"Shaving must practically be an orgasm for you." - great article on Dick Cavett

[underpants]

https://www.si.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_1240/MTgyMTUxNDE0MTU0MjczOTIz/dcovwatn_cavettv.jpg

The premiere episode featured actress Angela Lansbury, writer Gore Vidal and the heavyweight champion of the world in exile, Ali. When the latter two got into an argument about Vietnam, a scant five weeks after the launch of the Tet offensive, it made for cracklin’ good television. The show, though, never aired. “The line I heard from one of the suits,” Cavett recalls, “was, ‘Nobody gives a s--- what Gore Vidal and Muhammad Ali think about Vietnam.’ ”

Cavett had attended the funeral of playwright George S. Kaufman specifically to celebrity-gawk. It’s what he always did—years earlier he’d take the train from New Haven to Manhattan, a two-hour ride, just to case the bar where the mystery guests for What’s My Line? were stashed. (That’s how he met Buster Keaton.) At the service, Cavett spotted Julius H. Marx. Groucho. Trailed him outside, into the blazing sun. Finally, at the corner of 81st and 5th, he summoned the nerve to introduce himself.

Brown vs. Bored of Desegregation

“I liked to read my hate mail,” says Cavett.

A woman in Iowa once wrote: “Dear Dick Cavett, You little sawed-off, f--got Communist shrimp …”

Cavett recalls his response: “Dear Madam, I am not sawed-off.”

“I enjoyed ruffling feathers,” he says.

https://www.si.com/media/2021/07/05/dick-cavett-where-are-they-now-2021

[BeckyDem]

1. He was wonderful!

Smart, funny, and ever so irreverent. Today they are bland and cautious.....ultimately boring.


Thanks for posting. I wish I could get the re-runs, my husband would love it.

[Tomconroy]

4. Some of the interviews are available on youtube.

[BeckyDem]

8. I never thought of that, thanks.

I would love to buy a set of them.

[mucifer]

10. There are reruns on "the decades" network it's free tv link below:

https://www.decades.com/shows/the-dick-cavett-show

https://www.decades.com/wheretowatch

[BeckyDem]

12. I had no idea, thank you so much!

[Beakybird]

2. Your link is to only the artwork image of the article.

[underpants]

3. Thanks. Here's the link. Editing the post to include it.

https://www.si.com/media/2021/07/05/dick-cavett-where-are-they-now-2021

[empedocles]

9. TY

[rsdsharp]

5. Gotta love a man who can tell Norman Mailer:

“Why don’t you fold it five ways and put it where the moon don’t shine.”

It’s often misquoted with “stick it” rather than “put it.” He would never have said stick it; that would have been crass.

[Tomconroy]

7. When Mailer asked him how he came up with the line

Cavett replied,'You don't recognize a quotation from Tolstoy?'

[progressoid]

14. Hahahaha.

[dalton99a]

6. Kick

“Groucho,” Cavett said, “I’m a big fan of yours.”

Groucho surveyed the young acolyte. “If it gets any hotter,” he answered, “I could use a big fan.”

Groucho would go on to appear seven times on Cavett’s program.

[murielm99]

11. I remember Groucho on his show.

He sang "Lydia, Oh Lydia, the Encyclopedia, Lydia the Tattoed Lady."

Groucho and Cavett corresponded with each other, too. Cavett published that correspondence later, IIRC.

[Hangdog Slim]

13. Dick Cavett was also a savant

Cavett was a genius at anagrams. People would throw out words, names and phrases to him and he would rearrange the letters and create a funny new word or phrase nearly spontaneously. He told the story once of having Spiro Agnew on his show and thinking what a jerk the man was and thought to himself anagrammatically, "grow a penis". My favorite though is when someone offered him Oscar Wilde to create an anagram with to which he replied almost instantly, " O lad I screw"!

[progressoid]

15. "We could use him now more than ever"

indeed.