Rich Little is known as “the man of a thousand voices” after a career that has spanned decades. Now, the 80 year-old entertainer is opening up about people like Judy Garland and Lucille Ball, who he says helped him get to where he is today.

“Lucille Ball and Judy Garland both claimed they discovered you. Who was right?” an interviewer recently asked Little.

“I don’t know if either discovered me,” he responded. “The first U.S. show I did, 1964, was ‘The Judy Garland Show.’ That was my first big television show, which established me. So you could say she certainly helped my career. But she didn’t discover me. Lucille Ball, that was the second show she did. That was just a great show to do. She was such an icon by then. She was certainly one of the funniest people that ever lived. Both of those ladies were very instrumental in my career, I would say that.”

Little continued:

Judy Garland had a lot of problems when I did her show in 1964. She was difficult because she had no confidence. She was drinking a lot. We taped the show until three in the morning mainly because Judy wouldn’t come out of her dressing room. But she was a huge star and always extremely nice to me.

The fact that she never went to rehearsal was to my benefit because if you watch what I did on the show, she’s singing for the first time. She had never seen me do any impressions before that because she never came to a rehearsal. And so her reaction to me on the show was quite genuine. It wasn’t fake. Usually, when you tape a television show and you’ve been rehearsing all week, you know everything that’s going to be happening. But in her case, she had no idea what I was going to do. And so when you watch that clip today, you can’t take your eyes off her. You’re watching her more than me because her reaction is so genuine and sort of helped my routine.

 

Little was then asked what surprised him most about Ball.

“She was a complete professional,” he said. “She didn’t stand for any fooling around on the set. She expected people to know their lines. When I went to the first rehearsal, I memorized all of my lines. She was impressed by that. The best way to get along with Lucille Ball was to be prepared to work. We got along absolutely fine. She had tremendous talent and knew everything about the business. She knew what all the other actors were doing and knew their lines, as well as her own. She was a real pro.”

Little, indeed, worked with two of the most iconic stars Hollywood ever produced!