FOND MEMORIES OF A NICE GUY

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

Hearing today of the death of actor Ed Asner at the age of 91 brought back the memory that this was one celebrity we would meet more than once and with whom we would have something resembling a friendship, albeit mostly in phone conversations, over the ensuing years. He helped us get our first gig on a national TV variety show, and while our performance on the show wasn’t anything to write home about, it was great to have someone like him in our corner.

Our initial meeting with him would be at one of the poshest gigs we would ever play. I don’t even remember if there were other acts on the bill, but it was in September, 1978, at San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel in a very large banquet room. Hosting the event, which I think was some sort of charity fundraiser, was The City’s Mayor George Moscone, and in attendance was every notable politician from SF, including Harvey Milk, who we had already struck up a friendship with, and very likely supervisor Dan White, who would assassinate both Moscone and Milk two months later. Asner was the guest speaker for this event.

As we were performing, we were noticing Asner and Moscone, sitting together laughing and smiling all the way through. I was blown away by the fact that we were the focus of attention for about 20 minutes while all these suit-and-tie folk were giving listen. Within five minutes after we left the stage, Asner and the mayor were in our dressing room, which was a far cry from the many liquor storage rooms we had called dressing rooms only a couple years previously. Here was a major TV star, who had won two Emmy Awards playing Lou Grant in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and would win three more playing Lou Grant in the eponymous series, the only Emmy Award winner in history to win for both comedy and drama playing the same role, and he was telling US how great we were.

When he was done praising us, he let us know that he would be co-hosting The Mike (not Michael) Douglas show for a week in early November. There were two afternoon variety/talk shows on TV at that time, one was Douglas’s show, which we would do again a couple years later, and The Merv Griffin Show, which we would also do twice. Because Asner was the guest co-host, he could have a say-so in who gets on, so he put our name forward to the talent coordinator of the show, and that was that.

I wish I could say that was our big break, but it wasn’t. Still, it was interesting to hear his intro for us, mentioning how he had seen us in San Francisco, and how he was most impressed by our SINGING. He introduced us “Rick & Ruby and their friend Ral” which wasn’t quite Raoul, as our keyboard player Joshua Brody was known. That intro threw us for a bit of a loop, not so much for screwing up Raoul’s name, but emphasising our singing. The six minutes we wound up doing, after haggling a lot with the show’s producers about keeping the raunch factor down, as the show’s main audience was, shall we say, an “older demographic,” was a pastiche of impressions that had minimal harmonies, if any. We did get some nice compliments from two of the show’s other guests that day, Country Music star Loretta Lynn and a body-builder named Arnold Schwarzenegger. Also guesting on the show was some Olympic athlete who at the time was known as Bruce Jenner, and his wife, both of whom snubbed us backstage.

Asner, though, was very emphatic in his praise for us that day, grabbing me as we were exiting the stage and giving me a kiss on the cheek. Odd that he chose to kiss ME and not Ruby, but I chalked it up to This Is Hollywood and you’re better off not trying to analyse it too deeply. His enthusiasm was still there, and he became the first of many to encourage us to move to LA. In the meantime, he told us to call anytime we were in LA, and he’d come see us if he could. Well, he was a little bit busy, as he’d just completed the first series of Lou Grant, and the show would keep him busy for four more years. We would call him whenever we were down south, and he would always take our calls. He continued to do that for a year or two after we moved there.

A bit of Asner trivia: His co-starring gig on The Mary Tyler Moore Show was not the first time he worked with her. He had a supporting role as a police lieutenant in the 1969 Elvis Presley film “Change Of Habit,” where Elvis played a doctor and Mary played a NUN! He worked pretty steadily from the 1960s until a couple years before his death. I remember about 15 years ago showing my former stepson the picture of myself and Ruby with Asner, and was able to say, for point of reference, “Remember in the movie Elf, the guy that played Santa Claus?” and he recognised him. Ed Asner spanned the generations with his career, and I’m proud to have met him and to remember him as a talented, lovely man.

August 29th, 2021



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