I Blame Dennis Hopper

by Illeana Douglas

  A lot of my duties involved inviting and escorting famous people to premieres. My roommate would tease me, “That’s what you do? Invite famous people to parties?”

  “Yes!” I would say excitedly. I mean, the fact that I had Neil Simon’s home number and Walter Cronkite’s and could call them and invite them to a party—as if we were friends—well, who didn’t want to make calls like that? Also, the fact that I knew who Joe Mankiewicz and Garson Kanin were, or that Adolph Green was married to Phyllis Newman but that his partner was Betty Comden, was finally identified as an important skill. Dream job!

  One day I was on the phone with David Denby, who was then a very important movie reviewer for New York magazine. (He is now a very important reviewer for The New Yorker.) Well, part of representing the film was screening it for reviewers. Peggy always wanted to let a filmmaker know in advance if a review of their film would be positive, so one of my jobs would be to call a reviewer and gauge their reactions after a screening. Mr. Denby—to put it mildly—did not receive these calls well, but I made them nonetheless. On a daily, sometimes hourly, basis.

  “Hello, Mr. Denby—I’m calling from Peggy Siegal.”

  “No, I do not have a reaction to Beverly Hills Cop II.” Click.

  Peggy Siegal came walking in as I was looking at the phone. “Did you call David Denby?”

  “Yes, Peggy. He just hung up on me.”

  “Call him back.”

  “What? No, Peggy, he just hung up on me.”

  “Call him back.”

  “But____”

  Just then, Frank Perry came running in and looking around. He stopped and did a double take at me, pointing his finger. “You’re an actress, right?”

  I smiled wryly. “Yes, Frank. I’m an actress who answers the phone for a living.”

  “No!” he said. “Put the phone down.”

  I looked at Peggy. “What about Denby?”

  She said incredulously, “You’re an actress?”

  “How would you like to yell at Shelley Long?” Frank said excitedly. “We have a part that we forgot to cast. It’s a few lines. Do you have a monologue you could do for me?”

  What’s crazy is that (a) I did have a monologue I could do for him. Because I really did believe that any elevator ride could lead to a job, and now it had. And (b) that he needed to hear a monologue to see if I was qualified to yell at Shelley Long.

  I followed Frank into his office. He lied. I had to do two monologues to see if I was qualified to yell at Shelley Long—but I got the part!

  “Great,” he said. “We are shooting this right now. Come with me.”

  He took me by the arm and started leading me out of the office.

  “Peggy,” he said, “I’m taking her.”

  Since Frank was also a client, there wasn’t much she could do. Peggy, bless her heart, let me leave work, but only if I agreed to return after I was done shooting to complete any work I had missed that day. Glamorous showbiz. Still, dream job!

  The next thing I knew, I’m driving downtown with Frank Perry—who had made such great movies as The Swimmer and Mommie Dearest—to shoot what would be my first speaking part in a movie. I was in a daze. They sat me in a chair, slapped some makeup on me, handed me a baby, introduced me to Shelley Long, and bingo, I was acting in a movie. I handed back the baby, said goodbye to Shelley Long, apologized for having yelled at her, and was back at work that night eating pizza and wondering what the hell had happened. But I was in a movie. There was visual proof.

  This story, which sounded as if a famous publicist like Peggy Siegal had made it up, immediately made its way through the halls of the Brill Building. I was excited because people finally started identifying me as an actress. One of these people was Martin Scorsese’s assistant, who asked for my résumé.

  “Let me have it,” she said, “I’ll keep it on file. You never know when Marty is casting something.”

  I didn’t tell her that I had actually tried to audition for the movie The Last Temptation of Christ. I sent a picture of myself wrapped in a turban to the casting director and signed it, “Look at how good I look in a turban. I need to be in The Last Temptation of Christ.” Funny, I never got the call.

  Remember Natural Affection? The play in which the director said I should put bloodcurdling screams on my résumé as a special skill? To pad out my very few credits—and to be funny—I had actually put it on my résumé. “Special Skills: Great legs, bloodcurdling screams.” I knew one of them would get me somewhere. That was the résumé I handed Martin Scorsese’s assistant. Months later, Martin Scorsese had finished filming The Last Temptation of Christ and was doing what they call ADR (additional dialogue recording) on the film. They were in a real rush to get the movie out. The studio was pushing for an early release because there was a lot of controversy surrounding the film, and people were beginning to protest it.

  I was at work and I got a call from Marty’s assistant. It sounded very conspiratorial: “Hey, I was reading your résumé. Do you really have a bloodcurdling scream?”

  So I told her the whole story about the play. She said, “OK. This is top secret, but Marty needs someone to dub some screams for Barbara Hershey. If you really have a great scream…”

  I assured her I did.

  “Can you come down to the third floor at five o’clock and scream for him?”

  “Sure,” I said, not thinking that this entire conversation was in the least bit odd. I mean, I had just landed my first part in a movie in an equally ridiculous way, why would my second possible acting job be any different?

  At five, I made my way down to the third floor to scream for Martin Scorsese. I really didn’t know what to expect. He was sort of a mythical figure in our world: He worked right down the hall from us, but no one ever saw him. We would hear about him, or occasionally read something about him that his staff had left behind in the Xerox machine. I wasn’t the biggest fan of his most important movies such as Raging Bull or Taxi Driver. But I loved his offbeat movies: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, The King of Comedy, After Hours, New York, New York.

  I found the mixing stage and opened the door. It was a very dark room. Once I was inside people started introducing themselves. Marty, of course; his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker; her assistant, Gerri Peroni; the producer, Barbara De Fina; plus the sound-mixing and ADR team. There was some small talk, and then Marty finally laughed and said, “OK. Let’s hear it.”

  I was trying to be professional, but when I said—a little too seriously, I guess—“I just want to prepare you; it’s really loud,” everyone started laughing.

  Marty said, “Yes, bloodcurdling, right?” There was some more laughing.

  The whole thing did feel a little silly, but, I mean, wasn’t this an audition of some sort? I thought to myself: I’m a trained actress. I’ll take it seriously even if they don’t. I went up to the mike, took a deep breath, and I swear I thought everyone was going to burst out laughing again. Then I got very quiet to get their attention. I took another deep breath, made myself cry, and started screaming my guts out. There was complete and utter silence. Then all at once everyone started to applaud. Marty was particularly impressed.

  “Oh, my God! That is awful. How do you do that?”

  I deadpanned, “I work for Peggy Siegal…”

  Big laugh at my boss’s expense, of course. But I was trying to build a rapport based upon Peggy Siegal’s colorful reputation.

  Marty said, “Listen, we’re going to have a loop group come in tonight—background noises, ‘Kill the Romans!,’ that sort of thing. Would you want to be a part of that?”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. I said, “Yes, that sounds great.”

  “We’ll have some fun,” he said. “There’ll be pizza.”

  “Any more screaming?” I asked.

  More laughing.

  “No. No. We’ll get to that.”

  I called my roommate and told him I wouldn’t be home for dinner. I had landed my second
part in a movie. Sort of. Even he had to admit that working for Peggy Siegal was turning into what I had always insisted it was, a dream job!

  That night, I returned to the third floor to find out exactly what a “loop group” was.

  Marty was right. There was pizza! There was also a bunch of people from Marty’s office. Some of them I knew—assistants, editors, folks who worked for him, including an actor, Paul, who was in my theater group. Marty loved Paul because he bore a striking resemblance to a character actor named Dan Duryea, who was famous for playing villains. You can see for yourself in Goodfellas where Marty cast Paul as the “Terrorized Waiter.” Others I was meeting for the first time, such as the director Michael Powell. Michael was a very famous British director, who had made The Red Shoes and many other films. He was a mentor to Marty and was married to Marty’s editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. Wow. I’m going to be making crowd noises with Michael Powell. Dream job!

  We started, and at first we did crowd reactions. Oohhs and Ahhs. Happy crowd sounds. Angry crowd sounds. You name it. Then we took turns doing individual crowd lines to replace dialogue that was unusable for various reasons. Marty would just call for someone to go up to the mike and try something. As the night wore on, things started to get really silly. Marty had us doing deliberately crazy and inappropriate accents, or Godzilla-like bad dubbing. It was thrilling to be a part of something so creative. And there was pizza! My only clue that Marty liked what I was doing was that he kept asking me to go up to the mike and do something different. This was confirmed the next day when I got a call from his assistant, who said, “Marty really likes your voice. He wants you to come back and do some other voices in the film.”

  Over the next few weeks I would go down to the third floor to replace a line here or there. I was Jesus’ mother, Lazarus’ sister—you name it. Then came the screaming. There were two big screaming scenes. One, as I said, was for Barbara Hershey, who was playing Mary Magdalene. Pretty simple. The other was for Lazarus’ sister, Martha. When I first saw the scene, and how long it was and what it involved, I was stunned. It depicted the entire fall of Jerusalem. There was running and screaming. There was fire, and more running, and buildings falling. How the heck was I going to match all this action? Marty just smiled and said, “Should we go for one?”

  To say that I was scared was an understatement. A week ago I didn’t even know what looping was, now Martin Scorsese is calmly just waiting for me to save his picture.

  “OK. Here’s what I’m going to do,” I said. “I’m going to do one hundred jumping jacks, make myself cry, and just go into it.”

  Marty nodded, as if he were thinking, Oh, that sounds reasonable. Two heart surgeons just nodding in agreement as to what needed to be done for the patient.

  Sheer and utter fear pushed me forward. I solemnly went to the corner and turned my back while Marty and Thelma waited. Then I prepared emotionally. As much as you can prepare for playing the falling of Jerusalem. Basically I made myself cry. Then I did a hundred jumping jacks, and ran around the room screaming and crying like a lunatic. “Jerusalem is on fire! Run for your lives. They’re killing everyone,” etc. Rent the film. I will get a residual check and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Those are my bloodcurdling screams, all right.

  Marty and Thelma seemed very pleased, and then I went back upstairs to Peggy Siegal. I thought that would be it. The next day his assistant called and said Marty wanted me to dub an entire character’s part. He needed to replace the character’s voice because she had a thick New York accent. It did not fit well with Willem Dafoe’s lower register, and he thought my voice would match better. It would be about ten lines spread over three scenes. Down I went to the third floor again. I was under strict orders from Marty’s assistant not to tell anyone that I was doing this, so I never told Peggy Siegal that I was moonlighting with Marty and Jesus.

  That’s right. What was amazing about this round of looping was that I got to do all the scenes with Marty himself, while he played Jesus opposite me. By this time I was less intimidated and we started to talk more about movies—although with Marty mostly he talks and you listen. I did manage to make him laugh again. I told him that I loved Liza Minnelli and that my grandmother had taken me to see New York, New York on the opening day, but the violent story line had kind of gone over my head. “It was like an MGM musical and then all of a sudden Liza Minnelli is getting beaten up, and then, Oh, now we’re back to singing and dancing.”

  He asked me about directors I liked and I mentioned Joseph Mankiewicz, because I was reading a book about him. The next day he gave me another book about Mankiewicz that he thought I would like even more because he felt the book I was reading was slanted a little negatively. And if he mentioned a film I hadn’t heard of, he would immediately get a tape of it made so I could watch it. “Oh, you haven’t seen Letter to Three Wives? I’ll get you a copy.” I mentioned an obscure documentary I had seen as a kid called Sherman’s March, and Marty brought me a copy of it so I could see it again. One day I said to him, “Marty, I once saw this movie about this father that goes nuts, and all I remember was a glass of milk—” He cut me off. “Nicholas Ray! Bigger Than Life! I’ll get you a copy.” Back at my desk at Peggy’s, I would look at the clock, counting the hours till it was time to go downstairs for my next film lesson with Marty.

  I always thought I had two people to thank for my relationship with Marty (aside from my favorite boss, Peggy Siegal!). The first was director Howard Hawks. During one of our talks, Marty tossed an obscure one-liner at me, “That’s it—I close the iron door!”

  And I screamed, “Twentieth Century!”

  Marty was floored. “How do you know Twentieth Century?”

  “My favorite movie! Howard Hawks.”

  The other was Mel Brooks. We were taking a break, and as Marty walked out the door he said over his shoulder, “I’ll be right back; I’m going to wash up.”

  It immediately struck a chord with me because it sounded like this Mel Brooks–Carl Reiner routine from the record The 2000 Year Old Man.

  I paraphrased, “That’s right, you go save France; I’m going to wash up.”

  I had no idea the impact it would have. Marty just stopped, and spun around. “Mel Brooks! 2000 Year Old Man! How do you know that?”

  For the next twenty minutes we proceeded to go through every routine on the album. Then Marty actually started to brag that he was on the 2000 and Thirteen album they made as a follow-up in 1973.

  “You can hear me laughing,” he said. “I’ll bring it in so you can listen to it.” And he did. We sat in the third floor studio of the Brill Building and Marty played the 2000 and Thirteen album for me and said, “That’s me. Do you hear it?”

  We were laughing like two idiots until the sound mixer interrupted and said, “Um, Marty, we really need to get back to work now.”

  How do you not love a director who in the middle of this huge controversy over The Last Temptation of Christ brings you the 2000 and Thirteen album so you can hear him laughing? One day, we were finished working, and we walked out to the elevator together. I didn’t know what button to push for him, so I said, “Are you going back upstairs?”

  And he kind of stammered and said, “Where are you going?”

  And I said, “I’m going back upstairs to Peggy’s.”

  And then, just a little too quickly, he said, “I’m going back upstairs, too.”

  It was one of those awkward moments where I thought: I don’t think he was going back upstairs. I think he wants to ride in the elevator with me. We got to the ninth floor, and again there was this odd, “I’m going this way; which way are you going?” “Oh, so am I” kind of awkwardness. Eventually he ended up walking me all the way to Peggy’s office. It was after hours, and the office was empty. He kind of peeked in, and said, “So … this is where you work.” I said, “Yes,” pointing out my desk. And Marty said, “Oh, is that your little desk?” And again I thought: Doesn’t Martin Scorsese have more important th
ings to do? I watched him walk down the hall. Before he turned the corner, he turned around once more and waved. I waved back. I got back to my little desk and just smiled to myself.

  On one of my last looping days, Marty told me he was casting the part of Rosanna Arquette’s friend in his upcoming segment of the anthology film New York Stories. I loved Rosanna Arquette; she’d been in After Hours, which was one of my favorite of Marty’s films at that time. My honest-to-God reaction when he mentioned New York Stories was that I thought he was just talking to me about his work, the way we had been talking every day about movies and work. I was young and earnest and really just wanted to do a good job. I had too much respect to say, “Hey, Marty? Any parts for me in your next film?” I was trained by Peggy Siegal that working with directors like Norman Jewison, Barry Levinson, and Brian De Palma meant you would never dream of pushing an agenda by telling them you were an actress. I later auditioned for Norman Jewison, and he was shocked to find out that I even was an actress.

  So the first couple of times that Marty mentioned casting this role, I brushed it aside. It was Thelma Schoonmaker who said when Marty left the room, “Illeana, I think he wants to see if you are available to audition.”

  Oh, my God. Now I get it. The next time the subject came up, I was ready.

  Marty said, “Yeah. You have a kind of Rosanna Arquette quality. I’ve seen a couple girls for the part, but they haven’t been right.”

  This time I made sure I was clear: “Yes. I would love to audition for New York Stories.” I made the appointment myself through his assistant. I didn’t have an agent. It’s kind of astonishing to think how far screaming for Marty has taken me.

  The appointed day came, and I literally walked from Peggy’s office down the hall to audition for Marty and his casting director Ellen Lewis. Ellen went on to cast some of the greatest movies of all time, including Goodfellas, Forrest Gump, and The Birdcage, as well as Cape Fear. When I finished reading my sides, I asked, “Do I have the part?”

  They said, “We can’t tell you that! It’s not how it works.”