I’ve said it often throughout the past 35 years of my journalism career.
When it comes to the task of writing tributes and obits for famous names, I’ve accepted my role and many assignments as the undertaker with a byline saluting those gone but not to be forgotten.
For famous names, I could always count on calling comic and raconteur Tom Dreesen to share a great story (or two) and provide great quotes.
And now it’s time to give Tom the same tribute treatment. He was always kind and friendly to me and my parents Chester and Peggy when we’d all cross paths.
Dreesen, 86, our Harvey, Illinois, claim-to-fame comedian and Frank Sinatra’s longtime opening act for 13 years, died on June 17 at his home in Sherman Oaks, California, as confirmed by his daughters, Amy Barbuscia and Jennifer Garber. While the cause of death wasn’t reported by news services, the New York Times obituary reported that “he had been successfully treated for appendiceal cancer in 2019.”
And there are few of Dreesen’s friends and contemporaries left now to give him the same sentiment treatment about his passing. David Letterman ranks among those few pals.
I still recall Dreesen telling me about when Letterman sent his private jet to pick him up in July 2003 in Los Angeles. Dreesen said even he wasn’t clear about the intent of the meeting with his cryptic talk show host friend.
“Dave and I had been friends for years, starting from when we were first trying to get a break in Los Angeles,” Dreesen told me during our radio interview back in 2003 on WLJE in Valparaiso.
“I thought he just wanted to talk and catch up on some old-time things. It had been a while.”
But Dreesen said his three children, Jennifer, Amy and Tommy, had their own suspicions about why Letterman was flying their father to his ranch in Montana for a meeting. (Dreesen’s son Tommy Jr. preceded him in death in 2022.)
It was that previous spring of 2003, while Letterman was sick, fighting a bout with shingles, that Dreesen had joined the ranks of Jimmy Fallon, Bonnie Hunt, Regis Philbin, Whoopi Goldberg, Bruce Willis, Vince Vaughn and John McEnroe to sit behind his desk at the Ed Sullivan Theater as guest hosts.
“My kids thought maybe it had something to do with helping out another future show,” Dreesen said.
But the reason Dreesen was called to Dave’s side was to share helpful advice and assurance about raising children. Dreesen, both father and already a grandfather, was one of the first people in Letterman’s small circle of friends to find out the then 56-year-old former weatherman from Indianapolis was about to become a father for the first time with longtime girlfriend Regina Lasko.
Born and raised in Harvey, Dreesen was always quick to remind that his start in life came from strong values and parents with a modest income as one of eight children raised in a house so small, he and his four brothers slept in one bed. There was no shower, and he said hot water was a luxury.
Fast-forward by three decades and now, when the late Cubs announcer Harry Caray suffered a stroke before the 1987 season, Dreesen was one of many celebrities asked to call play-by-play in his place.
And while he worked stage venues for famed marquees in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Reno and Atlantic City, he made much of his money during his career for private corporate show bookings in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.
Of course, it was a crowning career moment logging 13 years as Frank Sinatra’s opening act and 61 appearances on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson and Jay Leno. I still remember writing the front page obituary tribute for Sinatra when he died in May 1998, and Dreesen delivered a eulogy and also served as pallbearer alongside comic Don Rickles and singer Steve Lawrence.
Dreesen faithfully dedicated time every year to an annual celebrity golf tournament with his celebrity friends to raise money for multiple sclerosis, the disease that claimed his sister Darlene’s life in 1989. And before organizing the golf tournament, Dreesen coordinated an equally successful fund-raising effort with his annual “Run for Darlene,” a marathon through the South Suburbs of Chicago Heights, Harvey, Homewood and Flossmoor. It featured celebrities like Frankie Avalon, Wil Shriner, Adrian Zmed and Dennis Farina. More than $2 million dollars was raised to help medical research from the events Dreesen hosted and promoted.
Dreesen was also a favorite on the dais for Dean Martin’s televised celebrity roasts, such as the 1977 comedy salute to George Burns.
“When I think about how I get to play in these great celebrity golf tournaments and how I’ve even been master of ceremonies for even the Bob Hope Classic, and I started out as a caddy at the country club in Homewood, Illinois, and a pin setter at the local bowling alley down the street,” Dreesen said.
Once he was on his own, Dreesen started in show business in the early ‘70s when he joined actor Tim Reid to form the comedy duo “Tim and Tom,” which he calls one of the first-ever Black and white comedy teams. When Reid left for Hollywood and eventual fame as DJ Venus Flytrap on “WKRP in Cincinnati,” Dreesen also went to Los Angeles to try to catch his big break. It happened when Sinatra saw his solo act and “Tonight Show” appearance.
Dreesen’s late brother Glenn, who stayed in the South Suburbs, was a photographer for The Star and The Daily Southtown newspapers, and he and his wife Karen owned Dreesen Photography Studio in Homewood.
A favorite “back home” highlight for Dreesen was on Sept. 26, 2003, when he sang the seventh-inning stretch “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at Wrigley Field for the Cubs game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
“I was supposed to sing it last month for a scheduled game, but I got bumped for Ozzy Osbourne to do it,” Dreesen lamented to me at the time.
“They wanted Ozzy and wife Sharon to do it because it was at the time Sharon was launching her new syndicated talk show, which was broadcast on WGN, so they were pumping up the publicity. But Ozzy’s sung rendition for that Aug. 17 with the rambling and slurred lyrics got more attention, I think, than his wife’s TV show debut.”
Though Dreesen spent many of his meals dining, usually at Chicago’s best steakhouses like Gibsons and Morton’s, he loved home-cooked meals and recipes attached to a memory, such as his heralded dish for stuffed artichokes.
“This recipe is from one of my dearest friends, Clarissa Mancuso,” he said.
“It came from Italy with her grandmother in 1878. Whenever I would visit Clarissa, she would honor me with her cooking. This is one of my favorite recipes, too.”
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is a weekly radio host at WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at philpotempa@gmail.com or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.
Tom Dreesen’s Stuffed Artichokes
Make 4 servings
Ingredients
4 medium-sized artichokes
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup dry breadcrumbs
1/4 cup chopped parsley
Salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Oregano to taste
Golden raisins to taste (optional)
4 slices lemon
Directions
1. Remove chokes from artichokes and steam in small amount of water for 15 minutes, adding water to pan as needed. Drain thoroughly.
2. Combine garlic oil, breadcrumbs, parsley, salt, black pepper, oregano and raisins.
3. Add small amount of artichoke cooking liquid if needed to moisten stuffing.
4. Spoon stuffing between artichoke leaves.
5. Place artichokes in small baking pan and top each with lemon slice. Cover.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
