Ain’t it Rich?

Friday, Nov. 23, 2001 | 1:02 a.m.

Was it really Rich Little on the telephone, or someone imitating Rich Little?

If it wasn't him, whoever it was was very good.

Little, or a reasonable facsimile, will perform Friday through Dec. 2 at Suncoast. The comedian/impressionist will be joined onstage by a few of his favorite voices -- personalities such as George Burns, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, to name a few of the more than 200 celebrities and politicians in his repertoire.

Little, a resident of Las Vegas for more than 20 years, recently discussed his career -- past and present -- with the Sun.

The native of Ottawa is the son of a physician. But Little realized early in his life that he was more interested in entertaining than following in his father's footsteps.

But then, isn't laughter always the best medicine?

Las Vegas Sun: Who were some of your earliest voices?

Rich Little: When I was a kid I wanted to be an actor, and what are actors but people imitating characters? I used to watch all the other kids, how they walked and talked. And then I started imitating the teachers and I got a tremendous reaction from the kids. I became very popular, because when you poke fun at people in authority, people love that.

Sun: Who did you imitate first, as a professional?

RL: Let's see, I was in my early 20s. My first television show in the United States was "The Judy Garland Show." I did voices that had never been done before -- James Mason, Lloyd Bridges, Fred MacMurray -- and, of course, I also did John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. I did a lot of people popular at the time, like James Arness and Chester (played by Dennis Weaver) from "Gunsmoke," and Alfred Hitchcock.

Sun: Your career is kind of a history lesson. Your voices reflect who was most popular at any given time. As years pass, don't some of the characters become obscure?

RL: I can tell you I'm not doing (vice president) Spiro Agnew anymore. Sure, they can fade away pretty quickly. Presidents, too. The one I can't wait to do every night is Lyndon Johnson. People today don't know too much about him, except he had the Vietnam War, and that destroyed him, and he picked up a dog by the ears. But he is such a fascinating man to play -- he was so crude yet so charming. Young people don't know Lyndon Johnson at all. Anyone I imitate before Ronald Reagan, young people have no idea what I'm doing. Older people know them all. I don't play to that many young people. I see very few teenagers.

Sun: What's your act like?

RL: I try to vary the show with music and impressions. I do the presidents, finishing with George W. (Bush). I do a couple of tributes in my show, one with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin and Tony Bennett. Another tribute is to a man I loved so much, but when he died no one paid any attention -- Perry Como.

Sun: What's your schedule like these days?

RL: I play Vegas a couple of times a year. But basically, I'm all over the place, from Atlantic City to Lake Tahoe. I do a lot of industrial dates and one-nighters, and clubs and concert dates. I just don't do televison anymore because when you get over 50 they don't want you, it's a young person's medium now. Today all of the shows are produced by 25-year-olds.

I've been working with symphonies the last few years, where I do music and speeches from the movies, mostly from the '40s and '50s, like "Casablanca." Working with a 70-piece orchestra is quite a deal.

And I've been putting a play together for the past 10 years called "The Presidents," which was written by Ron Nessen (President Ford's press secretary) and (screenwriter) Loren-Paul Caplin. It looks like it's going to go next summer or fall.

Sun: Is it a done deal?

RL: Yes, we just don't know the cities we're playing yet. We've performed it three times so far, at a couple of campuses, just to get the feel of the show and how the reaction will be, whether we should have more comedy.

Now, in light of the terrorist attacks, we're going back and looking at the play to see about putting in a little more flag waving at the end.

Sun: What's the play about?

RL: It's a five-people play. I play nine presidents, from (John) Kennedy to George W., in full makeup with wigs and noses and everything. A lady plays all the first ladies and we have press secretaries and announcers and other people, but it's just a cast of five.

Even though the play has a lot of comedy in it, it's basically a serious history lesson. The comedy comes out of the idiosyncrasies of the paranoia of a lot of the presidents, particularly Nixon and Johnson. When you tell the truth, sometimes it's very funny.

The play is appealing on a number of levels. It certainly is a history lesson, because everything in it is pretty factual, or based on fact or what we've surmised as fact.

We tried to keep the comedy honest. We didn't want to do "Saturday Night Live" or anything silly. When Nixon's reading his enemies list, that's pretty funny in itself ... to take Jane Fonda off the list "because she has great (breasts)," which probably happened. And then Kennedy talking on the phone, trying to work on the Bay of Pigs and he's got Marilyn Monroe on another phone at the same time and he gets the lines switched -- it becomes quite funny, though it probably didn't happen.

Sun: Where will the play be performed?

RL: Probably not college campuses. For the moment, we know we're going to do it on PBS sometime in the summer and we know we're going to take it on tour across the country. We hope eventually to take it to Broadway, but we will have to see how we do on the road.

It would be great for Vegas. When you play here, you're playing to the whole country. But, we're going to go from city to city and play a lot of big theaters, kicking the tour off with the special on PBS.

Sun: You say you are tweaking the play right now?

RL: Yes. You can't write the George W. Bush role right now for next summer. The war could be going nowhere and he could be very unpopular by then. The whole atmosphere could change. Right now everybody is sort of gung-ho. If I was doing the play next week I'd finish with "God Bless America" or something like that or have a flag come down. That's what people want right now. You just don't know what's going to happen in a year.

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