Seven Dirty Words_ The Life and Crimes of George Carlin - James Sullivan [56]
He married an aspiring singer from Australia named Helen Reddy, and they moved to Chicago, where Wald spent a few years booking the rooms at Mister Kelly’s and the London House. There he befriended performers including Pryor, Miles Davis, and Flip Wilson. On the night that King was assassinated, Pryor was opening a run at Mister Kelly’s. “By the second show, the National Guard had surrounded the club and closed us down,” recalls Wald. He and Pryor drove through the city, smoking a joint and lamenting the destruction that was already underway: “There were troops and people shooting, rioting, and he was crying. He was supposed to do The Ed Sullivan Show the following week, and he didn’t do it.”
Feeling restless in Chicago, Wald had told Cosby that he wanted to be in Hollywood, and the star put him in touch with his manager and business partner, Roy Silver. Wald’s first experience at Campbell-Silver-Cosby was working with the agency’s newest signee at the time, Tiny Tim. Though the money came rolling in, he soon took the advice of Norman Brokaw, the chairman of William Morris, to go into business for himself. With a $30,000 loan from his old employer, Wald put out his shingle, taking De Blasio with him.
By the time Carlin and Brenda walked into the office, Wald was working hard to get his wife’s career off the ground. De Blasio took the meeting. “I gave the pitch to Carlin,” says De Blasio. “He was pretty much my responsibility.” The comedian made it clear: He was hungry to find an audience that would understand where he was coming from. De Blasio, who would soon be working with Pryor and David Steinberg, assured Carlin that he and Wald could help. “I’d worked with Cosby, so I knew the comedy area very well. If you’re working with Cosby, you certainly know what comedy is about, especially in those years. I saw what he wanted. I knew the area he was playing was at that time a graveyard.”
Wald had vague memories of Carlin from his days at Café Au Go Go, where Oscar Brown Jr., was a regular. “Howie Solomon chased me around the club once with an axe,” says Wald. “Those were fun days. You could walk in a two-block radius and see Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Carlin, and Pryor.”
Before his new managers could create a plan to put Carlin in front of hipper audiences, he had some outstanding contracts to fulfill. In November he traveled to Wisconsin to appear at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club, the jewel of the franchise, with its ski resort and a hotel lodge architecturally influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Carlin had been on a Hefner television show, Playboy After Dark, earlier in the year, just after starting his beard. Between performances by the Modern Jazz Quartet and Johnny Mathis, he appeared on a couch on the bachelor-pad set, gazing glassy-eyed at a blonde named Connie, who cooed that she loved Taurus men: “They’re so lovable. They grow great beards, and they’re sooo funny.”
On Carlin’s other side was Hefner, wearing a tuxedo, gripping his pipe in his front teeth. After some awkward banter with the host, Carlin got up to deliver his routine to the roomful of swingers. Standing in front of the fireplace, he dusted off a hunk he’d been using for years, a satire of cough-and-cold-remedy commercials. Funny how your pharmacist knows more about you than anyone, he said: “He knows what you’re hooked on. He knows what you take too much of. He knows”—nudge, nudge—“where you put the ointment.” Then he segued into some newer material, beginning with a nimble romp through a grocery list