Elliot Norton Did he tell you anything about, what I as thinking about was the background. When you played in the Odd Couple, uh, you were playing, or were you playing one of the people that he knows? His brother is one of the characters in that play, isn't he?
05:00Art Carney (crosstalk) Yeah.
Elliot Norton Isn't that based on?
Art Carney He and Danny, yeah, his brother Danny.
Elliot Norton (crosstalk) Oh.
05:05Art Carney Uh, Neil...
Elliot Norton (crosstalk) Well, is Danny the part you played, the Felix Unger?
Art Carney (crosstalk) The lint-picker? The Felix Unger?I thi-, I don't know Danny too well. I would, I would think that, knowing Neil better than Danny, I would think that Neil would be, uh, now, I'm not quite sure, Elliot, whether it was, uh, whether he wrote the play about he and his brother, or it was his brother and another fellow, or Neil and another fella. I'm not quite sure about that. Uh, but of Neil and Danny, I would say, uh, Neil would be more the Felix Unger type.
05:35Elliot Norton Mm-hm.
Art Carney But Neil told me that when he did write the play, and after it got through with it, that he, that he did definitely have me in mind to do, to play Felix Unger.
05:45Elliot Norton Oh, really?
Art Carney Which, uh, pleased me and flattered me very much. Cuz, uh, I'd known Neil for a while, and, uh, he just, uh, he had seen me do several characters and things on the Gleason Show. I wasn't always the store-worker. We did various characterizations, and one of the characters in the Gleason Show was the fella at the lunch counter, Charlie Bratton, the loud-mouth, played by Gleason, and Clem Finch, the timid soul. And I think, maybe it was seeing me do that, uh, meek, timid sort of a fellow that gave Neil the idea that I'd be right for Felix, you know. Cuz I'm a lint-picker any-, anyway. I'm...
06:20Elliot Norton (crosstalk) Are you?
Art Carney You ea-. you saw me eatin' the sandwich in
there, and the potato chip fi-, I'm the kind of a fellow that after
you're through with the meal, and I'm like my mother, I go like this with the bread crumbs, you know. Which was Felix Unger.
06:30Elliot Norton Well, does, uh, has Neil Simon that close in, uh, following actors? I mean, is he that shrewd? Does he watching, in addition to writing plays, is he watching actors and thinking about them for parts? I mean, does he tend to cast plays as well as write them?
06:50Art Carney Yea. I, he has a lot, uh, a lot to do with the casting. Cuz when we were in the Odd Couple, uh, which was, as you know, directed by Mike Nichols, we, uh, rehearsed in New York for about three weeks, then we went out on the road. And, uh, Neil and Mike, constantly were, uh, working together. And Neilattended practically all rehearsals.
07:10Elliot Norton Mm-hm.
Art Carney And then he'd haul himself up at night and make changes, and, uh, we were floundering around in Wilmington, Delaware for an end to the play. And we had meet-, uh, I threw in things, uh, one night to, off the top of my head to see if we could search for an ending to the play. And, of course, as we were talkin' a little while ago up here with you, the two Pigeon sisters, the, those wonderful British gals, how you miss them an everything, and, uh, we brought them, Neil and, uh, and you and Mike (laughs) brought them back into the play.
07:45Elliot Norton Yeah.
Art Carney All for the better, too.
Elliot Norton Oh, yeah. That helped out a good deal, and it helped you, the character,
07:50Art Carney Oh, yeah.
Elliot Norton Felix Unger, comes out a whole lot better when the Pigeon sisters take him over in that particular part.
07:55Art Carney (crosstalk) That's right. That's, that's his victory over his, uh, loudmouth roommate.
---
and everything I have been saying thoughts that comes outta this fella's head. Neil Simon, nobody else, cuz he works alone. And I've known the fella for a long time. I know he's a sensitive, kind, uh, funny man. As I said before, the, uh, the things that happen in, in these two plays, I'm usingOdd Couple and Prisoner, are not funny at all.
09:55Elliot Norton No.
Art Carney You know, I mean, the, uh, the Odd Couple, two fellas thrown together, and unhappy marriages, and divorce, and everything, and goin' through hell. It's, uh, it was a sad situation, particularly for Felix.
---
Art Carney Because, uh, Neil Simon, uh, his writing is so, the only word I can think of is human. It is real, and Mike Nichols direction is so honest. In other words, he would always say to me, uh, and the other actor, "Don't worry about that laugh. Don't punch that line. You don't have to punch a line of Neil Simon's. It's there. You don't punch it to get that laugh." That, and Mike always said, this is difficult, "Try not to compare audiences." Andactors are human beings, right? Which you said in a column, (laughs) not log ago about me and my problems. That actors have problems, and so forth, and they get over them, and sometimes they don't. So, anyway, uh, it's very difficult for actors or actresses to, uh, to stop comparing audiences. Cuz when you have a house like you did last night, for example, and tonight maybe it won't be that, that strong, uh, you gotta numb yourself. And it's discipline, I guess, is the word. Just say, "Well, maybe they did enjoy it just as much." Or the Wednesday and Saturday matinee sometimes, in Chicago, they would be very quiet. And I'd say, "Well now just, you know, they might be enjoying it. Maybe there's not as many audible laughers out there." And at the end of that, that curtain call they were whooping itup, and, and you'd say something mean to yourself like, "Where were you when I needed you?" You know? But they loved it, you know.
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