Name: Gore Vidal on Letterman, September 25, 1992
Uploaded: 2018-10-04T15:48:39.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Gore Vidal on Letterman, September 25, 1992' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-10-04. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Gore Vidal on Letterman, September 25, 1992' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-10-04. Transcript available.

Hey!
Petty Smythe.
Have her back here again as soon as you can, April.
She's the best.
Our next guest once said that whenever a friend succeeds,
a little something inside me dies.
This is his latest offering live from Golgotha.
Please welcome to the program author, Gore Vidal.
Mr. Vidal.
How are you?
Well, you've got the ghost of Elvis here.
Now you've got the ghost of Colonel Tom Parker.
I was just so excited by that, you've got to pay for Elvis.
As Colonel Tom always came in, demanded payment immediately in cash.
We'll settle up immediately following the show.
As soon as you win at that racetrack.
You mentioned Tom Parker, you mentioned Elvis.
Did you know either of those men?
I observed them, yes indeed.
No, I never really knew them personally.
I was at MGM, though, when he was there doing Jailhouse Rock.
Every big star in Hollywood suddenly found a reason to drop by MGM.
Oh, sure.
What year was that?
1955, '56.
Oh no, he was quite a star.
What were you doing at MGM in '55?
What was I doing there?
I was writing a movie for Bette Davis called The Catered Affair.
Uh-huh.
And I'd just done a play on Broadway called
Visit to a Small Planet.
And I was about to do a magnificent film, which I've always hated and everybody
loves, called Ben-Hur.
You were doing the screenplay for Ben-Hur?
Yes, the screenplay.
I went to Rome to do it with William Wyler, the director.
And they'd already, the studio was about to go out of business.
And they'd already built the amphitheater.
They had no script at all.
They had built Charlton Heston.
There he was.
Solid balsa wood, you know.
I must say, I saw him yesterday on television.
And I thought, you know, Chuck looks pretty, pretty racy.
He's wearing a yachting cap.
Yeah.
And I realized it was a toupee.
Oh, no.
It looked like it could, it looked like it could eat a child, you know.
Now, the Ben-Hur, this for a guy, for a man or woman, whoever gets the
assignment to turn it into a screenplay.
That must have been a daunting assignment.
I mean, good heavens, it's nothing if not an epic bit of work.
Well, they had 35 writers on it, as well as the original silent Ben-Hur.
The only problem was that the MGM was going down the drain financially.
And if this didn't come off, there'd be no more studio.
And the producer, a very nice man, called Sam Zimble, just died in the middle
of it due to the pressures.
And I did everything up to the chariot rays.
And then a guy called Christopher Fry came in, and he did it, the last part,
which I call Christ Dermatologist.
That's where the three ladies who are all lepers, Mrs. Ben-Hur and his wife and
his sister.
And they come into Jerusalem, they say, this holy man is about to be crucified.
Jesus had not been in the story before.
So the three ladies that come in, they're very grumpy.
They're beautifully dressed for having had leprosy and living in the wilderness.
That would explain the grumpiness, I guess, part of it.
Well, the wilderness makes you grumpy.
I don't know about leprosy.
But anyway, as Jesus passes, and he's only an effulgent light.
Poor Christopher Fry said, how on earth am I going to justify this scene?
They're not Christians.
They don't know who he is.
They just happen, he happens to be passing by.
And I said, Christopher, you've been to a dermatologist, haven't you?
He said, yes.
I said, do what the dermatologist does.
He says, what dialogue should Jesus have?
I said, it's all nerves, dear, as he passes.
And I said, immediately, there'll be a miracle.
So there was.
There you go.
An effulgent light, as we used to call it.
What is that word again?
Effulgent.
Spell that for us.
E-F-F-U-L-G-E-N-T.
And I've been waiting to say that all day long.
I'm sorry, but the word we were looking for was pinhead.
You know, my earliest awareness of you, other than as an author,
and I guess this is not fair to really bring up, but you were in fist fights,
or close to fist fights, with a lot of other famous literary people.
William F. Buckley, I don't know if you guys ever threw punches.
I don't know that he's literary.
Norman Mailer, I think you guys actually, either he hit you, you hit him.
Oh, Norman and I are old friends.
In fact, he's directing me in Don Juan and Hell for the Actors Studio.
They've got four writers for the Actors Studio.
They have Susan Sontag and Kurt Vonnegut and Gay Talese and me.
I have the best part.
I play the devil.
I have the best line.
Good for you.
And Norman is directing us in it.
A lifelong research project for you then.
I have the best idea of that.
Exactly.
Come to fruition, as it were.
But these stories are mostly made up.
The Buckley story was quite real.
I mean, our dislike for one another was not feigned.
I mean, it was the real thing.
But the first episode I think that I was aware of was in 1968.
It connected to the coverage of the Democratic Convention.
Of the conventions, yeah.
And he said, "I'll punch you in the face."
Yeah.
And I roared with laughter because in those days we were so wired up to the
control room
here, to something, to the West Coast here, I think.
All these wires in those days.
This was in the Chicago Convention where Humphrey was nominated.
If he had so much as laid a finger on me, we would have put out all the lights
in Chicago.
And everything would have been unplugged.
And we would have been grilled on air, which might have been a better show than
the one we gave.
Let's see.
The book here, Golgotha.
Golgotha.
I'm from Golgotha.
Nobody seems to know how to pronounce it, including me.
I don't feel so bad.
We have to pause here for a second.
We'll continue in a minute, kids.
Come on back.
Okay.
Gore, if you can hang around, we're going back to Belmont Park.
Is Elvis here?
I thought we'd bring Elvis in for luck for the last trip to the park.
Well, is he...
There he is.
Come over here.
Sit down.
Gore Vidal.
Elvis Presley, Gore.
It's a pleasure to meet you.
All right.
Have a seat.
That's the tiniest cape I've ever seen.
Thank you.
You're quite welcome.
Okay.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're even money.
This is our last chance to make money for the studio audience.
Take us back to Belmont Park, Hal.
One more race.
Put it all on that Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Yeah.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass.
Dixie Brass opens up quickly on them by two and a half lengths.
There goes Dixie Brass to the lead.
Okay.
That's what we thought.
They're moving toward the top of the stretch and Furiously is at the throat of
Dixie Brass.
And those two come to the head of the stretch together.
On the outside, Devil Is Due is put to the whip as they turn for the lead.
And Furiously comes roaring off the turn and opens up.
He pulls away from Dixie Brass.
I think we're dead.
We're dead.
We're dead.
But Furiously comes to the 16th hole.
Pouring it on.
Opening up by five.
Colony Light will pick up the pieces for a second as Furiously wins here by
three.
Dixie Brass was third.
I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen.
We have, we have, since you've been so wonderful for us this evening, we have
racetrack hot dogs.
Please enjoy those.
Well, it was good to have you with us.
Thank you.
My thanks to Patty Smythe and John Lovett.
Good night, everyone.
Hi, I'm Ross Perot, here with Nicolas Cage.
Hi.
And Bobby Brown.
Hello.
They're hosting the season premiere of Saturday Night Live.
Two talented men that I could buy out a million times over.