When Variety was King

Memoir of a Tv Pioneer: Featuring Jackie Gleason, Sonny and Cher, Hee Haw, and More

By Frank Peppiatt, Tony Jenkins

ECW PRESS

Copyright © 2013 Frank Peppiatt
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77041-157-9
CHAPTER 1

AND AWAY WE GO!

It was the strangest Saturday of my life.

The year was 1965. The setting was New York. My partner, John Aylesworth, and I were writing a pop-music show we had created called Hullabaloo. It featured all the big hit makers of the ’60s — the Rolling Stones, the Supremes, the Mamas & the Papas. I was 36, John 34, which made us older than most of the acts on our show, so we could play grown-up to some of the drug-addled talent that came through the door each week.

John was about five foot ten, with straight blondish hair, intense blue eyes and a wonderful laugh. He did marvelous impressions of almost anybody in show business, but he had two left feet and no sense of rhythm. I was six three and gangly, with curly brown hair, hazel eyes and a gap-toothed grin. I had trouble doing an impression of myself, but I had rhythm and plenty of it. John hated sports; I loved them. I was a worrier; John assumed everything would turn out just fine. We were complete opposites, and it worked for us.

On this cold Monday in January our agent, Lester Gottlieb, showed up unexpectedly at the Hullabaloo office. Lester was a born-and-bred New Yorker, from his snap-brim fedora down to his wingtip toes. His sharp gray eyes were constantly shifting, sizing up everything. He always looked like he’d just had a haircut. People would ask him, “You just had a haircut, Lester?” I think his wife gave him a trim every morning, or maybe he was having an affair with a lady barber. I don’t know how much Lester made as an agent, but I’ll bet he spent at least half of it on clothes. Every week he sported something new. Not a button out of place, not a crease that wasn’t razor-sharp. He carried an umbrella, rain or shine; summer or winter, he had a tan. He looked much younger than his 40-odd years and he considered himself a ladies’ man. The ladies, however, hadn’t been informed.

He lunged his umbrella at us as if it were an épée and said, “How’d you guys like to take a train ride to Florida this Friday?”

John and I looked at him, slightly stunned.

“Well?”

“Is this some kind of joke, Lester?” John asked.

“No, not at all,” Lester said. “Jackie Gleason has requested that the two of you come up with some great ideas for a big special for him.”

“Okay, but why does Gleason want us?” I said.

“Because Jackie Gleason is the agency’s biggest variety star and variety is king of TV land and Peppiatt and Aylesworth are the crown princes.”

I laughed. “Crown princes? That’s over the top, even for you, Lester.”

“Is Mr. Gleason willing to pay a princely sum for our week?” John asked.

Lester took off his winter fedora and threw a big smile at us. “You take the train Friday, meet with Jackie Saturday afternoon and come back Saturday night.”

“And?” John asked.

“And all expenses and $5,000!”

“Each?” John and I said as one.

“For the team, guys, for the team. That is damn good money for a day’s work.”

“One day?” I said. “Will the great ideas be slipped to us under our door by the Fairy-Great-Idea-Godmother?”

“Come on, you guys can do it. You’ve got a whole week.”

“The so-called one day’s work just flew out the window,” John said as Lester put his fedora back on.

“I take it that’s a yes?” Lester smiled and held out his hand.

“Yes,” we both said, and shook on it.

“See you Friday morning at Penn S