Editing Goodman Ace (section)

== "You Gentlemen, The Authors" ==
[[File:Ace and como 1955.JPG|thumb|right|250px|Ace and Perry Como confer before the start of ''The Perry Como Show'' on 17 September 1955.]]
By this time, however, Ace began writing for other performers, including [[Milton Berle]], [[Perry Como]], [[Danny Kaye]], [[Robert Q. Lewis]], and [[Bob Newhart]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sQUOAAAAIBAJ&pg=1996,2469766&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Miltie Berle Now Civilized, Thanks To Goodman Ace|date=20 January 1954|author=Crosby, John|work=St. Petersburg Times|access-date=23 September 2010}}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=OQorAAAAIBAJ&pg=4926,1505346&dq=perry+como&hl=en|title=Goodman Ace to Get $7,500 For Writing Each Como Show|author=O'Brian, Jack|date=22 July 1955|work=Reading Eagle|access-date=19 October 2010}}</ref> He would be nominated for [[Emmy Awards]] twice during his term as Como's head writer, in 1956 and 1959.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=vVxSAAAAIBAJ&pg=5037,424989&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Caution! Gag Writers at Work|author=Quigg, Doc|date=1 January 1961|work=St. Petersburg Times|access-date=24 October 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.emmys.com/awards/nominations/award-search?search_api_views_fulltext=ray%20charles&field_is_winner=All&field_nomination_category=All&field_nominations_year=All&search_api_views_fulltext_1=&search_api_views_fulltext_2=&search_api_views_fulltext_3=&search_api_views_fulltext_4=&page=1&submit=Search|title=Emmy Award Database-Goodman Ace|publisher=Academy of Television Arts & Sciences|access-date=20 September 2013|archive-date=21 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921061445/http://www.emmys.com/awards/nominations/award-search?search_api_views_fulltext=ray%20charles&field_is_winner=All&field_nomination_category=All&field_nominations_year=All&search_api_views_fulltext_1=&search_api_views_fulltext_2=&search_api_views_fulltext_3=&search_api_views_fulltext_4=&page=1&submit=Search|url-status=dead}}</ref> Ace rationalized his work by saying, "I'm not in television. I'm with Perry Como."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6BIxAAAAIBAJ&pg=7059,633494&dq=perry+como&hl=en|title=Perry Como's Relaxed As Ever|author=Smith, Cecil|date=22 January 1970|work=Toledo Blade|access-date=8 January 2011}}</ref> Perhaps his best turn of writing in these years, however, was his collaboration with Frank Wilson on ''[[The Big Show (radio show)|The Big Show]]'', considered [[NBC]]'s last-gasp attempt to keep classic radio alive. This 90-minute variety program was hosted by [[Tallulah Bankhead]] and featured a rotating cast that included some of America's and the world's greatest entertainers, including [[Fred Allen]], [[Groucho Marx]], [[Jimmy Durante]], [[Joan Davis]], [[Bob Hope]], [[Louis Armstrong]], [[George Jessel (actor)|George Jessel]], [[Ethel Merman]], [[José Ferrer]], [[Ed Wynn]], [[Lauritz Melchior]], [[Ezio Pinza]], [[Édith Piaf]], [[Ginger Rogers]], [[Ethel Barrymore]], [[Phil Silvers]], [[Benny Goodman]], and [[Danny Thomas]].<ref name="On2">{{cite book |last=Dunning |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EwtRbXNca0oC&dq=%22The+Big+Show,+spectacular%22&pg=PA85 |title=On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio |section=The Big Show |date=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-507678-3 |edition=Revised |location=New York, NY |pages=85–86 |access-date=2024-11-16 |author-link=John Dunning (detective fiction author)}}</ref> The show was marked by Ace's wry style, adapted to Bankhead's diva-blunt style.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-The-Big-Show.html |title=The Big Show |work=DigitalDeliToo |access-date=30 November 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110903172215/http://digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-The-Big-Show.html |archive-date=3 September 2011 }}</ref> Ace said years later that one of his secrets was isolating particular interests of the guests – for example, Ginger Rogers' passion for playing golf – and writing comic routines around those interests.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

Ace fondly remembered working with Bankhead in later years. "'You gentlemen, the authors,' she would say", he once told author Robert Metz, "we gag writers felt pretty good about that."<ref name="Writes">{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=aMVCAAAAIBAJ&pg=6922,3407349&dq=perry+como&hl=en|title=Former Radio Comic Now Writes Perry Como Show|author=Danzig, Fred|date=25 March 1958|work=Middlesboro Daily News|access-date=2 November 2010}}</ref> What he didn't necessarily feel good about, as he told radio interviewers Richard Lamparski and John Dunning two decades later, was the writers' non-mention in Bankhead's memoir recollection about ''The Big Show''.

Ace had known [[Jack Benny]] since his Kansas City years.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=WlkbAAAAIBAJ&pg=5712,634622&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Benny Clings To Memories|author=Cook, Alton|date=1 June 1941|work=The Pittsburgh Press|access-date=19 November 2010}}</ref> Radio historian Arthur Frank Wertheim recorded (in ''Radio Comedy'') that, as a young newspaper reporter and columnist, Ace had written a witty gossip column that moved Benny himself to ask the young writer for some jokes for his stage act. Benny asked for more and paid Ace $50 for one packet of jokes. "Your jokes got lots of laughs", said the note Benny sent with the check. "If you have any more, send them along". According to Wertheim, Ace returned the check with a note: "Your check got lots of laughs. If you have any more, send them along". He ended up supplying Benny with gags "on the house" for years, Wertheim noted.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Singer|editor-first=Mark|title=Mr. Personality: Profiles and Talk Pieces from The New Yorker|page=193|year=2005|publisher=Mariner Books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=noDkchBP1E4C&q=perry+como&pg=PA214|isbn= 0-618-19726-5|access-date=22 September 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=An Ace Salutes A Jack|author=Ace, Goodman|date=4 January 1975|work=The Milwaukee Journal}}</ref>

Benny was inadvertently responsible for a very funny exchange of letters between Ace and the owner of the [[Stork Club]], [[Sherman Billingsley]].  Benny invited Ace to lunch at the Stork; when Ace got to the club, Benny had not yet arrived.  The staff at the Stork Club did not recognize Ace and he received a very cool reception.  When Benny finally did get to the Stork, he was told Ace didn't want to wait and left.  Soon Billingsley's notes began to arrive in Ace's mailbox, inviting him to come to the club for the marvelous air conditioning.  Ace wrote back that he was well aware of how cool it was at the Stork, having received the cold shoulder there.  Billingsley's response was a gift—bow ties for Ace, whose reply was to ask Billingsley for some matching socks so he would be well-dressed when he was refused admittance again.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6lgbAAAAIBAJ&pg=1569,2567585&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Easy Ace Is Not So Easy|author=Steinhauser, Si|date=28 January 1945|work=The Pittsburgh Press|access-date=23 September 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/147478545/?terms=goodman%2Bace%2Bstork%2Bclub%2Bbenny%2Bsocks|title=It Happened Last Night|page=39|author=Wilson, Earl|date=31 October 1944|work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|access-date=10 January 2017}}(subscription required)</ref>

Ace wrote one screenplay, ''[[I Married a Woman]]'', in 1957.  Calling it the best thing he had ever written, but the worst thing he had ever seen after viewing the film, He never tried his hand at screenwriting again.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Singer|editor-first=Mark|title=Mr. Personality: Profiles and Talk Pieces from The New Yorker|page=207|year=2005|publisher=Mariner Books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=noDkchBP1E4C&q=perry+como&pg=PA214|isbn= 0-618-19726-5|access-date=22 September 2010}}</ref> When the couple's Miami hotel room was robbed in 1966, Ace managed to find humor in the situation.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8239235/goodman_ace_robbery/|title=Cafe Circuit: It Happened Last Night|author=Wilson, Earl|date=7 March 1966|page=4|work=The Terre Haute Star|access-date=8 January 2017|via = [[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref>

Ace revealed in the mid-1960s that CBS once developed a kind of school for young comedy writers, with Ace himself "placed in charge of a group of six or seven young writers who wanted to make all that easy money", as he recalled in a later magazine column. All became television writers and two eventually became successful playwrights: [[George Axelrod]] (''[[The Seven Year Itch]]'') and [[Neil Simon]] (''[[Barefoot in the Park]]'', ''[[The Odd Couple (play)|The Odd Couple]]'', ''[[The Goodbye Girl]]'').<ref>{{cite news|title=Radio Must Recognize Writers|date=23 February 1947|work=The Milwaukee Journal}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6gyxWHRLAWgC&q=jane+ace&pg=PA2|title=Dictionary of Missouri Biography|editor-last=Christensen|editor-first=Lawrence O.|editor2-last=Foley|editor2-first=William E.|editor3-last=Kremer|editor3-first=Gary R.|editor4-last=Winn|editor4-first=Kenneth H.|publisher=University of Missouri|year=1999|page=848|isbn=0-8262-1222-0|access-date=1 March 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PyK_L43IWycC&q=jane+ace&pg=PA54|title=Backstory 3: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 60s|editor-last=McGilligan|editor-first=Patrick|year=1997|publisher=University of California Press|page=418|isbn=0-520-20427-1|access-date=12 March 2011}}</ref>