I’m sure I’ve all but lost friends by maintaining that, despite their love for it, I always saw Stanley Kramer’s ‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ as more of an exercise in anti-comedy than humor.
I guess the best advice I ever got or anyone could get for doing a talk show, though it has not been easy very often, was from Jack Paar, who said, ‘Kid, don’t make it an interview. Interviews have clipboards, and you’re like David Frost. Make it a conversation.’
Running my show is really like an actor being in repertory but where, in one day in one performance, you do scenes from a drama, a farce, a low comedy and a tragedy.
I’m the only talk show host, I think, if there’s such a category in, what’s called, the book of records, to have a guest die while we were taping the show, yeah.
The authority of depression is horrifying. I felt like my brain was busted and that I could never feel good again. I really thought that I was never gonna heal.
