By Paul Freeman [February 2012 Interview]

For Tony Orlando, singing isn’t just a career. It’s a calling. And he’s enjoying entertaining audiences more than ever.

He has built a very loyal following over the past half century. And he continues to tour, pleasing his fans wherever he goes.

The native New Yorker, inspired by seeing Gene Kelly’s performance in “Singing In The Rain,” knew early on that he wanted to become an entertainer.”

At age 16, Orlando had a hit with the Carole King/Gerry Goffin song “Halfway To Paradise,” which he later used as the title for his autobiography. But teen idols of the early 1960s were soon usurped by the British invasion.

Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Orlando moved behind the scenes, entering the publishing business. Don Kirshner became his mentor. Clive Davis hired Orlando to be general manager of CBS Music.

Orlando found success in the role, signing and producing Barry Manilow and representing the music of James Taylor and Laura Nyro.

An old friend, Hank Medress, of Tokens fame, asked Orlando to sing on a demo. The result was the smash “Candida.”

Orlando recorded the song, one line at a time, as Medress fed him the melody. Then Orlando forgot all about the record. Medress released it under the artist name Dawn, after a Bell Records executive’s daughter. It was a smash. Orlando had finally struck recording gold. But no one knew it.

Medress returned, asking Orlando to record a follow-up. After enjoying even greater success with “Knock Three Times,” the singer/exec decided it was time to give performing another shot.

He formed Dawn by selecting two talented vocalists he had been using on Barry Manilow sessions - Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson. Orlando was ready for stardom. “Tie A Yellow Ribbon” gave him lasting fame.

Tony Orlando and Dawn had a hit CBS variety series for four years. The days of number one songs are past, but Orlando, 68, who lives in Branson, Missouri with wife Frannie and 20-year-old daughter Jenny Rose, continues to entertain devoted fans. He starred on Broadway in “Barnum.” He’ll be seen playing a horrible boss in the upcoming Adam Sandler comedy “That’s My Boy.”

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
You’ve always seemed to relish the whole process of entertaining, is it as satisfying to you as ever?

TONY ORLANDO:
More so. I’m two years younger than Paul McCartney. So that makes me 68. So I know that he doesn’t need to work and he still works. I started in ‘61. I think he started in ‘62 or something like that. The point is, the longer you stay in it, the more you’re doing it for the joy of it. God’s blessed you with all the good things that come with hit records and television shows and all the dreams that you had as a kid. But as you get older, you appreciate the joy of the gift of being able to make people happy and maybe make their day and maybe make them forget their troubles for a couple of hours. And you build a relationship with audiences over 50 years. In show business, that’s special. It becomes very special, it really does.

PCC:
You seem to have extraordinarily loyal fans. Is that because of the way you’ve interacted with them over the years?

ORLANDO:
I hope it’s because they know it was genuinely real. I take it like it’s either my last performance or theirs. From the heart. Every performance. I’ve never shucked a show. I take it seriously. And I take it for real.

And I think that being able to stay current and being able to please as many demographics as come to see the show as possible.

I just did a film with Adam Sandler. The film is called ‘That’s My Boy.’ It’s had many titles. But I think Adam’s set on ‘That’s My Boy.’ It comes out June 15th. I play Andy Samberg’s boss. Adam Samberg’s from ‘Saturday Night Live.’ And he is 30 years old. And Adam is 45 years old. And both of them have their own memories of me. It’s really interesting to see. Adam says, [Orlando goes into a spot-on Sandler impression] ‘Oh, I remember seeing the show with my parents.’ And Andy, ‘I saw you on Broadway in ‘Smokey Joe’s Cafe’ and I was just 19.’ And then Will Forte from ‘Saturday Night Live,’ ‘Oh, I remember meeting you. I was coming through Branson on my way to become an actor. And now I’m a regular on ‘Saturday Night Live’ for eight years. And Tony you sent me a letter and gave me inspiration.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Isn’t this a joy? Isn’t this a gift, to be able to have young performers tell you that, in some way, you touched them, their career, or helped them?’

It’s a wonderful time in my career. To be making a major movie, having a major role in an Adam Sandler film, after 50 years in show business, I’m in my fifth decade of making records, it’s pretty awesome. It’s a blessing, Paul. Really, I mean that.

PCC:
Is this a horrible boss you play?

ORLANDO:
Yeah, he’s kind of a horrible boss. He’s kind of a Greek tycoon guy. His name is Steve Spyro. I kind of trick the audience into like me, this guy I play, but he ends up not being a very nice guy [Laughs]. It was a challenge for me, because it was an important role in the film. And I wanted to please Adam. It was his idea to have me play this part. And I owe him and I didn’t want to let him down. They have all these focus groups and he calls me and says, ‘You did it! You’re killing ‘em! You’re killing em!’ He’s so happy for me. He’s a wonderful, wonderful man... not to mention a genius.

PCC:
You mentioned childhood dreams, was becoming an entertainer always the dream for you?

ORLANDO:
Oh, yes, since I’m nine years old.

PCC:
Why do you think that was? Did you come from a musical household?

ORLANDO:
I was raised in a very musical house. But the real light bulb for me was when I saw ‘Singing In The Rain’ with Gene Kelly. I remember saying to Gene Kelly, we honored him at the Friar’s Club, and Sinatra was hosting it. And he said, ‘Gene, Tony has something to tell you. And I said, ‘You know, Mr. Kelly, I was the only kid in the neighborhood with one wet left foot, because I’d be singing that ‘Singing in the Rain’ song, kicking the puddles on the street of New York City, twirling around my body on a lamppost, making believe I was you.’

And then, years later, I remember sitting backstage with Michael Jackson. I said, ‘Michael, where’d you get the idea to wear those white socks?’ He went, ‘Gene Kelly in ‘Singing in the Rain.’ I went, ‘You’re kidding me!’ He said ‘No, that was my inspiration.’ I said, ‘Who inspired you to get the hat tilted?’ He said, ‘Sammy Davis, Jr.’ I said, ‘So you too had people that you thought you were, while you were doing it. When I was doing ‘Yellow Ribbon,’ I thought I was doing an imitation of Bobby Darin.’ [Laughs] And it didn’t sound anything like Bobby Darin. It ended up just being me. But it’s funny how we relate to people and include them in our performances and then they become part of us, but the audience doesn’t recognize it, that we’re doing somebody that we admire. That’s when the idea really hit me, was when I saw ‘Singing in the Rain.’

PCC:
You were recording hits by the age of 16. Were you ready for that? Or was it difficult to handle?

ORLANDO:
No, things happen like that. I was working with some great writers back then, like Carole King wrote ‘Halfway to Paradise’ for me, when I was 16 years old. She was about the same age, maybe 17. And conducting the New York Philharmonic, the string section, on that session. Imagine that? She was a Julliard graduate, you know.

And I remember being in the studio and cutting ‘Halfway to Paradise,’ which was my first hit and her first hit as a writer, by the way. And that’s why I named my book ‘Halfway to Paradise,’ my autobiography, because it was the beginning of it all.

And I never ever saw myself doing anything else, but performing. So, when I hit the stage, to be honest with you, there was no fear factor. I felt probably more comfortable there than any place else in the world. I was happiest on stage. I was a shy, chubby kid. But I was not shy when I was on stage. I was only shy off stage. It’s funny. Everything I couldn’t be off stage, I found I could be on stage. I always felt at home on stage and that feeling never has left me.

So when I did Broadway, in ‘Barnum,’ people said, ‘Are you intimidated by Broadway?’ I said, ‘No, it’s like a baseball player playing in different stadium. But you play inside the lines and baseball is baseball. And performing is performing. It doesn’t matter to me where it is, whether it be a high school gym or Broadway stage.’

PCC:
At the time of ‘Halfway to Paradise,’ was that when you did ‘American Bandstand’ for the first time?

ORLANDO:
Yeah, I did the Dick Clark show, the first time, I can even tell you the date - March 16th, 1961. It was the first television, professional show of any sort I ever did in my life, was ‘American Bandstand’ in Philadelphia, with Dick Clark, sure enough. Absolutely.

That’s why, when I got the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, I called Dick and I asked Dick if he could be there with me. And he was.

PCC:
Doing that TV show, was that daunting for you? Or again just natural?

ORLANDO:
Oh, I think that was a little nerve-wracking. Because it was television. And ‘American Bandstand’ was the ‘American Idol’ of its day. I mean, that show was as big as ‘American Idol’ is today. Maybe bigger, because there were only three networks then. So you were in every household back in 1961. So, yeah, it was nerve-wracking to be there, to see Dick Clark in person. And you’d grown up watching him as a kid. I was still a kid, at 16.

And I remember going on and lip-synching to the record, because that’s what you did then. It’s much like you do on videos. You lip-synch. I remember, the first day that I was on, B.B. King was on. And he had just finished doing his song and Dick walked up to B.B., who was standing next to me and he said, ‘B.B., you’re not used to lip-synching.’ And B.B. King turned to him and said, ‘Dick, I was only there once.’ [Laughs]. I love that answer. I never forgot that. ‘I was only there once,’ meaning, every time he’s singing a song, he sings it differently.

PCC:
Was that the same show with the fly incident?

ORLANDO:
[Laughs] It was. Dick sent me a note, ‘The drug store’s open.’ I didn’t know what ‘drug store open’ meant. At commercial, he just told me, ‘Your fly was open during the whole thing.’

PCC:
Did you do his Caravan of Stars tours?

ORLANDO:
You know, I never did the Caravan of Stars tours. Although, people thought I did. But I hosted the 25th anniversary special for ‘American Bandstand.’ I hosted the national show, which was a big honor for me, because he could have picked a lot of people to do the 25th year. That was his first big special. Honoring his 25th anniversary. And then I did his 50th anniversary. And then I did the Daytime Emmy Awards, myself and Marie Osmond did a tribute to Dick. And I turned to Dick and I was singing ‘Yellow Ribbon’ and I thanked him for all he’s done for me and all he did for just about everybody who ever made a record.

And, of course, he suffered a stroke, as you know. And I looked over and Dick was in tears. An the audience gave him a standing ovation. And that was, for me, the biggest payback I could ever do for him, was to tell the world, on national television at the Emmy Awards, and to tell the Emmy Awards audience what this man has done for the music business. You think of the stars that were made by him backing them, supporting them on his show. It’s a very important part of American music history.

PCC:
I read that you had actually dated the Sue of ‘Runaround Sue.’ Is that true?

ORLANDO:
I dated Sue Butterfield for about half a beat. She’s been married to Dion for, I think, 40 years, 50 years. I can honestly say that, when they broke up, as teenagers, I took her to dinner. And I say, ‘Dion, I’m the only guy in the world that she ran around with.’ [Laughs] She was never a Runaround Sue. She was the most loyal girlfriend in the world. In fact, all she did at dinner was tell me how much she loved Dion [Laughs]. That’s the truth. I used to kid Dion, I said, ‘This girl is no Runaround, this girl is amazing. Are you kidding?’ All she wanted to do was sit there and talk about you!’

PCC:
And then Jerry Lee Lewis introduced you to your first wife?

ORLANDO:
Yes, he did, absolutely, She was the president of his fan club. I was doing the Murray The K show. Yes, that’s absolutely a fact. She’s still close to him, by the way. They’re still friends.

PCC:
And you’re still friends, as well?

ORLANDO:
Oh, yeah, sure. Well, she’s my son’s mom. Yeah, definitely. My current wife, I’m married to for 22 years. And I have a daughter Jenny Rose. That is the love of my life.

PCC:
How did you meet your current wife?

ORLANDO:
I met her at Disneyland. I was working there with the girls. One of the first jobs we ever had. And actually, I became friends with her brother, who was head of Orange County police force, Jim Amormino. And I met the family and became friends with Jim and his family, which was Frannie’s family. And then, I hadn’t seen her for many years. And eight years after I was divorced, I met up with her again, met this pretty girl. I said, ‘Are you Frannie?!’ ‘Yeah.’ And 22 years later, we’re married and have a beautiful daughter.

PCC:
And how old is Jenny?

ORLANDO:
20.

PCC:
After the teen hits, you went behind the scenes, as a music industry executive. Was that an easy transition?

ORLANDO:
Well, I worked with the greatest music publisher who ever lived, who, by the way, is about to me inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was my first manager. And he was the first person to create independent record production and owned a publishing company, called Aldon Music. That’s Al Nebbins and Don Kirshner.

And Donnie Kirshner became my mentor and my father figure and my manager and my everything, when I was 15 years old. And he had taught me the publishing business by merely allowing us to live in that office. We all had our own little offices. Carole did. I did. Barry Mann did. Neil Sedaka did. Toni Wine, who’s still with me in my show, by the way. We’ve been together 50 years. She wrote ‘Candida,’ ‘Black Pearl,’ and ‘A Groovy Kind of Love.’ And she plays keyboards with me. But we all started together, as, literally, children. All of us did. Bacharach. And Neil Diamond, Bobby Darin, Connie Francis, all started out with Donnie. Simon and Garfunkel. They were known as Tom and Jerry, then. And they were signed to Donnie, too.

So you hung around with Donnie, and you hung around that office, and you learned publishing. So The Beatles hit and the American acts, like Gene Pitney, myself, were having trouble getting airplay. It was all English acts by like ‘64. So I thought, ‘You know what? I better start thinking about my future. I only have an eighth-grade education. If this is going to fail, I’ve got to have something else. So I went to work for a music publisher named Wally Schuster, who was with MGM-Robbins music, MGM Films. I worked for him for about six months and then Clive Davis hired me and made me general manager of CBS Music. And I ran that music division for four years for Clive.

PCC:
Did you learn a lot during that period that you could put to use later in your career?

ORLANDO:
Yes, because, when you’re behind the desk, you learn, for instance, I signed Barry Manilow and produced his first albums. I represented all the music of James Taylor. That was even before his deal with Apple. Laura Nyro was one of my writers. And Taj Mahal. And Chip Taylor, who wrote ‘Wild Thing’ and ‘Angel of the Morning’ and is Jon Voight’s brother. And Blood Sweat and Tears, David Clayton Thomas, all those people were people I represented during those four years. I had an amazing run.

The ‘Sweet Baby James’ album, I represented, during James’ career, when he was on Warner Brothers, after he left Apple. And I felt like I had made some contributions to those artists and those writers in those four years. Working The Yardbirds, they were one of our acts. ‘For Your Love,’ I published that for Clive. They had Eric Clapton. That was a great group, The Yardbirds, in those days. I had a pretty eclectic range of writers and artists that I was working with. It gave me the opportunity to pull in and pull the work from some of the most talented people in the record business... ever. Historical writers.

For me to go into publishing was a natural transition. And Clive kind of knew that. He really does have an eye. He has an ear. He does get it. He was able to say, ‘I think you can run this publishing company,’ and I was 23 years old, when I took over that company.

And so I backed into the Dawn thing, because a friend of mine, Hank Medress, who was one of The Tokens, the ‘Lion Sleeps Tonight’ group, and produced a lot of hit records, was broke. He came to me and said, ‘I’m broke. I can’t pay my rent. Can you help me sell this master?’ And he played ‘Candida.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I think I can get this thing sold.’ It had another vocalist on it. And I sent him to Bell Records, because I had The Box Tops were my group on Bell Records, you know they had the hit ‘The Letter.’ It was a singles-oriented label and that’s where I sent him. And I called Bell and said to my friend Larry Uttal there, ‘Can you meet with my friend Hank Medress, because he has a record I think you guys would be interested in?’ So Hank went over. And he was looking for a $3,000 advance to pay his rent.

He comes back to my office and says, ‘Tony, they loved it.’ I said, ‘Good, good for you, Hank. Now you can pay your rent.’ He goes, ‘Under one condition.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘That I find another lead singer. They said the record’s a hit, but they don’t like the guy singing.’ So I said, ‘So go find somebody.’ He said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ I said, Are you crazy? I work for Clive Davis.’ He said, ‘Tony, I’m broke. I know you did all the demos for Carole King on songs like ‘Up On The Roof’ for Ben E. King and all those Drifters demos in those days, for Carole - ‘When My Little Girl Is Smiling,’ ‘Some Kind of Wonderful.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Well, doesn’t this sound like a Drifter record?’ ‘Yeah.’ So then, why don’t you just put your voice on it?’ I said, ‘Hank, stop it.’ He said, ‘Tony, I’m broke.’ I said, ‘Okay, on one condition, Hank, that you don’t call it Tony Orlando. I don’t care if you call it Joe Schmo and the Nail-biters. Just don’t call this record Tony Orlando, because Clive will have a fit.’

So I go in and cut ‘Candida’ for him. And I cut it - listen to this, Paul - one line at a time. I swear to you. Because I didn’t know the song. He’d stop tape after every line and sing me the next line [Laughs].

I walk away and I forget about it. He gets his $3,000. I’m happy for him. I figured the record was never going to see the light of day. I forgot about it. All of a sudden, about two months later, my secretary walks in says, ‘Tony, look at this, ‘Candida’ is on the charts at 40 with a bullet.’ Billboard is saying it’s the pick of the week. I said, ‘Candida’ - do we publish that?’ She goes, ‘Tony, that’s the song you cut with Hank.’ I said, ‘Oh, my God. You’re kidding me! Oh, ’m in trouble.’ She goes, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘If this is a hit, they’re definitely going to fire me. So what’s the name of the act?’ She goes, ‘Dawn.’ I said, Dawn?’ I called Hank up and said, ‘Who the heck is Dawn?’ He goes, ‘You.’ ‘I know, but who is Dawn?’ He goes, ‘Oh, that was the president’s daughter’s name, I figured I’d be in good with the record company, if I called the group Dawn.’ I said, ‘Well, that was kind of clever.’ He said, ‘You know, new group, new day, new dawn.’ I said, ‘Well, okay, that’s kind of cute. Thanks, Hank. Good luck with it. I hope it goes all the way.’ He said, ‘Whatever royalties, it’s a handshake.’ I said, ‘Whatever you say.’

Well, little did I know, the record sells two million copies. Now it’s number one and I’m driving around town and no one knows it’s me. I kept it quiet.

So now the next record, Hank comes to me and says, ‘Tony, you’ve got to do me a favor.’ I said, ‘Hank, please stop it.’ He said, ‘No, listen, you’ve got to cut ‘Knock Three Times.’ ‘I said, ‘Hank, I can’t. You’ve got to find somebody else to do this.’ I said, ‘There’s no act doing this on the road?’ He said, ‘No. It’s just a studio group. But we sold two million records, Tony.’ I said, ‘Play me the song.’ He played me the song. I said, ‘Knock Three Times’? That’s the worst thing I ever heard. No one has pipes anymore to hit twice on, but okay, I’ll cut it for you. And I cut it with him and, this is no lie, in about two weeks, it was number one. Like overnight. It sold four million copies.

So now we’d sold six million with two records. So I think to myself, this is something I should pay attention to. I’ve always wanted to be a performer’ So I walk into Clive’s office. And I’m about to resign my job. I said, ‘I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. But you know this group Dawn?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, you mean, you?’ ‘Wait a minute... you know it’s me?’ ‘Yeah, it’s the worst kept secret in the music business, Tony.’ I said, ‘Six million records, I want to form a group and go on the road.’ He goes, ‘If it doesn’t work, you can always come home.’ I never forgot that.

And he meant it. I said, ‘Well, how come you’re being so nice?’ ‘Well, because I expect six April-Blackwood CBS songs in your album. Typical Clive Davis, always negotiating a deal. So I did, I gave him six songs, that belong to that company.

And there was no picture of me on that first album. It was two people holding balloons in the park, because there was no group yet.

PCC:
Wasn’t it ironic, the fact that you had been working so hard towards stardom and then you hit this pinnacle after you’d given up on it?

ORLANDO:
We backed into. I backed into it. But when I backed into it, I really focused and dedicated all the experience I had experienced behind the desk as vice-president of CBS and as a young teenage performer, I think it helped me channel and focus the group and make it happen. I was able to make deals and understand the business side of it. Because, it is show business and a lot of people forget that it is a business. And that really helped me. So that’s a long, roundabout answer to your question about making transitions, but that first 10 years in the business, both as a performer and as an executive, helped me then to determine the fate of Tony Orlando and Dawn.

PCC:
What went into finding your singers, Telma and Joyce?

ORLANDO:
Well, when I met Telma and Joyce, I was producing Barry Manilow and I had them as background singers, while I was still with Clive. How I found them, there was an arranger by the name of Tony Camillo. He did all the arranging for the Motown hits like ‘Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch’ and ‘Ain’t No Mountain High.’ He wrote ‘Midnight Train To Georgia.’ Great writer. I said, ‘Tony, I need some background vocals on this record with Barry. Do you have anybody that’s not your typical New York singers?’ ‘He said, ‘Yeah, there’s a group that’s at the Apollo Theatre with Isaac Hayes, they’re named Hot Buttered Soul. They’re Isaac’s group.’ And I hired them. And when they walked in the door, Telma Hopkins, who’s now a famous sitcom actress, of course, and part of Dawn, she’s not been off the air since 1973, my gosh, she came walking through the door. And she was the one who said, ‘Shut your mouth’ to Isaac Hayes on ‘Shaft.’ And she did all of the Marvin Gaye records with her cousin, Joyce. They did ‘Heard It Through The Grapevine’ and ‘Ain’t No Mountain High’ and all the Four Tops records. So they were like premiere background singers. And beautiful, beautiful girls.

And I said, ‘Do you want to go on the road with me, as Dawn.’ Telma said, ‘Well, honey, how much do you want to pay us?’ I said, ‘Wow, how much is this gonna cost me?’ I said, ‘We’re going to open the act in Majorca, Spain and England. She goes, ‘England? I’m in. And, if I don’t like it, we’ll call it a day.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ And we were together for eight straight years.

PCC:
What was the chemistry there?

ORLANDO:
It was just a natural chemistry. To this day, we’re still friends and we still have that chemistry. Telma, of course, was Aunt Rachel on ‘Family Matters.’ She was on ‘Gimme A Break’ with Nell Carter. After we got canceled, in the ‘70s, we broke up, she went on to be the longest-running sitcom across in history. Now she’s on a show called ‘Are We There Yet?’ on PBS.

PCC:
So ‘Tie A Yellow Ribbon,’ did you have any inkling that it was going to be more than a hit song, that it might have an cultural impact?

ORLANDO:
No, as a matter of fact, Telma and I, Hank wanted to cut it. Hank had great, great ears. I was much more of an R&B guy and much more of a classic rock guy. Hank was more of a pop, almost bubble gum kind of guy. He liked that. So you could see that, when we cut ‘Knock Three Times.’ In its day, when you had ‘Layla’ out there and Elton John out there with ‘Rocket Man,’ Knock Three Times’ was bubble gum, compared to that. And you had Led Zeppelin happening. And Vanilla Fudge. We were not that. And that’s because Hank had an inkling and a feel for that.

So he played us ‘Yellow Ribbon.’ I looked at Telma and thought, ‘Oh, my God.’ So I said, ‘Hank, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll cut ‘Yellow Ribbon,’ because I know it sounds like a hit song to me, but I want to be able to showcase the album. So I was trying to negotiate a deal with him. I said, ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll cut ‘Yellow Ribbon’ in the album, if you’’ll let Joyce and Telma do lead vocals to show their ability to be lead singers, because I want to truly make this act an act. I don’t want the girls to just be background singers. I want the world to know that they can sing.’ And they could really sing. And I said, ‘So, if you let us do a little more rhythm & blues on the album and little more what we feel strongly about, then we’ll cut ‘Yellow Ribbon.’ And that’s what we did.

So, in essence, I used ‘Yellow Ribbon’ as a bargaining chip to make a better album. And Joyce’s sister, Pam, who was singing at the time with Aretha, and also did background for Telma and Joyce on all of our records, she walked in the studio, she goes, ‘Honey, you guys are crazy! That’s going to be the biggest hit record you guys ever had!’ And we looked at each other and said, ‘If Pam said that, we better be serious about cutting it.’

So we went in and we cut ‘Yellow Ribbon,’ and, of course, it became our signature song. It became such a part of the American tapestry, welcoming home our troops from Vietnam. The first time sang it was with Bob Hope, at the Cotton Bowl, to welcome home the POWs. Then in the Iranian hostage crisis, the country waved yellow ribbons all the way into the space shuttle. It was amazing. And in Desert Storm, it became the lead inspiration for the troops. They came home to yellow ribbon parades everywhere in the country. And then, of course, in Iraq and Afghanistan, you go to most bases in this country and over there, there’s a yellow ribbon on every base. So it’s been a great journey and a great sense of responsibility on our part, to make ‘Yellow Ribbon’ an anthem of hope and freedom and hopefully to raise money for veterans causes. We have been raising money for veteran causes, because of ‘Yellow Ribbon,’ since 1973. And it’s in the multi-millions now. It really is gratifying.

PCC:
The TV series, was that another natural transition?

ORLANDO:
Yeah, it was a natural transition. I always saw us on TV. I always felt we’d be right for television. We focused on being a television act. And lo and behold, Fred Silverman for CBS came to see us at Westbury Music Fair in Long Island and he came backstage and offered us the summer replacement show in July of 1973. He gave us the chance to do four weeks and the ratings were so high, that we went on the network that following mid-season and stayed on for four years.

PCC:
Was it surreal, having people like Jackie Gleason and Jerry Lewis guesting on your show?

ORLANDO:
Oh, yeah. I mean, I just was with Jerry the other day and I showed him the piece that we did together. The piece was called ‘Lewis and Orlando for President.’ It was in ‘76 that we did it. That was the year I met Jerry and first worked with him. And he was my boyhood idol. And for me to go up there with my boyhood idols such as Jerry and such as Jackie Gleason. And I gave Jerry a copy and he said, [doing his Lewis impression] ‘We did good! Wow! I can’t believe how good we were. You need some more practice. I’ll tell you that now.’ And, of course, Jackie, he was my first guest. Imagine that. We hadn’t even done a high school play and here I am doing a sketch with Jackie Gleason! It was crazy.

PCC:
And was he supportive? What was he like?

ORLANDO:
When I first met him, there was a head-on collision with him. It’s in my book. It’s a long story. But it ended up to be a wonderful story, because, in the end, not only did he come into the dressing room and apologize, he wrote, ‘I apologize, Tony,’ in my little script book. But he would call me every single tape night and say, ‘Now listen here, pal, I watched the show last week. I just want you to know, you were very good in the sketches. Stop reading the cue cards. Learn your lines!’ [Laughs] Or he would say, ‘Keep your button closed. It doesn’t look good with the button unbuttoned.’ Little stupid things like that. But he would take the time to call me. ‘You had too much makeup on!’

PCC:
So everything’s going great, and then there’s a dark period...

ORLANDO:
That was nine months of my life, come on, out of 50 years in the business. Not even worth talking about.

PCC:
But what pulled you out of it? How were you able to save yourself?

ORLANDO:
Christ pulled me out of it. Believing in God. And my family pulled me out. Giving me the braking system to recognize that I was being self-destructive. And I didn’t want to embarrass them. Period. That was it.

PCC:
And the weight issues? I noticed you still have a Nutrisystem link on your site.

ORLANDO:
Oh, I go up and down like a frickin’ yo yo.

PCC:
But the weight loss is amazing.

ORLANDO:
I lost 100 pounds. And in this movie, I could kill them, but in this movie, my good buddy says to me, ‘I think you need to put some weight on.’ And the director says, ‘You’ve got to put some weight on.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He says, ‘Well, Tony, you’re a Greek billionaire and you’re excessive in everything you do. You can’t be looking like Tony Orlando from the Tony Orlando and Dawn days. ‘ I said, ‘Why? I just lost 100 pounds.’ He says, ‘Because you’re an actor. That’s why!’ [Laughs] So I actually put on 50 pounds for the part. So I just got off the phone with Stacie Mullen of NutriSystem and said, ‘I’m back!’ She goes, ‘All right. It’s on its way.’

PCC:
What dedication to your art - going the DeNiro route.

ORLANDO:
Well, you know, you’ve got to do it. If the imagery was right for them, I’m not going to say no. They gave me the chance of a lifetime in this movie. And then you have James Caan, Susan Sarandan, a pretty good cast in the movie. I’m just glad to be part of it.

PCC:
You stopped performing for a while, back around 1977, as you battled depression, after the passing of your sister and Freddie Prinze.

ORLANDO:
It was just for a year. I had to step back. Sometimes you have to take one step back to take two steps forward.

PCC:
Though you no longer have your own theatre there, you still live in Branson?

ORLANDO:
I live in Branson. Sold the theater in 1998. I do a Christmas show in November and early December in Branson. And also, my veterans show, which this year, we televised on the Fox Huckabee show. Huckabee came down and we did the show with him for the first time. And I think I might do it again next year with him.

PCC:
Branson seems like a haven for old-fashioned entertainment.

ORLANDO:
No, no, no. First of all, Branson is very eclectic. People think of it as an old elephant ground for the old performers. But that has changed. We just had Nelly in Branson. That’s not an old man. He came in and did his rap thing and killed them. Sold out the show. We’ve had all of the classic rock acts that you can think of come to Branson. So it’s a very interesting town. I’m impressed. With 105 theaters, they sit 65,000 seats for live theater every day. That’s more than Broadway. So I have a great respect for the performers that work in Branson, Missouri on a daily basis all the time. The Oak Ridge Boys come in and do an amazing show.

PCC:
Do you find that contemporary performers have the same sort of instincts for pleasing an audience?

ORLANDO:
Yeah, they do. I just saw Nick Jonas in ‘Miserables.’ Nick of the Jonas Brothers. He played the lead ‘Miserables’ and used his opera voice. And it blew people away. And now he’s in ‘How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’ on Broadway. So he is showing his stage knowledge.

And I went to see Lady Gaga. She was awesome. Off the charts. And I went to see the complete opposite of her, in Taylor Swift. Taylor’s show looked like a Broadway show. It had a beginning, a middle and an end. It had singing. It had dancing. It had sets. It had an old-school approach. I saw Jason Mraz recently. He killed me with his reggae and his jazz and his musicianship.

Let me tell you something. You can’T be mediocre today. You can’t. There was a time, when I started, where you could make it because you had a pretty face or the girls liked your hips or you had a dance record out. But today, you’ve got to act, you’ve got to dance, you’ve got to sing. Michael set a standard and people have to rise above that bar.

PCC:
You’ve had success in many media, what are you still striving for?

ORLANDO:
I enjoyed doing this new film. I enjoyed my time in ‘Barnum’ on Broadway. I’d like to spend more time acting and study more and do more film.

My goal is to be able to live long enough to be able to say that George Burns and I tied at 100 years old. I remember when George Burns called me one day and said, [in Burns’ gravelly voice] ‘I want you to know what I just did. I picked up the phone and made a deal with Caesar’s Palace for five years.’ I said, ‘George, you’re 95.’ ‘So I’ll be there till I’m 100. We’ll have a 100th birthday show. Are you coming?’ So I thought to myself, ‘That attitude, to love to perform till the day you die. That is my goal.’

PCC:
It must be gratifying to you, having people come up and tell you what your records have meant to them over the years.

ORLANDO:
That’s the most important thing. That’s the big payoff. That’s the big payday. It really is.

Visit his official web site, www.tonyorlando.com.