Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Looking for Shecky

LAS VEGAS, January 12, 2010--I noticed in the local paper that Shecky Greene was in town. Three shows over the weekend at the South Point hotel-casino. "Shecky Greene?" my wife Pat said. "I thought he was dead." I said, "The horse is dead, the comedian's still alive."

On the radio in New York, Mark Simone used to have a feature that he called "Dead or Alive." He'd throw out the name of a fading celebrity, someone who had left the mainstream, and listeners would be invited to call in and guess whether the person was still with us or in Boot Hill. If the people calling in were correct, they'd be asked to submit another name, and the game would continue, with Simone himself guessing along with the listeners. This falderol would go back and forth for about 10 minutes daily. There were no researchers to verify the answers, so invariably someone's publicist would call Simone the next day and say something like, "You got it wrong. Elisha Cook Jr.'s still alive. I know. I work for him."

In the middle of playing music, Simone would back-announce a song, then solemnly say, "Dead or Alive. . . coming up in five minutes." Anyway, if Simone were still playing the game, my wife would have been wrong on Shecky Greene. My guess is that a lot of people would have been.

I called the South Point for tickets and was told that Shecky was sold out for all three performances. That's staying power. Now 82, Shecky can still draw a crowd, as he did in an earlier Las Vegas era, when places like the Tropicana Hotel, the New Frontier and the Sands were big. When Shecky had long runs at the Tropicana, and was making about $150,000 a week, the hotel gave him the option of taking straight salary or five points of the hotel's overall take. Greene, thinking the money you could feel in your pocket was better, went for a salary deal, and cost himself millions.

My wife wanted to see the rubber-faced Shecky in his Las Vegas revival because she's always thought he was funny. I wanted to see him because he might tell a few jokes about Shecky Greene the horse, and they'd help me fill up a column. Shecky Greene the quadruped was built for six furlongs, and had no business in the 1973 Kentucky Derby, as a warmup act for Secretariat. Shecky Greene kept the lead until the quarter pole, when Sham passed him, and then Secretariat ran both of them into the ground. Shecky Greene, who finished sixth, went back to sprinting, won an Eclipse Award and had several successful years at stud.

Every time Shecky Green ran, headline writers felt challenged. "Shecky Green's Owner Says Derby Is No Joke," came one effort a few days before the Derby. "Shecky Green Has His Act Together," was another effort after the colt won the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park.

Shecky the comic also cost himself money on account of the horse. Joe Kellman, who named many of his horses after comedians (Buddy Hackett, Phil Foster, Pat Henry), wanted to give Greene a 10 per cent interest in Shecky Greene, but they got into an argument over the particulars and I can't recall that the comic even went to Louisville for Shecky Greene's Derby. Not that Greene was a stranger to a race track. "For much of my life," he's said, "daily doubles and Jack Daniel's have been big obstacles."

Kellman, who was 90 when he died on his birthday the other day, was bitter when his limited partnership with Shecky Greene didn't happen. "It was like offering a guy a free suit, and he wanted an overcoat, too," Kellman once said.

Greene might not have had a piece of the horse, but making references to Shecky Greene during his topical routine was too good to pass up. "It's a good thing they didn't give the horse my real name," he'd say. "I can't imagine rooting for a horse called Sheldon Greenfield."

It was P.G. Johnson, the trainer, who got Chicagoan Kellman into the horse game. Johnson suggested that Kellman claim an undistinguished filly called Lester's Pride for $10,000. Kellman split the tab with his dentist, who later sold back his 50 per cent. Lester's Pride was not an inspiration, winning only three of 19 starts and earning less than what Kellman and the dentist paid, but she became the dam of Shecky Greene and dropped two other stakes winners.

"I'm not like a lot of these guys, who invested a lot of money and spent a lot of time before they had a good horse," Kellman once said. "I got into racing for peanuts, and I'll always know that I had a real runner."

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