I arrived at the driver’s door of my Camaro, unlocked it, and leaped inside. I was safe, but not Gene. He was still outside the car, pounding on the passenger-side window and yanking on his locked door handle. There was no such thing as automatic door locks in those days. I had to reach over and unlock it manually. This was eating up precious seconds as the glam boys were closing in for the kill. Gene screamed, “Barry! Hurry! Open the dooorr!”
I finally flicked the lock, and Gene dove inside, relocking the door with mind-boggling speed. I fired up the Camaro’s engine and stomped on the car’s accelerator just as the spitting, cursing herd arrived. Unfortunately, we couldn’t escape fast enough to avoid a few shoe kicks that left some serious dents in my car’s rear end.
I went to an auto body shop a few days later to get a quote on the cost of repairing my Camaro. When the body shop man asked what happened, I lied. I said that baldheaded thugs wielding baseball bats did the damage, not hard-kicking glam boys wearing massive sequined platform shoes.
Hollywood clubs seemed a bit too dangerous, so I looked to the great outdoors for my next adventure, and nearly got killed there, too.
My friend, Brad Huber, and I hatched a plan to shoot the rapids of the Kern River. Of course, we had no experience whatsoever in river rafting. It just seemed like a fun, wild thing to do. I was in the Iron John stage of my young manhood, a time of testing my macho, where every crazy adventure had to have a brush with death. Dumb, but necessary, I guess.
We borrowed a sturdy rubber raft from a friend and set off at four in the morning for the river, accompanied by my new girlfriend, Tess. As daylight broke, we drove down a narrow pass in the Sierra Nevada mountains and saw the Kern River casually snaking its way alongside the road. It gave me butterflies, especially since we had just passed a roadside billboard that said: BE CAREFUL AT THE RIVER. FIVE PEOPLE HAVE LOST THEIR LIVES THIS YEAR! It was only March, too, pretty early in the year for such a high casualty rate. We joked about how the number five on the sign was interchangeable, like the squares used on old baseball scoreboards. Whoever managed the billboard wasn’t stupid; he knew that number needed changing on a regular basis.
I drove until we found a calm pond in the river where we could launch our rubber raft. The plan was for Tess to drive my car to a riverside campground we had passed; Brad and I would follow the river’s course, and we’d all meet up there.
I inflated our spongy yellow vessel with a foot pump and then we shoved off from the riverbank. The lazy river gently guided us away just like Lewis and Clark. Our confidence was high, cocky, in fact. So cocky that we kept our wallets in our pockets and neglected to put on our puffy orange life preservers. This is called tempting fate. We were asking for it.
The first run of whitewater loomed ahead. I was upfront in the raft using my paddle to chart a course between the river rocks; Brad was seated behind me and kept his paddle in the water like a rudder. We were copying the method we’d seen Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer employ on the old Mickey Mouse Club show. Not exactly the best tutorial in river rafting, but it worked.
Our tiny raft accelerated, bobbed, and weaved in the surging current as we whooped and yelled from the adrenaline rush. Then ... we entered another calm patch of water in the river.
“Whooaaa! We did it!” I said.
The raft took on a little chilly water. Other than that, we figured we could handle this river, nothing to it. Then I noticed something odd about our boat.
“Hey, Brad, am I crazy or is our raft getting smaller?” I asked.
Brad squeezed the rubber tubing. “Feels like it’s lost a little air. Maybe we hit a submerged rock.”
“Or it had a hole to begin with,” I said. “Let’s head to shore and check it out.”
We aimed our raft toward riverbank and paddled hard. The nose of our craft suddenly had a mind of its own and turned back downstream. Another set of rapids downstream was pulling us away from shore and back into the middle of the river. We picked up speed, and before you could yell Help! we were on another roller-coaster ride.
Forget paddling anymore, we were at the mercy and whims of the Kern, going whichever way she wanted to toss us. Our raft bounced high and low. Large rocks appeared midstream and then disappeared under the swirling water. Waterspouts danced in the air, splashing our faces with frigid water. The river seemed to be in a rage, determined to teach a couple of teenage goofballs a lesson. We raced around a bend in the river, and the turbulent water calmed back down, again, into another large open pool.
“Holy shit! Look how small our raft is!” I said. When we began our journey, the rubber boat was fully inflated, firm and oval shaped. Now it looked like we were sitting in a flaccid rubber donut.
We glided through the pond and saw a campground come into view; it was the designated meeting place with Tess. She was standing on a rock that jutted out into the river, waving her arms wildly, urging us to paddle to shore. Once again, the river had other plans for us.
The current accelerated and pulled our raft back into the middle of the river. We were now heading for a large rock that divided the rushing water into two streams. Beyond the rock was a ten-foot drop, a roaring waterfall. Beyond that, assuming we’d survive the fall, was more churning whitewater running through a narrow canyon, bigger and faster than anything we’d seen yet.
The front of the raft crashed into the big rock and the back end of our little boat swung around with the rushing current. The raft tipped downward, teetering at the top of the falls, and Brad was ejected from his seat, thrown into the waterfall.
Then my end of the raft took the plunge; I grabbed the rubber dingy with one hand, a paddle with my other. For a brief exhilarating moment I was flying in midair.
The “fun” ended as I splashed down into the water with a painful crash. Somehow I held on to the raft and paddle, kept my head above water, and was swept away. Brad was nowhere to be seen. He was somewhere under the waves.
Clinging to my raft, I took whatever the river threw at me. First obstacle: a massive jagged block of granite. I braced for impact, keeping my squishy raft in front of me. Just as I’d hoped, the rubber boat bounced off the rock, and I avoided a crushing blow. That was the good news. The bad news: I ricocheted back into the raging current and the whirlpools.
I was fully engulfed in the river’s fury, but thanks to that beautiful, flimsy raft I was able to keep my head above the rapids.
Brad was not so lucky. I scanned the whitewater but didn’t see him anywhere. I feared he fell victim to the infamous Kern whirlpools. If you get sucked into one of those, it’s impossible to escape, and you are certain to drown.
Suddenly, a pair of flailing arms broke through the waves ahead of me, and Brad’s sopping wet head emerged. Panic was in his eyes as he gasped for air and then was pulled under again. That odd, terrifying picture of my friend repeated itself a few more times, but there was nothing I could do to help him. The river was our master. I was just happy to know he was still alive.
As quickly as the river raged it settled down, and I floated into a calm pool. I looked around for Brad, and he was behind me now with his head above water and dog-paddling to the shore. Tess had been running along the riverbank and was there to greet us when we crawled up onto a sandy beach.
Exhausted and terrified, my buddy and I lay on the river’s shore and saw the beating the Kern had given us: torn pants, cuts, scrapes, and instant bruises. There was nothing to do but laugh; we had survived. We had tempted the river god and she took pity on our stupidity. We were lucky.
There was one odd footnote to this adventure: six months after we survived the Kern, the greatest river-rafting movie of all time, Deliverance, was released. I had a real visceral empathy with the film’s characters and their experience. Thankfully, unlike those men, I never encountered any rapist hillbillies. The river was traumatizing enough.
CHAPTER 29
My First Mentor
The guest star roles that I’d recently filmed aired on TV in
quick succession, and my work garnered good reviews. Producers and casting directors took notice that I could play a range of characters with dramatic depth. I was being asked to audition for roles in major films like American Graffiti and The Last Detail with Jack Nicholson. I didn’t get parts in either of those projects, but it was good to know that people saw that I could play someone other than nerdy Ernie Douglas.
I wanted to build on this new credibility, so I searched for an acting teacher who could help me grow as an artist. That person was a man named Jack Garfein. He was a prominent member of the New York Actors Studio and founded the school’s Los Angeles branch before creating his own academy, the Actors and Directors Lab. The Lab became my second home.
Garfein’s lessons taught his students to be observers of human behavior and practitioners of emotional honesty. His appreciation of great paintings, musical symphonies, and dance companies was infectious. The acting technique he taught was simple and practical based on the teachings of the American Stanislavski disciples: Lee Strasberg, Uta Hagen, Sandy Meisner, and Harold Clurman, Garfein’s mentor.
During my time at the Lab, many world-class artists who were Garfein’s personal friends taught there. Guest instructors included the famous mime Marcel Marceau, the brilliant teacher/actress Stella Adler, and the legendary Harold Clurman, cofounder of the seminal Group Theatre. Even the infamous cult novelist Henry Miller came to our school to talk about his life and work. These people were giants in their respective arts, and it was a privilege to hear them discuss their work in an intimate setting.
Sensing my seriousness, Jack offered me a couple of plum opportunities. One assignment was to stage-manage Henry Miller’s lectures. This gave me a chance to talk with the literary giant, one on one. Granted, they were hardly profound meetings of the minds; it was nothing more than idle chitchat, mainly about his attraction to Japanese women and his love of Ping-Pong. Nonetheless, it was conversation with one of the most influential literary lions of the twentieth century. On the day of Miller’s first lecture at the Lab, the author’s presence nearly created a riot when dozens of his devoted fans grew angry because they were denied entry to the sold-out event and started pounding on the theater doors. Miller insisted that the rabble outside be let in. “To hell with the fire codes,” the great man bellowed. Miller was a subversive, a man of the people, and the doors were flung open to one and all.
Garfein gave me another choice assignment: driving Harold Clurman around town. I would drive him up to Brando’s compound on Mulholland Drive or to a dinner party at Stella Adler’s house. Basically, I was a “fly on the wall” when accompanying Clurman on these outings, and rightly so. I was a young man and definitely out of my league among these legends. It was best to just sit and listen.
I spent the next year at the Actors and Directors Lab, working on scenes from modern classic plays to Shakespeare, sharpening my acting skills, and gaining confidence in my abilities. I was no James Dean or Marlon Brando, but I was learning to express my own voice in my work.
My next big acting break let me test my newly acquired skills. I was cast in a lead role in a new one-hour dramatic series, Sons and Daughters. I was ready to take the next step into my adult career and leave my child actor days behind.
CHAPTER 30
Starring in a New TV Series
Sons and Daughters focused on a group of high school friends growing up in the 1950s. American Graffiti had just struck box-office gold and tapped into the country’s longing to relive all things Eisenhower. It was now the early 1970s, and the country was fatigued by the Vietnam War and stunned by the Watergate political scandals. Audiences were craving the soothing balm of nostalgia. Chuck Berry, hot rods, and malt shops were hip again.
I was cast as Moose Kerner, a 1950s nerd, and starred in the series with Gary Frank (later of Family), Scott Colomby (Caddy-shack ), and Glynnis O’Connor, a beautiful, sensitive young actress whom I had a tremendous crush on. Everybody did.
Sons and Daughters was a high-quality drama, full of teenage angst and despair. That was our big distinction from American Graffiti. Unfortunately, the drama aspect was also the show’s downfall. Audiences wanted their 1950s entertainment served up with a cherry Coke and apple pie, not cancer and unwanted pregnancies. We had the right era, just the wrong tone. Another show set in the 1950s came on that same year, too, and it turned out to be exactly what people wanted: Happy Days. Right era, right tone, and, especially, the right ratings. That show was on TV for the next eleven years.
We did thirteen glorious episodes full of betrayal, turmoil, and melodrama before we were canceled. I certainly got an opportunity to exercise my newfound acting chops. I also got a chance to work with Richard Donner who directed the pilot and a few of the series’ episodes. Donner later directed Superman, the first movie with Christopher Reeve, and rebooted the entire franchise. He also did all of the Lethal Weapon films and many other blockbusters.
Donner was a big man with a big personality and a huge booming baritone voice. If he didn’t like your work in a scene he’d bellow, “Energy, Energy! Cut ten minutes out of it!” I learned that he wasn’t being mean, just honest, a quality that I liked.
Over time, I learned that Donner loved practical jokes. This being the case, I got an artist friend to draw a huge poster of Donner having sexual intercourse with a woman. Stagehands hung it from the top rafters of our cavernous soundstage, and we brought him in for the presentation blindfolded. The second I uncovered his eyes, stagehands illuminated the billboard-size work of art. Donner exploded in laughter at the sight of the woman having sex with him, mainly because she was screaming the words: “Energy, Energy! Cut ten minutes out of it!”
I tried to pull another prank on Donner, but, unfortunately, it backfired. I snuck into his trailer with a willing female coconspirator; we stripped off our clothes and climbed onto his sofa, me on top. Gary Frank had written in lipstick on one butt cheek: “Moose Loves Donner.” When Dick entered his trailer and saw us, he roared with laughter. Then he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me outside the trailer. Now the joke was on me. I was standing stark naked on a busy lunch-hour street at Universal Studios, the lot with tour buses full of gawking fans.
I ran like Wile E. Coyote with his ass on fire, trying to make it to my dressing room, which was about a city block away. My situation got really dire when a tram loaded with tourists turned a corner and our paths were going to cross. I could see the headlines: CHILD ACTOR RUNS AMUCK IN THE NUDE! Or even worse: ERNIE EXPOSES HIMSELF!
Thinking fast, I leaped into somebody’s unlocked Mercedes that was parked on the street. As the tram passed and the tourists gawked, I waved and scrunched my naked body down to keep from being seen. Once they were gone, I streaked (literally) to my room. That was the last time I tried to play a prank on Donner.
Once Sons and Daughters was officially canceled, I was at another crossroads. College seemed less of an option now that I was working regularly in television. I still wanted to improve as an actor, though, and the challenge of TV work seemed limited.
I remembered the advice that Roddy McDowall gave me while working on The Elevator. McDowall was a child actor from the golden era of movies and had transitioned into a very successful adult actor. His words echoed in my head: “Go to New York and work on the stage. That’s what I did.”
I’d been in love with New York and the theater forever, so McDowall’s suggestion only whetted my appetite to move there. I figured that if I didn’t do it now, I would probably never go. So I packed my bags and headed east.
CHAPTER 31
The Skin of Our Teeth
My plan was to stay with my Uncle Bernard for a couple of months and look for a New York agent to represent me. Despite my recent TV successes, I wasn’t sure if the East Coast theater crowd would embrace me. They are a pretty elitist group. I was afraid they’d think that I was just another TV child star whose best days were behind him. I just didn’t know what to expect.
The first meeting
I had was with Stark Hesseltine, a top theatrical agent. I told him I was ready to set down roots in the city and commit myself to the theater. Hesseltine couldn’t have been more supportive or receptive. In fact, he had an audition for me to go on that very day. Whoa, that’s fast, I thought to myself, feeling a bit nervous. I wanted to show him that I was game, though, and agreed to go.
The audition was for the part of the Messenger Boy in the Thornton Wilder play, The Skin of Our Teeth. The play was being produced by the Kennedy Center to celebrate the upcoming Bicentennial Birthday of America. It was being touted as the biggest, most prestigious production that year. The stars in it were Elizabeth Ashley, red hot having just done Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway; Alfred Drake, legendary Broadway musical star; and Martha Scott, who played Emily in the original production of Wilder’s most famous play, Our Town. If that wasn’t enough pressure, José Quintero was directing the play. He was a cofounder of the Circle in the Square Theatre in 1951, which many consider to be the birth of the Off Broadway theater scene. Quintero was also responsible for mounting the first important productions of Eugene O’Neil’s plays in America. He was a true theater legend.
I ran to a bookstore, got a copy of Skin, read it, and dashed off to my meeting with Mr. Quintero. While the messenger boy wasn’t a starring role, the character did have an important four-page scene where he was the focus of the action. I prepped for the reading and sat in the casting office, trying to keep relaxed and focused. I also had a book with me, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. I hadn’t read it yet, but I thought I’d keep it visible when I met with Quintero. One of my biggest fears was being perceived as a flakey TV actor from Hollyweird. I hoped that just the sight of the book in my hands might enhance my intellectual stature. I was looking for any edge I could find, no matter how superficial. At last, a casting assistant called my name.
The Importance of Being Ernie: Page 13
