Alan Young Interview, Part IV

We conclude our interview with Alan Young (born 1918) as he reminisces about his dealing with Disney, and the creation of Scrooge McDuck.

Let's go to Disney for a moment and your voice work for Scrooge McDuck, for Mickey's Christmas Carol.

I wrote Mickey's Christmas Carol in the 1970s as a recording for children. I did it for Disney. I played Mickey, and Goofy, and, of course, Scrooge, because that was my old accent. Then it became a movie, and then it became Duck Tales. So I stayed with it.

Are you happy with the association?

I'd rather let that pass. I had a lawsuit with them, because they weren't supposed to make a movie without my permission, and I didn't realize that in my contract. And my partner, on his deathbed, said to his girlfriend, "Tell Alan that Disney should not have made that movie without his permission!" So I got a lawyer and we sued, but the statute of limitations had just run out, it was just seven years!

I'm so sorry!

I talked to Peggy Lee, and she said: "Al, it's not worth it. They fight you to the bitter end. I ended up getting $2 million, and the lawyers got all of it." I was very happy to settle out of court.

You were also the voice of Faversham, the toy maker, in The Great Mouse Detective. Any memories of working with Vincent Price?

Why, I didn't work with him! As a matter of fact, here we go again with an operation that's kind of confusing. I went in to audition for it, and I did all the lines, and left thinking it was a nice audition -- I'd never had a longer audition in my life. It went on and on! And they used that for the part in the picture! I wish I had known, I would've done it a little louder.  (Laugh.) It was quite amazing! So I never met anyone, it was just myself, working alone.

So, it was just an audition! Did they use any of your performance or body language when drawing the character?

They may have. There were a lot of artists there, and they may have been making sketches, which is the right way to do it. But I knew Vincent from other things we had worked on together.   In the late 50s, when we were all out of work, just playing guests spots wherever we could, Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, and myself were supporting a Western star, who will remain nameless, who was doing a real classic. He was very hot at the time, but he couldn't act! And we were all sitting there, watching him, and talking about what it was like to support somebody who was telling you what to do, but doesn't know what he's doing himself! But I figured I was in good company with Peter Lorre and Vincent Price. If they have to play second fiddle, I figured it was fine to play third fiddle with that company. Peter Lorre gave me lessons in eye contact -- he was so marvelous, such a great performer. So, there I was, taking lessons from Peter Lorre and having marvelous conversations with Vincent Price... we had a great time.

I find it impossible to picture you, Vincent Price, and Peter Lorre in the Old West.

Oh, it wasn't a Western! It was King Arthur's Court! It was a very funny court, with Vincent playing so grand, and me playing a sort of cockney villain. So, it was quite a mixture. Didn't go over too well, as I recall.

Are you happy doing the voice-over work now?

I love it. Love it. It's like going back to radio.

Do you miss radio?

No, I still do radio. I do two or three shows a month. It's called Focus on the Family. I do it for the fun of it, keeps your muscles working. It's like Carleton Morse's One Man's Family. It's a nice family program.

What are your future plans?

To keep on working! We're working on an Irish musical now, and it's going to take some time to get it in shape.

Any final thoughts for our readers?

No, just that people all the time ask me if I'm tired talking about Mr. Ed. I'm not. He was the greatest actor I ever supported in my life! He was also the only actor I ever rode, so I'm very grateful to him.  I learned to ride on Ed, and I learned to listen to him, and met some lovely Western people, basic American people, and it was great. Those memories will never leave.

Alan Young Interview, Part III

We continue with out interview with Alan Young, first conducted in 1995.

You're loved by millions of Baby Boomers for Mr. Ed. How did that come about?

Well, I had a variety show on the air in the 50s, and I wanted to go on film the way Jack Benny and George Burns and all the others were. And here I was, beating my brains out, doing it live. Unfortunately, they had me under contract to do it live, that's much cheaper, and the network just held me to that. Finally, I couldn't take it any more, and I wanted to go on film. So I approached director Arthur Lubin and he said, do my show! I asked him what it was about, and he said: "A talking horse!"

I was doing standup comedy then, and was a little flip, and said: "Well, I don't work with anybody who doesn't clean up after himself!" Thanks very much, and that was that.

Well, Westerns became very popular and quiz shows, and suddenly I was out of work for awhile, even though I worked for Howard Hughes and other things. I did Tom Thumb, it was cheap, but it was a job. When I got back from England, I met somebody at the airport who said Arthur Lubin was looking for me. At that point, I was ready to talk to a dog, a horse, a mongoose, anything! And that's how I got Mr. Ed.

They had done a pilot, George Burns produced a pilot of it, and it didn't sell. Some dear fan is going to send me a copy of it; I've only seen it once. So they ran the film for me, and though I saw the mistakes they made (they all knew what the problems were), I knew the fun I could have with it. They cut the film down to 15 minutes, and I went out with it to sell it with the agency to a Studebaker car dealership, to go into syndication. The networks wouldn't touch it, they had already seen it and turned it down, so it was going directly into syndication. George Burns staged the first three months of the show -- he wanted to get his money back so he made sure it was funny.

Who played your part in the pilot?

I've forgotten. I wouldn't want to say if I did know, he may be nurturing hurt feelings or something. (Laughs.) I don't think I had seen him before. In the pilot, they didn't concentrate on the horse, they focused on a bunch of silly people, doing funny things. It was like comedy shows today: jokes, jokes, jokes, and it just left the horse in limbo.

Arthur Lubin also did the Frances the Talking Mule films.

He did. Actually, Mr. Ed preceded that in Liberty Magazine stories. Walter Brooks wrote them. Arthur had them and he held them back for television, after he had sold the Frances series to Universal.

I had wondered why he just didn't adapt Frances for television.

That belonged to Universal.

Any anecdotes of Arthur Lubin, who recently passed away?

Yes, he did. (Sighs.) He was a character, that's all I can say about him. He was a very lovable character, but he was a character. He wanted to rush through and get things done quickly, and he didn't want to stay around the studio too long. I'll never forget one line he used. He didn't like people fooling around on the set, cracking jokes. He really didn't have a great sense of humor for a man who did so many comedies! I'll never forget when he said: "Stop that! Stop all this laughing! This is comedy, there's no time for laughter!"

Well, we just all broke up. He didn't realize what he said, he didn't care. The memories I have of him are very sweet memories.

He was well into his nineties when he passed away. Did you stay in touch?

We saw each other quite often. They wanted to revive Mr. Ed many times, like they did with other shows. But he and the producer, Al Simon, had money they hadn't folded yet, so they weren't interested in doing it and doing it wrong. 

They all owned a piece of the show, so do I, and I wasn't interested in seeing it screwed up in any way. We were looking for a good script; I think we found a few, but they weren't interested, so I just let it go.

I think Disney has taken an option on doing it, I don't know.

Mr. Ed has been a staple on syndication everywhere.

Oh yes!

Did you think the series would have this tremendous longevity?

Well, we didn't know then about reruns, and Nick At Night, and all those kinds of things. We just thought it would run for awhile. But then, when it began to play down a wee bit, along came Nick At Night and boom!, it's all over the world. It's not on in America any more, but they said it was the cutting edge for Nick At Night in the beginning.

The fellow who did the voice for Ed...?

Rocky Lee.

Was that recorded in advance, or looped over afterward?

No, they did it right then and there, as we did the show. He had a microphone offstage, and when the horse started moving his lips, he did his lines.

So he was there, feeding you your lines! I had no idea!

That's why I felt the horse talked to me. As far as I was concerned, we were two actors doing their jobs.

What actually happened to Ed, the horse?

He passed away quietly, in the trainer's barn, about 1975. I used to go up and ride and visit him every day. I went away for awhile and I came back, and Ed was gone.

One of the more unusual guest stars on the show was Mae West. Any memories of her, and how that all came about?

Well, she was a friend of Arthur Lubin, and she called him up and asked to be on it! She had never done television, and had never done any after that, but she said that I'd like to work with the strongest, most virile leading man in television, and that was Mr. Ed, of course. (Laughs.) That's how it happened.

She was very tiny, wasn't she?

Oh, she was a wee one. I remember that she was wearing this tight fitting dress, I guess it had stays and all of that, but I just know that when she turned, the dress stayed where it was and she moved around inside of it!

I'm sure she was well into her 60s at that point.

Oh, past it, I think.

We conclude our Alan Young Interview tomorrow!

Interview With Alan Young, Part II

We continue today with our interview of comedian, radio, television and film star, Alan Young (born 1919), originally conducted in 1995.

Any recollections of make-up man Bill Tuttle?

I do. (Laughs.) I do on Time Machine. I think I had him on something else before Time Machine, but I've forgotten! But I do have a remembrance of when he made me up to be my own father at the age of 80, or something like that. He put the makeup all over, and did the bald head wig, and all of that sort of thing. And as I was about to leave, he gave me a small bottle of glue. I asked him what it was for, and he said: "George can't afford to have a makeup man on the set, so when the rubber begins to peel off, stick it back on with this glue!"  I said, "Gosh! I'm stealing your work!" He said, "You're welcome to it!"

I think that later on, in the afternoon, we didn't start shooting my scenes until 4:00, and my face was peeling off and I had to stick it all on again. I do remember Mr. Tuttle.

Great story! The Time Machine stands out from the science fiction films of that era because there is an almost melancholy, bittersweet quality to the story. I guess that's best embodied by the relationship between George and Filby. Was that in the script, or did it come about in the playing?

To me it was evident in the script, and to Rod also, and then the chemistry took over. I felt such warmth towards him and compassion, and he felt the same for me. We didn't know each other too well during the picture, and we didn't talk too much because he was so busy, and I was busy looking around for other work. It really wasn't until 30 years later when we made a little documentary on the film that we got know each other, about five-six years ago, and the chemistry between the two of us was still there.

We'll get to the documentary in a moment, which is an interesting work. When you played David Filby and his son Jamie as both a young and an old man, were you drawing on your own father? How did you go about developing the characters?

I'm sure I drew on my own father without really knowing it. He was such a gentle man, very loving and very supportive. And that's what I thought Filby would be, very supportive of his friend. The son, of course, would be, of course, English, raised in England, and would be a very different type of person. The son would be a very, "hail fellow, well met" sort of thing, and he would have a certain empathy for his neighbor. I wanted there to be quite a difference between the two, so I made the son more English.

That essential kindness, though, is I think the core of the character. You're such a dear, dear man in that film.

Well, that's my father. He supported people. He was never much of a leader, but you could count on him for anything. That's what I thought George should be for Filby -- he's a torment for Filby, because that's what he puts him through, but Filby supports him even though he doesn't understand anything he's doing.

Any memories of working with Sebastian Cabot, Tom Helmore, or Whit Bissell?

I had met Whit Bissell years before when I did my radio show. He did the commercial time.

I had no idea he was an announcer!

Oh, yeah. He wasn't an announcer, he was an actor and did the commercials for Bristol Meyers. We worked together quite a few times and I got to know him. Tom Helmore I had never met before, and I had never met Sebastian before, but we got rather friendly. He was a great cricket buff.

How long did you work on The Time Machine?

Not too long! George couldn't afford it, and we shot my scenes in two and a half weeks. He had to work fast and they put him under terrible time and budgetary restraints.

Tell me about the documentary on The Time Machine.

I was doing a musical comedy down in San Diego, and they sent me the script. So I learned it up in the car going back up to Los Angeles. We shot it in about two, two and a half hours. That's why I said that when Rod and I saw each other again, the chemistry was so good, we just picked up again after 30 years.

You both look as if you're having a very good time.

Oh, we enjoyed it! In fact, after that, we began to meet with the producer of the documentary on the possibility of doing a Time Machine sequel.

Wow! For years George Pal was talking of doing a sequel to The Time Machine!

Well, we met here in my house many, many times. We'd draft out ideas and put them on tape and send them out for writers to write, but we never got what the producer wanted. I think there is finally a script that is pretty acceptable. I don't know what he's doing with it. I think Rod lost a little interest in it because nothing has happened with it. But we wanted to keep it just the way we thought George Pal would want to do it.

The tenor of that type of film has changed incredibly in the decades since The Time Machine.

Oh yes!

I think this sort of fantastic film, like Tom Thumb or The Time Machine, are too good natured in this current atmosphere of depressing, downbeat, hard-edged action pictures or nasty-minded fantasy films.

Well, that's what we thought! We tried to counteract it with ingenuity. We know it had to stay close to George Pal's concept, and H.G. Wells' concept. The Victorian base was a good one because it had a quietness and a gentleness, yet it is a seething generation because it was just ready to burst forth into the Twentieth Century. We kept at that, and then we found adventures that we thought would make up for all the violence and the nastiness, and yet would have a little moral to it. Just a hint of a moral, nothing shoved down anyone's throat. I think we had a pretty good story worked out, and everybody else seemed to think so. I don't know what happened with it. In this business, you learn to just sit and wait.

I wish you luck. I'd love to see a Time Machine sequel, and a return to that kind of thoughtful, responsible, and fun fantasy film.

I would, too!

More Alan Young tomorrow!

Interview With Alan Young, Part I

Many years ago, your correspondent did a great deal of writing for various entertainment magazines.  I was lucky enough to do many interviews, not all of which ran as originally planned.  Some of these -- Clayton Moore, James Bernard, Lawrence Block – were published for the first time in The Jade Sphinx.  It’s with pleasure that I add another to that list, comedian Alan Young (born 1919).

This interview was originally conducted some 20 years ago when Young, now 94, was a sprightly 75 year-old.  We hope you enjoy!

For years it has been bandied about that Alan Young is one of the nicest men in Hollywood. One has only to watch him play the gentle characters in such genre classics as Tom Thumb and The Time Machine, his star turn as nice-guy Wilbur Post in television's Mr. Ed, or even listen to the old-softy undercurrents in his vocal characterization of Scrooge McDuck in countless Disney productions, and figure that all the things said about Mr. Young are true.

Figure no more. When we called Mr. Young for an interview in the summer of 1995, he proved as much fun, as generous of nature, as downright sweet as we had heard. And you might say we got it straight from the horse's mouth.

Mr. Young has a way of speaking that instantly puts the listener at ease, and it was with regret that our time together had come to an end.

Throughout the interview, Mr. Young made frequent references to his kindly, easy-going father. Spending time with him, you know that Alan Young is truly his father's son.

Here is what a man who knew Tom Thumb, a time traveler, and a talking horse had to say.

How did you get your start in show business?

Poverty! (Laughs.)  I was about 10 or 11 years old, and heard that the local Scottish society wanted somebody to entertain them. Well, I had been used to doing silly things, imitations of the old Scottish comedians and such, and I got $3 dollars for it.

And you've been working steadily ever since?

I don't know about steadily! It was sporadic. Nobody had much money. When my father came to walk me home after the show, we didn't have a car and it was a little village, and he saw the $3 they gave me. My Dad worked in a shipyard all day for that kind of money, and he said: "Son, keep up with that talking business because lips don't sweat!" That was the original title of my autobiography, which was re-titled Mr. Ed and Me.

While we're on talking, one of the best remembered shows from the Golden Age of  Radio was The Alan Young Show. Any memories of that?

I was never very happy with it. People send me tapes of it every now and then, and I listened to one the other day and I realized what I didn't like about it. It wasn't too funny! I got laughs from facial mugging, I guess, which didn't do much for the people at home, but meant a lot to the studio audience. I decided that when television came in that there was where I'd concentrate my efforts.  But I enjoyed radio because I met such nice people.

You had a terrific supporting cast for that show.

Oh yeah. When I think of the people that worked in New York, I didn't know them then, but people like Art Carney and Mercedes McCambridge, who became a very prominent actress, they were all what we called stooges on the show. That's what we called them, in those days. I was amazed later to find out who it was I was working with! (Laughs.)

One of the films dear to our readers is The Time Machine, which is considered one of the classics of the 60s. Is it the favorite of your films?

Well, that and Androcles and the Lion. I think it's a toss-up. But I think The Time Machine because in that I was allowed to play the character that I wanted to play, an old Scotchman like my father. George Pal was such a delight to work for!

How did your casting come about?

Well, I was in England and George Pal hired me for Tom Thumb. We got along so well, that during shooting he said, "When we get around to doing The Time Machine, I want you to play Filby." I said I'd love to. He didn't pay me much money for Tom Thumb because he didn't have much to spend. But he said he'd make it up to me with The Time Machine. When I got back to Hollywood, he called me up and said that we were going ahead with The Time Machine here instead of England, but I'm afraid you'll make less money now than you did in Tom Thumb! MGM was pretty tight on the money with George, and he had to make it up in talent.

Tom Thumb is also a wonderful little fantasy film.

It's a joy to watch now, because Russ Tamblyn was a great talent -- a terrific dancer. He's the whole picture.

Did you find working in two such heavy special effects films like Tom Thumb and The Time Machine daunting at times?

My character doesn't really have much to do with the special effects. I didn't know what they were going to do, I just did my part. I was so tickled in Tom Thumb just to be working with Jessie Matthews and people like that, who, when I was a little boy, were big stars. And I couldn't wait to see the finished product, because I knew just what a genius George was.

The Time Machine was a joy to work on because Rod Taylor was a real good guy and terrific actor. I really wasn't part of the special effects.

More Alan Young Tomorrow!