Inner-View; Interview with Robert Goulet

Interview with your host John soup and. The topic is show business from the mind's eye of Robert Goulet who has had a successful career in all. Well Broadway in the movies television and in nightclubs. So would you all welcome Robert Blake. It would. Right. Now as you notice we're not going to take anything seriously. I guess not. But one thing if I just mention what is it like the celebrity status when when you hear I mentioning a name Robert Goulet and all of a sudden instant recognition. Most of us obviously in the world don't have that and never will have that what what is it like to be a celebrity in that regard. Well it's it's it's nice at times and sometimes it's a pain in the neck. But I do recall many years ago I was living in New York and forget which paper it was but they had emblazoned on the sides of their trucks. Is Robert Goulet his career over. And I said well I just got started and this thing isn't over. So I lived on Fifty fourth Street and just off it

and I didn't want to take a walk I didn't want to see anybody because I figure they're going to say oh there's a guy that has been. So I didn't go out of the house for like three days except to go to the theater. And one day I decided to go get some cigars at Dunhills which is like four blocks away and I was stopped three times by groups of 20 and 30 people for my autograph and I tell you I said and I never thought badly about that anymore they can just spell it properly spell the name properly say what you want to say. Maybe feel good you know. But most of course don't have that recognition. OK you started on Broadway Does anyone know anything about his Broadway cure. Yes right oh yes. What was the role I said we don't know. LANCELOT. Well I have your album you have it. Yes and that was the first time I heard of Robert Blake. Yeah before that I was living in Canada and I was doing a weekly television network show in Canada for three years prior to doing Camelot on Broadway a very funny thing

is I was up I was taking a vacation. I was in Bermuda. And when I came back from Bermuda I was to have gone into I did go into a stage production plus my weekly television show so I was going to be busy. It was a joke I just left a word with the answering service saying I'll be in Bermuda in case anybody calls. Well some guy called me I got off the golf course and I called a newborn from the bio newborn agency. And he said My name is Dave and I said Hello how are you. He says can you can audition for Under and Alone I said no. He says you can't. I said no I can't. He says Can you try I said well I'll drive but I can't. So I get back to Toronto and Don Hudson was directing the stage play and the only time he was going to get me was going to be the Monday for the full day. And he said Go take a chance and I went lost my luggage at the airport had to audition and a T-shirt and jeans in the late Mosshart looked at me and said I see you've come prepared for action in the house Lerner and Loewe in mass heart I was scared to death you know. And I rehearsed with this little fat little guy at the piano saying if I

rehearse right on the spot on my breast an hour before with this guy. But but right there. Oh yeah sure. I mean it wasn't two weeks before when we no no he had never seen me before. OK. And talk to me and they said can you speak French and I said something Mama and because Lancelot of course was French but they found out that my accent was French Canadian didn't use it. So we didn't use it but they went over and talked and this was even my agency it was bomb. One little fact I said I think you got it. I said oh come on you know I mean it came up when he said here's the way it goes. 750 for the first nine months 900 for the next nine months and a thousand for the last six months. I said I'll do it but nothing you said shut up. What was a song using your dishes. Well I did a lot of it and I did. They call the wind Mariah which is one of theirs and I was told later that I should never have sung anything that they had written that I didn't know why I don't know why it's supposed to be bad luck or something. But I sang it sang the heck out of the zone.

Well how did they get to know you were you were in Canada doing what show friend of mine is an actor called Donald hair and Canadian I saw him that summer. Prior to this audition in LA and California and when his agent Mr. newborn whatever his name is said once your audition is Late Edition everybody in New York City it seems that we're going to go to London audition there. And they said done on this and he says I can't sing. For one thing and he wound up doing the tenth man play and he remembered seeing me the summer before and he said up in Canada and he called the CBC. They gave me my home number and you go Bermuda is one of those you know quirks of fate. And the great song of COS and the show that you introduced was if ever I mean you leave you and that's the question. I bet that's one of the reasons why you bought the album. Right yeah. Also when the show was breaking right and Julie Andrews and I made our own Robert Cook you know and it was someone at the time who said you almost stole the show from

them which is saying something. Now what is it what is it like to be on stage with Richard Burton and you know oh I escaped death. Dear Lord you know I mean of the first day of of reading and they don't use it. They'd like to see the script you had a cold reading. And Richard Burton Julie Andrews dear Lord and I'm sitting there after the first reading I decided to act. And at one point I'm supposed to say Jenny meaning to the queen I love you and jenny i love you. And Richard went oh no you're not. So I luckily like my singing you know but I think it was the second day of rehearsals and mass hype like to rehearse like at 11 in the morning until 5:30 and then come back at 8:30 until 11 o'clock at night. Civilized they called no three hours for dinner. Gentlemen take three hours. That was the second night

we were rehearsing at the old Broadway. No the older one was in there were the niggers. Well shucks we're just off Broadway on Forty second Street and it really it's since been demolished. I don't know anybody in town and I had three hours and I'm standing in front of this theater. And Richard came out and I didn't know him and he wasn't too crazy about me and I said Mr. Burton Sir could I could I buy you a drink. The longest pause he just looked at me and finally said Oh right. Now we have to work together so when I get to know the kid better we went to this little place in the corner of Broadway and set up I think and it's it's gone too. But Richard you know used to drink pretty well so did I but I couldn't keep up with him. I mean I had a shot of vodka and a beer chaser. And we finally ate something. But he made me laugh for like three hours straight. He's a storyteller. He's got some of the best stories in the world. Now I went back and we had a quite a bit to drink and my ass was there just most hearts in the audience and the two of us on stage and nobody else in the theater

and it was the scene where I just knocked him out as Lancelot and he's the king and he's the toughest son of a gun and he thought he said My word what a blow. He says Who are you and that's when I go I am not saying SAME SAME why I'm forced to admit. And I was studying that most said Bobby. I think when you say that out for all that I am now turning to him and come nose to nose with it and he'll look at you and then look at the audience and do a take which might get a laugh and I think it's pretty corny direction but that's what he wanted. So now we're going back to our positions on the other side of the stage and I was not relaxed with Richard and I said most a nose job we kiss and without looking at me still looking on the floor he said All right. When are we going to progress he said without looking at me he said on the

lips. I had never kissed a man before never mind on the lips but I'd committed myself so I said OK. So I said Mr. Hart Sir Richard and I'm sure you saw the rapport between Lancelot and the king immediately to the audience and he's invited backstage. So I said all that I am and we kissed wasn't bad because I happen to get my ass down from the ceiling but yeah. And you've been writing ever since I see a singer you know what we take for granted that you can sing that well and you know obviously most people cannot and and I do Ed.. What's your name. Jeff Sullivan and you sing at the MGM in Jubilee. You know you had to audition one time. He's making it sound pretty easy. This guy from Canada comes down there and just whips off that song. But what's

you know what are some of the things you've gone through in an audition singing. Well I don't think you can ever be fully prepared you know at least and the auditions the MGM you try something and then they ask for something else a different style. Give me more this or less of that and you don't feel like you ever really really prepared. You just sort of out there and vulnerable. Do they put you through this. Thank you Ed. I had auditioned for several shows before Camelot never made it. What shows I don't know. They were just when I was. Why do you think I maybe I was nervous. Who knows. Therefore that's that's extra pressure when you go into this room. But what did they ask you now that you sang call the wind Mariah. And what I sang with three or four songs you know different if you give them a different for an idea you know did they say to you oh look can you can you move can you tap dancer that. So I didn't bother with it you know and I don't think I've made that he said. But of course I did that can you kiss on the lips. Yeah I did that to Julie.

Want to can I just digress for a moment because you know Julie I do or what you know of all around and this was I think after Richard had gone on to do Cleopatra not literally but to make a film and we were on stage together. And I had to say something to her like goodbye. And I never touched her. And the show itself. But I had a hot humid very hot mint and you know what was she going to do if I start to fool around on stage. She can't slap my face or anything right. Oh and I said good bye my queen and I brought her toward me and I kissed her and as I kissed I put that mint in her mouth she had to sing a song at the back. Well I left the stage with a bit of a Samoan face went down below and all the guys were playing poker down at the stage hands. When I hear Bobby and I looked around and there's Julie coming after me her skirts were up to here and she was coming. Well I right up top down below all around it kept running. It seemed like ten minutes and one of us had to go back on stage again any minute. I decided finally I went to a corner and I crouched and she pummeled me she says Don't you ever do

that to me anybody again unprofessional. And she was right. But that's another story. Sustaining and sustaining a role how many performances of Camelot in the original run. Well I was in there for like two and a quarter years because I kept leaving the show to do television and different special things than to get on to the end of my contract. So Richard had a year contract and he left at the end of a months Julie had a year and a half and I had a two year contract it was like two and a quarter years. And it's it's something you have to concentrate upon. Now leaving and then coming back gives you that kind of fresh approach which might help but. But what's it like after two or three weeks of doing the same role. What do you do to just freshen yourself up. It's not easy but it's your job as an actor to make it real and make it like it was the first time every time you do it it's like you're in nightclubs when you sing as the same songs night after night. I have to get ideas in my head so that the emotion I'm trying to portray is real and honest if I just go by rote then I should get out of the business.

You say you're the acting wasn't as way you wanted it to be when you first started but but just a few years later you proved your acting ability didn't you. Oh I have no idea if I have even yet to prove it but I want to do what I can capable of doing that someday. What was the play. What was the plan broadly that got you to tell me that the happy time. What was that like. That was fun. That was nineteen sixty eight. So a few years after I'd like to know what it felt like to get a townie it was like I was through their lot and I thought I get it you know. And Di and Carol gave me the money and I was a seventh heaven. I was thrilled. Explain what you mean she gave you. Well she was on it was presenting the Tonys at that time and now that they've you know nominees are and I was one of five people and I want to I'm going back at beginning of June to give somebody else an award. Did you ever I mean when you were up for it right before they actually before you knew you

won. I DIDn't KNOW WHAT I WANT I WANT IT DID YOU. I see so you didn't think you were even I didn't think so. Oh yeah that's why I was surprised. Yeah. But you really. Was it a kind of satisfaction of. She was I'm known as a singer I'm not known as an actor and then all of a sudden you know yeah it's nice to know that your peers think that of you and you get the award from your peers but who were some of your competitors in that award. Oh jeepers I you know that was nine hundred sixty eight. I really don't know who they were given our present now Robert Preston. I'm trying to think back of where the male singers leads were I have no idea which says something incredible about the business. That's always the case we don't really remember who won last years. We know who won last year's Academy Award but we tend not to know who is nominated and that's boy you're number one or else God. What happened to your

career. Upon receipt of the Chinee that went right down the drain. Why. No I don't know what happened to my career here. But you kept on going I keep on working all the time so I don't know what I did right after that. Now if you. When they did were you approached to play Lancelot in the movie in the movie no one I don't know why they wanted something else it had been in films before I guess the movie was a bomb hidden in the box office. Yeah I guess so I don't know if I can see it you didn't see it you know why I don't I just had no I would I would if I was in that place for so long why should I go and so you know but that's curious that you wouldn't be curious about it. It's funny I think I told this story before but my closing night in Camelot I knew I would never sing the song sidewalk. Again because I was not going to make a film and it's not a song you sing in one club. So. I'm up there and it's

the opening scene for Lancelot. Instead of listening to the words coming in I suppose a song that moves it moves. I was listening to the sound going away and I got lost. Well that happens to me all the time but I see if I have a tenth of a second and I'm going to get lost I'll make something up and I'll make it rhyme and I usually make it make sense I should do it on national television in Canada because my producer wouldn't give me cue cards and I was too lazy to learn my songs sometimes three four five songs I'd start on Saturday and we do it live Sunday night and so I did more ad libbing network template but it was you know a real difference there was written so I'm just thinking and I'm done friends out of the conducting and I got lost and I sang door floor hair Blair create some great stuff and I couldn't get into it it was going so bloody fast you know and I finally said and cliche but driving with two behind. I looked at friends and I said this is not about an orchestra in my life and he looked at me and he cut there were astir and I said ladies and gentlemen is my closing night. I'm nervous I just

lost it can I start again and they said sure. Yeah one of the ways they started to get it I got it right I could do a thing wrong and I believe a dragon with two behinds. You're ok though. OK the show is over you know. And striking the set and everything. What's the feeling and speak after a great hit. A long running hit. Well it's a letdown but you're always going off to something else and you're looking forward to that. You never really feel sorry for yourself is there ever a fear of gee maybe I'll never get something as good as this again. Oh I suppose you let those thoughts go through your head but I don't think so I don't think performers think that way they just think the next one's going to be better. Are you considering any Broadway shows now. Oh I've been. I get them at least once a month but nothing that I have liked and what why aren't they good. They're not going to write for me and I'm not going to go and spend a year on Broadway unless that part is just right for me. A lot of the musicals are written for women not for men.

You know what has to be right for you got a good part. What is a good part. Well I don't think he's got to have something to say you got to have a lot of laugh lines in it and the best songs. It's not like I have a question talking about oh he's another singer. All right Jo Jo Balaam talking about picking something out right for you back on Broadway. Do you think that Broadway will ever go back to a happy time. Clear day that type of music that type of. Musical comedy performance show I don't see why not. You know there are people right as opposed to a Jesus Christ Superstar and there's nothing what about sometime or. Well yeah but that's even closer to what I'm talking about or what you know I mean it's good too but I guess the writers are they're not giving us the fare that we would like to get and it's not necessarily I'm not saying let's go back to

1980 get into Pajama Game and those shows. But can the caliber of writer and I guess maybe that's possibly you know sounds about right. We'll be right back and talk just about that as we pick up with Rob. Please stay with us. The Small Business Administration sponsors free seminars each month featuring experts in advertising marketing publicity and management free self-help seminars and counseling for business owners. For those thinking of going into business for reservations at free seminars or offer free counseling call BSB. 3 8 5 6 6 1 1 3 8 5 6 6 1 1. Since 1912 girls are the out of the way.

Water will be working on the water related project. Another might study projects comprising you. Please join us in America by making your own commitment to clean water everywhere. The topic is show business from the point of view of celebrity Robert Goulet and we were into the whole idea of what you rephrase the question. Basically I'm trying to find out as if there will ever be. Do you think there will ever be a possibility of the Broadway shows that were the caliber of the Broadway shows the way it was set up even if they were simple as boy meets girl and boy loses girl. Well that we have to get back to that kind of show. Back in New York as

opposed to and I'm not saying that they're bad shows. Jesus Christ Superstar Pippin. I found I can't think of any others but you do you know what I'm talking about do you know what you're talking about the only thing is we have to get the writers you know get Leslie bridges office torsion and write something for people like Julie Styne still around I don't know where duty is and what he's doing. But you're talking about the wonderful hummable tunes you walk out of the theater humming the tune that becomes the hit next week and that's what you know the show like I do why do we have Robert Preston and Mary Martin two superstars and just the two of them alone on that stage you don't need a thousand people gallivanting and showing their legs to get to a marvelous singer actors as I would like to say. People like yourself back on Broadway doing that kind of stuff I mean I really feel you should be back on the show again you're terrific but thank you. All so much.

There is a possibility that working with the Dunes Hotel that I will be producing and starring in a thing called the salute to Broadway written by Alan Jay Lerner. And it's a piece that I produce about six seven years ago and I'm talking to Mr. Shanker and Jerry Conti now about doing that beginning of next year what the contents of the best of Broadway although the best say his music is his music and the Romberg music everybody's music. Yeah that would be exciting. You well as you were doing the Broadway you were as you said before you were flying off to every once in a while to do something on television and something in the movies. OK first of all what's that like just to have to do that kind of commuting. Oh come on. We do it all the time. Well I do not you do it all the time but most of us don't. Oh I see. Well what's it like it means it's a pain in the neck you know you're on a plane in a hotel room and you go I get used to it.

It's a way of life. But that's there's nothing wrong there's nothing difficult about that just pack a suitcase get on a plane get over there you know tell them give the guy five bucks and I thought meet and watch a baseball game and do your job and then get the heck out look for us novices you know just learning your lines for one and then going all of a sudden I'm back on stage to do someone else's lines. Simple for you want to learn is a bit like a lady's in the kitchen she's making potatoes and carrots you know you don't get too worried about the carrots and the potatoes are still there. OK OK what was the first film. First round was one was a bobby Morris called Honeymoon hotel. Nancy Kwan and Jill St. John you know I haven't seen you know in years on houses. But Bobbie and I never done a film and it was our first day of shooting we had to shoot together and we were almost nose to nose again on the on the set. And both of us a little nervous right now one of us I don't know which one it was when it dried

and didn't know where but what the line was. But because we're used to Broadway and being alive on stage the other guy just picked it up and we started to ad lib and we were ad libbing a whole new scene. Nobody had written that he was directing and we're doing pretty doggone good for about a minute I guess. And I noticed out of the corner of my eye while this was going on I was proud of Bobby and proud of myself that there were people snickering finding the records that I cut. And he said Gentleman two bobs from Broadway called us. This is film we can cut and start over again. Which we will do and it is in the. Yeah he's the Bobby Moore if you're talking about is what's the show business without trying how to succeed to succeed in you know and that wonderful thing he did in front of the mirror. Oh yeah I believe in you know that he's a great performer and that rubbery kind of walk. Yeah. And do you learn from someone like that just

instinctively or do you do you consciously say hey I'd like to learn something from him while I'm doing this particular film. I think you learn something from everybody in all walks of life but you don't consciously go out trying to mimic someone you have to be you and you do what you do best by being you. If you try to be some somebody else than you can be real. I don't mean mimic him but but maybe just learn something about how he approaches a role you know I could never ever perform the way Bobby does. He's a he's a little bit too zany and he goes those crazy things I'd like to be a little more contained. Does anyone remember. I would like to know how after having done Broadway right where you go from A to Z with a character how it felt what it was like compared to doing Broadway to do a film to do you know where things are not in sequence. Yeah it takes a while to find out what's going on the director talks to you

and says well this is what has happened and you're in this position now. OK so it's not really that difficult as long as you know what the script is all about what your character is and that that's not the problem. What I like is that when you're finished doing so you have a Broadway piece you want to on a clear day and every night you're doing the same lines same song over the same people. Then you leave that and you go out on a nightclub floor and there's no one else there except you in the audience and you can say what you want to say you can take out that number but and I wouldn't tell a joke if you want to but it's you it's your personality. Nothing's been written down telling you this is how you're supposed to behave. You behave the way you feel that night. And it's a great feeling. So I kind of take from what you just said that probably a nightclub work is where you're most where you feel most at home. I feel very much at home when I club floor but I do both. I like doing both. You need the discipline of the theater. Every

so often to hone your your your gifts. But it's nice to do them but some people can't. The discipline of television. You did the series blue light. How did that come about. D I don't know I did a thing called Operation Grice which was an hour and a half special of sorts and they were like So what they saw 20th century and they said All right so they got blue like for me as a as a series. We were with ABC and we had like Oh I think 15 and a half million viewers a week and he ha had seven and a half million so they dropped us like we did 22 we're going to have our shows. Yeah but this was the one of the early in the minds of some of the best of the romantic adventure kind of thing. Yes you can find a lot of people doing now. And it was Warren at all that entry Oh yeah double agent time yes. People involved a great deal and some of the things.

Oh sure I like to do a lot of my stuff but they won't let you know if you will break a leg or loosen caps than the who are going to do they need you in front of the camera you know. So if it's anywhere near dangerous somebody else comes in except I did a movie with Eddie Williams but I'd rather be rich. And there we had a fight sequence. And somebody from Life magazine came over and they said this is now lunch time and they said Great just five minutes you know ad lib something in the fight and I said I'd lead you crazy. There's no ad libbing will do the same routine that we did for the film and they said OK fine but can you get a little closer together. Now that was a mistake because getting a little closer together and you took a swing at me and I saw him I ducked. But as he swung at me his head came over here instead of it over here about was before my sense memory tell me it was you know he's over here and I see him from underneath here. I kind of like the forehead for stitches flying through the air. And my manager called me and he heard about it he says the threat that he had the first time

that you're supposed to kiss him on the lips not him. I'm not going to forget that one. You do some local theater and so you know what it's like to Angel to memorize in the difficulties of that. I would like to know it on Broadway. You have so much time to prepare and every night you do the same lines over and over again. But hey when you were doing the TV series you had so much time you had a new script you had 22 shows shot and how many weeks do you have a technique for forgetting your lines. No it's called memorizing them. And you don't really have that much time that's the kind of work is probably the hardest work in the world because you've got to get up at 6:30 6:00 o'clock and you get there you start shooting at 8:00. You know your makeup and costumes on by that time that you're on location it's you know it's you know a long

ride and then they give you a an hour for lunch and you shoot until 7:00 o'clock at night and you never stop. It's tough stuff. And like you say you open up that script and say OK these lines are and you say they don't give you reams and reams of things to you to memorize it. So if so then that you know I was just a go around. I would use everything they say but they can stop than and start again. But you've got to be alert. Hard work. But as Jody was saying it in television some of you doing things out of sequence. Yeah. Now how much do you rely on the director at that point only to go back into totally on the director he's in charge when it comes to film he's the man to getting you into the mood where you are in that particular script. Yeah. And any strange things that you wanted to do in blue light that you didn't get a chance to do because of the nature of the beast at that time. No no nothing that I one of the I couldn't I was just so busy doing what they made me do. No time to think of anything else. I did want to have

a torrid love scene with Nancy Kwan but she wouldn't let me. There were no cameras at the time you know. OK 17 million versus 15 million which is one of the absurdities of the media. Yeah. And canceled on something like that. That's more than Caruso ever sang to in his whole career you know those kinds of statistics are always impressive in that regard. Well how does that make you feel any kind of a cancellation like that. Well I felt I know better about it as I would like to have seen it go and you know you get one of those series under your belt for three or four years and you are you can buy a few houses. But what does it mean to you in terms of just you have to have a feeling of hey maybe I'm not good enough for anything oh no you were you were just you know like you know how good you are how bad you are and I don't know about the other performers but I very

seldom will come on stage and sing that was good and I'd almost never because there's always something that wasn't right and you say don't want to fight when they could have done this at that point would have been just right but it never is. So you're never satisfied. You just have to go out and try every night. I'm not concerned if they if they cancel the series or or if they tell me I'm honestly doing so tell is another place to go to another job to get to work with and for. But you know that not everybody feels that way. While not everybody let's say has that confidence. How do you build up that kind of confidence. Well I don't know if it's a confidence it's just that this in the I can do it so therefore why why cup my wrists if it doesn't go the way I want to go and it is never going to go properly and I go Well once in a while a that was a good note or I got a nice lap over here. Makes you feel good but then it's over ridden by something in the side it wasn't anywhere near where it should have been but it's every night the same way. You can never come out and say

that was the best show I've ever done. You have the opportunity to watch television maybe not as much as a lot of other people since you're working at night. But what's your opinion of what's happening on on let's say network shows the series I wish I could answer that because I don't know I don't watch that much. I don't I'm on stage most of the time and I might want to show 10 minutes of Dallas just to see what it's all about. But it doesn't intrigue me. I don't find it interesting I much prefer to watch jockey of course still with his calypso and that sort of programming but the soap opera type programming bores me. What about situation comedy. I like good comedy like The Bob Newhart Show I love the Mary Tyler Moore. I look great like last night we saw guy's name. Oh look the cop the police station. Ronnie Miller. MARTIN That's a fun show. And MASH was a fun show. They make me laugh and so I like that.

But those other silly little things Flamingo Road forget it. You know I don't want to insult anybody from flying over. I don't think I'd want to. Is there such a thing as living in the right place now what I mean by that is that television people tend to live in California. Does that throw it off a little bit. You living in Las Vegas so that you're out of the action where people go to the parties and they meet this one and that one and that's that's very true. It's so much nicer to be there and be invited and be seen because then people have you in mind when something comes up. But if it cannot be done I'm not going to cry ever that's built. Look. Let them come here and then do a couple of segments here and we'll do some guests ones because that would be difficulty with you wouldn't hear us singing in a show and there might be a new edition of something in L.A. Very true yeah. And you just can't make it can't. Well sometimes you can make it if you arrange ahead of time that it's the same thing for television and I think most of the singers at MGM are also actors you have to be able to act a

little bit and a lot of us would like to go to L.A. to audition for television or movies and some do come here to Las Vegas that you can't always you know you just get a contract and a commitment. And I had to stick with it. Yeah out of that what you're feeling well of about the future of more films being done here would not be nice. I would sure like that. Seems to me it was a lot of things going for a climate good tax rate exactly. There are a lot of human resources. Why do people in Hollywood still consider this place just R and R and not for real. I don't know what the people in Hollywood think and I'd rather be nice that we could have a studio like this and make our own little movies or television series but that takes a you know at least three times the size of the studio which is a set car. When the people are there they're going to bring them here.

But there seem to be so many that being the case that you need to be in L.A. to be seen in that kind of thing. Why did you choose to live in Las Vegas as opposed to Los Angeles. Well the thing called a divorce I guess and I was on the road. Quite a bit of time but you had two houses and you want to Beverly Hills and wanted one here so I preferred to stay in my house here rather than on my boat in L.A. because it was getting a little confining and I happen to like it here and I work here. That's why I am here. Thank you for any television series that you know you approached as you are on Broadway scripts. No no not for me no. I've got to tell you about Leslie's series The Leslie Nielsen and he did six shows and I think it's called police squad right. It may be a series that may not have been picked up but he asked me if I do it. And at the beginning of every one of his half hour segments a celebrity of sorts gets up says a few words and dies. And then they find out why that

celebrity died where he was going what he was doing and he said would you do it for me and I said yes under one condition that I die singing this next week. We had asked you out I got up and I went Oh yeah yeah you will pop up with a big smile on my face and the only performer in the only twice singing The Star-Spangled. We haven't asked you but we will when we come back we're going to keep on talking to Bob. And this time about his nightclub career. We'll be right back. Stay with us please. Virtual delivery owners McGruff the Crime Dog. This was Detroit two years ago. John Ross was wounded. The crook got away and not crime business was born.

I couldn't afford it and I didn't want to play when I want to chill up and down arrow John and his neighbors fight back. So everyone understand you're signed up for this together when a cop state formed a neighborhood watch program. That's right John and his neighbor Walter and today I'm going to see when I spot a suspect they call the cops and the cops are on their way. That's pretty bad guys. This neighborhood program began crime in John's neighborhood dropped 50 percent and property values double the way made a difference and you can too. So find out more. Write to this address and help take a bite out of crime. Bill was speaking about the Star-Spangled Banner when we were speaking with Robert Goulet a celebrity and par excellence. That's French to him and one of the few words I know that they're coming in on Broadway film television and of course the probably that catches people's imagination and a very dramatic way is the nightclub experience and

you want to ask something about I want to ask you in comparison perform as a performer and a singer on Broadway and performing and singing here in Las Vegas. How do you compare the two audiences. Well depends because I'm on Broadway coming to see you in a set piece but I've worked in New York or in theaters in the round doing my nightclub act I should rephrase that I met and I met I meant also nightclub work and he's Kostas compared to my club work here in Las Vegas. I don't think they're going to because the audiences there are regional But here than an unnecessarily regional Here they come. They're a mishmash from all over the country all over the world. But the audiences I find when they come to see you they want they want to be entertained and the there's no difference. They're there for one reason to be entertained. I love New York audiences and I say to Broadway audiences are a little more fanatic. They you know they have to go through a lot of traffic just for

the expense of just parking. Yeah the only thing I ask that is because sometimes I find going to see somebody here such as yourself first and seeing you maybe in Chicago the audience reaction in Chicago is. Generated and it's motivated there's something there. Yet there's people that are here they're from all over the country you know including back East and I think sometimes the audiences here sometimes tend to lay back. Maybe that's just my feeling. You ever feel that. Well I mean you can have a first show audience laid back in a second show audiences go nuts right. That just not this you know one you know not Vegas audiences. Yeah. But there are some some places like Seattle is a little more laid back than than say Miami Beach or Atlantic City. What do you do with an audience who just sits back and says OK I entertain me I dare you kind of you know.

Well there was a guy the other night we were sitting in the front row he had to be about 80 years old or he was a day it was arms folded and he was looking at the orchestra and not looking at me and the stage is right here right. He didn't applaud He didn't smile. And this went throughout the entire show and I went over and talked I was with you all right and he looked at me. I said you know all right I said you didn't want to come here and I said why are you here. And he pointed to his whiteness. Oh I see. So I used them throughout the show without insulting him and used him. I got about half a dozen laughs throughout the show. And I I thought he was not coming around to warming up a bit at the end of the show. I want to we're going to put the microphone down and said you know you really are one of the rudest men I have ever seen. It's very rude you just did that for the last hour that I was up here and he said you're lucky you got a good orchestra with you. I am and you kissed him on the lips yes. What a hot mess down this. I first became acquainted with Mr girlies talent

as a in-person entertainer. I'm not going to say how many years. I don't anybody know how old I am. But many years ago as a visitor to this town I don't know how anybody can sit on their hands when he is entertaining. He has such a beautiful report with his audience that there can be many hundreds or thousands of people in the audience because I saw him in one of the larger rooms and he makes you feel like he's singing directly to you. No matter where you're sitting. So I have found audiences to be rude whether they don't have an appreciation of what an entertainer of his caliber is trying to do. But what comes across other than his beautiful voice is the report he has with his audience. And you don't find that in too many entertainers. You were hinting about that before when you were saying about about the feeling of the song the way you approach a song.

How do you approach a song. Give an example of a particular song that you use a lot and and how would you approach that in terms of meaning and well it's quite simple when you want to pull up a stool and say wow. She lays sleeping. I stay out late at night and I sing my songs. And sometimes the nights can be so long. It's very simple I'm just telling a story. I'm singing I don't I wouldn't sing it now but I do when I do that I stay out late and I sing my songs and sometimes the night's going to be kind of long and it's good when I when I finally make it home alone while she lays dreaming and I try to get undressed without the light. And quietly she says How is your night. And I go to her and say All right. And I hold it tight. You're telling a story when you sing the song and it's that's all I can do to tell the story. When did you know you had a good voice. How early. Holy mackerel.

We all sing in the shower. We all sing somewhere as kids. Teenage Well I was forced you know my father was an avid a singer and actor. And the nuns used to grab me. I had a supposedly a very nice boy soprano voice which I didn't like because I didn't want to sound like a sissy. So I used to squeeze it into my throat. But when my father died we moved to Canada and I went out and the first Saturday where it was cold enough to skate they put the ice in the rink and I had skated maybe half a dozen times in the pond behind the mills in Lawrence Mass with my sister skates and ankles be rubbery. Kids in Canada it's great when they're your role you know. So we get out there and the first time the ice was there I went around that rink and I had the crossovers and I was really doing a heckuva job. But I don't know how to stop. So I crashed into the boards and all these guys look at me in hysterics they're laughing at me and I said Oh you think that's funny. All right so the following Saturday when they skated I took singing lessons. Change my whole life moving from a as a boy soprano that's headphones and can be very dangerous if you go to the chest tones too early. Yes

so it didn't it didn't hurt you just yes you did. I didn't I didn't think I sang the very well and I was in my throat too much of the time but I was awarded a scholarship to the Conservatory of Music and singing scholarship Where in Toronto I went down to some lessons with a man called Papa Lambert who taught Vickers sing which today is one of the great helden tenors of the world and he taught me how to sing I think I broke in there for my two lessons a week and he'd tell jokes for the first 15 minutes and the next 15 minutes he'd sing with me and he had a wobble that went like this. You never listen to me. I was talking to my peers in the coffee shop and they said you don't know how to support. So what do we want to support. I don't understand what any of these things meant. Elaborate couldn't teach me and didn't. I left him and I went to Dr. Vinci and document you told a few friends of mine that I like the way they sang and I said about a model of the pianist. You can go get your coffee now because I would want to sing songs that is one of the vocalize and learn how to sing.

And after about the middle of the second year I finally said I mean the doctor Vinci and I was the only one I think that he ever lost his temper with. I said I don't understand. And he said well I said let me have it. You sing the way you think I sound and then sing the way you think I should sound and he went you go and sort of ah I said is that it. He says that's it I said thank you and I've had another lesson. In terms of vocalizing before evening's performance. Do it do you do any. Oh yes and I'm going to do a lot of them tonight. How and what you do. I just go into a room preferably a shower. So the sound is good and I just open up and I keep on opening it up and get higher and higher and lower interest and it's a muscle. So you've got to work that muscle. Don't go out there cold. What about some of the things that we see is after a show an entertainer like yourself. Thanks to the orchestra in general. But then says I'd like to

thank those particular musicians who work with me well who travel with me. And what is the difference. Why why is that so necessary. What do they do for you that well when you're traveling all over the country all over the world you walk into a place and you have to have somebody with you who knows your charts and sort of just what songs meaning like the the you know the musical arrangements. OK. OK well I really don't know well OK I just never occurred to me that you didn't but you just don't walk in cold and say to a conductor you never met before. I'd like this temper with this place to go like this and then race it over there then bring it down over here and make this loud make that soft when you have a man who's been doing it all the time. He can tell the orchestra and he knows exactly what tempos you want or need. You have the time to explain that to a new drummer a new bass player. That's why I carry my conductor pianist and my bass player and my drummer saves a lot of toil and trouble.

A lot of people a lot of singers or performers to make their names on Broadway when they leave they they leave their Broadway roots behind and they sign a recording contract or something they'll go totally into pop rock or movies or something and they just sort of leave that area behind and that and I think you've done that because I think everybody thinks of you. As Broadway is having a Broadway sound a legit legit sound. Why do you keep that is that because you prefer that sound or Oh yes I don't like just you know Larry Williams And Tony to sing the way they want I want to sing I want you. Do you ever see yourself doing that and I'll say some new musical phase comes along like right now we're in punk and we were in disco before that if something else were to come along that would appeal to you know I don't know that as I said before I don't have a style and I just sing a song. I tell a story.

You say you don't have a style but do you. Do you agree with that. OK. The great singers have styles we've all concluded that you're a great singer had. Well I think I can understand you know. What Mr. Goh is saying he is himself. He's not stylised it's his voice and as it comes out that's him. He I think that's what's kept him in the limelight as long as it has. That when people are going to see Bob who lay they know what they're going to hear they're not going to be surprised or shocked because this type of singing is in today and out tomorrow. Bob is Bob Levey. He's got a beautiful voice and he lets that do the talking for him. You know there are people I hear come out of the show I say to you gee Finally we got somebody who has a voice not only a boy but music you can understand in words you can understand from a technical point of view.

Let's get you on the spot. What does he have a star. I agree with you I think you tell stories. And that's I don't see him as a Tom Jones type person or that person the type of person he's a singer. OK what we're saying is there are less gimmicks right and just more straightforward. Yeah. Which is a style is I guess. What I mean. My style is no style. Have you ever been tempted to sort of add something like a Tom Jones or someone else. Have you ever. Well I think some of the songs he sings I just don't sing in the way the way he does but some sums of tunes that he sings I like very much. I may tell them the story a little differently but then again there Tom what was it Engelbert was asked if he was really that promiscuous. And he said well I've never been with him but he didn't have a television show in England in his dressing room was a traitor and I truly

didn't move one inch in almost three years but they changed the diary six times. You know there are there any songs that you'd like to sing in your acting like club back now that you don't because they're so over done and you're sorry they might be overdone. I don't know how a song becomes overdone. I know that if I like it I don't care who else has done it. Like I'm doing New York New York and I like it. It's a cute number. It's fun but I also do the soliloquy and learnt to many people would like to take that one on. And I hope when I go back to do the Tony Awards in June that they allow me to do it. It's a little long mind you know that five and a half minutes soliloquy is a carousel that magnificent My boy who I will see that he's named after me. Yeah. MacArthur Park is another difficult song. Yes it's good stuff. Any

song that. Are you not allowed to sing because of any copyright or anything like that that happens to people like you and I don't think so. I don't know I'm going to you know I don't know. QUESTION Do you alter your style at all. Not your style almost right up here. Do you all to your old life style at all when you're playing here in Las Vegas doing two shows a night six seven days a week or whatever. As opposed to back in New York of doing one show a night or possibly doing that of course is the Lifestyle. But with me I have one meal a day that's usually around 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon. And then I'll take a nap in the afternoon and I've missed it today and then get to the theater in time to put on the makeup and they vocalize between shows there's always someone there and if there isn't you watch a little television or read and relax after the second show or go home. Maybe not something as you didn't finish in the afternoon and going to bed and list as a good late movie or something. I like to get

up early in the morning and watch my news and my game shows and that sort of takes up most of my time. I want to put a tennis court in the back of the house and I never play tennis. But it's a routine. But the one meal around to nap and to take care of your body you know so you don't dissipate as you pace yourself for a long period of time. Oh yes type of show. Yes both Jeff and I are in the same show and we our schedule is similar to yours except we do a third show on Saturday and I find physically that I really have to pace myself not over a week or a month but with those type shows you can go six months or a year or two years and start looking like chicken so that you know after a while you're going to take care of yourself honestly to get your rest and I know Joe is one of the sensible thing as a jubilee and he has that Al Jolson sequence where it seems like he's standing on a ledge with 500 million women all over the place with his back its most precarious with that.

But as for Kerry it's because it seems like he doesn't have any room in it. Yeah but basically that's that's what I want to get find out from you. Because a lot of people sort of think that the star performers where they do a one man show a one woman show come to Las Vegas and they do this kind of stuff and during the day you know they stay up till five seven eight nine in the morning and then go running and I one time maybe even a lot of people I probably you can do that I suppose if you are going to be for just two weeks but the like of this run for me is 12 weeks and the next one is going to be five months. So you can't you can't you're going to take everybody. What was it like command performance for the Reagans. Now you've you've sung command performance for three presidents Johnson Nixon and Reg right. What was it. What's it what's it like. Just a delight. You know they I found them to be so charming. I tell a story in my act about or go out and I'm singing

in the audience right with my portable Mike and I think that face that face that beautiful face. And then I explain that years and years ago when I was in like coming through the audience like that I sang that face but the two spotlights like appear way up there in time or they were right. I love them they blinded and I was blinded and I got my say nothing looked around nothing but guys. It was a lumberjack convention that injuring their wives. You want to sing that song to a guy right. So I waited for a long while my eyes got accustomed to the likeness of some long hair in the distance and I took a chance and I worked out he's been writing every week so I told that same story to the president and the first lady and Secretary Haig and the vice president and they were in hysterics and I've got a picture when they're all smiling it was delightful at the end of the evening. The president came up on the stage and he said Robert thank you for a delightful evening. And I also want to thank you for singing that song to me that night and. Have a good sense of humor and no budget but a good sense of humor. And

Nixon and Johnson the same kind of fun. Yeah. Nixon you know he just sort of sat and perspired. But Johnson was during the Vietnam War and he wasn't too happy and there was about 30 feet away from me with his wife and the president of Chad and he was leaning like this. And do expression. I sang three four numbers. He was given one of those but he wasn't happy. You want to be there is like the guy the other night. And I've told a few stories and funny they said you know they start to laugh and looked at him he was laughing. So I took my life in my hands and I put the microphone on the other side and I went over and I whispered in his ear and I said Mr. President you're scaring the hell out of me. I think he laughed he didn't laugh. Well then I got scared. Well we have to end. And but everyone's laughing and applauding Robert delay here. But I'm not. Going to. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.