So I’m reading Nick Tosches’ Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams
and eventually I’ll have to post a ton of great quotes from it – I am loving it – but I just had to pull one out that made me laugh out loud. Its a quote from Abby Greshler – agent for Martin and Lewis as they were starting to hit it big (although the management of these two was unbelievably complicated – hard to keep straight – because they were a duo, but they had separate representation, and people were clamoring to get a piece of them at all times). Anyway, Abby Greshler, like many of those hovering around Martin and Lewis at the time, had “underworld” connections. The nightclubs were all mob-owned – yet with elaborate schemes to hide that fact, blah blah. Anyway, there’s a section in the book about Greshler and how he was trying to bat off a lot of these underworld guys – who were trying to force him to book Martin and Lewis in THEIR nightclub as opposed to the OTHER GUY’S nightclub.
Here’s the excerpt:
On top of everything, Bill Miller, with the shadow of the Bergen County mob behind him, claimed to hold an unwritten option on future engagements. Greshler began receiving ominous visits and calls. Some of the callers he recognized. The ones he could not identify were even more disquieting.
“I have no comment on that,” Greshler would say many years later when asked about those visits and calls. “I know every underworld character in the world, but I never had any problems with them. They kidnapped my kid once, but outside of that, it was quiet.”
Uhm … outside of that???
perhaps he had a pet goat he was beginning to dislike…
I know this is off the subject of the book, but did you happen to see the Dean Martin special they ran on PBS the other night? If I remember correctly it was a montage of two of his most famous on air performances…really great work.
A friend and I were discussing Dean Martin the other night and came to the conclusion that he and Fred MacMurray have to be two of the mosat underrated actors never to get true “top billing”.
Just from that quote, I know the book you mean. I tried to read this when it came out but the writing style is just not to my taste and I got too irritated. If you read a bunch of his bios, it all takes on a Rashomon quality.
Anyway, thanks to you and to You Tube, I’ve been reviving my own Martin and Martin/Lewis love. I spent the weekend watching Colgate Comedy Hour DVD’s. My couch has never been more potato-ier.
I love contributing to anyone’s couch-potato-dom. :)
chuck – I am so with you on Fred MacMurray too!! Wow – so random, but so RIGHT ON. He was fantastic.