Der Zauberberg Daily

The following interview was conducted by Gerhardt Hoffman, Executive Editor, Der Zauberberg Daily, at the Cat Gut Nightclub, Berlin, March 15, 2008.

G.H.: Mister Carr, may I inquire what brings you to Berlin?

D.C.: I’m doing two weeks at the A-Trane. Beautiful club.

G.H.: Are you afraid of death, of actual decomposition? In the Berlin soil, it takes a body six months to reach putrefaction. Does this interest you?

D.C.: No.

G.H.: Did you know that fingernails and hair continue to grow after the body has died?

D.C.: That’s it. I’m walking.

G.H.: No, please Mister Carr. Remain with me. I am nervous with your reputation and talk like a frightened child. Please refrain from a departure. Thank you. I wish to ask you about your involvement in the Vietnam war. Are you a warrior?

D.C.: Stupid question…I served for something like six months in ‘ Nam and then went off with the Beatles to India. Lyndon Johnson found out that I’d served and tried to make me into a poster boy. So he invited me to the White House and within a few minutes we got into a screaming match. And the thing was, we liked each other. It was obvious to me that LBJ was one sick bastard, top-heavy with paranoia and rage, and people like that can be attractive. Plus, I was on barbiturates and LBJ was on whiskey, so that didn’t help.

lso, Johnson suffered from chronic dysentery, or else he was very nervous all the time. Anyway, he became so enraged that instead of hitting me, he ran out on the White House lawn and started to give the ‘up yours’ finger to anti-war agitators. He tried to spit on them, and at one point urinated on a sign that they’d thrown on the lawn. That was the end of my association with LBJ—but man, I miss that crazy Texan. He was the real thing and went straight to Hell for it, no stopping.

 

LBJ & Carr at the White House. 1968

G.H.: Speaking of politics, didn’t Warren Beatty try later to recruit you to supporting George McGovern’s presidential campaign in 1972?

.C.: Right, Beatty was a big Democrat. But it didn’t work out for me. I was just hanging Warren because he had fantastic parties, and that was a time in my life when I just wanted to party all the time. I never liked McGovern. He was a flake. But he was right about Vietnam. As for flakes, I thought Warren’s sister, Shirley MacLaine, was a lot of fun to be around. Very California, but she was tough in her own way. I remember we went on a booze-soaked road trip together to Fairmount, Indiana. Shirley said that she had something important to tell James Dean, and that’s where he was, six feet down. We got there late at night and she just lay down on that grave and rolled back and forth laughing. What a fantastic broad!

 

Beatty, MacLaine, Carr: 1972

G.H.: So politics never interested you?

D.C.: Not really.

G.H.: But isn’t that why Johnny Carson threw a beer stein at you? Because you called him a communist?

D.C.: I was joking about the communist stuff. It was in the mid-seventies. We were at a Friar’s Club thing and I made a crack about Johnny being a superficial guy, not very deep. And he wasn’t deep. Carson was a boring guy to be around. He was a great guy, don’t get me wrong. But he hated to talk about anything too deeply, he just couldn’t. His charm was all about superficiality. So he was sensitive about that and tried to cut open my chest with a cracked glass. I slapped his face hard and his eyes welled up with tears and that was it. Another great guy gone. Worm food.

 

Carr & Carson: Just before the fight

G.H.: Let’s us discuss happy times. You have been performing for over fifty years. What’s the strangest, most revolting thing that’s ever happened to you on the stage?

D.C.: I’m a class act. Always have been. Strange? There was this woman, back in fifties, who followed me around when I was on tour. At first she always stayed at the back of the room every night. But by the tenth show, she’d be on the stage, dabbing the sweat from my brow. She always wore the same thing, kind of a plaid dress, so we called her the Plaid Lady. Didn’t know her name. Wouldn’t look me in the eye. Wasn’t a groupie. Maybe she was a ghost. Someone told me that she was Aleister Crowley’s last lover and it blew her mind. Sounds possible.

 

Plaid Lady and Carr: 1955

G.H.: No artist has produced more bootleg recordings than you. Why is that?

D.C.: Bunch of reasons. I’m great live. I encourage my audience to record and take pictures. I write and sing wonderful songs. People want to replay outstanding memories. There’s a lot of reasons.

G.H.: What about studio recordings. Is any of your old music being released?

.C.: Yeah. A Dutch label, maybe Interscape, is putting out a thing I did in 1956 called ‘Dusty Carr: Music to Breed By’. It’s a classic. Very subtle in its way. A lot of guys got some action because of that album. It was even arranged by Nelson Riddle. I’ve heard it referred to as bachelor music. Fine with me.

 

Carr’s 1956 Music to Breed By

G.H.: What can you tell me about Las Vegas? I have never been there.

D.C.: What do you want to know?

G.H.: Are there violent prostitutes?

D.C.: Vegas has a lot of violent prostitutes.

G.H.: Do you feel that Las Vegas presents yesterday’s acts, people who can not attract audiences outside of a remote, isolated desert town?

D.C.: Possibly, but not necessarily. Listen, Vegas isn’t really a place, you dig? It’s a state of mind. It’s where you go when you need a piece of you to die. It’s important to remember that Las Vegas is about death, that’s where its strength lies. Death and sex are only separated by a razor. In Hell they have neon lights. In heaven they have stars. Are you getting this?

.H.: Not at all, but I am recording your words. Tell me about your best Vegas show and what made it special.

 

Carr balancing at the Flamingo, 1962.

D.C.: This was back around 1962. I was the Flamingo and drinking very heavily during the day of my performance. When I hit the stage for the first of two evening shows, I had to hold out my arm to keep balance. But my voice never failed me and that particular show has gone down in the annals of Vegas history as a legend. The Rat Pack, Bobby Kennedy, Marilyn, everyone was there.

G.H.: How did you manage to disguise the effects of alcohol?

D.C.: Through willpower, stamina, concentration and a massive intake of barbiturates.

G.H.: You just mentioned some historical names. Let me pursue this. You have said that you believe Bobby Kennedy killed Marilyn Monroe.

.C.: Whatever, it’s possible. That whole (Peter) Lawford crowd was pretty depraved, and was kept alive to service the Kennedys. Down at the Santa Monica beach house, Monroe was a pass around for them. She was better than that but never believed it. Anyway, I knew her back in the mid-50s when she was happy, beautiful and healthy. As for Bobby, he was always cranked up and was perfectly capable of murder if he thought his brother was being hassled. I wrote a song about Marilyn called ‘She Belongs Now On the Coastline’. Boy, she was something else.

Monroe, Carr. Happy, beautiful, healthy.

G.H.: For years, you threatened Carlo Ponti with physical harm. Why is that? Did you wish to obtain his wife, Sofia Loren?

.C.: What? Of course not. Sophia was a good friend. We partied very hard in Rome in the 50s. Look, Ponti co-produced Dr. Zhivago. Julie Christie was in that movie. I was hanging around the set with Julie and Carlo got very sloppy. Words were exchanged and I elbowed his ribcage. He screamed and went to a corner and vomited. That’s all. I saw Sophia last year in L.A. All is remembered, and all is forgiven. We’re survivors.

Carr, Loren. Still pals.

G.H.: Do you wish to discuss Charo?

D.C: Sure. Very gifted. Incredible guitarist. Strong, powerful body.

G.H.: It has been said that you discovered her.

.C.: Not really. She was married to Xavier Cugat when she was fifteen and he was two-hundred. It was in Reno and I heard her playing the guitar. I told some people about her and she got a gig. Listen, I’m grateful to be a part of her story. People make fun of her, but she’s a survivor and she’s welcome in my house any time, if I had a house. I love how she danced. We’d shake in L.A. clubs all night long. She used to wear white mink with nothing underneath. Lord have mercy.

Carr, Charo, Just white mink.

G.H: You had an uneasy relationship with Frank Sinatra.

D.C.: Listen pal, everyone had an uneasy relationship with Frank Sinatra.

G.H.: I know that you eventually became friends. How did that happen?

D.C.: Late in sixty-three, I think it was, his son, Frank Junior, was kidnapped. Everybody thought it was a stunt to boost his non-existent career. Turned out it was but Frank Senior never knew it. I was selected by the kidnappers to kind of broker a deal. And the fact that Junior emerged unscathed made me a lifelong pal in Frank’s book. Still, Frank Senior was capable of impressive physical violence and once tried to shove a serrated hunting knife through my thigh. Another god gone.

Sinatra, Carr. Goodfellas

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