Burt Sugarman

Producer Burt Sugarman just put "The Midnight Special" on YouTube. We talk about the show as well as Burt's career, from TV to hamburgers! You'll be fascinated!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is the one and only producer Bert Sugarman. Bert,
good to have you on the podcast. So you just
put the Midnight Special up on YouTube? How did this
come to happen after fifty years or actually forty nine years.

(00:31):
About a year ago, my wife said to me, what
happens to YouTube? So many of our friends and our
younger friends, all our YouTube YouTube. Why don't we put
the Midnight Special on YouTube? Thought about a little bit.
It seemed like the right thing to do. Talk to
our son. He loved the idea, said go for it,

(00:53):
and here we are Bob. Okay. Those in the music
business know they're huge rights issues. Did you have all
those rights issues in the original contract to do whatever
you wanted with Midnight Special? Or do you have to
go back to these acts and get the rights? Well?
I had the rights from the get go, but to
go back to as many acts as we've had on

(01:17):
the show, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds would
have not been practical. But then years ago, in nineteen
seventy two to nineteen eighty one or two, we really
did get the contracts working right and signed properly, and
I have every single one of them that I have kept. Okay,

(01:39):
so is every performance from the Midnight Special on YouTube.
Not yet, that will come in the future. Some performances
are and we've put them up early, but as time
goes on. It's only been two weeks since someone had
to type in Midnight Special TV show to find our channel.

(02:02):
But now we're ready to go, and every Monday we
had new songs, new artists, new people, and it's been fun.
And I read the comments and I really really enjoy them.
The comments are terrific. They're intelligent. They're people who said
I was ten years old and watched that show and
hit under my covers with a little small TV, and

(02:23):
I remember so much of it. And other people say
that I'm just getting used to it now for my
own family, and it's very exciting to me. It really
is truly exciting to go back and look at some
of those performances. I remember of the over four hundred
ninety minute shows, I was at every single show and

(02:44):
down on the floor with the artists. So how are
you so pressing to get all these musical rights, because
this has certainly been an issue in movies when they
wanted to go to DVDs to streaming, they could include
certain songs. Do you just have a good lawyer or
did you see the future? Well, maybe a combination. But again,

(03:06):
the performance on Midnight Special, I have the copyright too.
If it's a matter of the song. On occasion I
have to go back on the song and take a look,
or someone will contact me and say we have to
give you the rights to this song or charge you
or this or that. And when that's happened, which hasn't
been much, when it's happened, we've worked with them. But

(03:30):
the performances, I have the copyright too. And the show okay,
if one goes on YouTube, there are many performances from
the Midnight Special that are not on your channel. So
are you compensated on that? Are you planning to take
those down? What's going on there? Well, from what I

(03:53):
understand from YouTube and our attorneys, we have the right
to take them down. Somebody has a club with an
awful lot of people on and I called him up
and talk to him and after having a great phone
call with them, we're going to work together. He's going
to let his fan club know about what I'm doing,
which is terrific. And he's building that fan club and

(04:15):
I'm behind him. So we've got a good relationship. But
they have to subscribe to the Midnight Special TV show
to come on Mine. No issues. I've not run into
any issues that I've been unhappy with so far. Now
there are many different deals with YouTube. Did you negotiate
a deal with YouTube? Or is just this the straight

(04:37):
compensation deal that YouTube gives. I know that our attorneys
have been in touch with YouTube, know them, talk to them,
have other deals with them, and I'm not really versed
on that yet. I will be in the future. Okay,
let's go back to the origination of the Midnight Special.
How did it come together? Johnny Carson was on at

(05:01):
that time every night until one pm and or one am,
actually one in the morning, and I would watch the
Tonight Show and then I had to look at one
in the morning an American flag and something like that,
which was beautiful. But there was no television. There were
no movies all night. There were no television shows, and

(05:23):
it made me wonder, what the heck I'm up. I
can't watch any more TV. I'll read a book and
I did that often, but I thought, what could I
put on there that people could be interested in? And
I thought music. Music, music, that's what to put on.
Johnny always had on comics that were terrific occasionally some

(05:43):
good musicians, and I came up with the idea of musicians,
and I wanted to put that show on. And the
first person I actually talked to about it was Johnny Carson.
He was my neighbor and he and I played tennis
two three days a week before he went to work.
And Johnny would go to work around five thirty and
shoot that show around six. And I started talking to

(06:08):
him and mentioning that I was thinking of putting a
TV show on, and he said, well, if you do that,
that'll help my last half hour. Obviously, my last half hour,
the ratings kind of go down as people Paul fall asleep,
but they may stay up to watch your show, and
it'll be good for me and good for you. Develop it,
work on it and tell me how I can help.

(06:28):
I gave it a lot of thought, talk to some
friends about it, and I went to NBC and told
him when I had mine, I expected a wonderful, warm
welcoming because I knew them all at NBC from the
president down, and I had put television shows on NBC,
but I wanted to be on NBC to follow Johnny

(06:49):
And the immediate answer was no, No, we can't do that.
They'll never show up. Those rock people they're they're on
drugs and they're drinking, and they're bands are falling apart.
They'll never come. I said, they will come. Maybe one
or two or three might not come, but I think
a group of them will come. Well. Meeting. After meeting

(07:10):
and talking to the right people, a friend of mine
said to me, you know, Bert, NBC and everything everybody
else in that business wants to be on the good
side of the FCC. Why don't you talk about getting
out to vote? Because remember last year, eighteen year olds
were voted to be able to vote, and not many

(07:31):
of them are right now. I thought that was a
wonderful idea. My next meeting with NBC, I said, listen,
I'm going to have my host and some of the
guests discuss the fact that we want to get young
people out to vote, and you'll be a real help.
They're an NBC that really did get their attention. Bob.

(07:52):
Once I said that, they started thinking more seriously, and
they were still on the fact that maybe all the
acts wouldn't show up. But all right, how do how
do we solve the problem? I said, I'll tell you what.
I will pay for it. I'll do the show at
your NBC studio and I'll pay for it. You will, yes,

(08:14):
I will. Well, we own the tonight show, I know,
but you won't own this one. If you want me
to pay for it. You want to pay for it,
you'll own it. We don't. We are not sure it's
going to work, but if you're going to pay for it,
we'll give it a chance. What about the advertising time,
I said, I'll sell it. I will go to some sponsors.
I've got sponsors from all the different shows I've done,

(08:36):
and I'll get advertising. I will sell it. It can't
be too expensive that time, because it's never been on before.
How do you sell advertising on one thirty and two
and two fifteen in the morning. Finally, after I'm going
to say, three months of meetings, it got put together. Bob.
So at that point in time, what did you budget

(08:58):
for the initial show? I budgeted about one hundred and
eighty thousand to do the first show, and I also
felt that if I went to the record companies and
asked them about the acts as well, they would want
the axe on because if you're on television and these
rock acts really they toured, they traveled, they flew around,

(09:18):
they were in busses. The country acts especially were always
touring live. But I felt that the record companies could
help me get the acts because they knew that next
day Saturday Sunday money they would start selling more records.
So they were helpful, and I thought for one hundred
and eighty thousand I could put that together as well

(09:40):
as sell airtime to some sponsors. I had used, example,
Chevrolet for a lot of my shows, and I went
to them and talked to him. There was a fellow
whose name is well known. His name was John Delian,
and John Delian I can't remember at this moment if
he was still at Pontiac or had moved to Chevrolet,
but he thought the idea was great because he said,

(10:01):
young people have an influence on their parents about what
kind of park car they buy. So there we went,
and that helped me sell the time, and I built
a show around it. It was one hundred and eighty
thousand dollars of your own money, which is like a
million dollars today. Did you ever think of taking in
a partner or you wanted to go all in on

(10:23):
this yourself. I really wanted to do it alone. I
had been doing television shows and really game shows for
years and years, a lot of specials, and I had
made some money and done well with it, and I
wanted to do it alone. I felt that I had
an idea of it. I was creative with it. I

(10:44):
love rock and roll, I love country music, all kinds
of music. I just really loved so much deep in
me that I thought I'm gonna do it myself and
not have somebody tell me what not to do. Okay,
you get the green light? Was the show already formatted
or did then you say, well, now I've got the time,

(11:04):
let me figure out how to do it. That's exactly
what happened. Now I've got the time, how do I
do this, Let's go. I brought a couple of people
in to talk to about it. Some of them have
had terrific careers. Dick Ebersol, the name of NBC. Dick,
was a friend of mine. When he came from the
East Coast. He actually stayed at my house for a while.

(11:25):
When he first came out there, I knew him well,
and Dick was absolutely terrific. He then went on to
go to NBC and run sports for them for years
and years and years. But Dick was involved in suggesting
acts and timing on. It was great. Another fellow named
Kenny Erlick, who now is the producer of the Grammy Show.

(11:47):
Another fellow named Rocco or BC, a young guy that
came in who knew a couple of the acts. We
all sat around tables, and Susan Richards was the booker
with Titia Fine, and Tisha still books the Grammys. And
I'm talking about back in nineteen seventy two when we
did this show in August of seventy two, the pilot,

(12:08):
we talked about who might be the host, why this
person should host it. We had to get some people
who could talk because we wanted to talk about get
out to vote, And over a couple of weeks we
came up with a show. And I did some of
the softer rock earlier following the Tonight show, and the
harder rock would come on at one forty five maybe

(12:29):
or later. I thought those people might be up a
little bit later, and that came the first show. But
then we had to find a host. Okay, tell us
the story. Well known producer at the time named Jerry
Weintraub knew I was working on this show, and he said,
I've got a young guy named John Duchendorff. And he said,

(12:50):
John's name is being changed now. He's just come out
with one or two records. They've done very well. We're
calling him John Denver. Beautiful voice, whitebread looking, young fella,
not rock and roll, with funny looking and tattoos on
his forehead, none of that. He'd be a great host. Well,
he brought him over. I met him and liked him,

(13:11):
and he actually sang some works in the office, some
things he wrote, and he was terrific and he could
talk and enjoy the conversation. I started asking him about
Get Out to Vote. He knew about it. He said, oh, yes,
I can talk to some of the acts about that.
So I said, you know what, Jerry, Let's have him on,

(13:31):
but not have him host. Jerry said, no way. If
I could do something with Elvis Presley, I'm telling you,
this kid's going to be a major star, and you're
going to look back and say he was the right one.
So Jerry talked me and do it, and John Denver
was the host of the very first show. Okay, do
you remember who was on the first show. Well, we

(13:53):
had Mama Cass, Linda ron Stat and the Everly Brothers Argent.
We had some great acts on that show. I called.
Some of them had little trouble with the agents, but
then the record companies pushed and they helped. And then
on one or two of them, when I told Johnny,

(14:14):
he said, I'll book them a week in front and
just sit there and talk to him and we'll talk
about what's going to happen to the show. And they
get on and Johnny was extremely helpful, very supportive, very
helpful and a good friend of mine. So it worked
out well. And that's how the first show obviously did
absolutely terrific because the NBCM immediately came to me and said,

(14:37):
this is working. Everybody liked it. The FCC liked it
because get out to vote, all of our executives liked it.
The ratings were there. When can you start and do
a weekly Well, I said, give me a couple of
weeks to think that over. So I really started terrific
and I said I need five or six months. Let's
put it on late January, early February, and that's what happened. Okay,

(15:02):
let's go sideways for a second. To Johnny. He had
his public persona and then he had his off screen persona,
and different personalities have been described since you knew him
so well. What was Johnny like off camera? Johnny was
an extremely competitive person. The days that we weren't playing tennis,

(15:26):
he actually went into his downstairs what he called his
man cave, and he played the drums and he was
absolutely terrific at it. Johnny was much of a loaner,
very much so competitive a tennis We had a wonderful
time playing and if he didn't win, he was very
very vocal about it. He wanted to win every game.

(15:49):
I was less vocal because I wanted to promote the show.
But we had We really did have some laughs in
a great time, and I enjoyed him a lot. Do
you remember how you met him? Let me think back
to that one. I don't think i've been asked that question.
I think I met him pulling into the driveway where

(16:11):
I was pulling in in a fancy car, and he
had his little Mercedes Coop that he drove, and he
wanted to take a look at the car I was driving,
and he came over and visited and introduced himself. Of
course I knew him and he knew me because I
was the neighbor. And we sat there and talked. We
literally sat there for over an hour just talking generally.

(16:36):
And was he aware of who you were once you
told him what your name was. He didn't know which
shows I had produced, but he know I had knew
I had produced some, especially because they were at NBC
and I often used the NBC studio across from Johnny's
to do my shows, even though we never got together.
Then he knew the name and he knew I was around,

(16:58):
so it was he was comfortable with talking to me.
Do you remember what kind of car it was you
were driving? I do. It was called a Gia Gia,
a Gia four fifty SS that I was driving, and
he just loved the car. How'd you end up getting
that car? It's another show, Bob. I actually had that

(17:20):
car built in Italy, and I had fifty eight of
them built because I saw one on a cover and
Gia made bodies but not the engines. And drive frame.
And again it's a long, long story, so we'll do
that one another time. Okay, just to stay for one
more second. If you had fifty eight built, what happened
to the other fifty seven? They got sold? They were sold,

(17:44):
I would say roughly half of them in Europe and
half of them in the United States. And I had
a retail sales operation right on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills,
willsher and Cannon, the Ferrari dealer happens to be in
that building now, and that's where I sold him from.
And it did not take very long. I sold him
very very quickly. You remember what the price was, approximately

(18:07):
thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars. And do you still have
your Gia? I do? And was it a good car?
Irrelevant performance? A lot of these Italian cars are known
for being for breaking down. Shall we say it's another
it's another show, I'm telling you. But it was a
Chrysler drive train and it was terrific. And are you

(18:31):
a car collector? You just had that one experience with Gia.
I was a collector, Bob. At one time I had
sixty two cars and I collected them and enjoyed them
and loved it, and I know you enjoy the midnight special, right,
And what you do with all the cars over over
the period of years, I've sold about fifty five of them.

(18:55):
And what was the favorite car you ever had? A
nineteen thirty three Dusenberg. Wow. Okay. So this neighborhood we're
meeting Johnny is approximately where for those of us it was,
it was in bell Air. Okay, So you have this
relationship with Johnny you put on the show. I'm just

(19:17):
interested since you did the first show, when you sold
the advertising yourself, how did the economics end up working out?
They worked out well. I think on the first show
all over, I broke even and I was happy about that,
but I actually broke even. Okay. For those of us

(19:41):
who weren't in the business, there were a number of
shows at the time. There was your show, There was
in concert, There was ultimately Don Kirshner's show. Do you
believe you were the first? What was going on there?
They basically came after me. There was one for me,
and that was Dick Clark's show. And if you were

(20:03):
on Dick Clark's show, you were lip syncing. And when
I watched it, and I noticed that the voices and
the faces were not matched to the words always, and
I thought it was so great of Dick to be
able to do that so early and have some terrific
acts on. But I wanted everybody to sing live. If

(20:24):
they felt they couldn't sing live, I couldn't put them
on the show. That's how I felt, and that's what
I did, and everybody sang live, except just a couple
of over the years. A couple of acts were in
another country or somewhere, so they sent me a tape
a tape of them doing it, and I knew that
one or two or three of those tapes they were

(20:45):
lip syncing on their own tapes, and I would have
Wolfman Jack say something about that because I wanted everyone
to sing live. And I also had to go and
find the best audio people to work on the show
show for me who were working on records. They worked
for Universal, for Warners, for an M, etc. And I

(21:08):
would bring them in to help make the audio as
good as I possibly could. And that was really important
to me because I knew the acts cared about that. Okay,
So you know, even back then, an act would come
in for a sound check when they're playing a live
gig and the acts usually would not be good from

(21:33):
the very first note. So how long would it take
to record an act? Some country acts immediately they were
just ready. They had been the night before someplace, working
live on a stage and they were ready. A few
of the acts needed a little bit of time and
we were patient, and to tape a ninety minute show.

(21:53):
Of course that included commercials, so the show itself went
about one ten. We took about six hours to do
that show because of exactly what you're saying. Some acts
needed a little bit more time than others get the
voices right. I mean, I can just remember somebody like
Paul Anka, who was also on Dick Clark some years before.

(22:15):
He'd come out in the first note. He was sensational.
He just did it. He knocked it out and I
had him host a couple of times, and he was
involved in booking the acts and who they were and
who he wanted, etc. But there were a lot of
acts that just came out and did it. David Bowie,
I went to England and the Marquee Club was very

(22:36):
hot at the time for some of these acts and
the Stones etc. And I taped him there and from
the first note, David Bowie was on it, just on it.
During that taping in or the Little Things, you remember,
Mick Jagger came in and under his arm was merry unfaithful. Wow.
That probably might mean more today than it did then.

(22:58):
And then David had a long haired lady come in
named Dushenka, and Dushenka was just beautiful and sang. And
then I found out later that Dushenka was a man. Wow,
We've got some tape on that that's really really interesting
and we'll put it up on Midnight Special So rock acts,

(23:22):
we'll all acts at this point in time, are never
happy with their performance and they want to tweak it
after the fact. Did people who want to do that?
What was the Midnight Specials policy? I didn't find that.
I really didn't the acts when they came on. I
think they had rehearsed with the record companies before in

(23:42):
order to get whatever songs they were going to sing.
And of course many of them had number one or
top ten hits. They were ready, a lot of them,
a few of them that weren't, and we'd take a
half hour, forty five minutes whatever it took to make
it right. And the name Richard Prior, I know, of course,
you know. And Richard was a dear and close friend

(24:04):
of mine and I hadn't yet, but I had produced
Richard Pryor's for NBC television shows, and Richard and I
were dear friends, and he would come to a lot
of shows and if we were having a little issue
with an act of some kind or another, Richard would
knock on their door, walk inside, talk to him, relax him.
Nobody could believe that was in Richard Pryor, but he

(24:26):
did that, and he was hanging around the show. And
then I had three stages going at the same time,
and one would be lit and that's where we would shoot,
and the other two were kind of rehearsing quietly getting ready,
and Richard would be standing around getting the audience up
and happy because they were all sitting on the floor.

(24:46):
People lined up outside to come to the tapings. And
so I didn't have a lot of trouble like that.
I think I was fortunate, Bob. So it was all
shot in one day. Yes, yeah, at NBC. Yes, Okay,
what was the commitment? How many shows for the year?
When once NBC said yes, roughly forty eight. Oh wow,

(25:09):
so it's old school, Yes, yes, old school, and we
repeated about four shows. Okay, yeah. How did Wolfman Jack
get involved in sitting with that group of people that
I told you about? The Susan Richards, that Tisha, that
Dick ever saw all of them? One of them, I

(25:30):
don't know which one, said you know, there's a there's
a DJ that works out of Tijuana by the name
of Wolfman Jack. He's got an incredibly unique voice. The
artists are just crazy about him, and of course they
want him to play their songs. So if we could
get him involved, the artists would like to come and
meet Wolfman they didn't all go to Tijuana, and he

(25:52):
would know them more apt to play their songs during
his DJ week. And then he was in a little
thing all American graffiti, and because of it, I just
felt that was a great idea. They showed me some
pictures of him with a big smile on his face
and I loved it, called him, had him come out
to the studio, met him, and instantaneously we really connected.

(26:17):
He was always always a favorite of mine. He and
his wife, Lew were wonderful people, and wolf Man was there,
and he would call acts to come to do the show.
If somebody was shy, he'd get him on stage, or
he'd talk about him on his radio show. Come on,
you gotta come out and see me on this night
I'm taping and you gotta be there, things like that.

(26:39):
So Wolfman was part of my life for those ten
years and a welcome part. And in terms of ratings,
although at that lead time, it's a whole world unto itself.
Did it Bill? Did it fade? Over the ten years?
What were the ratings? Like? The ratings seem to get better,

(27:00):
and I think what we call sets in use, and
I think that what happened is sets in use were growing.
So I was part of that and part of the
Tonight Show afterwards. And for a while I was the
only thing on the air after one pm and one am.
I keep saying PM one am. That was it. And

(27:20):
then later all of a sudden you saw some people
talking doing not podcasts but videocasts a little bit, and
you had a couple of alternatives. But I was the
only game in town. And so if you like music
and Wolfman Jack all the acts we had, the music
was being promoted by the record companies themselves. So it was,

(27:45):
I must say, a party, and I never missed a show.
To what degree did Johnny going to an hour affect
the show because you were on a half hour earlier
that after that, it did not affect it, And I
was fortunate that that happened. But I'm glad you mentioned
that because I was concerned talked to John about it.

(28:07):
He was tired. He was just getting tired of doing
it constantly, constantly, didn't know where he'd find the next act,
the next person. So as you probably know, he had
a lot of regulars who were wonderful there. Don Rickles
was a regular, and some of these people were just
wonderful regulars because he was tired. So I was fortunate

(28:30):
that he did talk about the show even after when
it was not my lead in. John talked about it,
and of course he beat me at tennis all the time. Then,
to what degree were in concert in Don Kirshner's rock
concert competition? They were not. Donnie Kirshner was a very

(28:52):
good friend of mine. I adored him. We talked about
the acts, and I would always say, look, if you
go back to the East Coast near New York go
to rock concert. It'll be great for you. He did
the same thing for acts coming out the West Coast,
and I never looked at them as competition. I just didn't.
Some of those shows, like in concert, had to lip sync.

(29:14):
They couldn't get quite the audio that I did. And
one of the reasons was because I had the sound men.
So many of the records were coming out of Hollywood,
out of the recording studios in Hollywood, a few of
them in the Valley, and there was a guy named
Bill Cole who everybody said, can you get Bill Cole?

(29:36):
And I kept saying, no, I've asked Bill, he just
doesn't seem to want to. And in the pilot, the
pilot was done by a fellow named Bill Davitski, who
was very well known. He did it, but he couldn't
do it anymore. He was too busy during records and
then fortunately starting a show too, I had Bill Cole.

(29:56):
So the acts were as happy as can be, and
they love the fact that the sound was sensational. Okay,
this is a business that's reactive, So at first you
get a certain number of acts and as you say,
then the records start to move on Saturday and Sunday
did then the relationships change such that acts were hounding

(30:19):
you to be on. That really happened. Of course, if
he looked at the top six or seven acts in
the world, they all they came and they did it,
but they didn't hound me. But other than that, it
wasn't a matter of hounding. An example, somebody said to
me one of the I think it was Susan Richards, said,
you got a book Christopher Cross. Well, who's Christopher Cross? Well,

(30:43):
this record company is saying that he is going to
be the next big thing. We've heard of. His record
coming out, I believe was called Sailing and listen to
this and listening to it it was absolutely terrific. Well
what does he look like here? Let me get a
picture from the record company. Took a look at Christopher
Cross and he can sing. Let's book him. So I

(31:06):
would put him on at two fifteen. He wasn't well known,
but he just knocked it out. I mean I could
see the audience sitting on the ground there and the floor,
and Richard Pryor there, etc. And a comic or two
that we had a Steve Martin would say, Wow, this
kid is fabulous. And that's what would happen on new acts.
I did put them on often for the record companies

(31:29):
because they wanted to break them, because they believed in him,
and they were usually right. Okay, so you said you
were there at every show. A lot of people don't
know how these shows are ultimately created. What were you
doing at every show? Well, the director, who was a
Stan Harris or Dick Eversol or Kenny Erlick or Rock

(31:51):
or BC whatever, they would be upstairs directing. I would
basically be on the floor, but moving from around the
dressing rooms, talking to the acts, making sure they were comfortable.
Did they have anything they wanted? If they drank something,
whether it was a mountain dew or whatever it might
have been, did we have enough for them? Could we

(32:11):
do anything for the people who brought them over? Just
make everybody comfortable. I guess you'd call me the executive
producer and I would walk around and if I saw
something that I didn't like, if it might be a
drug or something, I made sure that I put a
stop to that immediately and would not allow that that
didn't happen often NBC could not believe it, but it

(32:35):
didn't happen. Often, and I was a floor manager. Then
what I was doing was making sure everybody was ready
to come out on one of those three stages. Next,
when we went live, you talk about drugs, What about alcohol? Yes,
same thing, same thing, And you know, you can't really

(32:55):
control it. You can't tell somebody who's twenty five years
old what to do or how to do it. But
they wanted it. They wanted to look good, and especially
they wanted to sound good. And then a lot of
them brought their own sound people and they went and
talked to Bill Cole about what they wanted a little
more trouble here and this part of it, and cut
it down to bass over here, and here's what I

(33:17):
want you to do here. And Cole was a pro
at it. And so when an act like that, who's
a hit on records, is happy with their sound, the
evening goes, well, okay, how did you end up getting
comedians on the show? That stem from Johnny? Johnny said,

(33:39):
you know, I break it up off and with a comic.
You know, it might be a Rickles, it might be
this one or that one. So I decided I'd do
the same darn thing, and the comic might be a
little different For me. It might be a George Carlin.
Steve Martin was young and new. Then Bill Caused was on.

(34:00):
Andy Kaufman was on, and I just had fun with him.
It was just like a little bit of a break.
For some people it might have been a bathroom break.
Other people it might have been a music break. But
I at home and I just thought, that's terrific. Theyre
if they're fun. Everybody loosens up a little bit. The
music can stop for twenty thirty minutes and everybody relax

(34:23):
a moment. And it worked out well in the studio
as well. Now this is fifty years ago, and the
younger generation may not be able to comprehend. It aired
once and then you couldn't see it again. Right, It
aired once. I did repeat some shows because I did,
as I said, about forty eight a year, and that

(34:44):
was it. That was it, and I put him away,
locked him up, and for whatever got me really seriously late,
after about six or seven years, I decided that I
was afraid of the tape. Johnny had told me that
some of the tape of his early shows, which he

(35:04):
didn't really own because NBC paid for his show, the
tape went bad, and they looked, try and look at
an old show or in our act to bring back,
and the tape went bad. So I looked for the latest,
which I did then I have done since then, put
on what they call hard drive, and now it's all protected.

(35:25):
Every bit of it's protected. And every time we had
a signed contract, they went in these boxes and took
care of those things and stored them in storages that
I paid for. And you were that much of a
music fan at that time. You were just shy of forty,
which sounds young when you're on the other side of it.
But that was an era where it was you say

(35:47):
was driven by twenty five year old Well, I think
I started around thirty two or thirty three is where
I started. And then of course, obviously age went, but
the music stuck with me, and I was a major,
major country fan as well. I respected the country acts
when they came in and talked, and I remember sitting

(36:11):
down with Loretta Lynn and knowing that she wrote most
of her songs. How in the world you do this?
She said, Well, you know, he'd come home drunk at
night and I'd just sit there all night and he'd
give me a little whack on the side of the head,
and I'd write a song, and if you listen to
those songs, that's what happened. It's exactly what happened. She said.

(36:34):
It was life. And then when one or two people
got killed in these plane crashes, and I would write
very much about them, how I loved them, and what
happened and how I lost them. And it was wonderful
listening to that. And then somebody like Chris Christofferson, who's
still around. I don't think he's ever really been appreciated

(36:57):
for the songs he wrote, some of the songs that
Johnny Cash covered in George Jones and whoever it might
have been. Chris just had a way with lyrics, and
you know, I put on my dirt, my clean his
dirty shirt, remember some of that stuff that was all
out of Christofferson. So sitting with these people I really

(37:18):
really enjoyed. I think I learned a lot from them
about their life and how they banged around and how
Chris said he worked in a hotel in Nashville when
he went there, and just these stories about these people,
where they came from, how they were brought up. I
was just knocked out by it. And it made me

(37:38):
just be so sympathetic to where they came from, and
they remained good, good people. Okay, to the degree you
can slice and dice. Tell us about a couple of
peak experiences on the show. I had never gone on
camera and never wanted to. I felt that I was
always behind the camera, not in front of the camera.

(38:01):
And all of a sudden, I'm sitting out there with
the audience and I'm watching it, watching an act and
he was getting a record, he was getting a gold
record on stage, and he said, where's Bert. I don't

(38:22):
want this record company to hand it to me. I
want I want Bert Sugarman to give it to me.
I said, no, no, no, I don't really, I don't
go on camera. I just I just don't. But let's
we'll tape it with a record company and I'll make
sure we shoot it beautifully. And Jim Croach he said
to me, well, then I'm leaving. What if you can't

(38:46):
hand it to me, and you're the boss of the
show and I'm your star here, I'm out of here.
I said, where are you going? He said, I'm going
to my next gig. Are you serious? I'm very very serious.
I got up out of the audience. I took the
record from the record person and I handed it to him,

(39:08):
made a little speech for him, and that's in the show.
And I gave Jim Crochey his gold record and he
said to me, I love it. I love you coming
up and doing this, and you don't know how much
I appreciated Bert. And I want to come back and
host again. I said, you got it, no question, you
will come back and host, give me some dates your

(39:29):
free and will do it. And unfortunately he was then
killed in a plane crash, and so he could never
do that again. So it started out as the Midnight Special,
but ultimately was build as Bert Sugarman's Midnight Special. How

(39:52):
did that happen? I didn't realize that was ultimately. I
thought that was in the beginning. You know something that
I don't know about it, Bob. Well, as I say,
my memory only works so well. But when you go
on YouTube, it does say Bird Sugarman's and on some
of the early videos I think it doesn't. But let's
leave that alone for a second. So where are you from?

(40:12):
Where were you born and where did you grow up?
Born in Beverly Hills. My father was a pharmacist, and
I lived in a one bedroom, a two bedroom apartment,
a tiny little apartment right off Sunset Boulevard, and my
dad would go to Sunset and Vine where he worked

(40:35):
in a drug store. And my wife and I recently,
just recently, we're looking through old pictures of her family
and my family, and I've got some pictures of my
dad would Tyrone Power, who wrote a note on this
picture saying, al you give me my prescriptions when I
really want them, And my dad would tell me that

(40:57):
Sinatra was in there all the time, Tyrone Power, all
these major actors I'd always heard about, and they had
their own drugs, and he said, yes, we'd give them
a drug here, into something there and this and that,
and they came and hang around, and they were absolutely
wonderful coming in the drug store that I worked in.
So I was a local. Then I didn't go to

(41:20):
Beverly High. I thought it was a little snooty and
the kids had money, and we didn't have too much
money off any kind. And so I went to school
not far on Fairfax and Melrose called Fairfax High School,
and that's where I went to school and grew up there,
and then went to USC and didn't go to the
film school. And that's my that's growing up. Okay, So

(41:45):
were an only child. I was an only child, yes, okay,
And you've had a lot of success. Were you always
the straw that stirred the drink that made things happen?
What was your personality in these aerience is growing up?
I think I could say nicely aggressive. I was a

(42:06):
self starter, extremely curious about whatever I was going to do.
I was very very curious, and that led me to
go into things like hamburgers, later, paper companies, cement companies,
all just different kinds of things. Something about these different
businesses appealed to me. Later when I was young, it

(42:30):
was pretty much the same thing. I had friends who
were in the entertainment business. Glenn Campbell was a friend
of mine from the time I was very very young,
and Glenn and I would travel and goof around. And
he was not known then because he was a guitar
player for some of the major acts. He was known
as the real guitar player in the studio, so he

(42:53):
wasn't known as Glen Campbelly didn't have a TV show then, etc.
I do remember Glenn's TV show in on the air
and he came to meet me in Aspen, Colorado, so
we could ski for a three day weekend. And John Denver,
this is later John Denver was having a party. We

(43:14):
ran into him and asked, but he said, look, here's
where I live, etc. Etc. Come on out to my party.
It'll be tonight. Well, it started snowing in the afternoon,
a massive snowstorm. So Glenn and I. I'm driving and
Glenn's looking and we're having trouble seeing the front of
our car. And he said, look, there's a light there.
Let's pull into that light. We'll find something. This looks
like a little ranch house. I said, Glenn, up here,

(43:36):
you'd get shot. It's now eight thirty nine at night.
You just don't walk into something. He said, come on,
come on, you're a city slicker. Pull in. So I
made a right turn. I stopped about twenty feet away.
He opens a car door, and I opened my door
and I'm just standing in the door of my car.
He knocks on the door and a little lady, probably

(43:58):
seventy five years opens the door, looks at him. She said, hi, Glenn,
come on in. Well, you could have knocked me down.
I started realizing the power of television there. It was
amazing to me. So we went in sat with her.
She had no idea where John Denver lived. We spent
an hour with her and went back home. Never went

(44:20):
to the party. Okay, so you go to USC before
you graduate from USC, are you already an entrepreneur? Or
did that not starting to laughter? You graduated from college?
That started off after I joined a zb. I joined
a fraternity and I was there a year and I

(44:41):
didn't like it. Everybody was drunk. I was stunned at
that At USC, they were drinking every night and it
was it was a mess. They didn't study very much,
and I was not a real good student. I was
what you would call a C student sometimes when it
was a something math, trigonometry, math, I was good. Other
that history, English, those wonderful things I barely got to see.

(45:05):
So I had to study and I didn't didn't want
to stay, so I dropped out of the fraternity. I
wanted to graduate, which I did with that kind of
a weak scholastic record. And then I just started looking
around TV trying to come up with something I could.
I saw game shows I thought were cute. How could

(45:26):
I come up with one? And do one. I started
doing that stuff. So what was your first break? What
was your first show? First show? I can't answer that, Bob.
I can't remember the exact first show right now. I
had one cost celebrity sweepstakes. That was one of the
early ones. You're an outsider. How you go from outsider

(45:51):
he grew up in Beverly Hills to having a show
on network television. Well, I had a lot of friends
in the business. Ronnie Burns, who was George Burns's and
great see Allen's son. Ronnie was my buddy Glenn I
was with all the time. And I ran into a
lot of these young people that were in the business
at the time and would spend some time with them,

(46:12):
learn a little bit, go on a movie set, going
a TV set, And I realized that I liked TV
much much more than I liked films, because you could
be working on a film and it was, as you know,
a year before it came out by the time the
editors finished six months later. And this and that I
didn't like that you could do a game show, a

(46:32):
quiz show, and if you did it on Monday, and
you taped a few of them, they aired starting the
Monday after many of the mayor the same week. I
love that. I love that instantaneous thing happening, and so
I just gravitated towards TV. A fellow named Chuck Barriss
was a friend of mine, and Chuck started the Newlywood Game,

(46:57):
the Dating Game, etc. And I bought those shows from Chuck.
He had been doing him a few years, got tired
of it, and I bought those shows and I produced
him and I started working on those shows and I
owned them then, and then I created some of my own.
I did a special call Miss Black America. There was
Miss America, and I did Miss Black America out of

(47:19):
the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. I enjoyed the Philharmonic, and
when Zubin Maida was our conductor years and years ago,
I produced Zuban Maide in the La Philharmonic. I had
Jack Benny as a guest and got some emmies on
that show and did that. They just came out of

(47:42):
relationships and this and that. Henry Mancini, how's that. Hank
was a good friend of mine, and he's always said,
you do all these shows? What should I do? I said,
do you be yourself? Come on. He had a wonderful personality,
just so likable. He was just a terrific guy. And
so I produced one year of shows with Hank, which

(48:04):
I have protected and still have them, of course, and
I enjoyed every single thing I did with him. So
what you told me earlier really tickles my heart, because
he was a knockout man. He was terrific and things
like that. And I did things that have not come out.
Did a show called City Versus Country. I did a

(48:26):
bunch of those, and I would take country people from
the south against city people from more in the north,
and I would have them do athletics together and see
who won. Just a silly show, but it went on
the network and did well. I remember in seventy one
and seventy two I used to produce the Grammy Awards,

(48:47):
and I remember how I got the show. I knew
a man named Bob Wood. Bob Wood at the time
was president of CBS, and I would see him socially
because of friends and liked and he liked me and
another man well known in the business named George Slaughter.
George produced the Grammy Awards, but he didn't air him

(49:10):
till a week later. They were just shot on tape.
I wanted to do him live, so I went to George.
I said, what do you want. I want to buy this.
He said, well, gimme X and you own it. It's
a pain to do it anyway. I gave him X.
I owned the show. I immediately went over to Bob Wood,
talk to him a little bit and said, I want
to put this live on your network. He said, let

(49:31):
me look at one of them on tape. Showed it
to him. He said, I like it. I'll bet you'll
do a great job. I saw you do X and X,
and that's how I got seventy one and seventy two.
I did the Grammys live on CBS and they stayed
live after that. Just unusual, unusual things would happen, and

(49:51):
I would I don't want to say I fell into it,
but I was friendly and aggressive, and if I saw
something I thought might work, I would jump at it,
jump at it. So you were involved with Richard Pryor
from an early day before most people knew who he was.
How did that come together? I met Richard when he

(50:11):
was doing something at the comedy show and Sunset Boulevard,
and I went late at night a couple of nights
and met him, and I thought he was the best
talent comedity talent I had ever seen. I went backstage,
talked to him, introduced myself Tom, I've done some TV
shows and this and that. And from that we met
the next day and the next day and the next day,

(50:33):
and we just became pals, just became buddies. I know
Richard did drugs and I never ever, in all the
years with Richard, ever saw him take a drug. He
did not allow me to see him take a drug.
He respected me for that, and I respected him for that.

(50:56):
We did shows together. Boy one day he called called
me up and he said, can you come on over?
And he had MS at the time. This is later,
and he said, I've got a friend that'll answer the
door that you've known for years and years and haven't
seen him in a long time, but come on over

(51:17):
the house. And I said, I want to bring my wife.
He said, okay, And my wife is a lady named
Mary Hart who was on Entertainment Tonight for twenty nine years.
So Mary and I go over to Richard's house, knock
on the door, and Mary didn't want to go. She said,
Richard of all the people in twenty nine years. Richard

(51:38):
was the worst interview I ever had, just horrible. I
don't want to go, don't want to go, and I said,
you gotta come, come on, you'll see a different Richard.
He's my pal. I want you to see Richard with me,
please Mary. So Mary came along, not happy about it,
and I knock on the door and who opens the
door but Muhammad Ali And I knew Muhammed had met

(51:59):
him early, and he also was not real well at
the time. So we had Richard Mohammed there, and Mohammed
was great, and Richard was my buddy still, and he
was a little bit weakly talking, and he said, come on, Mary,
come on, Mary. I know I was with you one time.
And Mary looks at me and she goes over and

(52:20):
sits next to him, and I go off with Mohammed
and Mohammed and I are talking for about thirty minutes
in another room and I come back and see Richard
and Mary, and I swear to you, they both had
tears in their eyes. I said, what in the world happened?
Look at the two of you? And Mary said, Richard

(52:43):
asked me, who was the worst interview I ever had
and I told him him, and I told him why
and what had happened. And I was in Oklahoma then
on a talk show working and Richard came through early
in the morning and he hadn't gone to bed, and
this is not where he wanted to be. And we
discussed it, and he put his arms around me and
started crying and said, I oftentimes hurt the people I love.

(53:06):
And I just started to crying. Here we are. And
after that, when Mary would interview Richard for entertainment tonight,
which he did, He'd always got a couple of hundred
letters and she would go over to the house, oftentimes
without me, and read the letters to Richard. They were
sent about him to the studio and they became best

(53:30):
best friends. At his funeral, he left directions that he
wanted Mary to be the speaker and the host at
his funeral, which she did. And I loved him. I
just loved him, and so did Mary, and he was
a dear, dear friend till the end. I once gave

(53:51):
him as a gift, I gave him a miniature horse.
I had a ranch out in Hidden Valley and had
a couple of miniature horses, and he admired when he
came out, So I gave him one and his great
dane ate it the little miniature horse. You can't talk
that story, and you can't make it up. I can

(54:13):
hear him telling that story. Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Bob, Wow,
there's some things that happened. They're just mind boggling. Now
you have a long history of being involved and married
to very famous, desirable women. You talk about Mary Hart.

(54:33):
You were married to Mary. Mary is thirty four years married, Bob. Okay,
but there were people before. Supposedly you were engaged to Anne,
Margaret married to Carol Wayne. What's your magic for the
guys out there? Well, do us a trick? Oh wow,

(54:53):
Bob left Sets asked me that question. I don't think
there's any magic except maybe me being me an. Margaret
was on stage with George Burns in Las Vegas. Ronnie
Burns told me about her, said, come on, let's go
see the show. My dad says, she's a wonderful, wonderful talent.

(55:14):
I went up there backstage afterwards, George and Margaret, Ronnie
and I, and then she and I went out a
few times. You know, when you're around town, like that,
and you're in different nooks, different corners, different shows here
and there. You meet a lot of people, and you
have a few dates. But you had more than a

(55:36):
few dates. You say you're married. How'd you meet Mary?
I had produced a movie called Children of a Lesser
God for Paramount, and Paramount wanted the producers of three
or four of the films coming out that next year
to go to Las Vegas to meet the theater owners.

(55:58):
They had a couple of thousand come to Las Vegas
every year, and the producers would talk about their films. Well,
I get on a Paramount plane and I look across
the aisle and there's Mary Hart, who I watch on
TV every night and always saw it. Gosh, I'd sure
like to go out with Mary Hart. And she's sitting
alone with papers on her lap. I go over. I

(56:21):
sit down in the chair next to her, and I said,
and there's only a few of us producers and then
Mary and I said, Hi, I'm Bert Sugarman. Mary. It's
nice to meet you, she said, Hi. Say can we
talk to a few minutes? She said, no, we can't.
I'm going through all of these papers about your movies.
Of you producers who you are what the names are,

(56:42):
so I can't right now, maybe another time. Thank you. Well,
that was a great one. I went back to my
seat and sat there, and then on stage I couldn't
talk to her, just couldn't. And she was working and
I was getting ready for my speech. All these theaters
her owners, and that was the end of it. And

(57:04):
going home, I went home a different I didn't go home.
I went to New York, and I guess she went
back to Hollywood, so I didn't see her for quite
a while. And then what was next? Right next was
I'm in New York laying on the beach, and my

(57:26):
host at their house says, you got a phone call, Bert,
come on, get up here. You got a phone call.
I go up and it's a friend of mine at
Beverly Hills. Do you even know what the share party is, Bob, Yes,
I do, Okay. The share Party is where it's a
charity and everything goes to mental health and it's tied

(57:47):
to Cedar sign I Mental Hospital, and the wives of
many male executives and a few of the husbands of
female executives run this group called Chair and they give
a party where you were tree Western clothes boots, guns
and all kind of Levi's fun party to go to
every year in Los Angeles or Beverly Hills, usually at

(58:10):
the Hilton. And this friend of mine says, listen, I'm
going to the share party. And this is on a Wednesday.
And he said, you know it's Saturday night. And he said,
I'm taking Mary Hart and Jackie Smith. I'm really mad
about Jackie Smith. I'm just I'm in love with her,
and Mary's gonna come along. Would you like to join us?

(58:32):
I said absolutely positively. Okay, he said I'll come by.
He doesn't even know where I am. He said, I'll
come by and pick you up about six thirty or
six o'clock and we'll go get married first. And then
Jackie I said, great, wonderful. Well, I'm thrilled. I fly
right back to LA and we go by and pick

(58:54):
up Mary. Hi, Mary, how are you? Hi? Bird? You
never called me? Oh my gosh, what a start. Mary.
I feel terrible. I never called you. Thank you for
saying that. Okay, we go out that night. He goes
over with Jackie, leaves the table, so I'm sitting with
Mary and we talk all night long, had a great time.

(59:15):
Go home, drop Jackie off, drop her off. Next morning,
about ten o'clock, my phone rings and it's Mary Hi Bert, Hi, Mary.
Weren't you gonna call me? We had a great time
last night. Of course I was gonna call you. How
about dinner Tuesday? And Mary Hart says, how about dinner tonight?

(59:35):
I said, Wow, you have got it. I'll pick you
up tonight. We're going to dinner. We literally have never
been apart since that dinner. Wows that incredible love story,
and it's true, it's one hundred percent true. Thirty four years, Bob,
thirty four years. That's a long record. Did anybody never

(59:58):
mind Hollywood? So you talk about producing children the lesser gone?
How'd you get into movies by reading a couple of
scripts that I like? I read the script. I didn't

(01:00:19):
read the script. That's a real interesting question. Because I
heard about the play, and I was in New York
and I heard about the play, and I wanted to
see the play. So I went to see the play.
And I'm sitting there and I see Norman Lear sitting
in front of me, Ray Starks sitting across the aisle,

(01:00:41):
and I'm thinking, Wow, these are two of the biggest
producers in the business. I knew them both, Ray extremely well,
Norman Little and I watched the first half and it
broke for fifteen twenty minutes. I went downstairs. I called
the playwrights agent Stan Cayman at William Morris and Beverly

(01:01:01):
Hills and the phone downstairs, and I said, I love this.
I want to buy the movie rights. He said, well, Bird,
you may not know, but but Ray Stark is there,
and Lear is there, and he named another producer I
never heard of. And he said they're all there and
I'm probably going to hear from him. And I said,
I want to buy it, and I want to buy
it now, right now on the telephone. What does he

(01:01:22):
want for the rights the film rights? And he said,
I don't know. Hold on, I said, not too long.
I got to go back. He obviously called the playwright
and he called me back and he said, look, I
think from one of those guys he'd take three to
four hundred thousand. But you you've you're not known for
producing a film. He wants a million dollars. I said,

(01:01:43):
you got it. A million bucks, he's got it. I
want the film rights, he said, but he's got to
meet you. I said, where is he? He said, New Mexico.
I said, okay, I'll meet him for breakfast wear Los
crucis New Mexico. I said, let me call me later
and tell me where to meet him. I'll be flying
in private. I'll go there. Okay. I saw the play,

(01:02:07):
said a load to Norman's said a load of Ray,
how are you? What's doing? Went back to the hotel,
checked out, flew to Las Cruces, New Mexico, and I
had an airplane. Then flew there. I met the playwrights,
sat with him for an hour. He said, we're going
to get along, but will you let me write the
first draft to the screenplay? I said one hundred percent yes,

(01:02:31):
of course. I owned the rights and that's how I
got involved. How long from that date till the movie
is made? Well, it was probably a year till the
film was made, but a couple of things. The next day,
I get a phone call in La from my friend
Ray Stark. He said, I'm gonna do you a big favor.

(01:02:52):
He said, I'm going to give you the million dollars back,
You'll have nothing invested, and we'll co produce it together.
I said, I can't do that. Ray, you're terrific. Well
why not. You won't have anything invested, I said, I know,
but you're one of the biggest producers. You produce Streisand's films.
Everybody knows it. They'll never know me. I'll never get
a reputation of any kind. This is a quality film

(01:03:16):
that I want to make, and I appreciate it very much,
but I'm not going to do that because I want
my name out there so I get some reputation to
make more films. He said, I get it, I get it.
I then went back to New York and I wanted
Robert Redford to play to play the star in it,
and Bob Redford and I were together for about two

(01:03:39):
weeks in a row, day in and day out, going
over what the play would be like and what would
happen in each scene. And he was fabulous to work with.
I mean, he was such a gentleman. And one day,
sitting there after about two weeks, he said, Bert, I
can't do it. You know where the lead climbs up
this tree and look at her and tries to make

(01:04:01):
noise and get her attention on the second floor. I
said yes, he said, Bob Redford wouldn't do that, and
I said, I know, but you're the character. You're not
Bob Redford there. He said, no, but I've got to
live with being Bob Redford. And he just wouldn't do that.
He'd shoots somebody, he'd do this with Paul Newman, but

(01:04:22):
he wouldn't do that. I can't do it. I thanked him,
We hugged, and I thanked him so much for spending
all that time with me. And that was it. So
we cast it Marley Matlin. Yeah, this is Marley Matlin's
big breakthrough. How'd you end up using Marley? Because she

(01:04:42):
came through with other non speaking and not hearing actresses
and there was a light about her. There was something
about Marley that was absolutely amazing. Now you know that
that was thirty eight years ago, thirty nine years ago,
and she was wonderful. And I will also tell you

(01:05:05):
that last October Mary and I took Mary and her
husband to a Dodger baseball game. We are still friends
with Marley. She's as wonderful now as she ever was.
But we met her. She went to god Debt College,
I believe it part of Juilliard, and she just she

(01:05:25):
was alive and then of course she gets nominated for
an Academy Award for Best Actress. I go to the
Academy Awards and Marley wins Best Actress of the Year.
Non speaking and non hearing lady. Nothing like that had
ever happened, and I was so proud of her. She

(01:05:46):
was wonderful. And if you've seen Coda, then you know
Marley was in Coda just terrific, as wonderful as ever. Okay, hey,
the playwright, he wrote the original script. How close was
that to the shooting script? Not that close. It was interesting,

(01:06:09):
it was good, but it didn't quite hit me. And
when we went over talking about it, he understood it
and he was terrific about it. He just I didn't
know how he'd act. And I felt I did know
because he was such a gentleman. But it just didn't
get there. And then after a couple of drafts and

(01:06:30):
this and that, I felt we had it. Okay, you
went on earlier than you were a TV guy. It
was very immediate. Now you're working in the movies, are
you still ultimately disillusioned because my interestandings, you don't go
on to make a whole bunch of movies. That's true.
I made about five movies, and I really liked TV better.

(01:06:50):
It was it suited my personality better, which was immediate
and go for it and do it and aggressive, and
so TV fitted better. But I had to deal with that,
and I had. Then I saw a script and I
went to see a play called Extremities, and Extremities was

(01:07:13):
absolutely wonderful. It was a story about a woman that
was watched by a man who wanted to get her
and beat her and rape her. And he watched her
leave her house, go to work, come back and work,
and so he goes and captures her, gets her in
the apartment, and lo and behold, this woman turns the
tables on him and somehow you got to see the film.

(01:07:37):
What she does is take him prisoner, and it was
fair a faucet in the film. And she did a
fabulous job, just fabulous job. I did another film called
Crimes to the Heart with Jessica Lang's Sissy Spacek and
just some fun things that I did because I liked
the scripts. And then I after that, I started getting

(01:07:58):
out of that business and kind of leaving the entertainment
business and going in some businesses, Like I say, I
went in the hamburger business. How do you do that? Well,
I did it when the hamburger business a little slower.
What was the name of your hamburger, Jane? What were
you doing in the hamburger business? I went. I was

(01:08:19):
in New Orleans and I had a meeting in the afternoon.
I was in Nolands and I wanted to get a
quick burger and go by McDonald's. And I was driving
by this McDonald's and I see in their line there
was like twenty five cars and I didn't have that
much time. And across the street was a little place
that had a line on each side of the building

(01:08:41):
double drive through. This is like nineteen eighty six, eighties,
eighty seven, eighty eight, and I had never seen that.
In the line were only four or five cars. I
went there, I got a burger, I got fries, milkshake.
I loved it. I ordered some more fries. Loved that.
You couldn't sit out inside. He had two or through

(01:09:02):
tables outside. There was no inside. Small little building called Rallies.
Oh well, Rallies. So I went back that night after
my afternoon meeting with a man named al Copeland, who
owned some restaurants in New Orleans dinner restaurants and was
very well known. And I went back and I said
the guy who's a manager, He said, I am, and

(01:09:22):
I own it. Talked to him for a while, and
I bought that store. You bought it? Yes, I bought it.
And from there I started a chain called Rallies. And
after I had about forty of them, there was a
chain that was similar, double drive through called Checkers, and
that started in Alabama. I bought that and I merged

(01:09:42):
it with Rallies, kept both of their names, and I
went from that one store to about nine hundred and
twenty stores and sold the two chains. How do you
decide when to sell? Gut? That's it? Gut? Did I
want to continue to build them? Mary and I, and

(01:10:07):
as I said, I had an airplane used to fly
to two and three cities a day, because before I
built a store which was a Rallies or a Checkers,
I wanted to see the location, and I wanted to
be on the proper corner, and I wanted to know
what traffic was under thirty eight miles an hour going

(01:10:27):
by there, and I wanted to be near a McDonald's
right if there was McDonald's close by with one drive
through who they'd always have a line and I'd get
some of their business. And so I was really working
at it, and I thought, that's enough, that's okay maybe now,
and gut told me to leave it and do something else.

(01:10:47):
So it was obviously very successful. What was the thrill
relative to entertainment personally? Major? Major? Because I enjoyed what
I was doing. I thought the product was terrific. I
had battered fries and I thought they were absolutely wonderful.
And I told my staff in there, and they didn't

(01:11:08):
all know me because I had so many, so I
could go buy them and mystery shop, I could walk
in make sure that John's were clean and the place
was okay. They didn't know I was. And I found
out a few things. I found out that my managers
were better as female than male. There was less thievery,
almost none with females males. They would be given up

(01:11:33):
twenty burgers out to their buddies or this or that,
and you had to watch that kind of stuff. And
so I love to have female managers at the stores.
And I just enjoyed the fries. I thought they were
really good, better than McDonald's and the burgers. We were
careful to make sure we had the right amount of meat,
that it had the proper heat, and how we put

(01:11:56):
burgers with automatic heaters on top of them so nobody
ever get eat kohli or whatever. I enjoyed the whole process.
I just really loved it. How are your arteries? Well,
I'm still around today, right with you, Bob, And then
mine are not that great. So you said you got
in the cement business. Another another podcast, Bob. Okay, just

(01:12:21):
I love talking to you too, because you ask me
wonderful questions that really make me think back, and I
really appreciate that I do. But we've got another part
of my life maybe again. Okay, but before we wrap
up a couple of things. With so much experience in hindsight,
what do you think about today's television business? What do
we know? Television drives the culture in a way that

(01:12:43):
no other art form does movies or music. It's moved
to streaming. There's a plethora of product. What do you
think about today's landscape? I think streaming. I just think
streaming is absolutely the way to go. There used to
be a show that you could look at at eight
o'clock on a Tuesday night and it was wonderful. But

(01:13:05):
the next Tuesday night you couldn't. You weren't in town,
you were working, you had a meeting, you had a
birthday party something, and so you'd missed the week's later show.
Streaming you see him when you want to see him.
I think that so many of them do it well.
Netflix has done it well. And the management and Netflix
look back where they started from. You know, read hastings,

(01:13:26):
ted surrenders. They started out with DVD's in the store
and they're still putting out music and product and great shows.
But a lot of them do you know, they're not
just that paramount. Plus, my friends all watch Yellowstone love it.
Who are these people? Who are some of them? Who
are the writers of some of them? It's just streaming

(01:13:51):
is the way to go. And if I was going
to go back in that business now, which I never
know what I'm gonna do next, streaming is what I
loved to do. Chess love to do. Make a show
that you can let ten of them out on the
same day and people can watch all of them on
a weekend if you love it, or watch them when
they can watch them. So and there's so many gray

(01:14:13):
have you seen Yellowstone, Bob tell you the Truth? That's
one show I haven't seen. Yeah, it's worth looking yet.
It really is. Kevin Costner's terrific. The show is just great.
In eighteen eighty three, and where it goes from there
in nineteen twenty three, all spinoffs, all terrific. I think
that's paramount plus. But I'm pretty familiar with it. You know.

(01:14:36):
It's kind of like succession. You fall behind and then
it's monolithic to start up. And you know, I have
a list of all the stuff that I'm watching. There's
so much good television from around the world. Especially you
mentioned that you don't know what you're doing next. Are
you still actively involved in businesses? Absolutely, morning to night,

(01:15:00):
seven days a week. You can call me and tell
me you've got an ID and let's try and do
it together. The other thing, especially in this era of
financial unpredictability, you've made a lot of money. Where do
you invest your money? I don't think I'll go there.

(01:15:20):
I will tell you. The philanthropy is very important to
Mary and I. Right now, Mary sits on the board
of Children's Hospital Los Angeles. That's important to us. And
there's a group of charities that are really really important
to us. We're always looking for others and we focus
a lot on that and if there's something that we
can do in the entertainment business to make some of

(01:15:42):
these things better known. While Vince Scully was alive, Mary
talked to Vinny and he was the voice of Children's Hospital,
Los Angeles, and I have videotape of Annie and Mary
on the floor at Children's Hospital with Paul Viviane, the president,
playing with some kids whose hair is shaved because of operations,

(01:16:05):
who are healing and this and that with these children,
and that just gets my heart just so wonderful to
see in Vince Gully's voice. And now a lot of
the Los Angeles Dodgers come over, and it's interesting because
the six years olds, six years and seven and eight
year olds, they don't know who the players are. The
fourteen year olds that are in the hospital they do.

(01:16:27):
So it's seeing some of them come over there and
they're attracted to the little bit the older ones. So
we just enjoy that so much. Now, you mentioned your
health is good. What's it like having so many of
your contemporaries pass. It's depressing, that's what it is. I
see some of them do, and I see some of

(01:16:48):
them are alive. I talked to a fellow yesterday by
the name of David Permott. David's been a producer around
for years. He just called me and said, I saw
the midnight special TV show on YouTube Bert fifty years congratulations,
Why did you wait so long? And we were on
for forty five minutes last night, late last night, with

(01:17:11):
him telling me about a show that he's gonna stream now,
which I can't tell you about. I wish I could,
but it sounds fabulous and the star that he's got
gonna be in that it's wonderful. And again, I just
really enjoy streaming, whether it's looking Have you looked at
by the way Succession there in their last year, right,

(01:17:33):
And of course Mary and I watched Succession. Love it.
Have you seen poker Face? You'll get a kick out
of that, you know, I know poker Faced. I've watched
about a few episodes. I must say, I'm very into
this foreign television. The Israelis in the Danes I find
make you know, have the reputation of making the best

(01:17:54):
international television like foud Oh found unbelievable. Unbelieve one of
the best ever, right, and then the show that Homeland
was based in Israeli show Schu Green. We're watching on
Amazon right now, an Indian show South Asian, shall we say,

(01:18:15):
called Fakes Farsi. It's really good. There's a new season
of this English show. It's not in America yet. That
I always say is my number one recommendation called Happy Valley?
Have you seen Happy Valley? It's a crime. Oh, I
don't even know the title. This is a number one
show in England. Mary sitting next to me writing that
down right now, Okay, how about Spiral Have you seen? Spiral? No?

(01:18:40):
No is a French show co production with the English
basically the best cop show you'll ever see on what streamer?
Do you remember? I think you know? These things move around.
I watch one or two seasons for free on Amazon.
I think the restaurant m ac Mega hurts. Okay, Spi

(01:19:03):
r ala absolutely. Now, let's be clear, since you're a pro,
they don't make them every year, and they've now made
the final episode, so when you watch the first season,
the transfers won't be as possibly good, but they're great.
I mean, I could go. The other classic show is
called a French Village, which is another French show about

(01:19:28):
during the Resistance. If we know that one. Oh yeah,
we know French Village, Yes, great and tremendous. The original
border in the Killing from Denmark. They've been remade as
American shows. Mary is shaking her head. Yes and I
can't remember it. How about Occupied? If you watched Occupied Occupied? Yes, Occupied,

(01:19:48):
we know exactly I mean these show. How about Fauda?
How about this last season of Fauda? Wasn't that amazing? Okay,
explain that guy Duran so much charisma. He's like an
anti hero because by American standards, they wouldn't even cast him.
You're right, good, look, right whatever. You know that he

(01:20:11):
used to be a bodyguard in America before he was
the Starfire. I didn't know that his name is Lere
and boys something. Wow, he's a star. It's just you know,
usually when the shows play multiple seasons, they get worse,
but not this show, and it's sad. Second, Mary, come on, Mary,

(01:20:35):
come on one second. We're not using the video so
it doesn't just no videos. Just come up, just come
take a peek to see you. We can television forever,

(01:20:56):
you know. There there's just so many good shows and
you and you see it there and I you know,
a lot of people depend on the algorithm. I study it.
I say, it's such an investment to watch these shows
that I want to owe the other show that is unbelievable.
Did you watch this French show The Bureau? No, no, no,

(01:21:18):
we don't write it down on the Bureau. No. The
Bureau is the French Cia. Okay, now I'm gonna warn
you right up front. It starts off slow. It's an
intense show, but it is just like a movie. It
is unbelievable. The Bureau. Yes, okay, while we're talking, did

(01:21:42):
you watch Borgan? Yes, yes, yes, unbelievable. There's this sweetish
show called Bonus Family. It's on Netflix about a blended family.
Really good. I don't know that one. You've watched narc obviously, yes, yes.
Could I give you a book? I have a book

(01:22:04):
for you to read, Okay, well, I know you. I
know you'll love it. It's called Easy Writers Raging Bulls.
I read it, of course, I read it. Okay, all right,
Peter watched his name Peter begins, Yes, yes, Peter biskind right, right.
I've even seen him speak about that really phenomenal Oh,

(01:22:24):
this is a magical show Ethos. Did you watch Ethos? No,
we've seen it advertised, but have not seen it. Oh
it's really intense Turkish show. Listen. I'll leave you with that.
But uh, you know that's my highlight of the day
watching streaming television. No. And I love these suggestions, honestly,

(01:22:47):
I really do. But most of all, I like your
questions because they've never been asked some of these before.
And I really enjoy this, this hour or whatever it is,
I love it. Thank you are you know you've been
the air and done that. To me, that is fascinating.
I mean we didn't go really deeply into it, but
I know how hard it is to be successful, and

(01:23:11):
most people are a successful saying, oh, it wasn't that
big of a deal. Oh, believe me, it was. So
I'm a student of the game. What is the personality?
What the relationships? You know, I grew up on the
East Coast and the East coast, it's all about where
you went to college, who your parents are whereas in
LA the most important thing is what kind of car

(01:23:33):
you drive, which is just phone enough. But none of
that matters. Everybody's a self starter and the people who
have made it to the top. They're always very intelligent
and they have an amazing story. I won't keep you
any longer. Bird, it's been wonderful talking to you. Thanks

(01:23:54):
for taking the time to speak to my audience. Bob,
a pleasure visiting with you. Thank you so much. And
as we say, you know I was watching last night
that I not that I haven't watched them. Some of
these performances are just utterly riveting. I mean there's stuff
you see. You know, forget the big hits, you know,

(01:24:14):
like Linda Ronstad doing Long, Long Time, etc. But Redbone
come and get your Love. I mean, I know that's
on to see them perform that live. And there were
a couple of old Jerry Wright doing Love Is Alive.
That's my favorite song. And to watch him play you know,
the keytar, the keyboard. You know, it's very hard to

(01:24:37):
turn off. And I'm not blowing smoke up your Rearran,
it's you know, it's great that this stuff is available.
Well every week, every week on Monday mornings, I'm going
to put up another ten or fifteen that are unique,
and you love you all love them all. But there'll
be some that will be favorites of yours. Okay, just
to be very clear, because I was in preparation, I

(01:24:58):
was going on you Tube to watch your channel. Specifically,
you have to search to me on your channel. What's
the name of your channel? Again? Midnight Special TV Show,
So for those at home, go to Midnight Special TV
Show for the authorized versions. Although Bert is very up
to date, he doesn't want to kill the other people.

(01:25:20):
He's realized in building the audience, he's in business with
them and Bert. I'll leave it at that, Thanks again,
my pleasure. Until next time. This is Bob left Sets