Name: Charles Lane on Letterman, July 15, 1982
Uploaded: 2017-04-04T01:18:01.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Charles Lane on Letterman, July 15, 1982' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-04-04. Transcript available. Actor Charles Lane in his only appearance on Late Night.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Charles Lane on Letterman, July 15, 1982' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-04-04. Transcript available. Actor Charles Lane in his only appearance on Late Night.

My next guest came to Hollywood in 1928, and he's been working there steadily
ever since.
He has appeared in over 420 motion pictures.
Some of them are Tarzan's New York Adventure, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It's
a Wonderful Life,
Arsenic and Old Lace, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.
You're not going to recognize his name, well, although some people have,
but you will recognize his face the instant you see him.
Please welcome Charles Lane.
Well, nice to see you, sir.
Is that an accurate statistic, 420 motion pictures that you've been in?
Well, I'll tell you something. That's pretty academic.
I don't know whether that's accurate or not.
I did keep rather good records up until, oh, the war.
We were all away for three or four years, and when I came back, I didn't keep
any records, so I don't know.
A young fellow at CBS publicity did a survey, supposedly, and came up with that
figure,
whether or not it's right or not.
It's totally unimportant.
I'm guessing that it would be, do people come up to you and ask you about a
certain film
or a certain actor that you may or may not have worked with,
and it's impossible to keep all of that straight, I would guess, huh?
Are you trying to ask me whether my memory's any good?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I just mean that having been in that many motion pictures, if somebody came up
and said,
weren't you in my sister Susie or whatever?
No, I was going to say to you when I first came on here
that this is the first time I have ever done one of these right or left?
I don't know.
Apparently, we've got some sort of small vermin loose in the audience.
This is the first time I've ever done one of these,
and it's a new experience for me, and I thought probably I may still be totally
tongue-tied,
but the main thing I wanted to say is that the mind has long since gone,
and the memory is very, very vague.
So some of the things that you ask me, I'll probably make up the answers.
Okay, let's...
That's what I do.
I tell you what, let's talk about some of the people that you have worked with,
first of all.
You've worked with most of the legends of living and dead, haven't you?
I suppose so, yes.
I was always plagued, incidentally, by having to play with the big, big star.
I could never play with the second woman or the second man or the comedian.
I always had to play with the big, big star,
so I went through a life of total terror all my life.
Yeah, who now, Clark Gable, a big, big star?
Yes, yes, one of my favorites.
He was a lovely, lovely man, and I think of him with great affection.
He was a man that, like some of those other very, very big stars,
had very little security.
I remember a story I tell about Clark.
We were doing a picture, a theater picture.
We were working in the old Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles,
and this was at the height of his career,
and we had to go out to lunch.
There was no commissary, and I wasn't terribly hungry,
so I came back about a half an hour early,
and there were two grips eating their lunch out of a paper sack,
and Gable rehearsing all by himself up and down on the aisle,
half an hour before the call.
And I remember going up to him and saying,
what in God's name are you doing?
And he said, oh, Charlie, I've got to do something about this.
I stink in this so terribly.
Which was a remarkable thing to be rehearsing a half an hour before the call
at the height of his career when nobody else there.
But that was sort of typical of him.
You started out as small parts, taxi drivers and elevator operators,
and what was your first substantial role, and who was that with?
I haven't any idea.
When did you work with John Barrymore?
Was that one of your earlier...
I did quite a few of them.
The one that I remember most was a picture called 20th Century.
Howard Hawks directed it and Carl Lombard.
Barrymore also had that same sort of a thing.
There's a story that I remember.
I was interviewed by Hawks for the role, and I didn't get it.
I think George Stone got it.
And something happened.
Stone was on another picture, and he didn't finish in time.
So, you know, scraping the bottom of the barrel,
I was the only other one that Hawks had interviewed.
So I got it.
And we were supposed to go to work Monday, and this was Friday.
So I had Saturday and Sunday to walk around the house stiff-legged with terror,
because the name of Barrymore was enough to scare a young actor anyway.
And we got on the set on Monday morning, and Hawks introduced the cast,
and then came what we used to call the champagne shot,
the opening shot of the picture.
Naturally.
It was me with the great man.
And I walked away.
I was going to have a car in there, I'm sure.
And I heard behind me,
Psst!
It scared you to death.
It frightened me, yeah.
Psst!
And this is what he was doing to me.
And I knew what was coming.
He was going to say,
Off the set, you little four-eyed jerk, do me an actor.
Instead of that, he took me way over to the side of the stage,
where nobody could hear.
And he said, Young man.
And I said, Yes, sir.
I said, In this scene, we're going to make,
Be loud.
Because if you're loud, they won't notice me.
I'm awful in it.
And he meant it.
He meant it.
He used to also tell a story I loved.
In the theater some night,
he expected the whole audience to get wise to this phony
and climb over the footlights and garrote him.
All right.
They're going to kill him.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
Lovely man.
People would have that insecurity at that level.
Now, when you first started out,
let's talk as we show some of these photos in you.
Working in Hollywood,
you just go from door to door doing your parts, wouldn't you?
Yes.
You have to remember that when I first started in pictures,
every town in the country had, what, two picture houses?
And they changed the bill in the middle of the week.
And they ran double features.
So an enormous amount of film had to be made.
And we used to run around doing these,
what we called B pictures, or 18-day wonders.
They made them in 18 days.
I never saw one of them.
And so there was an enormous amount of film being turned out of there.
And those of us who were working had to make them.
Yeah.
And you were also, you got to be associated with the man who's coming to foreclose,
or the tax investigator, or evil, or here comes this guy.
We're going to lose the farm now.
Where did that first begin?
I don't know.
I really don't know.
You know, the old problem that we're all faced with in Hollywood is typecasting.
And it still goes on.
I've always said that the basic emotion of Hollywood was terror.
They're afraid.
If something is done right, well, turns out all right, then stay with it.
So if you do something which is sort of acceptable, then you continue doing it,
whether or not you're any good at it or not.
Are you one of the last, forgive me if this is really a naive question,
but are you one of the last of the character actors?
I suppose everybody's dead, yes.
I don't know.
I don't mean it like that.
But you sort of get work because of who you are,
and you're always in a nice little character part.
Well, that's nice of you to say that.
I think that there are fewer parts written for old goats than the word.
But I don't know many that are left because I'm pretty old.
How old a man would you be?
77.
Yeah.
Now, that's hard to believe, sitting here.
77, yeah.
And does this bother you that you've never been the star of a film or had your...
Oh, no, no, I don't think so.
I don't think I was ever the type or projected anything which indicated the
leading man,
and neither in the theater or in pictures.
And, no, I was very happy doing what I was doing, I must say.
Here's one more photo of this man's work.
Yeah, that's Mr. Smith, isn't it?
Mr. Smith goes watching.
You're talking about, incidentally, I understand that he's going to be on your
program.
Frank Capra.
Yeah, we're in the first part of August, I believe.
It was a pleasure meeting you, sir, and I'm certainly glad you were able to
find time in your schedule.
You're still working all the time.
Yes, I've been working lately.
Charles Lane, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you.
We'll be back with cold beef operator Joan Brown right after you take a look at
this.