Bobby Rydell started doing Red Skelton impressions at seven and became the only guest ever to imitate a Skelton character on Skelton's own show. He worked with Jerry Lewis in Atlantic City, where Lewis directed him to move the orchestra conductor mid-performance to keep the audience's attention.
You mentioned the impressions.
What—
and I'm probably not going to know any of these people. Scary might know some of these people. Oh, who were you doing at 7 years old? What impressions were you doing?
I was doing, uh, Red Skelton. Oh, oh, cool. I was doing Jerry Lewis. Uh, you know, a matter of fact, Jerry and I worked together, and, you know, we were friends. Uh, it goes back quite a while. You know, and Jerry was, "I'm not lying, Dolly." I remember when I worked with him at Resorts in Atlantic City, and opening night I come downstairs to my dressing room and I cannot find my bow tie. So I go to Jerry and I said, "Excuse me, Jerry, I seem to have misplaced my bow tie." 'You possibly have one that I can borrow?' He says, 'Does it look like this?' It was my bow tie. I remember at rehearsal, I remember rehearsal, and we had a full orchestra, and I recorded an album, and one of the songs that I did in the show was 'Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.' So it just starts off with piano and voice, you know. She's a fool and don't I know it, but a fool has many charms. And then we get into the song and it's strings and I'm wild again. And Jerry's in the audience and he hollers, hold it, hold it and wait. Now I think I'm doing a good job on it, and he says, Bobby, your conductor is in your light. Everybody's going to be looking at him. They're not going to be paying attention to you. Move them. So we threw I brought him all the way over to stage left to conduct the orchestra because he was right. You know, he's doing all of this behind me conducting the orchestra. Everybody's eyes are going to be looking at him.
Okay, now thinking back to the times when you did all these shows and these are historic, monumental to me because I grew up watching all these guys on TV. Who was the— your favorite show host? Who was the favorite show that you really looked forward to going to and it was really, really rewarding for you? Who was the guy or the show host that you, you like to go to?
Without a doubt, uh, Scary Guy, it was Red Skelton. Oh wow. Um, I remember, uh, I was sitting in the audience at rehearsal And his producer, a guy by the name of Cecil Barker, came up to me. Like I said earlier, he said, I understand you do one of Red's characters. And I said, yes, I do Clem Kiddiddlehopper. He says, can I hear it? And I started going, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. Now Red was to my left, uh, sitting in the audience, and he was rehearsing with the David Rose Orchestra. And he overheard me doing Clem, and he came back at me, "Blue didoo doo didoo doo doo doo." And like I said, I was the only guest on Mr. Skelton's show to imitate one of his characters. He was Clem, I was Zeke. And he was special. He was really special. He took me, he flew me to his home in Palm Springs. Me and my manager at the time, Frankie Day, and his wife, who Red would call Little Red— she called him Big Red— she says, Bobby, I can count on one hand the number of people Red has invited out to his house. I was very, very close to him, and I did something like 12 shows with him. Oh, so he was the guy. Yeah, he was the guy.
Now, when you did a concert, did you ever do a warm-up concert or warm-up, like a warm-up band concert thing for, um, Sinatra?
No, I, uh, you know, when I first met him at the Copa, I was 19 years old, and he was sitting at a table with Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen, two marvelous lyricist-songwriters, Richard Conte, Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees, and Sinatra. So Jules Fadel, who was like the boss of the Copa, and he talked like this— Jules, I get ready to get it. So we walk over to the set, the, the, the table, and Jules Fadel says, Frank, I want you to meet the kid. And Sinatra stood up with those blue eyes, he put out his hands, shook my hand, and he said, how you doing, Robert? Called me Robert. I said, fine, Mr. Sinatra, how are you? He says, I'm Just wonderful. Would you care to join us? Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen, Richard Conte, Joe DiMaggio, and Sinatra. I said, it'd be my pleasure, Mr. S. I sat down. I was in awe. I didn't say two words. I was in awe. I was dumbstruck. Sinatra turned to me, couple of minutes, and he said, what do you drink, Robert? And I said Coke. I think if I said Scotch and water, I'd get smacked in the face, you know. But he was wonderful. I mean, he took pictures with my manager, my dad. I've got one with him that's precious. He's got, I think, his left arm around me, under his right arm. He has my album, Ride de la Tacopa, and he signs it, "To Bobby, best always, your friend Frank Sinatra." Oh, that's so cool. Oh yeah, very cool.
