I was at the pool one late August afternoon when I got a phone call from Buddy, "Hey Al a friend of mine wants to see the show tonight but she’s alone and she would like an escort to sit with her." "Of course I’ll go. The first show?" "Alvin all you gotta do is tell the maitre’d and he’ll show you to the table, ringside.". "You will like her; she is a nice person.’ I get to the show room promptly at eight, hand the captain a ten dollar chip and I’m led to the table where an attractive blonde in a white sequined off the shoulder dress awaits. The early arrivals for Buddy’s first show around ringside now shift their gaze from her to "who’s the lucky guy?" She extends her hand, "Hi I’m Phyllis McGuire. You must be Al." Phyllis Mcguire of the Mc Guire sisters who I used to see on the Arthur Godfrey show? Can this be Phyllis McGuire, the girlfriend of mobster Sam Giancana? And I’m supposed to watch the show?
It turned out to be a wonderful evening. She was delightful and we both laughed until it hurt.
When it was over I walked Phyllis Mcguire through the casino to her car, amid stares and whistles from the one armed bandit crowd. She did not offer "I'd like to see you again" and I did not say "Can I have your phone number?" All I could think of as I walked back, "I had a date with the mistress of Sam Giancana, one of the most ruthless of mob bosses. And I lived to tell about it.
Later when I went backstage to visit Buddy I said, "She was great. Who you got for me tomorrow night, Mrs. John Gotti?"
One night I accompanied Buddy to a testimonial dinner for Vince Scully, the famed voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers and a legend in L.A. Buddy was one of the speakers and a laugh riot as usual. As the dinner broke up, Buddy cornered Cary Grant walking off the dais, found me in the audience and steered the rather reclusive actor to meet Alvin Hampel. I shook his hand which was even clammier than mine. "It's a pleasure Mr. Grant, Gary, I'm sorry Cary. In the middle of one of the most stuttering, most nervous responses to meeting one of the all time greats, Buddy nudges me and says, "Cary, not Harry you schmuck." Cary Grant doubled over laughing.
The Sahara Hotel's house for its star performers was a way station for anyone visiting or performing at other Vegas hotels. When Sean Connery dropped by for a round of golf with Buddy, I was invited to walk the course with them. In addition to watching a couple of duffers I witnessed an olympian event of wisecrack and expletive hurling , expectedly from Buddy, but surprisingly from the urbane Mr. Connery. Apparently the Scots also invented the cant that facilitated the exciting and exacting new game of golf. It was great fun to watch OO7 confront a terrorist,more sinister than Odd Job or Goldfinger. Buddy Hackett messed up every one of Sean Connery's swings with a weapon OO7 could not defuse. He made Connery laugh. Much of Buddy's take on golf is recounted in the book he wrote, "The Truth About Golf and Other Lies."
I got in the car and we were off on a magical mystery drive. I don't ask. Hackett doesn't tell. We stop at a modest ranch (if there are any in Beverly Hills) and the woman working in the kitchen bids us a warm welcome then ushers into the den. I sit in big leather chair, look around at the many artifacts and photos that should have been a clue to who lived here. They weren't. In just a few minutes a smiling hulk of a man shuffles in and greets us with clicking and sucking sounds that are uniquely this man's signature. When I come to I am being introduced to Jonathan Winters. Who is going to believe this? I have been turned into an audience of one sitting between two of the most inventive comedic minds who waste no time beginning to shpritz (shpritz: the term that describes two or more comedians throwing laugh lines at each other in a can-you-top this fashion). Sensing they had a pigeon for an audience, these two guys put on a show for my benefit. That hour in the home of a true legend became one the most memorable of my life. Imagine actually meeting Maude Frickert.
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