Tom Dreesen: What Frank Sinatra Taught Me About Life, Faith… and Real Friendship

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Comedian Tom Dreesen toured and opened for Frank Sinatra around
the world for fourteen years, but it was the personal
lessons he picked up from the chairman of the board
that marked his life and career. He shares some of
those lessons and the Sinatra few ever got to see
on this edition of the Arroyo Grande Podcast. Come on,

(00:31):
I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to the Arroyo Grande Podcast. Go
subscribe to the show. Now turn the notifications on. Do that.
I don't want you to miss what's coming. First, a
little free flow before we get to Tom Dreesen. Have
you seen this video of French President Emmanuel Macrone arriving
in Vietnam. They opened the door to his plane and

(00:52):
his wife Brigitte mauls him like an aged bear. What
is that? I love the attempt at recovery. He sees
the camera. He seems to say, I'm perfectly fine, He's okay.
The last time I saw a spouse treated this badly
on camera it was video from the Ditty Trial. Whatever
tiff these two were having. The Macrones pulled themselves together

(01:13):
and descended the staircase. Missus Macron did not take her
husband's arm. The President later said, we were squabbling and
rather joking with my wife. When she smacks you in
the face in public, I wouldn't call that a joke.
I'd call for a restraining order. Whatever's happening between the
president and his wife, they are both representing their country.

(01:36):
This is not a moment to audition for real housewives
of Paris Brigitte, or to humiliate your spouse during an
official foreign trip. That's what hotel rooms are for. My
favorite quote was from the Illas Palace. They said it
was a moment of closeness between the couple. Yeah, her
hands were close to his face. It was a moment

(01:56):
when the president and his wife were relaxing one lafe time,
having a laugh. I'd hate to see what a cry
looked like in the Makron house. Anyway, I'm glad the
President had no visible scars from his closeness, and I
hope next time Ms Macrone remembers to keep her domestic
abuse domestic. Now to our deep dive. Tom Dreesen is

(02:18):
a comics comic. He has opened for everyone from Smokey
Robinson to Sammy Davis Junior. He's appeared on national television
more than five hundred times. For fourteen years he toured
with and befriended the legendary Frank Sinatra. Tonight, he joins
me to talk about his incredible career, what Sinatra taught him,

(02:39):
and why he always had to wear a tucks with
the chairman of the board. Here's Tommy Dreason. What was
your favorite night with Frank Sinatra?

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Wow? You know there were so many, so many nights
that in the car alone with him, where he opened
up to me about his child and about his driving
a dad does and Palm Desert. He would come and
get me out of my bungalow, and his compound was
his bungalows all on the outer perimeter New York, New York,
Strangers in a night tender trap, my way named after

(03:09):
a song. And he'd come and get me out of
my bungalow and just stick a ride on me, and
we'd ride it. Some nights. He'd open up about his
salad and things like that. One night he told me
something really personal, really really personal. And after he told
it to me, he said, I shouldn't have told you that.
I said, well, and I'm driving back to the compound.
The son's coming up and I said, well, it won't

(03:31):
go any further than this car. He said, I know,
I know, but I shouldn't have told you that. I said, well,
you know, it's not like we're strangers. We're friends. And
I don't know what made me do it. I said,
strangers in the night. He said, for God's sake, if
you're going to sing a song, get in key. So
he goes strangers in the night, I said, exchanging glances.

(03:51):
He said, wondering in the night. I said, we're the change.
Now we're singing that song. Pulling into the compound and
we get out of the car park, carry got a
car of good night, tom can I Tommy, I'm going
back to my Bunglow And I'm thinking if I were
to go back to my own neighborhood and tell all
the guys in the bar. I was just riding around
with Frank Sinatra and we were singing Strangers in the Night.
They'd say, get the hell out of here. But it happened,

(04:14):
and it was a moment. I'll never forget going to
church with him, being on stages, with him, him calling
me back out for another bow. He'd do that every
night in Vegas, Like when I finished my show. I
would exit stage right, he would interstage right, we'd criss cross.
He'd go to center stage while the band is vamping,
and he'd call me, Tommy, come back and take another bow.
Tommy treson this shoeshine boy on my hands and knees,

(04:38):
and Frank Sinatras on the jukebox. And now I'm in
this private jet flying all over the world, and now
he's calling me back out on stage. Those are moments.
Those are hard to describe.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Tommy, come out, take another bow.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Tom Grayson, Lady and gentlemen, there he is. That's my man,
my number one man.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Tell me how growing up in Chicago prepared you for
this life avocation.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
I grew up in a suburb on the south side
of Chicago called Harvey, Illinois, with steel mills and factories.
They made everything from klutch plates, the crank shafts, thirty
six taverns in the town, steel mills all around the town.
And I had eight brothers and sisters. We lived in
a shack, very poor. We had no bathtub, no shower,
no hot water. If you had holes in your shoes,

(05:25):
you put cardboard in. If a window broke, you stuck
a rag in it, you know. So I shined shoes
in taverns, I set pins and bowling alleys. I caddied
in the summertime. I sold newspapers on the corner, all
to help feed my brothers and sisters. And none of
this do I regret at all. I think it was
a great one of the greatest blessings. But how I
got interested in comedy. The last tavern that I would
go to, i'd shine shoes. And all the taverns in

(05:47):
my neighborhood, there was eight of them in my neighborhood.
The last tavern i'd go to, my mother was a bartender,
and my uncle owned the bar, my mom's brother in law,
uncle Frank Frank Pelisia, And he told jokes behind the bar.
And I would sit in the bar and wait for
the shifts to change to go back out there. But
I watch him, and he would tell jokes behind the bar.
And I was a kid, but I was fascinated. I

(06:10):
was nine years old, ten years old. I was fascinated
that with his vocabulary, his vernacular, that he could pause
at him and say something and cause his sound to
come out of everybody's body and fill the room like electricity.
And unite everybody. And I just thought that was fascinating.
And I used to tell many of his jokes that
should not be told on a Catholic school playground. But

(06:32):
that's what got me interested in being funny.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Wow, and you go. It was a It was a
mixed neighborhood you grew up in, Oh yeah, which also
would pay dividends down the road. I mean your great
comic pairing, which I'll get to in a minute, But
tell me about there's a shoeshine incident that you relate
in your book Still Standing, and where a guy demands
that you sing a song.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
What happened my brother? You know, I was supposed to
try out for a little league. Little league had come
to Harvey, Illinois, and I was a good athlete. I
love sports, and so I went to try out for
it and I made it. But at the end, the
guy said each kid would need twenty dollars and it
was for like insurance, and you had to buy your
own spikes or something like that. You got your uniform free,

(07:16):
and I walked away knowing I can't get that wouldn't
happen for me. I had to meet my brother that
night and shine shoes and all the bars. You know,
my older brother and I would go in the bars,
and the first part we went to was Spurrows Tavern
and it was a straight bar. My brother went to
the end of the bar and I started the front
shoe Shine, shoe Shine. We sharged fifteen cents of shine.

(07:36):
Most of the time you got a quarter if you're lucky,
you know, yeah, so nohow. The third guy I got
to was a big red face drunk. He turned around
and he said to me, yeah, I want to shine,
I want to shine, and I'm going to give you
two dollars and he put two one dollar blows up. Now,
when my brother and I had a good night, rarely
had a good night would happen. But if we had
a reugen night, we could go to the bakery and
get e claars day old e clares and bringing home

(07:59):
to my brothers and sisters. And we looked like Babe
Ruth and Mickey Malo walking through that with a clers.
So when he held up the two dollars, I looked
at her and he said, I'm gonna give you two dollars,
and my brother looked out and you know it's e
Claire time. I said, yes, sir, I got. I said, oh,
hold on, hold on, you got to sing Chad Noooga
shoeshine boy while you're shining my shoes. Now, it was
on all the juke boxes, and I knew the song,

(08:21):
but I was too shy and too embarrassed to do that.
I said, sir, I don't know that song. And my brother,
my older brother, was tough guy. He said, sir, he
knows that song. And he gave me that look like
it could be also butt whip and time if you know.
Now I'm so embarrassed, and all the bar got quiet,
and I start going, have you ever passed the corner

(08:42):
of Fourth and Grand We're a little ball? No, No,
I can't here. We can't hear him, can we?

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Boys can't hear him?

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Now I'm just about ready to cry, you know, All
of a sudden, I hated this big, fat, red face drunk.
I hated him, and I hated my father because my
father wasn't an alcoholic. I mean, at that moment, I
hate him that I wouldn't be on this bar. I'd
be out there playing baseball with the kids. But I
sang that song, and I sang with more energy. You know,

(09:10):
have you ever passed the corner up fourth and Grand
or a little ball of ribbon has a shoe shine? Stand?
And I did some. He pops a boogie woogie rag
and I popped there, pow that chad nooga shoeshand. But
when I got done, I stood up and I said,
I want my two dollars. And he started to applaud,
and the whole bar started to applaud, and no one
had ever applauded me before, and I thought, wow, all

(09:32):
of a sudden, he didn't look like a big red facebalk.
He looked like Santa Claus. And I want and I
always say to this day, whenever I walk by a
baseball park, if I see a little boy with the
holes in his shoes and raggedy clothes peeking through the
fence that every little boys with baseball uniforms, I know
just how he feels. And to this day, whenever I

(09:53):
see somebody on stage getting applause and cheers for the
first time, I know just how they feel too. And
then I walk away and saying, have you ever passed
the corner from.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Pop that rank? Tell me you you then go into
the navy, you sell insurance. When you come out and
you're really good at it. Tell me how you meet
Tim Reid, who would become your comedy partner.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
I dropped out of high school at sixteen, running with
a tough group and all that stuff. At age seventeen,
I went in the Navy, got a high school high
school diploma from the Navy, and I said, I went
taking courses in junior college and stuff. Anyhow, I get
out of the Navy, I get married, I got three kids.
I'm wandering from job the job. I'm a bartender. I'm
a truck driver. I'm a Teamster Union guy loading trucks.

(10:38):
Then I dropped my teams to car and I became
foreman of all these these teams. Heares you know, forty
eight guys. I just went from job. I'm wandering aimlessly,
never finding what it is I wanted to do. I
joined a civic group called the jc's Junior Chamber of
Commerce that worked on problems of the community, and doing
so was the leader. You taught you leadership training program,

(11:00):
serve on the committee, how to share a committee, how
to conduct the meeting, Robert rules of order, et cetera.
Eache And I got very active in community affairs, and
I wrote a drug education program, teaching grade school children
the ills of drug abuse with humor, a concept I
had that getting in those days. They weren't teaching drug
education at a college or a high school level, let
alone elementary school level. But I wanted eighth graders to

(11:22):
know about this before they went into high school. In
many cases, we were too late.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
They were already and using comedy to do.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
It well, playing records, getting their tension and then doing
jokes and getting the kids laughing, and then planning the siege,
opening up their minds, you know, getting them relaxed and
tim read again. Let me digress here from it. I
was praying at that time. I was wandering aimlessly. I
was saying, God, what is I'm supposed to be doing this?
Can't be at these job after job after job. I

(11:50):
would do them well, but I wasn't satisfied. I was
being the bars of my buddies at two o'clock in
the morning, drinking, thinking I don't belong here, but I
didn't know where I belong. Some praying at a cension church,
at a cension church where I had been an altar boy.
You did your homework I've been in Altimore. I sang
in the choir. My mom sang in the choir when
she was a young girl. Anyhow, and so the night

(12:12):
I'm proposing this drug education program to the jc's for
then the sanction it. After I got done, a young
black man comes up. He had just joined the chapter.
He graduated from Norfolk State College. EI Doan recruited him
in the Chicago. He comes up to me and he said,
I'd like to work with you on that project. I said, gee,
I'm sorry, I already got a guy, a friend of
mine named John Debora, a white guy. Again as prayers

(12:35):
are answered. The next day, John de Borr Calls me
and said, I can't do that with you. I got
a new job and I can't do that project. I said, gee,
what was that black guy's name? Oh yeah, Tim Reid. Wow,
call Tim. We worked on the program. We go into
the school systems. The program became very successful. Jc's used
it as a model program in fifty states and twenty
two foreign countries on how to teach drug education at

(12:57):
an eighth grade level program very successful. One day, leaving
the class from a little eighth grade girl said, you
guys are funny you ought to become a comedy team
in the thought of a black white comedy team intrigued
us because no one had ever done that before. So
we start writing what we thought was a material. Keep
in mind, there weren't any comedy clubs in America in
those days nineteen sixty nine, there were no where.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Did you play?

Speaker 2 (13:19):
We had to do what they called the Chitlin circuit,
black owned, black operated nightclubs. The twenty Grand in Detroit,
that's where the motown was in those days, the High
Chaparral in Chicago, the Learning Spare of Guys in Galas Lounges,
the Cotton Club, Sugar Shack and Boston, the Club Haarlem
and Atlantic City, and then we ended up working the
Playboy circuit as well.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
But what was it like to be the first integrated
comedy act. Well, it was the first of its kind.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah, First people had to go.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
There had to be some audiences that went, whoa you could?

Speaker 2 (13:51):
You would be in a rowdy, noisy club, hu and
they'd introduce us people in here in the introduction. We'd
walk on stage and you're here a hush, oh, what
is this all about? A black guy and a white guy?
You know, and it was I mean, on the fourth
time on stage, the guy put a cigarette out on
Tim's face and then tried to beat the hell out
of me. And I boxed when I was in the service,

(14:11):
but he outweighed me by one hundred pounds. And it
was just some redneck. You know. The interesting thing about
racism in those days, if there was a black guy
who hated white people, I hated him with a passion.
He wasn't mad at me. He was mad at Tim
for being with me. If there was a redneck white
guy who hated you know, black people, he was mad.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
It wasn't matter Tim.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
He was mad at me for being with Tim. You know,
I was the N word lover, and he didn't mind
calling me that, you know. So, but that happened rarely.
For the most part, people liked what we did. Once
in a while, you'd run into that element.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Well when I I mean, I remember seeing clips of
the act and pictures of you altogether. It seems to
me it was really a continuation of what you were
doing in your program because you were bringing people together,
You were unifying people to trying to lighten their load
a bit and realize we're all we're all in this together,

(15:05):
and we're really the same.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Well. Absolutely. The interesting thing is people think that the
comedian is bringing the audience together. The audience is bringing
the audience together with their laughter. The audience brings themselves
together with their laughter. You know, they you know, I
don't know how many times I've said this, but the
one thing that I will take to my grave and
Tim will do the same. I can't tell you how

(15:29):
many times we did college as high schools anywhere there
was racial tension. We went the prisons. We did eleven
prisons in one year. I can't tell you how many
times a young black kid would come up to us
afterward and say, you know, I got a white friend
that i'd like to reach out to, but if I do,
the brothers are going to call me names. But after
watching you and Tim, I'm going to do that. Then
a white kid would say, you know, I have a
black friend that I like, but the white guys are

(15:51):
going to give me bad time. But after watching you
and tell them, I'm going to reach out to my
black friend.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Why did the act work, Tom? What did it work?

Speaker 2 (15:59):
It worked because a we really liked one another, We
really were good friends. We liked one another, and we
had some funny stuff. I mean, we walk out in
front of We used to work a place called the
Club Harlem in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In most nightclubs
in those days, you opened on a Monday and closed
on a Saturday. At the Club Harlem, you opened on Saturday,

(16:21):
first show ten o'clock at night. You closed on the
following Friday. First show ten o'clock at night, Second show
two o'clock in the morning, Third show six am in
the morning, called the Breakfast Show. All the waiters and
the waitress and all the night people would come and
all the pimps would bring their hoes from Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan,
New You come down for the Club Harlem. The show

(16:42):
would open with Mamalou Parks and her dancers. Have got
a heavy set black woman with all these dancers, get
them rocking and roll, and there'll be a male singing group,
a female singing group, then comedy. Then the headline would
be Smokey Robinson are temptations of the OJS or whatever?

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Now the thirteen hundred black people when it came time
for us to come out to MC would say, ladies
and gentlemen, we have a comedy team from Chicago. This team,
he kept saying, team came all the way from Chicago,
and it's the first time this comedy team's been here
in Atlantic City. Welcome the comedy team of Tim and Tom.
And Tim would walk out by himself and we're really
happy to be here, you know, blah blah blah, and

(17:18):
pretty soon people saying, he said, we just arrived yesterday.
I don't see we I see he What are you
talking about? Now? I would start coming out stage left.
The spotlight would hit me and you here, Oh, what
do we got here? I'd slowly, I've been looking in
the audience. I worked my way up to Tim, and
he said, where have you been? Man? I don't see
any of my people out there? He said. Now people

(17:40):
are laughing me, so I don't see any of your
people either. I'd say, put my arm around them. Well,
we better be funny. What do you mean we white? Man?
And there and not laughter? And one more thing, I
want to tell you that picture you see of Tim
and Tom, there's a picture of us on stage at
mister Kelly's in Chicago. I'll show you. I wanted that
our book we wrote a book called Tim and Tom
in American comedy in black and White. I wanted the

(18:02):
book to be called Before Our Time because everybody who
saw us said, you guys were before your time. That
picture of Tim and I and mister Kelly's I was doing.
We were doing a routine where I was interviewing the
first black president of the United States in nineteen seventy.
We were doing that bit and I said, do him,
now that you've become president, what are you going to do?
He said, I'm going to ask Congress to an act

(18:23):
of law that life that dead people are not allowed
to vote in Chicago, big laugh. I said, what's the
second thing you do? He said, I'm gonna ask Congress
and act the law that live people aren't allowed to
vote in Mississippi, and we.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
Have them, and it would go it would go on
from there. Why did you all end up breaking up?

Speaker 2 (18:44):
We have two sides of this story, Tim and I,
but we love each other. He's like a brother to me.
His children call me Uncle Tom. I mean, I mean,
which was his funny? Oh, I'll tell you a funny
story about that later. And know he a woman the
act up, you know, and we always knew the first

(19:05):
time we started to go in to show business. My
only reference to show biness where I grew up was
a black singing group called the Dells. They had over
the night stay in my corner, and I went over
to the lead singer's house with Tim. Marvin had lived
across Supim when I was growing up, and I said, Marvin,
we want to become a comedy team, and he gave
us encouragement. As we were leaving, he said, you know

(19:25):
they're going to break you up. We were leaving, We
told us. He said they, I said who. He said,
There's a game people play called divide and conquer. They're
not going to like the fact that you two are
getting along. There's certain people black and white that aren't
going to like that, so be careful. And Tim and
I got in the car and said, we're't going to
have let anybody break us up. But one day it happened,

(19:46):
and in retrospect today we talk about it all the
time that it was the best thing to happen for
both of us. Because Tim went on to be Venus
fly Trap on w KRAP Cincinnati. He was on Simon
and Simon, He played Downtown Brown, he was on a
show call Frank's Place that we had, the brilliant show
that he created. He was in another show called Sister's History.
He played the father, very successful director.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, and tell me when you when you just in
passing reference the people that you were performing with, Smokey Robinson,
I mean the quality of those performers, the Dells, Marvin Gey.
We don't have anything like that today, Tom and the variety,
the the entire idea of an act with talent that

(20:33):
you could do anywhere. That's really not It's not part
of the American entertainment today in that way.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
You know why, because we paid more dues in those days.
By the time we got there, we were ready for
the for the for what you'd call the big time. Yeah,
you know, we paid a lot of dues. Sometimes they
go on TV now with five or ten minutes and
they're thrown into a headlining situation. You know, it was
a dues paying Yeah. And in that era, oh my.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
The camaraderie I always you know. I interviewed Tim Conway
once and I said, why did why did the cow
Burnet Show work? And just what you told me, we
loved each other.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Can I tell you an interesting story about that. Jerry
Lewis and I knew Dean very well. I did the
Dean Martin shows and I did the telethon maybe twenty
two times, and Jerry and I got along with Jerry's
in my dressing room. One night, came to my show
and I was working at the Riviera, and we were
talking about comedy teams because I was with a team,
and of course he was with the famous Dean Martin,
Martin and Lewis. And he said something very interesting. He said, Town,

(21:34):
when Dean and I started out, we didn't have great material.
We had material like did you take a bath today?

Speaker 1 (21:39):
No?

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Why is one missing? He said? Oh, vaudeville jokes, he said,
But we had the love we had for one another.
The audience saw that. They saw that we loved one another.
And he said, you know, Tom, they also saw when
we didn't love one another.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
The audience always knows.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
It picked up on at that time, a Catholic and
a Jew being a comedy team. Wow, who would have thought?
And yet it worked because they really loved one another.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
At that time you could feel yeah, and the audience
was pulled into it. Tell me about being booked on
the Tonight Show what that was like the first time.
Because people don't realize. Kids don't realize, but they should.
The Tonight Show of Johnny Carson's era, and even before
it was not the Tonight Show of today. Now this

(22:26):
was a You had twenty thirty forty million people watching
this show at night. It was huge.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
One appearance on the Tonight Show and your career was made.
Freddie Prince did one appearance, You got a sitcom the
next day. Now, that was in nineteen seventy two or
seventy three. Johnny Carson came out here in seventy two.
When the team split up. It was nineteen seventy five.
I came out here. I'm broke. I leave a wife
and three kids back in Chicago. I ended up sleeping
in an old Nash Rambler, not my car, a car

(22:54):
that was up on blocks. The front seat came down
and I slept in that car for over a month,
hitchhiking up and down Sunset Boulevard, begging to work for
free at the Comedy Store, and finally got on at
the Comedy Store. Took a long time. I got the
Tonight Show to come and see me. A guy named
Craig Tennis was a talent coordinator and auditioned that night
with a comedy team called bauman Est and a new

(23:15):
kid named Billy Crystal. I don't know whatever happened to him.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
What happened to Billy Chris.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
I'm on the Raymond Auroro Show. Eat your heart out, Billy,
that's right, But any and Billy and I got the show.
So now I get there. They tell me you're on
next Tuesday. I was so excited. I tell the whole world.
I get there. They put me in makeup. They take
you up to your dressing room and bring it down
to the green room. You're getting They come into greenroom, said,

(23:39):
we ran out of time. You have to come back
next week. They bumped me. I came back next week
in the makeup upstairs down to day. They ran out
of time three weeks in a row. The fourth week
I get there, I'm in the makeup room. The producer
Fred the cordover came and they said, I got bad
news for you. I said, what he said, You're going
on tonight, thirty million people watching the show. Wow, you

(24:00):
get a lump in the size of a grapefruit. But
I get behind that curtain. The coordinator is my turn
to go on, and the coordinator said, y okay, I'm fine.
Behind that curtain. Doc Severnston's playing music because they're in
commercial break. The music stops and your heart stops because
Johnny's starting to introduce you. Now a light comes on
the curtain. You're about to go through there. Not only
does every coordinator and all the talent scouts of the

(24:23):
Las Vegas and managers and agents and casting people watch
that show, but my mother had everybody in back in
Harvey illin, OI if I bomb, I can't even go
back home. Johnny says, we're back now, and I'm glad
you're in such a good mood tonight. Because my next
guest is making his first appearance on the Tonight Show.
That one line he never does it again. That first time,

(24:45):
I'm glad you're in such a good mood tonight. He
set that tone. They open up the curtain, you walk out.
I can't see the audience bright lights. I hit my
mark on the floor. I do the first joke and
it gets a laugh. I do the second joke, it
gets a laugh. I do the third joke. I hear
Johnny and Ed McMahon laughing behind me. Now I'm on
a roll, I get it an applause. I ended up
getting eight applause. It was a hot show. I closed

(25:06):
with I said, you've been a wonderful audience, and this
is show business is a tough life. So if you
liked me, just if you liked me and your Protestant,
say a prayer. If you're a Catholic, light a candle.
If you're Jewish, somebody in your family owns a night club,
tell him about me, will you?

Speaker 1 (25:24):
I love that you remember the joke you told on
the Tonight Show. I guess it's just one of those
moments you can't you never find.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
I did sixty one appearances on the Tonight Show, but
I never forgot that first one, that first one the
next day. I never stopped working since that night. I
never stopped. When I was fifty five, I'm in the
business fifty five years, but that was fifty years ago.
After that, I'm doing Dinah Show and Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas,
Shandy Carson, Midnight Special, Rock Concert, Soul Train. I'm the
only white committee to ever do Soul Train because I

(25:52):
had an elbow mountain front of an all black audience
called that white boy is crazy, you know, son, And
then Sammy Davis Junior took me on the road.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Tell me about working with Sammy. You write about Sammy
in the book. And I saw Sammy so many times.
He was really special and good to you.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
And really good to me. It is nobody Sammy Davis Junior.
There was nothing he couldn't do on a stage. He
could sing as good as anybody. After Frank Sinactor told me,
he said, I never heard Sammy hit a clinker. Once
in a while, Frank would hit a clinker. He said,
I never heard Sammy. He could sing as good as anybody. After.
He could dance better than anybody after he could do it.
He could play the drums, he could play the zil
he could play xylophone, he could play the trumpet, he

(26:31):
could play piano. He could do impressions to me better
than any impression out there. And he just was magic
on the stage. And he saw me, and I did that.
I did a whole routine about growing up in a
black neighborhood and about how the black girl's jumprope and
how the white girl's umprope me being the only white
player on all black basketball team. Sammy fell on the
floor laughing at him, said, I'm going to take you

(26:52):
on the road with me. He had a TV show
called Sammy and Company.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Because you did the show, I did the show.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
And then he said, and he did. He took me
on the road for three years. Took me the first
time he took me to Vegas. He said, have you
ever worked Las Vegas? We were at the Mill Run
Theater in Chicago. I said, no, I never worked for
He said, well, I'm taking you there January. You open
there in January. We go there jet Lands, We're coming
down the ship. My name on the Marquee with Sammy
Davis Junior. Now a lot of opening acts didn't get

(27:19):
their name on the marquee, you know, or if he
did very small. Sammy had my name up there big
on the Marquee, you know. Now we go into rehearsal.
Matt brandywe was the entertainment director that He said, Tommy,
you'll do twenty minutes. Sammy does an hour and ten.
We know, you know, we do an hour and a
half show or a ninety minute show. Sammy said, no,
hold on, He said, they serve food here when Tommy's on.

(27:41):
This is Tommy's first time in Las Vegas, and all
the critics are there. He's got a score net. He said.
I'll go on first. I'll do three or four songs.
When the room is clear, I'll bring Tommy out. This
is unheard of on.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
The headliner opening for you my.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
First time in Las Vegas. That's the kind of guy,
Sammy Davis Junior. What so Now he goes out. Now
the waiters and waitress their job is to get the
food out of there before the headliner comes out. Right,
Sammy walks out. They're taking food away from people haven't
even started eating yet. They're snatching food off the table.
Sammy does four songs, three four songs. Now the room
is now up here, he said, Ladies and gentlemen, He

(28:18):
do this every night. He said. Through the years, you
stuck with me through the good times in the bad times.
He said. I think of my audience is as family,
and your family to me, he said, when people do
good things for you, family, you want to do something
for them, like maybe get them a gift. I got
a gift for you. I saw this kid, You're going
to like this his first time in Las Vegas. That's
the way you introduced me. And I was always thinking

(28:40):
now a little bit, you know. But I would walk
out every night and I'd say, you know, I always
dream that i'd work Las Vegas, and I always dreamed
it would be Caesar's Palace, but I never dream that
Sammy Davis Junior would be my opening. And sam you
liked the line.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
It's a great life And how long do you tour with.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
The three three years? Yeah? He told me one time,
he said, Tom, you got to move on. I want
you to become a bigger stuff. If you stay with me,
that won't happen. He said, I'm going to take you
from those days. He said, from thirty five hundred dollars
a week. There's seventy five hundred dollars a week. That
was the pay in those days, which was a lot
of And he did. He increased my pay and then
I went on the road after that with Smokey Robinson

(29:21):
and the Gladast Night and the Pips Natalie Call. But
Smokey and I toured together for several years too.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
Really, what was that like? You don't mention him much
in the book.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Well, I love Smokey Robinson like a brother. Every year
I'd run twenty six miles from multiple sclerosis because my
sister had MS. We called it twenty six miles for darning.
I'd bring in twenty thirty celebrities to run with me
a block, two blocks a mile, top knot celebrities and
Smoky Smokey ran all twenty six miles. He's the only
one who ran twenty six miles with me. And it's

(29:51):
touring with Smokey. I mean, you know, he calls me
baby brother. We play golf together and everything, and probably
when I get down, I'll call him and say a
load to him. And yet no one loves to sing
for you more than Smokey Robinson. He loves to sing
for you. He wants to sing for you. It isn't
a job for him. Yeah, he's he's just he's really special.

(30:13):
And he's by the way, he's written almost five thousand songs.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
You know that I did No, No, I did not,
And we've seen it. I've taken my children to see
him and it's magical, and it's magic.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
He's the most Christian man I've ever met in my life.
He truly loves all people. He truly does. He's the
most Christian man I've ever met.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Tell me about meeting Jack Benny, and he gave you
some advice about stand up.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
And when I was in that was only a comedian
about four months and a man named IRV Cups in
it from Chicago who had a column in the Chicago
Sun Times had a TV show and he coupan to
put on a young comedian, a new commedity and a
more senior commedy. And I'm a fan of Jack Benny's
a kid. We had radio, we didn't have TV in
the shack I liveing. I heard him on the radio.
I've always thought an artist a person who's an artist

(30:59):
and in the endeavor if you're a truck driver, a bricklayer,
a bartender, if you make your work look one word effortless.
Frank Sinatra made singing look easy. You will be my music.
He will be my song. Is I can do that? No,
you can't. He just made it look like you could.
Jack Benny made comedy look easy. He just made it
look easy. He made it look easy, and it wasn't.

(31:21):
It isn't easy. So I was a big fan. But
you know, he said to me, tell me where are
you from. I said, I'm from Harvey, Illinois. He said,
talk about that in your act, I said, Harvey. He said,
talk about when the first time you do the Tonight Show. Now,
the Tonight Show was the furthest thing from my mind. Wow,
he said, first time you do the Tonight Show, you're
going to introduce yourself to millions of people. Do comedy
about where you're from, so they know your accent, your

(31:43):
brothers and sisters, where you went to school. So for
this on your mom and dad. So after you walk
off the Tonight Show in six minutes and say say,
wasn't he funny? And do you know that he's from Harvey, Illinois?
And do you know that he had eight brothers and sisters?
And do you know that he went to Catholic school
and you know that his mom wanted him to be
a priest. These routines, you know.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
So you're introducing yourself to the audience as you're entertaining.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
That's the lesson. He said to me, Where am I from? Tommy,
I said, Walkegan Alloy said, how do you know that?
I said, I've heard you said it's you, damn right.
I said that I'm the only comedian you ever heard
of from Waukegan, Illinois, And you're the only comedian I've
ever heard from Harvey Illinois and Tommy. There's more Harvey's
out there than there are Chicago's.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
I love it. What great advice?

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Where that terrific? And I followed it my whole life.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
How do you build a set? Tom how do you work?

Speaker 2 (32:31):
It? Starts with one joke at a time. If you
can write a joke, I tell young comedians today, if
you're in the business and you want to be a comedian,
you can't write material. Take courses on how to write jokes,
or or if you're wealthy, or get a good job
in a lot of money and pay people to write
your jokes. Says that's the hardest part of it all
is writing jokes, is writing material that you can keep

(32:53):
coming up with new material. As I pointed out, I
did sixty one a peers on The Tonight Show, and
you had to do a new six minutes. Every time
you did.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
It, you had to throw it out because everybody's seen it.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, Johnny didn't want two guys going to bar jokes.
He wanted original monologue. So I'm in a constant state
of writing material at that time. But it's it's not
rocket science. But if you're writing a joke. Comedy is
usually just two things. Number one, it's nine tenths surprise.
The audience laughs because they didn't think you were going

(33:21):
to say that or do that. So the set up
line has to hide the punchline. They're the rulers. There
are no victimless jokes. Who's the victim and a joke me? You, society,
the government, somebody, the airlines.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Somebody is going to hurt when it's over.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Somebody's wrong, and there's a joke.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Robin Williams stole your joke at the jokes at the
comedy club, the comedy store.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, him and I. When Robin first started out, I
was I had done two Tonight shows and he was
brand new. He came in from San Francisco. I was
headlining a club out in Newport Beach called the Laugh Stop,
and I had opening acts Roger and Roger, Willie Tyler
and Leicster, a black guy who has a puppet, and
new kid named Robin Williams. And when they told me,

(34:02):
I said to the guy, what kind of material does
she do? He said, no, it's not a guy, and
not a girl, it's a guy. I soa And then
Robin did fifteen minutes and he was brilliant, and he's
just there was no one like Robin Williams. But he
also had this mind that could grasp every joked absorb
and he did a joke of mine on when he
was on Mark and Mindy. At the end of the show,

(34:24):
he closed with a monologue to Orc and he did
a joke about it, and I went and talked to
him about it, and then he was I wasn't mad.
He wanted to pay me, he wanted to get me.
I said, I don't want him money for it. I said, Robin,
now I can't do it. You know, never to say
you stole that from Robin.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
You know that's right. It's dead to me. Now, what
is the power of comedy? I mean when I look
at when I look at you, it really all started
with you wanting to help people and use laughter to
help kids. Then it grew into really you were teaching
racial healing and joy at once. What the power of comedy?

Speaker 2 (35:01):
It's heating. It was a theory many years ago that
you know, laughter is psychologically a deterrent because if you're
watching your comedian work or listening to a comedy album,
you're not thinking of your problems because the brain can
function two thoughts at the same time. So comedy is
psychologically a deterrent. But because of Norman Cousins, the man

(35:21):
who wrote Laughter, Maath the heating of a heart or something,
the doctor told him he was going to die because
he had stress. He had a heart condition and years
of stress. And he laid in the hospital and thought,
if stress negative input made me ill, then positive input
would make me well. He checked out the hospital. He
would only watch Ila Lucy reruns, Candid Camera, three Stooges,

(35:41):
Marx Brothers. He wouldn't watch the evening news. He would
He lived twenty seven years after the doctors told him
he was going to die. Because of him, UCLA did
research on what happens to the brain when you laugh,
when you have a hearty laugh and you've laughed so hard, oh,
and tears are coming on here and your body, oh,
this sense of well being, your body's going through an

(36:04):
actual chemical change. So laughter is not only psychologically a deterrent,
it's physiologically therapeutic. So therefore comedians are physicians of the soul.
So you can call me doctor.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Dreeson, doctor Dreeson, thank you.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
So, but laughter is heating, and that's why people are
drawn laughter more than ever now. These comedy clubs here
in La the Comedy, the Laugh Factory, the Flappers Comedy
Chateau packed every night because people now, especially after the
COVID lockdown, and they realize how much they miss laughter.
Now you know it's it's and also it's addicting.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah, it is addicted. You want to keep laughing, you
want to keep enjoying this with other people, and we
need more laughter. What's missing in comedy today in your opinion.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Well, you know what's missing is And I'm not approved.
I'm a street guy. I don't have a degree from academia.
I got a doctorate from the streets. So here what
I'm saying, yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
But you had of a doctorate from working with the
legends of common and entertainment and music, and you yourself
are on that level. That's where you live. So you're
down here now. I'm asking you to look at these
people down here. They have to say the F word
every other sentence.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
I'm at the Laugh Actory a while back and I'm
waiting to go on, and two young comedians are around
the corner, and I don't know if they're there and
they don't know I'm there, and I'm looking at my
nose because I'm getting on next. And I hear one
of the communitys say, you know, Tom Dreesen's here, and
the other commedian and said, yeah, you know, he's old
school and my year is perk up and the other
community city he's old school. What do you mean, he said, Well,
you know, he doesn't use the F word. The other

(37:34):
community city he doesn't use the F word. What does
he use for adjectives? I stick my head around the
corner and I said, adjectives, real, that's right. But but
you know, so I think I think comedy is a
lot meaner now than it was. And I and I'm

(37:55):
sad that the audience really likes that kind of stuff too.
But that's pretty probably the It's easy to write those
kind of things.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
I was about to say, it's a cheaper laugh, though,
isn't it.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Hey, I can do that. I do stags do I've
done stag. I could do a stag gross for the
best of I'm gonna ask you. I I'm all that stuff.
But when I opened for Smokey Robinson, Sammy Davis, r
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin mac Davis, Tony Orlando and Don
Ladys Night, Nipips, Natalie Call. They had family audiences, yeah,

(38:26):
and that was their audience, not mine. I was the opener.
So my responsibility is to get that audience up for them,
not to get the audience angry or to insult him.
So I had to learn the work clean. I had
to work and doing the tonight. So you had to
write material that can make grandma and grandpa, mom and
dad and the kids laugh. Now I can. Here's the difference, Ray,

(38:46):
I can be. There's a difference between being naughty and.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
Dirty right right in your window. Is one thing I
can do naughty, yeah, but the other is yeah, it's easy. Laugh,
it's cheap. I call it low here and sadly, that's
what passes for general comedy today.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
And you know what, cable television came along. Before cable
television in order for you to get on and become
known as a comedian, you'd say, how do I get
on to tonight? So you watch those comedians and you
knew you had to do clean material. Then cable came along,
you'd say whatever you want to say. Now, the problem
is every two years, as a brand new audience. All
these young kids today are going to those comedy clubs

(39:26):
for the first time and they think, oh, that's comedy.
You know, women talking about those women today that Red
Fox would walk out of. And guys, you know, tell
me about how Sinatra came into your orbit and he

(39:47):
loved your material? Why, you know, tell you how it happened. Accidentally.
I'm touring with Smokey Robinson. I'm working in Lake Tahoe
at Caesars. Frank Sinatra's appearing at Harra's next door. Well,
I'd work Herra's men times, you know, And so I'm
went Smoky for one week again, divine intervention. I could
have gone any one of those seven nights over to

(40:08):
see Frank. I don't know why I went that night.
So after my show at Caesar's and they tew, I
bolted out the side door. It did e'n change out
of my stage clothes. There's one casino. I ran past it,
ran into Harris. I'm running into the showroom. The vice
president of Harry's Hotel, Holmes Hendrickson is standing there talking
to a big, heavy set guy with a cigar. As
I'm running into the showroom because I didn't want to
miss Frank's opening. Frank Sinatra created more excitement, as you know,

(40:32):
walking to the microphone than most people did with the
whole act. It was a thrill when he walked out
in that arena and wherever it was, and I didn't
want to miss that, So I'm running to go in there.
And Holmes Henderson saw Henderson saw me. He said, Tommy
kmire reluctantly whenever he said, Tommy, this is Mickey Ruden,
while I recognize a name that was Frank Sinatra's lawyer,
very powerful guy in our business. He said, Mickey, this

(40:54):
is Tom Recent and I think tom would make a
great opening act for Frank Sinatra. And the lawyer got
a pain the expression on his face like you heard
it a million times, and he winked at the Vice president,
but I caught the wink. He said to me, a kid,
if I gave you a week with Frank, would you
want more than fifty thousand? I said, mister Ruden, put
it this way, if you gave me a week with Frank,
would you want more than fifty thousands? He laughed. He said, oh,

(41:17):
I like this kid. They gave me a week with Frank.
At the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City. The second night there,
we went out to dinner. Afterward, Frank and his wife
Barbara took me out to dinner. I can remember like
it was yesterday. Ray. He set his knife in his
fork down. We're sitting just like this, he said, his
knife and his fork down. He said, I like your
material and I like his style. I'd like you to
do a few other dates with me, if you're interested.

(41:40):
And I didn't say, let me check my calendar. I said, yeah, Yes.
Turned into fourteen years, forty five fifty cities a year,
a friendship that I stayed in his home six eight
times a year, toured with them all over it, drove
with him in his car till the sun came up
night after night. I was a Paul bar at his funeral,
and I spoke at his funeral, and I miss him

(42:01):
every day of my life. There was no describing the
excitement of flying in Frank Sinatra's jet all over the
world and walking out in front of fifteen twenty thousand people,
forty thousand in Hawaii, and the challenge that I got
to get this audience up for this guy. He was
so exciting and so challenging, you know.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
He said, you were neighborhood guys.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah too, You don't having a guy from the New
York Times one times, she said to him, he wasn't doing
an interview. We were in a place in New York.
You know, you know Patsy's in New York.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
Oh yeah, sure, his favorite Sinatra's favorite restaurant.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
Yeah, and mine too. And you know, but we a
guy was walking out from The New York Times, and
he walked up and he said to Frank, Hey, Frank,
how come you keep this guy dreasing? Jokingly? How can
you keep this guy dreasing? He said, you mean, besides
the fact that he's funny, And he said, yeah, besides that.
He said, well, if I'm a saloon singer and I am,

(42:54):
then Tommy's a saloon comedian. He said, by that, I
mean we're just a couple of neighborhood guys. And I
never forgot that quote. That's really touching to me because
that's what I am. And when I was alone with
him in the car till dawn and we drove around,
he never went to bed till the sun came up.
He was nocturnal. There were so many nights He wasn't

(43:15):
the great Frank Sinatra, and I wasn't this kid comedian.
We were two guys from a neighborhood. It's kind of
similar neighbors. He had three children, girl boy girl. I
had three children, girl boy girl. You know I'm Catholic,
he's Catholic. I'm half Cecilian. He's half to say, and
you know, the other half is Irish. He used to
tell me. He used to tell me Sicilians, Tommy, we're

(43:37):
talking about getting emotional. He said, Sicilians cry alone, Tommy,
Cicilians don't cry in public. They cry alone. I said, well,
I'm half Irish. He said, Irish cry when they changed
bus drivers. Because at his funeral, I told the joke.
And I knew he wanted me to be funny, and
I told a funny story because I kept thinking, he said,

(43:57):
because I was emotional. I was afraid I was going
to burst into tears. But I remember what he told me,
he said, sayans cry alone.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
You know, m you went to Mass with him? Oh yeah,
and you're and you're a man of fa Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
I mean, well, I go to Mass here too.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Yeah. In the book, you describe h that going to
Mass with Sinatra, and he's.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Making you work at the Saint Francis of CC down
in if you ever go down in the desert, that
church is an exact replica of the Saint Francis Church
in Italy. And Frank Sinatra and his mother, his mother
wanted to build that church, and he did shows and
raised a lot of money to build that church. So
that's when I was down there with him. We'd go
to Mass there on Sundays. But one particular time he says,

(44:44):
there was like twenty house guests, and you know, he said,
all right, we're all going to Mass tomow All the
Catholics had to go to Mass, the Jews and the
Protestants could stay home. There kind of happy about that.
So Frank we go there and we get to church
and Frank said, by the way, we're going to read
the Gospel today. And I said, why are we going
to read the Gospel? He said, because they want lay
people to do that, Tommy. So I told Father blew

(45:05):
with that we read. I said, okay, now I'm getting
the mist because you know, there's a lot of words
in there. You know that I knew I wouldn't and
I'm trying to get my stuff down, and I had
to follow Gregef. First of all, the priest says reading,
we're sitting on the altar, and if he said reading
from today's Gospel will be mister Gregory Peck, mister Roger Moore,
mister Frank Sinatra, and mister Tom Dreeson, and the whole

(45:28):
church began the buzz. Who's Tom? Now? Now I had
all the pressure. Now I got to follow Gregory Peck.
When Gregory Peck reached the gospel, people say didn't he
write this? You know? Thank God? I had to follow,
and I got through it. Now, at the end of
the Mass, ready to go, as you know, the pries

(45:49):
said go. The Master's ended, all right, but he said,
but before you go. Perhaps some of you may have
seen comedian Tom Reeson on the Tonight Show talking about
his Catholic school upbringing. Maybe he'll on us with a joke.
Frank said, get up, tell him a joke. I couldn't ray.
I couldn't think up a joke to tell in church.
I'm going to the pulprat and I'm saying, God, you know, no,

(46:10):
I can't do that one. I can't do that. I'm finny, funny,
I said, many years ago, in a parish in the Midwest,
priest was serving Mass, and he turned around in the
middle of the Mass and he said to the congregation,
I'm the priest in his parish, and I make two
hundred dollars a week, and that's not enough. Moment later
and the bishopmen's out of the sacracy. I'm the bishop

(46:32):
in his diocese, and I make four hundred dollars a week,
and that's not enough. And up in the choir, the
guy playing the organ says, I'm the organist in his diocese,
and I make two thousand dollars a week. And there's
no business like show. And the church cracked up, and
Frank Frank said, funny, let's get good.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
Let's waiting. He always left when at the end of
the night, when you will When he finished New York,
New York took about.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
He left like the bill was on fire.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
There was no waiting in the dressing room or cleaning up.
You had to be ready to roll.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
The limos were waiting right off stage when we got
When we went off stage, they enter the people with us,
esc everybody into that we would shoot to the private jet.
There were many nights we were in the private jet
flying over the venue. People weren't even their cars yet
except toward the inn. Toward the inn. The last couple
of years, he started lingering on the stage longer and

(47:26):
longer because they see everywhere we were going, people were
coming to say goodbye to him. And he picked up
on that. I told him that one night in Salt
Lake City, the audience couldn't get They threw flowers on him,
and they standing ovation after standing ovation. As he was
leaving the arena, they were throwing flowers on him. We
got in the car and the limo, we were rushing

(47:47):
toward the private jet to the airport and he was
staring out the window, just him and I and I said,
great crowd tonight. He goes, yeah, yeah, I said yeah.
He said, I think I think, Tommy, I think they
think they're seeing me for the last time. And once
again he read an audience he knew. And I said
to him, well, yeah, you know, we haven't been here

(48:10):
in a long time, and he said, yeah, but they're
coming to say goodbye to me now. And that's exactly
what they were doing everywhere we were going those like
a couple of years. Omaha, Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska. Wherever we went,
they knew he wasn't coming back there again. And his
fans were coming to say goodbye to him. And people
would say that towards the end, you know, he didn't
sing as good as you. They didn't care. He could

(48:31):
have read the phone book. They wanted to be in
the same room with this living legend.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
You know, it was, I mean, they grew more. Look,
I saw him first when I was maybe I know,
was seventeen years old, and I took my wife to
see him. You know, we went to see him in
Maryland at the Radio City. There was nothing like it,
and it got more emotional as it went on. It
frankly didn't matter whether he was in top voice night
or not. He was. He was the twentieth century when

(48:59):
he walked out there.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Well, first of all, Frank Sinatra, if you were Frank
Sinatra fan, his music was a soundtrack of your life.
You know, you got you and steady when somebody loves you.
It's no good unless you got married to his music.
Love then Mary's you know, you got divorced to his
musices quarter to three, you got remarried the second time around.
His music was a soundtrack of Your Life. And again

(49:23):
in the end, it wasn't for them, it was also
for him. You know, I've seen him days where he
was up in years and you could see he didn't
want to go, and we'd get to the show, you say,
But then when he got on stage and that light
hit him, twenty years would fall off his face and
you know, come fly with me, let's fly away.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
No, it's like his body remembered. Yeah, he would just
go to that place sometimes, song to songs, because one
he did in the fifties, the next one he did
in the seventies. Yeah, you could hear the difference in voice.
It was like he was younger when he sang the
older song. It was very odd watching him live.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
First, when most people have to realize about Frank shanat Worth,
they forget all the time what a brilliant actor he was.
He won the Academy Award, From Here to the Ettornity,
he should have won the Academy Award and The Man
with the Golden Arm. But when you gave Frank Shanatra
a song, it was a script. You know, the words,
you just had him to that later it was a script.
What did the writer feel the night the writer took
pen in hand. He would immerse himself in that lyric

(50:21):
and become that lonely guy in the bar whose woman
left him and he's never going to find love again,
and you felt that and the joy of a song. No,
there's no comparison to him in any other singer. I
don't care who you talk about. And this is what
I brought this for because I thought this would come up.
Bob Dylanman said right from the beginning, he was there
with the truth of things in his voice. He was

(50:43):
one of the very few singers without a mask. I
could hear everything in his voice. Death, God, the universe, everything.
He is the mountain. That's the mountain you have to climb,
even if you only can get part of the way there. Wow,
that's what he said, the singing truth from Bob Dylan.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
Did he warm up before a show.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
He had a thing that he told me. An old
Irish teacher in New York, he's a paying a dollar
an hour when he was a kid, taught him this
vocalize comment, take oh walk with me? He would at
home he would do that. You would take up another
doc comment.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Take oh walk with me and keep going up the scale.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
Sometimes. Bill Miller did have a piano in the stress
room for the show. Go up to scale, Bomb comment,
take a walk with me. Then Bomb comment, take oh,
walk with me. You'd take up the scale, you know.
And that's how he warmed up before the show. Ye.
And the other thing too, is something that I tell
young singers all the time. When he was going to
do a new song, record, all day long, he would

(51:44):
walk the floor and talk that song as a poem.
You will be my music. You will be my song.
When all the songs are out of tune and all
the rhymes rings so untrue, then you you will be
mine music. He would do it as a poem all
day long, and then you go sing.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
It like a monologue. Yeah, why did he wear the tucks?
He told you what. He always wore the tucks.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Every singer that I worked with, I'd say to them
if it was their show, if I was opening act
when a headline, I can wear whatever I want to wear.
But when I was opening he I'd say, how would
you like me to dress? Sammy Davis Junior once said,
I think we should dress at least as good as
those who came to see us. So in Vegas. In
those days, the first show doing a show, shoot and tie.
Second show would be like sport coat. But then as

(52:31):
time has gone by, that doesn't exist. But Frank Sinatra,
we always wore a tuxedo. And I said to him
one time, why do we wear a tuxedo? He said, Tommy,
if we were going to do a show for the
King and the Queen tomorrow, would we wear a tuxedo?
I said, yeah, yeah. He said, well, that garage mechanic
in Detroit and his waitress wife, who work all year

(52:51):
long to buy two tickets to our show, they're just
as much royalty as a king and the queen. And
that's why we were a tuxedo for them too. I said,
oh that every night there's a command performance.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
It had that air of class about it. My grandfather,
who was you know, working now, I'm gonna cry, working
class guy, had his restaurant. He when Sinatra came to
his restaurant two times, when Frank walked in, you would
have thought God himself Moses was coming to the place.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
I mean it was.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
And he said, and the one thing he always said, boy,
he brings such class. He walks in, he's got class,
and it was. He did bring that elegance. There was
an elegance to him which you have in your comedy
as well.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
By the way, that's kind of you, you know. But
the thing that Frank I always say Frank Sinatra wasn't
a saint, but he did some saintly things. There's a
lot of people critics who don't like him, and you'll
see it on the internet now, say he was this
he was at and they always bring up the mob
and all this other kind of stuff. But there was
something about old school about Frank Ray. If we were
sitting at a table and there were like five or

(53:55):
six women, five or six guys were eating and one
of the ladies got up to use the ladies room
down at the end of the table, he'd be talking
to you, but at the corner of his eye he
would rise out of his chair because the lady just
got up, man, And then he'd be continue talking to
you like this, and she would come back, and before
she sat down, he would rise out of his chair
what her to be seated. He had old school type

(54:16):
manners in a lot of ways. And again he was
I mean, he was There was no middle with Frank
Sinata in a lot of ways. If Frank worked, he
worked harder than anybody. And you better know your job
because he knew everybody's job. Nelson Riddle said, Frank was
just another instrument in the orchestra. He blended in with him.
He knew. One time in Caesar's with Nelson Riddle arrangements,

(54:38):
they had all these strings and Frank at rehearsal, stopped
in the middle of a song and said to the
third violinist, you're out of tune. This guy was in
the La Philharmonic, and he said, no, I'm not in
The other guy said, Ray, you are. You know the
guy Harry, And sure enough Frank's ear picked up. And
so when it comes showtime, he worked as hard as anybody.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
I know.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
You want to play, He's said out every night till
six o'clock in the morning. He could play as hard
as anybody know. In the fourteen years I toured with Frank,
I turned down more sitcoms and most comedians get offered
on a lifetime because I knew this was the end
of an era. And also it was it was this
full circle thing. Ten year old boy shinning shoes and
it's not just on the jukebox and now that ten

(55:21):
year old boy Frank's calling him back out to take
another bow. Those are moments.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
You know.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
It's even now when I'm telling you this, I'm getting chows.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
Well the book, the book captures that. Your book captures
so much of that. I was in tears reading parts
of the book because you are commemorating and capturing the
end of that era. I mean, not only this amazing
performer and your your time with him, but your own career.
And tell me about the other, the other great Frank

(55:51):
in your life, your uncle Frank, unless he was much
more than Uncle Frank believes.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Yeah, it was funny. I wrote. My book is called
Still Standing. The subtitle is My Journey from streets and
saloons to the stage and Sinatra. That's a cheap plug
on Amazon.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
It's worth the read.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
And I decided that I had come clean with this story.
There were eight of us kids. I grew up Recan children,
and I didn't look like my brothers and sisters. I
had dark hair, black haron and and you know Frank
Poliicy was my mom's brother in law who owned the

(56:34):
bar that I told you about earlier that I used
to emulate. Tell it jokes and stuff, and I loved him.
He was my favorite uncle. He was just my favorite uncle.
He was a guy. He was a tough guy. He
didn't take anything from anybody anywhere anytime. He ran the bar.
And he had a band called Frank Policity and the Venetianears,
and he sang and my mom would sometimes sing in

(56:54):
the band, and my dad, Walter Trison, played trumpet in
the Brandy and anyhow, and I love the guy Frank Plas.
He's just and he slipped me an extra quarter once
in a while, a half a dollar, but when I
was shining shoes. But anyhow, I looked just like his
two sons. And everywhere I'd go when I was a

(57:15):
little boy, a lot of times people say, hey, Pulisy,
how are you doing. I said, my name is in policy.
My name is Teresan. He's my uncle. Oh and I
think they thought it might be my mom's brother. Anyhow,
long story short. When I'm about fourteen years old, I'm
learning where babies come from. I didn't want to think
that my mom and dad did this little my mom
and my uncle, you know, my mom's brother in law.

(57:37):
And it just tortured me because I didn't know what
to do. I had these thoughts that what if my
mom and him and maybe that's why I look like
my two cousins. Yeah, And one day I went I
wanted to talk to him, and I went for a walk.
When he said, what is I said, I think that
that you're my father? And he got uptight. He said,

(57:59):
why do you think that? I said, because I don't
look like my brothers and sisters and I looked like
down and buzz his kids. He said. He walked for
a little bit and he said, well it's true. He said,
then you can go tell the world, but you'll ruin
your mom and dad's marriage and mine too. And I said,
I don't want to do that. I don't want to

(58:19):
do that. I just needed to know. And anyhow, I
got distant from him after that. I was very uncomfortable
around him. After that, I was like fifteen. I went
in the Navy. At seventeen. After a couple of years
in a navy, I come home and leave. And at
that point I didn't care who planted to seed. I
still love Walter Dreesen. He was my dad. He's always

(58:40):
going to be my dad. And I always called him unk,
but anyhow, we start getting real close and it was
our secret and no one knew. I would not tell anybody,
and that was our secret. And I carried that with
me throughout the years. And finally, you know, Walter Dreason
died and Frank Polizi died. Was that was my mom

(59:01):
and my aunt and they lived together at that time. Ah,
so I wasn't going to ever tell. And then my mom.
Before my mom passed away, I had a long talk
with her. I sat down and she was one of
those Irish Catholics. She had gone to confession and that's
behind her and we don't want to talk about it.
But one night I said to her, Mom, I know,

(59:23):
you know, I know, and Frank knew and he told
me and so forth and so on. But it doesn't matter, Mom,
it doesn't she said, Tommy. Sometimes we do things when
we're young that when we look back over our life,
why we did them, and we're sorry for them. I said,
well it's over now, I said, besides, Mom, had it
not happened, I wouldn't be standing here right now telling

(59:45):
you how much I love you. You know, she's and
we never talked about it again. But on his deathbed,
when Frank Plizzy was dying. I went to the hospital
and everybody was leading and I was left alone with him,
and I said to him, you know we were talking
and he never cried. He was a toughest say it.

(01:00:06):
He said to me, do you have any ill feedings
about us that you want to talk about? I said no.
He said, Tommy, don't hold back just because you know
I'm dying. He said, is there anything you want to
get off your chest? I said no, I have no
ill feedings whatsoever. I said, everything I own, everything I have,
I'm here. So I said, do you have any ill feedings?

(01:00:27):
He said, the only thing I feel bad about was
every time I'd be in a bar somewhere or somewhere
and you were on TV. I couldn't tell people that's
my kid, that's my boy. And I said, well, one
day I'm going to win an award and show business
or something. Because he had sung as a young guy.
I said, and I'll accept that award in your name.
And you did, and he turned his head with tears

(01:00:47):
in his eyes, said, don't tell myself cry. And years
later I received the l Side in the Medal of
Honor award, where he had come to this country when
he was seven years old on Alis sid and you know,
on the USS Italian and I accepted the award in
his name, and.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Yeah, so beautiful, beautiful, tell me to bring the Sinatra
story full circle. Tom. You were with him in Richmond,
Virginia when he falls. It was hot, and it was
it was blazing hot out and I guess it was
what dehydrated, right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
You know, Frank sit up till dawn and then he'd
get up. He see catnapp during the day. He get
up and he had a cup of coffee and comes
to do the show. When I was on stage, I said, man,
it is stuffy in here. I never sweat when I'm
stage unless I'm bombing, but I haven't done that a while.
That never happened. I never sweat on stage. And I
was sitting and I said, man, it's warm in here.
It's really warm in here. And you know when Frank

(01:01:40):
goes out. He was in the middle of my way
and his next song is New York, New York, and
he's going home, but he will never take his coat off,
and he was sweating profusely. He dehydrated. He collapsed. At first,
we thought it was a heart attack, and we rushed
out there and everything, you know, and then and then
he collapsed and a doctor came running up on a stage.
Paramedics came and they're trying to get him out of there.

(01:02:02):
And he wouldn't go.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
You wouldn't stay at the hospital, he said.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
They said, the paramedics couldn't release him. They said, only
the hospital can release you, mister Sinatra. We can't really,
we have to take you there because it's a state law.
They you know, So take him to the hospital. Now,
three doctors, a neurologist, heart specialist, and some other natural doctors.

(01:02:27):
But they all cleared him, and all three now he
wants he's there too long now, and he's getting testy.
And Hen Katano, Frank's road manager, and I are there
in the in the room. Frank's testy. He said, the
jet ready, He said, yeah, the jets ready, he said.
First doctor comes in, mister Sinatra. I checked you out.
You're in real good shape. He said, I would prefer

(01:02:48):
you spend the night here, he said, so that we
can release you in the morning and know that there's
nothing wrong. But it's your call. He said, doctor, thank
you very much. Then the neurologists came in. He said,
mister Snaptra, all the scams came in. You're fine, but
I too would prefer that you spend the night here,
you know, but it's your call. I said, thank you, doctor.
Another third guy, he's doing one of these. Mister Sinatra,

(01:03:10):
I'm paraphraesian, But unlike my two colleagues, my esteem colleagues,
who I have tremendous respect for, I'm not going to
ask you to spend the night here. I'm going to
demand that you spend the night here.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
In the moment you said that, Hanka town, you looked
at me. I looked at me, Oh, this ain't going
this is not going to go well, he's going on,
I graduated second in my class or something like that,
and blah blah blah. And if I would not on
my watch, that something would go wrong with the great
Frank Sinatra. So therefore I insist that you spend the night.

(01:03:42):
And Frank said, that's it. You see, I said, let's
get the hell out of you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
Both.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
That was the release typical of Frank. What did he
teach Tom Drace Sinatra that time with him? What did
he teach you as a man, as a performer.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
As a performer, that party as much as you want,
but don't throw this show away. Don't throw the show away.
That every night is a command performance. That when you
walk out on the stage, you take command. This is
these people paid to see you, and they deserve the
best you got. Even if you're not feeding good. You've
got to go deep inside and come up with the
best you got that night. The second thing that I'll

(01:04:23):
never forget this is Frank Sinatra, arguably the greatest career
show business has ever known, the actor Grammy's Emmy's Oscars.
Never ever, ever, ever in his life was he late.
Never was he ever late for anything, any performance. Anytime
you told him to be there, he was on time.

(01:04:44):
If you told him to be there. If he told
you wheels up at nine o'clock and you showed up
at nine o one, you were watching a plane go
down the runway.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
He was always early, always on time. I learned that
in the military. Fortunately, I went four years in moment
terry before I toured with him, because he was always
on time, always early. So he said to me one time,
if someone tells you to be in their office at
nine o'clock and you show up at nine point fifteen.
You just told them your time is far more important

(01:05:14):
than their time. He said, no one's that important, Tommy.
You know, respect everybody else's time. That's another great lessonself
and his generosity. Raymond, you cannot describe how generous this
man was and did not want you to know, did
not want people to know. And if you witness it,
you better not talk about it, you know, I really

(01:05:35):
we talked one time. He was an avid reader. He
read a book called The Magnificent Obsession as I did too,
by Lloyd C. Douglas. Its predecessor was a book called
Doctor Hudson's Secret Journal. In the book, it is the
secret of success. If you want to become successful, then
what you have to do once you ask your master
I want to be a comedian, or I want to
be a singer, I want to be whatever it is.

(01:05:57):
I want to be an engineer. I want to own
my own restaurant. You pray that you have to really
believe that ask and you shall receive. You have to
rebelieve that your master is going to do that. But
from the moment you make that request, that request, then
from that moment on. You got to keep your eyes
and ears open for his less fortunate children and do

(01:06:17):
something for them without them knowing it. And if you
do that within thirty days, your Master will reward you
towards your endeavor. So if you saw somebody, if somebody
needs them up, and you can help them without them
knowing it, that's how it worked. Now, if you had
to do something for somebody and there's no way they
wouldn't know it, you had to swear them the secrecy.
So I'll do this for you, Raymond, but you must

(01:06:38):
not do this for anyone else. Pay It Forward. That
book was written long before the movie Pay It Forward
came out, and he not only talked that talk, he walked.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
That talk amazing. Tell me about your cancer struggle, which
I was completely unaware of, and how your faith sustained.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
You through that. You know, I had cancer twice and
I beat it both times, and it's it could be
on the horizon again because it keeps reoccurring. But you know,
at one time, the second time I had it, my
daughter and I went over to USC to two experts,
a man and a woman doctor. They're looking at two
big screens. I sat in the office and They're looking there,

(01:07:18):
typing in and whispering each other time and I figured
they're going to put me on chemotherapy or something. And
the doctor turned around. He said to me, mister Dreeson,
go home and put your affairs in order. That was
July twenty eighteen. Wow. And I said. My daughter started
to cry. I said, are you telling me that I'm
going to die? He said yes. I said, how much

(01:07:41):
time do I have? He said, only God knows that.
I said, well, I'm going to ask God for a
second opinion. And I left there. But I you know,
I wasn't panicked.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
You weren't panicked.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Well, no, I thought about death many many times in
the military and before that all your life and planes,
and I thought about death a lot. And and as
you know, growing up Catholic and the altar boy and
all that heaven and.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
Is ever having, Eternity is always in front of you,
all this, you know, And I thought.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
One thing I thought about. I said, I hope when
my time comes. I hope that if I have time,
I'll have the courage, not the whimper and moan and
whine and complain, why me, why me?

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
To accept it? You know?

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
For two reasons. One is because I have a great
I had a great life. All my dreams came true.
I had a tough childhood. It was like it was
like God said, I'm going to put a load on
you for the first half of your life, but if
you survive, the second half is on me. And that's
what happened. So I wanted to have that courage if
I if I was told that I was going to die,
I want to have the courage that I would face

(01:08:45):
it with courage. And also because my children, one day
they're going to die and they're going to watch how
I die. And I wanted to if I could, to
to go out with courage so that my children would say,
one day, when their time comes, I want to go
lot like dad.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
You know so.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
And my daughter was with me at that time. So
but I went back to my home. I called a
good buddy of my name, John Rumo, who used to
write for Jay Leno. He's a researcher. Whatever you say,
you say, you know, I got dandref dandruff.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
You'll find it, You'll figure it out.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
But I called him and I told him this is
what I got, blah blah blah. And I told just
a small body of people, my nephew and his wife,
my my my daughters, and they all became my road
manager and his girlfriend. They became my support team, you know.
And they start researching all over Israel, Germany, everywhere. But

(01:09:33):
they came across two names, two doctors a doctor, doctor
doctor Lowy and San Diego. And there's another doctor doctor
back record and from Washington d C. In my mind
by my nephew got ahold of doctor and DC. He said,
I won't operate on your uncle, he's too old. I
wouldn't operate on a man half his age. He said,

(01:09:54):
it's it's a serious It's a ten hour surgery called
highpek h i PEC, which is where they put you
under and they go in and get all the cancer
out and they flush out that area with hot chemo
and it's four hundred times more effective, not one hundred,
four hundred times more effective while you're under. But so anyhow,
the Clint Eastwood fixed me up with M. D Anderson

(01:10:17):
in Houston, and there was a doctor Curry there research doctor.
I kept talking to him, but I said to one day,
do you know what doctor Lowie? He said, Tom, he
trained here at M d Anderson. You want me to
call him for you? I said yeah. Forty eight hours later,
as busy as doctor Lowie as he took me into
his office, looks over everything, did a pathology on me.
Said I can do the surgery, and he said on

(01:10:40):
this date. I said, could you do it a week
later because I'm playing in the at and t and
the golf tournament. He laughed and he said, yeah, I'll
do it a week later. Ah. And I went in.
There was seven a half an hour surgery. When I
came to, he said, we got it all. You disease free.
I said, Doc, you saved my life. You're a genius.
He said, no, I'm not. I'm stubborn. I said, I'll
take that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
Take stubborn.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
And your faith really carried you well.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
You know, because I believe in the power of prayer.
And I went back to my church and I gave
a sermon at assens In Church on the power of prayer.
Huh when I wanted when I got my first laugh
on show Business the night I was with Tim, I
couldn't sleep that whole night. It was a Friday night.
Saturday morning I got up. I couldn't sleep on night
I got up Saturday morning. I went to church, the
church where I had been an altar boy, and there

(01:11:27):
was no one in church, an empty church, and I prayed.
I got on my hands knees and I prayed. I said, God,
now I know what I want. If you could let
me make my living as a comedian, I'll never ask
for anything else if I could make I didn't want
to become a star or I didn't say any of
that stuff my own series. The thought that you could
make a living making people laugh overwhelmed me. And I said,
if I can make a living making people, I promise

(01:11:48):
I'll do charities, and I'll promise i'll give back. I'm
making all these promises. Well, all those prayers came true.
Everything I prayed for it came through. And he held
you to them, and he helled me to it. Because
I went back to that church and I told the
congregation this story about the cancer. It's listened to me.
I said, how many of you out there, we're ever

(01:12:09):
thinking about someone that you hadn't seen in a long time.
And the phone rang and you pick it and said person,
and you said you won't believe this. I was just
thinking about you or how many times you thinking about
someone You're walking on the street. I haven't seen him
in tweve years. You turn the corner and there's that person.
You're saying, I was just thinking about it, And they said,
you know what, I was thinking about you too. How
many has that ever happened to you? The whole congregation
raised a hand. I said, if we humans can transfer thought,

(01:12:33):
then how much can Supreme Being transfer thought? If we
can transfer thought, and obviously we can. So my prayers,
I know are being heard. They've been heard, you know,
being heard. So you know, when I was going under
in that surgery room, there were three big lights on me,
you know, And I remember reading something that said look

(01:12:54):
for me and I'll be there. I read it in
one of those books about Jesus. It said look for
me and I'll I'll be there. But I was laying
on the operator to have look up and there was
three lights and I went Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
and I went out there. They are, yeah, wow, yeah,
it's just it. Look for me and I'll be there.
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:13:11):
Well, I'm glad you made it and you're here. Why
do you think you're still here?

Speaker 2 (01:13:16):
Tom?

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
And what are you called to? Do in this moment.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
I really believe that, now that all my prayers have
been answered, that I got to motivate other people. I
get motivation talks on four subjects, perception, visualization, self talk,
and develop a sense of humor. I do it for
corporate America. I do it for colleges, high schools. But
I do it for comedians for free. I call it
the joy of stand up comedy and how to get there.

(01:13:42):
I do it at the laugh Factory, at the comedy Store,
at the comedy Chateau. I've done it in New York.
I've done it in Chicago. I've done it in Philadelphia.
And I think that's what I'm here, to inspire and
to make people feel good. I love hearing the sound
of life. I was touring with Sammy Davis Junior and

(01:14:04):
got to Caesar's Palace and just thought, Wow, my prayers
are being answered in five minutes maybe ten. I wrote
this down, and I do it once in a while,
and I say, it's called the sound of laughter. As
far back as I can remember or shortly thereafter, I
love to hear the sound of laughter, whether grown ups
or children. That really didn't matter to me. If I

(01:14:24):
can make people laugh. I was as happy as I
can be. You see, when you make people laugh, they
get such a lift. My mom once told me this
is a god given gift because you'll get so much
love and yet you're still able to give. I knew
I wanted to do this for as long as I live,
so I left my home in Harvey, Illinois to tour
around the country and spread some joy. Success was ahead.
I just didn't know how far or soon. I was

(01:14:46):
broke and sleeping in a car. But I worked and
I prayed, and I planned and I dreamed. There were
times I was alone, or so it seemed. I begged
for jobs everywhere I could, and I bombed a lot
of times. But I started getting good. They laugh one
night in Boston, I'm proud of saying, soon they were
laughing out in La Now, if you're a comedian in
those days and you wanted America to know, you had

(01:15:07):
to get a spot on the Johnny Carson Show, Well
that happened one night, and what a break for me.
Soon my name was on Caesar's Palace Marquee. Well, God's
been with me now and I've gone pretty far. Who knows,
maybe one day I'll become a big star. But if
I don't, it won't matter at all. But leave me
when I tell you, I've had a ball. So now
I wish for everyone what's happened to me to find
the work that you love, because that's really the key.

(01:15:29):
So when I die and go to the hereafter, I'll
miss all of you, my friends, but most of all,
I'll miss the sound of your laughter.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
Wow, it's full circle.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
It is the full circle I wrote. I wrote that
almost in ten minutes. I just it just came to me.

Speaker 1 (01:15:46):
And you know, when you were playing with which, Yeah,
And I went back to my.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
Dressing room one night, and I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
Going to ask you a few questions. I do a
little questionnaire, okay, and these are rapid fire, take your time, Okay.
The person you most admire Tom is home.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
You know my dream would have been that the person
I most admire was me, but I never lived up
to that. Wow, that's really really the person I most admire.

Speaker 1 (01:16:17):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
I know this is going to sound hokey to a
lot of people, but even as a little boy, I
wanted to talk to Jesus. I just wanted. I can't
believe that this guy at age thirty He only preached
three years, he only left, He never left, He never
went to thirty five miles outside of his own town.
And what he did this incredible thing, I mean, and

(01:16:44):
I mean I wanted to ask him so many questions,
you know, And and I admired the courage that he
went to the cross, the courage, the beatings, the ridicule,
the spitting on him, and that life changed the life
of so many. So so yeah, I would have to

(01:17:04):
have to go there.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
What is your best feature? Keep it clean?

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
Tom I think I think it's always that that I
really do like people, and I really do like making
them laugh. You know. All the time I had the cancer,
I never told anybody at my country club. I never
told anybody there because every time I walk in that, hey,
here's Tommy, what's the new joke? Tell us the new

(01:17:32):
latest SKA. I didn't want people looking at me with
puppy eyes and how you doing? Is it okay? You're
going to be fine?

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
Words.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
But so I think it's that that that I really
do enjoy people, and I enjoy being around them, entertaining them.
And I'll tell you, Raymond, I could be feeling if
I was home for a few days. I'm a bachelor.
You know, I'm divorced, my X ray passed away. But
if i'm if I'm at home for a couple of
days and maybe I'm not feeling good for some reason,

(01:18:00):
but if I go out and all of a sudden
with some people, I feel good. I'm a people person.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
What's your worst feature?

Speaker 2 (01:18:07):
My temper on the golf course.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
Only on the golf course.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
Yeah, well, Irish Italian, there's a war going on inside
of me.

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
I know that I recognize that war, but believe me personally.

Speaker 2 (01:18:20):
Irish guy says, I don't get mad at I'm buy
him a drinking. The Italian guy said, buy him a
drink and then beat the.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Hell out your greatest regret.

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
Wow, that's a good question. My greatest regret. My greatest
regret is that when I went through a divorce, I
wish I would have done it better. I wish I
would have Frank Sinatra told me when I was going
to my divorce. He said, I went into Vegas. We're

(01:18:49):
working at the MGM Grand He said, hey, you're bringing
the wife with you. I said, no, Frank, we're getting
a divorce. And he said, oh, Tommy, I can't give
you any advice on marriage, but I can give you
advice I was on divorce. He said, stay friends with her,
not for you, but not for her, but for the children.
Stay friends with her. And I and I didn't. We

(01:19:12):
had a bitter divorce. We later talked for a little while,
and then we did. And I carry this to my
grave and I say a prayer for her every night
because I wish I without her, I wouldn't have had
my children, my grandchildren, my great grandchildren. I wish I
would have been friendly with her. That's my greatest regret,
and I feel real bad about that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:31):
Wow, what's the greatest piece of advice you ever got?

Speaker 2 (01:19:36):
The greatest advice I ever got was probably from the
books I read, literally hundreds of books on the powers
of the mind. But that this is your universe, and
you're in charge of this universe. This is your universe.
That you don't have to you are careful what you
put in here, So be careful what you put in here.
Negative thoughts are dirt. You don't have to they'll flow

(01:19:59):
into your mind. You don't have to let them flourish,
you know, So you are in control of this universe
of what goes in here and what goes in here?
When I'm giving the motivation talks I talk to I
take a glass of water and I pour dirt in it,
and I stir it up, and I say, drink this.
Somebody drink this, and they won't. I said, you won't
put filth in here? Why would you put filth in here?

(01:20:19):
If you won't drink dirt, why would you think dirt.
You can get negative thoughts out of your mind and
replace them what positive thoughts. That's that's great advice because
it shows you that this is the universe you've been
given and you're in charge of it. You really are.
You have more power. You are far more powerful than
you realize.

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
If you could not do what you're doing now, entertaining people,
making them laugh, bringing them joy, what would you do.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
Well if I couldn't do that, I probably you know,
I've probably maybe been a writer.

Speaker 1 (01:20:57):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
I really like the military saved my life in a
lot of ways. I was a raggedy kid. I went
in the military the first time in my life. I
had three squares a day, first time in my life.
I was equal to everybody. They shaved all of our
heads and we all had the same clothes on. I'd
been a raggedy poor kid. I really love America. I've
been around the world. I love this country. It is

(01:21:20):
the greatest country. And the people that put us into
this position, those people who founded this country, who wrote
that constitution, those are brilliant human beings. The men and
women who died, you know, in World War Two, that
if we lost that word. You want to argue with
me about wars, you can argue about everywhere you want,
you can argue with about World War Two, that if

(01:21:41):
we lost that word, there's no doubt what Hitler had
in mind for us, no doubt what Tojo had in
mind for us. Those men and women, the women that
went to work and went and went to war in
the minile that they were heroes to me. You know
that again, I think, I just love this country. I
wish I maybe I would like to have been a
politician that would in a way, it's kind of one

(01:22:05):
who was a really who really believed in the Constitution,
We believed in the Prince of You know, Harry Truman
once said, show me a politician who comes out of
office with more money than he went in with, and
I'll show you a crook. We got a lot of
them today and they're all coming out with more money.
There's a long answers.

Speaker 1 (01:22:25):
No, it's a good answer. And Tom, I have to
tell you what a joy to spend time with you.
I have been the beneficiary of your talent and your
gifts to us for so many years, and to spend
this time with you has just been an honor for me.
I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
But whenever I do these interviews, I always think that, Wow,
we did an hour and a half and you know,
watch it and be like twelve minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:22:47):
No, I'm going to give you the hour you deserve it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):
Thank you, God, bless you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:22:53):
All Right, here's the whole of all the people I
get to interview. I have to admit you probably already
know I love entertainers most because they care about the audience,
they care about their craft. And Tom Dreesen is not
only hilarious, but you see what kind of heart he has.
I knew a lot about Frank Sinatra. I saw him
thirty times in concert, I met him. I am just

(01:23:15):
about everything he recorded, even some things that aren't released,
and I've read a ton of books about him. But
I had never heard those two lessons of Sinatra that
Tom shared today. His deep respect for the audience, which
even touched the way he dressed, and his cared to
hit the mark on time, and never throw a show away.

(01:23:36):
Never throw a show away. I encounter so many people
who phone it in and just do the minimum. The
greats never do that. They never throw a show away.
I want to thank Tom Dreesen for his gift of
healing laughter. Boy do we need it today. What a
great talent he is and a great interview. I hope
you'll come back to a royal Grande soon. Why live

(01:23:57):
a dry, constricted life when if you fill it with
good things, it can flow into a broad, thriving Arroyo Grande.
I'm Raymond Arroyo. Make sure you subscribe and like this episode.
Thanks for diving in. See you next time. Arroyo Grande
is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is available
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts

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Raymond Arroyo

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Tom Dreesen: What Frank Sinatra Taught Me About Life, Faith… and Real Friendship