Night Train! ep 3
Italian-American comedian Pat Cooper
Coming atcha! Billy Eye interviews one of the most memorable Seinfeld guest stars of all time legendary Las Vegas, TV, and movie comic Pat Cooper.
Special 'Edge of Night' edition because, let's face it, we're living in a bad 1970s soap opera... Night Train!
Pat Cooper on Dean Martin: My relationship with him, little as it was, was, you know, "Hiya doin' kid." I was always a kid. You know, "Hiya kid." I never got close I finished my show I closed the door and went home. I didn't want to hang out with any of these people, not because I was a prude. When you close the butcher shop you go home! A lot of these kids want to hang out with Dean and Frank and Jerry...
With all due respect to Dean Martin, he was not the biggest tipper. He came across very macho. I mean, Sinatra was a very big tipper and I think Sinatra's more down to earth than Dean. Dean you could not get close to, he did not want anybody too close to him.
He would play golf with you two or three months and the get ridda ya.' I'm not being fresh, I'm tellin' ya' a fact, he was very cold to people. No one knew his business, a loner.
Pat Cooper on Las Vegas and Frank Sinatra: I played everything in Vegas. Everything. I played the Riviera, I played the Caesar's, I played the Flamingo, I played the Sahara, I played them all. At that time Caesar's was the best. The Sands started to collapse when that guy hit Frank Sinatra. And Frank quit the Sands and went to Caesar's and he brought all his people over to Caesar's and it hurt the Sands.
When I went downtown after working with Sinatra they would make fun of me. "How can you leave Sinatra and go downtown with Joe Williams?" I go, "because when I work with Sinatra I get a thousand dollars. I work with Joe Williams I get five thousand dollars."
They all made fun of me. A few years later Frank goes downtown to Caesar's - all these assholes went downtown because Frank went downtown. You know what I'm sayin'? I went downtown when it was not "the thing to do."
Now all you big mouths are going downtown because Frank went. If Frank went to a shit barrel youse'd all follow him. All of them went downtown because Frank's there.
[1950-1980s] was the greatest era musically and talent wise since the twenties. If I had to be born again I'd want to live in that era again. You don't need a circus show to entertain people. And the proof of the pudding is a Frank Sinatra.
