John Stamos wanted advice from the King of Cool — and got an answer he never forgot.
The “Full House” alum got his big break on television as Blackie Parrish on “General Hospital” from 1982 to 1984. But by the end of his run, Stamos was determined to leave the soap opera world behind and prove he was capable of much more.
“When I was leaving ‘General Hospital,’ Gloria Monty, who was the producer, she didn’t want me to go, and I wanted to be funny,” the actor recalled in an archival clip from Joseph Sibilia’s “Friars Club Podcast,” which was recently re-broadcast on “Nostalgia Tonight with Joe Sibilia.”
“I wanted to be on a sitcom, like a Garry Marshall show,” said Stamos, now 62. “And she took me out to [famed restaurant] Le Dome here in Hollywood to try to convince me to stay on the show.”
Stamos described himself as “a very innocent kid” who “loved” the series but was eager to show off his comedic chops.
“She was like, ‘Well, why do you want to leave my show, dear?’” Stamos recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, Gloria, I want to be funny.’ She’s like, ‘You want to be funny.’”
During their conversation, Monty spotted Dean Martin eating alone. She brought Stamos over and introduced him to Martin.
“She said, ‘Mr. Martin, this is the star of my show, ‘General Hospital.’ And he wants to leave the show. He wants to be funny. Now, will you tell him about loyalty and about sticking where you’re at?’” said Stamos.
“He was pretty old by this time, and he was sitting by himself,” said Stamos. “That was a trick of his. He would have a table set for two, but nobody was coming [for] the other [seat]. He just liked to be alone.”
“She said, ‘Tell him not to leave, Mr. Martin.’ And he looked at me, and he said, ‘Run.’”
Stamos ended up moving on to the CBS sitcom “Dreams” in 1984. Then, from 1986 to 1987, he starred in the NBC sitcom “You Again?” before landing on “Full House” later that year. He played Jesse Katsopolis in the series until 1995 and then reprised the role on “Fuller House” from 2016 to 2020.
Back in 2019, Martin’s daughter, Deana Martin, told Fox News Digital that in his later years, her father preferred enjoying his own company while out in Hollywood.
“He would go out to dinner every night, and he had two restaurants,” Deana recalled at the time. “He would go to La Familia every night, but on Sunday nights he would go to The Hamburger Hamlet. He would always sit at the same table and in the same chair. He didn’t really want people to be with him. He didn’t want to have a lot of people around him. But wherever he went, everybody wanted to talk to him.”
“My husband and I would call him and say, ‘Dad, do you want us to come have dinner with you tonight?’” she said. “And he’d say, ‘Well, sure, just no chit-chat.’ He’d say, ‘I don’t mind the chit, it’s the chat.’ He just wanted it to be quiet, but he was perfectly happy being alone at a restaurant, sitting at his table.”
Martin died on Christmas Day 1995. He was 78.
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