The Smithsonian Guide to Pop Culture

Interview held November 15, 2003, in front of a live audience attending the forum: ‘60s TV Goes Pop’, conducted by Winston K. Black, Senior Editor, Smithsonian Publications.

Excerpts.

W.B: Dusty Carr, on behalf of the attendees to today’s forum, I welcome you.

D.C.: It’s a beautiful thing… Is that an ashtray?

W.B.: Mr. Carr, your career has touched on almost all major media – sound recording, radio, film, magazine and book publishing, and of course, our subject for today, television.

D.C.: What you didn’t include is live performance. That’s my essence, that’s my strength. The rest is pretty fluffy stuff; anybody with a good agent can do it.

W.B.: Fine. In particular, you were actively involved in television throughout the 1960s.

D.C.: More sporadic than active. But yes, I was busy. I needed the money, and television is all about money. Nothing else. In fact, it’s incredibly difficult to find anybody with any talent and integrity that works in television. It’s weird, but it’s like they have to pass through a moral filter before they get into a TV studio, and that filter removes any vestige of decency and general ethics. Gotta dig it. Real pricks. You will never find worse people on the planet with the possible exception of modeling agencies.

W.B.: That’s fine. Can you give us an idea of the shows you worked on?

D.C.: Batman, The Avengers, Dark Shadows, The Green Hornet, Mission Impossible, The Monkees, Mod Squad, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Laugh-In, Star Trek, a few Tonight Shows with Johnny Carson… It’s a freakin’ long list. The point here is that it didn’t take much effort, I stood out because of talent – there’s no other way to say it – and it paid well and on time.

Carr and Elizabeth Montgomery, 1968

W.B.: What is it about those 60s programs that make them so enduring?

D.C.: Two things, sex and nostalgia. A lot of today’s fat-ass Docker TV critics first saw those shows when they were kids, so they’re nostalgic for the good old days. But the joke is on them because there never were any good old days. It’s a ruse!

Next thing, sex. Those shows were loaded with sex – gay, straight, group, you name it, they had it. Today’s shows are castrated geeks by comparison. They think they’re being risqué by flashing a breast or saying fuck occasionally.

W.B.: Can you provide us with a few examples?

D.C.: Alright. Let’s take Bewitched. Basically, it was a gay show, it was gay humor, written by gays for gays. You had Paul Lynde who was gay. Agnes Moorehead who was gay. Dick Sargent who was a real flit. I mean, that place was loaded with extremely effeminate men. But Elizabeth Montgomery was just so damn pretty that whenever I saw her, all that other crap melted away. She lost her looks fast though. Weak bone structure. I knew her old man, Robert Montgomery. Good actor.

Barbara Eden and Carr, 1969

W.B.: Anything else?

D.C.: Well, Star Trek was essentially an orgy. I mean, Gene Roddenberry had more mojo than John Kennedy. That man was rapacious, and Shatner could do the electric boogaloo all night. It was wild. Reminded me a lot of the Playboy mansion, with Gene as Hefner. Same thing with the Monkees and Batman – a steady stream of nubile young women that just wanted to party. And in the 60s, people really knew how to party.

Carr on Star Trek, 1967

I suppose I miss that. People today, with their Evian water and seatbelts and non-smoking environments and designated drivers – it’s all so anti-septic. It’s made everyone neurotic and bitter and cruel. So now you have all of these reality TV shows, where desperate, poor people are humiliated. That’s entertainment? No babe, that’s pathetic. Look, I knew Ed Murrow, and if he could see what TV has become, he would spew thick vomit from his grave.

W.B.: Didn’t you appear in The Twilight Zone?

D.C.: A few times. Rod Serling was a pal of mine, what they used to call a drinking buddy. He’s a guy I miss a lot. I was also on his Night Gallery a few times. The thing to remember about Serling is that he was very short, practically a midget, so that made him tough as iron.

W.B.: Dusty, I know you that you recently completed a number of television projects, in particular, a star-studded tribute to Suzanne Sommers. How would you compare television production of today to the 1960s?

D.C.: Same crap, just more uptight today because you have to worry about offending someone. I don’t get it. If a certain group of people calls themselves a minority, then why do you have to pay attention to them? They’re a goddam minority! Who cares? America is all about majority. That’s why we vote. Plain and simple. Majority rules baby. Do you think that something like Sidney Sheldon’s ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ could get made today?

W.B.: I certainly hope not.

D.C.: Shut the hell up! What’re you, gay too? That show was loaded with top-heavy broads. I mean, the plot was about this guy that had a gorgeous blonde inside this little bottle, a goddam genie, and all he had to was call her, and she’d do anything he asked! I mean, that’s a core fantasy of every heterosexual male. The woman is smart, beautiful, has her own place and money, and you don’t have to feed her, listen to her or give her a credit card. It’s a straight sex swap. Again, plain and simple. A classic. Like I said, it was about sex, and sex endures.

W.B.: Johnny Carson once called you, and I quote, “my most terrifying guest, ever,” Yet he kept having you back. Why?

Dusty with Johnny Carson, 1966

D.C.: Because whenever I was on, the ratings went up. And the ratings went up because people were enchanted by this rare bird, by this guy in a tuxedo who could sing, dance, act, tell a few jokes. Today’s stars just sit on the chair and jabber about the shitty movie they’re trying to promote. They have no talent. Their publicists have all the talent.

Last year I was doing a radio interview in Los Angeles, and sitting beside me, waiting her turn at the mike, was Meg Ryan. You know her? She’s a mouth breather. Can’t form a sentence. Just looks at you with these big glassy eyes and giggles. It really gave me the creeps. Dumb as a stick. It’s possible that she’s mildly retarded.

W.B.: You worked on ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Dark Shadows’. Were British TV productions much different that what was going on in America at that time?

D.C.: They had less money so they had to be more creative. Everybody knows that money absolutely destroys creativity, like pouring water on fire. So the Brits were really clever with doing a lot with a little. I mean, those people can really act.

I remember being on ‘The Avengers’ set, and Diana Rigg was walking around as Emma Peel in her tight black leather outfit. I was drunk from partying all night with Keith Moon. My hands were shaking, I was cut and I hadn’t shaved. My role was that of a crazy American nuclear scientist. Diana came over to me, smiled, and said, ‘Mister Carr, you certainly appear to be in character.’ That made me laugh. She was a princess. Too bad that she turned into this crusty old dame. You know she did a nudie film in Spain once? I’ve got the video if you’re interested.

W.B.: At this time we will take a few questions from the audience.

Question: Mister Carr, you constantly berate television, yet you seem eager to jump at any role that’s offered to you. Isn’t that hypocritical?

D.C.: You ever hear this story? A snake was trying to get across a river so he called over a swan and said, ‘hey, can you give me a lift across the river?’ And the swan said ‘no, you will bite me and I’ll die from your poison’. So the snake said, ‘look, if I bite you and you die then I will drown and die too’. The swan thought about this. It made sense so she took the snake on her back and away they went. They were half way across the river and the snake really sunk his fangs into the swan’s neck. As the swan was dying and sinking under the water, she said, ‘why did you do that? You promised me, and now you will die too’. And the snake replied, ‘hey baby, it’s just what I do. I can’t help it. You knew I was a snake.” Does that answer your question?

Question: No, not at all.

D.C.: Then shut up and sit down and let somebody with one ounce of brains take a turn… God I hate stupid people.

Question: It’s been rumored that you add affairs with Barbara Eden, Elizabeth Montgomery and Diana Rigg. How does something like that impact your on-set professionalism?

D.C.: I would never, ever discuss my romantic life with you or with anyone else. I come from the old school where a man doesn’t do such things.

Look, I was at a party in London last month, and I bumped into this guy James Hewitt. He’s a former lover of Lady Diana, and he’s selling his story for money. That kind of thing really sickens me. What kind of man would do that? Anyway, I got so pissed off at him, just standing there grinning away, that I took this long-stemmed champagne flute I was holding and smashed it on the side of his skull. It was just a flesh wound but it really bled. Hewitt was balling like a baby. I would have given him the boots if they hadn’t thrown me out. Does that answer your question?

Question: I don’t know.

D.C.: Then think about it junior.

W.B.: That’s all the time we have today. On behalf of Smithsonian Publications, I’d like to thank Dusty Carr for his invaluable insights into 1960s pop TV. I understand Mister Carr will be signing copies of his autobiography ‘Autumn Leaves, Dry Heaves’ in the main foyer. Good afternoon.