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Still making a great impression
By Len Butcher
In a world and city that keeps rapidly changing, where the new replaces the old at an alarming rate, it's nice to see that some things -- and people -- still remain and are as good as they ever were. One of them is Rich Little, the king of impersonators who still reigns as you can see each week at the Golden Nugget downtown.
Little is as busy as he ever was, touring the country, playing clubs, casinos, concert halls and universities, but this Las Vegan loves to perform in his adopted city. I sat down with him at his home recently to talk shop.
At first, I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven, especially when I began swapping stories with George Burns, Groucho Marx, Jimmy Stewart and Presidents Reagan, Carter and Nixon. I soon returned to reality once I realized that all those voices were coming from one man -- Rich Little -- who for the past 40 years has been the country's, if not the world's, greatest impressionist.
He was relaxing for a few days before returning December 27 to his Golden Nugget gig, where he performs Thursdays through Sundays at 7 p.m.
Little says he works on his act constantly, usually from his patio. "I read through old material, read newspapers, look through joke books. If you get three pretty good jokes out of a whole book you're doing well. It's very hard to write really good comedy."
As a longtime performer and resident of Las Vegas, Little is awed by the city's entertainment history. "It's incredible the people who have worked in Las Vegas over the years, people like Ronald Reagan, Marlene Dietrich and Bela Lugosi, who apparently worked downtown. Of course he could only do the show very late at night." he says laughing. "What a history."
He calls himself lucky for his break into stardom. "I came along when there were lots of variety shows -- even I had one. I was lucky because I got hot after I did the Judy Garland Show. I was new, different and did unusual voices. After that, I would do a different variety show almost every week. If a comic today is working in Vegas and wants international recognition, where does he show America his craft?
"If he's lucky, he might get on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno or Letterman or maybe on cable, or if he's really lucky, on Saturday Night Live. Even Danny Gans, as great as he is, is hardly known outside of Las Vegas."
Little is quick to praise other impersonators as well. "I've worked with some great ones, like Kathy Walker, who is phenomenal. I wish she was seen more, because of all the female impersonators, she's the best. There's hardly anyone she can't do. Then there's Bob Anderson, the best singing impersonator I've ever heard. Gordie Brown is another very talented guy, but isn't very well known outside of Vegas. He's also from my hometown of Ottawa."
As he gets older, Little says it's harder to come up with new people, "because if you want to keep on top of things one should be doing Ben Affleck and Tom Cruise, but how do you do that? How do you imitate, for instance, Val Kilmer, and would you want to?
"Very few actors today have distinctive voices. The ones that do have distinctive voices, like Dustin Hoffman or Tom Hanks, it's when they play a part. If you're going to do Hoffman, you'd do the voice he did as an autistic in Rain Man, and with Hanks, it would be Forrest Gump.
He says it's also much tougher to get work as you get older. "It's tougher to get on television -- almost impossible. And people don't understand that. I have people come to my show and say, 'You're my favorite. It's so good to see you again. Why aren't you on TV?' The problem is that everything is so youth-oriented today. The producers and directors are in their 20s so they may have heard your name, but have no idea what you do. They want young people on their shows, but they fail to realize that the best comedians, at least in my opinion, are the older ones, who have the experience and who have spent a lifetime perfecting their craft -- people like Don Rickles, who still performs here. I suppose if I did a lot of younger voices, I'd bring in more young people to my performances, but I'm not about to do that at this stage of the game."
Longevity has always been the measure of success in entertainment, and Little's career has spanned some 40 years. One of the reasons for that, aside from his talent, is that he has been able to adapt to different environments, not limiting himself to clubs.
He is also turning his talents to writing a much-delayed book on his career called People I Have Known And Been. "It will be full of great stories and a lot of them on President Reagan. I could write a book on just him. He was such a fascinating person and not what you'd expect. Here's a guy who was president of the United States telling joke after joke, funny story after funny story, and getting such a kick out of everything."
He gives an example by recalling an incident that happened one day when Reagan was talking to the press and Little was by his side. "All of sudden he just walks away, saying 'Rich, you do me better than I do, finish this. I'm hungry and going for a sandwich.' Then he'd stop just inside the door to listen to what I had to say. And every time I said something funny, he'd lean out and give me the V sign."
Or, "We'd be at the White House and I'd say something that would break him up. He'd say, 'Go over to Nancy,' who was standing with Merv Griffin, 'and tell them. That's hysterical.' So I'd go over to Nancy and Merv and interrupt their conversation to tell them the story and he'd come around and listen like a little kid and start laughing again. Then he'd say, 'Would you mind if I used that in some of my addresses?' He loved humor and he would do impressions for me.
"One day when we were talking, he did a great impression of Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, but then he did Truman Capote and it absolutely floored me. Then he looked at me and said, 'What do you think, should I open the State of the Union speech with my Truman Capote? Might be a little much though, don't you think?' He was hilarious."
Little remembers another time when he had been invited to the White House for a dinner honoring some foreign dignitary. "Everyone in the dining room was waiting for the President and he'd be out in the hallway telling me a story.
"Nancy came to get him and he said, 'I'm telling Rich about the time Errol Flynn wouldn't come over the hill when we were doing Desperate Journey. And she'd say, 'Oh, Ronnie, that's a long story.' And he'd tell her, 'I'll cut it short,' but 10 minutes later he'd still be talking and she'd have to come out and drag him in to the dinner.
"He was a wonderful, wonderful man and they were a wonderful couple. There are just so many stories to tell and incredible memories. I've been very fortunate throughout my life and I'm still enjoying every minute of it."
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