#28 Jeff Meets Billy Van Zandt

Announcer 0:00

Looking to sound like you know what's going on in the world social strategy, comedy and other funny stuff? Well join the club and settle in for the Jeff Dwoskin show. It's not the podcast we deserve. But the podcast we all need with your host Jeff Dwoskin

Jeff Dwoskin 0:21

Thank you for goodness go and like only you can't thank you. I am pumped. pumped. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Jeff Dwoskin show. I am Jeff Dwoskin. And this is Episode 28. And we've got an amazing episode for you today. But Jeff, aren't all your episodes amazing? Yes, they are.

You got me You got me on that one. Guilty. Guilty as charged. If you haven't caught up in all the past episodes. You're missing out Carl Gottlieb, Bobby Collins, Dan Zehr, Erin Cummings, Kelli Maroney, Suze Lanier and so many great people. Ah, you know, you know, I love pop culture. I love comedy. I love hearing stories about movies and TV. I love popular trends. And we bring it all together. We bring it all together here on the Jeff Dwoskin show. So thanks for being here and buckle up. This one's gonna be a doozy. Another doozy Yes, another doozy. Oh, and some exciting news. I'm gonna be part of a podcast extravaganza called indie pods, United indie pods, United comm it's November 29. to December 3, it's only $10. If you go to that website and sign up, it's put together by my good friend Tina Marie, who is the host of the psych delic podcast. Check that out. It's such a great podcast, and she's putting together this amazing podcast convention. And it's I'm part of a live show, and I'm speaking on Twitter during it, it's gonna be a blast. It's gonna be a blast. I also want to give a shout out to my friend Scott Curtis, who just had me on his show behind the bits. That was fun look for that and check out his podcast behind the bits. I know it's time for the syllabus for media to it. All right. You know, I love Twitter. You know, I love the hashtags. You know, I'm going to read one after my interview with Billy Van Zandt. So definitely, what I suggest again, is jump into trends, find hashtags that are very popular find word phrases that are very popular, you can go to the trends section of Twitter and any different country and look and see what's popular conversation at that point, jump into those conversations. And that's a great way to build up your audience. Do it. Yeah, do something now that Twitter is slowing down our ability to retweet. I knew that they weren't going to get rid of that function. I just knew they weren't. Ah, shame on you Twitter. And that's the social media too. Before I forget, I want to thank everyone who's liked and subscribed and told all your friends about the Jeff Dwoskin show. I love the love spending week after week with me and hearing me talk to my awesome guests means the world to me. tell all your friends say hey, if you listen to the Jeff Dwoskin show, he's on amazon music Spotify, Apple podcasts, He's everywhere. Why aren't you listening? So please continue to spread the word I appreciate it. Make sure you subscribe, go to my website. jeffisfunny.com sign up for my mailing list. I'll send you fancy emails all that kind of good stuff. All right,

Thank you.

Well Halloween just past Thanksgiving is right around the corner. And you know what that means? Everyone's talking about Christmas. Specifically the Die Hard controversy is diehard, A Christmas movie there already. [phone ringing ]Again, it's crazy to me that they just keep talking about whether this movie is or isn't a Christmas movie. Oh, for the love of God who is calling during my show. I apologize, folks, this is embarrassing. This is not professional at all. I'm sorry that this

Mystery Die Hard Fan 3:57

Hello, Hello. How did you get this number or was watching Die Hard. Have you seen that? Yes. Yeah, me too. Yeah, it's a lovely tale of some German. How do you say potty crashes at the beautiful nakatomi Plaza are just called to lay being bullied by a New York hot headed cop john McClane. He's from Jersey, but he polices in New York. Sorry, Mr. cowboy for just wanting to party like it's 1999 with the guess. You think john McClane was a bully? Our complete disregard for everything and Abra Ward? We're all stuck at that holiday party. It's no excuse to kill someone put a sorry my halitosis. ho, ho, ho, sorry. Good men were killed on both sides.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:58

you think they were good people

Mystery Die Hard Fan 5:00

Did we watch the same movie? Also, there were good people on both sides. It just got messy even these wife said john McClane Dr. Flores like my thought would never held accountable for the crimes he committed that person is de crimes he committed. Yes. Yippe Kiyay.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:21

Okay then I'm sorry about that. I don't know how anyone got that unlisted number it's unless it my mother in law doesn't even have that number. She just shows up to the house. Well, I'm not I guess I think about not sure which is worse. Anyway, point is I was watching Die Hard, you know, tweet at me, let me know add Jeff Dwoskin. Joe, would you think Christmas movie not a Christmas movie? Let's let the fans of the Jeff Dwoskin show weigh in on this.

And I do want to take a moment just to thank this week's sponsor we did get a new sponsor this week. Thanks for supporting all of our old sponsors really appreciate that helps keep the lights on this week looking for the perfect getaway Have you considered Vermont's own Stratford in that's right Stratford in located right next to the Minute Man Cafe is the perfect getaway spot serving everyone since 1774. They say a week at the Stratford Inn and you'll leave thinking you were dreaming the whole time. All right, well check that out. Definitely check it out. If you're looking for travel plans looking to get away I know we're all locked inside, but it's a great way to escape and just get somewhere nice check out the Stratford inn. All right, well definitely support support the sponsor. It helps keep the lights on and keeps us going week after week after week on the Jeff Dwoskin show.

And now without further ado, I want to share with you my conversation with the amazing Billy Van Zandt. All right, I want to welcome to the show, producer, writer, actor People's Choice Award winner Ladies and gentlemen, Billy Van Zandt.

Billy Van Zandt 6:46

Well, no, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Jeff Dwoskin 6:49

Oh my god, I'm so excited to have you. So when I found out you're gonna be on the show, first thing I did what I did two things. One is I read your book get in the car Jane. Before that. I watched jaws two which I hadn't seen in a long time, which I know is one of your big no most of the most of your stories and credit is writing and executive producing some of the greatest shows ever. And we'll get into all those Can I watch? I watched jaws too because I want to see the acting in motion. The one thing I wanted to ask you about is it the ad the hat didn't seem to make it all the way through I was fascinated I was watching because I was focused on you cuz I'm watching it because you this way I hadn't seen it in forever the hat and I'm just like, my god that hat does not come off his head and and then all of a sudden towards the end, you make the rookie mistake when a sharks on the attack of smashing in the water using the hat, right and they tell you to stop. And then there's no more hat you did live. So kudos to that. Well,

Billy Van Zandt 7:45

I I didn't really live though. We filmed my death. And that's where I actually lost the hat. The whole story of that movie, I could talk for hours on that. We I was in the original cast of that film. Then they fired the director, they fired the writer and they recast almost everybody in the movie. And I was lucky enough to be one of the survivors there. And I originally had a gruesome death where I would be swimming towards shore and Roy Scheider pulls me by the hand and only the top half of me came out of the water. The the ratings board decided that was too grotesque. And we were going to get an R rated movie and then nobody would come see it. So they wanted a PG movie. So they tried to lighten my death by having me on a pontoon kicking towards shore and then the shark would shoot the bottom half of my legs off still too gruesome. So then we we actually they filmed a stunt man dressed like me on a pontoon. They had the shark come crashing down on top of him. They both disappeared under the water and Bob my character died. That's why Donna Wilk screams like a lunatic at the end of the film. But they cut my death out of the movie because it just the number of deaths would have given it an R rated movie. So they quickly filled me the last thing we shot I think was me swimming up on shore, having survived. But if you look at the film, the last shot of the movie when the camera pulls back, I'm not on the island with the rest of those kids, because I'm dead. So if you want it logic on this, you have to assume I swim all the way around the back of the island. And that's where I am. So I lost the hat but I shot I did the stunt myself. They shot it with a stunt man. I saw it in dailies and I said I want to do that walk him he gets to do that. They said no, you can't do it. I said I want to film that. They said okay, we'll film it. But it has to be the last thing we shoot in the movie. And I said Why does it have to be the last thing we shoot they said in case you die so I did it. They put ropes around my waist they put me on the pontoon they had scuba divers underwater, ready to yank me under and the shark on it's a little roller coaster track a couple of tons whatever it was came crashing down on top of me and right as it was about to hit me the scuba divers pulled me underwater and it was fantastic and it's never been seen and they can't seem to find the footage now. Which makes me crazy because you know, it's got to be somewhere I want to see it. I didn't know if I lived or died till I went to see it in the movie theater because they didn't tell me you know, I had the the insert with me living they had me dying who knew so but I lived I did live

Jeff Dwoskin 10:13

all right. I'm just so proud of myself. I didn't even realize what I was tapping into there. Yeah,

Billy Van Zandt 10:19

yeah.

But I've kept in touch with almost everybody from that film. We're all we're all great friends about three years ago, Tom Dunlop who put who played the role of Timmy. He was coming out to Los Angeles for business and he said, Billy, want to have dinner. I haven't seen you in a while. I said, Sure. I said, You know, I was just about to have dinner with Gigi Horrigan, who's also in the movie, played Brook. And he said, Oh, can you call her and invite her? I said, Sure. And I hung up the phone, I thought about it. And I called everybody I could, and through a chain of events. Within 48 hours, we had the entire surviving cast of jaws 2, the writer, the director, the producers, Laureen, Gary, the guy ran universal. We were all we all had dinner together. And it was fantastic. So I'm still friendly with all of them

Jeff Dwoskin 11:01

was the writer Carl Gottlieb,

Billy Van Zandt 11:03

Carl Gottlieb the best. He's the best.

Jeff Dwoskin 11:06

I talked to him. He's awesome.

Billy Van Zandt 11:08

He's great. He's just great. And the hardest part, too, I didn't appreciate this at the time, because I really wasn't a writer. At that point. He was hired to rewrite the film from scratch. As we shot it, try and picture that. So he flew, they flew him to Florida, and he would spend every day in a hotel room, rewriting whatever we were going to shoot the next day, and he only came out at night to have something to eat at everybody, every single person he passed, because we took over the entire Holiday Inn down there. Every single person that he passed. How's it going, Carl? How's it going, Carl? How's it going, Carl? surprised he didn't blow his brains out. By the time we finished that movie. But he did. He did a fantastic job. I can't imagine being put in that position. As a writer. It was really crazy. really crazy. After talking to him as

Jeff Dwoskin 11:56

as a writer, I kind of got the impression that was of his many strengths. One of his key strengths was being able to restructure and recreate storylines and scenes and all that kind of stuff. And

Billy Van Zandt 12:09

and versatile and versatile too. I mean, he wrote the jerk, you know, he wrote Steve Martin comedy. And he used to write for the Smothers Brothers and he wrote draws. I mean, that's a pretty wide range.

Jeff Dwoskin 12:20

Yes, yes. That's true. So I have to give jobs the best shark movie ever. Oh, yeah. Boy, jaws two is in rewatching it like it is the second best it I mean, I don't think they've really tapped it. I mean, I love the shark native movies in a, of course, in a silly kind of way. But do you have the privilege of being in the second greatest shark movie?

Billy Van Zandt 12:42

Yeah, the funny The funny thing is we I never thought of it as a horror movie until maybe 10 years ago. And all these horror conventions were honoring jaws. And it's like, I thought of that just as a great film. But it's, I guess it's a horror film. And the weird thing for us was jaws to until the Star Wars movies hit jaws to was the highest grossing sequel of all time for I don't know, two years, three years, whatever it was, that was kind of cool. And as a young actor, that meant the residuals are pretty good. That's pretty awesome. But

Jeff Dwoskin 13:09

it's pretty awesome. Yeah. So you were also in taps, which I haven't admittedly haven't seen in a while. I must have seen that movie. That was one of those movies. I was always on cable. So I'm pretty confident.

Billy Van Zandt 13:20

I've seen taps. It's a pretty great film. I think I think it holds up. I think it holds up really well. Originally, it was a you know, a movie that starred Timothy Hutton right off of his Oscar win for ordinary people and George C. Scott, you don't get better than him. Now it's known as the movie that stars Sean Penn and Tom Cruise . It was Sean's first movie and it was Tom's second movie. And we were at the Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania where we shot it and they put us through all the paces that the cadets went through with the rifles and the the parade marching and all that stuff. We were there I guess we did that about four months. And the first month was just rehearsal and learning all the all the technical things we had to learn. And I played bug the guy in short little guy in charge of the radio. And over the course of those four weeks of rehearsal, they realized that the guy playing the role that Tom Cruise eventually played, they had a different take than what they were looking for. And Tom who had a very, very small part, underneath that guy, they switch the roles and Tom went from you know, having a minor supporting role to having a career making role. It was really it was it was fun to watch because I was tucked up in the rafters watching him film that last scene where he's shooting and everybody in the room is blowing up that you knew right that you I knew watching it being filmed. This guy is going someplace. And the funny thing for me on that was Tom was very naive, very, very young, very naive. And Sean k just come off of slab boys on Broadway and everybody was catering to Shawn. He wanted to stay in character the whole time and all that and because Tom and he did not get along in the movie. Sean went out of his way to entertain agonize Tom, in scenes that he wasn't in he would show up on days that he wasn't supposed to even be filming and it stand behind the camera and give Tom the finger. Well, Tom's trying to do some emotional thing. It was hilarious to watch. But I don't I don't think it was really fair to Tom at all.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:13

They had to been intimidating. Yeah,

Billy Van Zandt 15:15

I'll tell you what was intimidating was George C Scott, nobody talked to him. None of us were We were all afraid to talk to the guy. And he didn't he didn't go out of his way to talk to us either. I'll say he had a guy that he used to travel on movie sets with a guy that he paid to play chess with him between scenes. Good job. So if he wasn't filming, or in his hotel room, he was playing chess. Well, none of us talked to the guy. It was pretty, pretty interesting.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:41

I assume. Yeah. That would have been a good way to get to know people cuz I'm sure yeah, he played chess to them. That would have been an amazing so yeah, I used to play chess with George see, yeah.

Billy Van Zandt 15:48

And I would have beat him. I'm a good chess player. But we all stayed friends. After the film, Shawn and I were tight for I don't know, six, seven years or so. And Shawn lived out in. He lived in California and I had just moved out here. I used I used to, I used to drive by Lucille ball's house all the time, because I wanted a meter she was the reason I wanted to. I went into comedy and I wanted to meet her today we call it stalking. But back then it was just being a tourist and I would go drive down to her block because all the celebrities I knew Jimmy Stewart was in this house jack Benny was over there, all these different celebrities. And so anytime somebody came to town, I would take them, you know, see the star homes it would be that one block when Tom came to town to live, Shawn and I picked him up at the airport and I went straight to Lucy's house, and he didn't know what to make of this at all. And Sean just used to go with me occasionally because he thought it was hilariously funny that I was being stupid, but I wanted to you know, maybe one day she'll walk out the front door and I can finally introduce myself. So at some point, Lucille Ball, Tom Cruise and Sean Penn and I were part that your curves. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 16:54

so that was that was that was fun. That is funny. I was talking to Kelly Maroney who worked with Sean Penn and Fast Times at ridgemont. High.

Billy Van Zandt 17:01

I know Kelly very well.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:02

Yeah. She's She's awesome. Right. And he's fantastic. He's using he was picholine the whole time.

Billy Van Zandt 17:07

Yes. Yeah. And she used to she was roommates with Pam Springsteen, who was the other cheerleader in the movie Bruce's sister. So the four of us used to hang out a lot back then. They had I don't remember their house was all I remember is one neighbor call to complain about the noise. And so Sean went out, but bigger speakers, plugged them in and blasted that poor person. But But anyway, yeah, Kelly's terrific. Love her.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:32

Well, since you mentioned Springsteen. I'll just use this for a quick pivot. So your brother Stevie Van Zandt is in the E street band.

Billy Van Zandt 17:38

Yes.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:39

Have you been to a lot of concerts? I mean, I imagine you

Billy Van Zandt 17:41

know, yes, I've been I've been to almost all countries. In fact, somebody said, somebody was asking, what's everybody's first concert that you've ever been to? And they've mentioned this when I mentioned this one. I said the steel mill steel mill. I said, Yeah. My brother, Bruce Springsteen, Gary Taylor. Before they were in the street band. They were in the band steel mill and I went to Ocean County College. I think I was probably 1210 years old. My mother took my sister and I down there. And we that was my first show. Yeah, and the new album is fantastic. If you haven't heard it is just fantastic. I think there's a song on there called ghosts. That is probably jumping up into my top 10 of all Bruce and eastery band songs. It's really terrific. And the and the documentary is fantastic. His last album was amazing too. And

Jeff Dwoskin 18:26

I did note that documentary dropped today I believe on Apple plus,

Billy Van Zandt 18:30

yeah, yeah, it's good. It's really good. And they have footage old footage meshing with the the new footage. It's really terrific. Terrific film. He played my he played my mother, Bruce played my mother's funeral, which was pretty awesome. She said she hadn't you know, a couple. She knew she was sick and all that. And at one point, she said, You know, I want Bruce to sing at my funeral. I was like, Okay, sure. Good luck. And he came we had was up it was a good show. Actually Darlene love sang my niece Eva saying and Bruce Springsteen sang. And I was I was the emcee. I was the George Jessel of the evening. It was a it was a it was it was a great funeral. As far as funerals go.

Jeff Dwoskin 19:08

It sounds like a hell of a funeral. What did Bruce sing

Billy Van Zandt 19:10

Sandy and he sang Sandy. It was really it was really moving. I kept thinking he's gonna he's got so many songs with Mary in it. My mother's name was Mary. So it's got to be singing Mary. So with Mary, he's saying Sandy.

It was great. It was great.

Jeff Dwoskin 19:23

He went the other way with it. Yeah, that's great. It sounds like it was an excellent celebration of life. Yeah. What they should be very cool. So let's see what else so okay, Lucille Ball obsessed with Is that a fair?

Billy Van Zandt 19:37

Yeah, when I was when I was a kid, I knew I wanted to perform. I like making people laugh. I got there was something about the comedy in I Love Lucy that I related to and this may sound completely weird, but this makes sense to me. I think when you were starting out, of course, I was a little kid at the time. But I think when you're starting out the people that you are attracted to, it's because you have this same year as them comedically, I think there's comedy to me is musical. And it's a rhythm and all that stuff. There was something that connected I connected with, with I Love Lucy plus the fact that it was outrageous comedy, but it was believable, outrageous comedy, not just stupid stuff back in New York and New Jersey, where I'm from, it was on TV six, eight times a day. And I watched it six, eight times a day. And I started studying her timing. And I started studying the structure of the scripts that her writers did. And that taught me how to write it taught me how to write comedy, it taught me how to plant seeds along the way that pay off in the final scene, all that so I was I was I was obsessed with her I, I almost met her once. In fact, I had put together it's gonna sound like I did more than I did. But I put together a movie for Sean Penn. Somebody had sent me a script to the movie at close range, because they wanted me to give it to my brother to give to Bruce Springsteen, so they could probably get his music to be in the movie. And I don't I don't do that. Don't send me any scripts. We don't take advantage of that friendship. But I read the script. And I said, Shawn, you have the option, this movie. This is this is a great role for you sold him on it. And he finally read it. And he and he bought the script, which ended up starring Christopher Walken and him. He was and Sean said, I'll play the lead and you'll play this other little role. And I said, Great. So a couple of years, two years go by, I guess, and I'm meeting with the director, Jamie Foley about doing that film. And in the middle of the meeting with Sean and Jamie. I hear Lucille ball's voice coming through the vent in the building. I said, What is that? And Sean starts laughing because he knew I was a psycho fan of her. And he said she's rehearsing right next door is a TV movie. And Shawn said, turned to Jamie went, Let's end the meeting. So Billy can go in the other room. And I said, Okay, great. So the casting director, I don't know she gave me like a jacket or something. So I looked like a maintenance man. And I went, I just walked into the room Lucy was rehearsing in, and I pretended to fix the air conditioner, which wasn't broken, just so I could watch her rehearse for a couple minutes. And then I got out of there before I got this woman fired. But so that was sort of my first attempt to meet to meet Lucille Ball. And then she wanted us to go drive by her house. But I did eventually get to meet her. And it was pretty phenomenal. My friend and Barry who enjoys to play Tina and Joe's to she got cast as Lucy's daughter in life with Lucy, her last TV show, and I got a phone call from and she said you want to come out, I'm coming out. So I jumped on a plane, I came out to California. And I wanted to meet and wanted to work with her. But I wanted to meet and watch her rehearse. And I got to the soundstage for the first day and and came up to me he was a billion Sorry, it's a closed set. They're not going to let you when I went off, come on. So I said, Okay, fine. And then I went through a back door, and I snuck up to the back of the bleachers anyway. And so I wanted to watch you know, I was hidden in the back of the bleachers up there. And then next thing I know, Lucy, and the cast come in, and they sit down to read the scripts, and all of a sudden Lucy looks up and she sees me up in the bleachers. I thought, oh god, I'm gonna get fire. I'm gonna get thrown out. I'm gonna get and fired. But instead, she walked all the way up to the bleachers. And she looked up and she said, Hello, Billy, I heard you were coming. And for the rest of the week. There it was a closed set with one exception. Me, I got to stand there and sit there and watch her rehearse. And it was a masterclass. And it was fantastic. In between scenes, she would tell me stories about the Marx Brothers. And it was it was phenomenal to the point where the director came up to me at one point you went well, you're not cut off and I said what he said she's telling you too many stories. My day is getting longer and said okay. And eventually very long story short, I got a role on the show. And then she invited me to her house to see the first episode of lightwood Lucy air, which is also phenomenal. We weren't we were friendly. I you know, it wasn't like PAL or anything, but we share with me a couple letters after that. And I wrote her a couple letters and, and it was it was fantastic. It was like a little kid, a little kid in the candy store for me. And one of the best moments for me was the day I walked in to be on the show for the first time. I had like three lines or something Gail Gordon came up to me and stuck out his hand and said Welcome to the family. Chill. What up my spine? It was pretty cool.

Jeff Dwoskin 24:23

That's awesome. Yeah, that's right would have been a great story. Even if she just said your name right? Even if it didn't go any farther than that. I would still be go Lucille Ball once said my name. Yeah, I mean, cuz it's,

Billy Van Zandt 24:32

yeah, it's pretty, pretty good. I called my shoe. My girlfriend at the time. Jane Milmore, who is my writing was my writing partner. She was back in New Jersey putting a we're about to open a theater and we were about to take a show off Broadway. I had dumped all that on her so I could meet Lucy. At one point during the rehearsal. The director started to give me a piece of direction on some little thing I was doing. And Lucy said leave him alone. He knows what he's doing is a very talented comedian. And I call Jay and I said, you know If the plane goes down on the way home, I'm okay. Because it was pretty, pretty cool.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:06

It is awesome. It is really really, really awesome.

Billy Van Zandt 25:09

Oh, I got to finish I got to finish telling you about Sean and Tom this this makes me laugh I haven't told as much I so I put together that movie for Sean. And then came time to film the movie and I get a call from Sean very apologetic that I can't be in the film in that role. Because the director thought I was too old for the role. And I you know, these things happen. I understood it didn't like it. But I understood. So a couple months later, Sean and Madonna get married, and I'm invited to that. So I show up at the wedding. And I'm talking to Tom Cruise and this guy comes up, he introduces himself and I said, Oh, how do you know Sean? He said, Oh, I just finished a film with him. I said, Oh, really? What role did you play? And he mentioned my role. Now this guy looked 1015 years older than me. So Tom starts laughing at me for the fact that I got screwed at my role. And I thought you creep laughing at me for that. So towards the end of the night, Tom says, Billy, Would you do me a favor? There's too many paparazzi following me around. Can you drive me to my car, I parked a couple miles away. And I took a cab here. I said, Sure. I said, I'll get my car from the valet. I'll signal you, you come out. And I'll drive you to your car. And he said, Great. So the end of the night comes we're ready to leave. I get my car from the valet I signal to Tom to come out. And as he's approaching my car, I took off and left him there surrounded by paparazzi. And they're snapping pictures left and right. And he's, he's mortified. And then he told me later, he thought it was funny afterwards, but not then. He said he jumped into the very next limo that pulled up and it turned out to be Andy Warhol. very surreal day this whole thing was and he said Andy Warhol in his in his entourage. Nobody said one word to him. The entire car ride. They just stared at him like it was a painting. And then he got out. He went on his way. And then he called me up and curse me out. But I got even with him for laugh at me.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:02

That is hilarious. Oh, my God, even at Sean Penn. Now I'm not even putting you in the movie. But now I'm still waiting.

Billy Van Zandt 27:13

Now it actually was funny when when President Obama was on Jimmy Kimmel, Sean Penn was the other guest and out of the blue and I hadn't I haven't talked to Sean in a couple years. I'm sitting there watching the show. And all of a sudden, he starts telling the story of me taking him and Tom Cruise the Lucille ball's house, and he made me sound like Oh, man, perhaps I am. But he made me sound like such a psychopath. I got a lot of phone calls at night. So, but anyway, no, I'm still waiting for I'm still waiting for another role in that in a film. But we'll say I'm kind of I've been kind of busy. So it's all right.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:51

Very cool. So you mentioned Jane Milmore, who's your partner writing partner for

Billy Van Zandt 27:57

46 years? Yeah, we met in high school. We were actors from two different high schools at a drama competition at a local theater and the producer of that theater put Jane and I in Star Spangled girl Neil Simon comedy and we toured that for two three years around New Jersey back then this was the height of dinner theater. If there was a four foot space in a restaurant somewhere they shove a stage in it and you go in and do a show. We did that we did it forever. We started dating immediately. We broke up we dated we broke up we dated we did that for 13 years. And then we finally said you know what? This is ridiculous. Let's you know we sort of grew up I guess would be the short version of that we grew up and decided we were best off as friends except for the fact that we despise each other at that point. So but right then is when we hit big and TV we said you know what the looks like the money trucks about to come in let's suck it up and work together anyway. And we did 46 straight years basically, we had a you know, we weren't married but we had an ugly divorce. We were enemies. We got back together as friends. We got back together as best friends we got back together is basically soul made best friends and all without missing one single day of work in 46 years. I'm more impressed, more impressed with myself for that than any of the awards we may have gotten. But she passed away in February which is been very rough, very rough came out of left field. And she died way too young. I'm not quite sure how I'm how I'm proceeding without her right now. But we had a good 46 years we had a good run very sorry for your loss.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:33

I lost a close friend to pancreatic cancer as well. So

Billy Van Zandt 29:37

awful, awful disease. And it came out of left field. She was perfectly healthy. She felt fine. He'd even had bloodwork I think two or three weeks prior to her annual physical everything was fine. And then one day she just turned yellow. And it was like Jane, something's wrong. And she went to the doctor and found out what that was. And we thought it was a mistake. We thought it was you know, they can't be right you know, to the point where She insisted we work two, three days a week, the entire time she was sick, she was sick 15 months, we have a lot of half written projects that are back on the shelf and in the files that I'll eventually finish at some point.

Jeff Dwoskin 30:10

So, so the book is a nice, the title is a nice, oh my gosh, yeah,

Billy Van Zandt 30:16

I was the book. Get in the car, Jane! Adventures in the TV wasteland. It's a memoir of our time writing for television. So every chapter is a different TV show we worked on. And hopefully, the idea was it's a bunch of funny stories behind the scenes stuff a little gossipy figured I'd make a good beach read, you know, you could read a chapter on Newhart and put it down and come back three weeks later and read a chapter on Andrew Dice Clay or something. It turned out to be a nice homage to Jane, which was not the intention when I wrote it, but I'm glad it did. And she was around to she edited the she picked the pictures for the book. And she corrected a couple things. She said I didn't throw a teapot at you. I threw a vacuum cleaner at us. Oh, I'll put it I'll change it.

Yeah, we were.

We got some good scripts out of those bad times.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:08

All right. Well, let's, let's talk about some of those those good time together and someone else talk to you guys. Here we go. So one of your first shows together was the new hard show by

Billy Van Zandt 31:19

Bob Newhart that went up in Vermont with Larry, Darrell and Darrell. We were hired by Mark Egan, Mark Solomon, who had talking about coincidence, they had worked underneath Bob Carroll Jr. and Madeline Davis, who created I Love Lucy. And they worked for them on Alice. And now we were going to work for them. So it was the same sort of scheduled protocol, style. And it was great and we got along great with them. We were in the seventh year of new heart We were offered Murphy Brown first time it came on the air or new heart. Murphy Brown only had an order of 13 shows new heart had 22 shows and we went let's take the 22 and I'm so glad we did Bob Newhart not only using brilliant, but he was the kindest, most giving guy. And I learned right then that the star of the show sets the pace of the show for everybody else. I've worked on some shows where the lead is a nightmare. And it makes going to work you know horrify Bob was it was one big family on that show. He spoiled me for everybody that came after him. And the fun. Another fun part was he used to he used to warm up his own audience, he'd come out and do stand up bits from his his famous record. And so the audience always got like a little five minute stand up bit from him before we did the show. And it was it was great to watch. That's pretty cool.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:41

I think that show as well. It is great. And his original show was great, too. But the Newhart Show specifically is also renowned for having like the greatest end scene of any show.

Billy Van Zandt 32:52

Yeah, that was that was fun to be there that night, we planted a rumor we were asked to plant the rumor through the audience that there was a big final scene, everybody knew there was gonna be some sort of final scene. And we we spread a rumor that because right before that scene happened, Bob got hit in the head with a golf ball in the in the in the scene prior and what ended up being filmed as then he wakes up and he's in bed with Suzanne Pleshette from the other show, but in but what we told everybody was that, you know, Bob's going to die and go to heaven, and George Burns is going to be God. And that's going to be the big secret. You know, thanks. Everybody was anticipating George Burns coming out. And then as soon as they pulled the the flats in front of the set, and people saw the bedroom from the old show, they went the zerk. I'm sure they must have cut three minutes of applause out before they ever filmed the actual scene. Boy, and I love seeing that. That was great.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:49

Who came up with that?

Billy Van Zandt 33:50

It's, a lot of people have taken credit for it. But Julia but Duffy, who is a good friend, still she said she was there when Bob's wife Jenny suggested it probably three years prior to me even being there. So a lot of people have taken credit for it, but I can verify it was Jenny Newhart came up with that. And it was brilliant, so

Jeff Dwoskin 34:11

brilliant. And it keeps them from ever having to do a reunion show.

Billy Van Zandt 34:15

That's right.

Yeah,

the weird thing about that show was it started if you look at it from the beginning, Barry Kim created a show that was very simple. It was a you know, a guy and his wife opening a bed and breakfast and for my very sweet little show. By the time we came on, we had turned it into Green Acres. And it was so surreal and so bizarre, and the characters are so crazy. I have never asked Barry Kim, what he thought of what his show turned into. But, you know if that were my show, I would have been horrified that people have done something with it. Except for the fact that it was brilliantly funny. I thought it was great. Great cast.

Jeff Dwoskin 34:53

Yeah, everyone, everyone on that show was great. I love that show. It's a great job. Great job. I enjoy. Enjoy all your work.

Billy Van Zandt 34:59

Thank you.

Jeff Dwoskin 34:59

Thanks. You so and then you went to work with Jamie Lee Curtis who I wish would do more TV. She's so funny and then and Richard Lewis with anything but love. Yeah. Richard, what was it like working with Richard Lewis? Because is he that neurotic?

Billy Van Zandt 35:11

Yeah. He's a good friend and but it's funny. He's, he's, he's neurotic and he knows it. And he's made a good career out of it. When he he asked when, after that show a couple years after that show, he called Jane and myself to to write a show for him, starring Don Rickles as his father and called daddy dearest. We wrote for him twice. We wrote anything but love. And then we wrote Danny deer. And I would write for him again. I just think he's brilliantly funny.

Jeff Dwoskin 35:43

He's so funny. So funny. And so was Don Rickles,

Billy Van Zandt 35:46

oh, man, nicest guy. That was probably my most I've done a lot of stuff. That was probably one of the most fun things I ever worked on, done was brilliantly funny, as everybody knows, but also like Bob, one of the sweetest guys you ever met in your life, but he he, he just destroyed people left and right. He was very timid and quiet until he realized, you know, there's more than two people in the room. And then he was performed. So if I, you know, we were having dinner and a waiter would come over to the table, he do 15 minutes on the waiter, and then the guy would go away, and Don would suddenly become, you know, quiet little guy. But on that show, when you rehearse a TV show, you usually have an empty studio, except for the actors and the director. And then but when we did that show, every day of the week, we had people from all over the studio come and pack the bleachers to watch the rehearsals because they wanted to be insulted by Don, it was really crazy. People were like he insulted me today. It's like, Okay, get out of here we're trying to work and, and what Don would do is after each scene, when as soon as soon as the director would yell cut, he would start attacking people in the audience, the cameraman, all this sort of thing. And we had the good sense. I would like to take credit for it. But Frank pays, my producer did this. He told we discussed it and agreed. We never turned the camera off. So the second day yelled, cut, the cameras were still on. And they were just told followed on followed up, and he would attack somebody in the audience. And we ended up taking all the outtakes and ending each episode with maybe two, three minutes of outtakes. And they were as funny as the show. It was so good. They the problem for us was it was at the beginning of the height of political correctness. And Don Rickles entire act is politically incorrect. So it was a it was an interesting balancing act. And I guess we failed because they canceled the show. But I refuse to I refuse to tame the show up. I wanted it to be a good showcase for what Don did. And I thought we did that. And the the the audience was great for it. We had really high ratings and the critic, every single critic despised us. I have I have a probably a three inch thick pile of horrible reviews from that. That makes me laugh so much genius. I was going to put it put them in the book and Jason don't put those in the book. And I said yeah, but they're hilariously funny. The LA Times said Jane and I should be beaten with wire hangers for writing this show. You know, it's just and that was the best one we got, you know, but I did I love working on the show. Renee Taylor was the wife of another hilarious woman and the first professional job I had was in her show Lovers and Other strangers. Not with her but I did did her show and I was able to hire her and and Joe bolonia came on the show as well. Boy, we had fun and I used to one stupid thing I did probably wrong. Anybody who I'd grown up watching I wanted them on the show. So I pulled hunts haul out of retirement from the dead, you know, the Bowery boys. For one roll like okay, Ballard came in thank me for putting her back on TV. Angie Dickinson, all these people. Richard Lewis went on Howard Stern, who made fun of the fact that we had all these old people on our show, and he said, Who's next Rose Marie and imaging coca. And I laughed at the thing is I heard it on the radio that I that I turned the radio off. And I called Frank Pace, our producer, I said, forget forget the deal with imaging, RoseMarie. And I was actually bringing them both on the show. So but we had fun. We had a lot of fun doing it,

Jeff Dwoskin 39:16

man. It's been a blast for you to be able to work in all the people that inspired you or made you laugh, and you could bring them into this show. I think that's awesome.

Billy Van Zandt 39:26

The weird thing. It was It was great. And I and I've tried to do that every time I can. But the studio people and the network people they just didn't get it, you know, and they still don't like I brought hunts Hall in and he had a tiny role as a PETA principal vendor on the street in New York after the read through one of the network guys, so you got to fire him. So what I mean you got to fire him. He's too old. He's never been able to learn this at all. I said, Well, you give me a break. You just watch. By the end of the week, they had asked him to be in three pilots. They were making Get up. And at the same time it seems to be that way all the time. The The reason those the old timers are famous is because they're good and they know their craft. Why wouldn't you want to use them,

Jeff Dwoskin 40:12

too? I read Danny dears is also well known for being Frank Sinatra's last acting role.

Billy Van Zandt 40:19

Yeah, I was I was thrilled to death with that because the second week we knew we had the show we knew done used to open for Frank and was good friends with them. And Jane right from the beginning, we got to get Frank Sinatra said I'm not going to ask Don you know, it's the same way people ask me to ask my brother is Bruce Springsteen that if I don't do that, I don't take advantage of people's friendships. That's not that's, that's, that's bad. So I refused to do it. I hinted but I refused to actually do it. And on his own, Don said, You know what? I'd like to ask Frank, it was like, Well, if you insist, you know, bring him on. Okay. The rule was, Frank said he would be on the show, but it had to be on a day he felt like it if he felt like it, period. And we said, Sure. So we left the set to the casino scene up. We had extras on call ready to come in and fill the thing. And every day, we waited for the phone call. And one day we got a phone call. Frank wants to do the show. Everybody started freaking out. Frank wants to do the show, bring the extras and bring the camera guys in and everything was set up. And we waited for him to show up. And whenever he showed up, he showed up whatever he was wearing was his costume. We had the lines on cue cards gracious enough to do it twice. We were only expecting once he did it twice. And then he got in the car to leave and he turned to Tonio his, his road manager and said, God what we were like three minutes. This TV business is good. We got to get into this. And he went home. And Jane came running into the soundstage. And I said we're Where are you? She said, I wanted to fix my lipstick. I want to look good for him. Where is he? I said he's home now you missed him. He was only here three minutes, four minutes, whatever it was. And so but he but very proud of the fact that he was his last sitcom was on our show. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 42:05

very cool. So nine, so then somewhere in this time line, the they rediscover the original pilot for I Love Lucy.

Billy Van Zandt 42:13

Yeah, this was a big thing for me. Nobody had said Lucy and Desi film their own pilot, because nobody believed them as a couple, which was insane because he was Cuban. And she was American, you know. So they actually went out on the road in vaudeville, to do an Act to see if audiences would accept them as a couple even though they had been married for I think 10 years at that point. And so the whole thing was ridiculous. But so they put together their own pilot, they paid for it. And one copy went to CBS, and one copy went to a friend of disease and a fishing buddy, who was an international clown called papito. The clown. He's very big in Europe. He was a guest starred in the in the pilot, so they gave him apparently a copy. Well, nobody knew he had they had that copy for, for all anybody knew the pilot was lost for 40 years. It was discovered by we were under development to a guy named bud grant who had been president of CBS. And he was at the widow of a paedos house, and she was showing home movies and just happen between the birthday footage and the Christmas footage. There was the I Love Lucy pilot. So he came into our office and said, You know, I just found the I Love Lucy, probably you want to do we want to do something with it. And Jane said, well, you don't have to ask him and I'm not going to have a choice. So we went to CBS. And we said we found the I Love Lucy footage, the pilot, and they said great, we own it. We said we know but we have the footage. And we'd like to do a special about the pilot. And they said oh no, no, we want to cut it to 22 minutes. So it'll fit into a half hour segment. And we said no, we're not gonna give you the footage. And they so they gave us an hour to for us to do a TV special. And we the pilot itself, I think was 35 minutes long. So we had a couple of 15 minutes or so to fill knowing knowing every interview that Lucy and Desi ever gave. I knew where to pull so they could tell the story in their own words. And we wrap that around the pilot ended up being the highest rated show in that year we got an Emmy nomination. My big reward was the fact that at the end of the episode that I Love Lucy famous heart closed and in that heart it said produced by Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore so that was pretty good. It was better. I think that was better than winning the Emmy but I still wanted to win that

Jeff Dwoskin 44:35

both would have been great but yeah, small wins the heart man more do you?

Billy Van Zandt 44:39

Yeah, it did. So there's always been some weird Lucy connection every couple of years something will pop up where where it all comes back

Jeff Dwoskin 44:45

to that. So what I found interesting, I was reading your book, her daughter, her daughter Lucy Arnaz was convinced to do it originally turned you down to host it was when

Billy Van Zandt 44:55

she didn't turn us down. We never asked her because her mother had just died a year prior I thought it would be tasteless to ask her to come and do this. We were in negotiations with Carol Burnett to come in and do it because they were good friends. She and Lucy before we closed anything with Carol Burnett. We got a phone call from Lucie Arnaz who is now in charge of her parents estates. And for them the estate had to approve the footage we were using from those interviews to put into the TV special. So as a result of that, Lucie Arnaz had to read our script and she called up and she said, I've never seen anybody pay honor to my father before what you're doing here I want to come host this thing. She said if you if you think the quote was if you don't let me I will pick up the studio as like you're in so she came to work she did that she did the narration that to be opening and closing what we didn't realize or I did anyway, but it was the one year anniversary of her mother's death when she was actually working for us and that felt very uncomfortable for me, but she was she was a trooper man. She was great.

Jeff Dwoskin 45:53

Perhaps he felt it was kind of an honor to maybe the university brought it together the but it's it is interesting because Desi Arnaz the thing that always fascinated me about Lucy and I remember we went to Universal Studios you know with the family you know this Shrek ride this Yeah, there's a little area which I spent a lot of time in, which is basically an I Love Lucy museum museum. Right. And, you know, they in pretty much invented the sitcom right? They invented the entire concept of reruns exists because of them. Absolutely. They were not just funny people with a great show and said I mean they their response to the world without them and their production company right. We wouldn't have Tom Cruise owes him a thank you right there's your other connection for Mission Impossible.

Billy Van Zandt 46:39

Yeah, and Star Trek show called Star Trek Lucy that was after their divorce, and Lucy took over Desi Lou. She approved she approved Star Trek, supposed to be wagon train in outer space or something like that.

Jeff Dwoskin 46:54

But Exactly, and the untouchables and Man X and Star Trek though, later, little actor named Billy Van Zandt and Star Trek The Motion Picture. Yes, it was. So

Billy Van Zandt 47:04

it's so weird for me. The director was Robert Wise, which is pretty impressive. You know, everybody knows him from Sound of Music and West Side Story and edited Citizen Kane and all Orson Welles stuff. So I got to, I got to watch him work. As he directed as an editor, he would film exactly what he needed out of, let's say a master shot, then it cut the camera, and then he do a close up, but just what he wanted from the close up, and he cut the camera, so you can't re edit his movies. smart guy. But I was cast as an alien on the on the the bridge of the enterprise and the first Star Trek movie. And for a split second, I was told Leonard Nimoy may not do the movie. So you can you'll be the new alien and like, Oh, is it gonna be great? Well, of course, the next day Leonard, he signed his contract and came to work. So I spent a lot of time you know, in the background, you know, typing got a keyboard and staring at the big screen. And I had a couple of lines. And I said to Robert Wise, I've never I've never told anybody that I said to Robert white, what do I do about my voice? Because my voice is weird. I mean, my voice is unique, but it's not you don't think an alien when you hear my voice? And he said, Oh, don't worry about it. We'll just just say the lines and we'll do something to your voice and post. I said, Okay, fine. Well, he never did anything that my voice imposed. So you see this movie, like the few lives of mine that remained in the film. It's, you know, this alien with Billy's voice coming out. It's very strange, but I did like everybody on that film. I especially like William Shatner, and I know a lot of people give him flak for something. I don't know what but I like them a lot. In fact, we wrote our Jane and I wrote our first play while I was on Star Trek, because I had all this elaborate makeup on and there was so much secrecy. They didn't want me leaving my dressing room at lunch. So I brought my typewriter before computers. I brought my typewriter in and Jane and I wrote ourselves a play. And while she was there, I said, Come on, I'll sneak in. You can see us shoot a little stuff. But just uh, so I brought her into the soundstage and I hid her behind some, you know, boxes and cables and stuff. So she can watch. And we started shooting a scene and Shatner stopped the shoot. And he said, Stop. There's somebody back there and I thought, Oh, god, I'm gonna now I'm always afraid I'm gonna get fired. He said, who's back there? Come over here. And he made Jane come forward. He said you can't see from back there. Get her a chair somebody and they brought her up and put it right by the camera as great. So he was terrific. And then and then in taps, which I did after Star Trek, my character is a Trekkie watching Star Trek through the whole thing was very, very, very weird.

Jeff Dwoskin 49:45

And then you went on to executive produced the Martin show with Martin Lawrence.

Billy Van Zandt 49:49

Yeah. The first year Martin they had asked us to do you want to do a show for Martin Lawrence and California Martin Lawrence is a series of galleries that are in malls, so I Thought it was a show about a gallery. I was like, I don't know if I want to do that. And they sent me the tape. And I realized it's a comedian named Martin Lawrence. And he was brilliantly funny. He was I will say he was rough to work with. He was a little rough to work with. But I will I will defend him this way. When you work with a stand up comedian, as you, as you will know, they've been their own writer, producer director for years. And then you suddenly they suddenly come to you, you're the executive producer, and you have to go, I know you've been doing this all yourself. But now I'm in charge. It makes for a little tense, segue until they can trust you. But Martin worked like a dog on that show. And it was groundbreaking in that I think it was the first show that really was a hybrid of a sketch show, and a sitcom and all the different characters he played, whether they were sketches, you know, it really opened up a lot of doors that way, and we had fun. We created a character Jane and I created the characters of Stan Garrett Morris, and we did Otis, the security guard and Roscoe, the little snot nosed kid and a couple other things. But it was it was, it was really fun. It was really fun. It was rough, but it was

Jeff Dwoskin 51:15

I was working with SNL royalty. Garrett Morris was fantastic.

Billy Van Zandt 51:20

I had so much fun writing that character, Stan, everything we gave him to do. We started out we didn't know how to do it because the character wasn't in the pilot, john Bowman and Martin wrote the pilot, and it was actually not, they called it a presentation, not a pilot, which means it was a cheaper budget, and they only had to shoot like 15 minutes, so when it came time to turn it into a full half hour of when they reshot it to make the first episode. They had to fill that extra time and john Bowman, let Jane and me create the character of Martin's boss at the radio station. So we started, we didn't quite know how to approach this. And we started writing him as the sleazy sort of Louis dipalma character from taxi. And then we sort of made it even more demented and little sicker and little, and we had such a ball writing for him. And we actually brought Garrett I after we had left Martin and did the Don Rickles show. We brought Garrett on as that character, and we had so much fun writing for him. And I still run into him time to time. He's great guy. And, and so funny. So funny.

Jeff Dwoskin 52:23

I was reading the book. You were married Around this time, right? Is that Yeah, yeah. And so the manager gives you a breadmaker as a gift.

Billy Van Zandt 52:32

Yeah.

Jeff Dwoskin 52:33

You find a card in there. He had read gifted it to you?

Billy Van Zandt 52:37

Yeah, he did. He did Martin's manager. Because as Martin gutten you got a little a brute abusive verbally with us time to time because you know, you wanted the scripts funnier, and he threatened to kill people. If you didn't make it funnier. It's like, come on. So I just gotten married to Adrian and john Bowman talked, talked me into only taking a two day honeymoon. So I could come back and rewrite in write some more scripts go Jane and I wrote almost all those, that first season of scripts. And so I agreed to come back and I came back to get yelled at by Martin. It was like, You know what, I don't need this. So I went to his manager and they said, Look, you're not gonna talk to me like this anymore. He's not gonna talk to Jane like this anymore. You know? And he said, Oh, no, I'll talk to him. Hey, I never gave you a wedding present. Would you like a breadmaker? I was like, What? Oh, sure. Okay. And the next day, I got a breadmaker. And I took it home and we opened it up and there was a card. Merry Christmas topper. So thanks.

Jeff Dwoskin 53:37

The reason that stood out to me is so funny is on my way after I had my first kid, my first father's day where I was a father, my dad gave me a gift and he gave me a card and golf balls. And when I opened them up, they had the Minnesota title logo on them, which was a friend of the family's title company. They had given him the golf balls, and he gave me the golf gift. And we always made fun of them for that for that. So when I read about the breadmaker, it just, I just thought it was just so funny to me. He's done a million things we could cover, but I do want to talk to see where did Andrew Dice Clay as

Billy Van Zandt 54:15

well? Yes.

Jeff Dwoskin 54:16

Bless this house.

Billy Van Zandt 54:18

It was a good show is a really good show. Bruce Helford created The Drew Carey Show and bless this house at the same time, which is, you know, never happens. So they picked up both shows. And Bruce was going to run one and he asked me to run the other one. So I went to Les Moonves who was before he had gone to CBS as president. He was the president of Warner Brothers. And I said, which one should we take? He said, Oh, take Lester's house because Drew Carey is not going to last two weeks. I said, Okay. Drew Carey, Drew Carey lasted what eight seasons or something like that and bless this house. It was a good show. The ratings were good. The Andrew and Cathy Moriarty. Were a great couple real blue collar believable married couple lasted, I think Half a season and Andrew pissed off somebody and they canceled the show. So, but he was he was fun the I really liked working with him. But he every Thursday he would, there would be some problem on the set. And then the writers aren't on the set on Thursday. If you're doing a Monday to Friday shoot, that's the camera day. Cameras come in. So we were back in the writers room and we always get a call on Thursdays. Andrews acting weird today, Andrew pretending there's a fly in the room when all the time Andrew is talking in a Spanish accent. And we'd always have to go down to the set and calm him down and we'll see what was going on. And it took me probably six seven shows to realize it was because he didn't know his lines. Thursday was the day he had to know his lines. So not that he couldn't learn them. He just didn't learn them. So he'd make up some weird excuse to not be ready. So one week we had Elaine Stritch on the show, Broadway legend and also legendary pain in the ass basically demanding woman. I liked her a lot. By the way. I really liked her a lot. And we were told not to hire her because she was so Ralph and I said, No, it's Elaine Stritch. I want her on the show. So again, somebody so I bring her on the show. And she was a nightmare the entire week, the entire week. And I go down there on Thursday for something Layne was doing. And I look over and I see Andrew sitting quietly in a chair and I went up to him. I said, What's the deal? I said every week on Thursday, you've got a problem with this. You got a problem with that you got a problem with this. This week. You are professional, you're on time you know your lines. What's the deal? And he pointed to Elaine Stritch and said there's only room for one.

Jeff Dwoskin 56:43

She's awesome. She later went on to be I think Alec Baldwin's mom on 30 rock but

Billy Van Zandt 56:47

yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 56:48

so and then you got to work with any martial

Billy Van Zandt 56:51

Yeah, we did a show that should still be on the air. It was really so good. A British show called waiting for God was being hit over in England, about two people in a in a retirement community. A woman who doesn't want to be there and a guy who is childlike and tries to bring her back to life. Basically, it's a beautiful show. And we got the rights to the penny got Penny Marshall got the rights to that asked us to do it with Olympia Dukakis. We had Richard Mulligan from empty nest opposite her. Michael McKeon. Julie Haggerty from airplane and last in America. Boy was that good. It was so good. It did not get picked up, which shocked all of us. Because at the time, it was for CBS two, which was a perfect fit for CBS. But they they went through a phase unfortunately, that year of wanting to cater to younger people. So we didn't get picked up. But it was good. One of the best things we ever did

Jeff Dwoskin 57:48

hair loss. Yeah. Yeah. So I know there's a million if anyone listening, you're like, Wow, that's amazing. That's like we scratched the surface we can. We've scratched the surface of the amazing work that Billy and Jane have done together. And TV, you guys also wrote 25 plays together. Yeah, you prefer theater over tight. Usually,

Billy Van Zandt 58:11

I usually prefer whichever one I'm not doing at the time. But the theater is my first love and and we acted all our shows in the theater. So that would bring a little more fun for us to and I was doing the 25th play we wrote. They're all published with Samuel French, and they're done all over the world, you know, regional theaters and summer stocks and all that sort of thing. And now they're done internationally, which is really a lot of fun. Lately, I came back from Poland a year ago, where I saw two of my plays coincidentally, in two different theaters in Warsaw, Poland, at the same time, had no connection to each other. That was fun. The 25th play was a show of a musical review called the boomer boys musical. And we were touring the country with it, and then the pandemic hit. So that put that on a shelf. And if the world ever comes back to normal in life theater is a thing again, I hope we'll be back on the road doing that

Jeff Dwoskin 59:04

again. Very exciting, very exciting. And then I want to just leave when we were talking before you mentioned you had a story about a past president.

Billy Van Zandt 59:14

Yeah, yeah, this is uh, you know, I never talked political things. I just, I just don't talk political things. But all I can say and I've never told this story before you'll you're the first to hear this. Richard Nixon saved my life. I was a kid. And one he was he was running for I think it was for reelection in our hometown. And one of the neighborhood mothers dragged her kids and me down to see him. And this is in an open open air mall in Eatontown, New Jersey. So we go there and because there were a bunch of kids, I think I was 10 or 10 years old. Maybe they had us all the kids in the front. Right, right. You know, right at the platform. He was speaking it. He finished his speech, and then he leaned forward to start shaking hands and a crush of people. started coming at him and I started to go under and I reached up and grabbed his hand with two hands and yanked myself up onto the onto the platform. So Richard Nixon saved my life.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:00:16

There you go, if so, facto, Richard Nixon is now responsible for all the shows that we said which would have existed

had you been crushed.

Billy Van Zandt 1:00:27

Okay. So that's that was my that was my richard nixon story.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:00:31

All right. That's a good way to end I think, Okay, well, I can't I can't think well, let's talk about where we can find the book on Amazon. And

Billy Van Zandt 1:00:39

yes, get in the car Jain adventures in the TV wasteland. You can find it on Amazon. You can find it at Barnes and Noble. And if you go to my website, www dot Van Zandt milmore.com they're selling there's a limited supply of autographed hardcover is that I resell in there too. You can go to my website without buying a book. You can just see all the other things we've done but but thank you for that. And if and if you have read it and you like it, leave a review on Amazon always help

Jeff Dwoskin 1:01:10

I do highly recommend a book I have read it is great goes into way more stuff than we talked about and deeper into some of the things we scratched the surface on. So definitely do it. Billy Van Zandt, I can't thank you enough.

Billy Van Zandt 1:01:21

Thank you. This is this is a lot of fun, Jeff. Thank you.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:01:24

Oh my god. How fun was that interview? Oh, it's so enjoy talking to Billy van Zan. So many great stories. And I totally recommend everyone getting his book. Get in the car. Jain adventures in the TV wasteland, said Amazon everywhere. I'll put a link in the show notes to the book. I've read it. It's great. I highly, highly recommend it. Also during the interview with Billy, we talked about a couple of folks that he knows Kelly Maroney and Carl Gottlieb. Guess what? I know him too. I interviewed them on the Jeff Dwoskin show. You should totally check out those interviews. The Kelly Maroney episode was Episode 25. And the Carl Gottlieb episode was Episode 26. So check those out. Check out all the back catalogue of the Jeff Dwoskin show so many great interviews, so many great stories. You're gonna love them all. You're gonna love them all. Thanks, Jeff, for the great recommendation. You're welcome. All right. Well, now it's that time. It's that time of the show where we talk about the hash tag trend of the week. That's right. Billy talked all about all the TV shows that he has worked on. So I dug into the archives and found one from reds hot tags, the Sunday game on hashtag Roundup, hashtag caffeinate. a TV show. That's right, the ultimate caffeine and TV show mash up hashtag. I'm going to read off all of them to you. You can also retweet these good folks. These funny hilarious tweeters at Jeff Dwoskin show all the tweets will be there. I also list them all in the show notes, show them some love. Download the hashtag roundup app Follow us on Twitter at hashtag roundup and you can play along and one of your hashtags may show up on a future episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show. How exciting is that? So exciting. I know. You're welcome. All right, let's do it. Let's mash up some caffeine and TV shows with hashtag caffeinate. a TV show the political mainstay meet the French press. Oh, the cartoon classic southpark Friday night lattes. Ooh, the football drama pretty little lattes. Ooh, that's a good one. Are You Smarter Than a cafe mocha? I'm not sure. Where in the world is Carmel macchiato? Oh, we're gonna have to go searching for her. Maxwell House smart missed it by that much. Everyone loves Redbull little Maxwell House on the Prairie. Oh, these caffeinated TV shows are rockin aren't they? I'll take my coffee black mirror haha. Welcome back coffee. Ooh, that's starting to sweat hogs. The americanos Yes. The Russian drama The americanos I love latte instead of I Love Lucy All right. And then Scooby Doo Oh, it's gonna be Mountain Dew that's a good one Maxwell House. Oh starring the famous Dr. House eight cups is enough mad about brew Oh, Paul riser classic, the big brew theory. Oh, that's a good one. Say yes to the press, Mr. Coffee Bean. And that folks, is how you mash up caffeine and TV shows a masterclass in Twitter mashup play along with us on hashtag round up. Well, that's it. We're at the end of another Episode Episode 28 has come and gone mazing conversation with Billy Van Zandt can't thank him enough, definitely check out his book. I want to thank everyone who's subscribed and liked and share the Jeff Dwoskin show with their friends. If you're like, wait, I haven't done that. Then do it and go to like Apple podcasts and stuff and leave a five star review. Leave a comment glowing comment and help get the word out of the Jeff Dwoskin show. I Jeff Dwoskin would greatly appreciate that. And that's all for this week. I can't thank you enough for joining me. I know you've got choices, and thanks for choosing the Jeff Dwoskin show. We'll see you next Next week.

Announcer 1:05:01

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show with your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Now go repeat everything you've heard and sound like a genius. catch us online at the Jeff Dwoskin show.com or follow us on Twitter @ Jeff Dwoskin show and we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai