COAT TAILING

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

45 years ago this month, and for most of the year 1979, the act I was part of was on its way to getting almost famous. It all came down to befriending someone who was on his way to becoming a megastar, and we had a clever manager who recognised it, who made sure we hung with him as much as we could. It worked, as when it came down to a national concert tour, he told his management he wanted us to be his opening act. It was also fortunate that his management had seen us and agreed. I remember when Robin Williams called me at home in February to talk about the upcoming tour, my then wife had a friend from high school at the house. When I finished the call, the friend said, “Geez, my upcoming hiking trip through the mountains of Montana sounds rather paltry in comparison.” I said, “Well, your trip will be less stressful than mine.”

The tour wasn’t an exhausting one, it would be in various shifts. We would start with a week in San Francisco, which was handy since we lived there, and Robin’s career began there. One night I witnessed first hand the magnitude of Robin’s stardom, as he was driving me home. We were at a stop light, and two girls in an adjacent car recognised him, leapt out of their car and ran up to kiss him. He acknowledged that since Mark & Mindy had debuted, that sort of thing was happening with some frequency.

Two weeks after the San Francisco run, we were booked for an entire week at New York’s famed Copacabana, the same one Barry Manilow sang about. Those tickets were the hottest thing in town, and celebs came every night. It helped us that our doorless dressing room was on the way to Robin’s dressing room, so when celebs were coming back to meet Robin, they encountered us and most of them had kind words to say. Among the people we met that week were Bill Murray and Gilda Radner (who were dating at the time), Andy Warhol, comic team Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara (parents of Ben Stiller), talk show host Dick Cavett, comedians Rodney Dangerfield and Robert Klein, pop group Manhattan Transfer, and for me the most interesting at the time, Gene Simmons of Kiss. He had missed most of our set, but was dating Cher at the time, and had with him Cher’s daughter Chastity (now Chaz). Cher was unable to come because she was ill. Gene heard that we did a parody of Cher, and demanded a command performance. Our parody was of her song “Half Breed,” which we did as “Half Wit.” He burst out laughing, and even Chastity said, “Yep, that’s my mom.” We wanted to get a photo with him, but he had stipulations in his contract that wouldn’t allow him to be photographed without his makeup. We asked him if it would be ok if he turned his back to the camera, and he was fine with that, but the photo didn’t come out!

Because we were part of Robin’s entourage, it meant we got free passes to wherever Robin decided to go. We went at least twice to the legendary Studio 54 disco with VIP passes, meaning we got to enter the club through the back entrance. We didn’t have to go in the front way and have to deal with the Attitude Police who often decided who was allowed in just by their look or their story. My brother-in-law was living in New York at the time, and had to brave the front entrance, but he told the bouncers that his brother-in-law was in the act Rick & Ruby, that’s opening for Robin Williams at the Copa. To the bouncers, that sounded like he was important enough, and he was in.

The next leg of the tour involved a midwest swing, with one-nighters in 1000-seat venues in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Detroit, and a weekend in Chicago. All the one-nighters were good for us, Chicago, not quite as good. Robin had trouble there too. I think some of the attitude came from being a big city without the glitter of LA or New York. One guy sitting up front gave a Quaalude to my partner while we were on stage, as if he thought we might appreciate it. He even came up to us during the interval between our set and Robin’s, and said “Hey man, that really was a Quaalude,” just to illustrate his point further. There was a fair amount of drugs on that tour, but my partner had given up all stimuli except alcohol by then, and while I still indulged, I always waited until after our shows to do that. We threw the Quaalude down the toilet.

The one great moment in Chicago was our celebrity encounter, and it was fortunate that Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, along with some of his brothers, came on the best show we had of the four we had done there. They got there too late to hear my partner’s Diana Ross parody, but unlike Gene Simmons, she didn’t ask to hear it. The whole entourage came backstage with us, and because there was such a throng around Robin, they decided to talk to us rather than steal any of his thunder. I heard so much about what a horrible person she was, but didn’t see anything resembling that behaviour. Michael was very shy, but very friendly. At the time, the Off The Wall album was out, we were three years away from Thriller, and about 8 years from his strange phases.

This tour should have been the thing that launched us into the stratosphere, but nothing comes easy. There were many factors to blame for that, first off not moving to LA for another year and a half, by which time the media interest in us had faded a bit. We still got the episode of Mark & Mindy as a result, and we did a fair amount of TV in the interim. Amazing that 45 years have passed, but also sad that it’s almost exactly 10 years since Robin Williams decided to leave us. I will always feel honoured that someone as brilliant as he chose to have us experience the mania with him.

April 19th, 2024



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