- Editors Note: Our theater editor, David Lefkowitz, sometimes dons the persona of "Rabbi Sol Solomon." As such, here is his interview with comedy legend Carl Reiner. You can hear the complete hour-long interview at https://www.totaltheater.com/?q=node/5148 (Originally aired on UNC Radio).

Carl Reiner has been writing about his life in one way or another since his first novel in 1958, “Enter Laughing.” Since then, he’s penned a sequel (1995’s “Continue Laughing”), as well as 2003’s out-and-out memoir, “My Anecdotal Life.” With the death of Reiner’s wife of more than 60 years, the actor-director-author felt compelled to share even more anecdotes of both his early years and his last days with Estelle (the latter perhaps best known for her “I’ll have what she’s having” moment in “When Harry Met Sally,” which was directed by their son, Rob).

Recently self-published by AuthorHouse Books, “I Remember Me” is mostly composed of briefly told but vivid remembrances of everything from Reiner’s father doing dentistry – on himself – to funny encounters with such other gifted comedy folk as George Burns and Jack Benny:

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REINER: My father was a five-foot-three stoic . . . He was the kind of guy who never cursed. He never said the word shit or fuck or screw – nothing. . . But I remember once, he’s sitting at his desk . . . He worked at the window overlooking the schoolyard. And one day, I hear – and this is the sound of a stoic being hurt – I heard, “Tsk tsk.” . . . I looked up, and I saw he had a screwdriver going through the fleshy part of his forefinger.

RABBI SOL: Oy gevalt!

RABBI: It had slipped when he was trying to put a screw into a little hole. It slipped, and it went right through his finger. And I heard, “Tsk tsk.” And I said, “Pop, pull it out!” And he said, “No, you don’t pull it out. If I pull it out, the blade will rip more of the flesh. So what he did was cut the bottom of the screwdriver off with a clipper that he had, a steel clipper. He pulled it out the other way, bandaged it and never said a word. Went right back to work with a bandaid on.”

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REINER: The brain is like a computer. When you get to be 90 years old, you put so much information into that brain, it’s there someplace, but it’s clogged. When you ask a computer, “Who wrote `Hamlet’?”, you have to wait a second before `Shakespeare’ comes up. I says [sic], “Wait a few seconds, and it’ll bubble up.”

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REINER: The happiest days of my life were those five years I did the [Dick] “Van Dyke” show.

RABBI SOL: Really?

REINER: Yeah, the show business part of my life. . .

RABBI SOL: Those even trumped when you would go on to direct movies?

REINER: Yes, absolutely. I loved directing movies, and I loved writing the movies I made. Writing is the number-one thing that excites me. When there’s an empty page, and you put down a line . . . And every writer’s done that, from the guy who wrote the Bible. When you write something brilliant down, you say, “Where did that come from?” It came from the God within you. You’ve got God inside your head who’s helping you all the time.

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REINER: I loved Jack Benny. He was an icon for everybody . . . He had a reputation, on the air, of being the most miserly man in the world. . . So Jack Benny’s sitting at the table and he sees me. He says, “Carl, Carl, come over!” We’d never met, but he watched “Your Show of Shows.” He was very nice about sending notes about liking the show. He says, “Sit down, sit down!” He was very anxious to talk to somebody. . . He says, “I gotta tell you something. . . I’m coming from the Burbank Airport, on a little plane, and I have to go the bathroom so badly. And I said, `Can I use the commode here?’ He said, `No, it’ll be very uncomfortable. [But] we’re gonna land in about a minute . . . You’ll go to Burbank Airport; they have a toilet there, you’ll use that, you’ll be much more comfortable.’ He said, `I ran off the plane, and I ran to the toilet. And there it was. I looked at it; it was a pay toilet. A dime. You had to put a dime in to get into the toilet. I reached in my pocket I had five pennies, a nickel and a quarter; no dime. I couldn’t get in. There was nobody around to get change. So I dropped to the floor, and I slid – it was a tiny little cubicle – I slid under the door, went and did my business and just about made it.” He says, “I was so pleased that nothing happened, but now, how do I get out of here? The door is locked from the inside. I couldn’t get on the ground to get out because it was too small. So I climbed over the top.” So he’s climbing over the top of the door, and he’s got one leg over. And just as he’s up there, three people come into the restroom, they look up, and one guy says, “Jack Benny! Mr. Benny, it’s only a dime!” It had just happened, and he couldn’t wait to tell me the story.

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REINER (on Mel Brooks): I invented the 2000 Year Old Man, and Mel took the 2000 Year Old Man and made him the sage of the world. He never could get stuck. You couldn’t stick him with a question. The tougher the question, the funnier the answer. . .

RABBI SOL: Are you still close friends?

REINER: Well, he comes over every night. . . I’m looking at the seat – he usually sits there. He comes over at least six nights a week, sometimes seven.

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REINER: [about the passing of Estelle Reiner] The day before, when she was still compos mentis, she talked to all the kids individually and apologized to one of them for not having been a better mother! And they all assured her that . . . not only was she a great mother but an inspirational mother. So the ending was a sweet, sad passing. But that’s the way life should be.

- by David Lefkowitz