Wait for Your Laugh

Everybody who"s in show business

is somebody who wants to be there.

In her case, she had to be there.

I mean, she didn"t even have the urge to.

She just did it, and everybody said "Look at that."

She was a star at four

and one of the biggest stars in the country.

The minute she was born the doctor slapped her,

and she started singing.

Believe me when I tell you

she"s a history of show business.

Every phase of entertainment

for literally 87 years.

The longest career I"ve ever heard of

in show business.

Vaudeville, radio.

Broadway.

The history of television.

She used to entertain Al Capone. He loved her.

She was tough.

She was clearly a woman.

One of the boys.

She had colorful language

and didn"t mind using it.

She was outspoken. There"s no question about it.

She had a loud voice.

I think people resent the fact that she knows so much.

You can"t be in the business

all your life without being tough.

She cut through barriers.

Paved her on way.

There was a woman that was a heroic,

bigger than life character.

She"ll cut your head off

and rightfully so, by the way.

I"m with her.

- Rose Marie. - Rose Marie.

- Rose Marie. - Rose Marie.

But she"s the only one left.

Can I tell you this story?

Are you rolling?

God love you. God love you.

First memory I can recall... I guess was in New York.

Fourteenth Street in New York at that time

was the 42nd Street of New York today.

All the theatre, all the stage shows, everything.

My mother loved show business.

And so she used to take me. I was three, four years old.

So, the minute I came home from seeing the show

I would sing for my mother"s friends,

as I called them lovingly the Pollocks,

because my mother was Polish and they were Polish.

One day, the Polish people said,

"We entered her in an amateur contest

"at the Mecca Theatre on 14th Street."

They bought my dress, which I still have.

They bought the brocaded shoes, Mary Jane shoes,

which are at the Smithsonian,

and a four year old kid"s singing like Sophie Tucker.

And moving like Sophie Tucker.

And sounding like Sophie Tucker.

She didn"t sound like a little girl even then.

She sounded like a mature woman.

She never had a child"s voice.

She had an adult voice.

Somebody put the wrong box in there.

Who the hell do you think won the contest?

After that, my mother and father took us to Atlantic City.

At that time, nightclubs were not like today.

Nightclubs had family people. You could bring your children.

They had a line of chorus girls, fully dressed,

a comic, a singer, a dancer.

And so we went to the Little Club

in Atlantic City.

Evelyn Nesbit was starring.

Evelyn Nesbit was a big star at that time

because of the scandal that she was in.

Her husband shot her boyfriend,

and I think he went to jail or the guy was dead.

I don"t remember. I wasn"t there.

So we went to see her because she was a big star.

Naturally, I"m watching her sing,

and what do I do?

I start to sing with her.

She, being smart, instead of stopping

and making a whole big deal,

took me by the arm and brought me onstage,

and I sang with her.

And I heard the crowd saying, "Get the kid back!

"We want the kid! Get the kid back!

"We want "em to sing!"

Evelyn Nesbit said to my father, "What is her name?"

And he said, "Dainty Rose Marie."

And she said, "She"s a baby. Call her Baby Rose Marie."

So that"s how Baby Rose Marie came about.

We went back home,

and NBC had heard about this child wonder.

My father signed the contract with NBC.

NBC arranged for a radio program at five years old

going into six years old coast to coast,

and I sang three or four songs every Sunday morning at 12:15.

In 1920, there was just one radio station

attempting a local broadcast,

and that was in Pittsburgh.

By the time Rose Marie signed with NBC,

60% of American homes had a radio,

and NBC was the only network

broadcasting to the entire nation.

Rose Marie"s fame took off.

She became known as the darling of the airwaves,

and this happened before Shirley Temple was even born.

And she sang these songs,

and we didn"t realize

what she looked like until we saw her picture in Variety.

She had a cover of Variety.

And at four or five everybody knew her.

I was doing this radio show,

and the mail came in, said "That" s not a child.

"That" s a 45 year old midget.

"No child sings like that."

NBC was affiliated with RKO Theaters

all across the country.

So, they booked me in the latter part of Vaudeville

in the RKO houses to prove I was a child.

Pre-dating the cinema and radio,

Vaudeville was a massive network of theaters

throughout North America.

Any given night was a mash-up of singers,

dancers, magicians, jugglers, trained animals,

acrobats and really anything else that sold tickets

all sharing the same stage.

I played every theater across the country

back and forth.

Now the Gary Society,

which is the children"s society of New York,

called my mother in

and said "She"s not allowed to sing in New York"

because of the child labor law.

And they said, "There"s got to be something we can work out."

So, the plan was I would go out and do my show,

and they would arrest my father for five minutes.

He would come back home, I would do my second show,

they would arrest him again.

I come back and do the third show,

they would arrest him again.

He was arrested 128 times.

When I was about 10 years old,

I"m working at the Palace Theatre

in Chicago with Milton Berle.

The doorman says to my father,

"There"s a man wants to see you outside."

He went outside, it was Al Capone.

He said to my father, he said, "Hello, Happy."

I thought that was strange.

Nobody ever called him "Happy." He knew those kind of people.

He lived in that kind of a world.

I found out later that his nickname was "Happy Hank."

My father used to go into these places

and... and burn up the place if you didn"t join the union,

you know, those kind of guys.

He wasn"t very important.

He was one of the "Do this and do that guys."

But they knew him as "Happy Hank."

He also ran the Diana Ballroom,

which is where my mother met him.

She loved to dance. She was a wild little girl.

She was crazy.

And that"s where she met my father.

But anyway I looked at Al Capone.

He was very strange looking. He was heavy.

He wore a dark suit, well-dressed,

very well-dressed.

Hat on the side.

"The boys want to meet the kid."

The doorman is white.

And he says, "You know who that is?"

And we got in the car and went to Cicero,

which is out of Chicago a little bit.

And we walked into this mansion,

which was... didn"t belong there, this mansion.

It really didn"t belong there.

It was out of place.

And the dining room was as long as you could see.

And so all the guys were there,

all the big guys were there.

And they all came over to me and gave me a hug

and said "We think you" re wonderful, we love you,

"and we"re glad to meet you."

And I said, "Thank you."

They went back to the table,

and Al gave me a dinner ring with three diamonds in it,

which I still have,

and picked me up in his arms and said,

"You call me Uncle Al from now on. You understand?"

And I said, "Yeah, Uncle Al."

Okay, and he says, "Anything you need,

"anything you want you call me."

Turned to my father, he says,

"We"ll take care of her from here on in."

And out we went back to the theater.