Tom Dreesen Remembers Everything!

Why all the face smashing? Well, it wasn’t because they weren’t funny. It’s just that Tim & Tom’s act was a shock to America just by existing. In those days, 1969, 1970, 1971, you rarely saw a black and a white guy walking down the street together, let alone sharing a stage as the first black/white comedy duo. There were always a few people on both sides of the aisle who objected to interracial friendship. Tim, who was black, was always in danger of being dubbed an “Uncle Tom” by the black people in this contingent, and then there’d be the white racist types who would attack Tom, who was white, for being a “n*****-lover.” The reality was that they were well ahead of their time.

Tom Dreesen, groundbreaker, team-member, solo performer, motivational speaker and all-round self-made man, is a longtime friend of the Marienthal family. He has had a top career in film, TV, and on stage, performing multiple times at Kelly’s and opening for Frank Sinatra for many years. I highly recommend his book “Tim & Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White,” and for those who have read it, he was generous enough to give me an update, with a few stories that aren’t in the book. I was thrilled to have the chance to sit down for a documentary interview.

The Road to Kelly’s

In spite of the opposition, the majority of the people who saw Tim and Tom liked them. So the duo worked those kinds of clubs and finally worked their way on to the Playboy Circuit, and with seventeen clubs and two resorts, they were doing 4 and 5 shows a night. “Up in the penthouse down in the playroom,” Tom says, “penthouse, playroom, we went back and forth. So our timing became exact. They put us on the whole circuit. But still, we wanted to work Mister Kelly’s. Everybody wanted to work Mister Kelly’s, you know, because, you get Mister Kelly’s you made the big time.”

 How did they finally achieve their goal? “We were down in the New Orleans Playboy Club and the girl in the lounge singing came to see our show and she said ‘you guys are funny, I’ll tell my manager about you’ and she showed us his card, Lee Magid, and she said he manages Della Reese. So I sent him some material. He said “Della’s gonna open at Mister Kelly’s and I want you to open her. I said I don’t know, we tried to get in there and couldn’t do it. He said, “it’s my package. It’s my show. I’ve never seen you, but I trust that singer, and she said you’re very funny.” So we came in and we opened.”  

Becoming a Star

 Their big debut was a breakthrough performance. “Just to say-- to put on your resume ‘I performed at Mister Kelly’s…’ All of Chicago, and outside of Chicago, everybody came there. It was THE supper club,” Tom says. “There were no comedy clubs in those days. So this was the place where people came, they’d valet their car and come in to have dinner and see a show.”

 But you weren’t really a star unless they liked you. Good reviews were crucial. “We got great reviews there at Mister Kelly’s,” Tom continues, “There were only about five big papers then, so couple of good reviews could really do it for you. One of them was from Sam Lesner, who said we were the ‘café comedy delights of the year. Bring them back.’ Another said ‘To watch Tim and Tom perform is like a masterful ping pong match: Bingadabingadabingadabing.’ And I credit the Playboy Clubs for giving us so many shows where our timing got sharp.”

 “In those days we were new and we were raw and we were eager and enthusiastic, and again, to be at Mister Kelly’s, to see your name on the marquis at Mister Kelly’s…I can’t tell you how many times when I was struggling in my life— I had a wife and three kids and I was going from agent to agent begging for work, you know, and I’d walk by the Marquis at Mister Kelly’s and see all the big stars, I’d dream that maybe one day my name would be on that Marquis. And to finally see that…incredible!”

 “It was special for us to walk out on stage at Mister Kelly’s. I remember the Maitre’d was a guy named Monroe. Tim and I worked every hard and tough club in the south side and all over the country. We’d dress in a car or a basement somewhere in our stage clothes. But we came to Mister Kelly’s and there’s Monroe dressed in a tuxedo, saying ‘let me show you to your dressing room’ Oh boy, we got a dressing room! It was just the bigtime.”

Before Kelly’s

 Tom is one of the few stars who actually worked for the Marienthal family long before his performance career started. “I caddied for Oscar at Ravisloe Country Club as a little boy,” he recalls, “But see, I didn’t know him as ‘Oscar,’ we called him Mister Marienthal. As caddies it was always ‘Mister Epstein,’ ‘Mister Marienthal,’ ‘Mister Goodman.’ I never knew their first names. But he was a nice guy and a good tipper (Caddies always remember those things), and very respectful to me. I was a little boy. I had holes in my shoes. I had eight brothers and sisters. We lived in a rat and roach-infested shack. Five of us slept in one bed. We had no bathtub, no shower, no hot water. He treated me like a young man, and I remember that and I respect him for it.

“Before I ever performed in the room at Mister Kelly’s I would come down there and sneak in the back if I could. I’d wait ‘til the show got started, work my way to the bar, and act like I just came to see if anybody was in there, and try to catch the performer. Especially comedians. Because if you want to become a brain surgeon you wouldn’t just study brain surgery, you watch the brain surgeon operate.

“I remember one time Mort Sahl was performing at Mister Kelly’s and I snuck back stage and knocked on the door. It was Mort all by himself. I said ‘My name is Tom Dresden and I’m a new comedian.’ And he talked to me for two hours before his own show. I walked out of Mister Kelly’s and I never forgot how great that made me feel. And I saw him years later and thanked him profusely. He didn’t remember, but I never forgot it. I don’t have a degree from academia but I got a doctorate from the streets. So I admire when somebody has chutzpah and comes up to me. I sit them down and say ‘What can I help you with?’ I like that Chutzpah. That’s a word I learned from Ravisloe Country Club.”

Returning to Kelly’s, Solo

“When the comedy team split up and then I came back here to Mister Kelly’s, I was really nervous because I was afraid that the press would say ‘Tom Dreesen is really nothing without Tim Reid.’ To get to the stage you go down to the kitchen and there was a black cook called Cleveland and we called him Cleve. Now this is my debut at Mister Kelly’s as a solo, and I’m pacing, and I look over at him. He’d just come out of the washroom and going back into the kitchen. I said ‘Hey!’ He said ‘What?’ I said ‘Did you wash your hands? In my neighborhood they teach us to wash our hands after we pee.’ And he said ‘In my neighborhood they teach us not to pee on your hands.’ And I started laughing, and I went on stage still laughing at him. And it’s something that never left me after that time. When you walk out on stage laughing, the audience laughs with you.”  

Last of its Kind

 Tom has vivid memories of the feeling of the club, and what it meant to people. “Once you came into Mister Kelly’s and Monroe met you at the door, and the waiters and waitresses were so professional and the food and the service were so good, that’s when you knew you were in a first class place. That’s what Mister Kelly’s really was: a first class nightclub operation. Maybe one of the last of its kind.

 “What started pushing places like Mister Kelly’s out was when the Mill Run Theater opened up on the north side of Chicago, and these theaters where you could fit 25,000 people in. You didn’t have to valet park, you could just park in the parking lot, and for $35 you could see Sammy Davis Jr. At Mister Kelly’s, with the dinner and tips, it would cost a lot more. So the theaters in the round helped put Mister Kelly’s out of business.

 “There was an aura of elegance, but there was also a comfortableness. Monroe knew the customers’ names when they walked in the door. How special to walk into one of those places and have the maitre’d know your name.”

Tom Dreesen is still performing, and I caught his show at the Laugh Factory in L.A. before our interview. It was quick, biting and as hilarious as it has ever been, and it was fun watching him get accosted by a group of five gorgeous young women after the show who wanted to take selfies with him. In addition to his continued acting and stand-up, he is adapting his book for the big screen, and doing motivational speaking at corporate events. The guy is a dynamo, and I couldn’t be happier to have him involved in our project as a subject, a historical consultant, and a great friend of the family.