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Shecky Green Interview

Shecky Green appeared on the Charles Grodin Show on CNBC TV in Fall of 1995. "Combat!" fan Jill Pochek provides the following transcript of his discussion about "Combat!" from that interview.

GRODIN:

You were in the show "Combat!", the television series for nine weeks.

GREEN:

Yeah, nine weeks. And the only reason I quit the show was because I was working in Vegas at that time and I was making a lot of money in Vegas and I was living in Beverly Hills and, uh, I had to pay for Beverly Hills, living in Beverly Hills. So, working on "Combat!" was not paying enough to pay the bills.

But, we're in the backlot of MGM one time when Vic Morrow ... I'll never forget, Kennedy, uh...

GRODIN:

George?

GREEN:

No, I think it was Tom Kennedy...was the director [editor's note: the director of this episode was Burt Kennedy] and he said to Vic, he said, "you want to do that scene over?" And it was about 110 with the eucalyptus smell in the backlot of MGM and we had all the extras goin' "well, let's get off this bus", ya know, and that was soldiers in the army. So, anyway, he says to Vic, he says "you want to do the shot over?" And Vic, who was a method actor, it took him 20 minutes to answer yes.

So, the scene was a guy gets on and we had just lost our BAR man, he was killed, and the new kid comes on and Vic says to the kid, "Your name?" and the kid says "Peterson" and then he remembers he didn't know the other guy's name and he says "did you have a first name, Peterson?" and he says "Alfred, sir"

Well, they did that 20 times and finally I said, there's an expression in Arabic, and I threw everything down and ran. I says that's the end of it. I went to Selig Seligman, the producer and I says "Selig, I quit." He said "you can't quit 'cause the whole show's around you and I'm going to get you your own show with ABC." ABC was nothing at the time, it was just "AB", it didn't even have the "C". And, I said I really don't want television 'cause this is not for me, I'm not making direct contact. Not even with the director. He let him do it 20 times and I didn't get a chance to do it.

GRODIN:

The repetition, the heat...

GREEN:

Uh, and that smell of eucalyptus. How many times can your nose clear up? You know.

Then Charles Grodin brings up the fact that Shecky was making $150,000 a week in Vegas at the time when $150,000 per week "really meant something"...