How I Got This Way Read online

  So I sucked up my courage and called Walter Winchell, and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. I was a nervous wreck. Reading his stuff for so many years had made him something of a god to me. He was the one who had the inside track to Washington for private face-to-face meetings with FDR. He was the one who not only knew every big player in show business but also had the power to make or break most of them. He was the one who Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, the murderous gangster, turned to when he was about to give himself up to the cops—but only if Winchell would walk into the police station with him. Nope, this was no ordinary guest. This guy was a very important figure in American culture. But without hesitation he said yes, that he’d be there for me Saturday night at eleven. I wish I could recall our conversation, but I’m sure I was beside myself over the whole thing. The mere idea of it stirred up a flood of memories—of how, as a kid, I’d buy the New York Daily Mirror for two cents just to read what Winchell had to say. Back in those years, there he was—planted every night at the Stork Club, right in the middle of all the glitz and glamour of New York—and now he was coming to be interviewed by me . . . on a very local but increasingly popular San Diego talk show.

  When he arrived at the studio, he looked exactly the same as he had in all the pictures I’d ever seen of him since the time I was ten years old. He was snazzy as could be in a fedora hat, a dark blue suit, a white shirt, and a matching blue tie. But here’s what you also need to know about Winchell, if you don’t already: He was quite controversial. He had an enormous ego. A lot of people hated him for that ego and for his shifting politics and even for his successes. And now, face-to-face with him, I felt his electricity. It was almost overwhelming, but there we were on camera in a couple of chairs reviewing his life. It was Winchell talking about Winchell-in-action, and you could tell pretty quickly that it was a topic he enjoyed thoroughly. Out poured his personal greatest tales spanning the old glory days and beyond—classic New York scandals, behind-the-scenes Broadway feuds, crazy antics in the nightclubs, and his lively relationships with movie stars, mobsters, cops, politicians, singers, everybody. Every minute of it was beyond fascinating. At one point, he even got up and encouraged me to join him in an old tap dance from his vaudeville days. He still had it down pat! This was an interview for the ages—and also, very much to my regret, one that’s been lost to the ages because it was broadcast live with no tape running.

  And then, out of the blue, pandemonium broke loose: It must have been close to twelve thirty in the morning when the doors to our studio suddenly swung open—right in the middle of one of his fabulous stories, naturally—and into the broadcast area marched a procession of firemen, some of them carrying axes. I had never seen anything like it. But I had to interrupt Walter—which was not so easy to do—and throw to a commercial break so I could find out what was going on. The fire chief told me, “We have a report of a bomb planted in your studio.” Apparently, there’d been some call about an alleged explosive device hidden on our premises that was probably meant to harm Winchell—or at least interrupt him. The firemen began scouring the studio. The crowd was unsettled, but no one made for the exits; they stayed put, loving the Winchell exchange as much as I’d been enjoying it. In those far more innocent days, no one heard much about bombs going off in public places, especially in TV studios.

  As the firemen carefully poked around the set, Winchell and I approached the audience. I explained the situation and told them that they were free to leave. Meanwhile, Winchell tried to calm everyone down, assuring them that it was most likely a phony tip from some crackpot trying to shut him up. So nobody panicked—except for one woman, who got up and walked down the stairs to the stage, ready to escape. Winchell immediately went to work on her: “What are you afraid of?” he roared. “You’ve got both the navy and the marines based right here in San Diego. You can’t let these Ratzies, these Nazis, scare you!” She nevertheless kept moving. Winchell pleaded, “Don’t leave!”

  She looked him right in the eye. “Don’t go?” she said. “Walter, I love you, but I’m not going to hell with you!” And out she went into the night. The commercial break ended, but the firemen continued their hunt throughout the next segment of the show. And if you think about it, this had to be something of a historic moment for television, probably never to be repeated again—a bomb search going on while I continued a live TV interview . . . with Walter Winchell, no less, who, by the way, picked up his story right where he’d left off, as though nothing at all had happened in between. I was hanging in there, halfway distracted, with one eye on him and the other eye on the firemen. Thankfully, nothing at all suspicious turned up, and the search team had already filed out before we finished the show—at about one twenty in the morning! And keep in mind, we’d been on the air since 11:15 p.m. Quite the unbelievable night. Winchell declared the bomb scare a prank pulled by someone who likely disagreed with his politics and wanted to rattle him. Afterward, the crowd came down from their seats and surrounded him—mostly fans, some not fans, but he loved them just the same. All the commotion, all the excitement—things had gotten very, very New York, right there in serene little San Diego.

  Finally, when the studio emptied, I thanked him and tried to say good night. Winchell would hear of no such thing. “Where are you going now?” he barked. “Home,” I told him. I mean, I was exhausted—to talk to him, to dance with him, to go through a bomb scare with him—I couldn’t take much more! But he wanted to go out for a late bite, and he fully expected me to join him. He was twice my age and still ready to go, whereas I was feeling older and older by the minute. It was nearly two in the morning—an hour when things were still hopping during his regular New York rounds. But here in San Diego I was hard-pressed to come up with a place to entertain him. He settled for a Chinese restaurant, where he continued to tell me stories. This guy was all stamina—he even got up to dance a little more soft-shoe!—while I was fading fast. Meanwhile, other late diners in the place came up to us—some for me, some for him, and most because they just couldn’t believe that Regis Philbin and Walter Winchell were hanging out together in an all-night Chinese restaurant in San Diego. I couldn’t believe it either. I was now beyond worn-out, but I’m pretty sure that he next asked me to cross the street with him to the Union-Tribune office where he wanted to bang out one more column. With regret I still feel to this day, I begged off. We shook hands good-bye on the sidewalk sometime around 3 a.m. I recall the way he straightened his hat, turned, and jauntily crossed the street to go find an available typewriter. I went home drained but exhilarated all the same.

  The next day I was surprised to receive a note from him. But Marilyn Monroe had just died mysteriously in Los Angeles and he was now headed up there to pounce on one of the biggest celebrity stories of the year, if not of all time. Then another surprise came a week or so later: I got an actual plug in a Winchell column. It was, of course, dazzling to see my name mixed into his parade of legendary three-dot items. My item read like this:

  Att’n network execs on both coasts: His name is Regis Philbin. No. One Rating-Getter in Southern Calif. Via Ch. 10 (San Diego to Santa Barbara). He is show-biz from head to toenails. Plus style, class, dignity. The only late-show personality around, we believe, who matches Johnny Carson’s way with a guest or a coast-to-coast crowd . . .

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d made the column. So had my toenails, for that matter. All those years of reading Winchell, and now I had turned up under his national byline, with lots of praise on top of it. Privately, though, it also gave me pause. I was proud, of course, but I had trouble believing that I deserved it. Strangely, I was a little embarrassed, too. In the end, that Winchell plug would lead me to the agent Max Arnow, my first syndicated show, and many great adventures to follow. Yes, it was Winchell I alluded to earlier as the celebrity guest who’d gotten the whole ball rolling for me. And it is to him that I owe a huge debt of thanks.

  WHAT I TOOK AWAY FROM IT ALL

  There w
ill always be something special and more impressive to me about newspaper print than about anything I’m likely to find on the Internet.

  Accepting a compliment from a hero—or from anyone you deeply admire—is harder than it really ought to be. Just accept it and don’t forget to say thanks, and it’s yours for the rest of your life.

  Chapter Six

  SYDNEY OMARR

  All right, as you can probably tell by now, my path has intersected with people who not only impressed, delighted, or inspired me—there have also been those who’ve just plain amazed me. Maybe looming larger than any other in that category was the late remarkable astrologer Sydney Omarr, whose name is still revered in the mysterious realm of reading the stars via charts and birth dates, numerology, and mystical powers. He was a man who would later tell me things that guys like me should never begin to know!

  Anyway, as you’re well aware, that plug in the Winchell column did not go unnoticed. And flattered as I was, I also sensed that my life was in for some dramatic changes, probably much sooner than later. I mean, the great Winchell himself had suggested so very boldly that I was ready for bigger things than my beloved little Saturday-night talkfest in quiet San Diego. And though, frankly, a part of me didn’t want to believe it—not just yet, anyway—next there would actually come a glowing review of our Saturday show in no less than the showbiz bible Variety, as written by correspondent Don Freeman. (Yes, that would be the same Don Freeman who wrote for the San Diego Union-Tribune and whom I’d long admired, even if I never did muster up the courage to talk to him when I first had the chance!) So within a span of just months, I found myself headed to Hollywood to take over the nightly show started by the great and inventive Steve Allen. My debut had been set for the second Monday in October 1964. Here at last—because I had yearned for this moment as much as I’d sort of feared it—was the first truly huge break of my career. It would end up being a break that came and went so fast, nobody ever remembers it. But I, of course, would never forget it, as hard as I may have tried over the years.

  For sure, nothing about this supposedly exciting new show resembled anything I’d done in San Diego. No, this was the big time, and suddenly I had a full staff (as opposed to relying solely on myself and my director friend Tom Battista, as I had done before). The staff included producers, talent bookers, and production assistants as well as two writers to load me up with monologue jokes. Well, honest to God, I’d never told a joke on camera in my life! I had always just come out, sat on a stool, and shared whatever stories had captured my fancy during the week. Plus, in San Diego we aired live, which meant I could talk about various things that had virtually just happened hours earlier. But now, for some reason, this new show ran on a two-week tape delay. (In those days that’s how syndicated programs worked.) No joke writer alive could come up with material that would feel topical or fresh under those circumstances. My television career had always been about immediacy—and now I had to operate in a strange time warp.

  And if that wasn’t bad enough, Westinghouse had only aligned a grand total of thirteen stations around the country to run the show, which meant we never really had a chance to begin with. But none of us knew that at the time.

  Well, I take that back.

  One person knew.

  And he would make it very clear during the first national broadcast of what the decision makers had jazzily titled That Regis Philbin Show. In case you haven’t guessed, I’m referring to Sydney Omarr. What’s really wild about it all is that he appeared at my own request. I thought it would be fun for our debut airing—plus original and kind of risky—to have an astrologer come out and forecast the future of the show. So we booked Sydney, whose syndicated horoscope column was a staple in newspapers from coast to coast. And on opening night, out he came to give me his reading. I’d supplied him with all of my birth data to work with. And now he was sitting next to me—my very first guest on my first national program. I was quite excited at the prospect of what he would predict.

  “So tell me, Sydney,” I said. “Win or lose, how are we going to do?” Sydney fixed a haunted gaze on me and said, “This show will fail. There’s a fight going on right now behind the scenes as to what direction the show should go. It will not become your show. Others will take it from you. You won’t make it.”

  Well, this had to be an all-time first for an opening segment of a brand-new show. I was, to say the least, humbled and disturbed. But in my heart I knew he was probably right. It just wasn’t the same kind of show format for me. I’d already more than sensed that the top brass wanted me to be an altogether different personality than the one they’d discovered in San Diego. Sydney was exhorting me—right on the spot—to take control, to make the show mine, but I didn’t know how. And furthermore, it wasn’t my decision to make. During a commercial break, he asked if he could see me alone after we were done taping—as if what he had already said wasn’t painful enough. And that was when he steadily informed me that the next few years would be the worst period of my life. There would be ongoing drastic changes all around me. In fact, he said, the earth would literally move under my feet. What he was telling me was simply incomprehensible.

  Nevertheless, we were renewed after our first thirteen weeks, which came as a very happy surprise. And the patience and loyalty of Chet Collier, my executive producer and Westinghouse’s key man on the show, were equally uplifting. He’d seen enough of my work in San Diego to believe in my potential. With the renewal, my confidence once again climbed, if not exactly soared. I felt like maybe we did have a chance, after all. The shows were definitely getting better and better. Feeling just a little bit cocky, I even asked for Omarr to come back. I wanted to hear what he thought now. So he returned, and I said to him, “Sydney, much of what you said was true. We did have storms. We did have some terrible times. But now we’ve been renewed. We’re getting better. I see blue sky ahead. What do you see?”

  And Sydney looked at me, his expression dark and soulful, and told me, “I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings every time I’m with you, but this show is going off the air within forty-eight hours.”

  I winced. How could this possibly be true? This time even the great Sydney Omarr had to be wrong. Somehow we got through the rest of the broadcast. Two days later—actually it was thirty-six hours later—I got the call from Chet, whose voice dripped with gloom. “What is it, Chet?” I remember asking. “Did Henry Fonda drop out?” He was slated to be our top guest that night. Instead, Chet asked me to immediately get over to the Beverly Hills Hotel, where the Westinghouse brain trust had all convened. I rushed over there, and in no time flat, they lowered the boom. We’d been canceled. I was out. They wanted to go in “a different direction”—that notorious phrase that spells certain doom in show business—this time with Merv Griffin. And that was that. Omarr had nailed it from the get-go and reconfirmed it just two days earlier. It was a struggle to get through the show that night, knowing we were dead in the water. My friend Tom Battista was in the audience. I didn’t have a chance to talk to him before the show, but one look at my face, and he knew immediately it was over for me. That’s how it started for Merv and how it almost ended forever for me.

  Worse yet, the rest of Sydney Omarr’s predictions came true, too. Personally and professionally, I was in the dumper. In those days, new talk shows were few and far between. It wouldn’t be easy to get another show during the next few years, and further, there would be one personal crisis after another. My brave son, Dan, was born with complicated congenital anomalies, and my failing marriage to his mother, with whom I’d already had a wonderful daughter named Amy, finally ended. And as for the earth moving under my feet? That happened, too. In February of 1968, it rained for two straight weeks in Los Angeles. Day and night, it was a heavy, unrelenting downpour. It wouldn’t let up. I had a home on a hillside overlooking Universal City, and during one of those rainy days, half of the backyard slid down the canyon. City officials ordere
d the house evacuated, and when I couldn’t pay the bills to shore up the property, I lost the house entirely. No, wait a minute, the city of Los Angeles paid one dollar for the house and what was left of the lot. And I took it. Yes, old Sydney had seen it all, a little too clearly, I’m afraid.

  But there’s one more Sydney Omarr prediction I need to share with you. It happened on the final broadcast of The Joey Bishop Show in 1969. Joey had left the show a few weeks earlier, and a variety of people pinch-hit for him as the remaining weeks wound down. I also hosted now and again during those final weeks, which included the very last broadcast we ever did. And for that particular farewell show, guess who I asked to be booked as a guest? Sydney Omarr. I figured, Why not? What else could happen to me? As usual, I asked him about the future, then braced myself—out of habit at this point! And Sydney proceeded to stun me once again, but in an altogether new way. He said, “You will become a household name in America. Your name will be known everywhere. You will have great success.”

  Well, this was more than I had hoped for. Now I really got excited. Sydney Omarr with good news? What could be more of a pleasant shock? Naturally, my next question was “When, Sydney? When?” He proceeded to tell me that it wouldn’t happen right away, that it would take some time.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I can wait. But how long will it take? Six months? A year? Two?” And he looked right into my eyes and said, “It will take twenty years.”

  “Twenty years?” I screamed. Murderers get out of prison faster than that! Twenty years might as well have been forever! Twenty years would never come, I figured.

  “That’s what I see,” said Omarr with certain resolve. But keep this in mind: His two-decade pronouncement was made in December of 1969. In September of 1988, our local New York morning show had just gone national. And although Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford might not have been household names by 1989, we were well on our way to making that twenty-year prediction come true. Anyway, we were close enough. Omarr, I’m sure, was very proud of himself.