How I Got This Way Page 4

  And that’s how it really started. Hollywood, after all, wasn’t the only place to get that break I wanted so badly. On the appointed morning in June of 1955, I would report to NBC and officially enter the world of big-time television. Of course, I was nervous. So nervous, in fact, that I sat for a moment outside of 30 Rock, trying to collect myself on one of those benches that still overlook the lower concourse reflecting pool—the one that, during wintertime, becomes the famous ice-skating rink you see so often on NBC broadcasts. I noticed that all the flags stationed around Rockefeller Plaza were flapping in the breeze, much as they do today. In fact, most everything about that iconic building, forever the home of NBC, has remained the same. Even now, whenever I walk through its massive lobby with those old murals on the walls, it reminds me of that June morning so long ago when I was scared stiff and yet terribly excited to begin this new chapter in my life.

  Anyway, that first day, I checked in and got my official page uniform—which had a very familiar military feel to it—and then I was assigned to head over to the Hudson Theatre on West Forty-fourth Street. There, I would work in the second balcony, seating audiences for an already popular new late-night program called The Tonight Show, which starred a multitalented fellow named Steve Allen. I arrived well before showtime, and once I got up to my second-balcony post, I saw that rehearsals were still under way onstage below me. I sat down to watch, instantly awed to find myself smack in the midst of genuine television stars doing their thing. There, planted behind that piano he played so expertly, was Steve Allen himself, kibitzing with his regular comic ensemble—Louis Nye, Tom Poston, and Bill Dana—each of whom would go on to great successes of their own. They were all tossing around very funny lines so effortlessly, honing their material for the broadcast to come. I laughed—and loudly, too—as I sat alone high above them. Then the show’s boy-and-girl pair of house singers—Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, who later famously became major husband-and-wife headliners in the business—stood up and ran through a number or two. I was so impressed with their magnificent voices; they were barely out of their teens, and yet they were already right here making a splash in the big time. My God, I thought, how is it that all these people are just so talented, so confident, so professional—and here I am, this nobody page up in the second balcony, waiting to seat their fans?

  I mean, it was clear to me in that very moment: Maybe I needed to rethink this quest of mine. Had I really chosen the right business in which to pursue a career? I began asking myself all over again: What is my talent, anyway? That question in particular—to which I had absolutely no answer—was the one that would haunt me for the rest of my life. Or at least for many, many more years yet to come.

  Cut to nearly a decade later:

  The truth was, I must have had something to offer as a television persona because, for starters, at the end of that 1955 summertime stint as a Tonight Show page, old Al Flanagan did in fact call me back to Hollywood. He gave me work as a stagehand at KCOP-TV and eventually tipped me off to a better job that he thought I could pull off down in San Diego. That better job led to even bigger things in that town, including a local live Saturday-night talk show that allowed me to interview all kinds of people, many of them well-known celebrity characters passing through the area. One such celebrity, who held major sway over the culture and who has a chapter all his own in this book, happened to rave about the show after a most memorable guest appearance, and my phone soon began ringing off the hook. Most of the calls were from well-wishing friends, but one came from a Los Angeles agent named Max Arnow from GAC. He was eager to get a load of me in action, so he flew down to San Diego shortly after. I drove to the airport to pick him up. He was easy enough to recognize amidst the rest of the arriving passengers: very flamboyant, very brassy, very Hollywood. I then brought him to the TV station, where he reviewed some of the shows that we’d managed to record on tape (very few copies of my work existed in those days). He seemed to like what he saw, but made no promises. He did say, however, that he would try to make something happen.

  Now this was in 1964, when talk shows weren’t exactly booming. In daytime, Mike Douglas was becoming an afternoon favorite in national syndication through Westinghouse. And of course NBC’s Tonight Show ruled supreme in late night. It was then starring the sensational Johnny Carson as host, who had followed the also sensational Jack Paar, who had, in turn, followed the originally sensational Steve Allen. Naturally, I’d never forgotten my first day as an NBC page, watching Steve from the balcony and requestioning all of my ambitions in that thoroughly humbling moment. But nowadays I was watching him on an all-new show, shot in Hollywood and syndicated by the Westinghouse Group. His latest antics were being broadcast out of a studio renamed the Steve Allen Playhouse on Vine Street, across from the Hollywood Ranch Market. This new version of his previous show was wilder and always daring. Whenever Steve allegedly ran out of material, for instance, he would send someone over to the Ranch Market, which housed a huge bulletin board plastered with crazy personal ads from people looking for jobs or for love or for God only knows what. And Steve would call up these people on the air and pry loose screamingly funny in-the-moment conversations with them. Always sharp and spontaneous, his humor never failed to dazzle me. Plus, his happened to be the only national talk show regularly taped in Hollywood at the time, so he got the greatest and starriest guests of any host working. It was wonderful television.

  Anyway, my man Arnow, true to his word, had been poking around trying to find me a bigger opportunity in the business. He met often with his young subordinate agents, telling them that I was the next great new talent on the rise. Of course, none of them had actually seen me—but one of them, named Bobby Levine, happened to be in a restaurant across from the Steve Allen Playhouse one night and heard the rumor that Steve was preparing to quit the Westinghouse show. Levine immediately started telling anyone in the restaurant within earshot about this guy named Regis who was doing big things down in San Diego. Steve Allen’s executive producer, Chet Collier, turned out to be sitting there at the bar, hearing every word of Levine’s nonstop spiel. Chet, having had a few drinks already, made sure to spell out in ink on the palm of his hand the name “Regis” so that he wouldn’t forget. The next morning, he woke up, stared at his palm, and called Bobby Levine. Bobby raved on about me even more, quoting the showbiz powerhouse who had earlier praised me as well. And that did it. Chet and his lieutenants were down in San Diego to witness my very next Saturday-night show. The guest that evening was none other than the glamorous Hungarian movie queen Zsa Zsa Gabor. Chet’s gang stayed backstage, watching the live broadcast on the monitor. Luckily, Zsa Zsa and I hit it off famously, having a good laugh together. Afterward, backstage, she just blurted out for all the execs to hear: “My God, he’s as good as Carson!” That was all the encouragement they needed.

  Next thing, they called and asked me to go to Cleveland to pinch-hit for the daytime star Mike Douglas, who was planning a vacation. They wanted to see me try my hand at a national daily show for a week. Mike, at that point, had never let a guest host sit in for him, never wanted one to either. But he finally relented and I got my shot. His staff was terrific (headed by the dynamic executive producer Woody Frasier and including a young guy named Roger Ailes, who would decades later put Fox News on the map). They even flew in a guest of my own choice, the colorful wrestler Freddie Blassie, who’d been such great fun on my San Diego show. The high jinks actually escalated on the Douglas show: While doing some stunt with Freddie, I inadvertently slapped him on the face. He, of course, blew up and began chasing me around the studio, looking very much like he would kill me once he caught me. The largely female audience screamed in terror! I probably did, too. Finally, we had to stop the chase, but not before he grabbed my hand and pretended to crush it. Except that he did crush it—Freddie was one very strong guy!—and accidentally managed to break one of my fingers. (I mean, I think it was an accident!) I still have the bump to
prove it. But he was a wonderful friend. And we made some great TV there, and elsewhere in later years.

  Anyway, the Westinghouse people liked what they saw and wanted to see more. So next they gave me another week—this time in Hollywood, actually guest hosting for Steve Allen himself, the guy whose shoes they seemingly wanted me to fill. They liked how that turned out, too. And then they offered me the job to take over the show from Steve once his contract ended, which was apparently happening within weeks! I wasn’t counting on that. I would have preferred that we’d created a brand-new show built around who I was and what I did rather than be compared to the remarkable one-of-a-kind man they simply wanted me to replace. The same man I’d watched from the second balcony roughly nine years earlier and who’d left me instantly awestruck on my first day of work in the television business.

  What followed, I must honestly tell you, bothered me tremendously. I was flown around the country on one of those promotional meet-and-greet tours, stopping off at the various cities whose stations had been airing Allen’s show nightly. And no matter where I went, some TV critic would inevitably ask, “Why you?” I mean, they had never heard of me. They’d cite so many of Steve’s great abilities and talents, and then openly ask me, “So what’s your talent?” There was that damned question again—the one I’d never stopped asking myself, starting well before that first day in the Hudson Theatre balcony.

  And I still didn’t have an answer for them—or for myself. Never quite precisely, anyway. It just got more humiliating and embarrassing every time someone raised it. It hurt, and I hated it. Worse yet, it also dominated my thoughts. I should have been focused entirely on succeeding at my big break, my new national show in Hollywood. Instead, as I went from city to city and watched Steve’s last handful of programs each night on my hotel room TV, I grew more and more discouraged. My hopes had suddenly all faded. On the last night of the tour, the actual Friday before the Monday when I would take over, I was put up at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco. I watched Steve’s final show. And then I couldn’t sleep. At all. Instead, I stayed up until dawn, looking out my window at the Golden Gate Bridge.

  Though the show had its moments after I took over, it died within months. Suffice it to say that for me, it was a major heartbreaker.

  And what about Steve Allen? Over the years, I met him at many functions, would actually enjoy dinners at his home, had him as my own guest on future shows, and even guested on one of his shows. And every time I saw him, it dredged up the painful memory of following him on that Hollywood Westinghouse show. Steve never mentioned it to me or even gave the slightest clue that he remembered I’d once been his catastrophic replacement. He was always in good spirits, maybe thinking the mere topic would be uncomfortable and that it was all part of the business—that if it hadn’t been me who took over his show, it would have been someone else, and at some point, why would it matter in the long run anyway?

  But for me, he represented much more than I could’ve ever told him. His was the very first undeniable television talent I had seen up close and personal in this business. And I mean tremendously personal. Starting on that day when I began my own career, wearing my crisp new NBC page uniform and watching him onstage from that second balcony, all the way through the many years to come. I must admit that every time I drive down Forty-fourth Street in New York, past the old Hudson Theatre where I’d once been so unsure of what my future would hold, I always think of Steve Allen. Because he forced me to wonder long and hard and practically ever since—in a way that maybe nobody else could have—about what exactly my talent really is.

  WHAT I TOOK AWAY FROM IT ALL

  When other people believe in you, they believe in you for a good reason. Don’t worry about that reason—just believe right along with them.

  To specifically label what you do best is to unfairly limit what you can do best.

  Just make sure you know what you absolutely cannot do. And don’t be afraid to admit it.

  Chapter Four

  RONALD REAGAN

  Probably more often than you’d guess, I catch myself thinking about my early days in San Diego TV and how it all got started—thanks to my rather unconventional work on radio there. Those were the days sandwiched between my stint as an NBC page in New York and the whole Westinghouse debacle in L.A. With the help of Al Flanagan, who’d previously hired me as a pretty menial stagehand at Hollywood’s KCOP-TV, I’d now landed a somewhat bigger broadcasting job right back in good old San Diego, across the bay from the Coronado military base where I’d been stationed in the navy for two years. This new job—which is probably hard to even fathom nowadays—required me to cruise the city’s streets in a KSON-radio car equipped with both a microphone and a typewriter set up in the front seat, so I could slide over and bang out my report and then broadcast it on the ham-operated mic. Every hour on the hour, I had to deliver a story—it was as if I was on a nonstop news-hunting expedition, always searching for the next “breaking” incident in town. Usually, the blotter that hung in the pressroom of the San Diego police station would have something I could work with—which I’d then go chase down. Not always, though.

  Once, with my hourly deadline drawing near, I went to the blotter desperately hoping for something, anything! There was something about—are you ready for this?—a break-in of a piggy bank in Poway, a little town, now probably booming, outside of San Diego. Believe it or not, I knew it was the last thing I should even consider filing as a legitimate news story. But time was running out! So I wrote an overly dramatic, and hopefully funny, account of how this little piggy bank—holding less than a buck in change—had been busted open and the contents stolen. A piggy bank—in Poway . . . for god’s sake!

  But I wrote the hell out of the story and delivered it like Edward R. Murrow: somehow both somber yet urgent in tone, which made it pretty funny. I just hoped whoever heard it had a sense of humor. Understandably, I never thought stories like that would get me into television. But sure enough, the news guys over at KFMB-TV happened to be listening and wondered, Who is this character reporting such offbeat kinds of stuff? They liked it, called me in, and hired me to do regular funny feature stories on their newscast—one every night, no less. And they gave me an 8-millimeter camera to shoot it. I’d go out, film the piece, come back to the station, process the film, edit it, write the copy, and deliver it on the show. The rival station, KOGO-TV, liked what they were seeing, too—and soon offered me an even better job: do my feature story on the 6 p.m. broadcast—and then actually anchor the 11 p.m. news, which was quite a major step up. Also, I asked for, and received, the promise of a Saturday-night talk show, which would begin in early October 1961.

  By then I had been inspired hugely by Jack Paar—especially by his gift of connecting directly with that camera lens. I wanted to give it a try, in my own way, and also to have real and lively conversations with guests in front of a TV audience. For this local show, there were no writers, no producers, and, naturally, no budget. Tom Battista—who became my lifelong friend from the start—was assigned to direct the program. During the week, it was just Tom and I. In between my nightly newscasts, I would try to contact whoever was coming to San Diego that weekend and build my guest lineup, combining visiting notables with our local San Diego celebrities—hoping for an interesting mix. For a few minutes every Thursday afternoon, Tom and I would have a meeting and outline the upcoming Saturday-night show. And that was it. Our whole planning session lasted about as long as a coffee break!

  Sometime in 1962, I read in the papers that Ronald Reagan was coming to town. Right away, I booked him for that Saturday night. I had seen him in the movies, of course, as the Notre Dame football hero George Gipp in Knute Rockne All American—a favorite of every devout Fighting Irish fan—and also in Kings Row, his best acting role ever, as well as in a few so-so westerns. Maybe it wasn’t the most thrilling period of his acting career, but he was an established movie star, and I was hungr
y for guests. The show aired live beginning at 11:15 p.m., after the local news, with a studio audience of around two hundred people. A couple of gung ho San Diego State college students would set up the audience seats beforehand and then stick around to remove the whole setup afterward. (One of them was Bud Carey, who later climbed up the ranks of the business and became general manager of New York’s WCBS-TV; he went on to teach his great television know-how at Syracuse University before retiring. The other student volunteer was George Lewis, who turned into one of NBC News’s best reporters, covering the West Coast and also several wars overseas for the network through the years. I’m very proud of both of them.)

  Anyway—because I probably already knew that hosting a talk show was the job I would always love best—Saturday night was truly the most important night of the week for me. To prepare what I hoped might make entertaining stories for my opening segment, I would think about all the things I had done that week and the interesting people I’d bumped into around town. This was to be my Jack Paar–style conversational monologue material—and I found that it came to me pretty naturally! After that, it was all about bringing out the guests, whether from New York, Los Angeles, or dear old San Diego. Pro football had just been getting started in town back then, and the Chargers were our new franchise team. Jack Kemp was the team’s star quarterback and, inevitably, one of our show’s first guests. Instead of just sitting on a couple of stools, we passed the ball back and forth during the interview. I was trying hard to do something different with the format.