The other job I landed was in a short-lived sitcom, Thicker Than Water. The best part of this gig was working with Julie Harris, the revered Broadway actress and James Dean’s costar in East of Eden. She was a consummate professional, a fact underscored by a prank that went terribly wrong.
It was two in the afternoon, the end of our lunch hour, and the actors, writers, and producers convened in a conference room to read the script. There was just one problem: the show’s star, Ms. Harris, was absent.
The director, Jerry Paris, was a notorious prankster and thought it would be funny if we started the reading without her, just to see her reaction once she joined us. There was no malice or lesson intended. He thought she’d break up laughing once the joke was revealed. Boy, was he wrong.
Around 2:06, Ms. Harris rushed into the room. Seeing us reading from the script, she stopped dead in her tracks and gasped. With her head bowed, she quietly took her place at the head of the table, her pale freckled face flushing red. Pressing on with the gag, Paris frowned at her and whispered, “We decided to start without you, Julie. We’re on a tight schedule.”
Ms. Harris then burst into tears. She looked to the group and sobbed, “I’m so very sorry. I didn’t mean to make everyone wait for me. I truly apologize ...”
Seeing his star traumatized, Paris backpedaled. “Julie, Julie, Julie! It was just a joke. It was my idea. I never dreamed you’d get so upset.”
Hearing that, her sobbing stopped. Ms. Harris focused like a marksman on Paris, her jaw clenched. You could hear a sneeze from the next room it was so quiet. We all held our breath waiting for her to unload.
Finally, she said in a controlled tremble, “I’m sorry that I arrived late. I was caught in a wardrobe fitting. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble for everyone, could we start from the beginning?”
Ever the pro, she put the work ahead of lashing back at Paris, and we started over. The mood wasn’t exactly primed for a comedy.
Another odd, prophetic moment happened on this show with Richard Long, another series regular and a well-established TV star. We were standing together backstage about to make our entrance before a live studio audience. Long discreetly pulled a small vile from his pocket, extracted a few tiny white pills, amphetamines I guessed, and gobbled them down.
The actor glanced over at me with a wink and a rascal smile. “Time to be funny,” he said.
Richard Long died of a heart attack about a year later at the age of forty-seven. The white pills were most likely nitroglycerine.
CHAPTER 26
Myrna
My recent flurry of jobs culminated with an ABC Suspense Movie of the Week, The Elevator. It led to a cherished memory with one of my legendary costars.
It was after midnight when I finished work. I’d been “trapped” in a real elevator in a Los Angeles skyscraper with Roddy McDowall, Teresa Wright, Craig Stevens, and Myrna Loy. Good company when you’re pretending to be stuck in an airless box for hours at a time.
Now that I was released, I hurried to my dressing room to change clothes and, more importantly, use the bathroom. I know, that’s more information than you wanted to hear. It’s a salient point, though, because my delay in the john had an unexpected ripple effect. By the time I’d run downstairs and hit the street, I’d missed the company’s shuttle van to a city parking lot where I’d left my car that morning. Worse yet, I was locked out of the building that we were working in, stranded in L.A.’s seedy skid row. I began cursing aloud just as a Cadillac limo pulled up to the curb.
The vehicle’s blacked-out window descended and Myrna Loy peered out from the rear compartment. She was a bona fide movie star, and the studio, rightfully so, provided her with a limo. I was never more grateful to see a friendly face.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“The studio van going to my parking lot left without me, and I can’t get back in the building to get help,” I said. “I’m stuck.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed with a laugh. “Never keep a teamster driver waiting, that’s rule number one!” She flung open the limo’s door. “We’ll take you to your car. Hop in.”
I didn’t hesitate to accept her offer. Moments before, I was angry about missing my ride in the back of a cramped company van. Now, I was traveling in style with one of the most beautiful, elegant, and revered screen legends in film history.
I was twenty-one at the time and had seen many of Myrna’s classic films: Too Hot to Handle, Manhattan Melodrama, and Test Pilot, all starring opposite Clark Gable; The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer with Cary Grant; and the Academy Award–winning film The Best Years of Our Lives. My favorite movie, though, was The Thin Man and its numerous sequels.
Myrna played Nora Charles, the sexy, sassy private eye who cracked baffling crimes with the help of her husband Nick (William Powell) and their amazingly intelligent dog, Asta. I liked the whole concept: husband and wife as private eyes, spiffy penthouse living, and a dog that was smarter than the crooks they busted. The movie series made Myrna a model of style, independence, and sophistication.
As our limo glided along, Myrna poured us red wine in tall delicate crystal glasses. As I sipped my cabernet, I started feeling pretty sophisticated myself, like a junior Nick Charles.
We’d been working together for a week, but there hadn’t been an opportunity to talk to her about her illustrious career. Now that we were alone, I wanted to ask something halfway intelligent. From what I’d seen of her on film, she didn’t suffer fools.
“So ... what was Asta like?” I blurted out. The little voice in my head yelled: “Jesus Christ! A dog?! How lame! You should have asked about Gable or Fredric March. What an idiot!”
Myrna chuckled and said, “Everybody always wants to know about Asta. He was a terrier, you know, quite hyper. The little bastard bit me once, too.”
I laughed. The sophisticated lady said bastard, which caught me off guard.
“Wasn’t Asta also in Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer was yes. I just wanted to keep the ball rolling.
“Practically stole the movie,” she replied. “The studio wasn’t going to fire that damn dog. He was getting more fan mail than me.” Myrna sipped her wine and shook her head with a sigh.
“Yeah, wire-haired terriers.” That was my brilliant retort, real numbskull speak. I took another stab at witty repartee and said, “I worked with a dog on My Three Sons. He was kind of dumb but nice.”
Myrna stared out her rear window without a reaction. Guess she never watched TV. That medium was probably beneath her refined sensibility. She was probably an opera buff or a patron of the ballet. I downed the last drop of my wine and wanted more but refrained from asking. It might appear uncouth and all.
Myrna must have sensed my thirst because she reached for the bottle and poured me another full glass. “I liked to watch Bonanza. That was kind of like My Three Sons only with horses,” she said.
“Yeah, you’re right. I never realized that,” I replied. Apparently she did watch TV, and Westerns, too!
We rode in silence, sipping our wine. I tried to rekindle the conversation and said, “I’m thinking about going to New York.”
“Why?” she murmured, casually engaged by my small talk.
“That’s what Roddy (McDowall) said he did when he was my age. I want to be a better actor and, hopefully, not get stereotyped.”
Myrna looked at me as if for the very first time. “I had that problem in the beginning of my career. For some reason, I got typecast as an Asian,” she said with a chuckle.
“Asian?” I replied. I tried to picture her playing a native of the Far East ... and couldn’t. She was just Nora Charles to me.
“For the first five years in my career I played Burmese, Chinese, Japanese, South Seas, whatever. The makeup people said it had something to do with the structure around my eyes. Imagine, a redhead from Montana being cast as an Oriental vamp?!”
“You’re from Montana? Wow. No wonder you lik
e Westerns,” I said. I began to see Myrna in a new light. “How did you break out of playing Asians?”
“First you’ve got to break in, which is what those roles did for me. After you’re in, then you can think about breaking out. Be patient, and it will happen if you’re good, which I was. You are, too.”
“Thanks,” I said, savoring the compliment from such a talented and worldly person. Despite our big age difference, she was still attractive, and I had a sudden urge to kiss her. This desire caught me by surprise. I wasn’t really romantically inclined. It felt more like a cocky whim to demonstrate my worldliness. Blame it on two tall glasses of wine in a short period of time.
At last, the limo pulled into the parking lot and stopped next to my car. Myrna made direct eye contact, making sure she had my full attention, and said, “You know, I’ve been playing so-called sophisticated women for over thirty years now, a lifetime. Not long ago, somebody suggested me for the role of the Chinese empress in the film, 55 Days at Peking, and do you know what the producer said: “You mean Nora Charles?! She couldn’t possibly pull off playing an Asian!” Myrna laughed, tickled by the memory. “People make assumptions. They see what they want to see.”
I gazed back at her. Her famous, up-turned nose was still pretty sexy. I thought, Go ahead, give her a kiss! It’s now or never!
Myrna put her hand on my cheek and said, “You’re so young. You can go anywhere, be anybody you want to be. Do what your heart tells you, Barry.”
Those were just the words I needed to hear. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. As my lips pulled away, my face was close to hers. I said, “Well, then ... thanks for the ride.” It wasn’t the smooth, seductive overture that I’d hoped for. I lingered in her space a bit too long, too, waiting for a follow-up line that never came. Suave William Powell was twirling in his grave.
Myrna seemed amused by my geeky advance. “You’re welcome,” she said with a chuckle. Our eyes were still locked on each other. I wasn’t sure where things would go next and then...
The limo’s rear door popped open. The driver peered inside at us, which really put a damper on my romantic moment.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, my dear,” Myrna said, gently dismissing her “tipsy suitor,” just like I’d seen her do in a dozen of her movies.
After a final grateful nod, I slid out of the car before my adrenaline-pumping brain gave me a heart attack.
I watched her limo driving away and smiled. I just kissed Nora Charles.
CHAPTER 27
Meanwhile, Back Home at the Ranch
While my actor career was gaining momentum, life at my parents’ house was falling apart. They’d been on the verge of separating since I was born. After twenty-five years of marriage, my mom was serious about leaving my dad. He was in his late fifties and was done living up to the high expectations of his youth. No more halfhearted attempts at writing the Great American Novel or returning to college to get a degree in psychology or law. Working as a salesman at Charles Furniture in Watts would be the pinnacle of his professional life. It was a depressing revelation, but an honest one. There was little point in torturing himself anymore about his shortcomings. My dad hoped that my mom would accept this. She didn’t.
My mom felt betrayed by my dad’s failure to launch. She had bought a first-class ticket for a ride on the Spruce Goose, only to learn that the amazing plane was never going to fly. She wanted her money back, and then some. Her growing dissatisfaction about life wasn’t restricted to my dad; I was suddenly in her crosshairs.
I was a young adult now, eager to take control of my future, whether it was in show business or not. I no longer needed or desired my mother’s participation in my career. Blame it on a young man’s ego or vanity. One way or the other, my declaration of independence didn’t sit well with her. She felt abandoned. In her eyes, I wasn’t showing enough gratitude for her efforts that built my career. She played the motherly “guilt card,” and that stung.
Granted, I was a young man, and no doubt self-absorbed, but I tried to show my appreciation as best I could. I soon realized, though, that no amount of hugs and kisses, applause or words of thanks could fix her low self-esteem or fill the echoing void in her life. She had no real education, no professional life, not even a hobby. All that my mom had was a failed marriage and another son who was leaving the nest. It was pretty overwhelming, for her and me.
I came around the house as much as possible, hoping to mediate a truce between my parents. That was a dangerous mission. Their anger seemed as complex as the war between the Jews and Palestinians.
Despite my best efforts, their “cold war” would occasionally break out into physical hostilities. Once, my mom cracked a bust of Albert Einstein over my dad’s head. That was quite an ironic comment considering my father’s supposed genius status.
Unfortunately, my younger siblings, Bill and Michelle, were still living at home and had to witness the ugliness. I’d get them out of the house as much as possible, to the movies or the zoo, but it was never enough. I wished I could have done more. Parents are like superpowers in their children’s world. There’s not much that Poland can do to stop a war between Russia and the United States.
CHAPTER 28
Life Beyond the Camera
My financial independence was a blessing in two ways. I could afford an apartment, allowing me to escape the problems at home, and it funded my youthful adventures. Gene and I started to venture onto the Hollywood club scene looking for fun and chicks. One of our newest discoveries was Rodney Bingenheimer’s English disco on the Sunset Strip, a place where I got into the only fistfight of my life.
Rodney’s was a hangout for the burgeoning glam-rock scene in the early 1970s. Boys and girls would camp it up wearing makeup, sequined halter tops, and enormous platform shoes. The fashion was modeled after David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust unisex character. I wasn’t keen on eyeliner, sequins, or shirts exposing my belly button. I was very pleased about platform boots, though. They had soles that were three inches thick or more, depending on how high you wanted to go. I opted for the max since I was height challenged at five foot five. These new elevator shoes were the greatest development in footwear since Beatle boots, unless you got into a scuffle.
My brawl began innocently enough. I noticed John Barrymore Jr. (of all people) entering the club. Being a huge fan of his father, I pointed Junior out to my wingman, Gene. A teenage Glam Boy in skin-tight pants, skimpy T-shirt, and platform shoes overheard me and butted in.
“That’s not John Barrymore Junior!” said Glam Boy. His words were slurred, probably from the quaalude he’d taken.
“Hell, yes! I’ve seen pictures of him. That is Barrymore, Junior,” I insisted. I was an authority on all things Barrymore. I was also drunk from slugging vodka from my flask.
The gauntlet had been thrown down. A nose-to-nose stare-down ensued, like boxers before a championship fight. I was smoking a cigarette for added tough-guy effect. When I exhaled, I made sure a little extra smoke went into Glam Boy’s face.
“Don’t blow smoke in my face,” he growled.
I did it again. The vodka made me do it.
Suddenly, I had a moment of fuzzy clarity through the mix of booze and raging testosterone: I really didn’t want a fight. Hoping to ignore my opponent away, I looked at Gene who was standing next to me. Bad move. Glam Boy’s fist clobbered me on the side of the face. It was a sucker punch that I deserved, for looking away if nothing else.
I reeled backward, skidding on the heels of my three-inch platform shoes. It was an amazing feat of skill to stay upright for as long as I did. My luck ended when my ass hit a table, and I flipped over it like Festus in Miss Kitty’s saloon.
In an instant, I wobbled back up onto my platform shoes with the crowd screaming and cheering as if in an echo chamber. My new brown suede jacket was soaked in Tequila sunrises. Now I was really pissed. I zeroed in on Glam Boy who had retreated onto the crowded, swirling dance floor. Elton John’s song, “Saturd
ay Night’s Alright for Fighting,” started to blare over the club’s sound system. I took my cue and I charged like a bull out for blood.
I caught up to my assailant right under the flashing mirrored disco ball and threw my best wild punch. Glam Boy ducked, and I accidentally punched some innocent schnook dancing the Bump with his girlfriend. The poor unsuspecting kid went tumbling, and Glam Boy ran from the dance floor.
Before I could give chase, a human baboon leaped onto my back, and I fell to the ground under his weight. It may have been an ally of Glam Boy or a pal of the guy I’d punched or just some crazy ape leaping into the fray for the fun of it. One way or the other, the guy pinned my shoulders to the floor with his knees and proceeded to tenderize my face with his fists. Amazingly, I didn’t feel a thing. My head absorbed the blows like a hollow coconut.
Somehow I pushed the ape off of me and crawled across the dance floor on all fours, weaving between the flailing, kicking legs.
I reached a wall and got to my feet. Out on the dance floor, everyone was throwing punches. It was a real barroom brawl. Gene ran up to me, unscathed, not a hair mussed.
“Where the hell were you?” I asked. “Why didn’t you help?”
“I couldn’t find you! The place went nuts!” he said. “Let’s get out of here!”
Duh!
Seconds later, Gene and I exited the club and were out on Sunset Boulevard, happy to have escaped the melee with teeth intact. As we walked to my parked car, I heard a voice yell at us.
“Hey! Come back here!” Glam Boy had just come out of the club with a posse of buddies sporting halter tops and orange hair. “You’re a dead man, asshole!”
The mob sprinted toward us, and the race to my car was on.
Gene and I were running about twenty feet in front of a herd of galloping glam boys. Thank god they were all wearing tall platform shoes, too, or they would have caught us easily.
The Importance of Being Ernie: Page 12
