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A Picklepuss Called Rickles
Acerbic comedian claims the endless insults are all in fun
by Randy Cordova
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
© Pittsburgh Post-Gazette April 4, 1996, Thursday
Don Rickles can find irony even in one of his biggest successes. Take his work as Mr. Potato Head in last year's smash ''Toy Story.'' ''I built up a whole career over years and years, just to wind up a busted toy on the floor?'' he asks, on the phone from his Beverly Hills home. ''That's the breaks.'' Thanks to the computer-animated epic, audiences too young to enter a Las Vegas showroom can identify the acerbic comic - at least his voice.
''Now, when I go backstage after a show, kids will give me big, blow-up shots of Mr. Potato Head,'' Rickles says. ''Now, if only Disney would part with a little money. I'm telling you, you work for Disney, you get an 8-by-10 of Mickey Mouse.''
Disney is only the latest target of the veteran funnyman, who is enjoying a resurgence of popularity. The one-two punch of ''Toy Story'' and Martin Scorsese's ''Casino'' has given Rickles the visibility most comics would kill for. And all this a few weeks shy of his 70th birthday. ''I'm not thinking about retirement, not at this point,'' he says. ''But I'm not going to be way up there in age, still doing this. I'll know when the time comes. I'm not the kind of guy who gets up every morning and says, 'Show business is my life!' ''
It may not be his life, but the comic has devoted 50 years to the business. He graduated from the American Academy of the Dramatic Arts in New York, taking classes with such actors as Anne Bancroft and Jason Robards. ''They knew I could act,'' he says. ''But the thing for me that made the money was doing the jokes, being the insulting guy. So that's what I did.'' And he did it embarrassingly well.
This is the man who once greeted Johnny Carson on ''The Tonight Show'' with ''Hello, dummy.'' The man who pointed out Frank Sinatra in a packed Hollywood nightclub, saying, ''Make yourself at home, Frank. Hit someone.''
To Rickles, it's all been in fun.''Insult to me is something that's out to hurt someone,'' he insists. ''I don't want to hurt anyone.''Still, it takes the brave of heart to sit in the front row while Rickles is onstage. Someone who doesn't mind a little public humiliation, for example. ''I think the majority of the people who come to see me know what to expect,'' he says. ''They certainly don't expect to see Lawrence Welk - plus, he's dead - but they know what Don Rickles does. They're in for a couple of shots at them.''
His biting, in-your-face style is reflected in some of today's comic personalities, including Howard Stern and Andrew Dice Clay. ''They cross the line. They took a flavor of Don Rickles, and then they cross the line. Whatever they do, more power to them, but it's not what I do. ''My claim to fame is that I'm different. I've always prided myself in being a different kind of guy as a performer. That's the only thing that keeps my success going.''
Copyright Pittsburgh Post-Gazette April 4, 1996, Thursday
