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with laughter," he says. "I thought he had almost magical powers." When visiting elementary schools for the Jaycees, Dreesen picked up a sidekick in Tim Reid, a marketing rep at E.I. du Pont who had just joined the Jaycees. The two had great chemistry together, and one day, an 8th grade girl leaving the classroom said, "You guys are funny; you ought to become a comedy team." Dreesen and Reid began working clubs together as a groundbreaking biracial act with edgy material that reflected the roiling cultural shifts of that era. After six years, the team split up. Reid later went on to become "Venus Flytrap" on "WKRP in Cincinnati" and then "Downtown Brown" on "Simon and Simon." By the early 1970s, Dreesen had made comedy his life's work. He relocated to Los Angeles and began hanging around the legendary Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard. The place was haunted by talents that would go on to great fame: among them, Letterman, Jay Leno, Robin Williams and Michael Keaton. "And Debra Winger was waiting tables!" Dreesen says. He had painstakingly mastered his craft, but Dreesen was still awaiting his big break. "In the eyes of America, if you hadn't been on Johnny Carson, you weren't a real comedian," he says. In 1975, he finally got the nod. "Eight minutes on 'The Tonight Show' and my whole life changed," Dreesen says. He earned a development deal with CBS and became a regular on Merv Griffin's, Mike Douglas' and Dinah Shore's TV shows. Through the years, Carson invited him back five dozen times, and Letterman regularly used him as a guest host. TV and movie work fol- 118 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • W I N T E R 2 0 1 4 (Clockwise from top) Years on the periphery of the Rat Pack taught Dreesen a few things about style. He served in the Navy and Marine Corp, and for years, he performed shows overseas to entertain U.S. troops, recently to celebrate Christmas in Iraq. He remains excited to play in celebrity golf tournaments such as the AT&T Pro-Am, and he has run three marathons to sup- port multiple sclerosis research—joined sometimes by celebri- ties such as Smokey Robinson (far right in group photo). 112-120 Tom Dreesen/Sinatra_152-161 Garcia story 1/24/14 6:24 AM Page 5