Agent 99, Barbara Feldon

You're to part like cloudy for tonight, it will be brisk and chillier. Low temperatures will be around forty As we hit through New Year's Eve. Tomorrow, it will be still a mild day. Sunshine will give way to clouds a high temperature around fifty, turning out cloud eat smart nights with some rain arriving toward midnight. That'll continue overnight now.

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Let's get back to night's side. Morgan White is in for Dan Dan Watkins WBZ, Boston's news Radio.

It's Night Size with Dan Ray unbilling bas Boston's News Radio, Final hour of nights, siright, and it's been a very very busy night, and.

I expect this hour to be just as busy. If you've always wanted to speak to the woman who played ninety nine and get smart, Barbara Feldon, she is here She's had a very interesting career more than just that one TV show. How many people remember the Top Brass commercials she used to do, Hey tiger, I'm talking to you. I don't have her voice, I don't have her presentation, So let's just bring her in and maybe she'll help you. Remember that commercial from Good Grief a long long time ago. Barbara,

Oh, it's such a pleasure to talk to you. And you do have a good voice. You don't need that sort of sexy kitnish voice that I used back then, but you have a great voice.

Well, thank you. Can you approximate the tops commercial tagline you used to do?

Well, let's see. I mean it started, I went a word with all you tigers and then she growled, oh yeah. At the end she said, let's see, and you see I don't regard myself as her her. She said, so use top bras and sick of them.

So that's that's what the character said. And people have to understand when we see commercials and we watch a movie or a TV series, this is an actor that we are witnessing performing what someone has written for them to perform, and a lot of people get confused by that, don't they.

Oh gosh, you know, and I do too, as as a viewer, say of when I get addicted to some the streaming series or something and I'm just totally enamored with the main character, and then you're just sort of shocked to find out that that's just a character, that's not the actor. The actor is another person, and that I mean, certainly they use parts of themselves to put into the character, but that is not who they are.

Well, you got a paycheck every week or every month whenever to portray words that somebody put down on a piece of paper a script, and it was up to you to interpret those words and convince us at home that you were this spy, that you were this temptress in a commercial. But that was a tribute to how good of a performer you were.

Well, I think that's one of the things, one of the reasons actors love acting is that we all sort of kind of design our own persona through life, from the time where children, we have sort of a basic personality, and then we kind of add and substract from it according to what's getting a good result. So then we solidify it into saying, well, this is me, this is who I am, but it really isn't. I mean, it is a amy, but it's not all of you know, we are so much more than the persona that we

I like it when you said it's a me, but it's not all of me. Yeah, that's an accurate way to look at it. Now, As you were a little girl growing up in the forties and fifties, who were some of your favorite performers that inspired you to do an acting job.

I'm not sure that I didn't see a lot of movies when I was little. Pinocchio was the biggest, the biggest influence on me because a friend of my mother's took us to see Pinocchio, and so he was my kind of role model. I wanted to be Pinocchio and I would go around Stuard gargling, you know, underwater looking for geppetto the same old geppetto, or you know, you know when Pinocchio was in the whales Belly or something. I don't remember the story that.

Well, let me take you back, because in a way, there was a song in that movie that may have inspired you to get into the business. Hi did le d an actor's life for me? Honest, John the Fox was misleading Pinocchio down a crooked.

Path and that.

Yeah, yeah, I remember that.

Yeah.

Maybe.

So there was that beautiful song when you wish upon the Stars from Cliff Edwards.

Yes, Cliffs was the voice of Jimminy Cricket.

All right, yeah, I know these things, Yeah, I know. Do you know the words? Do you want to sing it?

I could, but they don't pay me to sing. They pay me not to sing. I'll have radios turning off all of thirty eight states. When you was upon a star, there's no difference in who you are. Anything your heart's desire.

Can come come.

To you, to you you. Yeah, it's a beautiful, lyric and wonderful for children.

So give me another film or performer that inspired you.

I wanted to be Margaret O'Brien. I don't know how many people even know of Margaret O'Brien now unless they're my age. But she always played orphans. I mean not always, but she was always like a way. She was this little she was adorable and she had this little wafy voice. And I and she always, like Charles Boyer would save her when she was a little orphan in the Canterbury something that give her time.

Well, you would tell she would teget your heartstrings.

Yeah, she would always always you always got daddy character to save her. And I was looking for a daddy character to save me. And I definitely wanted Margret O'Brien. And she was always praying, and.

So I would.

I would just pray all the time, you know, in the little quavering voice, and wear little white Peter Pan collars a little Mary Jane shoes, and I could pretend that Markearet O'Brien.

Well, let me take my first break of the hour. Give the phone numbers. I already have a caller on hold. Perhaps you can join them six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty or eight eight, eight, nine, two, nine ten thirty. I've got Barbara Feldon here, probably most notably remembered for the TV series Gets Mart, but she sent other things as well, and we're going to talk about the two books she has written when we come back on nights Side Time and Temperature eleven fifteen forty seven degrees.

Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World nights Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.

This is night Side. Dan Ray will be back on Wednesday. I'm Morgan, Morgan White Junior. I've been here for the past seven shows, being tonight and tomorrow. But Gary is in Wooburn and he wants to speak to Barbara Feldon Carrie. Welcome aboard, Happy.

New Day, exacularly Barbara, what a thriller is for you to be on the airways again with Morgan. It's so nice of you to say yes. My question is to you because it's an easy answer. It's probably like, oh, I don't have time for that. Why don't even more celebrities?

Yeah?

I don't know if you get asked to want to even do what you're doing right now a little interview.

Wait a minute, say the question again.

I'll repeat the question. He wants to know, why aren't more of your contemporaries doing radio interviews. A lot of contemporaries of yours just once the role is over that made them famous, they necessarily don't want to talk about it.

Yeah. I think that a lot of people who do series were ambivalent about the characters that they did because it kind of type casts them. I don't feel that way. I feel very grateful, oh more than grateful, that I had an opportunity to be in a series that was so well written and also that stayed on long enough so that it would give me a career. Being a woman that's not as easy as if you're a guy, and especially back in that time, there were many more

Fourth or fifth time I've had you on.

Yeah, So whenever he calls, I say, yes, it's fun, yea anything else?

Absolutely. My question is to you, Barbara, is back in your day when you're doing Gates gets including right now in your life, have you been part of the autograph shows? Also, he is a travel.

I've done some of the autograph shows. Mostly the ones. There's one here in New York called Chiller, which I've done a few times. I know, I have not done like circuits of autograph shows. I don't know they they're I'm not that interested in being in the public. But whenever I've done them, it's been very sweet to meet fans, and it's really four fans, you know. They get kick out of seeing people in person. Whether that may be

It's funny because you're always going to be nineteen sixty five, nineteen sixty six or so in their minds, and let's be honest, one's going to look that way after fifty sixty years.

Yeah, I mean that's part of it, but they don't seem to care about that. They want pictures of you when you were in the show, so that's the pictures they buy, and who's you know. That's fine. I'm ambivalent about doing them, but as I must say that, when I've done them, I've met such sweet people that I've been happy to have done them. But I'm not really motivated to seek them out.

And Barbara, I know that you haven't come to Boston, but I've given you a standard open carpet invitation. If you know you're coming to Boston, please call me. I will take you out for lunch and it would be my treat. And I'm not going to put you in the middle of a media frenzy with two or three or four photographers. Say it'll be just you and I for lunch.

That would be a nice treat. I thank you very much, and I'm going to just file that invitation in a very good place.

Okay, Gary, anything else a questions?

Here we go, Barbara. My question is this Don Adams, ed Platt and other people that you work with and so forth?

What he is.

I'm sure you probably kept in touch and you guys were friendly and so forth. What I wanted to know was this, Who were the women and men that you kept in touch with in Hollywood that became got even more work and work, work, work, and you just stayed in good correspondence with Who are your friends with?

Okay, good question, Garry, Happy New Year to you.

Happy New Year.

Gary.

My friends, mostly, I mean where I lived my life in la was mostly with a small group of very close friends, and one of them was a man who was producer. I think he was the vice president of one of the movie companies. Another wash Well one that I stayed very close to was the guy who produced Gats Smart, who I lived with for eleven years after I met him on the show. But mostly my friends were not in the business. They were artists and or they were in the producing And I didn't have any

Oh.

Yeah, he's a very close friend.

Create.

I know he'd love to do your show.

And you know what, you've got my phone number? Ask him and give him my phone number, or get permission for you to give to me his phone number. I would love to have him.

Oh, okay, you to coordinate.

Okay, great. I don't know if I have your phone number written down. It's usually on my phone log, but I'm not sure it stays on the log for months.

I will call I will call you with it tomorrow.

Great, leave it for me, Tom. That would great. I know he would love it. He loves to talk about Yeah, I'd love to have it anyway. Bernie is a great friend, but he's the only one from the show that I stayed in touch with. The funny thing about my career at that time is that I was always hired to be the skirt. In other words, I was the I was the companion to the male lead. And consequently, I think in my entire career out there, I may have acted with a woman once or twice in all of

Now.

All right, let's go to another call in Wellesley. Robert, you are speaking with Barbara Feldon here on nights Side.

Hello Robert, Oh, Hello, good evening, Morgan, And to your guest Barbara Feldon, I can't believe I'm I'm speaking, and thank you for having her as a guest on your show. Again the I thank you, and I want to thank the coler mentioned Bernie Cappell. I hope I'm pronouncing the name right.

Played playing a part of Sacred and.

I was wondering how interactive was Mel Brooks.

Was he producer but also director?

Now Mel UoT it with Buck Henry. They collaborated on it, and then I think during the course of the five years, Mel directed one show and he wrote one show, so he was not very hands on. The person that we were most close to, of course, was Buck, because Buck was there every day for two years. He stayed as the story editor, and Mel just very very occasionally. I mean I got to know Mel a little socially, but but not from the show.

The writing was I thought was fantastic, and the the inside jokes were amazing. The inside jokes about government and intelligence work I were seemed to be whether subtle and I'm just they after I used, of course to watch it as a kid, but I want when I waiter watch it again as a as more of an adult. I just there were a lot of things that I didn't see the first time first time around.

That, Yeah, it worked for kids on a kid level, and it worked for adult on a level, you know, on a more sophisticated level. Yeah, the humor was wonderful. I'm in the I forget totally the scripts, and occasionally I will come across one and I watch it like I'd never like I wasn't in it, and I find myself laughing out loud, and they're just so sharp, and the style of it was so specific, and it was just a little gem. I think maybe I'm prejudiced.

Oh wow, you agree one hundred percent. I was wondering, as a matter of trivia, did ninety nine have a name before she became missus Maxwell Smart?

Oh, here we go. I'll let you answer it. But you know we've talked about this before.

Oh, yes, very curious. I had lunch with Buck Henry about ten years ago and I said, you just clear this up, because everybody asked this question. And he said, no, she was never intended to have a name, and at first her number was going to be one hundred because they were going to make her perfect. But he said, you know, a hundred didn't He said, it didn't sound like a girl's number. Ninety nine sounded like a girl's number.

Right.

Yeah, So, no, she had a cover name, Susan, but it was only a cover and when she got married and the priest to Max and the priest said, will you, And when he says her supposed name, somebody in the audience coughs, and so you can't hear the name.

Robert. A lot of people you go to a convention or you're playing trivia with a bunch of friends, they'll say her name, as Barbara just said Susan, Susan Hilton hilt In like the hotel chair. But that was a cover name. And at the end of the episode where that was mentioned it, Max says, I never knew your name, and the character ninety nine said you still don't because that's a cover name. Max, right right, terrific.

Oh, thank you for thank you for taking my call and uh and giving these great answers.

Robert, thank you for making the call. Happy New Year to you. Bye bye now, Alan Danvers, I've got a news break to take, so I promised you will be next with Barbara Feldon. Do not hang up during the news. Anyone else wants to call in six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty or eight eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty, this is your chance to speak with ninety nine from Get Smart Barbara Feldon and on that note, time and temperature here in BZ eleven thirty forty seven degrees.

It's Nightside with Ray on Boston's news radio.

Dan is off obviously for the rest of the show, which ends at midnight, and I'll be here tomorrow night, Tuesday, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve. But Dan, we'll be back on Wednesday, eight pm. Nightside the first of January twenty twenty five, Dan, We'll be back. My name is Morgan. My show Saturdays from nine to midnight is when you'll find me doing The Morgan Show. Right now, I've got Barbara Feldon as a guest. We've got people calling in to speak with her. So let's go to al In Danvers.

Happy New Year, now, Happy New Year?

Ow, yes you too on the show? Did you have a compact like and it was a fall has a fun?

Yeah?

Yeah.

There were all the devices that the spy shows of that era where what was a normal everyday device was more than that. And I remember on let's say Honey West and Francis who was Honey West, had a compact that she could communicate with her partner Sam Bolt. And I think I was referring to ninety nine having something with which she could communicate with Max, because Max used his shoe.

But oh, oh yeah, sure, I know sure that she had a lipstick transior transistor lipstick. And certainly she had a ring special ring unless I'm remembering that from my childhood from Jack Armstrong or No Dick Tracy or what was it were you you wrote in and you got a ring that told secret mess It was.

Oval team Jack Armstrong, Jack Armstrong, the All American boy.

Yeah. Yeah, but but Max got most of the cool props. I mean Max got to be in the Cone of Silence. Ninety nine never did except when they years and years later when they made a remake for ABC as an ABC movie, ninety nine got to be in the in the Cone of Silence. But during the show, during the five years, ninety nine was never invited into this cone of It's a good.

Thing because that thing never worked. You didn't want to be dripped in that.

She was too smart to get in it.

Yes, now anything else, Oh, it was just yeah, the chief fan he had all like the cool Kaz Mustang shall be.

I saw like a couple of the shows you. I was souped up once.

The cars.

He had an don I think had an Austin Austin Martin is.

Yeah, he had a sunbeam sunde.

Yeah.

Yeah, we almost backed off a cliff and at once. I remember it very clearly.

Oh what in real life?

No, you put the garden the verse? Okay, putting it going straightforward didn't happen.

It was okay, all right, now anything else.

She's just a great a secret agent.

It was a great secret agent. As an actress. She is superb.

Yeah, secret agent for sure.

All right, Well, thank you, bye bye. Okay, let's let's go to Ohio and speak to Duke Duke. Happy new Year to you.

How are you doing, Barbara? How are you?

Oh?

Great, happy to happy to get a chance to talk to you.

Hey.

My favorite character on Get Smart was Simon the Likable. Can you tell us about working with Jack Guilford?

Oh I don't. I'm not sure I ever did any scenes with him.

You did know what I'm talking about, though. He was the chaos agent who was just so nice that people could not turn him down. And every time they would show him, he would smile and both his teeth and his eyes would sparkle.

Oh my god, that I don't remember that.

Any remember him? Morgan?

I do?

Yeah, he had a wonderful actor and he was hilarious. Yeah, and you know how to.

Play that scene for laughs.

Oh yeah, And then quickly somebody mentioned Max's cark. Did he at one point in the series try about Carmen Gia.

No, he drove a Sunbeam, a Triumph, and a Buick Opal over the five years of the show.

I'm sure that he wore he drove a Carmen Ghea and at some point. And the reason I know that is because the teacher I had at the time had one as well, and I don't know, four through fifth grade whatever Euro was, and we talked about that in class because he was explaining to us that this was a German car, and you know, history was exactly.

But the thing of the Carmen Gea. Maybe my mind is playing a trick on me. But the three cars I mentioned, because they had different opening scenes over the five years that they were just a little living and tucking here. And the last car he drove was a Buick Opal. He drove Triumph, and he drove a Sunbeam.

Maybe I remember both of those, but I do not remember the Buick. And I remember that at least the first season, you would see Mark, you would see Max Glatt and get in a car and drive away like he was leaving, and he would just do a U turn in park and go into the building.

Yeah, okay.

Hold. On nineteen sixty seven, mac Max acquires a blue Volkswagon Carmen Gea, although he is seen driving it only once in the opening credits seasons four, he retains a possession of the vehicle until nineteen ninety five, when he finally sells it. Uh and there's no answer. Nancy looked that up. So there you go, proof, Duke that he drove a Carmen Gia.

Wow, I learned something, my good grade teacher, I remember so well discussing that in the classroom. And that's been gosh, sixty years.

Ago, yeah, exactly sixty years.

Two years ago that the show started. Yet I just learned that today. That's pretty sobering.

Yes, and now I appreciate you.

Talk to you again. I'm sorry, Roby, Barbara.

You're only thirty nine years old right now.

No, how could that bee? That's really weird arithmes.

It is.

It's weird arithmetic. And I'm going with that me too. Okay, to thank you for the.

Call, Thank you, good night, good night, right.

All right, and I'm going to say this, rob Let's take that break a minute or so early. Anyone who wants to jump on is room for you? Six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty or eight eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty. There is one line available? Nope, now there are two. Somebody was on it and hung up, and Michael and Boston, let me get the breakout of way, out of the way, and you will be next here on night side time and temperature eleven forty three forty seven degrees.

Now back to Dan Ray Mine from the Window World Light Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.

I've got three people on hold. I'm going to do the best I can to get all three on, so I get a chance. Michael and Boston, you're next with Barbara Feldon.

By your kid.

How are you to get?

Curious as to whether Barber was aware that Get Smart was shot the year before it became Get Smart in New York as a pilot with another star, it was called Detective at Large with mel Brooks and Buck Henry and so forth, and the network liked it and said, we've got this guy that we're paying the army I believe was his last name, Your star and they said, let's reshoot it because the money is down the drain. He's got a contract, we've got to pay him, so

No, that's the first I've heard of that. I mean, the story I know and that I know from the people who produced it and created it, is that when the James Bond movies were so popular, Dan Melnick, who's the head of Talent Associates, who which was the production company that made it, hired Mel Brooks and Buck Henry to create almost a comic strip extension of of seven you know, of the of the James Bond franchise and that and mel sat down and created it, and I

I was told by uh, the person who was cast in that Tom Post and he was a part of it, and it was called Detective at Large and they liked it, but they wanted to use Don Adams because he was under contract. But anyway, the other question I had, Yeah.

I had heard that Tom Post and was considered first for Maxwell Smart. That's that I heard. There's I'm sure we could straighten the story out if we had more time.

Okay alive, he tells me.

Uh.

The other question I had very quickly is were you the first doing or Get Smart? Did you have to compete with other known actresses or unknown actresses at the time.

Or were you no id An auditioned for it because they had seen me do a similar role in another one of their shows, where I played an industrial spy who was kind of sexy, and and so when they saw the when they saw the script, they right away thought that that was the character. They had seen me do this other character, and they wanted that performance, so they just gave it to me.

Michael, take care, Michael, Paul, and Beverly you are next here a night side. Yeah.

Yes, I'm just so happy to speak to Baba. Can you hear me? Yeah? I just want to say, yeah, I just want to say I don't I mean in a good way. I was very young, but you, to me, you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. You were on television, not in person, and it's probably true too. And you know, I think probably the first

Here, thank you.

If you take the first line of the Mary Tellermore show, it's a perfect description to Barbara Feldon, who can turn the world on with her smile.

Yeah, absolutely, I agree with you. Thank you all.

Well, I'm glad I had a little fan out there. You were probably what about years old or.

So well, I thought I was maybe twelve years old or something. It's not important. It was a very nice thing, you know, to feel and once hard anyways, you know, so.

You know how we twelve year old boys can be when we're smitten with someone.

Yeah, you said, all right, take care, God bless.

And now too. And most of you know when I say this, who it is. Somehow she usually manages to be the last call of the night. Karen in Wisconsin, Hello Karen.

By Karen, Karen, Oh you're bad.

Yes, we're here. You're on.

Get me back, Yes, Karen, you're.

On the air. Karen, You're on the air with Barbara Feldon.

All right, thank you. I have never seen the good uh what Get Smart show. I've always heard of ninety nine and didn't know who you were. But when you start talking about Pinocchio, I've been looking for that album instead of listening to the show, and I couldn't find it. But I love that album too, so now I have a to you.

So yeah, it was. It was such a sweet movie for kids. It yeah, it makes such an impression on you when you're that age.

Story is an old story, going back to.

Oh really, the original story, the original story. Yes, what was I got that album somewhere, but if you got it, I wasted my time.

Read the read the liner notes, he's got that album handy.

I will anything else. Sorry for being late that I was busy looking for instead of listening. But it was nice to me too. And have a good New Year year, both of you. Thank you, and with the.

Minutes that we have left, tell people the two books and it is too that you have written, and maybe they can go out and find them.

Oh okay, maybe if they're in need of them. The first one was Living Alone and Loving It, which is a series of essays on how to live alone happily, which I have done since, oh my gosh, for decades. But it's really about friendship and taking responsibility for your own happiness and making sure you have plenty of friends.

Remember the story correctly, didn't he rip you off as well?

Well?

He did because I won a lot of money on a game show and I gave it to him to invest, and he invested it at the racetrack, which I didn't know for years. I always thought it was in a trust fund. But that was that was a small part of it. The bigger part of it was I thought he was a spy working undercover for the CIA, and that I was being followed. And it's quite an amusing story and it was so much fun to write, and it was a great adventure for me at the time.

And what game show?

Pardon me, what game show did you win money?

Sixty four thousand dollars question? And I was quite young and gave him the money to him and the money was gone in six weeks, which by the way, is not unusual for people winning great amount of money, great amounts of money, and that it I think if they ever did a book and followed up on all the people who have won vast fortunes, and that was back then a pretty big fortune. That it's gone fairly shortly.

Family or relative or spouse.

Yeah, some people are extravagant. But I just wanted to save it. But I saved it in his pocket, which was had a hole in it unfortunately.

Now I'm going to call you tomorrow to give you my phone number, and please pass it on to Bernie.

Oh I will. I'm going to call him anyway, So I'm giving your number.

All right, Robert, thank you very much for being on. I want to thank as well Cleio Campbell, and I want to thank Joanne Desmond without forgetting mister Rob Brooks, Nancy and Mike cat Gray. Bye, Boston,