Slot machines, T-Birds, tv doctors and 48.5 years of success. Actor Barry Pearl, Doody from Grease

SPEAKER_01 0:03

I love it. Scotch. Scotch. Scotch. Yep.

unknown 0:07

Scotch.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

I have another whiskey. If you'd like to speak to me first. If you'd like to order it.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

I had a tool in the cloud that was like, tell me how to do it first. And I was like, I will not do that. You do it quite fair. how you want to drink lymphotic.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Wear a cowboy hat in Los Angeles and look at the amount of looks you get. Yeah. It's unbelievable. This is the most flamboyant city on earth. You wear a cowboy hat, people look at you like you are like an alien. The Beatles came on and they might pick me up on the George. George. Oh wait, George, anyway. And that was the first I have a came to be whiskey. Well we can. Yeah, let's do it. Welcome back to United States of Dramerica. And I'm very excited to have on the show a young man. Well, I see. Not as young as he used to be, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Aren't we all not as young as we used to be?

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Who I recently met, and I'm very excited to have on the show. You may know him as Barry Pearl. uh but you may s you may remember him as Doody from Greece from forty eight and a half years ago. Yeah, just about, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Actually. So uh welcome to the podcast, Barry.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Well, it's nice to be here. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

So I was about to we normally start asking what's in your glass, but actually, I'm gonna ask how many you how many podcasts or interviews do you think you've done in your professional career at ballpark?

SPEAKER_01 1:51

I I I have never contemplated counting those. Uh many, many, many. Uh I I I've never been asked that question, and I've never counted uh but a goodly number. I would say in the hundreds, probably.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Amazing. All these years. So um, but this will probably be the first time someone said, Barry, what's in your glass? It will be. So, Barry, what's in your glass?

SPEAKER_01 2:21

As opposed to Barry, what's up your okay, so on. Um well now, I I must admit that um I thought that the podcast was starting at eight. Hence, this rather large ice cube has now melted considerably, so it's watered down my um Woodford reserve. Uh, that's what's in here now. Now, I was going to um put together my uh my old fashioned, which I I do the uh I do with rye or I'll I'll do with a bourbon, and I've got several different kinds of those. But tonight it's the Woodford uh reserve. And um my my my favorite whiskey drink, I would have to say, is the old-fashioned, and uh, and I make it in a way that is is is too long for a barkeep to make. Uh because I I I I put in my my orange slice and my lasardo cherry and my orange uh uh bitters and the uh simple syrup and I mutter all of that, and then I throw in some ice, stir. I put a third of my whiskey in there, more ice and stir, second third, more ice and stir, and final third, more ice and stir, and then I'll pop in another lasardo cherry. So it's just it just takes too long for um for the Megan restaurants. But it's it and occasionally I'll put a splash of seltzer water in it. But tonight I'm drinking this straight, not meat, but um, but on ice, which some people I think would suggest is a sacrilege. Um I wanted something cool tonight.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah, no, it's only it's only a sacrilege if you do it with a uh a very aged scotch. I think it's fine with I think it's firm, fine with bourbon.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Um and my my my my scotch, um aside from the log ofin and uh and and those, I order a scotch from Liverpool called Stella D. And the story goes there that I was in Liverpool with some of my grease mates, and Michael Tucci, who played Sonny in the movie, his daughter was along with him, and they had planned to go to a spirits and cigar shop, a tiny little little uh space uh in Liverpool. I don't know how they found it, and I tagged along, uh, and I didn't really know what was up. I I I don't even think I knew it was spirits. And I went in there and they gave us some tastes. I wound up ordering two tiny bottles of this staladieu scotch, uh single mole, and um brought them back to the States with me, gave one to a friend, and I consumed one. I thought, you know, I love it so much, I'm gonna see if I can order this from uh the um uh the the the uh spirit shop uh in Liverpool that I could. So I get my my scotch from Liverpool, and they they sent it in this very, very ornate, uh well not ornate, but it's it's a very uh heavy-duty bubble wrap. And it it comes just beautifully, and I I uh uh drink that sparingly, but um, but that's also very delicious. So I got my scotch, and I'm kind of a late bloomer when it comes to this. I'd always um uh uh enjoyed vodka. Uh but you know, I mean vodka is your base, and uh it's not like doesn't have the notes of certainly that these brown whiskeys do, brown brown liquors. Um and that's kind of a neat story. I was doing a uh a series with Don Rickles called CPO Sharky, uh my first job when I came out here to California. And on Thursdays during the camel blocking days, um at the end of the day when uh we'd sit around uh in the studio at NBC uh and they'd give us notes, Don would be sitting in a telescope director's chair, and his uh assistant would go into a cabinet and pull out one of those old-fashioned 50s type tumblers that are kind of uh they they're bumpy all over the place, and it's it's blue with a a white rim. And he would make a martini for Don in that, because it it hid the martini. Not very appealing uh because the the uh the the presentation is also part of the experience of drinking, as well you know. And it it didn't look appealing, but for for for me sometime somehow it was. And I started drinking martinis in uh in 1976. And it was funny because I'd also started transcendental meditation, and and my friends would joke that I'd started meditating and drinking martinis at the same time. So I and then of course through the years, uh uh I've developed different um combinations of the Tito's, I like Tito's vodka. And I make my my own uh drink that I uh invented called the Caesartini. And uh the Caesartini is simply in Canada, uh the Bloody Mary they make with clemato juice, hence a Caesar, a bloody Caesar. So I felt, you know, I want more of a vodka note. So I simply put a half a jigger of clemato juice, picante spicy, into my uh my martini, hence a Caesartini, and then I stock it with a spear of uh spicy pickled asparagus spear. And uh I will take whole canned mushrooms that I have marinated in chili pepper juice and um and and and olives, uh sometimes stuffed with uh uh jalapeno, sometimes with blue cheese, etc. etc. And uh I'll spear those, and maybe a pearl onion, and I have my Cesartini, which is basically a drink and a salad all in one.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

So I'd love to love to spend an evening in your trailer. Um so um actually very quickly, I should say, so I've got um I've gone for Scots, I've I try and pair my whiskeys with my guests, um, either their name, something they've done. And I was I was working through this and I was thinking, you know, is there something to do with the T birds, is something to do with Greece? I don't have any Greek whiskey. Um and then the best I could come up with with my limited whiskey collection was I went for an Australian whiskey because obviously Greece's star, well one of the two stars, is Australian, and also how we got together, or how I met you is linked to Australia. So I've got um the Starwood Solera. Um so um Starwood is an award-winning whiskey from Australia. I think I had the um the founder on this podcast 70 episodes ago, but it's um it's actually very nice. Um What are the notes? Uh sorry? What sort of what sort of notes are you having there? It it's um quite a light fruity whiskey. It actually pairs really well. I'll actually I've got a couple of bottles. I'll give you one next time I see you because it goes really well for cocktails. Um and you seem to be a man who likes a cocktail. So um yeah, so um we slightly odd way we met, but I I'll tell the story because it I think it sums up how Hollywood works. I've got a good friend of mine, Australian, who's actually been no, he hasn't been on this podcast. He doesn't drink whiskey, actually, which is odd. I still like him, but he doesn't drink whiskey. Um he sent me a WhatsApp message saying, Um I'm making a documentary um about the Australian team who qualified for the World Cup the first time they qualified. And um, for reasons that I actually can't quite remember, um there was a certain man in the dressing room after the game celebrating with the players, and they wanted to see if he would do a little piece for this sort of looking back documentary. He sent me a text saying, I don't know who else I can ask. You're the sort of person who could probably get to John Travolta. Um so I thought, I mean, this is a challenge I can't not accept. So I thought, how do I get a video from John Travolta? Given that you know it's not a request for a message for a birthday party, you know, for someone's birthday, which is would be annoying for him. This might be something he would want to do. So um I contacted my my man for this solution, a guy called Chris Lithgo, who's actually been on this podcast before talking about his pantos, um, and um I said, Chris, I need I need uh a video from John Travolti. Oh, yeah, no problem. And then I think within 72 hours, um, we'd found you and you'd found him. He did a video, it was in the documentary, he reminisced about being in a dressing full of sweaty Australians um who qualified for the World Cup. And um to say thank you, I took you for lunch at the Magic Castle, and uh told you I like had a whiskey podcast, you told me you like whiskey, and here we are. So um, Australia, John Travolta, Soccer, and uh right, where where do we start?

SPEAKER_01 11:05

I mean Well, may I may I just interject here that since that that lunch, that delightful lunch, where the chili blew my my mind, I love that chili. And I was actually going to dinner later that night, so I couldn't gorge myself. I I had a the chili in a in a cob salad, and uh that chili just was spectacular. Um, but since that, since then, about um, I don't know, maybe two days later, uh Chris's uh wife, Becky, contacts me. Now I had done, I have done about five pantos, as you'd mentioned, um, the panto. And uh this particular year wasn't going to be a a year for me to do panto for a myriad of reasons. They were moving, uh uh they were there there was a new group of people that were producing at the this theater that I'd done the last panto down on Laguna Beach. And it was just gonna, they were changing it all up. However, I had bumped into Becky, which I had mentioned at the lunch. I bumped into Becky at the opening night of a um a production of A Catch Me If You Can at a theater company out here in Burbank called the Colony Theater, wonderful theater. Um and she said, look, hold tight because things aren't settled yet. And you know, okay. Uh but you don't take that kind of thing to the bank, really. Um but I was secretly hoping that things would change. And sure enough, I get a call from Becky saying, um, things have changed, and can you do the panto, at least split the role with another actor for for for the time we're gonna be in uh in Laguna till mid-December from uh end of November to December. Absolutely. So I am doing a panto that Chris has written called Aladdin and and Yasmin's uh winter wish, I think is what it's called. So once again, since that that luncheon got me a job.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Excellent. And and which character will you be? Are we allowed to know?

SPEAKER_01 12:56

It'll be the Sultan. It's it's uh Yasmin's uh uh father.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Okay. Lovely. Yeah. Um excellent. So you you're obviously um a lot of people will have watched you in Greece because I don't know how many people I don't know, I'd love to know the numbers, but yeah, Greece is a worldwide phenomenon. But um you you were on the stage before that, and you've done in the last 48 and three-quarter years, you've done a lot more stage than you have done TV and film. And obviously some of the other people in Greece have publicly done lots of film. Um but is for you, is the is the stage, is the theatre the place you enjoy this craft the most?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

I enjoy working the most, whether it's in that medium, uh the stage or film or TV. And they they each have their own set of gratifications. Of course, on the stage, you rehearse and you perform and and and you you hear the responses from the audience, whether it's clapping or laughing, or or or it's quiet and they're involved in the pathos of it all. Uh sometimes tears, you know, you'll hear whimpering, whatever. But the fact that you have brought uh a huge group of people together in a moment and have affected uh uh an audience is quite it's quite powerful and and it it it it it moves me to do it. And uh so I enjoy that a lot. Uh with film and television, of course you rehearse to a perfection and then you solidify it on what used to be celluloid, now it's digits, et cetera, et cetera. And um that is kind of fun because you can sit back and watch, but a lot of the times I sit back and cringe because I'm never always completely satisfied with what I do. And when I am satisfied, I'm satisfied. So uh that's it it's kind of fun. And to have left that particular mark um as part of my legacy is pretty satisfying and and just fun to note. Um so uh uh again, I I just enjoy working. Uh true, I've I've done, I suppose, more stage than t than television. Uh though recently I I just um uh did an episode of a of a series out here, a rather successful series that's in its second season called Best Medicine, that stars Josh Charles and Abigail Spanberger and Annie Potts, et cetera, et cetera. Great cast of people. So I flew back to New York to do that. And that that aired on the 13th of this this month of October, and that was fun. It was uh it was a dramatic role, too, as opposed to a comedic one. And I don't often do that kind of thing, even though I've I've done uh I've done pieces lately where I get killed, which is kind of fun, shot or run over by cars, you know, which is out of the norm for this crazy clown that uh that duty is in the film Greece. So I just I I've been so fortunate, uh Dan, to to do a whole bunch of stuff like this. And hopefully I'll be able to stay healthy enough to continue to do it for a lot longer. It's been 61 years in the making, quite honestly.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

When Greece was maybe when you when you were shooting Greece, did anyone have any sense that this was going to be anything like it has ended up being? Or was everyone sort of this is nice that they're you know they're they're trying the a film version of the of the you know the theater production, but you can't have imagined, presumably at the time that this would turn into what it turned into.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

There is no such crystal ball. That how that's how I've always answered that question. However, what we had going for us was a very successful uh Broadway show. Uh it it became the longest-running show in theater history up to a point. And I forget, I always forget which show surpassed it, whether it was Cats or Phantom or or Le Miz, I don't remember that. But it was the longest-running show. And and the reason be was be it was successful because of what it was and and and how it spoke to the crowds. And so we knew we had that going for us, and we had these wonderful elements. Our director, our our uh uh choreographer Pat Birch, who had also done the Broadway show and the and the and the tour, the national tour that I had done. Um, and it had the wonderful music by uh Case Borne Casey and Jim Jacobs and and um um uh Louis St. Louis, uh and then John Ferrare, uh brilliant uh uh composer, uh uh hopelessly devoted, uh You're the one that I want, to name but two. And we had these wonderful elements, and then of course, the camera loves John and Olivia, and then the story Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses, Girl, Boy Gets Girl, that universal story, the story, and uh the appeal to the younger generation, as well as uh, you know, the adults that uh whose ears were tickled by the music and who thought it was fun and crazy. And but it when it when it hit, it wasn't a huge, huge success. It was only after several years that it became what it has become and continues to become generation after generation after generation. So to answer your question, again, we had no clue other than there were some great elements here, and maybe we had a shot, but I don't think any any of us really contemplated that. You know?

SPEAKER_00 18:32

I think people from the outside, uh obviously people who've never worked in the industry particularly, I think maybe naively people sort of think, oh, you know, everyone was probably great friends, and there's there probably wasn't WhatsApp when the film came out, but there is now, you know, there's a is there a sort of like Grease cast WhatsApp where you're always messing each other? Now, obviously, I know that you're still in touch with John because you got him for for what we needed for that documentary, but like and I know obviously ahead of the anniversary coming up, there's gonna be a lot of things, but sort of day to day in in a given year, if it's not a 25th anniversary or 50th anniversary, whatever, like how many members of the cast would you see or message just in, you know, in 2016? How many people would how often would you have interacted with the cast, if at all?

SPEAKER_01 19:23

I will say this first of all, every May 19th, um I contact everybody with an email celebrating the day we all got cast. So it's an anniversary each year. So this coming year will be uh um May 19th of 27, uh will be the uh 50th anniversary of when we were cast. Because the movie came out in 78. So 78 will be the 50th anniversary of the release. So the reunion of the casting always is a year a year prior. And that is just about that's everybody that I contact. We do these autograph signing conventions. So on a pretty regular basis, I'm seeing Michael Tucci, who played Sonny, Jamie Donnelly, who played Jan, Lorenzo Lamas, who played Tom Chisholm. Uh occasionally we will see Dinah Manoff, who played Jan, Dee Dee Kahn, who plays Frenchie. We have seen Eddie Diesen, who played uh Eugene, Ellen Travolta, one of John's, in fact, John's oldest sister, who who uh played, we call her Bunny, though she didn't have uh a name in the film. She was the um uh uh in the Frosty Palace. She was the waitress with the bunny ears, I think that's what we called her Bunny. So she's come out on some of these autograph signing events, as well as Randall Kleiser, our director, Joel Thurm, our casting director. And when Olivia was alive, actually in 2019, John, who has a place in Florida, lives in Florida, um for his birthday that year, his friends took him to see their friends from KISS. They went to see a KISS concert. And when they got there, they saw the members of KISS greeting a group of people who had come to see the concert, uh, maybe about 200 people. Uh they did a meet and greet with a certain group of people that paid a premium to meet the uh the members of the uh of the group. And then they go out and watch the concert. And John's friends said, you know, you should do this with Greece. Well, sure enough, the in um, I guess it was October, November of 2000, just before the COVID hit, uh, we went down to Florida. It was John, Michael, Kelly, myself, Olivia, Joel Thurm, and Randall Kleiser. We um participated in um three rather large events where they would screen the sing-along version of Greece, where it's kind of like a foul of the balancing ball, though it's much more sophisticated than that. It's all animation and such. It's really cool. The words come up, the lyrics come up in animation. And we did Tampa, Florida, Jacksonville, Jacksonville, and West Palm Beach. Well, we're if there was a roof on the on the the venue, it would have popped off. They went crazy for us. So between one, the last uh uh the second and third stop in Florida, it was an overnight that we actually spent on a tour bus traveling from one place in Florida to the n to the north and northern part of Florida. And it was like a pajama party with Olivia, may she rest in peace, her husband John Easterling, her entourage, all of us. It was basically a big old pajama party. And uh it would have continued on had had COVID not hit and had Olivia's health held up. We were going to do it nationally and internationally because the crowds went absolutely crazy, as I mentioned. So to answer the question, we see each other a lot, if not just to get together for dinner, but certainly these autograph signing events are little mini reunions that we have. And um we we have our our representatives, Patty Cipriani, who is our our an um uh U U.S. rep, along with this gentleman, Jack Bishop, who is a promoter who uh sets these up. And then our Australian rep, uh Mary Wilson, who has a company called Koala Bear uh Promotions, and her uh business partner, Nicole Ginger. So that's how I got to Australia. I'd done uh Sydney Comic Con uh Supernova, Melbourne, Melbourne Supernova, Gold Coast, and uh gosh, there's one more. I can't remember uh which one it was. Uh Perth. Perth. And then uh Bonnie Lithgope, Chris's mother, directed me in a in a panto uh there. Uh it was a uh um Snow White, I think it was a Snow White Panto, if I'm not mistaken. So I love Australia. It's a terrific country, terrific people. And but there, of course, a whole new group of people, but with the Grease cast, yes, and a long-winded way of saying yes, we see each other rather often and we adore each other.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

How many times? Including uh, you know, like test screenings and and whatever, how many times do you think you have sat through the entire movie?

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Um quite a lot early on. And and now when we do these things, we'll introduce the film, they'll play the film, and we'll go out to dinner, come back and do a QA, and then off times an autograph signing. Uh I cannot count on these 10 digits how many times. It's probably the film that I've seen the most. Not that it's my most favorite film of all time, but it is it's up there, you know, because of what it is. It's part of my legacy. Uh, but a lot. I've seen it a lot. I can't give you a number. And might I back up for a second and say that uh, and I I mentioned this to you, I might have mentioned at lunch, that um uh folks non-prose, and that is not to to diminish people at all, but folks that aren't in the industry um who cannot necessarily articulate why they like the movie so much, aside from the singing and the dancing, and the cast, it's in the et cetera, et cetera. But I think at the core of their appreciation and love for it is they love people love seeing people on the screen and on the stage getting along. The camaraderie, I think, is at the core of the success of this film, and I've been saying this for a long time. So I think that touches people in a place that they can't they don't necessarily or aren't necessarily aware of and can articulate. But when I mention it to them, a lot of especially at these autograph signing events, they say, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I like it because I it's like watching the roquettes kicking in time. It's like a well-oiled machine, these disparate egos all of a sudden coming together with one message, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yeah. Amazing. Um so actually, just out of interest, um, I I do I listen to a film podcast and they ask people the first film they watched, their favorite film, and so on. I've never I've never asked people, even access that, but I'm interested now. What what is actually your, would you say, your favorite movie?

SPEAKER_01 26:04

So the first three films that I ever remember seeing um were uh uh uh the first the the remake of Imitation of Life. I was just a tot at the time, but I have a clear mental image picture of going to that theater with my grandmother. It was the one with Lana Turner. The original was with Claudette Colbert. Now, that's not a kid's film, that's an adult film. However, the two films that succeeded that that I remember that had the greatest impact on me were 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, a Disney film with Kirk Douglas and James Mason, Peter Laurie, and Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly and Raymond Burr as the heavy. And those have always been, I would say, two, because I don't remember Imitation of Life that well, but the two I wanted to be Jimmy Stewart, I wanted to be Kirk Douglas. They were my favorite actors at the time. I wanted to grow up to be them. And then further down the line, the classics. Um, Silence of the Lambs, West Side Story, a universal picture that starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. It was Christopher Lee's first turn as Dracula in the movie Horror Dracula. That was a film that also touched me. Um because I loved horror when I was a kid. And and and the three stooges, as far as comedy goes, their shorts. So all of these uh pieces of art certainly had their influences.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Did you always was acting the thing when you were a kid that you wanted to do?

SPEAKER_01 27:43

I actually wanted to be in a doctor. I wanted to go into I wanted to be a surgeon, but that was fleeting. I I wasn't that strong academically, so I I wouldn't have been able to cut that. I was simply fascinated by what, by how this vessel ticks as much as a young child is fascinated by such. And uh, but that was that was short-lived, I think. Um my my parents were divorced when I was very, very young. So I was raised by my mother, my three aunts, and my grandmother, all these wonderful women. And they saw I was precocious and I was an only child and the first of five grandchildren. Um and uh my mother had enrolled me in a tap dance class when I was about six or seven, and at the end of every year they would do a review, and I was the youngest and tiniest boy, and they paired me up with the youngest and tiniest of girls, Maxine Gilman was her name. And uh they would build these dance reviews around the two of us. I think I might have done two or three years of those. And from there, my mother got me involved with uh with a community theater called the Lancaster Little Theater, who did a couple of productions there. And then finally I did a production of Dark at the Top of the Stairs. It was the Fulton Opera House, which is now the Fulton Theater, one of the oldest theaters in the country in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where I grew up. And I'd done a production there of that play, Dark at the Top of the Stairs. And uh there was a playwright, an aspiring playwright from New York by the name of Chuck Miller, Charles E. Miller, who, in order to pay the rent, came and ran lights, was hired to run lights. And he and my mother and I took a liking to each other. And he told my mom, one of these days I'm gonna get your son on Broadway. And two years, that was in 1959, two years later, he became aware of the fact that the young boy playing the role of Randolph McAfee in Bye Bye Birdie, the first rock and roll musical I might add, was leaving to do another show. And that role was they wanted to cast somebody else in that role. So um, my my friend Chuck, our friend Chuck, was friendly with the secretary of the producer, producer being Edward Pedula. And um he told Chuck told this fellow, I got the kid for you, called my mom. The next day I was in New York auditioning in front of Gower, Marge and Gower Champion. Gower directed the show. And uh I never went home. I got the gig and started working right away on Broadway, the last month of Broad on Broadway, bye-bye Bertie, the National Tour, the Vegas Company, and then the rest, as they say, is history.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Amazing. Um, I didn't want to interrupt, but I do want to ask a question now, going back to something you said at the beginning of that, is have you, you must have at some point played a doctor either in a in on TV or in a theater production and got to live your doctor life?

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Shh one of those, but I played one on TV. Yes, yes, many times. And lawyers. Uh I did a uh uh stint on a series called Capital, in which I played a doctor. I did an episode of ER in which we'll go for I played a doctor. I did a sh a daytime series called Superior Court, where I played a deputy district attorney. I think I'd also in a film um uh uh what was the name of the film uh with uh Brian Bedford and Buck Henry? I forget the name of the film now. It was an out oh no, beg your pardon, it was an Alfred Hitchcock Presents when they brought Alfred Hitchcock back. I was Buck Henry's assistant attorney, and I played a lot of attorneys on Max Tedrum, uh a series quite some time ago. Played an attorney there. Oh, yeah, oh yeah, many times. Many times. Doctors and lawyers, you got it. And a lot of Italians, even though I'm Jewish, I played a lot of Italians.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

The doctor and lawyer would make your mom proud, you know.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Oh, fair. Although, bless her heart, may she rest in peace. She was very proud of what I wound up doing. And to her.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Yeah, yeah. May her memory be a blessing. Yes, indeed. So there is 18 months or so to go before the anniversary comes up. Um, what are you expecting to happen? Actually, what what what did they do for 25? I mean, the world was a different place. Did they do much for 25?

SPEAKER_01 31:58

We did, I know we did something for the 20th. The 25th might have been the DVD release that I could not attend. I was doing a production of Guys and Dolls at a theater south of here at the Lawrence Well Dinner Theater. And my my producer wouldn't let me out to go to the function, even though I had an understudy and I had somebody else who was supposed to be doing this role instead of me, that I was going to pay out of my own pocket just to go for this one night. But he was really stalwart about it and had an ego about it and wouldn't let me go. And and and I wasn't going to play hooky with the show because the the it wound up being on television in on the new news and wound up being on the DVD. And um, I wouldn't, I simply wouldn't have done it anyway. I'd have been in breach of my contract, um, even though many of my castmates said, go ahead and do it anyway. I can't do that. Um so uh and that was the last time, by the way, it was a big function at Paramount, that huge party, and it was the last time everybody who was alive at the time got to go on stage and sing summer nights. And that is on, you can find that on YouTube, but I wasn't a part of it because I uh I wasn't allowed to leave the show for that one night. So uh for the it's hard to say what'll happen the 50th. They're in, in fact, today, if I'm not mistaken, no, beg your pardon, tomorrow, um, this uh wonderful woman named Lisa Downs, who is doing a documentary that has been thus far something like four or five years in the making. She's come all over the world with us filming us at these events, autograph signing events, public appearances. Um, and we just had her come out here. Uh I arranged for her to interview Frankie Avalon for the for the in uh the the documentary. It's called Life After Greece, and uh Randall Kleiser is part of that as well. They've now made me an associate producer on it. Uh so uh Randall's already met with Paramount. Didi Khan is very integral in setting things up as well, some kinds of functions, and we're all putting our heads together for this. Uh so tomorrow I think Randall meets, and I know it's tomorrow, uh, because Lisa, the director uh uh uh producer and director of the documentary is has been invited to be at that meeting uh and and uh film uh some stuff for the documentary. So they're they're devising things now, public appearances and screens and such. It's hard to say what they'll what they'll do, but it should be a rather big one. At least that's that's what we hope.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

What's the strangest piece of either merchandise or um fan art that's been made that you've come across from Greece? There must be some something that surprised you that some either somebody made or the studio made.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

The funny thing about that, the first thing that pops in my mind is that our international uh manager, uh uh Mary uh Holland Tuckwell, also known as Mary Wilson with Koaliber Productions, at one point she had uh she was at a convention and she had John sign her arm, okay, with a Sharpie. She subsequently had it tattooed. So that that's one of the most odd things. Although I've seen things like that since. But she has a tattooed of John Travolta on her arm. That would be one, certainly.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Is there a Vegas slot machine of Greece?

SPEAKER_01 35:18

There was. Yeah. That was a whole that was a whole issue. Yeah, there was. Because initially we didn't know about it. And through the years, I've been kind of the unofficial go-to guy to wrangle people together. And um, when I find these things out, I try to suss them out and try to get us paid for things that we should have been that should have been negotiated and we should have been paid for. And oftentimes that that works out rather well. And I found out about the grease slot machine because a friend of mine who was in the gaming business was up in Vegas and saw it and had a brochure that he sent to me that had a picture, and there were all kinds of videos of us in this slot machine. There's a there's one for the pink ladies and one for the teeth birds. I was able to kind of get in just before the door closed on that. And they'd already done one, I want to say, with the Waltons, and they got paid handsomely for because I think they took them to court. We weren't as lucky because we didn't get in in time. It was starting to hit the floor just so we didn't make out as well as we could have. We got a couple shekels from it, but yes, they they've since taken it off the uh the floors. In fact, they took it off the floor before they took the pink lady slot machine off the floor. Have you ever seen it?

SPEAKER_00 36:32

I I I I feel like I haven't I get they conflate a little bit. I remember a friend of mine was in the Goonies, and um I I found a slot machine, the Goonies one at the Venetian, I think it was, and took a photo for you. But I feel like I played the Greece one at some point. I've definitely played Greece pinball. That might that must have been a thing.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

Yes, I've not seen that, but yes, I think you're right.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Yeah, fascinating. Um what is what's your f this I feel given that you've probably done a thousand interviews about Greece, I feel like I should be asking you about other things, but you seem very happy talking about Greece, and so I want to talk to you about Greece. What what's your favorite song in the movie?

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Uh in the movie, I have always said hopelessly devoted.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Uh it's it's so well constructed, and I really do like You're the One That I Want. And the interesting thing about You're the One That I Want is that, first of all, in the play, the last song before the reprise of We Go Together, which in the film is the first time you hear it. But in the in the stage play, it's the reprise. It's done first at the end of the first act. It closes the first act, curtain comes down after that. They're in the park and they sing that. But in the film, it's it's the first time we but prior to that, i in the play, the last song before the reprise was a song called All Choked Up, which was an homage to the Elvis Presley tune All Shook Up. And I loved it. It was it was just a real groovy, if you will, 50s feel of a song with um shoobie-doo-op, um, shooby-doo up in the background that the guy sang, you know. And um uh, but they never cared for it very much for some odd reason. When it came to the film, they didn't know how they were going to end it, as far as we knew it was going to be We Go Together. So we were doing the carnival sequence, and all of a sudden, they bring out this song, You're the One That I Want, that John and Olivia had recorded like a day or so before they'd done their tracks a day or so before. We'd never heard it before. Now, understand that before we went before principal photography, we rehearsed for three weeks in the studios at Paramount, and then actually performed it for all of the casts and crews that were working on the Paramount lot at that time, which included Jack Nicholson. He was doing Going South, um, and I think Warren Beatty was there. Uh, the late Michael Landon was doing Little House on the Prairie there. They were all invited to see this show. Uh, all that we were going to be filming subsequently. And but you're the one that I want was not a part of it. So they bring this song out to us, and Pat Birch and Randall Kleiser put their heads together, and where on, especially at musical number, that gets storyboarded well in advance. It's like the Randall draws pictures of the shots that he wants, et cetera, et cetera. Pat comes up with choreography. Everything was done on on the on the uh the fly right there. In fact, we weren't even singing on it. Uh, later on in post-production, I think we went back back in and sweetened the the tracks by adding ours our backgrounds with your the one, the one one, hoo, hoo, hoo. And uh so that was kind of a cool thing. I love summer nights. It was the first one that we shot, um, the first musical number that we shot. So that has a special meaning and feel. I I have a special feeling for that. But I guess musically hopelessly devoted, I think, was the one that really kind of touched me. And the way she delivered it was just gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

If you had one evening left on Earth and you had a choice of watching the film or watching the theater production, which would you choose?

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Very interesting question. I think I'd like to watch the theater production again. With all due respect to the film. Because the film is it's just an entity that lives apart from um but to see to see the original cast knowing what the subsequent the future that would be the subsequent history that unfolded after that. And and to watch because my beginnings with the stage play was rather s were rather special. So I think I'd like to go back and see that again. No, listen, I've directed the play, the original choreography, et cetera, et cetera. It's much different from the film. It's much more intimate, it's much smaller. So I'd like to see that production. I'd actually like to see that production with real teenagers. But it was never cast really with professional productions, were always cast with k people that were older because of the sensibilities, I think, the understandings of that age, which is odd because when you're that age, don't you understand that age? You know, but to be able to play that age, I I don't know. That's that's selling short actors of that age that could probably pull it off. So, you know, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but I to answer your question. I think I think I'd like to see the stage play as the last thing I see because that was where it all started for me.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Fantastic. Um genuinely I could do this for another hour. It's so fascinating talking to you, Barry. But unfortunately, that's not how the podcast works. So I I'm gonna move to the to the final question, but I'm looking forward to hearing your answer. So we ask every guest um if you could drink any w any whiskey with anyone, dead or alive, um, what would it be? Who would it be, and where would it be?

SPEAKER_01 42:39

Um I would have my Caesar teeny if it if it's going to be a Vatican drink, as opposed to an old fashioned, which is my favorite brown drink with John F. Kennedy. Where would it be? It would be in the White House before he was to go to Dallas in an attempt to persuade him not to go.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

What an interesting answer. Um we've had 108 answers to that question. That might be one of the most interesting. So um very good. Well look, um Barry Pearl, um the Sultan in the forthcoming production at Lagoon of Eight, but also Doody from Greece. Thank you very much indeed for coming on the show. Cheers. My last swig to you, my friend, my new friend.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Let's please stay in touch.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

100%.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Salute I love Scotch, Scotch, Scotch, Scotch, Scotch, Scotch.