Mr. Warmth

Whenever Don Rickles appears in Las Vegas, showfolk flock to see him like delegates to a masochists' convention. "Come right in, Frankie," Rickles barks at Sinatra. "Make yourself at home. Hit somebody." Turning on Dean Martin, he snipes: "What do we need Italians for--all they do is keep the flies off our fish." Spotting Sammy Davis, he cries: "Look at him! You can always tell a Negro. Throw a broom on the floor and see him grab it." Wagging his finger at the hairdo on a woman at ringside, he roars: "Looks like an ad for Brillo pads."

Rickles' one-maligners may be a gas in Vegas, but for years TV would not touch him with a 10-ft. boom. Recently, however, at the insistence of Joey Bishop and Johnny Carson, Rickles was unmuzzled and allowed to fire away on the talk shows. Slicing precariously between the rude and the crude, his assaults proved so outrageously funny that he has suddenly become TV's most popular curt jester. This season he has already logged 46 guest appearances. "I was supposed to be on The Ed Sullivan Show," says Rickles, "but unfortunately my bear died."

"Hi, Dummy!" Actually, as TV's first real stand-up put-down comic, Rickles does not work well in the tightly rehearsed format of a Sullivan show. The audience, not the camera, is his objective. Thus, for a recent appearance on The Dean Martin Show, the stage was turned into a nightclub setting and, since it is now something of an honor in Hollywood to be dishonored by Rickles, a guest roster of 23 stars turned out wearing, in effect, "kick me" signs. Rickles quickly dismissed Comic Bob Newhart as "Johnny Carson's warm-up," informed TV Actor MacDonald Carey that "I used your show as a night light." Spotting boyish-looking Pat Boone, he sneered: "You still think pimples come from Hersheys!" When Bob Hope belatedly joined the group, Rickles yelped in mock astonishment: "Why is he here? Is the war over?"

Stocky and sporting a full head of skin, the 41-year-old Rickles looks like a torpedo and sounds like an ack-ack gun. His delivery is as subtle as a karate chop. Once he is rolling, he builds a momentum of laughter not so much by what he says as the way he says it. Grinning as if he were ready to eat a banana sideways, he walked on the Johnny Carson show recently, graciously greeted the other guests, sat down, turned to Carson and said, "Hi, dummy!" When Carson started to reply, he snapped: "Where does it say you butt in!" Then, with all the aplomb of a fellow playing straight man to a cobra, Carson fumblingly attempted to light Rickles' cigarette. "What's the matter?" shrieked Rickles. "Phony guy from Nebraska making millions! Can't you light a cigarette for a young Jewish boy?"

Despite his constant badmouthing, Rickles somehow keeps the audience on his side by playing the role of, as he explains it, "the little guy against authority." It is a technique he developed during the years he played the striptease joints. When the crowd yelled "Bring on the girls!" he would single out a heckler and ask: "You, sir, are you married? You never will be with that roller-derby jacket. What's your name? You don't know, you idiot--well, look inside your coat!" Or if the guy had a date, he would look at her and sadly inquire, "Was anyone else hurt in the accident?" Though Rickles has been fired from half a dozen clubs and was once sued by a woman for ridiculing her hat as "suitable for a Halloween dance," he proudly boasts that "so far I've never been slugged."

Perhaps it is because Mr. Warmth, as Carson calls him, claims he has "a sixth sense" about the fine line between good-natured ribbing and offensive ridicule. Besides, who can get angry with a guy who says: "I've never met a man I didn't dislike"?

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