The Importance of Being Ernie:

by Barry Livingston

  Louie had the upper floor of the old duplex. I noticed that a French door on his balcony was cracked open. I also saw a tall, decorative Conquistador statue nearby; it rose up from the ground floor to right below Louie’s balcony, so I decided to play Spider-Man. Proof positive, again, that drugs will make you dumb as a stump.

  I hopped up onto the Conquistador’s raised, bent knee and climbed. Once I reached his head, I was high enough to pull myself onto the balcony. Ta-dah! Nothing to it! I slipped through the open French door.

  Inside Louie’s bedroom, I saw my pal sprawled out on his bed, facedown, bare-assed naked and snoring. “Louie,” I whispered. He didn’t respond. “Loouieeee,” I whispered a little louder.

  Louie awoke, startled by my voice. In a panic, he whipped out a .38-caliber pistol from under his pillow and aimed at me.

  “It’s Barry, don’t shoot!” I yelled. Too late.

  The gun’s hammer went click ... but didn’t fire.

  “What the hell?” said Louie. He stared at his gun and seemed more troubled that his weapon didn’t work than the fact he nearly shot me.

  “You said to come over; I was downstairs ringing,” I yammered.

  Louie inspected his weapon and found that it was fully loaded. He grinned and said, “Must’ve been a bad round. You’re a lucky fucker.”

  I laughed, too, playing along, trying to keep things light. I knew I’d almost had my head blown off, but I didn’t want to dwell on that thought. Keeping Louie in a jovial mood, and getting my drugs, was still my main goal. That’s how screwed up my priorities had gotten.

  I left Louie’s house sometime after dawn and went home with my coke, which I finished with one last massive snort.

  Once the drug was gone, I tried to sleep. I lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to turn off my mind. I kept seeing my near-death experience at Louie’s. Voices whispered in my head. The most persistent one was my mother who kept repeating: Stop what you are doing or you will die, goddamn it!

  She loved to swear, even in my dreams.

  It’d be too easy to say that my mother’s ghostly voice scared me into swearing off drugs. It helped, but frankly, I was already pretty disgusted with my all-night bingeing. My close call with Louie’s .38 pushed me into a new level of self-loathing, and I stopped cold-turkey.

  My bout with smoking “freebase” lasted six months. Looking back, it felt like years. I never made any solemn vow to quit, no celebrity rehab with Doctor Drew, no big announcement to my friends, no religious conversion. Through a combination of events, I decided to control my addiction and not let it control me.

  I say control because over the next few years I would have a toot of this or a puff of that if it was offered. Eventually, in a few years, I quit doing everything, period. I was lucky. I heard the saner voices in my head, and summoned the willpower to follow their advice.

  Allow me to preach for a moment: drugs are a big waste of time and money, and a threat to everything you should cherish—your passion, your friends, and your life. The best advice I can give kids today, including my own, is don’t start down that road.

  Unfortunately, teenagers want to know the truth from actual experiences and not from parental words of warning. Fair enough. If you must go there, use extreme caution and moderation. In the end, I hope it won’t take a gun pointed at your face to get you to stop. One last thing: listen to the advice of your mother, living or deceased, because she usually knows best.

  CHAPTER 38

  Staying Sober with John Cassavetes

  I was off all drugs—pot, coke, whatever—for the first time in years, and I needed a project to fill my idle, workless days. I didn’t want boredom to lead me back into my old ways, which was certainly possible. Fortunately, an exciting theater project happened along.

  I’d been studying with the brilliant character actor, Martin Landau, who inherited the class of my old mentor, Jack Garfein. One day, completely by chance, the legendary actor/writer/director, John Cassavetes, poked his head into the barren Hollywood warehouse where Landau was conducting classes.

  It turned out that Cassavetes hadn’t seen Landau since the 1950s when they were both starving actors in New York. Cassavetes said he was looking for a theater space to present three plays he was developing. Landau offered up our empty warehouse and, just like that, Cassavetes accepted. He also asked Landau if he’d like to be a lead in one of the plays. My teacher’s acting career in 1980 was almost as dead as mine, so he jumped on the offer, a decision that he came to regret. More on that in a minute.

  Cassavetes called the project The Love and Hate Trilogy, and he planned to direct all three plays. The first piece was Knives, which Cassavetes had written. Ted Allen wrote the other two plays, The Third Day Comes and Love Streams (later a Cassavetes film). Gena Rowlands, the director’s talented wife, starred in all three plays. Landau was set to do the male lead in The Third Day Comes, Jon Voight would costar in Love Streams, and Peter Falk headlined Knives. Landau’s acting class, which I was a member of, became the repertory company that would fill out the supporting roles.

  Rehearsals for the plays commenced. At nine in the morning, the cast of Knives assembled. The actors would read from the script as Cassavetes paced back and forth, listening. At some point, he’d hear something in the reading, stop the actors mid-scene, and improvise new dialogue. All the while, his assistant would furiously scribble down his verbal riffing. After Cassavetes was done, he’d cackle and signal the actors to continue. At noon, the Knives reading concluded and work on Love Streams would start with Cassavetes applying the same writing method. At three in the afternoon the cast for The Third Day Comes arrived to work with Cassavetes.

  The marathon “table reads” and rewrites continued for three weeks. A small forest of trees must have been sacrificed to provide enough paper for the director’s improvised revisions. Most of his verbal jamming was brilliant; some of it wasn’t. But I was amazed by his stamina, an endless supply of creative energy. I’d heard the rumors about his alcohol and drug abuse, but I never saw it. Perhaps I wasn’t looking for it. I was still trying to maintain my new course of sobriety.

  In true repertory fashion, the actors lent a hand in the set building process. My job was to sand, stain, and varnish the arms of ninety-nine theater seats. That meant refinishing 198 wooden arms, two per chair, which I did gladly. There was great camaraderie among the company, bonded by our mutual respect for Cassavetes. One actor, though, was becoming increasingly unhappy: Martin Landau.

  I was playing the role of a Communist sympathizer in The Third Day Comes and privy to Landau’s struggle in rehearsals. The play was a Death of a Salesman type of a story with Landau portraying a character that was losing his career, his family, and his mind. The role seemed well suited to Landau, but the actor seemed confused and troubled about how to play the character. He’d ask for clarifications about motivations and back story. Cassavetes would chuckle and shrug, leaving his actor ever more frustrated.

  As a bystander, I could see that Cassavetes was being purposely vague, hoping that Landau might channel his exasperation into his character’s emotional life. They were both method actors after all, well versed in techniques that tap into real feelings.

  Landau resisted the Cassavetes approach, and their lines of communication began to fray. Things came to a head one night while rehearsing a scene where Landau’s character comes home from work, having just been fired from his longtime job.

  Cassavetes said, “Marty, I want you to find a way to enter a scene that suggests you’re really losing your mind, okay?” Landau nodded and entered the scene giggling, as if he’d been out getting drunk.

  “Stop!” Cassavetes said. “I’m not too sure about the giggling, Marty. Try something different.” The actor grimaced. Being a consummate professional, Landau shuffled back offstage. A moment later, Landau entered the scene ... skipping.

  “Hold it, Marty!” John called out again. “Don’t skip. Find another way to enter.” Landau, tai
l between his legs, walked off again. This went on for at least five more times: Landau entering in some wacky way and Cassavetes vetoing the choice.

  “John, maybe you should come up and show me what you want because I don’t know what you want,” Landau said, at his wit’s end.

  Cassavetes was a brilliant actor himself. He leaped at the opportunity and raced up onstage to demonstrate. As Landau looked on, Cassavetes entered, giggling and inebriated, just as Landau had done in his first attempt.

  Landau stared, incredulous. “That’s exactly what I did twenty minutes ago, the first time!”

  Cassavetes cackled as he walked offstage. Landau’s bulging eyes were burning a hole in the director’s back. John dropped into his chair and said, “Do it like that, Marty, but when you enter I want you to walk in ... backward.” Another cackle.

  Landau gawked at John. It looked like he was either going to bolt out the door or choke his tormentor. Being an old-school trouper, though, the actor bit his lip and walked offstage to try to please Cassavetes, again.

  The actor made the entrance, this time walking backward and giggling. Oddly enough, it was brilliant; Cassavetes let the scene continue. After it ended, Landau faced Cassavetes and waited for his critique.

  Cassavetes grinned and said, “We’ll work on it tomorrow.”

  Not with Landau.

  The next day Landau bounded into the theater like a man whose death sentence had just been pardoned by the governor. I asked him what was happening.

  His beaming face frowned, and he said, “I’m going to have to bow out of the play.”

  “Why?”

  He kept up a sad veneer, but his twinkling eyes gave him away. “I’ve just been offered a role in a TV movie, Death at the Amusement Park. Mike Connors is the star, but I’ve got a nice supporting role.”

  What’s a better career move I asked myself: doing Death at the Amusement Park with Mike Connors or an original play with Gena Rowland and directed by John Cassavetes? There was already a huge buzz all over Hollywood about John’s project; I hadn’t heard a thing about the next starring vehicle for Mike Connors. Talk about mixed-up priorities. It was pretty clear: Landau couldn’t hack being the director’s hand puppet anymore, and this was his ticket out.

  Jon Voight’s friend, Mike McGuire, took over Landau’s role. He jumped into the part with a week of rehearsals and performed his role brilliantly.

  Of course, Martin Landau had the last cackle a few years later. His reputation rebounded with the Francis Ford Coppola film, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, which earned him an Oscar nomination. After that, he went on to win Oscars for Ed Wood and Crimes and Misdemeanors. Perhaps doing Death at the Amusement Park was a great career move after all.

  As opening night approached, we worked around the clock on The Love and Hate Trilogy. Nothing could divert Cassavetes’s attention, not even the theft of his car.

  I was standing outside the theater and saw two sketchy thugs speed off in the director’s blue Dodge. I ran inside to tell him about the theft, expecting him to express shock or dismay. Instead, he cackled, as usual.

  “Shouldn’t we call the cops?” I asked.

  “Why bother?” he said.

  “Huh?” I replied.

  “It’s a rental car,” he said with a shrug. “I haven’t the faintest idea where I got it. I can’t even remember how long I’ve had it! Sooner or later somebody will get in touch.” Then, he went back to work.

  The Love and Hate Trilogy opened, and, in typical Cassavetes fashion, some critics hated the plays, calling them boring and self-indulgent, and others loved them for their unique characters and intense acting moments. I had lost all objectivity. I was just glad to have been there to witness the crazy worlds that Cassavetes orchestrated onstage and off. He was a true maverick.

  CHAPTER 39

  Finding My Soul Mate During CPR

  Working on the plays fulfilled my artistic needs and helped stifle my drug cravings. That was important. There was still a big, painful hole in my life that was missing: a meaningful relationship. I’d troll the pick-up bars or go to the local gym to ogle the pretty girls, but I never met anyone I really liked. One night at the Red Onion Restaurant and Cantina in Canoga Park, I got lucky. My life was changed forever.

  I was seated at the crowded bar, nursing a drink and trying to tune out a bad country western band playing onstage. The film, Urban Cowboy, was a recent hit and most every nightclub in town had ditched the Saturday Night Fever disco ball for sawdust floors.

  A pretty young girl sat down next to me. I don’t remember who started the conversation, but the next thing I knew we were chatting; actually, it was more like yelling over the pounding drums and whining guitars. I learned that her name was Karen and suggested we go somewhere else to talk.

  Moments later we were outside the club, and things took an unexpected and tragic turn. I noticed a young woman lying flat on her back on a grassy knoll. People were hurrying to and from the club, completely ignoring her. I thought I might score a few chivalrous points with Karen and suggested that we should see if the girl was okay.

  As we drew closer, I could see that the girl’s white dress had a floral pattern on it, red roses, I thought.

  Once we were standing over her, I realized the red pattern was actually large bloody stains. The girl was motionless, and her upturned wrist was severely slashed. It was a gruesome sight, and I went light-headed, nearly passing out.

  Karen was studying to be a physical therapist in college and had some medical training. She sprung into action, using her sweater to tie a tourniquet around the bloody wrist. The girl had a pulse but was not breathing, so Karen started to administer CPR. Between blowing puffs of air into the woman’s slack-jawed mouth, Karen yelled, “Call an ambulance!”

  For those of you old enough to remember, there were no cell phones in 1980. You couldn’t just whip out a Motorola and dial for help. In fact, there wasn’t even the universal emergency number, 911, to call. My only option was to run back inside the Red Onion and seek medical assistance.

  I plowed through the line of people waiting to get inside the nightclub, all the while yelling, “Emergency, this is an emergency, let me through!” I finally arrived at the velvet rope and a hulking doorman.

  “There’s a young girl bleeding to death on your front lawn,” I yelled, trying to be heard over the loud music that was spilling out of the club.

  “My front ... what?” the doorman asked, giving me a confused look.

  I realized that I had to slow down and carefully explain the situation or the poor girl was never going to survive. “There’s a girl who is lying out by the street, on the front lawn of your club. She needs a doctor and an ambulance because she is bleeding to death!” I said emphatically.

  The doorman finally got it. He picked up an in-house phone and reported the problem to management. A long minute later, a club employee appeared onstage and commandeered the microphone. He put forth the famous question: “Is there a doctor in the house? Would a doctor please come to the front door immediately?” It’s a wonder that anybody survived a medical crisis back then.

  Seconds later a doctor appeared at the door, and I led him back to the lawn where Karen was still doing CPR. When the man announced that he was a doctor, Karen jumped away from the girl, ready and relieved to hand over the trauma. To Karen’s credit, the girl was now breathing on her own again.

  An ambulance soon arrived, and paramedics joined the team. They said she was going to survive thanks to our actions. The police arrived, too. Since Karen and I were the ones who found her, the cops told us not to leave because a report had to be taken. What a swell Saturday night this was turning into.

  Eventually, the ambulance sped away with the girl, and a droll policeman interviewed Karen and me. We had nothing to offer about the girl or her suicide attempt, since we had found her unconscious. Nonetheless, the Jack Webb clone meticulously assembled the facts, some of them I found quite interesting. I learned that Karen
grew up in Walnut Creek, California, and her age was twenty-one. These were the kinds of things that guys pry out of girls over time. Kudos to the LAPD for their excellent investigation.

  The police released us, and we went to Karen’s nearby apartment where we bonded in a comforting and profound embrace. . . one that’s lasted thirty years.

  In our first twenty-four hours, Karen and I saved somebody’s life, became lovers, and went to Disneyland for an outing with my entire family—siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles. What a whirlwind.

  I had never been more instantly enraptured with anybody. Karen was as beautiful as she was smart. She laughed at all my silly jokes, and I laughed at hers. We got each other, simple as that. I had found my soul mate and soon we were married.

  CHAPTER 40

  The Worst and the Best

  With a new love buoying my spirit, I threw myself into a number of theater productions in Los Angeles. The first one was a musical, Purple Hearts and Other Colors, about the World War II invasion of Iwo Jima. It was perhaps the most ill-conceived song and dance epic since Springtime for Hitler, and featured show-stopping numbers like “We Need a Negro Too.” Sondheim, eat your heart out.

  The musical was based on an old screenplay written by Robert C. Jones, an Academy Award winner for his work on the film Coming Home. To be fair to Mr. Jones, screenplays rarely transfer well to theater. When a script written for a movie describes a battleship’s blazing guns, landing crafts streaking ashore, and thousands of troops pouring onto exploding tropical beaches, it can work like gangbusters on screen, especially on a 200-million-dollar budget. When you’re trying to dramatize the same mind-boggling action on a minuscule stage, with a few hundred dollars to spend, the spectacle is, shall I say, diminished.