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There’s this little Italian place in Beverly Hills...
Where the elite meet to eat
By MURRAY OLDERMAN
LOS ANGELES, Calif. -
(NEA) — The phone call
came in to Guido, the maitre
d’. From the Beverly Hills
Hotel. Mr. Burton would like
to reserve a table for eight.
He’s coming right over.
“Sorry, Mr. Burton,” said
Guido. “But it will take two
hours to seat you.” Mr. Bur
ton hung up.
Five minutes later he
called again: “May I speak
to Mr. Tana, please?”
Dan Tana, who is bald and
athletic and wears a thick,
stylish mustache, picked up
the receiver.
“This is Richard Burton.”
Pause. “The husband of
Elizabeth Taylor.” Pause.
“I called about coming over
to eat.”
“We would love to have
you,” said Dan Tana, with
an enthusiastic Yugoslavian
accent. "Maybe, if you will
split up your party, in an
hour . . . .”
Mr. Burton and company
never came. And a couple of
nights later, when the TV
talk on the Johnny Carson
show got around to the
perquisites of a celebrity,
Mr. Burton told about not
being able to get into “this
Italian place in Beverly
Hills.”
Tana’s is an Italian restau
rant owned by a Yugoslav
who was formerly Dobrivoje
Tanasijevich before he de
fected from behind the Iron
Curtain. It is not really in
Beverly Hills but 10 yards
from the border at Doheny
and Santa Monica Boule
vard, with architecture of
nondescript southern Cali
fornia shack. A railroad
track, on which a train runs
once a day to keep the fran
chise, splits the boulevard.
It is where all the pretty
people now gather for fet
tucine and veal piccata.
from the milieus of the
movies, television, sports
and music.
You twirl spaghetti at a
table next to Lynn Red
grave, chatting animatedly
in a British accent. Lance
Rentzel pops his head in so
he can share some pasta
with Joey Heatherton —
they’re officially split up but
they go together. Fred As
taire is a once-a-week reg
ular. So are Andy Williams
and Glenn Ford. And Wilt
Chamberlain.
“They never order,” says
Dan, “and they never see the
check.” Meaning they’re
billed later.
Dan, fingering his Vyache
slav Molotov mustache, is
himself puzzled about the
success of his place. “If I
know what the hell it is,”
he says, “I open a chain.”
He is scouting around to
open a London branch. “You
like nro football.” he savs.
“I like soccer. That way I
see it.”
He was a member of the
Yugoslav national team
when, in 1952, he flew the
coop in a Belgian dance hall
and worked his way to the
western hemisphere as a
soccer pro, dishwasher, TV
actor and eventually restau
rateur. The menu features
his own dish, veal alia soc
cer, with mushrooms, mar
inara sauce and cheese.
Dan started the restaurant
...and sometimes can’t get in
'i Z X X >ErX^'
lam. /
in 1964 because he had a
friend who was an Italian
chef and needed a job. So
Dan dumped a S6OO deposit
on the place and has never
had to put in another cent.
The decorations are old
empty bottles of Chianti in
straw casks hanging from
darkened beams.
“We got through the earth
quake,” he smiles, “without
one broken bottle.”
The place is small—it seats
65—and runs through 200
dinners a night. George the
bartender, a Frenchman
from Menton on the Riviera,
finds his patrons favor capu
cino over scotch-and-water.
He brews it with his own
concoction of brandy, rum.
creme de cocoa, chocolate,
espresso, cream and sugar.
Will there be insults on Don Rickies’
new show? Os course, you dummies
By DICK KLEINER
HOLLYWOOD—(N EA)-
The idea of putting Don Rick
ies into a TV series isn’t
new. It has been tried once
before and thought about
dozens of times. But it’s like
trying to harness the power
in the Colorado River — the
trick is to keep it under con
trol and yet utilize all its
raw force.
So the format developed al
CBS for the new Don Rickies
Show aims at doing just that.
He plays a husband and
father (that keeps him under
control) and, simultaneously,
he plays a man who gets
mad at things (that lets him
use his raw force).
Even though the show is
all scripted and Rickies
won’t ad lib, he still gets his
point across. He carefully
checks every script and gen
erally adds or rewrites some
lines, to give it his own in
dividual touch. And there’s
no touch quite as individual
as Rickies’ touch.
He says this is his first
real shot at TV.
“I’ve done so much TV
work,” he says “that people
think I’ve had 14 series. But,
actually, there was only the
one, on ABC. And that was
a mistake.”
His ABC show, a few years
back, got all bollixed up. It
started out to be a game
The atmosphere is casual.
There’s a spinoff of business
from the Troubadour next
door, a local boite where you
might catch Tiny Tim or
Elton John.
"I never cared,” says Dan,
"how my customers dressed.
The hippie musicians,
they’re the best. They buy
only the best wines—a $35
bottle of Chateau Lafitte
Rothschild or Dom Perignon
—and they pay cash.”
From all this, Dan Tana,
now an American citizen,
has his own island in the
Adriatic off the coast of his
native Y ugoslavia. Wilt
Chamberlain showed up
there one summer with three
gorgeous Danes in tow.
But the real center of ac
tion for Dan is his restau-
Don Rickies
The face that launched
a thousand quips.
show and then they decided,
at the last minute, the game
wouldn’t work. Stuck with
the time slot and the budget,
they went ahead and
switched to a variety show
but, by then, it was too late
and that didn’t work, either.
Rickies says that CBS’ Bob
Wood is his “benefactor.”
There is a huge picture of
Wood in Rickies’ dressing
room —a surprise gift from
the network executive him-
rant. The late Dan Reeves,
grocery chain heir and own
er of the Los Angeles Rams,
was a regular. One night
Reeves came in and said to
Tana, “I want to buy you a
drink.”
“0.K.,” said Tana.
"At P. J. Clarke’s,” said
Reeves.
“You got to be kidding.”
P. J.’s is a popular hangout,
but on Third Avenue all the
way across the continent in
New York. Reeves hustled
Tana into a limousine out
side the door and to the air
port. They flew to New York,
where a police escort led
them into Manhattan. They
spent two hours at P. J.’s,
and the cops led them back
to the airport and a return
plane to Los Angeles.
self. Wood has been a fan
of the comedian since Don
played the old Slate Brothers
club here in the late ’sos
Wood kept saying he’d get
Rickies on CBS someday,
and he finally came through.
Don objects to those who
have said and written that
his new situation comedy
format is away of “human
izing” Rickies. He consid
ers himself human to start
with.
“I’m the kind of guy,” he
says, “who comes home and
says to my wife, ‘Barbara, I
want some melba crackers
and maybe a cup of warm
tea.’ ”
He has a reputation of be
ing dirty on the night club
circuit, but he insists that’s
wrong. He may be rough,
but he doesn’t feel he’s dirty.
“The thing is,” he says,
“that I’ll tell a story and
when the people go back
home to Marblehead, Ne
braska, and they tell that
same story to their friends,
they’ll put in a lot of dirty
words and say that was the
way I told it. I didn’t.
“I’ve never used those
words in a club. Never.”
His own children —two
daughters, five and two —
have never seen him work.
And some of his critics say,
0.K., if you’re so pure, how
come you don’t let your kids
see you work?
Griffin Daily News
“That,” says Dan Tana,
“was some drink.”
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.I
CYCLONE DISMANTELED
PALISADES, N.J. (UPI)-
The Cyclone, billed by Pali
sades amusement park as the
largest roller coaster in the
world, was dismantled Tuesday.
The amusement park, long
one of the major summer
recreation spots in the New
York City area, closed after the
1971 season and is being torn
down to make way for a new
high-rise apartment complex.
“And I answer them like
this,” Don says. “ ‘My
daughter is five. When she’s
old enough to understand my
act—l do an act for adults—
then I’ll take her to see
me.’ ”
He says his 5-year-old,
Mindy Beth, “said something
pretty scary the other day.”
She said they were rich.
“We asked her what she
meant by rich," Don says.
“And she said we were rich
because Daddy got her what
ever she wanted. That
wasn’t quite true, but it’s a
good definition.”
Don’s mother, Etta, who is
almost as famous among
comics as Milton Berle’s
mother, lives in Florida.
She has become conscious
of the value of publicity. Don
was the surprised guest on a
recent edition of Ralph Ed
wards’ This Is Your Life.
And Etta wanted to know
why there were no publicity
releases put out about her
taped-from-Florida portion of
that show.
Don’s new show undoubt
edly benefits from All in the
Family’s trail-blazing efforts
at loosening up what can be
said on TV. But Don has
mixed feelings about All in
the Family.
“I think,” he says, “that
All in the Family stole my
entire act.”
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.)
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