I was, of course, a close personal friend of Ed McMahon, who died on Tuesday in LA. In fact, he was my sidekick long before Johnny Carson came along, and we had quite a row when he decided to abandon my side in favour of Carson’s.

I always enjoyed “The Tonight Show”, though, and years later Ed and I reconciled and I wangled my erstwhile sidekick a side-job as a presenter for Publishers Clearing House, even though Ed never read a book in his life.

David Carradine, who died this week, was, of course, a close personal friend of mine. We worked together on that television series about kung fu — what was its name?

But that was a long time ago, and David never even bothered telling me he was coming to Bangkok to shoot a picture. He was probably still ticked off about the time I told him Peter Fonda was a better actor. I was kidding!

I was, of course, a close personal friend of Dom DeLuise, who died on Wednesday in LA, age 75.

I saw him a couple of times after we made “Blazing Saddles”, but he always made me eat too much, so I started avoiding him when I was on the coast. Mel Brooks told me he did the same thing.

The most fun I ever had with Dom on a picture was shooting “Cannonball Run II”, which, as was obvious when it was released, had no script. Burt Reynolds was too cheap to pay for writers, so we carried on up the ad libber, and Dom was one of the best ad libbers in the biz.