May 8 - Don Rickles

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On this day, in 1926, Donald Jay Rickles was born in New York, New York. The son of Lithuanian and Austrian immigrants, Don grew up in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens. He graduated from Newtown High School, in nearby Elmhurst, and joined the United States Navy. During World War II, he served as a seaman first class on board the USS Cyrene, a motor torpedo boat tender that became the flagship for the Commander of the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons, 7^th Fleet, in the Philippines. Following an honorable discharge in 1946, Don began attending classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan, planning to become a serious actor. It didn’t quite work out that way.

Don began his career getting bit parts on anthology television shows in the mid Fifties. Frustrated by the lack of parts being offered to him, he began doing standup routines in New York and Los Angeles. His material was merely okay; it resulted in getting heckled a lot. Don began firing back insults at the hecklers. The insults got more laughs than the jokes, so he started doing more of them. As his reputation for being a master with the improvised insult grew, his act essentially became entirely quips at other people’s expense. He earned the nickname “The Merchant of Venom” for his ability to insult anybody, anytime, anywhere. The irony behind that nickname was the fact that Don was probably the nicest guy in show business.

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As Don’s fame grew, so did the fame of his audience members. One night in Miami Beach, he spotted Frank Sinatra in the crowd and unflinchingly let him have it, something almost no one in Hollywood was willing to do (especially with Frank’s rumored connections to the mob). Frank enjoyed the ribbing immensely and the two became life-long friends, although Don would remain the only person who could get away with insulting Frank (or even interrupting him, for that matter). Frank’s support was instrumental in helping Don become a headliner in Las Vegas. His frequent appearances on talk shows (over 100 on Johnny Carson alone) only cemented his celebrity comic status. Not that he didn’t still do the occasional acting gig, too.

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Don’s first film role actually had nothing to do with comedy. Appearing alongside Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster in the 1958 World War II submarine drama Run Silent, Run Deep, he gives us a glimpse of what might have been if those initial television roles had been bigger. But then again, probably not. Years later, in his memoir, Don fully admitted that playing to a script just wasn’t his style; his strength was improvisation. Which didn’t stop television networks from trying to give him his own series, twice. Both were called The Don Rickles Show and both only lasted one season, first in 1968, then in 1972.

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Don’t feel too bad for Don, though. He still had plenty of guest starring roles on television series as varied as The Twilight Zone, Sanford and Son and Medical Center, in a small screen career that stretched from the mid Fifties to 2014. He’s best known (besides the talk show appearances) for being a staple of the Dean Martin Roasts. Zinging everybody from his old pal Frank Sinatra to his fellow roasters to getting zinged himself, Don was key to making the roasts as popular as they were.

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Even though Don made some questionable choices when it came to his movie career (not one, but four of the Beach movies with Frankie and Annette? Yes, his agent was married to Annette at the time, but seriously, four?), he somehow managed to stay out of Disney's mediocre period in the Seventies. He apparently was waiting for something good to come along and he had to wait all the way until 1995's Toy Story. Don is so perfect as Mr. Potato Head, I imagine when it came time to cast the role, everyone at Pixar wrote their first choice a piece of paper and revealed all at once the same name: Mr. Warmth himself. And the fact that they were able to incorporate a hockey puck (and insult he'd been using for four decades at that point) into the movie was genius. Don, of course returned for Toy Story 2 and 3, and we're glad he did. The Mr. Tortilla Head bit in Toy Story 3 was one of the funniest inventions I've seen in a long time. Don was scheduled to do Toy Story 4, but died before recording any dialog. Supposedly all of Mr. Potato Head's lines are culled from stuff they cut from the first three films, which would make him the spud's only voice so far, but I don't know how much I believe that. I'll guess we'll find out next month.

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Mr. Potato Head isn't the only thing Don did for Disney (even if it is what his grandchildren were most impressed by). He was enticed to make a foray into the world of attractions. When Disney attempted to give the Enchanted Tiki Room an update, they also redid the pre-show.   Since the show now included Iago and Zazu, the pre-show showcased their agents, William and Morris, voiced by Don and Phil Hartman respectively. For thirteen years, starting in 1998, Don got to brag on a regular basis that not only was he Iago's agent, but he'd signed all the Mighty Ducks as well.

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Don's career post-Toy Story didn't slow down even one bit. He continued showing up on television shows like Hot in Cleveland and making the rounds of late night talk shows.  In 2007 he published his memoir, Rickles' Book. That same year, his son Landis produced an HBO documentary about him appropriately title Mr. Warmth (it earned him a Prime Time Emmy Award). In 2013, Don suffered from a bout with flesh-eating disease but a year later scoffed at the idea of ever retiring.  He continued to tour the country doing stand-up, enjoying tributes to himself on SpikeTV and starring in webcasts like Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and Dinner with Don. He worked pretty much right up until his kidneys decided they'd had enough and failed him on April 6, 2017. The benevolent King of Insults was 90.