Name: The Van Johnson Saga on Letterman, April & May 1985
Uploaded: 2016-05-03T01:33:56.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Van Johnson Saga on Letterman, April & May 1985' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-05-03. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Van Johnson Saga on Letterman, April & May 1985' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-05-03. Transcript available.

thank you very much paul very nice you guys sound terrific nice to have you all
back together again
uh give give us a call tomorrow night uh well last time we got 200 000
telephone calls but
don't be a jerk and call it 180 times because every time you get the tape it's
going to cost
you a half a buck but we we would like to talk to you here on the phone and
something going on back there shh can you hear that having drinks or something
back there
my first guest tonight has been in show business for over 50 years he has made
131 motion pictures
and can currently be seen in witty allen's the purple rose of cairo he is also
starring
on broadway in la caja fall he took over my old part in that please welcome
please welcome van johnson
what are you doing what are you doing you're you're holding your ears there you
know the next
generation mr letterman is going to be born deaf there's my grandma in the back
in rhode island
rode island
rode island
rode island
rode island
rode island
rode island
rode island you didn't mention me rhode island uh the other are you from rhode
island deep newport rode
island what
yes
uh so now what was all that commotion back there were you responsible for all
of that well i was trying to tell the sound man i said you know the next
generation is going to be born deep and i was watching you on the monitor there
you were
mm-hmm anyway i gotta get to the palace what do you got in mind why is it
quarter of one is it like
talk time flies
talk to me talk to me what do you want to talk about uh la caja fall at the
palace theater okay
uh now what time does the show us sir what time does the curtain go up the
curtain goes up with
me at eight o'clock and i've got half the makeup on now but i haven't got the
drag on and no that's not the part i played now
george herne plays the other part and it's a wonderful company david why do i
have to keep looking around this way when the camera's over the air
well you don't no no you're supposed to look into the camera there you go just
like that you're telling me how to look into a camera after 131 pictures
david where are you from uh indianapolis i played the lyric theater a split
week
i don't know what does a split week mean
three days three days four days four days so it's like a half a week but that
half a week yeah
split week buster west and i are an old vote of elect yeah but i have also what
did you do in your vote of elect
sang dance talked nothing stops me uh david it goes much quicker when we're
both talking doesn't it
i played robert young in indianapolis at the starlight open air theater there
you know marvel i love
indianapolis oh it's a great city great jewish restaurant mrs schroeder mrs
shapiro and mrs dodd's uh
lemon meringue pies but back to the palace i've got sarah bernhardt's old
dressing room and she's still there
no she's not now how do you know elevator she rattles around she changes my
makeup table i know she's mad at me
if i haven't done a good show because my makeup table is all uh she comes in
and they have a little elevator
that they built for miss baron bernhardt and they have a vault where she was
paid in gold
each night folks before she went on which is i'm starting that this thursday
she uh what what year
was this that she was collecting her uh 1900 the year i was born and they would
give her a just a sack of
the coins or she was paid in gold david truly truly yeah and i don't blame her
some of the management
today not mine i'm very happy with my management i hope they're happy with me
but i think the genius
of alan carr to have found lucasio paul and the genius of arthur lawrence who
directed it no no wait a
minute alan i have never i'll finish the story if it kills me what is it david
nothing i was going to
say you're calling alan carr a genius is does he actually strike you as a man
who was a i think the
man who found the story is a genius i think arthur lawrence see now to me like
einstein was a genius
yeah oh he's no alan carr no but but he's not bad but he's alive but arthur lawrence
is a genius
because he's one of the finest directors i've ever worked with and i've we meet
so late in life
and i only had three weeks rehearsal with this wonderful company whoever
surrounded me with love
and warmth and cooperation and starting with the great great george herne whom
i've never met before
i'll finish the next story tomorrow folks what what david think to me talk to
me no that's it's just
that we have so little time and we could let's talk about other things we know
you're in the play
johnson show so on and so forth yeah what else is that a talk about well i was
going to mention
you've been in 131 films the most recent of which i guess is purple rose of cairo
is that the most recent
that's the one i finished just before i started la cage of foe yeah i've never
uh now have you seen
purple rose no i haven't when do i get time to go to the movies i don't know of
the 131 how many have you
not seen about half of them is that right i have to make them do i have to see
them no all those years
at mgm i was there for for 20 years where's the montage no we'll dub this in
later in editing we'll
take care of this all right because i want to i want them back yeah you know i'm
from new england i
saved everything on my first nickel this is an old suit of keenan winds play
with that one for a minute
folks uh all right no i haven't seen purple rose of cairo let me let me ask you
another question now
when you were doing a film see if one comes to mind and during the middle of
the film you thought to
yourself boy this is awful it's just going to be horrible and then later when
it was released through
editing or whatever it turned out in fact to be a great film did that ever
happen to you always
every 131 of them no yes i nobody can tell nobody wants to make a bad picture
nobody wants to put on
a bad show you don't know until you get in front of the people and they tell
you and i also say they
make a star i don't think any amount of pictures in photo play magazine are
going to put a star over
if those people out there don't buy you it's word of mouth and so i thank you
for putting me in this
chair today we're there do you remember a movie that you look back on now out
of the 131 that you just
makes you wince that was really well why don't we think of the good ones why
negative day well i thought
we'd start with the bad and then work to the good no there's too many bad ones
all right then pick out
a good one i'll pick out a good one may i have i may i have five four five
because out of your five
best well the k mutiny battleground the last time i saw paris with elizabeth
taylor yeah end of the
affair with deborah carr did i mention the k mutiny with bogart i think that's
about it yeah and 23 patients
to baker street i was blind i think i was blind uh then i was an alcoholic in
the picture i had a priest
another one i guess that's about it battleground that's a pretty impressive
list though yeah thank
you let me uh when we get back i want to ask you about elizabeth taylor i want
to ask you about
let's do all right please do uh we'll be right back here with van johnson
you mentioned uh elizabeth taylor now is it true that uh you were the first
actor to kiss elizabeth
taylor and the last no no no no to you're the first actor to kiss her in a film
yes it was a big picture
called a big hangover and it was the first shot after lunch and she was a very
young man of course and she
they said they said so i kissed her she had onions on her breath she's always
got onions on her breath
but on her they taste good no so she had hammer but she's a wonderful girl
nobody wants to know the
good things elizabeth taylor does tell us some good things about her well i can
tell you plenty of good
things about elizabeth taylor when she was making cleopatra in rome they had a
beautiful villa just
outside of chinichita studios and some of the poor italian farmers would come
to her kitchen door there
for food and she gave blanket orders to all the help in her staff she said
never turn anybody away give
them all the food that they want and she she was feeding half the italian
countryside and she has
done a lot of benevolent things that nobody knows about but they don't want to
write about those do you
uh do you see her much nowadays as often as i can she's beautiful more
beautiful to me than ever
i never knew people had she has violent eyes unbelievable eyes i remember when
she and angela
lansbury came over from england and there was one other english girl came over
at the same time
and uh you know we all knew that they had it but elizabeth grew up overnight
she was crazy for animals
and uh still is but she does a lot of good work and angela of course was a big
hit with murder she
wrote which i just finished uh tell me about uh you also worked with clark gable
you you were pretty
good friends with him weren't you yes yes yeah why what are you approaching you
what he left me in his will
what what what was it like to be uh i'll tell you what he left me in his will
david i led you right
into that one didn't i well he left me his girdle and his four-day diet you
want it you don't need
it uh and uh what was that one was a lot of laps what was the fourth we'll take
that out in new haven
what was the uh what was the four-day diet oh i can't go into all that now but
i've got a copy of you
one yeah okay well i think we'd like to have four days but it's a crash uh-huh
but the girdle is more
important because that's what i wear on stage every now it's just i wrap myself
in saran wrap four yards
of it and that's so i can look like you then at night when i get home i cut it
off for the fact
to be careful how you cut you can lose a few things uh and the sweat just pours
off yeah it's a great way
to lose now now let's go back to uh to clark gable now aside from him leaving
you the diet and the the
the girl and so forth what what sort of fellow was he off screen was nice guy
of course only nice people
worked at mgm and i mean that i loved lb mayor mr mayor and he was my boss i
respected him i feared him
i did what i was told and well look at the products he turned out but i don't
understand some of these
actors who were there who criticized the man and and didn't get along with them
i i did everything i was
told but gable was very now what kind of things were you told behave yourself
now what what did
that mean though behaving yourself do what we tell you do the pictures we tell
you to and i said well
after all mr mayor you've been here a long time i'll do what you're telling my
pal was spencer tracy
though we were he had a great irish wit that great irish humor and i would go
to his house a couple of
times a month for dinner and he knew all the he was my mentor is my mentor and
i learned more from
spencer tracy and i did from a lot of actors i think he he knew more than what
most actors are trying to
find and learn today yeah yeah you didn't uh uh do yes i did all the time what
something's gone terribly
wrong here what david talk to me no no that's all right that's all right i
think we're i think we're about
out of time anyway let me find out how how much time do we have left hell with
him
uh we have 30 seconds left over tokyo yeah uh anything think about that folks
30 seconds over
to nothing oh my god any anything you want to mention in the last 15 seconds
here yes like
how's your phone oh my gosh palestate with the great george hearn it's a happy
show it's a magical
show no follow what letter words no nudity and it's like the old follies days
all right nice to meet
you van it was yes it was thank you very much we'll uh pause here for station
identification
thank you very nice very nice paul uh tomorrow on this program let me tell you
who's going to be
here gallagher will be here and also howard cosell and a woman by the name of
beulah bear what does
beulah do she lives in a hotel this is that two-hour special we've been talking
about uh beulah will
be here tomorrow lives in a hotel in new york city all right so uh you want to
circle the tv guide did i
mention i'm trying to buy out cbs uh something's wrong here tonight isn't paul
and it's me isn't
it no it's not you well what is it uh it's not quite right is it it's the first
day of the baseball
season and uh it's just uh but it's fine
it is fine oh yeah okay what there's a cold front i just received word there's
a cold front coming in
into the studio yeah i think the cold front just left just yeah i think just
left
so it's going to be up eula bear will be here tomorrow ladies and gentlemen she
lives in a hotel
tell the kids at breakfast what they can look forward to tomorrow night a woman
who actually
i know someone else who lives in a hotel if the truth be known uh howard cosell
will be here tomorrow
comedian gallagher and uh beulah bear well let's get on with the show shall we
how are you i don't
know i'm uh i'm well i'm sorry i'm humbled actually you're humbled i'm yeah i'm
humbled by the experience
of of you know what i'm humbled by uh paul yeah now now you were here last
night for the show
obviously i was here our first guest was legendary film star van john legend
now did something went
wrong there didn't it there was a certain chemistry i will say that between the
two of you now it was
my fault don't you think was it my fault or what all right i may be able to
shed some light on this
because i can see i can see the people when they come in yeah from the wings he
looked over at the
band while we were playing and any and he did this
what did he say well he just mouthed those words what were the words i couldn't
should i repeat well
you know i don't want to say profanity oh well no don't say that but what was
the the essence of
what he was saying too loud oh the band is too loud oh yeah but then
immediately reverting and
doing a thing then he came on holding you know put with his hands and you know
over it over you
know over his ears that's right yeah so you know um he was uh you know last
dear dave letter number
five begins i just watched your show on april 8th with van johnson i've never
seen him on a talk
show before i guess all the other talk show hosts decided not to have him on
they were a lot smarter than
you weren't they and it comes to us from tony mcmichael winterhaven florida
well were they smarter tony i
remember just before the taping of that show i was approached by special agent
convoy of the federal
bureau of investigation we believe we can smash the soviet spy ring if this
afternoon we can somehow
detain their leader in the kremlin he's called the snow shovel but you know him
as van johnson
yeah well you know i'd love to help but that's when we tape our show exactly
oh no him
no i'm sorry no no call uh merv or johnny or somebody no i'm forget they refuse
to help us
we suspect they're involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the government dave we
can't force
you to help us we can only say your country needs you
oh all right
did you buy those glasses on the street
any anything you want to mention in the last uh 15 seconds here yes like how's
your phone oh my gosh
policy with the great george herne it's a happy show it's a magical show no
follow what
letter words no nudity and it's like the old folly's days all right nice to
meet you man it was yes it
was thank you very much thanks for being here comrade johnson
slowly losing the will to lose you've done pretty darn well though like you
mentioned the films you've
been in have been uh pretty successful i'm doing all right purple rose is uh
yeah can currently be
seen in purple rose i'd love to ask you about uh van johnson but we uh we don't
have time for that
unfortunately but we will be right back with jeff daniel
all right i'll tell you what we're gonna do we're gonna pause here and uh take
attendance we'll be
right back michael keaton is here tonight
welcome to the show please give me a call i'll sing you a thong i know them all
i'm johnny grum
hi welcome to the johnny grum piano request show
boy i hope you're all doing well on this blistery night tonight now is it blistery
or blustery does
anyone know blistery or blustery well thanks a lot fellas well let's just say
it's long john weather
i had a marvelous weekend i finished a three-week engagement at a wonderful new
cabaret down on west
48th street it's a new place called um my mama's attic and uh if any of you are
familiar with cabarets
in new york my mama's attic used to be another wonderful cabaret um called dump
trucks and um we had
some marvelous times there um so dump trucks is closed unfortunately though and
we hope
some sometime somewhere maybe they can find a lease somewhere else in manhattan
i mean come on folks
let's take a call hi grant hey what's up johnny well hey what's up who's this
this is little e from
castle hill little league no little e little e well what what can i do for you
little e could you play
funky cold medina by tone low funky cold i don't know is that a what is that is
that a rogers and
heart or jerome kern no it's tone low okay i'm gonna have to cut you off right
now because i'm afraid
you're gonna start cursing you know after 10 years of doing this show you start
to get a sixth sense about
these things well i don't have the tune that the gentleman requested but i do
have a compromise for him
i think he'll enjoy it as much as i do
hello dolly well hello little lee it's so nice to have you back where you
belong
well that was for you little lee hi it's graham yeah uh let me talk to amber or
cherry
well describe my fantasy well there's no one named amber or cherry here this is
this is the johnny
graham piano request show oh what are you wearing johnny is it a full moon
tonight i don't know by the
way i do want to remind everyone that october 15th through the 26th i'll be at
mama's hat box which is
another new cabaret down in the village performing my special fall review which
is called pumpkins pumpkins
pumpkins so hope to see you down there a lot of orange paint down there kids
let's see who we have here
hi graham uh chris i have johnny rather it's dave oh david letterman well i'm
flattered you know
something i have been wanting to ask you something for years now why were you
so mean to van johnson when
he was on your show i mean if i were him i would have stood up and slapped you
okay i tell you what
let's just wrap this up chris i'm starting to run a fever all right okay
whatever dave ciao babe
well you know i never really cared for his show
here's a little song for mr david letterman to go out on a special note and
also for our dearly
departed dear friend mr irving berlin and i am embarrassed to mention those two
names in the
same breath but here they go here we go hello dolly well hello david it's so
nice to have you back where you
belong ciao god bless everyone you're looking well darling i can tell

The Van Johnson Saga on Letterman, April & May 1985

thank you very much paul very nice you guys sound terrific nice to have you all
back together again
uh give give us a call tomorrow night uh well last time we got 200 000
telephone calls but
don't be a jerk and call it 180 times because every time you get the tape it's
going to cost
you a half a buck but we we would like to talk to you here on the phone and
something going on back there shh can you hear that having drinks or something
back there
my first guest tonight has been in show business for over 50 years he has made
131 motion pictures
and can currently be seen in witty allen's the purple rose of cairo he is also
starring
on broadway in la caja fall he took over my old part in that please welcome
please welcome van johnson
what are you doing what are you doing you're you're holding your ears there you
know the next
generation mr letterman is going to be born deaf there's my grandma in the back
in rhode island
rode island
rode island
rode island
rode island
rode island
rode island
rode island you didn't mention me rhode island uh the other are you from rhode
island deep newport rode
island what
yes
uh so now what was all that commotion back there were you responsible for all
of that well i was trying to tell the sound man i said you know the next
generation is going to be born deep and i was watching you on the monitor there
you were
mm-hmm anyway i gotta get to the palace what do you got in mind why is it
quarter of one is it like
talk time flies
talk to me talk to me what do you want to talk about uh la caja fall at the
palace theater okay
uh now what time does the show us sir what time does the curtain go up the
curtain goes up with
me at eight o'clock and i've got half the makeup on now but i haven't got the
drag on and no that's not the part i played now
george herne plays the other part and it's a wonderful company david why do i
have to keep looking around this way when the camera's over the air
well you don't no no you're supposed to look into the camera there you go just
like that you're telling me how to look into a camera after 131 pictures
david where are you from uh indianapolis i played the lyric theater a split
week
i don't know what does a split week mean
three days three days four days four days so it's like a half a week but that
half a week yeah
split week buster west and i are an old vote of elect yeah but i have also what
did you do in your vote of elect
sang dance talked nothing stops me uh david it goes much quicker when we're
both talking doesn't it
i played robert young in indianapolis at the starlight open air theater there
you know marvel i love
indianapolis oh it's a great city great jewish restaurant mrs schroeder mrs
shapiro and mrs dodd's uh
lemon meringue pies but back to the palace i've got sarah bernhardt's old
dressing room and she's still there
no she's not now how do you know elevator she rattles around she changes my
makeup table i know she's mad at me
if i haven't done a good show because my makeup table is all uh she comes in
and they have a little elevator
that they built for miss baron bernhardt and they have a vault where she was
paid in gold
each night folks before she went on which is i'm starting that this thursday
she uh what what year
was this that she was collecting her uh 1900 the year i was born and they would
give her a just a sack of
the coins or she was paid in gold david truly truly yeah and i don't blame her
some of the management
today not mine i'm very happy with my management i hope they're happy with me
but i think the genius
of alan carr to have found lucasio paul and the genius of arthur lawrence who
directed it no no wait a
minute alan i have never i'll finish the story if it kills me what is it david
nothing i was going to
say you're calling alan carr a genius is does he actually strike you as a man
who was a i think the
man who found the story is a genius i think arthur lawrence see now to me like
einstein was a genius
yeah oh he's no alan carr no but but he's not bad but he's alive but arthur lawrence
is a genius
because he's one of the finest directors i've ever worked with and i've we meet
so late in life
and i only had three weeks rehearsal with this wonderful company whoever
surrounded me with love
and warmth and cooperation and starting with the great great george herne whom
i've never met before
i'll finish the next story tomorrow folks what what david think to me talk to
me no that's it's just
that we have so little time and we could let's talk about other things we know
you're in the play
johnson show so on and so forth yeah what else is that a talk about well i was
going to mention
you've been in 131 films the most recent of which i guess is purple rose of cairo
is that the most recent
that's the one i finished just before i started la cage of foe yeah i've never
uh now have you seen
purple rose no i haven't when do i get time to go to the movies i don't know of
the 131 how many have you
not seen about half of them is that right i have to make them do i have to see
them no all those years
at mgm i was there for for 20 years where's the montage no we'll dub this in
later in editing we'll
take care of this all right because i want to i want them back yeah you know i'm
from new england i
saved everything on my first nickel this is an old suit of keenan winds play
with that one for a minute
folks uh all right no i haven't seen purple rose of cairo let me let me ask you
another question now
when you were doing a film see if one comes to mind and during the middle of
the film you thought to
yourself boy this is awful it's just going to be horrible and then later when
it was released through
editing or whatever it turned out in fact to be a great film did that ever
happen to you always
every 131 of them no yes i nobody can tell nobody wants to make a bad picture
nobody wants to put on
a bad show you don't know until you get in front of the people and they tell
you and i also say they
make a star i don't think any amount of pictures in photo play magazine are
going to put a star over
if those people out there don't buy you it's word of mouth and so i thank you
for putting me in this
chair today we're there do you remember a movie that you look back on now out
of the 131 that you just
makes you wince that was really well why don't we think of the good ones why
negative day well i thought
we'd start with the bad and then work to the good no there's too many bad ones
all right then pick out
a good one i'll pick out a good one may i have i may i have five four five
because out of your five
best well the k mutiny battleground the last time i saw paris with elizabeth
taylor yeah end of the
affair with deborah carr did i mention the k mutiny with bogart i think that's
about it yeah and 23 patients
to baker street i was blind i think i was blind uh then i was an alcoholic in
the picture i had a priest
another one i guess that's about it battleground that's a pretty impressive
list though yeah thank
you let me uh when we get back i want to ask you about elizabeth taylor i want
to ask you about
let's do all right please do uh we'll be right back here with van johnson
you mentioned uh elizabeth taylor now is it true that uh you were the first
actor to kiss elizabeth
taylor and the last no no no no to you're the first actor to kiss her in a film
yes it was a big picture
called a big hangover and it was the first shot after lunch and she was a very
young man of course and she
they said they said so i kissed her she had onions on her breath she's always
got onions on her breath
but on her they taste good no so she had hammer but she's a wonderful girl
nobody wants to know the
good things elizabeth taylor does tell us some good things about her well i can
tell you plenty of good
things about elizabeth taylor when she was making cleopatra in rome they had a
beautiful villa just
outside of chinichita studios and some of the poor italian farmers would come
to her kitchen door there
for food and she gave blanket orders to all the help in her staff she said
never turn anybody away give
them all the food that they want and she she was feeding half the italian
countryside and she has
done a lot of benevolent things that nobody knows about but they don't want to
write about those do you
uh do you see her much nowadays as often as i can she's beautiful more
beautiful to me than ever
i never knew people had she has violent eyes unbelievable eyes i remember when
she and angela
lansbury came over from england and there was one other english girl came over
at the same time
and uh you know we all knew that they had it but elizabeth grew up overnight
she was crazy for animals
and uh still is but she does a lot of good work and angela of course was a big
hit with murder she
wrote which i just finished uh tell me about uh you also worked with clark gable
you you were pretty
good friends with him weren't you yes yes yeah why what are you approaching you
what he left me in his will
what what what was it like to be uh i'll tell you what he left me in his will
david i led you right
into that one didn't i well he left me his girdle and his four-day diet you
want it you don't need
it uh and uh what was that one was a lot of laps what was the fourth we'll take
that out in new haven
what was the uh what was the four-day diet oh i can't go into all that now but
i've got a copy of you
one yeah okay well i think we'd like to have four days but it's a crash uh-huh
but the girdle is more
important because that's what i wear on stage every now it's just i wrap myself
in saran wrap four yards
of it and that's so i can look like you then at night when i get home i cut it
off for the fact
to be careful how you cut you can lose a few things uh and the sweat just pours
off yeah it's a great way
to lose now now let's go back to uh to clark gable now aside from him leaving
you the diet and the the
the girl and so forth what what sort of fellow was he off screen was nice guy
of course only nice people
worked at mgm and i mean that i loved lb mayor mr mayor and he was my boss i
respected him i feared him
i did what i was told and well look at the products he turned out but i don't
understand some of these
actors who were there who criticized the man and and didn't get along with them
i i did everything i was
told but gable was very now what kind of things were you told behave yourself
now what what did
that mean though behaving yourself do what we tell you do the pictures we tell
you to and i said well
after all mr mayor you've been here a long time i'll do what you're telling my
pal was spencer tracy
though we were he had a great irish wit that great irish humor and i would go
to his house a couple of
times a month for dinner and he knew all the he was my mentor is my mentor and
i learned more from
spencer tracy and i did from a lot of actors i think he he knew more than what
most actors are trying to
find and learn today yeah yeah you didn't uh uh do yes i did all the time what
something's gone terribly
wrong here what david talk to me no no that's all right that's all right i
think we're i think we're about
out of time anyway let me find out how how much time do we have left hell with
him
uh we have 30 seconds left over tokyo yeah uh anything think about that folks
30 seconds over
to nothing oh my god any anything you want to mention in the last 15 seconds
here yes like
how's your phone oh my gosh palestate with the great george hearn it's a happy
show it's a magical
show no follow what letter words no nudity and it's like the old follies days
all right nice to meet
you van it was yes it was thank you very much we'll uh pause here for station
identification
thank you very nice very nice paul uh tomorrow on this program let me tell you
who's going to be
here gallagher will be here and also howard cosell and a woman by the name of
beulah bear what does
beulah do she lives in a hotel this is that two-hour special we've been talking
about uh beulah will