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September 2009

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COMMENTS

Tim Conway Interview: In-Depth with the Iconic Funny Man on His Storied Show Business Career

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Image attributed to Tim Conway

Tim Conway

Described as being one of the funniest physical comedians of all time, Thomas Daniel “Tim” Conway was born in Willoughby, Ohio on December 15, 1933. He is best known for his roles as Ensign Charles Parker in the popular 1960s WW II sitcom, McHale’s Navy, and for co-starring on The Carol Burnett Show.

The Carol Burnett Show is one of television’s greatest shows of all time. Lasting eleven successful years (1967-1978), it won 25 Emmy Award, 8 Golden Globe Awards, and 3 People’s Choice Awards.  Conway’s eleven-year stint on the program garnered him 4 Emmy Awards (3 for performance and 1 for writing) and a Golden Globe.  His unscripted antics, which included such characters as “Old Man” and “Mr. Tudball” caused cast members and audiences to break into laughter.

"I came through the best time you could come through in show business. It was still in the experimental stage, you know – the Gleasons and all of the people that were beginning to mold what was going to be variety – the Milton Berles, Sid Caesars, and the Steve Allens."

Conway has a lengthy list of television credits including three self-titled variety shows and one sitcoms, along with recurring role and guest appearances on 7th Heaven, yes Dear, Clueless, Drew Carey Show, Suddenly Susan, Married with Children, Cosby, Mad About You, Touched by an Angel, and Coach (for which he won an Emmy). He is also the voice of Barnacle Boy on the animated Spongebob Squarepants.

Among his film roles are several Disney family films including The Apple Dumpling Gang series, The Billion Dollar Hobo, The Prize Fighter, Private Eyes, They Went That Way, and The Longshot.

In the home-entertainment arena, Conway is famous as the vertically challenged Scandinavian character Dorf who headlines Dorf on Golf and Dorf Goes Fishing. To theatre audiences, he is known for his role as Felix in 182 performances of The Odd Couple. Conway also wrote and starred in Just for Laughs: A Day with Gates and Mills, which toured extensively.

The DVD Together Again captures the essence of the touring show of the same name he performed for eight-plus years to sold-out engagements across the U.S. and Canada, with Harvey Korman and impressionist Louise DuArt.  The DVD offers both classic as well as new sketches.

Conway’s career received such accolades as a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame induction, and Disney Legend ranking.

Most recently, he received an Emmy for his guest appearance on NBC-TV’s 30 Rock and he has authored his first book – one designed for children, entitled Little Leo’s Big Adventure.  Leo is a white fluffy puppy and his escapades reflect some wonderful moral issues that kids can easily grasp – that it’s fun to be nice to others and life is full of adventures and good people.

Conway is a fan of thoroughbred racing and is active in the Don MacBeth Memorial Jockey Fund, the Parents Television Council, and a host of charities.

Smashing Interviews Magazine phoned Tim Conway at his home and no one should have been surprised at the famous comedian’s greeting.

Tim Conway: Melissa Parker’s office.  She’s not here today. She called in sick – we don’t believe her, but, that’s the way it goes. Can I help you?

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): (laughs) Yes, as soon as I recover.

Tim Conway: Okay, I’ll wait here.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Hello, Mr. Conway?

Tim Conway: Oh, hi, it’s you. I thought you were sick.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): (laughs) As a matter of fact, you had me believing that also.

Tim Conway: Well, you should go home. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Actually, the thing is that I am home so…

Tim Conway: Oh, well then there you go … you don’t have far to go then (laughs).

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): How are you?

Tim Conway: Well, my knee’s been bothering me a little bit, my back’s been kind of annoying, the dog peed on the rug, the lawn’s not coming along that well because now we have water shortages out here. We’re looking to get our driveway paved and I have to have my tires rotated on the car … but, other than that, things are going pretty darn good.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Well, great, I am glad to hear it.

Tim Conway: Well, thank you for calling, goodbye.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): (laughs) This is such a treat for me to talk to you.

Tim Conway: And it should be, too!

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): I just wanted to tell you that.

Tim Conway: Yeah, what the hell, you’re just sitting at your house (laughs) … where are you calling from, Texas?

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Does it sound like a Texas accent?

Tim Conway: A little bit, yeah… either that or Canadian, I don’t know which.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Actually it’s an Alabama accent. Have you ever been to Alabama?

Tim Conway: I went to Alabama with a band-aid on my knee, no that was a banjo, I’m sorry. Yes, I have been to Alabama, yeah. We’ve played all over Alabama.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): You have probably been to Birmingham.

Tim Conway: Yes, I have been to Birmingham. As a matter of fact, they have a hospital there where we send some of our jockeys who get injured.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): It’s a great hospital for sports injuries, especially… the University of Alabama.  I’m about 60 miles south.

Tim Conway: Right, that shouldn’t be hard to find (laughs).

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): (laughs) Yes, just go down the interstate.

Tim Conway: Ah, okay.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): You are from Ohio.

Tim Conway: I am from a town called Chagrin Falls, Ohio.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Well, tell me why you were born in Willoughby, Ohio, but you grew up in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.

Tim Conway: I was kind of small at the time so I’m not totally aware why they did all of that.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Did anyone mention it to you later?

Tim Conway: No, nobody talked in our family (laughs). We really didn’t speak that much so I have no idea why. Well, my dad was … he came from Ireland and he was what they call a “whip” which is a guy who (when they have foxhunts on the weekends) kept the hounds for the guy with the whip (laughs) – ah, they’re pretty bright over there in Ireland, so they called him a “whip.”

He thought, evidently, that there was quite a calling for “whips” in this country. But, you haven’t seen anybody go by lately with a bunch of hounds in your backyard have you?

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): (laughs) I have not lately, no.

Tim Conway: Well, it was like that when he came over, too, so he just hung around and stuck with horses and worked for people who played polo and all that nonsense in those days.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): I see. When you first started noticing your were funny, was that when you were a child – were you making the other children fall down laughing?

Tim Conway: Well, yeah. I guess probably in my early school days was when it really began to surface. I was always very small and when you’re small you’re either funny or you get beat up. So, I had a lot of joke books by my bed.

But, I was dyslexic so I couldn’t read, you know, so when the reading time came in school I was a little behind in a lot of things. I guess more people felt sorry for me than made fun of me.

I got up to do a book report one time and the name of the book was They Were Invincible and I got up and said I’d like to report on this book. I held it up and I said, They Were Invisible, because I was dyslexic and that’s the way I saw it. Everybody laughed and I had no idea why. So, I guess in a sense, it actually started then because I enjoyed people laughing at me.

They thought it was hysterical and I had no idea why they were laughing. And I still don’t … I do a show and people laugh … I have no idea why people are laughing. But, that’s their choice, you know.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Did your parents think you were funny?

Tim Conway: My parents were actually sharing an IQ (laughs). They didn’t have a tremendous sense of humor. You know, my mother was Romanian, my dad was Irish … ah, that was another thing, when I went to school I just spoke Romanian and you know how many Romanian kids there are in Ohio.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): That was probably very funny.

Tim Conway: Yeah, that was probably funny to them.  So, they … well, let me give you an example: my dad hooked up a doorbell at our house one time and he hooked it up backwards so that it rang all of the time except when you pressed the doorbell. This is the truth – he just had the wires crossed. So, we would sit at home and night and listen to this mmmmmmmm (sound of doorbell) and when it would stop, my dad would say, “I’ll get it.” So, I grew up just watching this kind of nonsense on a daily basis (laughs).

I mean, you know, there was just something every day that was quite humorous. I don’t know what thought processes they were using but it certainly wasn’t one that was coordinated with what I was doing. So, they were funny and didn’t know it. I guess I really got my humor from them.

I was remodeling their house when I got out here and was doing McHale’s Navy. We only had one phone in the house – it was upstairs in my mother’s sewing room in the back of the house. When they took the back wall off (or room off) they left the phone on the wall so it was now a story high outside.

I said to my dad, “You know you can have that phone moved inside now.” But it was $12 to do that and he didn’t think that was worth it so they just had a ladder that went up to the phone on the outside. When it rang you had to go outside and up the ladder, say hello and it’s for you, and come back down the ladder and whoever went up there used the phone, so …

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): That reminds me of Green Acres.

Tim Conway: Right! Absolutely! Oh, we had our own Green Acres, yeah! That’s the kind of surroundings I was involved in most of the time.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): You’ve said that actress/comedienne Rose Marie actually discovered you?

Tim Conway: Yes, I was doing a television program in Cleveland. A friend of mine, Ernie Anderson, who was eventually the voice of ABC and did all the promos, used to say things like, “On the Love Boat.” He had a real deep voice. Anyway, he and I were best friends and when I got out here … well, we were working in Cleveland together and we had talked a television station into doing a morning show in which he was the talent and I was the director of the show.

He had very little talent and I had never directed. So, I had no idea … we were supposed to show a movie in the morning from 8 to 10. We were supposed to have a guest and I could never figure out how to back time the movie so that it would end at 10:00. So, the first week we had no endings and people would call up and say “Hey, where’s the end of the movie?” I’d say, “Hey, it’s Citizen Kane, it’s a sled, don’t bother me.”

We couldn’t get any guests because the show was so bad and everybody kind of thought that was just “inside,” you know, that it was a kind of a funny thing, but it was such a mess every day. I would come out as the guest because we couldn’t get any guests and he would interview me each day and we would do whatever would come to mind.

Rose Marie saw that and said, “Gee, that’s hysterical.” I said, “Well, actually we’re just fighting for our lives here.” So, she took a piece of tape out to Steve Allen and he said, “Come on out and do this.” So I did. I had no intention of really going anywhere … as a matter of fact after I did three Steve Allen shows (when he had his Sunday show after Ed Sullivan), I went back to Ohio and they called me to do McHale’s Navy.

I said, “Geez, I don’t think so, you know I like it here, we’re having some fun in Cleveland with this thing.” The guy said, “You have to be crazy!” The station manager in Cleveland actually fired me so that I would go out to Hollywood and do McHale’s Navy.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): You didn’t even have to audition for McHale’s Navy?

Tim Conway: No, I never did!  I’ve had a pretty easy route that is for sure. I guess it’s because I really didn’t care. You know, I was just kind of a free wheeling guy and did what I thought was funny and many times it worked  … a lot of the times the booing and hissing took over, but … (laughs)

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Do you still have any contact with Ernest Borgnine?

Tim Conway: Oh yeah, well we do a thing called Spongebob Squarepants … don’t ask me why, we just do it. I am Barnacle Boy and he is there, too. I didn’t know I was Barnacle Boy until my granddaughter told me because you do these things and they say in a year it will be a cartoon.

You don’t hear from anybody, then all of a sudden it comes on the air as a cartoon and my granddaughter says, “You know, I think you’re Barnacle Boy.” I said, “You know, you may be right!” I’ve enjoyed that. Gosh, that is such a crazy show. It’s so popular, it plays all day long.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Is Ernest Borgnine funny?

Tim Conway: Oh yes, well he’s just a jolly Italian you know. I see him quite often in the valley. We frequent some of the same restaurants and he’ll come up and give me a hug and break a couple of ribs, then I’ll go to the hospital and get well enough to do another show (laughs) … but yes, he’s great.

I mean, he’s the Alpha/Omega of performing … you take Marty and then From Here to Eternity, I mean how diverse can you get there? When I first went to Hollywood, I knew nothing about show business. I mean, I still don’t know upstage/downstage, that still confuses me, but anyway they’re happy with it.

But I was there (McHale’s Navy) and did about four shows and I thought, “Gee I’d better really pretend to now what I’m doing.” So, I went up to Ernie one day and we were shooting late in the afternoon and I said, “Ernie, what is my motivation for this next shot?” He said, “I tell you what, if we don’t get this shot by five o’clock, I’m going to kick you in the ass!”  So, that was my motivation! I got it before five, too!

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): (laughs) Some motivation! I was about 12 when The Carol Burnett Show started.

Tim Conway: Ah ha. So was I.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): We watched it together as a family every Monday night and other family shows were on that night as well. It was just a great time for us to have some time together.

Tim Conway: You know, more people say that probably some of the only times that the family actually talked is when they were around the set. In those days, you had to see the show because there wasn’t any way to tape it or anything so if you actually wanted to get into a conversation about the show, you had to watch it, and it was great fun.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Why do you think the trend of family programming ended?

Tim Conway: I think it may have started … I’m sure there were a lot of movies that were X rated that I was never aware of when I was younger, not that appeared in the theater, but you know … movies. Ah, it may have started with Clark Gable going, “Frankly Scarlet, I don’t give a damn.”

You know, that first line just opens a small seam and now it is so ridiculous, I can’t watch anything. I mean, I swear to God I don’t watch television. I couldn’t tell you who’s on or who’s in or whatever. It just doesn’t make any sense anymore.

It’s just so blatantly crude that … you know, Steve Allen started the Parents Television Council and I’m a member of that. The idea is to get all of that kind of garbage down the road a little bit; in other words, don’t start it until 10:00 at night. It would help, but it’s not going to cure it, nothing is going to cure it, it’s just stupid you know.

Steve wanted me to be the vice-president and I said, “Steve, with my personal life I should probably be in San Quentin,” so I said that I didn’t want to ruin that for him. He said, “No, no, no, we’re not going to burn books, we’re not going to yell at people … let’s just take a soft attack on this to see if we can’t get people to get back where they were.”

Harvey and I were playing (for 8 years) almost every theatre in this country and the Midwest was our home. If I went to a city I’d go up in an observation tower in the airport and if I could see either Hollywood or New York I wouldn’t accept the date because these people don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t know how they can actually face families and still do what they do.

I swear to God if we were going to throw rocks at them I couldn’t go anywhere near the rock pile because I should have rocks thrown at me for the things I’ve done. But, it’s so crazy that we’ve let it go this far.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Do you think that’s one of the reasons The Carol Burnett Show was so successful?

Tim Conway: Oh yeah. Carol set the standards for that. I mean, she never got into religion or politics, never tried to embarrass people. You know, a lot of people made mistakes during that time where we could have done takeoffs on them …  never touched it, though. She just realized, you know, that somebody made a mistake and so why should they pay for it longer than what they did.

There was never anything racial, so all of that was what made it such a pleasure to do. Anything we did that was a little off color or something was a total accident! We never really gunned for it, you know.

Carol was singing a song one time on the air and a horse was in the background and he started urinating as she was singing and the audience was hysterical. Now, there are probably about a hundred lines she could have said at that time, but she never touched it. She did finally say to the orchestra, “Okay, let’s take it again, you want to take it from number one or number two?”

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): (laughs) As a matter of fact, I think I remember that one.

Tim Conway: Yeah, that was as bad as we got.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Was it always premeditated on your part to make Harvey Korman laugh?

Tim Conway: Oh yes, pretty poor performer … it just wasn’t that difficult (laughs). Yeah, he was such a bright guy but couldn’t tie his own shoes. You know, that kind of guy, who would accept anything. I mean, whatever you said, he went for.

We were coming across country one time and we had to land in Arkansas. We were in a private plane and they had to get more fuel, so they fill up the plane and we’re sitting on the plane and I’m looking out on the wing. As we’re taxiing to take off, I said to Harvey, “Uh, you know, I don’t think they put that gas cap back on.” Now, there is no gas cap, you know. And he said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, I noticed that the guy took the gas cap off and put it on the wing and I think it fell off.”

He said (rather anxiously), “Well, we need to tell somebody.” I said, “Why don’t you go tell the pilot?” So Harvey actually goes up, knocks on the door and he says, “You’ve got to turn around, the gas cap’s not on.” There is this long pause and the pilot says, “We don’t have a gas cap.”

There was practically something like that every single day that we were together. He was such a target. Sometimes he wouldn’t talk to me for weeks for things that I had done to him. They were a little broader than I had intended, but … that was us.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): What were your favorite sketches or character?

Tim Conway: A lot of the characters were created on air. That’s why Harvey would fall apart because the first time they saw the old man and the way I walked as the old man was when we were actually taping the show. So, when I started walking from the door and shuffling across the room as the rug was gathering in front of me (laughs), that was the first time that anybody had seen it. Everybody was laughing, but I said to myself, “My God if we keep doing this we’ll be here for three days!”

Joe Hamilton, the Producer/Director never stopped it – he just kept letting it go. We had to cut out a sketch because that sketch had gone way over time. Tudball and Wiggins was the same way. I think Bob Mackie was the one that actually made the character for her when he gave her that skirt and rump and that was it for her. She knew to do the walk and then there was this stupid guy she was working for. So, a lot of those sketches came from real life or the characters just came out of us horsing around.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): There was no process you’d go through to create a character?

Tim Conway: No, and most of the time we saved everything that we thought was funny for when they were actually taping it so that the performers were surprised, the audience was surprised … it was just such a fun show. It was a tremendous playground for people who just enjoyed people and enjoyed making people laugh.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): There were many times you’d just drift away from the lines and adlib.

Tim Conway: Oh yeah, I think that I was about three years into the show before I realized that all of the lines were on cue cards (laughs). I looked over there one day and I thought, “Gosh somebody took the time to write all of this out.” Nobody ever used the cue cards. We just went along and listened to what you said and then you thought, “Now I’m going to say something”…  and away we went.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): I just recently watched the “elephant story” on You Tube once more and it’s just hysterical. Dick Van Dyke was the guest star on that episode.

Tim Conway: Yeah (laughs), that was another one I horsed around with in the dress show. So when we were going to tape it for the air show, they said, “Look we’re way long here so don’t horse around with that elephant thing.” So, I had done two minutes in the dress show and I did 3 ½ when the air show came around … just to give them a little something to work with, you know (laughs). So, they left it in.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Do you watch television now?

Tim Conway: Not really, no, just sports, the History Channel, things like that. Those shows are much more interesting to me than listening to the language.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Even sitcoms?

Tim Conway: Well, I do a couple of sitcoms, but it’s still not like the old days. You would look forward to Monday and rehearsal and everything and now … when The Carol Burnett Show was on we had five writers and I was one of them. Four other people wrote that show.

Now when you go into a sitcom, there has got to be 25 or 30 writers and everybody wants to hear their line said the way they write it. So you’re really doing a disservice to the entire script by really doing exactly what they wrote. They are annoying when it comes to, “You left out a ‘the’ or could you just say it this way.” So, the fun has left a little bit of it, you know.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Who were your comedy idols when you were growing up?

Tim Conway: I came through the best time you could come through in show business. It was still in the experimental stage, you know – the Gleasons and all of the people that were beginning to mold what was going to be variety – the Milton Berles, Sid Caesars, and the Steve Allens. My favorite show was The Steve Allen Show.

Then there was Don Knotts, Louis Nye, Tom Poston. I loved those guys because I could tell that they were creating as they went and it was such a playground for performers because they were initiating things. They were coming from vaudeville and they were doing what they do best which is just to entertain an audience.

Now it’s a lot of the mechanics and the explosions and the language and the cost of the show and all of that. I don’t think that in all of the time I was on The Carol Burnett Show that anybody said what the ratings were. Nobody said what our ratings were last week or who we were beating or anything. We didn’t know, we were just doing a show and everybody seemed to like it so we guessed we’d keep doing it.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): What advice would you give to a young comedian now just starting out in show business?

Tim Conway: I would say to probably get into the used car business (laughs). That seems to be going pretty well.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): I don’t know, it may not be the best thing to do in this recession (laughs).

Tim Conway: Right. I would say to pick out your principles that you’re going to get into this business for and stick to them. If I had done some of the things that were offered to me along the way… and people who did do them became extremely successful and wealthy, I wouldn’t have been happy. I really wouldn’t have been happy because I couldn’t have looked at my granddaughter and said, “Yes, I did that.”

It is just so much better to be able to look at your family and say, “This is what I did and this is what I created, this is what they saw and this is what they gave me Emmys for.” I think they gave me Emmys because in my acceptance speeches I never thanked the Academy or anybody that had anything to do with the business. So, I’m very happy with what I did just to run into people who would say, “Geez, my mother and my dad … you can’t believe how I saw them laugh.” It was such a pleasure and you can’t do that with a lot of these shows nowadays.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): My mom had quite an infectious laugh and she would really bust out laughing at The Carol Burnett Show.

Tim Conway: That’s great. Well, that’s why we did it.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): What was your inspiration for writing a children’s book?

Tim Conway: My daughter-in-law came out for a visit and she had just separated from one of my sons. She brought her little daughter, Courtney, and Courtney stayed with us for practically about five years. To watch this little lady grow up and at night when she would go to sleep … she slept between my wife and I, and she would always want to hear a story.

She came to us when she wasn’t even talking yet, so by the time she got to be speaking and everything, she wanted to hear stories. So, I would tell her this story about Leo and his travels and she would always say, “Again, again,” and I’d keep repeating the dumb thing and eventually I thought that maybe I could just put it in a book and she could read it and I won’t have to keep saying it over and over. It was kind of a gift to her.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): You have over 50 years in show business. What would you say is your most memorable moment?

Tim Conway: Wowee, there are a lot of them obviously. Uh, gee, I don’t know if there is just one moment. It is a conglomerate of so many. First of all it’s the people that I’ve met. I’ve met all of those people and worked with them – Gleason and Berle and Danny Thomas and Bob Hope, Red Skeleton, all of those that came through in early show business.

So, to go from sitting as a youngster in a movie theater and looking at the screen and seeing these people on screen and then have an opportunity to not only to see them, but to work with them … and Steve Allen, especially … ah, all of those moments are quite prominent in my career. I think, oh gosh I don’t know, there are so many… you know, your first born, your second born, your fifth, your sixth …

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Those are your memorable moments in life.

Tim Conway: Yes, and they still are. Yeah, they never leave the nest. That empty next routine is a lot of garbage.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Do you make your children laugh also?

Tim Conway: I’m afraid so, yes. It’s the old man … what is he going to do today?

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): What do you like to do when you’re not working?

Tim Conway: Well, I’m into horses a lot. I wanted to be a jockey when I was young because I was so small and even when I graduated high school I think I only weighed about 110 pounds. So, I actually wanted to be a jockey, but I fell off so much that I was terrified of horses, so I don’t think that career would have worked out for me.

I got into buying horses here and I have a lot of benefits that I do on a yearly basis for injured riders. You know, these kids get into this business of being a jockey when they are twelve or fourteen years old. They have very little education so when they get hurt badly, there is nobody there to catch them. So we have the Don MacBeth Memorial Jockey Fund and it assists injured jockeys. If you’re not into racing nobody cares or knows but the people involved in it know and care because that’s who they like to help.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Are you still in touch with Carol?

Tim Conway: Oh God yes. As a matter of fact we’re going to dinner with her tonight.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Vicki Lawrence is coming to Montgomery for Mama, her one-woman show.

Tim Conway: Oh really, great! I have never seen it, but I understand it’s very good.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Yes, I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never seen her in person. Hey, I’ve never seen you in person.

Tim Conway: I haven’t either. I only see myself in the mirror.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): Tim, I have really enjoyed the laughs today and I appreciate the interview.

Tim Conway: Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate you.

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): You’re just a delight … everything I thought you would be, you are.

Tim Conway: Oh, my gosh (laughs).

Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): I’ve been such a fan for years.

Tim Conway: Well, thank you very much.

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