Dick Cavett’s Worst Show

By Elon Green
May 29, 2014

Nearly seventeen minutes into an episode of “The Dick Cavett Show,” the host, who had walked off and then returned to the set, asked his guests—John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara—“Are you guys all smashed?”

The September 18, 1970, appearance by the “Husbands” director and his two actors—who had, in fact, been drinking—was excruciating. They were on hand to promote their new movie, but for thirty-five minutes they smoked, flopped around on the floor, and generally tormented Cavett, whose questions they’d planned to ignore. Just before the segment ended, Cavett pronounced it “one of the most interesting evenings of my life.”

Here is Cavett’s memory of that show:

I was completely blindsided by it. Or do we say gobsmacked? That’s purely British. It was out of the blue. It was astonishing. I could not believe it, while it was happening. I think I watched it a year or so ago, and it seemed even worse than I remembered it.

When the circus was going on, with shoes coming off and smelling each other’s feet—which may be an image I have conjured, but something very close to it—and falling down, as if that were funny, just a bunch of louts out encouraging each other in their stupidity, it was … I had a mixed feeling as it was happening. I knew it would be entertaining in a certain way involving the word “horror.” And that it would be talked about. And that it might be fun. But it’s hard to deal with three people. When one person is being an ass, you can pretty much deal with him, or I can—and people who do what I do better be able to—but with three the focus was so diffuse.

[...]