like he wants to shout, I'm not dead, right, yeah.
Speaker 12: And also I thought this, maybe I'm wrong. But they
Speaker 12: would also be like, I don't want this. I don't
Speaker 12: show your pity and love for him, don't don't put
Speaker 12: it to me.
Speaker 1: Meeter would go on to say that he seemed to
Speaker 1: be a living reminder of a tragedy. It's worth remembering
Speaker 1: that in November of nineteen sixty three, he was just
Speaker 1: twenty seven. I mean, that's usually the start of a career.
Speaker 1: One week after the assassination, comedian Lenny Bruce was back
Speaker 1: on stage in New York. Bob Booker saw him and
Speaker 1: says he remembers a moment that has since become legendary.
Speaker 10: And he grabbed that microphone and he said, boyd did
Speaker 10: Vaughan Meter get screwed? Not exactly that word, Okay.
Speaker 1: And you're free to say it if you want to say.
Speaker 10: Oh, he said, boy did Vaughan Meter get fucked now.
Speaker 10: The critics took him apart for this. I have never
Speaker 10: heard a laugh that big in a house in my life,
Speaker 10: because Lenny had the ability to say your most inner
Speaker 10: thought in public that you would never dare say. Everybody
Speaker 10: in that theater had thought that. I had gotten calls
Speaker 10: from people saying, poor Vaughn. I said, poor Vaughn. How
Speaker 10: about poor jack Kennedy? For Christ's sake, right, I think
Speaker 10: about poor Vaughn. One of the best presidents we ever had,
Speaker 10: in my opinion, was dead, assassinated? Is that a sort
Speaker 10: It's not about von Meeter guy?
Speaker 1: No, Von Meder hadn't died, but he was collateral damage.
Speaker 1: Another line attributed to Lenny Bruce was that they should
Speaker 1: put two graves in Arlington, one for Kennedy and one
Speaker 1: for Meter. After the president's death, Meeter wrote a condolence
Speaker 1: letter to Jackie Kennedy. Although we never met, He wrote,
Speaker 1: I felt as though I had known him all my life.
Speaker 1: I was given by fate the ability to impersonate his
Speaker 1: voice and to copy his gestures. I sincerely hope that
Speaker 1: a part of what I did found its way to
Speaker 1: him and gave him and his family a few pleasant moments.
Speaker 14: Yes, beautiful letter, handwritten. It's in two different books.
Speaker 1: Actually did he get a response?
Speaker 14: She hated it.
Speaker 1: That's von Meeter's widow, Sheila. She holds a copy of
Speaker 1: the letter. Missus Kennedy did hate the album when it
Speaker 1: first came out. She referred to meet her as a
Speaker 1: rat in a memo. And here's her conversation with Arthur
Speaker 1: Schlessinger a few months after the assassination.
Speaker 8: What did you think of all these skits about himself,
Speaker 8: like the First Family and so on?
Speaker 2: Do you ever listen to them?
Speaker 10: I think he listened.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure he listened to all of that record.
Speaker 8: I listened to one side and then I threw it
Speaker 8: away because I didn't want my children to see it.
Speaker 1: And well he wasn't.
Speaker 3: I guess he sort of took it.
Speaker 14: You know.
Speaker 10: I thought it was so unfair of those things.
Speaker 1: She went on to say, I mean, I thought it
Speaker 1: was so mean.
Speaker 14: I didn't care if they make fun of me or anything,
Speaker 14: but when they make fun of little children.
Speaker 1: In the year after the assassination, Meter didn't disappear completely.
Speaker 1: He popped up on television a few times in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four, but never again as JFK. That same year,
Speaker 1: he put out his own album called have Some Nut
Speaker 1: Unts later another one called if the Shoe Fits So
Speaker 1: pick up.
Speaker 4: Your phone right now and contribute, contribute the name of
Speaker 4: a Communist and put us over the top.
Speaker 1: While they received some nice reviews, they just didn't sell.
Speaker 1: He traveled the country for the next decade, but, as
Speaker 1: Sheila Meder recalls, the man she called by his birth name, Abbot,
Speaker 1: never found that second act.
Speaker 14: He insisted on writing his own stuff, and it didn't
Speaker 14: He needed a writer, you know. That's he would never
Speaker 14: have succeeded in something like the First Family if there
Speaker 14: hadn't been an Earl Dowd and a Bob Booker to
Speaker 14: write it. He was a delivery man. Abbot delivered, Abbot spoke.
Speaker 14: Abbot had a voice that felt like warm oil was
Speaker 14: being rubbed into your skin.
Speaker 2: It was beautiful.
Speaker 1: I mean, that sounds great. I mean there's no shame
Speaker 1: in being, as you say, well, put it a delivery man.
Speaker 14: That's what he wants, right, that's what.
Speaker 1: But so why wasn't he okay with that?
Speaker 14: I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: He turned to a variety of substances.
Speaker 14: Was the cocaine There was the LSD, the was a psilocybin,
Speaker 14: there was the the rom and coke. That was the marijuana.
Speaker 14: And they all had their effects, every one of them.
Speaker 14: You know, he was a different person with each one.
Speaker 1: Why do you think he've used so many substances.
Speaker 14: Escape, running away, getting getting into, going toward a new life,
Speaker 14: a new reality for him.
Speaker 10: I think.
Speaker 1: One of the characters inspired by these substances was a
Speaker 1: blue bunny. Yes, that's correct, a blue bunny. Meeter also
Speaker 1: had a messianic complex, which led in nineteen seventy two
Speaker 1: to a production of a Jesus comedy album called Wait
Speaker 1: for It, the Second Coming.
Speaker 3: I tell parables?
Speaker 2: Would you care to hear something? What I you're on?
Speaker 10: Make me laugh?
Speaker 2: I'm afraid they are.
Speaker 3: I'm very humorous.
Speaker 2: I'll be to judge and I'd run it down.
Speaker 1: So he's playing Jesus, Yeah, is it funny? Kind of
Speaker 1: did it so well?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: He pursued his passion for honky tonk music and even
Speaker 1: appeared in a few movies in the nineteen seventies, including
Speaker 1: the commercial flop Linda Lovelace for President. Eventually, he moved
Speaker 1: back to his home state of Maine.
Speaker 3: And you know, I should apologize. I'm on television. I
Speaker 3: really should apologize to every woman that ever knew me,
Speaker 3: because I really didn't know how to treat women.
Speaker 1: Something we haven't talked much about is Meter's personal life.
Speaker 1: As mentioned earlier, he was married four times. Sheila was
Speaker 1: number four. They met in the early nineteen eighties in Maine.
Speaker 1: Sheila was running away from her own addictions when she
Speaker 1: came across a flyer advertising Von Meeter playing piano at
Speaker 1: a nearby inn. Did you know who that was?
Speaker 14: I did, but you know, it didn't really register. He
Speaker 14: was only a voice, you know, a voice, that's all.
Speaker 1: He was from that comedy outbum.
Speaker 14: Yeah, from the First Family, And I really didn't register
Speaker 14: him as a living, being, visible, touchable person.
Speaker 1: They would be together for twenty years. Sheila describes a
Speaker 1: controlling relationship with highs and lows, and a man deeply
Speaker 1: conflicted by the thing that had once made him so famous.
Speaker 1: Was he haunted by the whole experience?
Speaker 14: Awful awful, awful awful, But he also didn't let anybody
Speaker 14: know it. At the same time he was letting everyone
Speaker 14: know it. He was a dichotomy. I've never known anyone
Speaker 14: who could be so many things to say time.
Speaker 8: And as far as how he looked back on the
Speaker 8: first family experience, was there a dichotomy? There was he
Speaker 8: haunted by it, but then also wanted people to know
Speaker 8: he was vond Meter, or well he did that.
Speaker 14: That's he wanted to be known as von Meter. But
Speaker 14: on the other hand, he didn't want anything to do
Speaker 14: with von Meter. He was abbot and he wrote his music,
Speaker 14: and he entertained people, and he played the piano, and
Speaker 14: that's what he wanted.
Speaker 4: They say every man must face rejection, they say.
Speaker 2: Every man must fall. But I swear I've seen my reflection.
Speaker 4: Somewhere upon the wall.
Speaker 1: Coming up von Meter as Kennedy one final time. In
Speaker 1: February nineteen ninety eight, von Meter was wintering with friends
Speaker 1: in Florida. He seemed happy playing piano at a local bar.
Speaker 1: He hadn't been a star for years, and then out
Speaker 1: of the blue, he got a call from CBS producers
Speaker 1: wanted to profile Meter for a new cable show hosted
Speaker 1: by Paula Zah coming up on PS. He sounded like JFK,
Speaker 1: he looked like JFK. It made him world famous. Now,
Speaker 1: while you've been listening to von Meter speak It's important
Speaker 1: to note that back in ninety eight, there was a
Speaker 1: producer sitting across from him asking him the questions.
Speaker 8: I was struck immediately by his you know appearance. He
Speaker 8: you know, had full head of gray hair and a
Speaker 8: big beard.
Speaker 1: This is Kevin Hoffman. He was a young CBS producer
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 8: Wait, what do you think his self image was when
Speaker 8: you were sitting there?
Speaker 10: Oh, he was one of the least confident people.
Speaker 8: You know, it's all this bravado like, on the one hand,
Speaker 8: he's aggressive, and if you look at you know, the tape,
Speaker 8: sometimes he looks at me. And I watched it just now,
Speaker 8: and I could see the aggression on his side, like,
Speaker 8: you know, what are you going to ask me next?
Speaker 8: You know, I've got my story to tell and I'm
Speaker 8: not quite confident here. But I also noticed that when
Speaker 8: he does go into bits, his eyes darted around a
Speaker 8: little bit, like he's looking for an audience, very much
Speaker 8: like the camera crew you know behind me were part
Speaker 8: of the audience. You know. When he finally kind of
Speaker 8: shed the act, that's when I felt like I was
Speaker 8: starting to get to the real guy.
Speaker 1: Sheila revealed to me the reason for her husband's weariness,
Speaker 1: his defensiveness. What do you remember from nineteen ninety eight
Speaker 1: when CBS came down to do an interview of him
Speaker 1: in Florida his disappointment. Meeter had boasted to Sheila and
Speaker 1: his friends that TV anchor Paula's On would be coming
Speaker 1: down to do the interview. When he opened the door
Speaker 1: to find Kevin.
Speaker 14: I think that broke his heart. Broke his heart, it did,
Speaker 14: It embarrassed him, and he didn't tolerate embarrassment.
Speaker 8: What happened at the end of the interview, this was said,
Speaker 8: you know we I think toward the end of the
Speaker 8: interview is when I asked him to do the voice,
Speaker 8: and which I felt was kind of a big moment
Speaker 8: for him, Like him doing the voice to me was
Speaker 8: like a really cathartic and possibly damaging thing. I don't know,
Speaker 8: it messed him up.
Speaker 1: I want to play this moment in its entirety because
Speaker 1: more than anywhere else you can hear what a struggle
Speaker 1: it was just being von Meter.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be doing my job as I didn't ask
Speaker 3: you if you would do the voice for us, you
Speaker 3: wouldn't be doing your job. I'd have to think of
Speaker 3: a clever line well, I do the voice, you know,
Speaker 3: save up that voice. All these years we did not
Speaker 3: have a punchline, not have the line to use the
Speaker 3: voice for no, look at the brain. The brain doesn't
Speaker 3: react to to It just shuts off with the switch.
Speaker 3: My on and off switch went on. I used to
Speaker 3: do the voice. My switch went off. I can't.
Speaker 10: I'm not kidding.
Speaker 3: Two hundred years ago and conquered Massachusetts. Hey, I shot
Speaker 3: was fired that was heard around the world. Thirty something
Speaker 3: years ago in Dallas, Texas, another shot was fired that
Speaker 3: was heard around the world. The first bullet fired from
Speaker 3: the conquer bridge signaled the birth of the American Spirit.
Speaker 3: The second bullet fired from the Texas book Depository attempted to.
Speaker 2: Win that spirit.
Speaker 3: And we have seen in the last thirty something years
Speaker 3: how nearly successful that second bullet was. But in the
Speaker 3: final analysis, there is no bullet, there is no bomb.
Speaker 3: There is no power on the face of this earth
Speaker 3: that can destroy the American Spirit. Maybe he'd say something
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 10: I don't know.
Speaker 1: What he's saying here. It's a little bit dark, but
Speaker 1: it's also thoughtful, kind of deep, even I don't know, optimistic,
Speaker 1: A totally different JFK. Impersonation once again, Anthony Tammanik.
Speaker 12: It was interesting because in a weird way, I watched
Speaker 12: it and aligned with it. I was like, oh, it's you.
Speaker 12: You are doing the same thing. You're using this vessel
Speaker 12: to make a greater point.
Speaker 2: Right, So we you know.
Speaker 8: We wrapped up the interview and he got up immediately
Speaker 8: and I followed him. But he went right into the
Speaker 8: kitchen and grabbed a cord of vodka, cracked opened the
Speaker 8: lid and just started chugging. He said, look, I needed this.
Speaker 8: You know I couldn't. I got through your whole interview.
Speaker 8: I did everything, but this is you know, I have
Speaker 8: to do this. I wasn't judging him.
Speaker 1: I can't help but wonder if Van Meter would have
Speaker 1: been better off if he'd never discovered he could imitate Kennedy.
Speaker 1: But what do I know, maybe after a very tough
Speaker 1: childhood he was simply faded to have a rough go
Speaker 1: of it in life. If you could get into a
Speaker 1: time machine and you could go back to the moment
Speaker 1: that he's approached by Bob Booker and Earl Dowd to
Speaker 1: do the first Family album, what would you tell him
Speaker 1: as a time traveler from the future, do.
Speaker 14: It, dear, and I'll be right here. I'll be in
Speaker 14: the background. No one will see me, no one will
Speaker 14: hear me, But I'll be here for you. I would say,
Speaker 14: do it sure?
Speaker 1: Why not? That Vaughan Meter interview from nineteen ninety eight
Speaker 1: was the last the public would hear from him. He
Speaker 1: died six years later on a twenty ninth, two thousand
Speaker 1: and four, just one day after my father died. Pop
Speaker 1: always talked about the time before Kennedy was shot as
Speaker 1: a more innocent time. He heard the news on the
Speaker 1: car radio and pulled the late blue VW Bug he
Speaker 1: was driving, the first car my parents ever owned, over
Speaker 1: to the side of the road and wept. It was
Speaker 1: a different time, one where the presidency was held in
Speaker 1: such regard that von Meter would end his routine with
Speaker 1: the assurance that it was all in good fun. We're
Speaker 1: never going back to that time, and I'm not saying
Speaker 1: we should try, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't pay
Speaker 1: our respects, not just to von Meter, but also to
Speaker 1: that time before that horrible day. So I want to
Speaker 1: end this mobituary with some sound from near the end
Speaker 1: of the first Family album, Sweet Disarmingly Innocent and Yes Funny.
Speaker 13: No Everybody taking it together with Viga Shop.
Speaker 1: Be sure to rate and review our podcast. You can
Speaker 1: also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and you can
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter at Morocca. For more great content,
Speaker 1: including video of the older vond meter, please visit mobituaries
Speaker 1: dot com. You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. This episode Mobituaries was produced by Megan Marcus.
Speaker 1: Our team of producers also includes Gideon Evans, Kate mccauliffe,
Speaker 1: Meghan Detree, and me Moroka. It was edited by Kate
Speaker 1: mccaulliffe and engineered by David Herman. Indispensable support from Genius Denesky,
Speaker 1: Kira Wardlow, Zach Gilcrest, Richard Warrer, the team at CBS
Speaker 1: News Radio, the JFK Presidential Library, and Joe Alessi at
Speaker 1: the CBS News Archives. Our theme music is written by
Speaker 1: Daniel Hart and, as always, undying thanks to Rand Morrison
Speaker 1: and John carp without whom Obituaries couldn't live