Speaker Identification

Speaker 1 – Host Mark. The guest repeatedly addresses the host as Mark, and the host guides the interview throughout the episode.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour. The uploaded file title identifies the guest as John Barbour, and the transcript describes him as the actor, comedian, host, writer, creator of Real People, and author being interviewed.

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Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Welcome to Hollywood and Horsepower, the show about the story behind the story. Today we are joined by a very special guest, John Barbour.

John really does not need any introduction, but I am going to give him one anyhow. John is an actor, a comedian, a developer of television programs, a host, and his resume probably goes on longer than the show does. I am going to dive right into it.

It is an honor to have you with us today, John, and I cannot thank you enough for doing the show.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Oh, Mark, I am absolutely delighted. I am enchanted by the way you do your show. It is an easy sit-down talk show. The only reason I got into television was because my idol was Jack Paar.

Anyway, I am delighted to be with you, and thank you for asking.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
I am delighted to have you here, because I have to tell you, I am a huge fan. I have worked in Hollywood and been around the industry for quite a long time, and it is just an honor to be talking to you.

What I would really like to do is go back. You grew up in Canada and then obviously made your way to the States. What age was it when you caught the bug and decided you wanted to do this?

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Everything, Mark, that has happened to me in my life and turned out to be absolutely fantastic happened to me by accident.

There are two men, and we will get into that, like many things: meeting Jim Garrison, becoming Frank Sinatra’s private writer for four and a half years, creating Real People, the most successful show in the history of television and the first reality show, and doing the two definitive documentaries about the murder of John Kennedy. I was chosen by Jim Garrison to do that over Oliver Stone, who made the fabulous film JFK.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
It is interesting because you glossed over it, but you are credited with really being the father of reality TV, and I think a lot of people do not realize that.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Yes, and I was dubbed that by Gary Deeb, who was by far the greatest television critic in print history. He was a television critic for the Chicago Tribune back in the 1970s. He said the smartest thing ever about television. He said television is the only industry in America where competition does not improve the product.

I met him back there when I was sent during a Christmas break to replace the guy who was hosting the morning show. We will get into that in a bit, because after a little while it became the show that Oprah Winfrey eventually went to after leaving Cincinnati.

Let me start at the beginning as if it is a movie.

Abortions were not available much in Toronto in 1933, so my mother was forced to have me at the Salvation Army Hospital charity ward. That is where I was born. I was born into a very dysfunctional family long before that was popular.

My mother and father fought so severely and brutally that my father thought it would be a lot safer to join the Canadian Army and go fight the Germans, which he did. He joined the Canadian Army in 1939, when I was six, left, and never came back. In 1959 or 1960, I eventually tracked him down in Scotland, where he owned one of the most successful advertising agencies in the United Kingdom. But I do not want to get too far ahead.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
So he just never came back to Canada?

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Yes. My mother, whom I did not know very well as a child, became more distant after my father left because she got heavily into alcohol. Then she brought to our house, like bunches of grapes, uncles I did not know, who came to bed with her, to booze with her, and mostly to beat her. Often they would take her off to Buffalo and leave me at home alone.

So I spent most of my time, like a Canadian, on a hockey rink, because I really wanted to be a hockey player when I was a kid. Then I spent a lot of time in a movie theater, the Manor Theater on Kingston Road, where I could see two movies for five cents. It was five cents that I usually stole. I also spent a lot of time in the Main Street jail, and right across from the jail was the Main Street library. When I got out of jail, I spent my time in the library.

My first dream was to be a hockey player, but that was dashed out of me by an English teacher, strangely enough not a beautiful teacher. We were in class one day, and she was asking all the students what they wanted to be when they grew up. They all said doctors, firemen, policemen, nurses, farmers, or something like that, and everybody would applaud and cheer.

She got to me and said, “Johnny, what do you want to be?”

I said, “A hockey player.”

She booed me, and then the kids booed me. She said, “You can never make a living as a hockey player.”

So I stood up and rattled off the entire Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, beginning with Ted Kennedy, and the amounts of money they made, which were comparable to doctors, lawyers, and residents. She told me to shut up and sit down. I was so distraught by that.

My next little dream, Mark, was because I read everything. Movies were my escape, watching stories on the screen and listening to stories on radio with the greatest voice in Canadian radio, who went on to become Cartwright in Bonanza. You probably know who.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Lorne Greene.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Lorne Greene. Yes. He had a tremendous voice.

I read every one of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books, and I thought, “Oh my God, when I am 16, like Johnny Weissmuller, yodeling as he swings through the forest, I am going to go to Africa.” That was my sick little dream.

Then I saw a documentary in the movie theater about the real Africa, and there were naked women suckling their babies, and there were flies all over their breasts. I certainly enjoyed seeing the breasts and wanted to be one of those flies, but those flies were never in Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan movies, so that hope was dashed forever.

The next hope was to be a gambler. From the ages of 12 to 17, when I made my first illegal journey to the United States, I became a gambler.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
What was your game? Was it horses?

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
No, I was not old enough to do horses. It was meeting with eight guys. The youngest guy was in his 30s. A couple of them were in the military, and some were truck drivers. I was the youngest one there, and I was always the first one to lose and the last one to leave.

I realized, Mark, that I was not there to make money. I was there to make friends. But who would want to be friends with those kinds of people? Certainly I did not.

So I went to the library and picked up two books. They were called Scarne on Dice and Scarne on Cards, written by John Scarne, and I memorized them. In a matter of three months, I won over $700, and I was only 17 years of age at the time, so that was a lot of money.

The first thing I did was go out and buy an expensive blue suit. If you see the cover of my autobiography, Your Mother’s Not a Virgin, which was inspired by a conversation with Jim Garrison that I will get to later, the subtitle is The Bumpy Life and Times of the Canadian Dropout Who Changed the Face of American Television. On the cover you will see me in that blue suit. I have a Stetson, and I am standing in front of the old Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. I put on a cowboy hat so people would think I also had some cattle as well as money.

I was such a movie junkie. The movies that moved me the most were movies like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington with Jimmy Stewart. Anything by Frank Capra was something I fell in love with. At the end it said, “Made in Hollywood,” and I thought, “Oh my God, that is just wonderful.”

But I was a gambler, and the gambling capital of the world was Las Vegas, so I decided to go to Las Vegas, Nevada. I had nothing in a knapsack. I took the bus to Buffalo, and immigration asked me what I was doing there. I said I wanted to see the other side of the falls. They said, “How long are you going to stay?” I said, “For a day.”

Then I got on the train and got a ticket to Las Vegas, Nevada. But I never got to Las Vegas. The train was stopped by some kind of accident in the northern end of Nevada. Feeling guilty, as if I were wanted by the law, which I was, I thought the RCMP, the Mounties, had called ahead and said, “You better stop that train. We have to get Johnny Barbour off that train.”

So I got off the train, and there was no place for me to go. The nearest town was Lake Tahoe. I got on the bus to Lake Tahoe.

Now imagine this. I was only 17 years of age. I got off the bus in front of the Cal Neva Lodge, and it looked like a set built by MGM. I expected Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland to step out at any moment. I walked in and was just mesmerized and thrilled by the Technicolor look of it all, and by the people so magnificently dressed.

After I went around for a while, I got to the end of the craps table and thought I would make a few bets. I was doing okay. Then people at the table began looking at me. My fear was that they would know I was only 17 years of age and they were going to turn me in. I got really nervous.

After a while, people at the bar started turning around and looking in my direction. Mark, I realized they were not looking at me. They were looking at the front door.

I turned around, and coming through those two glass doors, arm in arm, were Frank Sinatra and Sam Giancana. Sam Giancana had an overcoat over his shoulders like an Italian Superman, with three Italian Praetorian guards. Everybody got totally silent because Sinatra was and still is the king of entertainment.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
I am Italian, so I could be a little prejudiced or biased, but Frank was, is, and will always be the Chairman.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
I will tell you one thing about Sinatra’s singing compared to the others. I knew them all: Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Don Cherry, Perry Como, Dean Martin. I was friends with all of them and listened to all their records. But you can listen to only half a dozen songs of even Perry Como or Billy Eckstine. Not Sinatra. You can listen to Sinatra, for some reason, 24 hours a day. That is why he is in so many Italian restaurants.

Anyway, he walks by. A week earlier I had been at the Manor Theater, and there was a movie called Till the Clouds Roll By, the Jerome Kern story. You may recall this: Sinatra is in a white tuxedo, standing on a white pedestal, singing “Ol’ Man River.”

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Yes, I do.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Unbelievable. Now he is walking by me, this king of entertainment. Little would I know that 20 to 25 years later I would become his private writer for four and a half years.

I stopped being a gambler. I was doing quite well, but my game of choice was blackjack, one deck, because it was relatively easy to remember the cards. But you cannot gamble for more than an hour. There was only one movie theater, and there was no place to go, so I haunted all the shows.

I saw Joey Lewis, the greatest opening-act comic ever. There was Noël Coward from England. There was Édith Piaf from France. I saw them all. That is where I lived, and I loved it. I loved it. I did not love gambling, even though I was winning.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
It is another world. I was adopted myself, and it is interesting to me how many times I hear this story, that there is this magnetic attraction to books and movies. I think what it is, is that it is another world. It is a better world, and it is a place where you can get lost.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
You are absolutely right. For some reason, reading to me was like intellectual Viagra. I would get off on it. I read everything. I absorbed everything that made me happy. Seeing these shows, seeing these creative people, I cashed in my chips, got on the train again, went to Hollywood, and never gambled again except on a golf course, because I do not think playing golf for fun is fun. You have to gamble a little.

Now, if you would like to hear the story of my first deportation, I can get to that. Or if you want to hear how I became enamored of Jack Paar and got into television, we can go there.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
It is your show. I love where you are going. I would love to stay on the timeline. You go to Hollywood, and where did it go from there? You can breeze through whatever you want, but I really like the idea of following your career.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Okay. To tell you that story, I have to tell you why. I do not know why I have the kind of wit I do. I am going to get to why I became an atheist at 12, when I really wanted to be religious.

When I was in the eighth grade, we had an English teacher by the name of Hetherington, who was the only fat person I ever saw. You never saw a pack of fat people in Canada or America back in the 1940s.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
There was no processed food. That is what did it.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Yes, and there was also a mindset of portions. I know my folks grew up in the 1920s and 1930s, and there just was not that much to go around.

The other thing is that people who come from great backgrounds never have a sweet tooth. My son, who is now the co-executive producer of Criminal Minds, was so happy as a child that he did not eat chocolate bars or anything. Me, I got diabetes eating all that because we gorge ourselves with sweets when we never felt happy.

Anyway, back to Hetherington. The only other fat person I had seen was Sydney Greenstreet, that great actor in the Bogart movies from Warner Brothers. I hope I am saying that right.

Hetherington was so fat that the carpenter shop had to build a special seat and special chair for him. He was a brilliant teacher, but he started every class by complaining about life, his wife, his children, the government, everything. It went on every single morning.

One day he leans forward, starts rubbing his leg, and says, “Oh God, my ankle is swollen.” From the back of the room I pipe up, “How can you tell?”

You never saw a fat man move that fast. He pushed aside chairs and kids, grabbed me by the ears, and dragged me to the principal’s office, where they had corporal punishment and beat my hands with a whip until they bled.

Now we get to this part. My father was gone, and my mother was getting beaten regularly by a guy named Garth. He was like Ernest Borgnine in From Here to Eternity, the guy who beat up Montgomery Clift all the time in a movie that remade Sinatra’s life. This guy used to beat up my mother and tried to murder me with a real bow and arrow one night, which is a great story in the book, but I am not going to get into that.

I was so lonely and so desperate. My only decent friend was a guy named Don Lee. Don lived across from the Baptist church with his mother and father, who were very religious. I went up one day when my mother was in Buffalo with one of my uncles and knocked on the door.

Mrs. Lee said, “John, what are you doing here?”

I said, “I want you to adopt me.”

She said, “I cannot adopt you, for God’s sake. You have a mother.”

I said, “No, I have not.”

She said, “Yes, you do.”

I said, “Listen, do you want to come to my house and I will show you?”

She said, “No, no. She will be home someday.”

I said, “Hopefully not.” I was shocked that I said that.

She said, “Shame on you.”

I said, “I need a family.”

She said, “I cannot be your family, but I can be your friend, since you are a good friend of my son’s. I am going to give you a book. Do you read?”

I said, “All the time. That is my only company.”

So she handed me a book. I said, “What is this?”

She said, “It is a Bible. Would you like to come with us every Sunday to church right across the street?”

I said, “I would love to,” because I wanted to be with them. As somebody who was adopted, you know there is some kind of serendipity between you and me, honest to God.

I went home and read from Genesis to Revelation. I memorized it and still know and quote tons of it. I went with them every Sunday. We had a minister who was very smart. Aside from the full prayer, he would say, “Now we are going to take a private minute so you can have your private prayer with God by yourself.”

It was a great idea. I always prayed that my father would be home. After the service, Mrs. Lee would invite me to the house for a sandwich. I would say, “No, I have to get home. My father is going to be there.”

For two or three weeks, I would run home, open the empty door, holler, “Dad, Dad, Dad,” and hear nothing but an echo coming back to me. I did that for 13 weeks and decided this was not working.

On the 13th week, when the minister said it was time to do our minute prayer, I got up and walked out. Everybody stopped and stared because here was this 12-year-old kid interrupting everybody. I went outside and sat on the concrete waiting for Mrs. Lee.

The minister saw me and came out when it was all over. A few people gathered around, because they were all friends of Mrs. Lee. The minister came over and said, “Johnny.” That was the first time anybody called me Johnny. It sounded nice.

He put his hand on my shoulder, Mark, and I almost cried. It was the first time anybody touched me.

He said, “Are you okay?”

I said, “No, I am not okay, sir.”

He said, “Why not?”

I said, “This is not for me.”

He said, “What is not for you?”

I said, “This praying business. I go home after every Sunday prayer, and my father is not there.”

He said, “You must understand God’s will.”

Out of nowhere, Mark, I said, “I do not think I am in it.”

People started to laugh. How could such a kid say such a thing? Then he grabbed my shoulder again and said, “Do not let the devil take over your life.”

I do not know where this came from, Mark. I said to him, “Sir, pardon me. Do you believe there is a devil?”

Everybody got still. He said, “Absolutely. There is a living devil, and you must avoid him.”

I said, “Well, is that not proof there is no God?”

If there had not been people there, he would have struck me. He said, “How dare you say a thing like that?”

I said, “If God is all-powerful, why does he not get rid of him?”

That seemed so obvious to me as a 12-year-old, and that is what I still think. That ended my relationship with the Lees. But then I met Don Lee 20 years later, and I will tell you how.

Now, do you want to hear about the first deportation, or would you rather hear how I became enamored of Jack Paar and got into television?

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Let’s go to Jack Paar, if that is okay.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Okay.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
I do not want to limit you. I am enjoying this immensely.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
The story of the deportation is funny and sad. If I can tell it in five minutes, I will try. Would you like to hear it?

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Let’s go that route.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
I was arrested because I got into an argument with some guy. It was the Red Scare at the time in the United States, and McCarthyism and the blacklist were all over. I did not understand it. I was Canadian.

This guy I got into an argument with had a thing on his lapel that said, “Better Red Than Dead.”

I said, “Who wants to be dead? If you are alive, you can change any color. If you are dead, you are just gone and dust.”

We got into such an argument that he called the FBI. They came to the house and arrested me. They asked me to show them my papers, and I said I did not have any.

They said, “How long have you been in the United States?”

I said, “Well…”

They said, “How long were you supposed to be here?”

I said, “A day.”

They said, “How many days have you been here?”

I said, “Three hundred sixty-five.”

They said, “You better come with us, young man.”

They took me down to headquarters. They found out I was no threat to the American government as a Canadian commie. I was only a threat to some stores in Canada where I had been arrested for stealing so often. They turned me over to immigration.

I was at a place called Terminal Island, which looked like Mar-a-Lago, for God’s sake. It was absolutely magnificent. No armed guards, just guards. I was on the third floor, where they kept all the immigrants. They would not deport me right away because they would wait until they had two dozen “northern geese,” they would say, and then they would fly them north.

They did offer me what was called voluntary departure. It would cost only $20 by bus. By this time I had totally deleted my family and forgotten about my mother, but I was desperate. I had to call collect to my mother. The only reason my mother took the call was to insult me and call me a worthless abortion son of a bitch like my father, and say I should rot in prison. Then she hung up.

So I go back. I am on the third floor. My best friend is this Latin guy from Mexico who takes all the clothes, laundry, sheets, and towels and throws them down a laundry chute once a week. I am there six months, and I am not going to stay there.

I cased the place and realized Wednesday was the busiest day. I knew that if I got in that laundry chute and got down to the bottom, I could go out the door on the left, get on the bus, and get to Los Angeles, or go to the door on the right, jump into the ocean, and swim to one of the boats. That is what I would do.

He arranged for me to do exactly that. On a Wednesday around noon, three Mexicans put me in and dropped me down. As I am going down the chute, I am scared to death because I think, “If there are no clothes there, I am dead.” But I landed in a pile of clothes.

I got up quickly and rushed to the door on the left. It was locked. I shook it and shook it. I rushed to the one on the right, to the ocean. It was locked. I kept going back and forth until I was so tired I sat down, and I fell asleep.

Somebody shook me and said, “Hey, what do we have here? A live human being in the dirty clothes. Who are you?”

I said, “I am John Barbour.”

He said, “What are you doing here?”

I said, “I am trying to escape.”

He said, “You are coming with me, young man.”

He took me to the office, and five of them interrogated me. They wanted to know who my accomplices were, and I had no accomplices. They took me back upstairs, and when these three officers led me in, the 35 foreigners and Latins were all standing there terrified that maybe I had ratted. When they saw I did not rat, they took me to my bunk.

I said to the chief guard, “Hey, listen. Why were the doors locked on a Wednesday?”

He laughed and said, “Hey, it is July Fourth, an American holiday.”

From that day on, the Latins called me Julio Cuatro.

Now get this. I was 17 at the time. Thirty years later, when I am making $23,000 a week as the creator and co-host of Real People, I get a letter that says, “You have to be that John Barbour. I tell my wife, my kids, and my neighbors that guy is the guy I held in those very, very dirty clothes. Please send me a picture.”

So I sent him back an 8-by-10 glossy of me in a Paulson dollar suit paid for by NBC. I said I had been looking for him for years because I wanted to thank him. If it had not been for him, I would either be in jail or in the Merchant Navy.

The next update of this story happens on the show. If you remember, on Real People, we used to go through the audience, hand them a microphone, and have real people say, “We will be right back with Real People.”

I was walking up the aisle one day, and I saw this round face that looked familiar. I heard this voice say, “We’ll be right back with Real People,” and it was Don Lee, at 40-some years of age. How is that possible?

I was deported a second time, but I am not going to get into that. It is in the book, and it is an unbelievable reason.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
People need to read your book. I need to read your book. I am going to read your book.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
I am going to send you a special autographed copy. It was called by many not only the greatest book ever written about anybody in Hollywood, but Europe’s greatest writer, a lady named Ellen Sandemalotich, said it is the greatest book ever written in America. That is saying something.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
I can believe that. For people just joining us, I am joined today by the one and only John Barbour, actor and a man of a multitude of other facets. We are talking about his book right now, Your Mother’s Not a Virgin. You have to pick it up. It is on Amazon and available in several different fashions. I am sure it is available on a lot of shelves, but do yourself a favor and pick up this book. I plan to do it myself this weekend.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Thank you so much. If you get it on Amazon, you will be able to post a review, and all the reviews are five-star. I will be honored to send you an autographed copy.

Now for Jack Paar. I could not get over watching Jack Paar because he was such an engaging conversationalist, easy and relaxing like yourself.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
He was a natural.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Totally natural, totally charming, and witty. I remember him introducing Jonathan Winters. Jack hands him a little stick, and you see the genius of Jonathan Winters ad-libbing with the stick.

One of his greatest guests, whom nobody else would have on, was Oscar Levant. At one time, Oscar Levant was detained in Los Angeles and sent for a month to the Camarillo mental institute. He was supposed to be there a month and was out in a week. Jack Paar calls him to be his next guest. He is calling a guy who had just been in the loony bin.

They sit down next to one another, and Jack says to him, “Why did they let you out?”

Oscar says, “I depressed the patients.”

Oh my God. That was absolutely hilarious.

That is what I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to interview people and talk to people because I did not know that is what human beings did. In my house it was yelling and screaming, throwing beer bottles, empty beer cans, full beer cans, anything. Here were people having really great conversations, for God’s sake.

Paar was a comic before he was a talk-show host, and he did the greatest opening monologue ever in history, better than them all. I thought, “Oh my God, holy smokes, I wonder if I could do that.” I am in my 30s, and I do not even know if I can write.

So I decided to get all the comedy albums. There was Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Robin Williams, The 2000 Year Old Man, Bob Newhart, Shelley Berman. I knew them all, and I have great stories about them in my book. They were all very distinctive, and they had great personalities.

I had no personality and no distinction. I thought, “Jesus, what am I going to do?” The only thing I could think of was that I was from Canada. What is so strange about that? I thought I could just talk about the slight differences in culture, and in five minutes I wrote, pardon me for saying this, a brilliant five minutes of comedy when I did not know I could write.

The opening line was, “I am being brought to you courtesy of the NAACP: the National Association of Canadian People.”

I ended up auditioning at a club in Santa Monica called The Horn. I was the only comic they ever hired because the owner, who was a singer himself, hated comics. But he loved the fact that I was so soft-spoken and my material was so funny.

I opened for this hillbilly. He would talk about moonshine up in the Ozarks and how they would make that kind of stuff. He said they would entertain themselves by playing ukulele and banjo and singing songs. Then he said, “Do you mind if I sing this little ditty for you?” Everybody would cheer because they knew it was coming, and the little ditty turned out to be “Nessun Dorma” sung by Jim Nabors.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Jim Nabors had an amazing voice. The voice almost did not fit him. You would see him and look at him in disbelief, like, “How is this sound coming out of him?”

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
The day he became Gomer, Mark, he came to me and said, “John, I am really a fan of your stuff. Some of it is really sharp political stuff. But I have not been in this town too long, and I will give you some advice. I hate to give advice because it does not do any good, but the advice is about Hollywood. It is better to be liked than to be talented.”

He was so right.

That led to my being on Merv Griffin’s show. Actually, first it led to my being on a talent scout show, and I was the only person ever brought back a second time. As a result of that, I got a call from Jack Rollins, the manager of Woody Allen.

Jack Rollins was the guy who created Harry Belafonte. Harry Belafonte was a jazz singer, just an ordinary guy.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
He was very good.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Yes, but jazz singers were a dime a dozen. Rollins took him to the New York library, got books about calypso songs, and said, “Harry, you would be the perfect guy to sing ‘Banana Boat.’”

Belafonte was going to fire him. “Are you nuts, for God’s sake? I am a jazz singer. I am not going to sing ‘Banana Boat Song.’”

He was talked into singing it, and it became his first million-selling record. Then after Belafonte became a huge star, he dumped his manager.

But anyway, Rollins also turned Woody Allen into a comic. Woody Allen did not want to be a comic. I followed him into Mister Kelly’s in Chicago, and he was so unsuccessful that he turned around and did his whole act to a brick wall. He did not want to keep doing that, and his manager said, “You keep doing that, and I will turn you into the movie maker that you want to be.” That is exactly what he did.

There was a club called The Bitter End owned by Fred Weintraub, who became my partner in later years when I did The Garrison Tapes. Rollins asked me if I would get up and do a set because I had just done an album called It’s Tough to Be White, with liner notes by Dick Gregory. I did a set, and I was a smash hit.

He said, “Come to my office tomorrow because I am going to make you the next Jack Paar.”

Oh my God, I was beyond thrilled. Are you kidding? Holy smokes.

So I went there. He came in, and he was more interested in the racing form than he was in artists, but he was a brilliant manager. He said to me very sadly, “John, there is no question you could be the next Jack Paar. No question about it. You are likable, soft-spoken, engaging,” and all these nice words. “But I signed a guy a month ago whom I think I can get there quicker, and his name is Dick Cavett.”

He said, “Listen, I will get you booked into some clubs,” which he did. That is how I ended up at Mister Kelly’s in Chicago following Woody Allen.

Because I was so successful as a comic, I got on Merv Griffin’s show. Because I was so successful as a comic on Merv Griffin’s show, I was going to be back there two or three times.

I am going to tell you a quick story about the birth of my son. I never wanted to be married because I did not know what kind of husband I could be, and I absolutely did not want a child.

My second professional engagement was in San Francisco, at The Hungry i, which created Mort Sahl. I was a smash doing Kennedy material. It was early 1963, and I was so successful that they booked me to come back at the end of November.

I went back to Los Angeles and started writing a new act. It was Friday, November 22, around one o’clock, and the news came on that John Kennedy had been shot.

Shamefully for me, I did not know much about Kennedy, except that I absolutely loved him. He was charming and bright. I had read his book Profiles in Courage a couple of times. I loved the man. He was loved by the media, and all his peccadilloes were kept secret. Everybody in the country seemed to worship him.

But I thought, “Oh my God, I am losing an act.” I had to rewrite something.

I went back at the end of November, and the place was empty. Here is a little sidebar to that story. It is how I met my wife.

I followed a Black girl singer who was the first to wear a dashiki, the African garb, and the first to have the African hairdo. Her name was Amanda Ambrose. She was booed every night by supposedly liberal crowds in San Francisco. They would say, “Go back to Africa” and “Dress like an American.”

She was crying all the time. She would come into my dressing room and cry, and I would try to comfort her. One night she came into my dressing room sobbing. I thought, “Oh my God, did they start throwing darts at her, for God’s sake?”

She said, “No. Look at this.”

She extended her hand, and on her finger was this huge emerald ring.

I said, “What is that green thing?”

She said, “That is an emerald ring.”

I said, “A real emerald?”

She said, “Yes.”

I said, “My God, where did you ever get that?”

She said, “This gorgeous brunette sitting next to the owner gave it to me. She called me over and said, ‘Amanda, I want you to know that a lot of us so appreciate your talent and what you are doing. We have gathered up a lot of money to buy this ring especially for you, and it will go with the outfits that you wear.’”

My favorite movie at the time was A Place in the Sun with Montgomery Clift. Do you remember that?

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
I do.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
You would probably identify, being adopted, with Montgomery Clift as I did, wanting to marry a rich brunette like Elizabeth Taylor. That was my daydream.

I knew that I had crossed her mind. I said to Amanda, “I would like to meet her.”

Amanda walked across the floor, which was like a chessboard, all black-and-white tiles. It was absolutely beautiful. Sitting with the owner of The Hungry i was this gorgeous Jennifer Jones-like brunette. Amanda went over and whispered in her ear, and this lady crooked her index finger and told me to come over.

So I leapt like I was playing hopscotch on the checkerboard, and she laughed. I was introduced. Amanda said she had to go someplace, and then the owner had to go someplace. The woman’s name was Sarita.

She said, “You write the greatest stuff.”

I said, “Thank you very much.”

She said, “As years go by, you will become a better performer.”

I said, “Would you like to have a late dinner with me?”

Banducci owned a supper club, and she said, “I will take you to Enrico Banducci’s supper club, where they know me.”

We went up there. She walked in, and everybody got out of the way. They led us to this magnificent table, and we sat down. I sat across from her because I just wanted to stare at her. She was so beautiful. As we walked across the room, she put her arm under mine. Oh my God, I froze. I had only been with one woman in my entire life, for Christ’s sake, and I was in my 30s. It was just glorious and scared the crap out of me.

While we were sitting there, an Asian guy came over to me and said, “Mr. Barbour, I come whenever I can. I have come three times already to see your act. I am an IBM keyboard operator, and I really want to be a comic. Even though I am Asian, I want to be a comic. If you have time, would you come and watch my act?”

I said, “No, I do not have the time.”

He said, “Oh, I am sorry.”

I said, “Listen. Why don’t you just sit next to Sarita and do one or two minutes of your act?”

He said, “I cannot do that. It is not funny.”

I said, “Listen, I know if it is funny. You do not need an audience. I will know if it is funny or not.”

Sarita took him by the arm and said, “Please, why don’t you do that? This fellow writes the greatest jokes ever.”

He said, “Okay. This rabbi and this priest get on a bus…”

I stopped him and said, “Hold on. That is your opening?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Wait a minute. Where is the Japanese material?”

He said, “I do not do Japanese material.”

I said, “Do you see Blacks doing white jokes, or Jewish jokes, or Italian jokes?”

He said, “No.”

I said, “Is there a Japanese comic?”

He said, “No.”

I said, “Then be one.”

He said, “I would not know how to do it.”

I said, “Your mother and father are old-country Japanese?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “And you speak Japanese at home?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “What you have to do is write jokes about growing up with them.”

He said, “I would not know how to do it.”

I said, “The cultures are pretty different.”

He said, “I am lost.”

I said, “Listen. In Japan, on the calendar, there is no December 7th.”

People started to laugh because they were near enough to hear us.

There was this movie with Susan Hayward called I Want to Live, and I said, “You could say you went to see it because you thought it was a kamikaze pilot who changed his mind.”

People were howling. I said, “By the way, what is your name?”

He said, “Pat Morita.”

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
That is how these things happened to me.

Anyway, with Sarita, I had left my money in my wallet in the hotel because I was wearing a tuxedo on stage, so I had no money, and she had to pay for it. I boldly said, “Well, that means I have to buy you breakfast.”

She said, “I guess it does.”

So I bought her breakfast the next morning. When we left the hotel, she never left my side. She had millionaires after her. She became the most famous columnist in San Francisco. The owner of The Hungry i bought her a house. One guy bought her a car. She ran off with me wearing a $35,000 mink coat.

I asked her one time, “Why on earth would you run away with an unemployed comic?”

She said, “Because you are the only man I ever met who needed me. With those men, I would just be like a female Rolex on their arms.”

Is that brilliant?

If it had not been for her, there would have been no Real People and no Garrison Tapes.

I have to get to this story now because it is important. When I was on Merv’s show, ABC called them and said, “We have a show here that we would like you to produce and John Barbour to host.”

Merv said, “Oh, I would be thrilled to do that. I love this guy. He is my wife’s favorite comic.”

The show was called Connections. When I met with everybody to do it, I said I would do it on one condition: that I would do the show the way Johnny Carson did Do You Trust Your Wife? Do you remember that show?

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Yes, I do.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Carson had fun with the guests, and Groucho Marx had fun with the guests when he did You Bet Your Life. I said, “As long as I can interview these people like Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, and Groucho and have some fun, I will do it.”

I did the run-through. They called secretaries from around the building to be the audience. There was laughter, applause, and cheering. They agreed to go forward with a pilot, and I would get $1,750 a week when I was broke.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
That was a thousand dollars then. Oh my God, that was huge at that time.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
It was huge. When it came time to make it, these are the things that shape and change a person’s life, and they are all accidental. There may be some divine intervention in it.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
I am sure there has been in my life.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
There has been in my life. You will read scores and scores of stories in my life where I am at the bottom, and somebody out of nowhere comes and lifts my spirits and moves me forward. That is divine intervention, even though I am not a believer.

In any event, the guy who okayed the go-ahead for the pilot said, “We are not going to have any of these long, funny interviews with Barbour and the guests. We are just going to get to the game.”

I said, “I am not doing this.”

The new producer said, “John, you are going to get $1,750 a week.”

I said, “I do not care. I am not a traffic cop. I cannot do that. I cannot function. It is too cold and stiff. The game portion is lousy. The fun is with the guests.”

So I came home. My wife was the greatest tap dancer I ever saw outside of Ginger Rogers and Eleanor Powell. She was a band singer for Earl Hines, the guy who discovered Sarah Vaughan and Billy Eckstine, and boy could she sing. When I would come home every day, Sarita would open the door and sing and dance, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again.” It was thrilling the way she would greet me.

She noticed I looked sad because she thought, of course, I was going to be a host making $1,750 a week. I had lived with her for three years before marrying her. There is a whole other story about her and her mother, but I am not going to get to that.

I had said to her, “Listen, as long as you are not Catholic and as long as you do not want a child.”

She said, “I am not courageous enough to be a Catholic. I am only an Episcopalian, and I do not want children.”

I said, “Okay, you can come with me.”

She came with me, and it was hard. Never one complaint out of her. We never had a TV set. We never had a radio. We lived on potatoes, raw potatoes, per week. She loved that. She was having so much fun helping me.

She looked at me and said, “What is wrong?”

I said, “I turned it down.”

Without missing a beat, tears popped out of her eyes, and she said, “That means we cannot have a child.”

I felt like a total asshole. The two worst kinds of human beings a woman can be involved with are, first, a comic, and second, golfers. I was both. We are so self-centered. We have to be, to create the material we create and do the things we have to do. A golfer could be the biggest jerk in the world, but if he can put the ball in the hole, he can make a living. There are lots of them on the tour who do that. They make a living for their families, make millions, and often return and do a lot of great things.

I said to her, “We tried it my way for three years. Let’s try it your way for three years.”

She said, “Hey, Johnny, children are not an option. They are forever.”

I said, “Okay, you can have your child, and I will have my career. Does that bother you?”

She said, “No.”

That afternoon, she got pregnant.

She gave birth at Presbyterian Hospital. If you have ever been in a maternity ward, you hear all kinds of women screaming and cursing their husbands, priests, and rabbis, and saying no man is ever going to touch them again.

My wife was so quiet. She never took a pill or anything. She kept telling her doctor, whose name was Spouse, “I want to feel the joys of giving birth to my son.”

I waited in the waiting room. What was I thinking of? I was now making $600 a week to replace Merv Griffin as a host on Westinghouse. I was going to be my dream, the next Jack Paar. That is what I was thinking about while my wife was going through this fantastic moment.

She gave birth, and Dr. Spouse came out and said, “Your wife Sarita asked me to tell you this. She just gave birth to the most wonderful eight-pound, nine-ounce host.”

When I heard the word “host,” Mark, it was the first time in my life I bawled like a baby. I bawled over my selfishness, and that anybody could love me that much, to think about me out there in the waiting room and not just about that child. It was unbelievable.

An aging nurse told me while I was sobbing, “John, I know you are in and out of show business, but you have no idea the blessing that this first child will bring to you.” She said there is an old Italian saying that the first child brings joy and a loaf of bread, and that I would have more than a loaf of bread with this child. I most certainly did.

In any event, I got a chance to fill in for Merv as the host, and I killed. I was really successful. But they used my ratings from that one performance. William Morris did because they represented David Frost, this Englishman. The owner of Westinghouse, a guy named McGannon, knew that when he went to England, David Frost could take him to dinner at 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. Johnny Barbour could not do that. I could not take him to the president of the United States. I could not take him anywhere. So they opted to hire David Frost, and I was out.

But there was a fellow at Metromedia in Los Angeles who was the first guy to hire Joe Pyne. Do you remember Joe Pyne?

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
I do not.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Joe Pyne was an ex-Marine, one-legged Marine, who had the biggest show on radio. He was the first attack talkie on radio, the first screamer against anything.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
So Stern?

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Stern was not an attack talkie at all. Stern was filthy. This guy was attack talk.

He was so successful that one day he called the manager of the station, Chuck Young, and said, “Chuck, when are you going to put me on television?”

Chuck said, “When can you get over here?”

So he puts him on television, and Pyne becomes the most successful show in Los Angeles and the most successful syndicated show in the country. He had a thing called the squawk box, and if he got really peeved at somebody, he would say, “Why don’t you gargle with razor blades?” It became one of the great quotes in the country.

When I did my first album, It’s Tough to Be White, very few people would book me, even though Dick Gregory did the liner notes. Joe Pyne was the first guy to book me.

The table was about 20 feet long, and he sat me at the end of the table. When it was over, he loved the interview, the material, and how it came about. He said, “I am sorry to put you there at the end of the table, but it is easier to hate somebody from a distance.”

That was so important.

Chuck Young thought David Frost was going to bomb, so he called me and said, “Do you think you could do a Saturday-night talk show?”

I said, “You mean like Johnny Carson, like The Tonight Show thing?”

He said, “Yes. You would do stand-up and have guests.”

I said, “Oh my God, I would love that.”

He said, “You have it.”

Now I have to tell you a sidebar story. Harlan Ellison, one of the great science fiction writers in the world, had a great column in the Los Angeles Free Press called The Glass Teat. He wrote for shows such as Star Trek and The Twilight Zone, and he had a reputation for being brilliant and vicious.

He reviewed me as the possible next host after Merv’s show and called me a fag. One of the guys I interviewed was Jean-Claude Killy, the heartthrob of the world, this popular Errol Flynn with women, one of the most handsome human beings in the world. Ellison thought I belittled him and called me that, as though I wanted to make out with him. It was a hilarious review.

So I get my show, and I know television is the umbilical cord that could inform or destroy the world, as Edward R. Murrow so cleverly said when he was at CBS. They destroyed Murrow. I will not get into why they destroyed him, but he had to end up doing just a personality show where he talked to celebrities. That is a great story in the book by itself.

I said to my producer, “You know what? I want to have a guy on every week to talk about television, and I cannot think of anybody better than Harlan Ellison. Would you call him?”

My producer said, “No, I am not calling that guy. He is vicious.”

I said, “Then I will call him.”

I got the Yellow Pages, opened it up to Harlan Ellison, and there was his phone number. I dialed it, and the phone rang. He answered, “Yeah?”

I said, “You are not that busy, to answer on the first ring.”

He said, “Who the hell is this?”

I said, “Johnny Barbour.”

He said, “Oh my God, what do you want?”

I said, “Can I ask you a question?”

He said, “Listen, I am not changing any of my thoughts about you.”

I said, “The question is this: can you talk as well as you write?”

He said, “What a dumb question. Certainly I can. I speak at universities. I speak all over. I am a guest on a lot of shows.”

I said, “Well, I would like you to be a guest on mine.”

He said, “Are you kidding me?”

I said, “No. And I would like you to be on it every week for ten minutes just to talk about television, because that is where people live now. They do not live in the movies. You get minimum, which is $78. Would you do it?”

He said, “Are you kidding me?”

I said, “No.”

He said, “Who else are you going to have on?”

I said, “One of the ones I am going to have on is Redd Foxx.”

He said, “You mean that filthy comic?”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “How come?”

I said, “My wife was a band singer for Earl Hines and a close friend of Dick Gregory, who did the liner notes for my album. She said when I started, ‘You must meet Redd Foxx, because while he is naughty, not filthy but naughty, he will be the smartest man outside of Jackie Mason you will ever meet.’”

Not only did I meet Redd, he became my mentor and my lifelong friend in show business.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
You were on Sanford and Son.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
I am getting to that story.

Ellison agreed to come on. The show got a terrific rating because everybody in town watched. They knew me as a struggling comic, and they knew Harlan Ellison as this great writer from Star Trek and The Twilight Zone.

The day after the show, I got a call from Chuck Young. He said, “John, congratulations. The show was absolutely fantastic. We are so delighted to have you here because I am sure this Englishman is going to bomb, and we will have you. You will definitely be the next Jack Paar on national television, not just local. Believe me, I have that much faith in you. Oh, and by the way, you will never guess who was just in my office.”

I said, “Who?”

He said, “Harlan Ellison.”

I said, “That is terrific. You have to give him a show.”

Chuck laughed and said, “Oh, I am not going to give him a show. The show he wants is yours because he thinks you are bad.”

From that point on, every single show I got, the first person I booked was Harlan Ellison. Because I booked intellectuals like that, I would get phone calls from Frank Zappa. Frank would call and say, “I want to be on your next show.” I did two or three shows with Frank, and as a result of being on my show, he drew crowds of about a quarter of a million people.

Now, the story I wanted to get to was Redd Foxx. I booked Redd. You know those funny slacks golfers wear, the ones folded underneath with socks at the bottom?

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Knickers.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Exactly. Redd came out in those knickers with a cigarette in his hand, as he always did. He not only ad-libbed the funniest ad-lib in the history of television, he also told the greatest stories about his friendship with Malcolm X, when they both used to go to jail together. You can see all of these on my website.

I introduced him by saying he was going to open for Perry Como in Las Vegas. Bless Perry Como, the Italian, for booking the guy, even though he was naughty. Vegas was the place to do it, and Como loved him.

Redd came out with a cigarette in his hand, wearing those knickers. The audience chuckled, looking at him. He paused the way he did and said, “I was down South, and I was roaming around down South, and I saw these people staring at me all the time saying that word.” He paused and said, “I thought I would go up and buy myself a pair.”

The room levitated.

I knew his act so well. He sat down, and I wanted him to talk about Black Power and white power, which was going on all over the place. He said he would never go march in Black Power; he said he would take a taxi someplace. Really funny lines.

Then he said he only believed in green power.

I said, “Why is that?”

He said, “You buy the places they hold the meetings, and you get the rent.”

He was adorable.

Now this is where I thought I was going to screw up his life, because again this popped into my head. I had no idea what he was going to say and no idea why I was saying it. I said to him right there, “Have you ever thought of this?” Everybody got quiet, because even Redd did not know what was coming.

I said, “Why is money colored green?”

He did not miss a beat. He said, “That is because Jews pick it before it gets ripe.”

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Have you ever heard the interview with Bob Einstein, Super Dave, about Redd’s cars?

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
No.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Oh my God, it is one of my favorite stories. Bob was working at that time for the Smothers Brothers, and somebody, I think it was ABC, tapped him and said, “We want you to go down and meet with Redd. He has an idea for a show in Harlem.”

Bob says he goes down to the house, and the place is like a circus. He says, “I swear on my life, I walk in, and he has a monkey in a cage screaming at the top of its lungs. He has these dogs walking around that are all half-human, half-people. I think one of them had a cigar in his mouth.”

They go to his office and sit down. Redd comes out of a bookcase that twirls like a Charlie Chan movie, and he has white powder all over his nose. Bob says, “Redd, you have white dust.”

Redd says, “That happens every time I eat jelly doughnuts in the morning.”

Then Redd says, “Here is my thing. I want to do a variety show in Harlem.”

Bob says, “That is great.”

Redd says, “Here is the thing. I do not live in Harlem. I do not have a house near Harlem, so you will find somebody.”

Just as he says that, in comes Slappy White, the comic.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Yes, because he and Redd were great friends.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Redd tells Slappy, “Go out by the pool house and wait for me. When I get done with Einstein, I will come down and meet with you.”

Slappy goes down, and Bob says Redd has cameras everywhere because of all the recreational things going on in the house. Bob says Redd watches on these ABC-style cameras as Slappy gets chased all over the yard and into the pool with his clothes on. Redd kind of looks at the camera, then turns back to him and goes right back to the meeting.

Every time Bob met with Redd, the house was an absolute circus.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Oh my God. I loved those guys. I always loved Redd Foxx. He really was something.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Every show he did, from the Dean Martin roasts to his stand-up to Sanford and Son, he was just frozen in time.

So you were on his shows several times. From there, where do you go? When did you start working with Sinatra?

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
I beg your pardon. Am I jumping too far ahead?

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
No, I just wanted to say that.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Sanford was Redd’s real name. His name was John Sanford. He called himself Redd because he loved his brother.

Norman Lear saw him and hired him to do Sanford and Son. Sanford and Son was not original. It was an English show called Steptoe and Son, and they adapted it. My book is filled with hilarious stories because there were constant fights between Norman Lear’s partner, Bud Yorkin, and Redd on the set. They were hilarious and sometimes almost violent.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Norman Lear was another guy who was just brilliant. He had so many ideas. I think of him, and I think of Sheldon Leonard. It is amazing.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Sheldon was a blessing. My son was a Caucasian Tiger Woods when he was four years of age, and Sheldon Leonard, Peter Falk, and Billy Eckstine used to come up to the Studio City driving range to watch this kid hit golf balls. I spent half a million dollars trying to get him on the tour, but he could not putt.

In the Texas Open, he would hit 18 greens and shoot even par, while another professional golfer would hit only five greens and shoot 67. But my son kept a log and decided he would just go to Hollywood.

He went to Hollywood on his own because I was persona non grata as a critic for 10 years at Los Angeles magazine and five years at KNBC. I have 18 or 20 hours of material. If we want to do more of this, we can.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
How much time have we done? We are right at 1:30 now. We have about a half hour. We have time, but we will definitely do this again. Another thing we want to talk about is your specials.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
That is right. Let me leap forward to that.

On Friday, November 22, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific time, thanks to Don and Doug Newsom of BBS Radio TV, I am going to do the most interesting, entertaining, thorough, informative live two hours anybody will ever see about the subject of JFK and his murder.

More important than JFK is the story of Jim Garrison, who actually solved the murder in 1967 when he arrested Clay Shaw and when he could not arrest David Ferrie, who had committed suicide after writing two suicide notes.

I could tell you a great story about how I first met Garrison, which was an accident, because stories lead and breed into other stories.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
I have to hear about how you met Garrison and how you came to do the documentary.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
I will get to that quickly.

Because of my success as a comic, I was booked on The Tonight Show on June 6, 1968. Does that ring a bell to you?

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
It does not, and I apologize.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
That is the day they shot Bobby Kennedy. Johnny Carson wanted to do a show, and that was the first time we had a fight. There is more to tell you about Johnny Carson that you would love and that you do not know.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
We need to do another show on Carson because I love Carson. The transition between Jack and him is something I would love to do a show about.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
I would not want to do a whole show because to me it is not a happy story. Carson tried to sabotage me when Frank wanted me to have a hit show. There is also how I eventually ended up on the Dean Martin roast of Redd Foxx when the producer of that show did not want me because I would not let him sleep with my wife. These stories are endless.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
So how did you and Carson come to work together?

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Eventually they canceled my Saturday-night show on Channel 11, and Chuck Young hated to cancel it. He said there was no way he could make it go national and that he could not support it.

I was working at the Ice House. One thing they had in those days was the Fairness Doctrine. There were 20,000 people picketing in Los Angeles. The Latin community was picketing against ABC because they were challenging their license. ABC was going to cave in and do a 90-minute morning news show. Mario Machado, who had the most handsome and beautiful voice in all of California, was a lock.

I was doing my stuff at the Ice House. I was leaving, and there was Mario. He grabbed me and said, “My God, you are funny. I just left ABC. I auditioned for this guy named Brad Lachman because they are doing this morning show.”

I said, “You do not have to audition because the word is that you are going to get it.”

He said, “Frankly, John, I am a great announcer, but I am not great on my feet. All your stuff is political, it is hilarious, and you are great on your feet. You should give Brad Lachman a call.”

I said no. He said, “No, here is the number. Call.”

So I called. To get to the point, I was hired over Mario Machado, the one everybody wanted, including management, because I was so good at what I was doing.

I was the first one to start reviewing movies on television. I was the first one to take phone calls.

At that time, I was paying no attention whatsoever to the murder of John Kennedy. I was 37 years of age, a comic, and I ended up doing the most important news show they were going to do.

But I read everything. I read Rush to Judgment. Oh my God, what a book. Mark Lane absolutely destroyed the Warren Commission. Like everybody else, I believed the government when they said Oswald did it. But I was in a bookstore on Hollywood Boulevard called Brown’s Bookstore, across from Musso & Frank’s, where my wife and I dined all over the place. Myself and Steven Spielberg were the only two people who had credit cards at that restaurant.

Anyway, I picked up a book called Heritage of Stone, and the author was Garrison. I stood there for four hours and read it because I could not believe what I was reading. I read that Garrison had to take Time-Life to the Supreme Court to get the Zapruder film to show the jury, and when he got the film, it was so foggy he could not use it. So he sent Steve Jaffe, one of his aides, to San Francisco to get their copy of the Zapruder film.

Then there was a forensic pathologist who said there was no real autopsy. It goes on and on. I thought, “Oh my God, what a great story this is.”

I am a storyteller, Mark. Whether I do it in a joke, a paragraph, or a film, I am a storyteller. I grew up watching them, and now I earn my living telling them. They keep me alive.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
I think you would agree with me. I love comedy and admire comedy. I write some. Comics can become great actors.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
I think that is exactly right.

In any event, I thought, “I am going to call this guy in New Orleans.” I got information, called, and expected a secretary to answer. Instead, I heard this bass-baritone, beautiful voice.

I said very quickly, “Hi, my name is John Barbour. I am calling from television station ABC in Los Angeles. Is Mr. Garrison around?”

He said, “This is he,” in perfect English.

I said, “Oh my God, Mr. Garrison, I just finished reading your book Heritage of Stone.”

Without missing a beat, he said, “Oh, you must be the other guy. I always thought I sold two copies.”

I wanted to book him on the show, and he kept turning me down. He said, “You will never get away with it.”

I said, “Listen. The Federal Communications Commissioner says I have the greatest, most successful show ABC has ever had. We have unbelievable ratings. We are live. I will interview you for half an hour, and then for an hour we will open the phones and you can talk.”

He said, “Have you ever seen me on television?”

I said, “Once, when you were on late night because you had to sue NBC because it committed a crime by trying to get your principal witness, David Ferrie, out of your jurisdiction.”

He said, “That is right. The same thing will happen to you. You will not get me on your show.”

I said, “Listen, you must do it. Please. I assure you that you will not be hindered.”

He said to me, “John, do you know that just a few years after the Warren Commission, 82 percent of all Americans do not believe Lee Harvey Oswald either did it or acted alone?”

I said, “Why are they not out on the streets?”

He said, “You did not see the second question.”

I said, “What was the second question?”

He said, “Would you rather see a deeper investigation in which the Central Intelligence Agency and the FBI are investigated?”

He said, “How many people do you think wanted to see that?”

I said, “Sixty-five percent.”

He said, “Twenty-two percent.”

I said, “Are you kidding me?”

He said, “John, what does that say to you about the American people?”

Without missing a beat, I said, “I do not know what it says to you, Mr. Garrison, but to me it says, ‘I know what my mother and father do in the rumble seat of the car, on the pool table, or in the bed, or wherever they do it. I know what they do to conceive me, but do not ever tell me my mother is not a virgin.’”

He howled and howled. He said, “My God, you sound like Mark Twain, my very favorite American writer, who said a hundred years ago, ‘If it made a difference, they would not let us vote.’”

That is how the title of my book came about.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
You look a little like Mark Twain on the cover of the book.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Thank you so much. Sometimes I think I am channeling Mark Twain. Sometimes I think I am channeling Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Will Rogers, or Joan Rivers. I miss her, for God’s sake.

There is not one comic around who is funny. Funny is being able to quote a line that is funny or witty. No wit exists anymore in America.

I booked Garrison, and I was fired immediately.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Oh no.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
I do not think it had to do with the government or anything like that. It is show business. You get a job for 13 weeks, a year, a week, or whatever. It is a bodily function in Hollywood.

I only talked to him twice on the phone after that. Once was during Watergate, when he talked to me about the names involved with the murder of John Kennedy and how some of the names were the same. Another was after my appearance on The Tonight Show with Frank Sinatra, because he wanted to borrow some of my jokes. Then I never got to act.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
We only have a couple of minutes left.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Let me get to this, and then we will be in a great place.

I was fired in 1970. In 1979, I had the greatest show in history on, which was Real People, which I got on by accident. That is a magnificent story in the book.

The producer of the show, a guy named George Schlatter, was given another show. They wanted to do a sort of television version of Network, and it was bombing. He asked me to do a story, and I said I would not.

Then I read on page 13 of the L.A. Times that the House Select Committee found a Dictabelt recording from a motorcycle officer named H.B. McLain that recorded more than four shots, so they had to rule that it was a conspiracy.

I picked up the phone to call Garrison and ask him if he felt vindicated. He said, “John, I feel like a blind man who got a small black trophy in a very dark room.” That is the brilliance of the way this man talked.

I said, “I am going to come down and tell your story.”

He said, “I have not told it in 10 years, but I will tell it to you.”

That is where I am going to leave it.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
I am going to remind people that they need to get John’s book. We have been joined by John Barbour, and his book is Your Mother’s Not a Virgin. It is by John Barbour, not hard to find.

More important than that, John is going to be doing a special on this network, on the BBS Network. It is going to be on November 22 from 4 to 6 p.m., correct, John?

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
Yes, absolutely. Pacific time.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Eastern time would be 7 to 9.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
I will have the two greatest guests in the world: the best and last investigative journalist, Wayne Madsen, who was hired by John Jr. before he was killed to investigate the murder of his father, and Donald Jeffries, who knows more about the murder of John Jr. and who wrote the foreword to my book.

The subtitle is The Bumpy Life and Times of the Canadian Dropout Who Changed the Face of American Television.

You owe it to yourself to tune in. It is on BBSRadio.com.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
What will be the name of the special, John, so people can find it?

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
I have not actually given it a name.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Here is what we are going to do, and I will make sure this is done. We are going to put a link to John’s special on the Hollywood and Horsepower page so people will be able to find it. I will get with the network and make sure that happens.

Get John’s book, Your Mother’s Not a Virgin. John, I cannot thank you enough for joining us. It is an honor, and you have to promise me we will do this again soon so we can pick up on the story.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
I would only do it for you, Mark, because you need to hear the story about your idols, Johnny Carson and Jack Paar. You need to hear that story. Then we can talk about Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. They are endless.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
It is funny. I watch the Dean Martin roasts at least once a week. I still watch Carson every night.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
That is wonderful.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
There are channels now where they stream all these old shows. It is amazing. I know they were not saints, and I am not trying to say that, but I enjoy the shows so much. I appreciate all the entertainment.

I think Lorne Michaels says it best. People would come up to him and say, “Do you think this is good?” He would say, “No.” They would say, “Oh.” He would say, “No, no, it is there. Trust me, it is good.” He says comedy is kind of like babies: all babies are ugly except yours. Then it is like, “Oh my gosh, this is so great.” It is the same baby, but you have to live through that period.

I am like you. I look back and think, “Oh my gosh, it was a golden era. We are never going to see that again.” But then I see people like David Spade and some of the other comics, and Jerry Seinfeld, and I think there is still talent. It is different, but there is still talent, and I appreciate all of it.

Speaker 2 – John Barbour:
If you remember Larson from The Far Side, if you want to see genius at work, get this month’s cover of Vanity Fair magazine. That is all I am going to say. If Larson were alive, that would be the cover he would have designed about this election. It is genius.

Speaker 1 – Host Mark:
Fair enough.

We have been joined by John Barbour today. I cannot thank you enough, John, for joining us. This has been Hollywood and Horsepower, a very special episode.

We are tight on time, but I would be remiss if I did not plug a couple of things. No Fallen Heroes is the only foundation we support. Take some time and go look at it. It helps veterans and first responders. Also, MB Gray Health Care: if your company is in need of any type of benefit or insurance revision or consultation, please take a moment and look at her. She is the best of the best, MBGrayHealthCare.com.

John, thank you so much for joining us. This has been Hollywood and Horsepower, and we will see you guys again next week. Thank you.