Don Rickles

• Born: May 8, 1926
• Birthplace: New York City, New York
• Died: April 6, 2017
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

Actor, entertainer, and comedian

Rickles, an entertainer and a comedian, gained notoriety as a master of impersonations and insults.

Area of achievement: Entertainment

Early Life

Don Rickles was born to Max S. Rickles and Etta Feldman in Queens, New York, on May, 8, 1926. Max’s family had immigrated from the Russian Empire in 1902, when Max was three; Etta was the daughter of immigrant parents from the Austro-Hungarian Empire who had settled in New York, her birthplace. The family cherished its Jewish immigrant heritage and raised their only child in an Orthodox household in Brooklyn Heights. Max and Etta were great champions of any endeavor their son pursued, encouraging Rickles in a stint in the military, in Max’s footsteps as an insurance salesman, and in the pursuit of Rickles’s ultimate goal of being an entertainer.

Rickles was a poor student but very social, serving as the president of the Dramatic Society at Newtown High School. Upon his graduation, he followed his father’s recommendation to join the US Navy in 1943. At boot camp in Sampson, New York, his service commenced during World War II; Rickles was stationed aboard the USS Cyrene as a seaman first class. After three years of active duty in the Philippines, he was honorably discharged in 1946.

When he returned home at the age of twenty, his father suggested that Rickles join him in selling life insurance, but he was unsuccessful in this new career venture. His mother encouraged her son to follow his dream to be an entertainer, and Rickles joined the American Academy of Dramatic Arts at the age of twenty-two to learn how to act. He attended school with several future Hollywood greats: Jason Robards, Anne Bancroft, and Grace Kelly. Rickles was not successful initially as an actor; he had difficulty with dramatic roles, but he could make people laugh when the roles were comedic.

Rickles was challenged early in his career to find his niche. The stand-up routine did not quite suit him. Rickles was a master of impersonations and could elicit laughter with his Jimmy Durante and Jack Benny impressions, but Rickles was really at his best when he interacted with the audience. His special comedic style developed in response to his early audiences.

Life’s Work

Playing to hecklers in lounges and strip clubs in New Jersey and Washington, DC, Rickles became the king of insults by hurling ethnically charged barbs at the audience, surpassing the influential comedian Jack Leonard, who mumbled insults to the crowd. Over time, Rickles would earn the nickname “Mr. Warmth” for his acerbic demeanor on stage. Once the show was over, he was a friendly and amiable guy, creating a duality in how the entertainment community perceived him and chose to book him.

Rickles had great adoration for his parents. His father suffered a severe heart attack in 1953, and when he died suddenly, Rickles and his mother were despondent. This sparked several changes that impacted Rickles’s career in a positive way. After his father's death, Rickles and his mother moved to Long Island, and Rickles ended up as a weekend regular at Elegante, a dinner club in Brooklyn. Joe Scandore, owner of Elegante, bought out Rickles’s contract from his previous manager, and Scandore would remain Rickles’s manager for the next forty years. Rickles's mother's charm and tenacity brought her son significant opportunities in his career; she would remain his number-one fan until her death in 1984.

Despite his successful Brooklyn club run, Etta and Rickles moved to Miami Beach in the 1950s. The scenery and creature comforts were similar to those of New York: nightclubs, entertainers, and even Jewish delis. Rickles took his impressions to a small club stage at Murray Franklin’s, nestled among Miami’s upscale hotels, with headlining entertainers such as Milton Berle and Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. However, the most significant event in Miami would be the relationships developed between Rickles's mother and Dolly Sinatra and between Rickles and Dolly Sinatra's son, legendary singer, Frank Sinatra, who affectionately referred to Rickles as “Bullethead.”

In his autobiography, Rickles’s Book (2007), Rickles provides amusing anecdotes about making friends with comic giants from Miami to Hollywood to Las Vegas and with several noted celebrities, many of whom he met while performing at the Beverly Hills nightclub Slate Brothers. Through Rickles’s contacts in entertainment, he reached new heights in his career, beginning with his first Hollywood film, Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), with Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster, to several appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. From there, Rickles made a few films and a dozen guest appearances on classic situation comedies of the 1960s, including The Addams Family (1964), Gilligan’s Island (1966), and Get Smart (1968–69), and he eventually landed the title role in a situation comedy on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), C.P.O. Sharkey (1976–78). The films and television shows were secondary to the lasting stage career Rickles developed in Las Vegas, home to fellow comedians, including Carson, Phyllis Diller, and longtime friend Bob Newhart. Rickles’s initial encounter with his future spouse was also the result of a business contact. Rickles went to the office of film agent Jack Gilardi to inquire about a job; Barbara Sklar happened to be employed as Gilardi’s secretary and was soon the object of Rickles’s affection.

Rickles experienced greater big-screen success beginning in the 1990s, particularly when he landed a significant role in the Martin Scorsese film Casino in addition to providing the voice for Mr. Potato Head in the hugely popular animated film Toy Story in 1995. After appearing with Norm MacDonald in 1998's Dirty Work and reprising his role as Mr. Potato Head for Toy Story 2 in 1999, he received an Emmy Award for his performance in the 2007 documentary Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project. While he did continue to have occasional roles on both television and in film in subsequent years, including lending his voice once more to Toy Story 3 (2010) as well as for the character of Frog in Zookeeper (2011), declining health led him to focus more on his still successful comedy show performances on stage. In 2014, the same year in which he suffered from a leg infection that limited his mobility, he was the subject of a tribute conducted by various celebrities that aired on cable television.

At the age of thirty-eight, Rickles married Sklar on March 14, 1965. She quickly became a featured figure in his routines, being portrayed as spoiled and fussy. Barbara took the false tales and ribbing gracefully. Happily married for decades, the couple had two children.

Rickles died at his home in Los Angeles, California, due to kidney failure on April 6, 2017, at the age of ninety.

Significance

Rickles’s successful career spanned more than fifty years. He embraced his Jewish heritage as a starting point for his humor in the 1940s, when other Jewish comics had changed their names to mask their ethnicity. Rickles’s style of insult humor was unique, as his material was based on interactions with people of all ethnicities; in general, popular Jewish comedians have drawn material from their own heritage. With Rickles, there was no forbidden topic and the insults were shared with the whole audience, regardless of ethnicity, race, or religion. His influence is seen in the work of comics such as Lisa Lampanelli and Kathy Griffin. Despite his gruff onstage persona, Rickles was a generous philanthropist who supported many Jewish charities and donated funds for the Barbara and Don Rickles Gymnasium at the Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.

Bibliography

Epstein, Lawrence J. The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America. Perseus Books, 2001. A good comparative view of professional Jewish comedians in America, citing Rickles as an extreme example, marking the changes in acceptance, style, and material in the twentieth century.

Heller, Zoë. "Don't Call Me Sir." The New Yorker, 2 Aug. 2004, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/08/02/dont-call-me-sir. Accessed 21 Nov. 2017.

Keepnews, Peter, and Richard Severo. "Don Rickles, Comedy's Equal Opportunity Offender, Dies at 90." The New York Times, 6 Apr. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/arts/television/don-rickles-dead-comedian.html. Accessed 21 Nov. 2017.

Newhart, Bob. I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This! Hyperion, 2006. A personal look at Rickles on and off stage, through the eyes of his best friend, Newhart.

Rickles, Don, and David Ritz. Rickles’s Book. Simon and Schuster, 2007. An autobiography with short anecdotes about Rickles’s past. Contains a wealth of primary information, has been quoted frequently since its release, and serves as an entertaining read.

Schudel, Matt. "Don Rickles, Lightning-Fast Launcher of Comic Insults, Dies at 90." The Washington Post, 6 Apr. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/don-rickles-lightning-fast-launcher-of-comic-insults-dies-at-90/2017/04/06/d785d626-1af2-11e7-855e-4824bbb5d748‗story.html?utm‗term=.c3d244bb6f8e. Accessed 21 Nov. 2017.