Michael H. Goldsen oral history interview, 1998-01-20

GOLDSEN: I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to close that door.

PATON: Okay, today is Tuesday, January 20th --

GOLDSEN: Today's the 20th, right --

PATON: -- the 20th --

GOLDSEN: Yes.

PATON: And this is Chris Paton, and I'm here with Michael Goldsen; and we're checking to see if the recorder's working.

GOLDSEN: [There's usually] not much conversation from that room [referring to an adjacent office]. It just so happens that it's --

PATON: Kind of a busy day today.

GOLDSEN: Just right now, she's talking to one of our accounting officers.

PATON: I think we're ready to go.

GOLDSEN: Okay, fine. Well, let me just say that as I look back on when I first saw Johnny, before I ever knew him, it was in the early thirties, and I used to -- I lived in Flatbush; and we used to go a beach called Manhattan Beach, and they used to play bands. They would have bands come and play weekends, and they 00:01:00had Paul Whiteman there; and the way I deduced it was that I remember Johnny singing, "Bang, bang, here come the British!" with the band. And as I recall what he looked like, he was very preppy, and I visualize him wearing saddle shoes, and, you know, a crew neck sweater with his shirt out. But that's how I remember Johnny -- but I had no idea that one day I would become associated with him. But that's how far back I remember him; and, of course, I followed his career from then on. But I first got to know Johnny when Glenn Wallichs, who was head of Capitol Records, created Capitol Records, put together the combination of Johnny and Buddy DeSylva and himself. Glenn was a great organizer, although 00:02:00he was, he was kind of inbred as an organizer, because prior to that time, he had started out in Hollywood as a radio repairman. He had a little shop. And then he expanded it, and he finally wound up opening up on the corner of Sunset and Vine "Music City," which was a record store. And because he had a liking for electronic things, he decided it would be a good idea to have a little booth where he could record people, and so that's when he first met Johnny, when Johnny came in and did some demos in his little studio there. And, finally, this was during the war -- about 1941 -- there were no major record companies out 00:03:00here. All the companies were back East. There was Decca; there was RCA; and there was Columbia. And Warner Brothers hadn't even started yet, but --. And there was kind of a little jealousy because there was no record company out in California of note. There were some local record companies. So, Glenn Wallichs and Johnny got together and said, "You know, we ought to start a record company. There's just so much talent here, and we don't have any outlet for -- we have to go through these New York companies." Decca had a good office here. RCA had an office. Columbia had an office here. And so they finally got together, and they needed some money, a backer, and they got Buddy DeSylva, who was a producer at 00:04:00Paramount Pictures. Now, Buddy had been a very successful Broadway producer. At one time, he had three hits running on Broadway at the same time. I forget, but they were Panama Hattie, DuBarry Was A Lady, and one other one. Then, he was brought out to California and became a very successful producer of films for Paramount. Well, because of the connection -- and Johnny had worked out at Paramount, so he knew Buddy. So, Buddy came in, and I think he put up the munificent fund of $25,000 to start the darn company. And they were able to finance it through [foreign?] deals, etc., and they got lucky right away. They started off with hits like "Cow, Cow Boogie," and they became very successful overnight. The big problem was getting shellac during the war. It was a big 00:05:00problem, but they managed to make a deal with a plant back East; and because of Glenn Wallichs' ability as a business manager and a businessman, they succeeded. And Johnny went right along -- Johnny, I think, was president at one time. So -- Johnny was handling all the artists; he would pick the artists. Glenn was great at picking people, but not at picking talent. Glenn was what they called, in a friendly way, a "square." You know, his taste in music was old-fashioned and whatnot. So Johnny, it was Johnny's taste that was reflected; and, luckily, they hired people who were able to continue in a creative way to augment Johnny's tastes. Like Johnny brought in Margaret Whiting. And Glenn Wallichs -- because 00:06:00of his friendship with a man named Carlos Gastel brought in Nat Cole, and Stan Kenton, and Peggy Lee. These are all people that were handled by Carlos Gastel. Then, they brought in a man named Dave Dexter, who was a well-known jazz writer at the time. And Dave built up the jazz catalog with a lot of great artists: Nellie Lutcher, and he really helped to develop that. So, it was a matter of Glenn finding people to do the work, and Johnny at one time was the only one picking the artists; and, suddenly, they now had a great crew. They picked up a guy named Jim Conkling, who was a good organizer, for running the creative end; and Glenn remained head of the administration. And Johnny was the -- was called 00:07:00the president at one time. But the funny part of it is that -- after a while the routine got a little bit too much for Johnny. He had to okay title pages and everything, and he would be out playing golf or out at a party the night before, and he couldn't get in the office in time to do the work. You know, it got piled up so that they realized eventually that Johnny was not going to be able to handle all the work that was piled up; and it was also interfering with his career as a writer and a performer. So somehow or other, they got Johnny to agree to step down as president, I think Glenn Wallichs was made president. And everybody wanted to know, you know, just about how we felt about it, you know. 00:08:00So here's a letter that he wrote to me in 1950, and look at the back, and you'll see the irony of the thing. [Pause]

GOLDSEN: Ex-president --

PATON: Yes, the return address says "John Mercer, Ex-President, Capitol Records." GOLDSEN: That shows you that down deep, he felt a little, not slighted, but just was sorry that he could not stay as head of the company because it was impossible. He had too many other things going for him --

PATON: Um-hmm.

GOLDSEN: So, at that time, when Capitol Records started in the early forties, I was General Manager of a company called Leeds Music --

PATON: Um-hmm --

GOLDSEN: -- which now is MCA. And I felt I was limited at Leeds because Lou Levy 00:09:00had made commitments for ownership to different people that were supposed to be sub rosa, and he promised me a percentage, but he couldn't deliver it. It was just impossible. His lawyer said, "Look, you've already promised this guy that -- "you know -- and so I had to think of moving on. Well, Glenn Wallichs came to New York on a business trip. At that time, he didn't have an office [in New York]. He used to deal with Scranton Buttonworks. They did the pressing of the records in Scranton, Pennsylvania. They became very important in financing because they became the outlet for all his record works. So, he came to New York, and Dave Dexter, who he hired, and had been a personal friend of mine for 00:10:00years; and so he'd said to look me up. And he didn't know anybody in New York, so I took him out to see the bands. And we got very friendly, and on the next trip he came out, he called me again. And he said, "What do you think about Capitol Records forming a music publishing company?" And I said, "Well, everybody else is doing it. Decca has done it. I don't see why not Capitol." And he says, "Well, would you be interested in running it?" I said I would if I could become a partner. I said my next move is going to be in that direction. So he said, "Well, let me talk to Johnny and Buddy, and I'll get back to you." Well, he did, and he said that they agreed that we would make it a four-way split. So, he said, "When can you start?" I said, "Well, I've got to give them a month's notice." So I gave notice, and that I would start in September of 1943, 00:11:00and I would open an office in New York and eventually branch out. So, he brought me out to California when we made the deal, and I met Johnny and Buddy and Glenn. And we went to lunch at Paramount Pictures' commissary, and, it was, to me it was a wonderful step forward, and I entered a new world because, you know, mingling with people like Johnny Mercer and Buddy DeSylva was quite a treat. So I started to have a relationship with Johnny Mercer. And since he didn't have any publisher prior to that time, he was friendly with various publishers; and when he did a motion picture, he was obligated to give the songs to the picture company. So, now, if he had songs that were loose, they would go to Capitol 00:12:00Songs, we called it Capitol Songs. Well, the first big hit we had was "G.I. Jive," and it became a big hit on Capitol, and I think Johnny did it himself. From then on, he did a, I think it was a radio show at the time, the Chesterfield Supper Hour, or something. And he wrote a theme song for the show about cigarettes, you know. And the name of the song was "Dream," you know [singing], "Dream, when you're feeling blue, dream, that's the thing to do. Just watch the smoke rings rise in the air; you'll find your share of happiness there, so dream, dream, dream." It's a very short song. And I heard about it -- I heard the song, and I heard about it. The man who was helping me run the company at the time was the stepson of Buddy DeSylva -- Davey Shelley -- a 00:13:00terrific guy, a lot of personality --. And he was in with everybody in Hollywood; and so he would be a good man for the company. So, when I heard about Johnny's song, I heard it, I called him up, and I said, "Gee, Dave. We've got to get that song put right in the company -- you know -- we'll work on it." So he says -- "Well it's only a theme song." I said, "I know, Davey, but it's a great song. Regardless of whether it's a theme song -- it's a great song." And he says, "Well, I didn't know whether you wanted it because it was only a theme." I said, "Oh, God, Davey, whatever you do" -- I said, "Get that damn song on a contract. Put Johnny's name on a contract right away." So he did. And I couldn't believe it but -- I won't mention his name, but a very important person involved in Capitol on the musical end of it, said to me one day: "Is that true? Are you 00:14:00going to publish 'Dream'?" I said, "Yeah!" He says, "Are you going to work on it like a number one song?" -- which means they are going to plug it -- I said, "Yeah, I think it's a great, great song." And he says, "Boy, I hope you know what you're doing." Now, this guy was very much involved in the song and all that. I couldn't figure out why these guys were so hesitant about this song. I mean, I had some training in the music business. But I had a kind of an instinct about songs, and I felt that this was a surefire hit. So, I got it all straightened out. Well, the Pied Pipers recorded it and everybody in the world recorded the song. It became a tremendous hit, sold over a million copies of sheet music. That was our -- my first experience with Johnny -- or second, really. At that time we had -- Frank Sinatra did it on Columbia and the Four 00:15:00Aces did it on Decca. Vaughn Monroe did it; Freddie Martin did it, and so --. There's a copy of the song [giving a copy to Paton]. And so Johnny felt very good about it, because our little company was able to make a national -- worldwide hit. If you would like to have a copy for your archives, you can have it.

PATON: I would love it. We'd love it.

GOLDSEN: So that was the beginning of a great feeling that Johnny and I had together because I was able to take a song of his and make it into a worldwide hit. It was a tremendous, tremendous hit. So, from then on, we worked together. There's a song he wrote called "Duration Blues."

PATON: Oh, I love "Duration Blues" --

GOLDSEN: Huh? You know the song?

PATON: I love "Duration Blues."

GOLDSEN: This is one of his.

PATON: Is this for the archives?

GOLDSEN: Pardon me? Yeah, you can have that. I picked out certain songs for the archives.

PATON: Wonderful.

GOLDSEN: And so during the time when he was with us, he didn't give us a lot of songs, but --

PATON: Capitol -- the Capitol sheet music company?

GOLDSEN: Yeah, you know the sheet -- well, it was called Capitol Songs.

PATON: Did you get "Strip Polka"?

GOLDSEN: No.

PATON: No.

GOLDSEN: No, "Strip Polka" was, it was before I started --

PATON: It did?

GOLDSEN: Yeah, that was another big thing that Capitol had, yeah. But that was before I came into the picture. But to digress for a moment and get into the personal life with Johnny. Johnny invited me to Palm Springs, it was in '43 or 00:17:00'44, at a place called the Deep Well Ranch. It was the kind of place that all the big picture people came to. At that time, Palm Springs was a delightful resort. It wasn't as big as it is now. And it just was a place where you drove into this long driveway, like a quarter of a mile into this real ranch where they had horses, and it was quite a retreat. And I was his guest for the weekend, and we had a barbecue party one night, and he introduced me to a neighbor of his on the beach called Robert Young -- and his [Young's] family were there. So I was kind of brought into the thing, and, of course, Johnny was such a great host, you know? But he did have, I guess it's no secret, he had a 00:18:00drinking routine, we'll put it that way -- in which when he first started to drink in the evening, he would be jolly and sing us songs and have a ball. Then, the second stage is when he got, his sense of humor at that point in drinking was to insult people. I mean, he meant no harm by it; in fact, he thought it was a -- it was his sense of humor. And, of course, some people didn't understand it, and took umbrage of it, but most of those who were friendly with Johnny knew when he, that was just Johnny. It was his way of being friendly. Then, the third stage was he went into a corner and went to sleep. And that was his routine, wherever he went, that was his routine when he went to a party. So, then, 00:19:00another year later he had a house at the beach. It was called Broadbeach; it's called Trancas, and it's a section off the Pacific Coast highway, a side road between the highway and the ocean. There's a road that goes down in there, and there's a group of houses, and these were very expensive beach houses; and the elite of Hollywood lived there. And so I was invited down for the day, and I got there about eleven o'clock, and Johnny and I went out on the beach. We threw a ball around or something, and we horsed around, and went for a swim; and it came one o'clock and no mention of lunch, and two o'clock, and no mention of lunch. And I'm starved, you know, I haven't had anything since early morning, and so 00:20:00Johnny -- He was in the house, and he said, "You want me to fix you some gumbo?" I said, "Oh, Johnny, I'd love it!" I was really starved. So he fixed me a pot of, he had a pot of gumbo that was prepared, and he just heated it up, and I had some gumbo. Then, we spent the rest of the day horsing around and came nightfall, he invited Robert Young and his family over for drinks, and they started to drink. I wasn't good at that, but I just kind of joined in socially. And it was eight o'clock, no mention of dinner; nine o'clock, -- ten o'clock no mention of dinner. Finally, at midnight, you know these folks are drinking, and Robert Young said to his wife, mentioning his mother-in-law -- "Can Susie fix us some ham hocks and beans?" So she went next door and fixed up a pot of ham hocks and beans, and that was our dinner about one o'clock in the morning. And that 00:21:00was his routine. I mean, there was no orderliness; there was no thing where you came to his house and the table was set and Ginger would have a nice dinner. That was never part of his routine. He was a free spirit in that sense. So about 1950, I, because I was in charge of copyrights for Capitol Records -- I'm going ahead of myself -- I don't want to inject my life story into this, but in order to put things in chronological order: In 1948, Capitol Records became a public 00:22:00corporation, and because it became a public corporation, Johnny and Buddy and Glenn couldn't be actively engaged in the publishing business. It would be a conflict of interest, because the record company wouldn't be benefiting from it. Prior to that time, it was a private company, and so they could do it any way they wanted. So they came to me, and they said, "Look, you have a choice -- whether you sell out to us, you buy us out, or else what we'll do, we'll put the company on ice; you come to California, you open up just companies for Capitol Records and you run them." And I said, "Well, the third choice seems to be the best for me." So, I did that. I moved out to California in '48, as head of the Capitol Records Company, publishing, and I was in charge of copyrights. And they 00:23:00had a thing called "Bozo the Clown." And I was in charge of "Bozo the Clown," so, you know, when I get into something, I like to do it right. Well, I got into this thing, and I found costume makers and mask makers and all, and I had about twenty outfits made up so that a person could look like Bozo with the outfit and the face, and I sent him around to the branches, and we had Bozos working all over the country, and we had licensees, but before I knew it, I was getting so deeply involved in Bozo that I neglected my publishing. And I said, "This is not where I want to go." So, I had an opportunity to get involved in another outside 00:24:00enterprise, which I won't go into; it was something that Capitol Records would join in at one time. And so I went to Glenn, and I said: "You know, Glenn, I'm not very happy in the role of Bozo's manager and whatnot, so I'd like to go back into the publishing business on my own." So, he said, "Well, would you like to buy us out?" I said, "I'd love to." So he arranged it financially. We won't go into details, but I was able to buy him out -- Glenn and Johnny and Buddy DeSylva. And I went into business for myself, and I left Capitol Records.

PATON: When was this?

GOLDSEN: This was 1950. But my relationship with Johnny was still very good, although he wanted to stay with me -- and I didn't want to stay with him for one 00:25:00main reason and that is because he did a lot of picture work, I couldn't get those songs. If he wrote a song for a picture, he couldn't give it to me. So I'd be sitting there, you know, waiting, and people, songwriters would say: "Well, Johnny's friend, you know. He's not going to give any attention to outside songs." And, hell, I'd be sitting there waiting for him to write me an independent song when he'd be tied up with very lucrative deals to picture songs. So, I said, "Gee, it's not going to work out," so I decided to go on my own. And Johnny, well, he was gracious about it, but he wanted to stay with me. It wasn't until some years later that he went into business, a few years later, he went in business with somebody else. But in the interim, he would bring me songs. And he'd say, "I want you to be my publisher," and this would, you know, 00:26:00would thrill me. Like, here's one of the songs that he gave me, a great, great song, by the way ["Hello, Out There, Hello"]. I don't know if you know about it, but it's really one of the most original ideas about speaking to people in outer space. It's a funny, funny song, and it was recorded by him and Wingy Manone, who also was a good friend of mine. So, around 1950, before I left Capitol Records, early in 1950, we had a man in France who represented Capitol Records, and I had met him, and I said, his name was Serge Glykson, I said, "You know, Serge, you are able to hear a lot of good French songs, and I love French pop 00:27:00songs. If you hear of anything, send it to me. Maybe I can get the rights in the United States." So, he got back to me, he sent me a pile of records this high. And I listened to them, and I heard one song, I think Edith Piaf had recorded, called "Les Feuilles Mortes." And I listened a minute, and I said, "Oh, man, this is the greatest song I've ever heard." And so I got ahold of him, and I found the name of the publisher, and I made a deal. And I went to a fellow named Jim Conkling, who was my step up (I mean, I had to get okays from him, if I had a --). And the guy wanted a six-hundred-dollar advance, from France for the song, and I had to go to Jim Conkling. So I played the song for Jim, and he asked me what I thought, and I said, "I think it's a great song." And Jim was kind of, a little bit tight on money, but he said, "How much does he want?" "He 00:28:00said six hundred." He said, "Well, give it to him." So -- if he'd said no, I would have had it in my own firm, you see. So, I said, "Okay, fine, it'll go into Capitol Songs." But the stipulation was that I had to get a lyric within four months. So I played it for Johnny, and Johnny said, "Yeah, that's a real pretty song." I said, "John, would you like to write the lyric?" "Yeah, I'll get to it." So, I gave him the lyric, and I was busy with other things, and, finally, it was three weeks before the deadline and I hadn't had the lyric. So, Johnny lived on Sweetzer --

PATON: Um-hmm.

GOLDSEN: The street that parallels Sunset, right down below where the hotels are, et cetera. And I called up, and I said, "You know, John," I said, "I don't 00:29:00have that lyric on 'Autumn Leaves'." And it was only a short song. You know, it wasn't a big song. And, to me, it sounded like you could write that in twenty minutes, you know? But here it was almost three months, and he hadn't written it. So, he said to me: "Oh, yeah, Mickey I like that song very much. It's a beautiful song." I said, "Well, what about the lyric?" He said, "You know, I'll tell you what." He says, "I'm going to New York on Wednesday, and why don't you drive me to the train. And I'll write the lyric on the train, and I'll send it back, I'll wire it back to you." I said, "That's fine, John." So, came Wednesday, I'm supposed to pick him up, say, one o'clock, and I'm -- it was the day I'm going to move from Los Feliz, where I lived, to the Valley. And the 00:30:00landlord is giving me a bad time because my kid scratched a wall here or something, and so I had to deal with this man, and I had to go pick up Johnny and take him to the train, so I was about ten minutes late or so getting to his house. So, I drove up to his house, and I see him sitting on the steps of his house, and I walked up, and I said, "Gee, John, I'm awful sorry I'm late." I said, "I got involved with the damn landlord." I said, "But you know, we got plenty of time to make it." He said, "Well, you know, I didn't know if something had happened, so while I was waiting, I wrote the lyric. Here it is." Here it took him three --. You wanted to change that?

PATON: I need to change the tape.

PATON: Okay, we're back on again.

GOLDSEN: So here was, he'd had the lyric for three months and nothing happened, and, you know, the day I am supposed to pick him up to [take him to] New York, 00:31:00because I was late, he wrote the lyric. And he wrote it on the back of an envelope or something. And as I am driving, he read it to me, and tears came to my eyes. It was just such a great lyric. "The sunburned hands I loved to hold." Everything about that lyric was just so, so Mercerish. I took it to record companies, and Dave Kapp, who was head of Decca at the time, when he heard the song, he said to me: "Mickey, I'm going to make this song a dozen times. I'll give it to everybody that's on the label." And strangely enough, he never did have a big hit with it. He gave it to Crosby and everybody. But, a few years later, when he went into business for himself, he gave it to Roger Wagner, it was, Kapp Records, and that became a big smash. That became the biggest record, 00:32:00without the lyric. It was just instrumental. So, Johnny came to me one day a few years later, and he said, "You know something, Mickey?" He said, "'Autumn Leaves' is the biggest income song I have ever had, and I only wrote the lyric to it, and I only collect in the United States and England." That's how big the song was. He says, "I owe you a hit," which he never did make good on. But that was what happened on that song. Of course, it has become a tremendous standard. So, the same publisher had another song I liked called, let's see, it was called 00:33:00"Le Chevalier du Paris." This was also an Edith Piaf record, and it was a thing with verses and a chorus. To me, it felt like a great song. And at that time, I was friendly with another big writer. I won't mention his name, but --. So I went to him with the song, and I said: "This is a great song." So, the guy took the song, and he only wrote the chorus. The chorus -- and it was a song like [humming], and he wrote [singing]: "When I dance with you, and you're in my arms." And I said to him, "You know, that doesn't feel important enough for this kind of a song to write about 'when you were in my arms.'"So, the guy took 00:34:00offense at that, and he said to me, "Well, if you want an important lyric, get an important writer." And so I said to myself, "I think I will." So, I went to Johnny with the song, and I got him a translation of it. And he looked at it, he listened, and he says, "Gee, I love this thing." He said, "I really feel it." And he went over the lyric with me, you know, the French translation. And then three days later, he came back with a male lyric: three verses and three choruses, and a female lyric: three verses and three choruses. And when I showed this song around, everybody that I showed it to couldn't wait to give it to an important artist. And, of course, the artists that we got on the thing were just tremendous -- including Sinatra and people like that. It was such a dramatic 00:35:00song. As a matter of fact, Alan Sherman, who is a satirist -- do you know who he is?

PATON: Um-hmm, sure, I do.

GOLDSEN: -- was on a program that I happened to be watching, and they were talking about lyric writers, and he said: "To me," he said, "Johnny Mercer, who wrote 'When the World Was Young' is one of America's greatest poets." That was what he said about him. You can have a copy if you wish.

PATON: Let me ask you something about this. This is one of my favorites, too --

GOLDSEN: Yeah --

PATON: Did you ask him to write a female lyric, or did he just do that on his own?

GOLDSEN: He did it on his own.

PATON: Was it common --? We have noticed that for several of his songs -- "Have You Got Any Castles, Baby" -- one of his earlier songs --

GOLDSEN: Yeah.

PATON: -- has the boy's version and a girl's version.

GOLDSEN: Yeah.

PATON: This one has male and female --

GOLDSEN: Right.

PATON: -- versions. Was that a standard thing to do?

GOLDSEN: Well --

PATON: If the song itself couldn't go either way?

GOLDSEN: Yeah. In other words, if the song was written for a man, it would limit it. And so there was always that option, and some would either change the lyric or add lyrics so a girl could do it; and Johnny was smart enough to realize that. I mean, like, Peggy Lee recorded it. Well, she wouldn't have recorded it if it didn't have a girl's lyric.

PATON: Right.

GOLDSEN: So, it opened it up to both men and women. But Johnny was a pro, so I didn't even ask him to write a man and a woman's lyric, but he did. I mean, for example, one of his own songs that he wrote was a male's song, "One For My Baby." You never hear a woman sing that.

PATON: Actually, Margaret Whiting does a marvelous job with it.

GOLDSEN: Well, she may --. She could probably figure a way to get around it, and 00:37:00I guess women do it --. But Johnny was smart enough to do that, you know?

PATON: One other thing that we think that we've noticed over the years, and when people ask questions, and we pull the sheet music out, and we show them various things --

GOLDSEN: Yeah.

PATON: -- he seemed to do the women's point of view awfully well, and his women have real style with the way that they express --. I mean, you would expect that they would anyway because any of his voices in the lyrics would have style because he did.

GOLDSEN: Yeah.

PATON: Did anybody ever comment on that or have you heard anything?

GOLDSEN: Well, not to the extent that he wrote well for women. He just wrote well.

PATON: Yes.

GOLDSEN: You see, and when you come to think of it, and I've been thinking about it lately, it's this -- that Johnny was an amazing writer in this respect: He wrote lyrics -- he wrote one of the great instrumental lyrics on "Satin Doll."

PATON: Yes.

GOLDSEN: Or he did the "aurora borealis" --

PATON: Yeah, the "lips were like a red and ruby chalice." Is that "Midnight Sun"?

GOLDSEN: That was --

PATON: I can't remember which title that goes with.

GOLDSEN: I've got it here somewhere. So he wrote for Duke Ellington or for Benny Carter in that case. He wrote for Jerome Kern. He wrote for Hoagy Carmichael. He wrote a southern-type song. He wrote with Harold Arlen. He wrote with Rimsky-Korsakov. He came to me one day, and he said, "You know, Mickey" --. There was a certain songwriter that, he wasn't jealous of him or anything, but it just rubbed him the wrong way that the guy had taken a PD [public domain] song and put a lyric to it and got a hit out of it.

PATON: Um-hmm.

GOLDSEN: And so he said to me, you know, he says, "I'm going to do the same thing." He wrote a lyric to "Song of India." Now, this is after he left me. This 00:39:00is 1953, which was so nice of him; he came -- I had this little publishing company, struggling to make it, and here is Johnny Mercer comes in, he said, "Would you publish 'Song of India'?" I said, "Would I!" And he wrote this incredible lyric, and to this day, I mean, Frankie Lane called me about a year ago, he'd just rerecorded it, and he says, "Mickey, this is the greatest song ever written." He said, "I do it in clubs, and people go out of their minds." He says, "This is tremendous." So, he [Mercer] says, "I'm tired of this guy writing public domain songs." He says, "You can publish it." So he gave me the song, and the song was so long, and it took three or four minutes to sing it. So you just can't go to an artist and ask him to record a song because it was so 00:40:00uncommercial at that time. Well, I went to Dave Kapp, who was then head of RCA. He had gone from -- somehow or other, he wound up at RCA Records. And I said, "You know, Dave," I said, "I've got a song that I am going to play for you that I hesitate about because I can't say it's commercial." I said, "But it's by Johnny Mercer, and Rimsky-Korsakov." He says, "Well, then, I've got to hear it." So I played him a demo of this thing, and he listened to it, and he'd look at the lyric, and he said to me, "You know, Mickey, I wouldn't be worth being in the music business if I didn't record this song." He says, "This is a classic!" He says, "I'm going to give you Mario Lanza." Oh, to a little publisher walking 00:41:00in off the street with a song to get Mario Lanza! But I had a good relationship with people. And when I told Johnny, he was thrilled. And, of course, it's become a classic. So, the thing about it was that Johnny was grateful to me, and he kept bringing me songs. I brought him a song, which he recorded, and he fixed up the lyrics a little bit, but he and Nat recorded it.

PATON: Oh, I love that recording ["Save the Bones for Henry Jones"]. GOLDSEN: Coincidentally, I was a co-writer on the song. But this is when I -- PATON: What is the story on this? This is "Save the Bones for Henry Jones."

GOLDSEN: Actually, the story is: Danny Barker was a guitarist, played in jazz bands or whatever, and he was married to a singer called Blue Lu Barker, who was a blues singer at the time. And he was friendly with me, came up to my office in 00:42:00New York, and, you know, I had a good relationship with Danny Barker. And he said, "You know, there's a guy that comes around in Harlem," where he lived, "and we stand around on the corner, and everybody goes out to dinner and leaves this poor guy alone." And the guy happened to be a fighter. He was, Henry Jones was a heavyweight boxer. I used to see him fight on television. And so, everybody would go off and leave him alone, and as they went away, he said, "Save the bones for Henry Jones 'cause Henry don't eat no meat." Well, you know, it got to be a catch phrase 'cause --

PATON: Um-hmm --

GOLDSEN: You know, it got to be --. So Danny Barker wrote this, he brought me the idea, and we sat down, and we put the thing together, made it into a song. And when I heard it, I flipped out. I said, "This is so wonderful!" About a 00:43:00party and all. And so I sent it out to Johnny, and the next thing I knew, Johnny and Nat recorded it, and Johnny added one line to it [singing]: "Henry don't eat no meat. He's an egg man!"

PATON: Yes.

GOLDSEN: That was Johnny's contribution. So that was the story of that song.

PATON: Well, they seemed to have a wonderful time recording it.

GOLDSEN: They must've. It was a great thing. Well, during this period after I left Johnny --. In 1959, I bought a house down on Lido Isle. Do you know Lido Isle by any chance?

PATON: No, but I'm --

GOLDSEN: Newport Beach?

PATON: I've heard of it. I'm going down tomorrow, to Newport Beach, to talk with somebody.

GOLDSEN: Well, that was -- I still have a house down there.

PATON: I've heard it's beautiful.

GOLDSEN: Yeah. And so I bought a house down there, and Johnny had a house down there. I knew about that, but that wasn't the reason I bought the house because I had been going down with my family, and we'd rent a place for a couple of 00:44:00weeks during the summer. And I decided that, I love boating, and I have friends down there. Axel Stordahl had a boat. Carlos Gastel had a boat down there. So, I bought this house in '59, and Johnny lived, he lived on Koron, and I lived on Orvieto, that's K-L-M-N-O, five blocks away -- so we became, you know, very friendly because we still had good feelings toward each other. And there were a couple of stories that kind of show you what kind of guy he was. He had a little dog, a little beagle, called Tippy, and he loved the dog, he loved it. He used to walk around the island, you know. And I heard this story, and I'm going to tell it to you, and I know it's kind of weird, but a man told me this to whom it 00:45:00happened. It was one of my neighbors. I can't think of who it was now. He said one evening he was in his house, and he heard his garbage can being rattled, so he walked out in the back and he saw this man looking through, going through his garbage. And it was Johnny Mercer. So, he said, "Can I help you?" He says, "No, I'm looking for some bones for Tippy." Can you believe it? I mean. It was weird. He had such a feeling for this dog. And so the dog became ill. It had something to do with the padding in his feet. And he had to put him in the vet's, and he would go visit the dog every day, and you know what the dog loved? Chicken soup. 00:46:00He would bring him a bowl of chicken soup every day, and that was the feeling Johnny had for him. Now, Johnny lived -- see, the island has one boulevard around it. It's Lido Soud on one side, Lido Nord on the other. He lived near Lido Soud but he lived about three houses in, so he had no view of outside. And he loved to go to the bay. Now, Johnny was a pretty wealthy man at the time. He drove an ordinary car. He drove a convertible Chevy or something, and he had an inner tube tire, and he'd walk out to this dock on the end of Koron. Because at Koron, if you went out to the beach, you'd cross the street and then there was one line of houses, and there was a walkway, there was like a little park and a 00:47:00walkway to the dock. And he would go out to the dock with his tube, and he'd swim off the dock with the tube; he'd paddle around with the tube. Here's a guy, a multimillionaire, and he's sitting out there with a tire tube.

PATON: Um-hmm.

GOLDSEN: That's the kind of guy he was. So some woman had met him at a party one night, and she happened to have an interest in music and all, and she said, "You know, Johnny, you love the water and all." She said, "How come you're not living in one of the waterfront houses?" He says," Oh, man, they're expensive, I can't afford it!" He could've afforded, you know, to buy up a whole row of houses, but he never felt that he was rich. You know, he was very modest about that. He didn't live according to his income. He just lived according to his taste. If he wanted something, he bought it. So he was that kind of a guy. Well, there again, 00:48:00one night we were invited to go to his house for dinner. So we went over there, my wife and I, and, funniest thing about it, I don't recall Jeff and Mandy being around at all. Maybe by that time, they had started their own lives.

PATON: About when was this?

GOLDSEN: Well, it had to be in the sixties, early sixties. And so we were there, we went over there one night. And, by the way, the house was sold to a friend of my daughter's. My daughter lives on Lido Isle right across from where we have our house. And so we're having drinks, and, you know, eight, nine, ten, eleven o'clock; and we were invited over for dinner. And we were about six or eight people or so and nothing. There was no food. What happened was that Johnny 00:49:00invited all these people and never told Ginger they were coming for dinner, so Ginger didn't have any dinner prepared, so after about eleven o'clock, we started to phone around and find out if a restaurant was open, and we finally found a restaurant, and we all went out there to have dinner. But that was the way Johnny lived. He was just kind of a free spirit. And it just never occurred to him to tell Ginger he was inviting these people over for dinner. So, we had a nice relationship at that time while he lived there. Oh, then, I've got to go back to the time -- oh, I guess it was around '46 or '47, and Johnny used to come to New York. He had an apartment there, and he used to love to hang around with the boys. So, one night, I had an appointment with a man from the head of RCA, a guy named Herb Hendler, and we were going to go to the Waldorf Astoria 00:50:00Starlight Room where Xavier Cugat was playing, and the girl singing, I can't think of her name, I think the last name was Warren [Fran Warren]. So I didn't have the date with this fellow until, like, ten o'clock or so, for the ten o'clock show at the Waldorf. So, I went to dinner with Johnny, and he had a few drinks and all. And then he said: "Let's go up to hear Louis Armstrong." He was working at one of the clubs right on Broadway; at that time, there was a club that used to have bands. And it was not a very elegant room. It was just a big, open room with a bar and tables and all. And Johnny was an idol of Louis' -- and 00:51:00Louis idolized Johnny. It was kind of a mutual thing, and they had a ball. So, after we sat around, I said to Johnny, "I've got a date with Herb Hendler at the Waldorf Astoria. I said: "Johnny, do you want me to take you home?" He said, "No, why don't you take me with you?" He had already had a few drinks and all, so I said, "Fine." It certainly was easy to say to people: "Do you mind if I bring Johnny Mercer along?" So, I said to Herb Hendler, I said, "Do you mind if I bring Johnny Mercer?" He says, "Oh, my God, are you kidding? Bring him along. He's my idol." So, we went up to the Waldorf Astoria, and Johnny was like, [in] one of his second stages at that time, but he said something very funny; and it just shows you how even a big, talented man like him feels. Cugat was playing 00:52:00medleys of Jerome Kern and Gershwin and all, and Johnny turns to us, and he says, "Why doesn't he play some of the new standards?" He was dying because they weren't playing his songs --

PATON: Um-hmm.

GOLDSEN: -- and that Cugat was the kind of the guy who played that kind of music. Johnny's songs were pop tunes, and he was playing show tunes and picture tunes. But inwardly, you know, he said, "Why aren't they playing my songs? Why aren't they playing the new standards?" So it was quite an evening. Johnny was at his best and worst that night. In fact, Herb Hendler says, after it was over, says, "I was just wondering if I should have said no when he asked him to come along."

PATON: How much trouble, if any, did his --

GOLDSEN: Pardon me?

PATON: When he drank, and you are not the first person who has told us this --

GOLDSEN: Yes.

PATON: He tended to get insulting.

GOLDSEN: Yes.

PATON: How much of a handicap was that?

GOLDSEN: Pardon me?

PATON: How much of a handicap was that, or how did that --

GOLDSEN: People accepted it.

PATON: They did?

GOLDSEN: Like, for example, I wrote this down. I'll never forget this. We went out one night with Philippa and Bill Goodwin. Bill Goodwin was a big announcer and actor at the time -- a wonderful man. And Philippa was the sweetest woman, and they were very close to Johnny. And Johnny was in this stage, and he went up to Bill Goodwin and he said to him, he says, "Bill, you're a bum. I don't how a nice person like Philippa ever married you." You know -- something like that. Well, he meant, he thought it was funny, you know, to say something like that. Well, poor Bill Goodwin felt like this, you know?

PATON: Sure.

GOLDSEN: And the next day, Ginger was calling up -- apologizing [for] Johnny. But that was Johnny, you know, you had to accept him because he didn't mean any 00:54:00harm by it. He just did it. PATON: Did anyone ever suggest that maybe he not drink so much?

GOLDSEN: No.

PATON: No.

GOLDSEN: Because -- I guess it was hard to tell Johnny something like that, but he did have a problem. Let's face it. He did have a problem. I went to his house one time. This was in the late fifties, early sixties. And this was when he lived in Bel-Air. I forget whether it was Bellagio Road or --

PATON: Chalon --

GOLDSEN: Is it Bellagio Road?

PATON: No, Chalon.

GOLDSEN: Chalon Road -- right on the golf course. And he had a studio, a room that he used as [a studio]. It had a piano, and he had things stuck on the wall and all. And he had a lyric stuck up with a pin in it. And it said: "You can't win them all." And I looked at the lyric, and I said: "What is this?" He says, 00:55:00"That's the lyric that they turned down on 'Shadow of Your Smile.'" And he had it stuck up there, you know, "You can't win them all." And it's so true. Because I used to say, you know, a guy like Johnny Mercer is such a big guy --. I mean, let's compare him to Picasso. If Picasso signed a menu, just put a caricature, it's worth a hundred thousand dollars, you know? No matter what he did, it's worth a fortune. But a songwriter --, if Johnny writes a flop, it's nothing. You're not worth a dime. I can show you some songs that he wrote that never made it. But a songwriter has to live and die on his hits, not on his flops. Picasso can make a lousy painting that's worth millions. There's no such thing as a lousy Picasso painting.

PATON: Um-hmm.

GOLDSEN: But there is such a thing as an unsuccessful Johnny Mercer lyric, so there was that kind of difference between the two arts. Let's see what else I 00:56:00have written down here. Let's see. I guess that's about, that about wraps it up. I'll just show you some of the little --. This is a picture taken about 19 -- I would say, '48 or '49, at Capitol Records, in the lounge of Capitol Records. As you can see, there's Johnny and Nat Cole, and this guy, Fred Huddleston [NOTE: Mr. Goldsen later corrected this name; the correct name is Chuck Lowery], is one of the members of the Pied Pipers, and the four of them sitting in this little room, like a little lounge room. And one day at Lido, Johnny came up to me and said, "Gee, Ginger and I thought you'd like to have this picture [a different 00:57:00picture] for your collection."

PATON: So that was taken at Lido, then?

GOLDSEN: It was taken at Lido. Isn't that wonderful? I mean, the guy was so gracious. I guess I could think of some more things, but, personally, the guy had a good heart. I must say, the guy was not selfish or meanspirited in any way. He was not jealous of anybody. He was envious, maybe, you know, if somebody wrote a great lyric. But I've got to tell you a kind of a side story -- When I left Capitol Records, I had a pretty good reputation, so Sammy Cahn, the famous 00:58:00writer, came to me, and he said, "Mickey, now that you are on your own, why don't you and I start a company together?" I said, "Fine, Sammy." He gave me some lyrics, and we got melodies and all, and nothing was happening. A guy like Sammy Cahn was able to find writers who came up with great melodies, but the writers that he brought me, unfortunately, were not of that caliber. So we just had good lyrics by Sammy but not great melodies, and it wasn't flourishing. So Johnny brought me a lyric on something, and I loved it. I thought it was great. So I happened to mention to Johnny --. Oh, and Sammy Cahn once said to me, while we were associated, he said, "I think John Mercer is the greatest lyric writer that ever lived." He said, "If he would make me his manager, I'd give up 00:59:00songwriting." That's what he said. So I thought, well, I'd have an ally in Sammy Cahn. He was my partner in this little company; it was a separate company from my own. So one day Johnny brought me this great lyric, and that evening, I happened to be having dinner with Sammy Cahn, and I said to him, "Johnny brought me a lyric today that just knocked me out, it was just so great. I just can't tell you; it knocked me out." So Sammy Cahn says, "Oh, yeah?" I didn't realize at the time how he really felt about it, but after all, he told me that he would give up his songwriting if Johnny would make him his manager. The next morning I get a call from Sammy Cahn's manager. Sammy would like to break up the company. So I said to him, "Fine." I said, "Let's just split it down the middle, and it's all over. He's out. If he wants out, he's out." And that was the end of it. But it was ironic.

PATON: All because of a lyric.

GOLDSEN: All because I said to this guy that Johnny brought me this great lyric. And I thought he would agree with me and say, "Well, let me see it. I want to see it." But, no, he just took offense at, that --. And yet he told me that he felt that Johnny was the greatest lyric writer that ever lived. Well, I feel that he's one of the greatest lyric writers that ever lived because of his great talent, his ability to write any kind of a lyric, no matter what, a show tune or a picture tune or a jazz thing. I mean, a lot of jazz songs have bad lyrics. None of them are by Johnny Mercer. I think he had a very successful life. I don't think that he missed out on any opportunities, except maybe "Shadow of Your Smile." But it was a great experience to be involved with Johnny, and I 01:01:00never stopped back to appreciate the fact that I was involved with him in various things, but I was happy that he said once to me: "You gave me the biggest hit I ever had."

PATON: I think we are out of tape. Hang on just a minute.

PATON: Okay, the greatest hit.

GOLDSEN: Pardon me?

PATON: You said that he thanked you for giving him the greatest hit.

GOLDSEN: Well, that was it. He said to me, "You gave me the biggest hit I ever had" -- at that time -- "in 'Autumn Leaves.'" So I felt kind of good about that. And, of course, people to this day tell me about "When the World Was Young," what a great lyric it is.

PATON: Oh, it's beautiful. It's just gorgeous.

GOLDSEN: So, Tim Weston, here, I'll give you his phone number.

PATON: Let me get my pen. I'm going to put this on pause so we don't get it on the tape.

GOLDSEN: Well, that's it. I don't think I have much else to say.

PATON: Well, I have a couple of questions.

GOLDSEN: Yeah, sure, sure.

PATON: And this just comes from my ignorance of the publishing industry. We have sheet music. We have sheet music that says "Criterion," and we have sheet music that says "Capitol Songs," and, then, from a later period, we have music that says "Commander"?

GOLDSEN: Oh, Commander was his own company.

PATON: So, he started that on his own? About when?

GOLDSEN: Yeah, he started that with a fellow named Marshall Robbins.

PATON: We were just curious. I was just curious about it.

GOLDSEN: Oh, yeah. That was the company they started. He had a little company with a guy named Milt Raskin also. But I don't think it had too many. But on 01:03:00Commander -- I think he put "I Want To Be Around" on Commander.

PATON: He could very well have.

GOLDSEN: Yeah.

PATON: I know it has some of his later things -- a fair number of his later things are on there. GOLDSEN: Yeah, he had the office right across the street here.

PATON: Oh, really?

GOLDSEN: Right up the street. It's called the Lawyers Building; it's right after El Centro. There's an old building there, and he had an office there. In fact, we would still run into each other up the street. But we didn't travel in the same circle except when we were down in Lido, and we socialized down there, but we kept our friendship going. And, of course, I was sad that Johnny -- because of the way he conducted his personal life, as far as his eating habits, his drinking habits, that didn't add up to a long, healthy life. And I'm sure that 01:04:00his diet was not the healthiest diet in the world. I know that, based on what I saw, he didn't have regular hours when he ate. So it all added up, but it was kind of sad that he did not, was not able to live --. I don't know how old he was when he died.

PATON: Sixty-six, I think -- sixty-six or sixty-seven.

GOLDSEN: That's too young when compared to --

PATON: Oh, very.

GOLDSEN: -- to what people are living today. But it's just one of those things. So, who else have you got to talk about Johnny? Anybody else?

PATON: Oh, bunches of people. Let me thank you for the interview.

GOLDSEN: Yes.

PATON: And turn this off, and, then, I'll tell you all about it.

GOLDSEN: Yes.