Alan King, a comedian I adored, was considered society, and I was considered the Jewish kid from the neighborhood.
You lose your energy, you lose that excitement and it gets the audience up.
When you do see me, you'll get the idea from when you see me that it's all off the top of my head. A lot of it is a beginning, middle and the end. But it's different every night. I have a lot of jokes in my back pocket I've said over the years.
It's just to break things up between stand-up gigs. I would only do it periodically. Maybe just an East Coast thing.
I still think funny, and people young and old still come and see me. That's flattering. The day comes that they stop coming, then I'll know that it's time to retire to the Jewish ranch.
We show a lot of film [with Regis Philbin] from my career which is most enjoyable. I enjoy watching it.
I've never been able to tell jokes. In the beginning of my career I did impressions and jokes like any other comedian, but I was never very successful because I did it poorly. So I started to talk to the audience and started talking about the atmosphere around me and started to become angry, not in a mean-spirited way, but in a fun way - and my attitude developed from there.
What I do is, I make fun of people and I make fun of myself and things around us and exaggerate things. And I'm never mean-spirited. See, the word insult means some guy who's a real unkind human being. But I don't do that, because otherwise I wouldn't be headlining all these years, thank god, and all these people showing up to see me.
I still have drive, but everything is relative.
When I'm onstage, I'm acting.
When someone says to me, do you do stand-up I say absolutely not. I like to think of it as a theatrical performance. With me the show changes maybe five to ten percent every night. Of course, whatever I see in front of me and sometimes I get on a little run about it and it changes the show. And my delivery is such that people who have seen me many times say Gee, I never heard that before. Actually, they have, but I might have changed it around.
You've got to be able to sell yourself.
Sex is great, but when you get to be my age, you've got to pace it a little bit. Otherwise you get tired.
I was always the guy - out of insecurities, I was always making fun, even as a kid.
My whole act is off the top of my head.
It takes many years to be a great comedian.
When I first went to Vegas, there were just high-rollers and gamblers and the wise guys treated you great.
I always enjoy being full of fun, but I have my serious moments. Some women go for the studious kind of guy, I certainly was not that. If a girl is looking for somebody different and maybe a little more exciting for themselves - someone more on the fun side, I would suggest that they look for a type like Don Rickles.
So many young people think the big sex act is the whole movie, but that's not the case. You need to be able to talk and laugh and cry together.
Al Capone's my uncle. The old days were a lot different. The Latin Casino was the big time. When I got there I figured that I was doing pretty good, because remember, I started in nothing but after hours joints. I can't even name them now, but that's how I got noticed.
It's tough having the last name Rickles. Luckily, my kids handled it great.
To my knowledge, I was the first guy really to do what I do. And then later on different comedians started trying doing it.
I've never gambled a dime. Never, in all my years in Vegas.
My health, thank God, has kept my brain alive.
The transformation has been unbelievable. When I started here, I worked in a place where the Sky Room was on the second floor.
