"SAFER:" "The sheriff you play in Smokey and the Bandit is really a..." " A total departure for Jackie Gleason." " It is." "Almost unrecognizable as Jackie Gleason." "That's what I meant it to be." "First of all, I got a pencil mustache for a sheriff." "A southern sheriff with a pencil mustache?" "And I made it just as hot as I could possibly make it." "As incongruous as it could be." "We tried to find a clip out of Smokey and the Bandit that we could use" " in this" " No chance." "Well, there's not-- I don't think there's five seconds go by that Gleason isn't using words that" "Absolutely." "And everybody else in the cast." "I never had a line of dialogue written." "The director would stick his head in the door, in the window of the car and say:" ""Now we have to go up the thing and you'll see him there." "What do you wanna say?"" "And I'd think for a second, and I'd say, "How about--?" Something." "He says, "Great." "Okay, let's go." That's how we made the picture." " What happened to the script?" " In the first" " There wasn't any script." "For me, believe me." "And in the first script, I had never had a scene with Burt Reynolds." "I had to sit down and write one." "That was the, uh, scene in the lunchroom" " where we were going for the hamburger." " Very funny scene." "And that's the only scene we had together till the end of the picture." "But that's how the picture was made." "For a movie without a script, it was an extraordinary success." "The first time I saw an audience stand up and applaud when the picture was over, and I couldn't understand it." "I said, "That, they're applauding?"" " Well, it was not a critic's" " It wasn't" " It was a carefree picture that didn't, uh, pay any attention to anything." "Its sole purpose was make you feel good." "And it did." "SAFER:" "You chose to do a lot of work that television comedians don't do." "I mean, the great ones, whether it's Lucy or Bob Hope and all of these people." "You chose to be" " all kinds of things." " Well, I realized" "A serious actor, a not-so-serious actor." "But how come?" "Well, for instance, when I had the idea to put the show together, when we moved to CBS-- Or even on DuMont," "I realized that no guy is rich enough to come out as himself every week and entertain an audience." "I knew I needed characters to do that, so there'd be a variety." "And it's the same thing with my career." "If I just did comedy, so I just did comedy." "You don't become any kind of special celebrity just doing one thing." "And I knew that I liked dramatic work," "I like writing plays and television shows." "So I did." "And I was fortunate enough to be successful at it." "SAFER:" "How much acting was involved in The Hustler for you?" "Quite a lot, you know?" "I was between two heavyweights." "I was between Newman and, uh, the other guy." " Scott." " Scott." "And they're awful good." "And if you don't wanna look like a wimp, you better wind up and throw a couple." "So you had to act in self-defense." "But the role, that particular role, did that come easier than most?" "Only the pool shooting." "The rest was an acting job." "Did you do--?" "Make all your own shots in that picture?" "Oh, yeah." "Yeah." "SAFER:" "Do you find Bob Hope funny?" "Yes." "Uh, when he does his-- I don't think he's too good a scene comic." "Although he does them, and the audience likes him doing them." "But he is what I'd call the all-American comedian." "He is what people think-  ls that a compliment?" " Yes, it is." "He is what people think as a clean-cut, nice guy, getting up there, telling them jokes and making them laugh." "And he is the epitome of that." "And I went on the next week and I apologized." "That incident, that was the first show I ever did with the cup." "I knew it would sound like sour grapes if I didn't make it funny, so I had the girl walk out, just before the program started, with a bottle of JB, and she poured it in the cup, and the audience knew what was in that." "And I came out and took a sip and went, "Ooh."" "And we're off." "So I had a right to apologize then." "And I told them how terrible it was, and how could I possibly think it was funny, and I'm embarrassed, and I apologize, and" " Oh." "And they laughed." "And from that show, we kept going with an interview show." "They said, "Well, if you can do that without anybody alongside of you, maybe it would be even better with someone else."" "You couldn't exist at Toots Shor's unless you had a few bombs during the day." "But I never drank on show day." "What was Toots Shor's then, really?" " A club?" " Toots Shor's was the corner candy store that you hung out in when you were a kid." "But this one was for adults." "Everybody knew each other." "Most everyone was a friend of the other." "They would defend you to the death." "If somebody said something about you when you weren't around, they would take care of the guy who made the remark." "It was a great place." "It was conviviality, friendship, fun." "I couldn't wait to get there for lunch." "It'd be DiMaggio, Mantle, Considine, uh, Caniff, Cannon." "All those guys were all sitting at the same table, and they are witty guys." "And you'd laugh from the beginning of lunch." "I'd get there at 11:00 before the joint was open, then had a few warm-ups at the bar." "And I wouldn't leave until 4, 4:30 in the afternoon, go home, take a shower, get dressed, and back for dinner." "And the same guys were there and the same fun was going on." "It was one of the fun times in my life." "But the fun, a lot of the fun was to get the others, wasn't it?" "Oh, you needled everyone." "Uh, my whole life was devoted to doing something to Toots every day." "Getting him into some kind of trouble that everybody could laugh at." "He'd get in the elevator, which he was deathly afraid of, and I'd pull a fuse." "And he'd scream and yell, I'd come out, call all the guys. "Listen to this."" "And, uh, I'd of course have to leave." "I'd put the fuse back and get out, because he knew I did it." "But he never held a grudge."