(Jerry Pournelle)
Huh! I didn’t know that. I would have been more forgiving. I thought he was just loud and brash.
(Well, anyway, he was brash!)
Tasmanian cartoonist Linzee Arnold Illustrated that rant. Here is one page:
There are some pretty well documented cases of physical assaults, and of course the famous onstage groping. Harlan Ellison’s Death Raises a #MeToo Quandary | The New Republic
Sinatra tells the story here. Frank Sinatra, Don Rickles, Tonight Show, 1976 - YouTube
What’s strange is I first read this in “Asimov Laughs Again”, attributed to some anonymous guy and Aristotle Onassis, and at the end the guy told Onassis to fuck off! 
I first heard that joke in Wipeouts, by Al Boliska, in the late 1960s. The celeb was Lorne Greene of Bonanza fame. The prankster was an unknown.
The National Lampoon retold it with Gerald Ford as the celeb.
Joe Haldeman has always been gracious when some guy named Pavelb1 emails him with random questions.
Jim Beaver (When he hung out on the Usenet version of Straight Dope) was always nice.
I won’t say this qualifies as ‘jerks,’ but anecdotally. . .
Andy Griffith did not associate with crew or cast during the filming of “Matlock,” and was described as being ‘aloof.’ I’ve never heard whether he was like that on his earlier series. Locals on Roanoke Island said he was not very friendly.
During breaks, Johnny Carson only spoke to the guests while the cameras were rolling. When they cut for a break, he did not engage them in chit-chat. Carson was legendary for being intensely private–David Brenner described his exits after taping as looking like the Secret Service hustling the president from one place to another–but I can halfway see the reasoning for that.
Jim Beaver is great on twitter. I recently booked him for a Cameo and he recorded a really nice message for me and my wife. He’s a great guy and also a pretty well known author.
I was in Carson’s audience twice. It was explained to us before the show started that Carson would not engage the guest in chit-chat during commercial breaks because the guest might say something spontaneously that would be better when the cameras were rolling, and that couldn’t be easily replicated after the commercial. The guest would be made aware of this, and was supposed to sit quietly during the commercial breaks. And guests did.
Wayne Gretzky is pretty much the opposite of Michael Jordan; endlessly gracious with fans and very generous.
Dr. Hunter “Patch” Adams. One hopes his bedside manner is better than his demeanor while shopping.
I wasn’t there but I heard about it from my SO, who worked in the store at the time.
Donna Douglas, who played Elly May on The Beverly Hillbillies, was a sweetheart.
I interviewed her for a middle school project, and she sent me a book as a gift.
AIUI, Adrian Cronauer was a really nice guy – as long as you didn’t mention Good Morning, Vietnam.
40 years as a Cameraman / Steadicam Operator. I’ll try to make each one brief- I’ve been face to face with hundreds of “name” people.
The Nice stories far outpace the Not Nice stories and I’m inclined not to shit on anyone out there. It’s not just unkind, it’s unprofessional.
Instead, the top few Nicest humans who happened to be on camera that I’ve worked with.
Robin Roberts. The real deal. Smart, warm, kind, focused, engaged, empathetic. I shot 2 years of ABC’s Wide World of Sports with her every Saturday. Just a class act.
Dan Rather. An utter gentleman and a very good interviewer. A real reporter.
Sarah Jessica Parker. A solid actress, an incredibly careful and gifted producer and FUN. Upbeat and enjoyed her crew as well as her cast.
Dennis Leary. Despite his surly on camera persona, a good guy. Quick wit too.
Glenn Campbell. Tremendously generous and gentle with crew.
Antonio Banderas. Delightful sense of humor.
Rosie Perez. Hard-working, VERY tight with crew members. A pleasure.
Anne Meara. Like working with your favorite gramma. Also, a photographic memory that allowed her to VERY rarely go up on lines. I adored the few jobs I did with her.
Alright, a distinction should probably be made here. Was Rich like that to everyone in life generally, or just to his band? Because if it’s the latter, well, maybe he could have had a different managerial style, but they were, after all, his band, and from that recording he was clearly frustrated that they were making mistakes. Maybe his aggressive chastisement actually worked in the end, to improve them? I don’t know. Are there accounts from people who played with him to the effect of “he was an asshole but it made us better players”?
There’s this from Wiki:
Rich was notoriously short-tempered. Singer Dusty Springfield slapped him after several days of “putting up with Rich’s insults and show-biz sabotage.”[20] He held a rivalry with Frank Sinatra which sometimes ended in brawls when both were members of Tommy Dorsey’s band. Nevertheless, they remained lifelong friends, and Sinatra delivered a eulogy at Rich’s funeral in 1987.[21] In 1983, Rich underwent quadruple bypass surgery, and was often visited by Sinatra in hospital.[22] Billy Cobham said that he met Rich in a club and asked him to sign his snare drum, but Rich “dropped it down the stairs”.
In Bill Crow’s book Jazz Anecdotes, Mel Tormé tells a story about how Buddy Rich wanted to play a “joke” on him by having a couple of cops in plain clothes pose as hoods, “kidnap” him (Mel) before a show, throw him in the trunk of a car and drive around for about an hour before coming back and letting him out. Several people, including Buddy’s wife Marie, talked Buddy out of this great idea. Rich sulked over his plan being rejected, but came up with another “joke.” At the start closing night, he approached the mic, congratulated Tormé for being on a diet, and said he deserved some dessert, at which point he hit Tormé in the face with a lemon meringue pie. Not a fake whipped cream pie, but a real pie with lemon filling, a crust, and a pie tin. He didn’t just get Tormé, but also people in the front row. Tormé’s suit was ruined, and the show was over after only twelve minutes of performance. Later, Rich came into Tormé’s dressing room while he was cleaning up and congratulated him on being a “good sport.” Later, a couple of guys with the show gave Rich hell for the stunt he’d pulled, and Rich responded, “Okay, we won’t have fun any more.”
Thank you for your insights. How did you get into the career of being a cameraman?
After Rickles passed away, Jimmy Fallon told another story of him and Sinatra in a restaurant. One night Sinatra came in (either with a girl or his entourage) not in the best of moods. Rickles was already at a table, eating. Somebody made the mistake of bringing ketchup to Sinatra’s table, and apparently Sinatra always hated ketchup. He goes on a rant, ending with him throwing the ketchup bottle (thankfully not hitting anybody)
With deadly timing Rickles pipes up: “Hey Frank, could you pass the ketchup?”
Sinatra stops, stares at Rickles for a beat and bursts out laughing.