Name: Audrey Meadows on Later with Bob Costas, April 3-4, 1990
Uploaded: 2017-12-11T20:28:30.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Audrey Meadows on Later with Bob Costas, April 3-4, 1990' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-12-11. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Audrey Meadows on Later with Bob Costas, April 3-4, 1990' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-12-11. Transcript available.

Audrey Meadows on Later with Bob Costas, April 3-4, 1990

Thanks for staying up later. If I walk out of here tomorrow, and they say there's
no more show, and in fact, there's no more career.
If I've got to go work at a 7-Eleven starting tomorrow, it's okay, because
Audrey Meadows, Alice Cramden, is our guest tonight on Later, and away we go.
How'd you get to become Alice?
Oh, what a beautiful introduction. You have to stay on for 100 years, because
you are the best.
Well, I don't know, but The Honeymooners is my favorite television show of all
time, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that.
It's not exactly like an esoteric choice, and millions of people can make that
same statement.
And the same 39, over and over, I mean, you'd get tired, no matter how good a
show, you'd get tired of them three, four times.
I've seen all of them 15 times, and I'll go for 16, I'll go for 18. I never
tire of them, and other people feel the same way, so it's obviously a classic
show.
Yeah, well, of course, the 39 are the only ones that I had seen until the lost
episodes were discovered.
But it's funny how I got the job, and I've often thought, what would my career
have been if I hadn't been home that afternoon?
Because I was in my apartment, and my manager was coming over to see me, and he
ran into Gleason's manager on the street, Bullitt Sturgham.
And I was in a show on Broadway with Phil Silvers, I was in Top Banana.
And Bullitt said to Val, gee, we've got to think of somebody to play Alice.
He's going on the air, his great big contract and all this publicity was going
on.
And Val said, well, gee, I'm going to see Audrey.
We'll go up and she'll think of people.
She'll know somebody to suggest for you.
So he rang the doorbell, and instead of just being Val, here comes Bullitt's
along with Val, and they told me the problem.
I mentioned every single actress I could think of on Broadway and in California,
in Hollywood.
Every one that I mentioned, Bullitt's would say, we've seen her, or she's not
funny.
She's a good actress, she's not funny.
She's too tall.
The other one was too thin.
There was something wrong with everybody I mentioned.
I said, my gosh, you just have not much more than two weeks to make up your
mind.
I said, you can't be this choosy.
And I had seen, Pert Kelton was the originator of it when Jackie was on Dumont
and Cavalcade of Stars, and she was brilliant.
And all of a sudden I thought, gosh, Top Banana's going on the road.
And I said, oh, you are so stupid.
You are so dumb.
The most perfect person for the part.
There's nobody better.
She'd be so marvelous.
And I carried on and on.
They're saying, who, who, who?
I said, me.
They said, come on, be serious.
I said, what do you mean, be serious?
You have seen every actress that's even close to the part.
On both coasts, you might as well take me up to see Jackie.
So Bullitt's arranged an interview for me, and I went up to the old Park Sheraton
Hotel, which is where he had his apartment at that time, which later became
offices.
And Life magazine was doing a huge, big layout on Jackie.
And so he excused himself from the photographing and all, and just talked to me
for a few minutes.
I had seen him around town.
I did not know the man particularly.
But he asked the two men to stay, so I waited out in the hall.
And as soon as I left, he turned to the two of them, and he said, why don't you
guys take the needles out of your head?
She's all wrong.
She's too young, and she's too pretty.
So Val came out, and we said goodbye to Bullitt's, and he told me this.
We went down in the elevator, and I was not really serious about the part until
I heard what he said.
And I was really very disappointed in him.
I would have accepted it from a producer, maybe, but with a man of his talent,
I thought, he must know I can play that part.
So we walked down the street, and I said, Val, they're going to have to make up
their minds very soon.
And can you get a photographer to come to my apartment tomorrow morning, and I'm
not going to get out of bed until you ring the bell.
And we'll have pictures taken if the guy can develop them and print them and
get them up there the same afternoon.
So he got hold of a photographer.
I went home, and I got an old blouse, and I tore the sleeve out, and I thought,
what will I do with my hair, you know?
So I got fiddling around in the bathroom, I had combs, and I pulled it back and
pulled little streamers down.
And I got an old apron and an old, you know, terrible-looking outfit.
And they rang the bell the next morning.
I got up, no makeup on, and fixed my hair with the combs and posed with frying
pans and coffee pots and stuff.
And we got the pictures developed by 4 in the afternoon.
And we asked Bullitt's to take them in with no name.
So Bullitt's went in with the black-and-white photos and showed them to Jackie.
He said, what do you think of this actress?
And Jackie looked at the pictures.
He said, my God!
He said, it's Alice.
Who is she?
Where is she?
Can we get her?
And Bullitt's said, well, that's the girl who was in here yesterday to see it.
And Jackie said, any dame with a sense of humor like that deserves the job.
Hire her.
And I was hired.
I never had to read for the part.
As a matter of fact, I never got a chance to go over the part with him until
the Saturday night that was his first show on CBS.
Because he hated to rehearse.
Which I didn't know.
So Monday I was called for rehearsal.
And I went up there and met Art and the secretary, wonderful girl who was
really assistant to Jackie, Lee Reynolds.
I don't know if any of your people knew her.
She said, oh, I'm so sorry.
She said, nobody called you.
Oh, isn't this terrible?
Jackie had an appointment.
He had to leave.
So would you come back tomorrow at the same time?
So Tuesday, went up there.
It was about 11 o'clock.
And chatted with Art again.
And again, they didn't know how to apologize enough.
Jackie wasn't there.
But would I come the next day?
I said, I can't.
I have a matinee.
Well, then Thursday.
Well, I was getting so psychopathic with nerves and fright.
Saturday is the first show.
Yeah.
And now it's Thursday.
It's going to be my first meeting.
with going over the script.
We did meet one day and had pictures taken.
And I thought that day we would certainly go over the script.
Nothing.
Friday went up there, 11 o'clock, and no Jackie.
But there was Art.
And Art is one of the dearest, sweetest human beings in this world.
Doesn't have a mean hair in his head.
And Jackie had gotten, in those days, the ultimate in TV sets
with those great, big, bulky cabinets.
They were huge.
You know, the set was in the middle, but you had all this wood around it.
Yep.
He was so proud of it and so happy with that.
And we sat there.
We didn't even turn it on.
And I said, Art, I know where he is.
Because I had gotten myself so worked up.
I was just frantic.
And Art said, where?
I said, he's at Tootshaw's celebrating his big contract.
It's the biggest contract ever made to this day.
Tootshaw is a legendary New York saloon keeper, knew all the entertainers and
all the sports figures.
Right.
And they could all be found in his establishment.
Exactly.
So I said, and I know what table he's going to be at.
I said, you walk in.
I said, we'll go for lunch.
And Art said, we can't go there for lunch.
I said, there's no law against it.
We can go to any restaurant we want for lunch and we will go to Tootshaw.
And he didn't want to go.
And I kept out to poor Art.
And I said, now you go on one condition.
You walk in the front door and you walk past the bar.
Don't look at anybody.
And don't look to your left because that's the number one table.
And that's where Jackie will be celebrating.
So Art finally agreed to go.
And we went.
We didn't look to the left.
And we went and we sat down.
And as soon as we got main news, Jack Hurdle, two of Jackie's producers with
him, Jack Philbin and Jack Hurdle.
Jack Hurdle jumped up and came over.
To apologize.
Oh, I said, you don't have to apologize to us.
I said, we didn't mind at all, really.
But the least you could have done was have the television set working.
And he said, it wasn't working.
I said, no, I don't know what was wrong with it.
I said, Art did get a screwdriver and he tried to take the back off.
But we just kind of left it.
But Jackie's got the rabbit ears while this is happening.
Yeah.
Now, Hurdle was so nervous he ran to the phone booth.
To call the repairman to come up to the apartment and fix it.
He got a big bill for fixing a set that was in perfect condition.
And then they thanked me very much on Saturday when I got in the theater.
And Saturday was the most difficult day of my life.
Unbelievable.
No rehearsal at this point.
Hadn't read the script with the man.
Now, you can imagine.
Everybody had worked together.
So my call was either 1 or 2 o'clock.
I've forgotten.
And you walked in the old Studio 50, you know, on 53rd Street and sat in the
audience.
And they rehearsed the June Taylor dancers.
Eileen Barton was our guest singer.
And he rehearsed her, rehearsed the other sketches.
And all of a sudden said, now the Honeymooners.
So the curtains opened.
They had the set up.
And we got up in our own clothes.
And we went through it once.
And went back and sat down in the theater.
And time was going by.
He rehearsed other stuff.
And on and on and on.
And I kept looking at the clock thinking,
God, when am I going to get a chance to do this in costume?
So I turned to Art Carney and I said,
When do we, you know, get up there again?
When do we block this again?
And he said, you just did it.
I said, when do we have another run through?
I'm getting nervous thinking about it all these years later.
And he said, you just did it.
I said, well, what time is dress rehearsal?
He said, you just did it.
I just looked straight ahead.
And I've always had this kind of blank expression,
guiding all the emotions inside.
I looked straight ahead.
And the tears just started streaming down my face.
And my manager was saying, don't cry, don't cry.
Oh, my God, your eyes will swell up.
They'll be all red.
And they'll be small.
And they're small enough now.
So at 6 o'clock, I went up to my dressing room
and I learned all his lines and all Art's lines.
And fortunately, it did go well.
But as soon as that sketch was over,
I didn't wait for the show to be over.
I jumped in a cab and went home and crying all the way.
I don't know what the cab driver thought.
Just another nutty New Yorker.
I cried all the way so loud in his cab all alone in the backseat.
Gleeson was master of all he surveyed and, by acclamation,
one of the greatest talents in the history of show business.
And he knew it.
So very few people challenged him.
But you were a gutsy enough young woman to do that first time out of the box
because you had become so exasperated with his not rehearsing
and causing you so much anxiety that you decided to stick the needle in him a
little bit.
Oh, you know that story?
Oh, I'm so ashamed of that.
I really am ashamed of what I did.
Naturally, you're called to go down on the stage and be ready to go on.
And it was the first time I'd seen him in the bus driver's uniform.
And he walked up and he was so excited and so up for the show.
And he said, well, good luck, Miss Meadows.
And I said, thank you very much, Mr. Gleeson.
Good luck to you.
And I was so frantic inside.
I was just like a wild woman.
And I said, I just want to tell you, I think you are the greatest talent
that not only that I've ever worked with, but that I have ever seen.
And I said, your voice, your voice is so magnificent.
I think I shall just go out on the stage and listen to it.
Now, he's smiling as I'm, you know, flattering him
until he got it.
And he said, you mean you're going to throw me some bum lines?
I said, oh, no, Mr. Gleeson.
I'm not going to throw you any lines
because you don't need anyone.
And with that, I could hear the announcer, Jack Lasculli, doing the
announcement.
And the curtains opened and we were on.
And as luck would have it, Jackie had the first l