By Bruce Klauber
In terms of entertainment, Atlantic City in the mid-1980s was pretty close to what the Las Vegas experience was in its heyday. There were legendary performers on the main stages of almost every casino, and a good number of the lounges had top-name entertainment as well.
Elaine’s Lounge at the original Golden Nugget frequently presented the biggest names, and one of those names was the singer, Joanie Sommers.
I had never heard Sommers sing until one Saturday night in Elaine’s, somewhere around 1985. Though I knew of her by way of her hit record, “Johnny Get Angry,” and as the commercial voice of Diet Pepsi, that’s as far as it went. But what I heard that evening was absolutely sublime. While there was a jazz focus to all of her numbers, she was a sensitive ballad singer who had a singular way of handling bossa novas, jazz waltzes, and all else. I was sold and had to find out more about her.
I learned that she was on the comeback trail after being out of the business for some years to raise her children. I also suspected that Sommers, like many other superior pop artists with a jazz orientation, faced career challenges not long after The Beatles arrived. As Julie LaRosa once told me, “We used to be happy if we could fill a 400-seat room. After The Beatles came in, if you couldn’t fill a 10,000-seat stadium, you were nothing.”
Still, I thought there was room in this business for someone like Sommers. Given my show business experience as a performer, and a writer who was just getting his feet wet as a producer and publicist, I pledged to use whatever connections I had at that young age to help revitalize the stagnant career of Joanie Sommers. Note that I ignored the opinions of most of my colleagues who told me I’d be getting involved in an almost hopeless, uphill battle.
I managed to accomplish some things, including a meeting with the influential Maynard Sloate in Las Vegas, securing her a booking in Elaine’s while Frank Sinatra was in the main room upstairs; and I facilitated her booking at the Tropicana on the the Boardwalk as opening act for Pasquale Caputo, aka the popular comic, Pat Cooper.
This is where our story begins.
Cooper had been one of the country’s top comics for years since his big breakthrough on “The Jackie Gleason Show” in 1963. He worked all the top places, with everyone from Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald in Las Vegas. He also guested on television talk shows and worked everywhere else top comedians appeared. His live comedy albums were best-sellers, to boot.
Professionally, Cooper began to change around 1981. He became outspoken and bitter, focusing on various big names in the business whom he believed were charging nightclub owners ridiculous amounts of money. The problem was he worked with many of these name performers through the years, so his career, by choice or by chance, took a different turn.
He did some films, continued ranting on the talk show circuit, and became a regular on Howard Stern’s radio show. As a result of the Stern appearances, Cooper was still able to get headline work. He may have hoped that the Stern broadcasts would help him get a younger audience. From what I saw at the Trop, it didn’t. The middle-aged audience came to see the old Pat Cooper, and by and large, they got it.
Joanie Sommers did well as Cooper’s opening act, and Cooper was still funny when he wasn’t ranting and raving.
I visited Joanie backstage after the show and she let me know that we were “all getting together” at the Trop’s comedy club, The Comedy Stop at the Trop, “in an hour or so.” The “we” consisted of Pat Cooper, local comedian Sal Richards, “Golden Boys of Bandstand” promoter Dick Fox, Joanie, and me.
The local comic heading the bill at The Comedy Stop was clearly excited when we all walked in, mainly because Pat Cooper was there, and he introduced Cooper, Fox, Richards and Joanie from the stage. I had no doubt that Cooper, and maybe Sal Richards, would be invited to the stage to perform.
Richards was invited to the stage first. The plan – actually more of a protocol than a plan – was that after Richards completed a short set, the star himself, Pat Cooper, would be asked to perform in front of The Comedy Stop’s lucky customers.
Richards, who passed away in 2020, was one of the funniest and most popular comics in the shore region and beyond. I knew Sal, and he was a beautiful guy through and through, and one of the hardest workers in the business. He managed to parlay his success as a comic into a number of small film roles, and the future looked bright for him in motion pictures. He took to the stage of The Comedy Stop “ready to kill,” as they say in the comedy business. He went into his standard routine, which I had heard several times. So had Pat Cooper.
Cooper began to yell toward the stage from our table. “I don’t want to hear your regular act,” he shouted. “Let’s hear some ad-libs, dammit.”
The whole club laughed heartily, thinking this was all planned. Richards continued his act. So did Pat Cooper, who was getting more obscene and out-of-control by the minute. “I don’t want to hear that crap,” Cooper shouted. “I told you, I want to hear some ad-libs. Can’t you ad-lib?”
Sensing that Cooper was really angry, the crowd was beginning to get uneasy, and Richards tried to resume. Then Cooper bolted up from our table and started running toward the stage, yelling and cursing at Sal Richards all the while. This was truly inconceivable. A nationally known performer was literally going nuts in public. It was like witnessing a car wreck in slow motion.
Things finally calmed down to an extent, but there was a great deal of discomfort in the air. I was writing my “Backstage” column for Atlantic City magazine and several other publications at the time, and I commented to Joanie Sommers and Dick Fox that this would make one hell of a story. Joanie looked me in the eye and said, “You will never write about this.” Dick Fox agreed. I didn’t. Until now.
I contacted Sal Richards a few years before his death just to confirm that this incident actually happened. “It sure did,” Richards said. “I’ll never forget it.”
“But why, Sal?” I asked. “Why would a guy do this?” Sal Richards’ answer: “Because Pat Cooper is a (expletive deleted) nutbag!”
Pat Cooper’s autobiography, “How Dare You Say Dare Me?” was published in 2011. While reading it, I recalled that in his earlier days as a headliner and guest all over the airwaves, he was funny. Somewhere along the way he became angry. On his Stern radio appearances, he publicly feuded, on air, with his son, and aired his many other grievances about life, family and show business. While he did gain a younger following of curious listeners, that was about as far as it went.
In 2013, at the age of 84, he publicly announced his retirement saying he was “too old to continue anymore.” He died in 2023 at the age of 93.
As a result of his venting and bad-mouthing family members on the Stern show, at the time of his passing, he was estranged from all the members of his biological family, including a son, daughter, an adopted daughter, two grandsons, and three granddaughters.
