Name: Know Your Staff: Steve Khan on Letterman, May 3, 1984
Uploaded: 2016-03-10T02:01:51.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Know Your Staff: Steve Khan on Letterman, May 3, 1984' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-03-10. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Know Your Staff: Steve Khan on Letterman, May 3, 1984' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-03-10. Transcript available.

Thank you very much.
It's time now for a segment we like to call
Know Your Staff, So We Do.
The subject of tonight's segment is our very own guitarist,
a fellow who has virtually grown up in show business.
Please say hello now to Mr. Steve Kahn.
Steve, nice to see you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
When we say you grew up in show business,
explain how that happened.
Well, Dave, as you know,
because you're in the business.
That's right.
My father is the four-time Academy Award winning lyricist,
Sammy Kahn.
Yes.
And so...
So that is sort of how I came into the world of show business.
Why don't you tell the folks
for what he received his Academy Awards?
Okay, if I can remember,
it's All the Way, High Hopes, Three Coins in the Fountain,
and Call Me Irresponsible.
And a major force in American music.
It's safe to say that, isn't it?
That he is.
And before we stomp all over my childhood,
I just wanted to present to you my dad's rhyming dictionary.
Well, that's very thoughtful of you.
You know, I'm always needing words that rhyme,
and this will fill the bill,
because one day I'm going to win an Academy Award for a song,
and now I'm well on my way.
Now, Stephen, did you have a normal childhood growing up in these heady show
business surroundings?
Well, essentially it was.
You see, at the time, my father was sort of known as the court jester of Frank
Sinatra's Rat Pack.
So I thought it was very normal to have a Sunday barbecue and you have Uncle
Frank over.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
That's very impressive.
Now, tell the folks about your bar mitzvah.
Well, okay.
Basically, there are sort of three, let's call them branches, of the Jewish
religion,
and there's the Orthodox, the Conservative,
and then they created this other category called the Reformed,
which I think was sort of especially for California.
A bar mitzvah in California isn't recognized in the other 49 states.
And that's what you got.
Right.
See, at 12 and a half, you're told,
oh, by the way, you'll be getting bar mitzvahed in six months.
Okay.
Now, we have here a collection, a very, an unbelievable collection
of photographs taken at your bar mitzvah.
Let's take a look at them, and you tell us who and what, if you will, Steve.
Okay, now, this is my dad and I kind of posing on the pulpit
where I delivered the Haftorah phonetically.
All right.
Now, this is later at the party,
and here we have, in the middle, you see George Burns and Gracie Allen.
Yeah.
Leo DeRocher, former baseball manager.
Matt Gray, a close associate of Mr. Dean Martin,
and Dr. Murray Sacklad, dentist to the stars.
Gracie looks terrific.
Did you know her well when you were a kid?
She used to call me, and we'd talk every once in a while.
You actually had a little...
I'm kidding.
Oh, really?
Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
All right.
Now, this is unbelievable.
This is a great picture.
Run this one down for us.
We have Dean Martin.
Yeah.
Janet Leigh is next to him on his, well, on the right there.
Then, next to the two of them,
we have the former vice president of gambling at the Sands Hotel,
Mr. Carl Cohen and his wife.
And on the left, we have my mom.
Yeah.
Very striking-looking woman.
Now, these people were just there at your bar mitzvah reception.
They were just there.
All right.
Now, this is a very interesting picture.
This is me kissing Dean Martin's wife, Jeannie.
Later, they, of course...
Broke up.
Sure.
Sorry.
Okay.
Now...
You weren't named in that action, were you?
I don't think so.
I think I escaped.
Here we have...
Here we have a group of my friends with Carrie Fisher's mom, Debbie Reynolds.
Yeah.
Well, she looks terrific there also.
And a fetching gown.
How many folks turned out for this thing?
It was a large gathering.
I don't really remember.
Just under what shows up in Pasadena for the Tournament of Roses parade, I
think.
All right.
And here we have, Stephen.
Okay.
And we have my dad.
Tony Curtis is in the middle.
Wow.
Conductor Axel Stordahl is on the right.
And on the left was the once most famous L.A. restaurateur, Michael Romanoff.
Yep.
It was a hell at his restaurant.
Where was that located?
Uh, in Beverly Hills, I think, somewhere.
Now, this, of course, this is probably the most interesting part of the whole
evening.
You're a handsome little kid.
I was a cute guy.
This is me with Janet Leigh.
And at my bar mitzvah, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, who were married at the
time, had a terrible fight and went storming out.
It was a real screamer?
I was named in this suit.
Okay.
We got a whole, uh, a lot more pictures here.
Maybe we can get to some of these.
We got to do a commercial first.
Uh, we'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.