by George Takei
I decided I would dip into my savings and chase the blackbird to New York. I had fulfilled my compact with my father. I had my degree. And, best of all, I could assure my parents that I already had a job in the big, bad city. I could tell them that I was going to New York to continue playing George.
A number of the other cast members from the Los Angeles production also decided to take a good bet and go to New York. Josie, Thelma, Palmer Whitted, Jack Crowder, Josie’s stepsister, Camille Billops, and a couple of others. We were going to be the L.A. blackbirds.
* * *
It was two weeks before Christmas, 1961. I arrived at New York International Airport in the dark of a frigid night. Josie and Camille, who had left Los Angeles before me, were there to meet me. They were bundled up like Eskimos. Camille glowered at the cold with squinted eyes and huffed her steamy breath angrily as if that might scare it away. But Josie looked so vulnerable. She had a heavy woolen scarf wrapped over her head and across her face with only her big brown eyes peeking out expectantly. But glowering or expectant, it was great to see familiar faces waiting to greet me.
We rattled by subway into Manhattan to my first address in New York City, the tasteful-sounding Sloan House. I told everyone in Los Angeles that was the name of my “hotel.” I didn’t tell them that it was actually the 34th Street YMCA.
The brisk air of my first New York morning only sharpened my excitement. At long last, I was in my Mecca—the capital of American theater!
I had to check out “the Great White Way.” As I strode down 34th Street huffing steamy breaths in the cold, I gawked shamelessly. When I reached Broadway, I turned and started marching up the thoroughfare of my dreams. But it was puzzling. The vaunted boulevard was not what I had expected. There was incredible frenzy. That I expected. There was crushing traffic, both human and vehicular. Racks of garments trundled about. The cacophony of bleating horns, slamming steel, and shouting voices was deafening. But I saw no theaters.
I was getting close to fabled 42nd Street. That was the place where George M. Cohan sang to the waiting boys that he “will soon be there.” I picked up my pace. What I saw when I got to 42nd and Broadway left me aghast. There were “boys” waiting there for sure, but they obviously weren’t waiting for George M. Cohan. And the derelicts had long since given up waiting for anything. There were theaters on 42nd Street, but it was heartbreaking. Grand marquees that must have announced names like Al Jolsen and Lillian Russell in the glory days were now displaying titles of sex-and-violence potboilers. I had studied American theater out of history books, but in the meantime, the living theater had moved farther up Broadway.
At the Astor Hotel at 44th Street, I detoured west to the legendary Sardi’s Restaurant and then up Shubert Alley. At last! This was the theater district I was searching for. Here was the Shubert, the Helen Hayes, and the Booth, named after Edwin Booth, the great Shakespearean actor and the brother of the assassin of President Lincoln. They were all here, including the Plymouth Theater, where the great impresario Arthur Hopkins presented the Barrymore siblings, Ethel, Lionel, and John, in the plays of Shakespeare; and the Morosco Theater, where American classics such as Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire had opened. This was my very first time here, and yet I felt a distinct sense of déjà vu; I felt that glow of familiarity from everything I saw—the signs, the streets, and especially the theaters. But this encounter was no longer vicarious. I was actually walking where only my spirit had roamed before. I was really strutting up Broadway!
I kept walking up to 51st Street, and finally, I stopped at the Mark Hellinger Theater. This, too, was an historic theater. But suddenly my dreamy romanticizing ended. Reality stared me straight in the face. This theater was the reason for our trip to New York. The Mark Hellinger was where, in a week, I would be auditioning for the New York production of Fly Blackbird! This was the place where my future was waiting to be made. I peered through the locked glass door into the front lobby, and a shiver of anxiety ran through me. My breath left two hopeful frost spots on the cold glass door.
* * *
New York is a city that will not allow undistracted concentration. My anxious preparation for the audition was rudely disrupted when Sloan House, despite its elegant name, aggressively reminded me that the maximum length of stay there was a week. Because of their long waiting list, however, they preferred that my stay be even shorter.
So I began the daunting search for an apartment in Manhattan. I was astounded by the astronomical rent demanded for the simplest places—my savings would be eaten up in a month or two. Palmer Whitted and Jack Crowder were looking for an apartment together, and they asked me if I would like to join them. Splitting rent three ways would reduce the cost for all of us. Great idea, I thought, and agreed to be their third roommate.
The apartment we found was on West 39th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It was a place that jarred all our senses in the most primitive way. Thirty-Ninth Street was the northern border of the garment district, so from early morning till late afternoon, we were treated to a rock concert of roaring trucks, slamming steel doors, the banging of bins, and the braying voices of drivers and loaders. There was a delicatessen on the ground floor that sent up a pungent bouquet of a myriad strange food aromas to our fourth-floor walk-up. On the second floor was a small hat factory that kept the air we breathed as dense as primeval atmosphere with fine felt dust. And from our window, we had a stunning view of another brick wall as craggy with alluvial markings as the glacier-hewn cliffs of Alaska. Since the building didn’t have an elevator, to get to our lair we had a crude ritual stomp up three flights of stairs. But the rent was cheap. And, better yet, it would be split three ways.
But when we moved in, Jack said with embarrassment that he was a bit short. He sheepishly asked me to cover for him and said he would pay two thirds of the rent the next month. Since I assumed we would be working by then, I agreed. I should have known better since I had memorized Polonius’s “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” speech from Hamlet way back in high school.
* * *
Jack Crowder had a powerful stage presence. He was tall, slim, and dark. His voice was a resonant baritone. At the audition, he sang “Old Man River” impressively. I thought, though, that the choice of the song was rather ironic for a civil rights musical. But it was an unquestionably theatrical piece for displaying Jack’s spectacular vocal range.
When my turn came to step onto the stage of the Mark Hellinger Theater, I was immediately struck by the vastness of the space. It was challenging and just a bit scary. I had to fill all this empty air. I started to sing “Goodnight, Irene,” a popular ballad that I had chosen for my audition. I was shocked. I couldn’t hear my voice. It seemed to leave my mouth and fly away into the cavernous theater and disappear into the dark. In the shower, I was used to hearing the steamy reverberation of my voice instantaneously. I tried to adjust to the spaciousness. My gestures grew larger. The nuances of the song became bigger, my voice louder. When I finished, I felt like an opera singer blasting out the national anthem.
“Thank you, Mr. Takei.” It was the time-honored disembodied voice from the darkness. “We are ready for Miss Dotson now.”
I peered back out into the black void and said, “Thank you very much. I look forward to working with you.” I knew it would help to project an air of confidence. Josie looked nervous as she approached me coming offstage. I gave her an encouraging thumbs-up gesture.
* * *
That night all the L.A. blackbirds gathered at our apartment on 39th Street. It was a “bring your own booze” party, but Palmer and I supplied the chips.
We all felt good about our auditions. The final decision on the casting wouldn’t be made until after Christmas, but we were eagerly looking forward to beginning rehearsals after the new year. Everyone was there, even Jim Hatch, the producer/director/playwright of the Los Angeles production. Everyone, except Josie. I kept looking down to the
street from our window. She said she might be late, but I knew she wasn’t feeling too good about her audition. Maybe she might not come. It would be good for her to be with us tonight, I thought.
It was quiet outside. There was no one out on the street that only hours before had been a riot of noise, congestion, and combative commerce. As I gazed down looking for Josie, I noticed delicate little bits of torn-up tissue paper being dropped before our window. I twisted my head up to see where the prankster might be. The white little bits were coming down from all over—they were snowflakes.
“Hey, guys! Look! It’s snowing,” I announced. There was a mad rush to the window to gawk. We were all southern Californians; many had never seen snow before. But the novelty quickly faded, and we were soon back in our warm tribal circle and our boozy fantasizing. “Where I’ll be ten years from now” became our whimsical topic. We all fancied ourselves stars. Some of us even possessed Oscars and Tony awards by that time.
“But even ten years from now, we’ll still be getting together like this, wherever we might be,” I predicted.
Camille, who was really a sculptor dabbling in theater, grandly announced, “Honey, I’m going to be so busy on my big project in Africa, I won’t have no time for partying. But if all my sweet darlin’s are gettin’ together pissin’ in high cotton, well, I just might tear myself away and come. I just might do that.”
“Yeah, I’ll come too,” chimed in Jack Crowder. “If George and Palmer are hosting with party food like this, I’ll come anytime.”
We L.A. blackbirds were a tribe of starry-eyed dreamers.
I drifted over to the window again to see if Josie might be coming. The snow had laid a thin fleecy blanket all over 39th Street. As if by magic, the once-tumultuous street had been transformed into a hushed oasis in white. Only the streetlamp at the corner shone cool and serene in its vigil. Then, into the tranquil pool of light stepped a tiny figure. As the bundled-up form walked through the pristine white, it left dark little footprints behind in the fresh-fallen snow. The figure wore a heavy woolen scarf wrapped over the head, but I recognized her gait immediately. It was Josie! I grabbed my coat and thudded down three flights of stairs. She was just approaching the street door as I flung it open. I rushed out and embraced the snowflake-covered bundle. Even with the wool scarf and thick, heavy coat, Josie looked so defenseless. Her doleful eyes and slight shiver made my heart melt. Then I heard the door thud behind me. I had forgotten to grab the keys on my way down!
With great embarrassment, we had to be buzzed back into the building. As we trudged up the stairwell we were serenaded with drunken choruses of “Fly Blackbird!” from the fourth-floor landing. I was sure our neighbors knew by now that actors had moved into the building.
* * *
It hit me like a blow to the chest with a baseball bat. I felt dazed. The words I was hearing could not be true! But, despite Jack Jackson’s gentle voice, his words were explicitly clear.
“I’m very sorry, George. Truly sorry that it didn’t work out the way we wanted,” he explained. “But the New York people have their own concept, and there was nothing we could do about it. They’ve decided to go with another actor in the role of George.”
I was stunned. George was my role. I created the character. George was me! How could they possibly cast someone else? It took me a long time to come to grips with the fact that I was not going to be a part of the New York production of Fly Blackbird! I was now just another unemployed actor in this big, cold city.
Palmer and Camille were not cast, either. And Josie, who was so unsure of herself but desperately wanted to repeat her role, was also out. Jack Crowder was in—cast in Palmer’s role! We all ached inside, but Palmer was best at covering the hurt with a pasted-on smile and bitter humor. To the familiar tune, he sang, “There’s no business in show business, for me there is no show.”
We had no show, but we all had an immediate and urgent need. We had to get a job—of any kind. Josie had a salable skill. She had worked her way through UCLA doing secretarial work, so she was quickly able to find a fairly well-paying job in an office on Third Avenue. But Palmer wanted to leave his days open for auditions, so he got a job working nights.
“Well, George. It looks like I’m going to be making a lot of dough,” he announced to me as he sailed into the apartment a few days later. “And I’ll be making it at night.” But it was not the kind he implied. Palmer got a night-shift job working at a Harlem bakery. Thanks to his job, I got first to love, then to hate sweet potato pies. As part of the job’s fringe benefits, Palmer got to bring home the unsold, two-day-old pies. They were always sweet potato pies, a delectable new discovery for me at first. But even starving young actors cannot stomach sweet potato pies for breakfast, lunch, and supper day after continuous day. I varied my diet by occasionally treating myself to a nineteen-cent hot dog from a stand on 42nd Street. But those sweet brown circles of carbohydrate that Palmer brought home nightly were our basic source of sustenance for our immediate post-blackbird audition weeks.
I went from one temporary job to another. During the Christmas rush, I sold men’s ties at B. Altman’s department store; when that was over, I loaded trucks in Long Island City. Through Josie’s connections, I got a job typing labels at a publishing office on Third Avenue. Anything that kept the cash flow going—and the hope up. Always, when the confidence started to wobble, there seemed to be those random little acting jobs to keep the dream propped up. I worked as a photo model in an insurance company ad dressed as a businessman carrying a briefcase. I did a guest role in a segment of the live television anthology series U.S. Steel Hour, as a Japanese American soldier with a southern accent. I got occasional work in television, but never in the theater—my prime reason for struggling in New York.
The theater, however, was still very much a part of my life. If I couldn’t be behind the footlights, then I would be in front of them—in the audience. I saw every show I could afford. They were usually matinee seats up in the balcony or standing room for the big hits. Among the matinees that I caught was A Shot in the Dark starring Julie Harris, Walter Matthau, and a young Canadian actor named William Shatner.
* * *
I envied Jack. When Fly Blackbird! was in rehearsals, he would come back to the apartment bone-weary from the dancing. I envied his exhaustion. I’d see him prostrate on his bed and feel jealous. Jack sensed that, and he was gracious enough not to talk about the show with Palmer and me. But at the same time, I couldn’t contain my curiosity. After the show opened, I finally broke. I questioned Jack about how it was going, what changes had been made, if anybody important had been in to see the show. But I never asked him about George. I think I was afraid to know.
One day, Jack had a tip on a casting call. There was an audition that he had heard about for an “oriental” role in a new comedy. Why don’t I check it out?
I arrived at the theater at midmorning to find an already long line of Asian actors of all ages and types. An assistant was handing out “sides,” excerpts from the script for the auditioner to read. I discovered that the role was that of a bumbling comic servant with a funny accent and a high-pitched laugh. It was the classic stereotype. I had played my share of servant roles, but nothing quite like this. I hadn’t come all the way to New York and loaded trucks and typed labels to perpetuate this mockery. But then, it was work I had not had. It was work in the theater! And besides, the rent on our apartment was coming due. I had a decision to make. Then I thought of Daddy. I walked back to the assistant.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think this part is for me,” I said, and handed the side back to him. He gave me a “who do you think you are” stare, but I turned around and walked away without saying another word. As I moved past the line of Asian actors waiting to audition, they looked at me quizzically. I looked back at them and wondered what they might be thinking. But I couldn’t feel self-righteous. I knew that one of them would be selected. Someone would do the role. Without making any eye contact, I
walked back out into the cold.
But I did have another job waiting for me that night. Jack Crowder had an aunt who catered exclusive parties. She had frequently hired Jack, Palmer, and me to help out as servers. Tonight she had a party in posh Sutton Place on the East Side. Jack was unavailable since he was busy at the theater. So that night, I found myself in my white jacket, little black bow tie, and polite smiles serving canapés and cocktails together with Palmer, then serving dinner, and finally cleaning up. I was in fact a servant!
But I had it all thought out clearly in my mind. This wasn’t my “real” job. I wasn’t “really” a servant. My “real” job was acting. And that morning I had walked out on the potential for being hired at my real job acting the part of a servant. There was integrity there. I was only “pretending” to be a servant tonight. Oh, yes, it was very clear in my mind.
But the irony in my strenuous rationalization amused Palmer no end. As he and I lugged the party leftovers back to our apartment in the breaking light of the early morning, his cynical laughter echoed through the empty streets.
* * *
It was outrageous what Jack was asking. I had covered his rent the month before. He was supposed to pay mine this month. How brazen could he be to ask me to cover for him again? He was the one who was getting paid regularly.
When Jack was refused help, he had a way of dropping into a deep, hurt silence. He took on a look of utter desolation, the face of a broken man.
“Do you think I’d ask you if I weren’t desperate?” he broke his silence pleading. “I want to pay you back, man. But I had some financial setbacks.” I noticed that he hadn’t been sleeping at the apartment many nights lately. I also knew he had a way with women and had an idea of the kind of setbacks he was suffering.
