My Acid Trip With Groucho Marx
LSD was influencing music, painting, spirituality, and even the stock market. Tim Leary once let me listen in on a call from a Wall Street broker thanking him for turning him onto acid because it gave him the courage to sell short. Leary had a certain sense of pride about the famous folks he and his associates had introduced to the drug.
“But,” he told me, “I consider Otto Preminger one of our failures.”
| first met Preminger in 1960 while | was conducting a panel on censorship for Playboy. He had defied Hollywood's official seal of approval by refusing to change the script of 7he Moon /s Blue. He wouldn't take out the word virgin.
At the end of our interview, he asked, “Ven you tronscripe dis, vill you vix op my Henglish?”
“Oh, sure,” | replied quickly. “Of course.” “Vy? Vot's drong viz my Henglish?”
| saw Preminger again in 1967. He was making a movie called
Skidoo, starring Jackie Gleason as a retired criminal. Preminger told me he
had originally intended that role for Frank Sinatra. Skidoo was pro-acid
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