Don rickles robert de niro casino outtake

Even at a rich 90 years old, Don Rickles was among the sharpest comedians of them all. The legendary insult comic, who died in April, was the king of comebacks, a talent he flaunted in his final project, Dinner with Don. The series, taped last year, features Rickles having a nice dinner with an array of famous comedians, including Amy Poehler,Jimmy Kimmel, and Zach Galifianakis. Of course, that nice dinner comes with a healthy helping of Rickles roasting his guests within an inch of their lives.

In an exclusive clip for Vanity Fair, you can now watch the very first episode of Dinner with Don, featuring the late comedian tucking in with fearsome film duo Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. The trio go way back to when Scorsese cast Rickles as a fast-talking manager in the gangster classic Casino. They remained friends over the years, with Scorsese and De Niro joining a star-studded lineup for a Rickles tribute in The drama duo tapped into their inner insult comics when celebrating the comic, throwing hilarious barbs with Rickles–esque alacrity.

“I loved and admired Don, but I don’t want to say anything nice about him,” De Niro said in a statement to Vanity Fair. “It might piss him off and make him come back from the dead.”

In this episode of Dinner with Don, the trio fondly recall their earlier days, including Rickles’s start in comedy and how they first bonded over Casino. Rickles, ever the showboat, used to roast De Niro on a daily basis on the set, which would always make the crew laugh. Scorsese even shares some rare behind-the-scenes footage, showing Rickles mocking De Niro for missing a line. (Plot twist: Rickles would later realize that he was actually the one forgetting a line.)

“That was three hours of abuse,” Scorsese recalls with a laugh. Considering Rickles’s endless appetite for punch lines, that sounds about right.