Free The Copa by Mickey Podell-Raber

kitchen during one of Nat’s many appearances at the club.

    Nat King Cole and me. Nat was a kind and caring man; my mother said he was one of the nicest gentlemen she had ever met.

    Copa advertisements in playbills.

    My father looks on as Joe E. Lewis arrives on a horse to promote one of his openings at the Copacabana. Lewis was one of the most famous nightclub comics of all time.

    Singer Vic Damone, my father, and comedian Joe E. Lewis sharing a drink and a laugh one evening. Frank Sinatra would portray Lewis in the hit film The Joker Is Wild.

    Dad, Sophie Tucker, Joe E. Lewis, and Earl Wilson. Wilson was a popular newspaper entertainment gossip columnist at the time.

    Sophie Tucker and Dad with an unidentified man. Sophie was one of the first successful woman comics of the nightclub era.
    Tony Bennett
    When he was a youngster growing up in Astoria, Queens, the glamour of the Copacabana must have seemed worlds away to Anthony Dominick Benedetto, even though Manhattan was only a short distance. So when Tony Bennett finally got the opportunity to play the famed nightclub, it was a dream come true. Bennett recently reminisced about his memories of the Copacabana and its owner Jules Podell.
    The first time I ever went to the Copa I must have been about fourteen or fifteen years old. There was a little schoolgirl that had a crush on me and her father had a connection at the club. One day he took us there to see Jimmy Durante, who was headlining the Copa atthe time. The act was billed as Clayton, Jackson and Durante, but Jimmy Durante was the true star of the show. To this day, it is still one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen in my life. We went backstage after the show was over and Durante was very nice to all of us. I was just a little boy in awe of how great the show had been and I remember thinking to myself I want to do what Jimmy Durante does—be an entertainer. That really got me motivated to start thinking about a career in show business.
    The first time I played the Copa was in 1952; I was on the bill with the great Joe E. Lewis. He was a special man; he was so wonderful to me. I was just starting out and very naive at the time; Joe was already a superstar in the nightclub circuit. Joe would ask me how the audience was before he went on and I’d say they were a littlenoisy on that side or they were talking during the act and he’d say, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” He also gave me some tips on how to handle the audience that I still use to this day. I mentioned to Joe that after the engagement I was going to work in Dallas and Houston. He was such a gentleman that he wrote to the reviewers ahead of my visit and told them how much he enjoyed my singing. That was all it took; the reviewers were great to me because of Joe’s letter. I’ll never forget that he was such a wonderful man to me, especially when I was just getting started in show business.
    Coming from Astoria, New York, and being a hometown boy, so to speak, I can’t explain what a thrill it was to play the Copa; it was really big-time. Sinatra, Martin and Lewis, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole—all the greats played there. The Copacabana and the Paramount Theatre were the two great venues to work in New York in the 1940s and 1950s. The Copa was unique because it catered to the money crowd, the gangsters, and the regular people…just like New York.
    I remember plenty about Jules Podell. He was always a gentleman to me whenever I appeared at the club. I learned to talk with him before 3 P.M. if I had any questions because after that he’d start getting ready to open the club and began drinking and his mood might vary. He had a ring that he would tap on the tableif he wanted to get the attention of his staff and everyone would jump when they heard that tap.
    I first played the Copa after I had a few hit records and was first starting out in the business. I hadn’t really learned