 Hello, and welcome to my show. I hope you enjoyed the show that runs before the Derry Show. That's the Me On 5 show, on which we're now running a special about the main senior games, an event that I participate in every year. And we had some of my friends on that show. Well, tonight we're going to continue along with the line of celebrities, my last show being two celebrities walking to a TV studio. But today, I'm doing a show with one of my very dearest friends. And all I can tell you is that he is simply the most talented man I know personally. And you would say, well, wait a second. You know Bobby Rydell personally. You know Frankie Avalon personally, the son of Don Everly. Well, the reason why this man is the most talented man I know personally is because he is the epitome of what Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Donald O'Connor were. If you ever see the movie, That's Entertainment, they show the best clips that was done by MGM. And they would show Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor singing, dancing, and acting, both comedy and drama. The gentleman I have with me today can do all of them. And his name is the talented Ed Romanoff. Ed, welcome aboard. Thanks, Darryl. That's an introduction I don't think I'll ever hear again. Right. Somebody once referred to me as a great natural athlete. I said, no one's ever going to say that again. I'm going to morph into, what's his name, Lipton? Lipton, James Lipton. James Lipton on the Actors Studio, folks. I'm going to morph into that role from time to time. And I'm going to start off with this two trivia questions. I'm going to fail miserably. Well, the first one is this, Mr. Romanoff. I want you to tell me the role that you performed I would consider to be the best you ever did. And the hint I'm going to give you was I saw an act to do this on Broadway. I saw two actors do it in the movies. And I saw an actor do the same role on television. Mr. Romanoff, what would that role be? Holy cow. And I did it? You did this role better than any of the four people I'm mentioning. On Broadway, two motion pictures, one television. Yeah. You got me stuck. Here I am, failing miserably. Yes. OK. The role was Bialystok, played by Nathan Lane. You almost got a very good. And you were, Eddie, when you got that role, did you say to yourself, Mel Brooks wrote this role for me? Did you think that, because I thought that when I watched it, you were, I mean, would you consider that your favorite role? I don't know if he wrote it for me, but I was born to watch Mel Brooks and to laugh at him. Yeah. I grew up with the producers, the original movie. Yes. And Mr. Romanoff, he's one of the funniest men in show business that ever was. And Gene Wilder, you cannot beat that movie for timing and comedy. But actually, in my opinion, you did. Because I saw you at Main State Music Theater. And I remember sitting there thinking to myself, my god, he is better than Nathan Lane. And Nathan Lane was incredible, no question about it. But I thought to myself, when Mel Brooks wrote that, and of course you did that role, and then also at Main State Music Theater, you did hairspray. And you traveled with hairspray. Well, I didn't travel with it. I did two other companies. I did the Las Vegas Company with Harvey Fierstein. Right. And tell the audience just how big Harvey Fierstein is. Harvey Fierstein is the original Edna in hairspray. He's also a renowned playwright. He wrote La Cajofal. He wrote Torch Song Trilogy. And Kinky Boots. He wrote Kinky Boots with Cindy Lauper. He's also the book writer for the brand new Funny Girl that's coming out. So Harvey is quite a talented man and a really, really nice guy. And you like him. The other thing is, Eddie, you also know another man that I've been sort of in contact with. You and Joyce, your wife, or your lovely wife, and the pictures of you, folks going back. Joyce Bersuti. Yes. You did Annie at the oldest theater in the country, Walnut Street Theater. And then you toured with Annie, right? We actually, both of us, did tour with the 30th anniversary edition of Annie. I was in the show. And Joyce was not about to let me go on tour alone because we don't like being apart that much. There you go. And she came along. And she was in charge of all of the swag, selling t-shirts and dealing with all of the Hollywood celebrities who wanted everything that was in the display case. Eddie, one of the pictures that we're going to put up, do you know, is a picture of you dressed as Annie in front of the Seattle, I think, the Seattle Tower. So how did you come up with that idea I'm sorry, you said you're going to show a picture of me dressed as Annie in front of the Space Needle. Why would you do that? Because it's in your little chain there. I can't believe it. One of the things that we wanted to do on tour had this crazy idea to do an Annie Across America travelogue as a gag book for a gift to the cast after the tour was over. And I had this costume. Joyce was in the original Off-Broadway company of Menopause the Musical. And one of the gags they did for Broadway Cares Equity Fights Aids is the four of them played four different characters through in musical history, in musical theater, 40 years later. So we had an Annie costume that fit me. So I was able to fold the whole thing up in a bad wig and stuff it in a small grocery bag and carry it with me. And myself and the guy who played FDR, every stop that we made, we would go to a prominent. St. Louis Arch, whatever, yeah. Archway, the Space Needle, the Trolley, the Trolley since San Francisco. And it would be Annie across America. And those are the pictures. Another trivia question, if you don't mind. Sure. Another connection. By the way, there's so many connections in our lives. You're much younger than I am, but there's so many connections. Not much. Including swimming at the Boys Club. And which, ladies and gentlemen, back then, the boys swam without clothes on. Nothing. No bathing suit. I don't know what that was all about, but it's strange. That's an entirely different era. Subject matter. That will be an entirely show unto itself at another time. We will move on. But Ed, you mentioned in your interview what it was like to go into a TV studio the first time. And I went into the same TV studio to see, when I say the name at the same time, Ken McKenzie. Oh, Ken McKenzie, right. But you went on as a talent. I was on there. I was one of the little kids they'd have on there. Clips and stuff and cartoons. And they'd give us a hostess, Twinkie, whatever. And I remember feeling the same way you did. And when I walked in that studio, I remember thinking to myself, this is what I want to be doing. And it took me 60 years to finally get to it with this TV show that I have. But you had the stage bug from the second you were born, didn't you? You were your brothers. Pretty much. Pretty much. But talking about the TV station, I did eventually get on the Ken McKenzie show at 12 or 13. And you were singing. But before that, it was Captain and the Kids. It was Lloyd Knight. Lloyd Knight. Cap Lloyd. And I was a nine-year-old Cub Scout. And much like your studio here, it's the building down the street. It's now called the Press Hotel. That was where Channel 13 was. And I walked in, and I was absolutely blown away because there were TV cameras. Yes. And there was the news set. And that's where the weatherman does the weather. I need to put a cot in here. And I'm just going to live here. This is because I want to be here. But to get back to your question, we were brought up in a very musical family. Well, of course, your brothers are Schoonerfair. My brothers are, in fact, Schoonerfair. Featured on CBS Sunday morning. And by the way, Eddie, another trivia question for you. While you were in Most Happy Fellow on Broadway, your brothers were doing a show in New York City. And Jonathan Edwards, who sang the song Sunshine, Go Away Today, was the opening act for them. And on the marquee, it had the names of three Oscar-winning actors. And right below those names was Schoonerfair. Do you know the names of the three actors? I have no idea. OK. The three actors were Richard Dreyfus, Gene Hackman, and Glenn Close. And why were those three names? Because they were going to give speeches there. Because I saw them the next night after I saw you, I saw them in a play called Death on the Iron Maiden. And Gene Hackman, Richard Dreyfus, and Glenn Close, front row, I was mind blown by it. But to see their names on the marquee where your brothers played, and then right below it, Schoonerfair, it was such a great night. But what I wanted to say to you, that when you were in Most Happy Fellow, was that your first Broadway performance? Very first Broadway show. Yeah. And it got grave reviews. It did. Grave reviews. And you did a song that we're going to do, hopefully, before this show closes, one of my favorites of all time, which was Standing On The Corn. Watching all the girls go by. Eddie, I could not believe that as a boy, a young boy going to grade school, that song would come on. And I would sing it with my pals and do the shtick. And I'm sitting in that audience, watching you do the same song. I turned to my wife. I said, can you believe it? I sang this song as a kid. And now my buddy's on Broadway doing it. But you did other Broadway things. You had some other Broadway performances. Like Hairspray? Yes. I was in the Hairspray Company when George Went was playing. Was playing Edna. And George went from Cheers. Yes, yes. Right, yeah. George, he was a delight. And it was a great time to be in the show. And just to move to Joyce. Joyce is now rather high on the food chain at a gunquit. She's a master of a lot that's going on there. What's her official title at a gunquit? She is the director of education and youth programming. She is actually developing the education department for the a gunquit playhouse. The playhouse has for years had a summer camp, theater camp for kids, where the kids, it was children's theater for kids. But instead of adults for kids, it was kids doing theater, what they call pay for play. The parents pay for their camp, the kids learn a show, they do the show. Joyce is actually creating an academy, which is what she did when we had a theater in upstate New York. I remember that. We had the Sugarloaf Performing Arts Center. And before that, she had the theater at West shore station in Newburgh. But at both venues, she created award-winning academies and literally award-winning academies. So she's basically developing the future. Tom Hanks and Glenn Closes of the world. And she's also Tony nominated as an educator. Oh my goodness. Yeah. That is fantastic. OK, now the name I want to throw out is a gentleman that has been on the Rock and Roll Cruises that I've been on. I got to hang around with him one night. Funniest guy, a wonderful man. I said to him, by the way, I got to tell you, hanging around with you is one of the best things I could do. And he goes, well, you should get a life, the same common alleyway. You should get. But anyway, you worked with Robert Klein. I did. Yes. And did you like him? He was delightful, man. He was delightful. Yeah, funny. I was the A2 on that, which is an audio assistant. I too. The other half of my career has been technical theater. Yeah. Because? You've been on both sides of the curtain. I've been on both sides of the curtain, as people like to say, mostly because I was a terrible waiter. Me too. One night, I lasted one night. But mostly because I love the technical aspects of it. So my survival job between contracts was doing any kind of technical theater or television. And I spent a lot of time doing television audio. And tell me about you being the host of TV Land's greatest moments. Tell me about that. That was an audition that I received from my manager at the time. She said they need a guy to come in and do all of these wraparounds. TV Land was doing a big promotion of all of the old variety shows, Sonny and Cher, Flip Wilson, Laugh In. I can't think of the other ones. The shows we all grew up on. Yeah, all of that great stuff. And they were doing a half an hour of each one. So I was in a tuxedo singing terrible theme songs that they wrote, I mean, on purpose. And just this kind of guy that would sing songs like this and point to the camera and go, hey, here comes Sonny and Cher, all right. And there were go-go girls doing all this stuff behind and having the best time. And that was a four-hour evening of old variety shows. And how long did you do that show? That, well, that was a six-hour day to shoot all of those wraparounds. But that was it, that host. And they played for a long time. It was, yeah, it was a blast. So Robert Clyde, another thing. So folks, the other thing is, Ed, you just recently did a role. And because your hair is the same color it is now, I think. I think you said six years ago. And Bill played it on the show that you were just on, 207, Caldwell, and he played this clip where you are monitoring a guy who's doing a urine test. And what was the name of the show? It was Rescue Me. Rescue Me. Rescue Me. And it was an episode where Lieutenant Che, anybody who followed Rescue Me, Lieutenant Che had had a heart its situation. And all of the guys in the firehouse pretended to be him in order for him to pass his physical. So they all went to the different examinations pretending to be him. By the way, another trivia. I love doing this. I love connecting. Okay, another miserable fail. Yeah, you may get this one. You were in a play, a musical on stage in which the title was the exact words that Joe Thomas used to use with us actors when he was trying to refer to another theater and he would say, what do you think this is? Blank, blank, blank. People are gonna pay $15 a ticket. Do you know what it was he used to say? Boy, I am striking out here, Terry. Okay, well, he used to say, what do you think this is? Church basement. And you did diamond studs at Portland Players where you played Jesse James. And by the way, Jesse James was one of the worst human beings that ever lived. Not a nice guy. And here's this nice looking guy coming out and singing and dancing with Jesse James. You know what was fun about that? The cast all played instruments, if you remember. We all played guitars and banjos and accordions and we used the guitars as rifles. Oh, that's right. If you remember that part. I do remember that. And Eddie, I didn't know you from Adam. I was involved with Portland Players. I remember going to that show, Diamond Studs, and I remember thinking to myself, geez, who is that guy? And then of course I watch you in Music Man and I watch your career and then we became friends. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the things that Eddie's not his biggest claim to fame, but at least in my respect it is, when I founded the Portland Players Hall of Fame, Eddie Romanoff was in the first class, just like Elvis Presley would have been the first to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And Eddie, you did a wonderful video where you were out in Vegas and you had Susan Anton, the great actress, say happy birthday Portland Players and Kiffy Fitzgerald nominated with you both actors, the category being Portland Player people that went on to bigger things. And Kiffy Fitzgerald had Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick on and you had Susan Anton. And I played with it at that event. I just was so pleased with that. And if you remember, I had a bobble head of Harvey. Yes, that's right. He was doing his voice. Right. And I held it up in front of me and I was like, thank you so much. I'm very happy that Ed has received this award. And I love working with him because he's my favorite actor in the world. Yes, thank you very much. Yeah. Okay, by the way, folks, this could have been a four hour show because of your resume. It seems like one right now, doesn't it? I want to mention an actor that Emmy Award winner, very well-known and a dear friend of yours. And folks, when this man gave a commencement speech, he talked about you and that would be Tony Shalu. And he was a friend of yours at the USM, correct? We went to school together. Yeah, Tony and I, we had several classes together. And when he came back to do the commencement speech, he talked about the day that I dragged him to the post office that he didn't know, he didn't know what he wanted to do after he graduated. And we were close friends. And the short story is he thought about going to graduate school, he wasn't sure. And I said, look, go audition to Yale and see what happens, you know? And he goes, I don't know. I said, what is it hurt to fill out an application? So like I said, I literally dragged him to the post office and he filled it out and he sent in the application and I went there. And I have one of the clips, Dino is the newspaper clipping that says, you know, USM classmate mentioned in Tony Shalu's speech and he goes, well, a great deal of thanking you, saying I have to credit my friend, Ed Romanoff, for getting me this. We're running short, but I want to get these names out. Another huge name, huge name that you've been associated with Rodney Dangerfield. And did you get to know him at all? Didn't get to know him at all, but that was right here in Portland. That was one of the last things I did before I moved to New York. He played the Cumberland County Civic Center, the Cross Arena, and they had no one to open for him. They had no one to open for him and I had the weekend off. I was playing pubs and bars up and down the coast and I did not, I had nothing that weekend because I was finally taking the weekend off. And Greg Stump, you remember Greg? He's now a successful filmmaker. Greg was working for the promoter and he says, Eddie, we got nobody, can you do this? And it's like, okay. So what did you do, comedy routine? Well, that was the thing. His writer specifically said he wanted a folk singer. He wanted a guy with a guitar because he did not want anybody to be doing comedy. Except for the fact that I did a lot of comedy in my pub acts. Yeah, but no comedy that night. Oh yeah, I did. Oh, you did a lot of comedy. Yeah, I told you no comedy. I had 20 minutes to keep 6,000 people happy, right? And so I got up there and I did my first song. I can't remember what it was. It was probably some Uptempo James Taylor or something. And this is 1982. The tickets were like $100. The front seats are a lot of tuxedos and gowns, right? And it was, those are the pricey seats. And I finished the opening number and applied applause, right? And I just said, well, thank you very much. I know you all didn't come here to see me. And this drunken voice from the back of the house said, yeah, Rodney, get off the stage. And I just looked at the guy and I said, well, I didn't come here to see you either. So sit out. Ed, I gotta tell you, I saw Rodney Dingerfield in Vegas and then bought a signed red tie, which I still have. And we got five minutes and I didn't wanna act with you, but I also wanted to do this so badly. Ed, I'm gonna ask you, if you don't mind, to sing with me. Come on, buddies. Watching all the girls go by. Is that my recording? Standing on the corner watching all the girls go by. Take it. Brother, you know, a nicer occupation. That's a. Matter of fact. Matter of fact. Neither do I. Then standing on the corner watching all the girls, watching all the girls, watching all the girls go by. Ed, I gotta tell you, I sang with your brothers. I did Charlie on the MTA. That's right. I sang with Don Campbell, I sang with my friend, Roger Pierce, but that was a highlight for me to be able to sing because, Eddie, you also played another trivia question. You also played a role that I played in high school. In a play, we had the same role. The hint's gonna be knowing I'm on the street. Where you live, you played Freddie Einesford Hill. Freddie Einesford Hill, yes. Wow, wow, yeah. That was a little, yeah. That was about 45 pounds ago in brown hair. That's right, yeah. I remember in my opening line, how do you do? How do you do? I'm not doing that. And that's when my teacher said, you know, Derry is the biggest ham I've ever known. He's got grease paint in his blood, and so when I went over and tried out at Portland Players for my first play, Joe said to me, listen, you have some stage presence. Can you come back out and try for the role of Curly in Oklahoma? I said, you mean the lead in Oklahoma? So he said, can you sing? I said, yeah, I can sing. The next day I come back, I'm doing, there's a bright golden haze in the meadow, Joe goes, excuse me, Derry, Derry, you cannot sing. I thought you said you could sing. Where did you sing? I said, in the high school course, he goes, the high school course. But he did give me the lead in those sex plays with British. Eddie, I want to close with the books. Oh, okay. You're doing my book with my daughter. Yes. A full circle. Yes. And you're writing the process of doing that now. This is the book, ladies and gentlemen, that is my book. But you also did all these books. And one of them you got an award for. You got an audio book of the... Yeah, let me dig that one out. Cause I don't mind talking about it. Oh my God, yeah. Angel of the Ghetto. Angel of the Ghetto. This is the story of this man, Sam Solas. He was a hero of World War II of the Holocaust. The short story is at 14 years of age, he escaped the death train to Treblinka through one of those little teeny tiny windows, squeezed out and escaped into the woods and spent the next two years or the end of the war helping people in all of the Polish ghettos Oh my goodness. with clothing and ammunition and food and escaping and helping them with everything. He was amazing as a teenager. When the war ended, he immigrated to America, worked for a butcher, worked for a meat packing company in New Jersey. Eventually opened his own in New York City and to this day it's still running. It's one of the most successful meat purveyors in the country. At the time when he opened his business, he was providing steaks and chops to Peter Luger 21 Club. Yes. All the big place. All of the Pierre Hotel. And Angel of the Ghetto is just this. And that's the one that won the award and you got it. This is a fascinating, fascinating story about this man and I encourage anybody who has any interest in the Holocaust or the truth of World War II to read this book or to listen to the audiobook. I'm extremely proud that you would be doing the book with my daughter in which you only have to do two voices. I haven't heard it yet. I heard a brief snippet when you were on the 207 show and I can't wait to have it come out. But I wanna say to you that over the years I've watched your career from diamond studs to this aspect of your career and not once have I ever seen you either falter or do something less than 100%. I wanna commend you on your career. You made a joke about me saying that was the greatest litigator in the United States. No, no, no, North America. North America. I think that's what you told me one day. I'm sure I did. But let me interrupt you, Dary. This is very high praise for coming from you and I really appreciate it for you to compare me to some of your heroes. Yeah, praise and action. Is very, yeah. That's just very, very high praise and you're just very sweet to say. It's well deserved. The Romanoffs, folks, you can see the Romanoffs in School of Fair. If you Google up Eddie, you can learn all about his career and it's not over yet. Eddie, thank you so much for coming on The Dairy Runlet Show. And I look forward to seeing you in many great adventures, especially Full Circle, when we get the award for the best looking guy a book has been written about. Okay. Thanks, Dary. See you next month on The Dairy Runlet Show. This is a pleasure.