Daily News from New York, New York • 809

VI i 4 to You probably don't know tfrc names QBcaE ODne floces ope 3 A fe i C- iiiillllliisii liwiip i. 3 3 News photo by Mary DiBase Jerry CarrofI as Crary Eddy: "I do a job I get paid. Db Frazer as Rafale's boss, Capt. McNeil. On TV, he can drive you INSANE! At home, he's relaxed and quite human.

"My personal feeling about the Crazy Eddie commercials," he says, "is that they're to be taken on two levels. If you just see a pitchman, that's fine, that's what it's about on its most superficial level. But there's a lot of tongue in cheek. We're kind of smiling at ourselves. I think a few times people saw them and said, 'Hey, I think they're doing something a little more than just yelling at Still, the hard-sell is the thing.

"That style is unforgettable," Weiss says, "and that's what we want." And if people continue to send letters begging Crazy Eddie to exile Carroll to Siberia, that's okay with Weiss. Charles Paikert The supporting players on 'Kojak' are the best-known unknowns on TV. born in New York, and raised in the city and on Long Island. Dan Fraser, born in Hell's Kitchen, still lives there, though the neighborhood's now called Clinton. Kevin Dobson, born in Queens, drove a cab here and worked for the Long Island Railroad.

Vince Conte (Rizzo) was born in Freeport. Mark Russell (Saper-stein) was born in Brooklyn, though he moved to California as a child. And the cast mirrors the New York that Telly Savalas sees: a street-smart, sophisticated New York. "In New York, who needs to talk things out?" Telly said. "A grunt is worth a thousand words; you grunt, you give people a look, and in New York, they know what you mean." New York, City of Grunts, emerges on the show, aided by a cast born to it.

"In the dialogue," said Mark Russell, "we don't try to be like Sherlock Holmes. We try to be a bunch of guys. We hang out together, sometimes tease each other. That's why it works." "There's, uh, an awareness." said Kevin Dobson, "that just happened on the set, that just jelled. It's because we're all New Yorkers, I think.

You can tell the guys care for one another, without it being said. And there's one great thing about playing Crocker. I never have to worry about my consonants. Some roles, it's a problem. Here, I just talk." Dobson laughed.

Vince Conte got his role as Rizzo. cast members say, because he has a ferocious New York accent, and is a long-time buddy of Telly's. He was not an actor before "Kojak," but a portrait photographer. "Telly coached me through five seasons," said Conte. "It's an easy role for me, though.

Rizzo is a cop who goes to the track once in a while, who bets on football. He's me, mostly." Off camera, Conte functions as an aide-de-camp. He hangs out in Telly's large mobile home, razziog the star and serving as a butt for jokes. He travels with Telly. "Kojak" has given Conte ambitions: he's seeking a film role "as a bad guy, really bad." Mark Russell's ambition is also to play a heavy.

"I'm tired of being a nice guy," he said. "I'd like to play a suave type of character who you'd never think was a hit man." Russell joined "Kojak" as a stand-in for Telly: "We're about the same build. I'd just pull on a skin-type cap." When the squad was fleshed out, Saperstein was created, and Russell took the role. George Savalas (Stavros), the chunky younger brother of Telly, seems more interested in talking about police than about "Kojak." He doesn't always seem to understand he's not a cop: "My partner is always my first concern. Youll find that esprit de corps in every precinct -in the world a cop puts his life on the line for you and for me.

He stands between us and the vermin in the street. They're understaffed, they're overworked, they have no support from the community, they exist for peanuts (does he mean by Hollywood standards?) because they have an ideal. And they keep society going." "When I was a kid I loved cops," George bellowed. "I grew up at 25th St. and First Ave.

Cops were our friends; we knew they would take care of us And he's off, into a rambling speech about police, his own manliness I heard the noise I picked up my and women support equal nay for equal work, but women's lib has emasculated 00 of the men in this country and made America the laughing stock of the The man who plays Capt. McNeil has a more tem- Continued on page 22) "--HAT FACE AGAIN! Those bug eyes, the turtle- I neck and suit coat, all that stereo equipment in II the background You lunge for the dial, but it's too late. He's already screaming at you. threatening to grab you by the throat, shrieking: "CRAZY EDDIE, HIS PRICES ARE You've had enough! That despised voice has ruined your mood, bummed you out You can't take it anymore: Pen in hand, you're going to write furious letters to the TV station, to Crazy Eddie himself, telling them to get that guy off the air! Forget it. Thousands of Irate New Yorker's have been there ahead of you.

Crazy Eddie couldn't care less. (Actually, there is no individual Crazy Eddie; he's a corporation, though not as faceless as viewers might wish.) The complaining letters now cover an entire floor in the company's central offices in Brooklyn. The company is proud of them. They prove the commercials get results. The actor who plays Crazy Eddie is proud, too.

His name is Jerry Carroll, and from 1971 to last July, he was known as "Dr. Jerry the high-energy WPIX-FM disc jockey who "did his bits and played his hits." He is 32, a graduate of Yonkers High and NYU. He got into broadcasting because a girl friend kept telling him he had a nice voice. Carroll developed his broadcast personality as a sort of loud, friendly, and sometimes klutzy big brother. He told bad jokes, was constantly frenetic, and never let the listener forget he was there.

Perfect, in other words, for Crazy Eddie. When Larry Weiss. Crazy Eddie's advertising manager, heard Carroll read copy for an Eddie commercial during one of his boogie loud, have-a lot-of-fun-type shows, in 1974. he knew that he had found his man. Carroll began doing all the radio spots, perfecting his" off-the-wall, loudmouth, d.j.-gone-beserk routine, which he easily transferred to television.

Only now, people could actually see this madman, exposing Carroll to the perils of public ridicule. And has he ever felt, well, slightly embarrassed about doing the commercials? "Never," Carroll replies. "I'm a person hired to do a job. I do a job for the people. If they like it.

I get paid money. That's fine. My involvement ends right there. I cannot get emotionally involved with what I see on TV." In fact, rather than becoming a laughingstock, Carroll has been beseiged by imitators. They range from TV advertiser Crazy Leon, who beats a dead chicken against a counter to make his point, to college students, who have adopted the commercials as a sort of cult fad representing the absurdity of the business world they are about to face.

In person, Carroll betrays none of the huckster's frenzy. He comes off as low-keyed, relaxed, enjoying the good life in a spacious West End Ave. apartment with his wife and beagle. And he is booked solid for film narrations and commercials for other clients. Among them: Borden's and The New York Cosmos.

RIGHT, CLEAR LIGHT beats down on down-I town Los Angeles. It's a low-smog day, and I Oj after a cool fall morning the temperature climbed steadily into the 80s. In a parking lot, dozens of equipment trucks and dressing-room trailers are hooked into generators. A cast of a half-dozen New Yorkers is filming in a Los Angeles hotel another episode of "Kojak," the most widely watched television show about New York. Dan Frazer (Capt.

NcNeil) appreciates the irony. He lies on his dressing room couch reading New York papers. "Last year we filmed the entire show in New ork," he mused, putting down the paper. "That wss great. I lived at homer spent my weekends in East Hampton.

I was able to see my daughter a lot It's different here. Even the light causes problems. It's often too bright, and they have to schedule shoots around it." Kevin Dobson (Crocker) thinks the move back west "Kojak" was filmed In Los Angeles for three years, came back to New York last season, then returned to the West Coast hasn't helped the show. "The atmosphere here is different. New York is electric, an incredible place.

The energy that comes from New York, they don't have out here." "Kojak" returned to Hollywood for two reasons. The first was financial; shows can be taped and produced more cheaply in California than in New York. The other problem was more subtle. On location in New York, "Kojak" wound up filming too many depressing city scenes, a member of the production staff said. The slums, the disintegrating docks, the dirt as accurately as they reflect part of New York's mood did not go over well in Middle America.

The show's ratings tapered off during the year it was filmed in New York. In Los Angeles, indoor locations and alleyways are chosen to seem like New York, and Big Apple footage is spliced in. But plots emphasize more white-collar crime, the shows are less depressing, and the ratings are higher. Still for the show to work, the cast must reflect New York, and it does. Telly and George Savalss wer-2.