Sandy Brooks, whom we all called Babbling Brooks because she never stopped talking. Eventually Fred decided that he liked collaborating with me but not putting up with my late-night schedule or assembling the drum kit, so I moved out of his apartment into a five-floor walk-up on West Sixteenth Street. I lived there with Bob Brunner, another copyboy I met at the
Daily News
. Bob was a stocky, tough former high school football player with dark circles under his eyes. He would later become a top Hollywood comedy writer-producer. We split the rent of $150 a month. Carrying my snare drum, bass drum, tom-tom and cymbals up and down the five flights of stairs many nights was challenging, but I felt young and excited to be finally living on my own away from my parents.
Despite being the time when I gained my independence, which I cherished, this period in my life was when I struggled to find a way to support myself. On Mondays and Tuesdays, my days off from the
Daily News
, I could work on my comedy writing with Fred. Sometimes when I played in a nightclub as a drummer or stand-up, I would pass other comedians jokes for free. Most of the time they liked my material and thanked me. But one time I passed a joke to a comic and he didn’t like the joke so he set it on fire and gave me my first flaming rejection.
Another place to sell material was a comedy hangout, the Stage Deli. Fred and I would go there and hand out jokes to the comedians as they ate lunch. We would write them on little slips of paper and give them to guys like Jack E. Leonard, Jack Carter, Joey Bishop, and Buddy Hackett. Although once in a while someone would pay us fifty or a hundred dollars for a page of jokes, most of the comedians just paid in food. They bought us sandwiches and called it even. When you are a young single guy without a family to support, living on corn beef sandwiches doesn’t seem so bad. It was exciting for us just to sit at a deli table with working comedians and talk about comedy.
To pay our rent, however, Fred and I found side jobs. We were freelance writers for
Rogue
magazine, a men’s magazine that ranfeatures on food, entertainment, and world travel. A former teacher of mine named Frank Robinson was the editor, and he hired Fred and me to write reviews of movies, plays, and restaurants.
Rogue
paid ten dollars for each review, and we wrote a lot of them. We didn’t tell Frank, but most of the movies and plays we never saw, and the restaurants we never ate in. To save time and money, we would interview our friends and find out what movies and plays they had seen. And for restaurants we relied on several stewardesses who lived in my building. The girls told us about cafés and bistros in places such as Belgium and Austria, in colorful detail, from the appetizers right on through to dessert. Frank loved our pieces because we seemed so well-traveled. We worried all the time that our scheme would be uncovered, but the money was too good to turn down.
While our day jobs were fine, we both knew that we needed to get a lucky break in order to make a living as comedy writers. One day when we least expected it, our break came. Fred and I bumped into a guy coming out of an elevator named Muttle “Mutt” Tickner, who was friends with my army buddy Charlie Camilleri. Mutt, it turned out, worked as the receptionist at a management office called Berger, Ross and Steinman, which handled top comedians. Meeting dry-witted Mutt was the big break we had been waiting for.
Phil Foster was the first A-list comedian Mutt introduced us to. Phil was a mean-looking cross between a bouncer and a baseball catcher. He would also turn out to be a very loyal and charming man. Phil came to see me at a comedy club one night. When I finished my act, he said my material was great but my delivery was not as strong. So he suggested that I forget performing and stick to writing, which I did. He then invited us to his house to work for him, and he would say “Wake me
Daily News
. Bob was a stocky, tough former high school football player with dark circles under his eyes. He would later become a top Hollywood comedy writer-producer. We split the rent of $150 a month. Carrying my snare drum, bass drum, tom-tom and cymbals up and down the five flights of stairs many nights was challenging, but I felt young and excited to be finally living on my own away from my parents.
Despite being the time when I gained my independence, which I cherished, this period in my life was when I struggled to find a way to support myself. On Mondays and Tuesdays, my days off from the
Daily News
, I could work on my comedy writing with Fred. Sometimes when I played in a nightclub as a drummer or stand-up, I would pass other comedians jokes for free. Most of the time they liked my material and thanked me. But one time I passed a joke to a comic and he didn’t like the joke so he set it on fire and gave me my first flaming rejection.
Another place to sell material was a comedy hangout, the Stage Deli. Fred and I would go there and hand out jokes to the comedians as they ate lunch. We would write them on little slips of paper and give them to guys like Jack E. Leonard, Jack Carter, Joey Bishop, and Buddy Hackett. Although once in a while someone would pay us fifty or a hundred dollars for a page of jokes, most of the comedians just paid in food. They bought us sandwiches and called it even. When you are a young single guy without a family to support, living on corn beef sandwiches doesn’t seem so bad. It was exciting for us just to sit at a deli table with working comedians and talk about comedy.
To pay our rent, however, Fred and I found side jobs. We were freelance writers for
Rogue
magazine, a men’s magazine that ranfeatures on food, entertainment, and world travel. A former teacher of mine named Frank Robinson was the editor, and he hired Fred and me to write reviews of movies, plays, and restaurants.
Rogue
paid ten dollars for each review, and we wrote a lot of them. We didn’t tell Frank, but most of the movies and plays we never saw, and the restaurants we never ate in. To save time and money, we would interview our friends and find out what movies and plays they had seen. And for restaurants we relied on several stewardesses who lived in my building. The girls told us about cafés and bistros in places such as Belgium and Austria, in colorful detail, from the appetizers right on through to dessert. Frank loved our pieces because we seemed so well-traveled. We worried all the time that our scheme would be uncovered, but the money was too good to turn down.
While our day jobs were fine, we both knew that we needed to get a lucky break in order to make a living as comedy writers. One day when we least expected it, our break came. Fred and I bumped into a guy coming out of an elevator named Muttle “Mutt” Tickner, who was friends with my army buddy Charlie Camilleri. Mutt, it turned out, worked as the receptionist at a management office called Berger, Ross and Steinman, which handled top comedians. Meeting dry-witted Mutt was the big break we had been waiting for.
Phil Foster was the first A-list comedian Mutt introduced us to. Phil was a mean-looking cross between a bouncer and a baseball catcher. He would also turn out to be a very loyal and charming man. Phil came to see me at a comedy club one night. When I finished my act, he said my material was great but my delivery was not as strong. So he suggested that I forget performing and stick to writing, which I did. He then invited us to his house to work for him, and he would say “Wake me
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