Now, THIS is a Loss
I'll stipulate going in that either one seems to really, really like Don Rickles...or doesn't.
I really, really like Don Rickles. I do. I did. I think I always will.
He didn't much tell jokes. And some of his "zingers" -- like "You hockey puck" -- weren't that witty in the reading. It was all in the timing and the execution. The facial expressions. The way he would compliment someone and then , milliseconds later, look disgusted by them.
Here are some variations on the same line, which tore me apart all three times:
To Frank Sinatra(at the latter's Dean Martin roast): I'll level with you, Frank. (Beat) Its the bomb of the year.
On the Dean Martin show, in a Western sketch with Dino as the bad guy, Roy Rogers as the good guy, and Don as a bartender: "20,000 shows on the air, and I have to get stuck on this bomb."
At a roast of Don Adams(Get Smart) at Hugh Hefner's house: "I look around the room, Don, and it becomes apparent to me that...I'm the only name here." (And then a look of wincing disappointment.)
On paper, not very funny jokes On paper, pretty much the SAME joke. But I laughed hard every time and kept laughing. The man kept a rhythm going that created a comic mood that(for me at least) started when he took the stage(or scene) and didn't end til...the end.
Or to James Stewart(at a Dino roast): Jimmy...hey! Jimmy. Look at me: (beat) its over.
I vividly recall Rickles on Carson one time and Carson put Rickles through the paces of a traditional "learn to cook segment" and Rickles killed simply by making disgusted faces and mocking the entire segment. ("Yeah, Johnny, lets take a look at what's cooking here...yeesh.")
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Movies? He made a few. Probably the biggie is Kelly's Heroes(1970), in which Rickles is one of the very funny comedy guys(Rickles, Telly Savalas, hippie-smooth Donald Sutherland) surrounding bland Clint Eastwood. Recall Rickles advice on dealing with a Nazi over some stolen gold:
Rickles: MAKE A DEAL. Who knows, uh...maybe he's a Republican.
He was nicely serious as DeNiro's right hand man in "Casino."
And way back in 1960, as Janet Leigh made "Psycho," her then-hubby Tony Curtis was over at MGM making "The Rat Race" with Debbie Reynolds and a near-debuting Rickles. Rickles play it straight as a low-rent gangster Curtis owes money to. Rickles has a big henchman who does the beatings up.
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Years ago I was desperate to see Don Rickles in person " before he died." So I did. And he didn't die. For five more years, he didn't die. So I saw him again "before he died." And that was like ten years ago. 90 he was. And he had shows booked later this year -- shows with REGIS PHILBIN. I wonder what's going to happen to them.
I recall at the second of the two shows he did that I saw, at the end of the act, he just sat on the edge of the stage and hung with any of us who stuck around. Some autograph signing, but mainly just shooting the breeze and remembering the good old days. ("Yeah I was at Dean's wedding the time he married that twelve year old.") I stuck around a little, thanked him for the decades. Glad I did.
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Don Rickles was best friends with Bob Newhart, the much more deadpan and gentle(but caustic in his own way) comic. Newhart suddenly looks like a precious treasure. With the loss of Don Rickles, we have lost one more tie to an entertainment past which had a Rat Pack beginning (Rickles could rib Sinatra endlessly on TV) and a Cool Old Guy end. All the Young Comics Loved Don.
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Parting shots: I have read that James Caan patterned his Sonny Corleone somewhat on Rickles. I suppose that's where "Bada Bing!" came from, but also that scene where, after Paulie Gatto took a powder so Vito Corelone could get shot, Caan asked how Paulie's cold was going - "You feelin' better? Go home, take a steam bath, get a schrpitz" and then after Paulie leaves, coldly says to Clemenza, "I don't ever want to see him alive again." That's Rickles.
And a pretty good little documentary about his late-age tours, "Mr. Warmth," was directed by Animal House icon, Hitchcock pal, and director-in-exile John Landis. Its good. (Remember how Rickles would always take the stage to the bullfighter music?)
See ya later, Hockey puck. Rest in peace.