Name: Kirk Douglas Collection on Letterman, 1986-1992
Uploaded: 2020-02-06T04:07:50.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Kirk Douglas Collection on Letterman, 1986-1992' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-02-06. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Kirk Douglas Collection on Letterman, 1986-1992' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-02-06. Transcript available.

Kirk Douglas Collection on Letterman, 1986-1992

I'm coming here. We're missing a camera.
Okay, here we go.
Our first guest tonight is a motion picture star
in the truest sense of the term.
Some of this man's films include...
Some of this man's films include
Lust for Life, Spartacus, Detective Story,
Seven Days in May, The Bad and the Beautiful,
and his latest co-starring Burt Lancaster
is entitled Tough Guys.
Certainly a pleasure to welcome to this program
Kirk Douglas.
Thank you.
You know, David, I want to tell you that
I'm very excited being on the show.
I watch the show quite often,
so you know that I stay up late.
But I'm a little disappointed
because this morning,
a fellow Robert Morton called me.
Robert Morton, one of our staff members.
Yeah, he was very excited.
He said, oh, Kirk, we're so glad you're on the show.
He said, I saw the show Tough Guys.
It's terrific.
You know, you're just wonderful.
I said, how did David Letterman like it?
Well, he said, that scene with you and Burt Lancaster,
he said, but how did David Letterman like it?
Right, yeah.
He said, well, David didn't see it.
That's right.
So I said, well, I'm going on the show,
and David didn't see the show.
He says, well, you know, he lives in Connecticut.
Right.
So I said, well, I live 3,000 miles away.
So I said, well, if David didn't come on the show,
I said, then I'll send somebody else
with a hole in their chin, and here I am.
Yeah.
Well, now, I certainly appreciate you being here,
but as you probably know by now,
I spend my weekends in prison,
and therefore...
impossible for me to go out and see the movie.
But I'm going to see it tomorrow, probably.
I hope you will.
But I'll see it tomorrow, and...
I hope you will.
But on top of that, the insult that come on,
and suddenly, Paul here has trouble remembering my name.
Is that a difficulty that he has?
Yeah, but don't lump that into your problems with me.
That's Paul.
That's a whole different division there.
I knew that it was Kirk.
It wasn't me.
It was somebody up in the office earlier, wasn't it?
Robert Morton, I think.
This is done a lot.
It would have been easy.
So, now, let's talk about the...
This is...
What number of film is this?
You must have made close to 75, 70...
Yes, I think Tough Guys is probably my 73rd
and 74th film.
Wow.
And are there some there that you don't remember at all?
Some you don't want to remember?
Oh, yes.
There's quite a few you don't want to remember.
But that's the curse of television.
Sometimes you make a film, you'd like to forget it,
and suddenly you turn on the tube,
and there it is, staring in the face.
Yeah, yeah.
What are some of those that you'd rather not remember?
And then we'll talk about the ones you want to remember, of course.
Well, for instance, Big Trees.
Don't ever see Big Trees.
Big Trees was made in 1952.
Oh, you ever see me in a movie called Big Trees?
Don't see it.
Or if there's a movie called Along the Great Divide,
Don't see it.
Along the Great Divide, okay.
We'll take care of that.
But what was the plot of Big Trees?
I guess you're, what, there?
A forest ranger, probably, huh?
Well, some...
You know, I don't remember.
Doing something about lumber camps,
and I was cutting down trees.
I don't remember, but...
Now, that's interesting.
You had a run here.
In 1951, you made a film called The Big Carnival.
That's right.
That was also called...
The original title of Big Carnival, David,
was Ace in the Hole.
Ace in the Hole, that's correct.
Which I thought was a much better title.
And then they changed it.
And then in 1952, you made The Big Trees.
Yes.
Then you made...
You know what came after that?
I have no idea.
The Big Sky.
Ah, I like that.
The Big Sky was quite different from The Big Trees.
That was a Howard Hawks picture.
That was fun.
That was a good movie.
All right.
I like that.
The Last Train from Gun Hill in 1958.
That was with Anthony Quinn.
That was fun.
That was a good movie?
Yeah.
The Last Sunset?
With Rock Hudson.
Fair movie.
Mm-hmm.
And let's see.
What else do we have here?
You're not going to go through the whole 75 movies.
No, no, but this is a very impressive list
when you start taking a look at these things here.
Home movies.
Home movies?
Home movies.
I worked three days somewhere with Brian De Palma.
He was doing an experimental film.
I never even knew it was going to come out.
I worked three days, and suddenly he released a movie called Home Movies.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
But so originally, perhaps they were just home movies.
That's right.
And found a way to make some dough at it.
Exactly.
Somebody did.
I never got any.
Do you ever get tired of people doing, all of the impressionists working, of
course,
include a major hunk with you in it?
Does that ever, what is your reaction when you see that?
David, as a matter of fact, I'm intrigued by impressions that they do of me.
You know, they're really very astute, the way they capture certain qualities.
And I remember years ago, someone was doing a, I think it was Rich Little, was
doing an
impression of me.
And while he was doing it, I was watching it on TV, and I didn't know that my
son Peter
was behind me.
And as I was watching it, I was going along, doing the impression with him.
And my son tapped me on the shoulder.
He says, Dad, Rich Little can do you better than you.
Well, was your first reaction one of, well, what are they doing, or were you
pleased when
you first saw it?
Yes, yes.
You found it flattering?
I think it's a flattering thing.
And I do think that they capture, you know, I find them very, very intelligent.
They capture certain qualities that you do have, certain intensities and things
that
I have, little foibles.
Yeah, the spirit as well as physical gestures and mannerisms.
I think they're very well done.
Doesn't bother me at all.
We have to do a commercial here, and then we'll, you got some time, we'll be
right back.
I'd be delighted.
Okay, we'll continue.
You, uh, did you ever, when you, uh, were known, um, as a, uh, really hard guy,
a tough
guy in, in films, you had that image.
Uh, did that, was that ever problems for you in real life, in bars or parties
or on the
street?
Well, as a matter of fact, right after I did Champion, you know, which was a
very successful
picture, I think that's the first picture that really catapulted me.
Uh, uh, I remember once I was in a bar and, uh, people were sort of noticing me
for the first
time, looking at me.
Do you remember where that was?
It was on Sunset Boulevard.
It was in California.
Yeah.
And I walked, uh, and I was there at the, you know, having a drink at the bar.
I don't know what I wanted to waste a few minutes or something before I went
somewhere.
And I saw two tough looking guys in the booth sort of sizing me up, you know,
he doesn't
look so tough or something.
And as I'm drinking, I see one of them say, well, he gets up and he starts
walking toward
me.
I thought, well, now what's going to happen?
He's probably saw Champion.
And suddenly, I don't know why, it just hit me.
I slammed my fist on the bar and everybody turned and looked at me.
And I said, anybody in this bar room can lick me.
And the guy just stopped and he turned around and went back to his seat.
You know, that was the end of that one.
You're lucky nobody took you up on that.
Did, uh, and John Wayne was upset with you once because of a role that you took?
Well, John was a strange fellow.
I, I, you know, I loved working with him.
We were never close, but he was always calling me for pictures.
We worked at about four movies.
I did, uh, Lust for Life at one time.
And John came to the, uh, Wayne came to the, uh, premiere of it.
And after that, we had a party.
And after the party, he was grumbling away, having a few drinks.
He looked at me and just motioned.
We went out on the veranda.
And he was so angry at me, David.
Kirk, how could you play a sniveling artist?
He says, guys like us are going to play macho guys.
Well, I said, John, I always call him John.
Everybody always call him Duke.
All right.
I said, well, John, you know, I'm an actor.
It's a, it's a, no, no, no.
He was very, very angry.
And I said, John, you know, you're not really John Wayne.
He kind of looks strangely at me.
Yeah.
Because I think John did, uh, you know, identify with the characters he was
playing.
And he was furious at me for playing this crazy, weak, uh, artist, Van Gogh.
Yeah, he thought for some reason this would have a negative influence.
Oh, yes.
Also, he thought I wasn't true to my class, in a sense.
We were the tough guys.
Uh, and, but at a time in your life, weren't you actually, didn't you wrestle
at, uh, carmen?
Oh, yeah.
I was, uh, well, I was an undefeated wrestler in my weight division at college.
Oh, what kind of wrestling is this?
Is this like what we're...
Well, intercollegiate wrestling.
Oh, I see.
But, uh, you know, wrestlers make the best actors.
And, uh, wrestlers make the best actors.
I've been having the trouble all night.
Don't worry about it.
Yeah.
No, but they really do.
And I wrestled...
It's the heat in here.
...to make money...
To make money during, uh, summer vacations, I wrestled with a carnival.
And the, and the guy from my wrestling team would be the mass marvel on the
stage.
I'd be the guy in the audience.
Oh, you'd be the, the, uh, the local, uh, yeah.
Yeah, I'd be the guy in the, and the guy said, who will take on my mass marvel?
And I'd be the guy in the studio, and up went my hand, and, well, here's a man
who wants
to risk his life, step up, and we'd wrestle together, you know, have about
three bouts,
and kept emptying the tent, and he was one of the fellows that I wrestled with
at college.
So I got some of my best acting.
And you traveled all around, uh, a certain part of the country like that?
Yeah, traveled to different country fairs and stuff like that.
And, uh, I was always very convincing.
Yeah.
Very convincing.
I always won, but I was very convincing.
Well, it sounds like a pretty good job for a college kid.
It sounds like a lot of fun.
Yeah, it was.
Now, let's talk about this, uh, this film with, uh, Burt Lancaster.
Tough Guys?
Tough Guys.
Tough Guys.
Yeah, it's, uh, it's, I don't know, I think it's about the sixth.
It should have been the Big Tough Guys, shouldn't it?
It's, uh, yeah.
Follow in that, uh, line of sequention there.
The Big Tough Guys.
No, but, uh, but this is about the sixth or seventh, uh,
film that Burt and I have done together.
And, of course, you know, we argue all the time.
People think we're such great buddies.
We argue all the time.
The only thing we really agreed on was when we read the script,
we did think that this was a film that we should do.
And there was never any doubt about who should play Harry.
That was Burt.
And who should play Archie.
That was me.
So we agreed on that.
Was the script written specifically with you guys in mind?
Yes.
Apparently they saw, uh, a couple years ago,
Burt and I were on a, uh, uh, on an Academy Awards show
that my son, Michael, by the way, he was on your show.
He was here.
Very nice man, yeah.
Yeah, I didn't, uh,
Very witty, charming fellow.
Look at a copy of that film.
I didn't, I didn't see that.
But Michael introduced the two of us.
And after that, we got calls from several studios.
Suddenly they thought,
you ought to put these two guys back together.
And someone, these two young writers,
wrote a script with the two of us in mind.
And that's the one that turned out to be Tough Guys.
And that's what we have.
And we have a clip from that motion picture here tonight.
Tell them, uh, what we're gonna take a look at.
Well, I think you're gonna take a look at
when I'm trying to make my adjustment
out of coming out of, uh, jail.
And I'm trying to have these,
they're giving me these different jobs.
And I have a little difficulty getting adjusted to life.
I've been in prison.
We've been in prison for 30 years.
Those guys, old criminals.
That's right.
And this is one of the jobs that I've had.
Okay.
And I'm trying to get adjusted to it.
Okay, a scene from, uh, Tough Guys, uh,
Burt Lancaster.
I ha