Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show by Daniel de Vise Page A

new television soaps, Search for Tomorrow . Don later termed it the only serious dramatic role of his television career. He played a neurotic janitor named Wilbur, who spoke to no one but his sister, Rose, portrayed by a young Lee Grant.
    â€œHe played a nebbish,” Lee recalled. “And he looked like a nebbish. And he was sweet. And he didn’t have a chance to be funny, because he was supposed to be dying or something. . . . It was so silly. And we were silly together, because neither of us knew what we were doing.”
    Daily rehearsals began at 8:00 a.m. The show aired at 12:45 and ended at 1:00, a fifteen-minute broadcast modeled on the format of radio. The schedule left Don time to race over to the Mutual Broadcasting studio for the afternoon broadcast of Bobby Benson . One role called for Don to act chiefly with his expressive face, in the manner of a silent film. The other exploited only his emotive voice. Don seemed equally skilled at both.
    Wilbur was scripted to appear in only two or three episodes of the soap. But Don played the part so well that Wilbur returned to the program sporadically for two years. Once again, he couldn’t believe his good fortune.
    â€œHe didn’t have to speak,” recalled Kay, Don’s wife. “And so he didn’t have to learn any lines. He loved it.”
    To this growing repertoire of characters, Don now added a new persona, one that would define his career. The Nervous Man came to Don in a dream; he awoke just as it ended and jotted down some notes. In the dream, a speaker delivers a speech at a civic-club dinner on ladies’ night. He feels out of place. He is shaking with fear, and he stammers, stumbles, and apologizes as he speaks. The dream combined two memories.
    â€œSeveral months earlier, I had attended a luncheon during which one of the speakers was so nervous, his hands were shaking visibly,” Don recalled. “He rattled the paper his notes were written on, and when he attempted a drink of water, he proceeded to spill it all over himself. It was a painful thing to watch, but at the same time, amusing.”
    The second memory concerned Robert Benchley, a comedic actor whose celebrated short film “The Treasurer’s Report” had apparently found its way to Morgantown. Benchley’s public speaker sits in palpable agony, a dozen pained expressions playing across his face as he strangles his cloth napkin and twiddles his thumbs. Then he speaks: “I am reminded of a story that probably all of you have heard. It seems there were these two Irishmen walking down the street. And they came to a, um, I should have said in the first place that the, uh, store belonging to the Irishman, the first Irishman, the first fellow’s store . . .”
    Don’s sketch combined the fluster and unease of Benchley with the palpable terror of the fretful luncheon speaker. Don’s character coughs and sputters and clears his throat. His speech, when it comes, veers from one faux pas to the next: “[Y]ou ladies would probably complain less if we stopped kidding you so much, calling you nicknames. For instance, Tom there, our president—hi, Tom—is always calling his wife, Claudia—hi, Claude—is always calling her the Old Woman. I happen to know that Claude is only forty-two. Well, that is, what I meant is, she’s not nearly as old as she looks. . . .”
    The darting saucer eyes, the pursed lips, the shuddering hands, the knotted brow, the quaking, overcaffeinated voice: Don’s comedic persona took wing in that scribbled sketch.
    Don was ecstatic. To that point in his career, he felt that his every performance had been derivative. Here, finally, was a character pulled from Don’s own mind.
    Don set up an audition at the Blue Angel, a nightclub on East Fifty-Fifth Street with quilted walls. The owner watched the routine in silence, sitting alone in the middle of the long,