by Mario Lopez
Mr. Crowns, named after the owner, Tommy Corona (corona means “crown” in Spanish), was my destination of choice. The bar was right on the corner of Calle Sexta (Sixth Street) and Avenida Revolución, a total hot spot. It was sort of an indoor/outdoor deal, with two floors and DJs on each of them. From the start, Tommy and I hit it off and became good friends. He was a kickboxer and a surfer, and despite the fact that he was ten years older than me, we had lots of interests in common. My group of friends tended to be older than me, so that was not unusual.
Though I don’t remember how the subject of business investments came up, I was all ears when Tommy mentioned this opportunity that seemed to have my name on it. Apparently, his lease on Mr. Crowns was about to be up, and after a falling-out with his existing investors (I probably should have looked into this piece of information more than I did), Tommy was planning to move Mr. Crowns to a new location on Revolución. Naturally, he was looking for new investors. In the past he’d usually brought his dad in on business ventures, but this time he wanted to go it alone, outside the family. What were we talking about? Well, for a $65,000 investment, I could become ten percent owner.
Then and there, I couldn’t think of a single reason why investing in a bar, particularly on that street, would be a bad idea. Of course, I didn’t know anything about bookkeeping or running a bar . . . but that didn’t stop me. I said, “Why not?” and in I went with both feet.
Here’s a spoiler alert: $65,000 is a lot of margaritas, my friends, and a really bad idea.
Mom, who had never steered me wrong, had a much more reasonable idea. She recommended that I buy my first house instead. Taking her advice, before I bought the bar, I bought a little house in Chula Vista, using it as a rental property. The house turned out to be a good investment, but not the bar. The bar was a stone-cold horrible investment.
My business plan and vetting process consisted of nothing more than an emotional inventory of experiences on Revolución. Why mistrust my own eyes? If the bars there were always crowded, how could I lose?
In the beginning I loved the creative part of designing the space and just the coolness of being a teenage owner of a bar. So what if I wasn’t going to college? I was getting real-world experience and I was thinking economically too. When I came up with the interior design I wanted to achieve, for example, my dad got involved, and using contacts at his job with National City—a neighboring town next to Chula Vista—he was able to help us find used traffic display items like stoplights and flashing “Don’t Walk” signs. When we hung those, they gave the bar an authentic roughed-up nightlife look: dark atmosphere with strategic lighting, concrete floors, band posters on the walls. Later on, I was also responsible for developing “Mr. Crowns Presents,” which involved booking and promoting a super cool concert in Rosarito Beach with top names: Faith No More and Perry Farrell (the former lead singer of Jane’s Addiction) with his band Porno for Pyros. The process was not brain surgery; I called the agent and I booked the acts. Just like that, and it felt great.
For much of the time that I did own a piece of the bar, I had a blast. The girls, the booze, the fights, the drunks, and yes, the sex. Sometimes it felt like the Wild West. There were instances when it was so rowdy, you knew a fight was going to break out at any moment and you’d best stay out of the line of fire. That was the case on one occasion when, to paraphrase the words of Phil Collins, I could feel it coming in the air that night.
In those days, I had been dating the actress Jaime Pressly (from My Name Is Earl and Joe Dirt) for almost a year, though it wasn’t a serious relationship. We’d met while filming a sci-fi flick called The Journey: Absolution, in which we played futuristic soldiers fighting off an alien invasion. Like a lot of “showmances,” ours started because we worked well together and liked each other’s company when we were off the clock. Jaime, an Emmy Award–winning actress and talented comedian, had driven down with me to San Diego a few times before—when we’d stay in my parents’ guesthouse—and a couple of those times we’d gone to Tijuana together to check out the bar. Nothing wild had happened, even though she turned plenty of heads. Jaime has one of those striking faces you never forget at the same time that she has the classic blond all-American cheerleader look. Killer body, great smile, a lot of sass. Jaime had always been her own person—cool, beyond sexy, a sweet girl, and ready for adventure. We both loved to dance and, oh yeah, she knew how to move.
As I remember, Jaime and I headed down to the bar to have a few drinks and hang with some friends. But as soon as we walked in the door, I could tell the crowd was rowdier than usual. It was in the air. The bar was never a showplace for elegance, but on this particular occasion it had been trashed already, which was unusual for so early in the night. The stained concrete floor was covered with small puddles of cheap beer, shredded napkins, and cigarette butts, and you can imagine what it smelled like—discount perfume, smoke, sweat . . .
We sat at the bar with our crew, talking with friends, and ordered some drinks. Next thing I knew multiple fights began to break out. My policy at this stage was to stay as cool and collected as possible and to encourage that attitude in others. Sure enough, that approach seemed to calm everything down quickly. That was, until I caught sight of another eruption, this one involving a buddy of mine, Brady (who we called “Granny” because his last name was Granier). Basically a good-looking all-American guy from a Cajun background, Granny is one of the nicest guys in the world and would never intentionally get into a brawl. But it looked as if he had bumped into this other tough-looking guy by accident and then knocked over a drink. Something that innocent. A gentleman, Granny instantly apologized and was wholly charming about it. But the tough guy he’d disturbed wasn’t in the mood to let it go. Suddenly, as I watched from near the front, the guy escalated the whole thing and started pushing Granny around, his fists clenched.
“Hey, man,” I said, calling out the troublemaker as I went over to the two of them to intervene. “Let’s squash this. Got it? Let’s move on.” The tough guy, eyes blazing, wouldn’t drop it. I continued in an authoritative tone, “Listen, we don’t need any of that. Let’s just be cool.”
I was trying to be a peacemaker. But this guy wasn’t going to give in to me. Instead, he goes and gets lippy and then shoves me.
I tried again. “Chill out,” I told him. That didn’t work either. He started getting really aggressive and cursing at me as he raised his hand.
That’s all it took to set off what was still sometimes a short fuse. In hindsight, I could have called the cops earlier, but in that moment, as a part owner and a wrestler, I just reacted—a knee-jerk reaction with a lot of force behind it. Just one move: boom! I smacked him. Not having planned on this, I was wearing a white button-down shirt, so when I hit him—as I grabbed his head and pulled it toward my knee—his blood covered my shirt. That was all that my cousins—who frequented the bar—needed to see: me covered in blood. So they swarmed over, rushing to my aid. Everything just got more violent from there. When the dust settled, everyone was basically fine except for the supposed tough guy. He got his ass kicked and he got arrested.
Wow. I can still see Jaime’s face, her eyes big and wide at what must have been a world she’d never witnessed. That was always surreal for any of my friends from civilized LA who went down to Tijuana and caught a glimpse of what it was like to be in a place where anarchy ruled. But because of my efforts to stay cool and collected (for the most part), being with me, she seemed to feel safe. When I checked to make sure, Jaime assured me that she knew nothing was going to happen to us down there. Actually, I suspect that seeing that side of me come out might have turned her on.
But there was no amount of toughness that could help me recoup my investment. After more years of asking Tommy to repay the money and hearing him say over and over again, “This month wasn’t good,” I saw the writing on the wall. There was one month when he brought me four grand, but that was it.
<
br /> So, rounding down, I lost sixty grand on the worst financial decision of my life. It was a $60,000 party. Finally, I got out.
Sixty thousand dollars is a lot for anyone to lose. Thankfully, I was young enough to bounce back, but as I veered into my midtwenties in a post–A. C. Slater state of mind, I understood a new reality: that being an entertainer is a job in which one day you can be hot and the next you might as well be in the witness protection program for how much people remember you. In other words, bouncing back was never guaranteed.
On a positive note, there is something to be said for making a bad business decision to keep you from ever making another one like it again. To my credit, I didn’t give up on being entrepreneurial and I didn’t lose my determination not to put all the eggs in one showbiz basket. But when it comes to regrets, if I could go back to the nineties I would not have written off this whole Internet thing as a fad. Just imagine if instead of putting that $65,000 in a bar in TJ, I had boldly invested in stock like Microsoft, Apple, and Google. Just imagine.
• • •
When I look back at the roller-coaster ride that was most of my twenties, I recall a few lifetimes lived. Not for a minute would I trade any of the dating experiences I was fortunate enough to enjoy. Whenever I hear anything from Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite—my go-to jam—it all comes back. (And if we want to talk sound tracks of those years, I happen to be partial to R. Kelly’s 12 Play, and, trust me, you can never go wrong with Sade.) Even though I wasn’t ready to settle down and stick with one lasting relationship, in those years I learned a lot more about women and about enjoying the friendship that comes along with romance.
The best highs of those years were getting to share successes with the people I loved. For example, whenever I traveled to do personal appearances—which started at age eighteen and lasted well into my twenties—I’d take a friend or one of my cousins along for the fun. I was used to the attention but it was brand-new to my guys. I would trip out on how much fun they had while they would trip out on the whole scene of women throwing themselves at us. My friends and cousins are good-looking, charismatic guys, so they did well for themselves in the flirtation department.
“Whoa, I can’t believe this—I can’t believe this!” they’d rejoice, thanking me as though I had superpowers. They didn’t perceive me the way fans did—to them I was just their goofy cousin or good ol’ pal, who could now somehow help them score with the ladies.
Sharing what I had with my family was always a priority. Maybe because I was raised with such a strong work ethic, I’ve always maintained a guarded optimism as far as money is concerned. Clearly, with my bad bar investment, I was a tad too optimistic. But after that blunder, my MO in my twenties was to be guardedly optimistic that I could save and invest wisely enough to be able to weather a fickle entertainment business. For survival, when it came to my post-SBTB career, I learned to be cautious. To me, everything could end in a heartbeat. A big change from when I was younger and impressed casting people with my Que será será cool. My new mantra soon became: “Hope for the best but expect the worst.” Maybe that was me toughening up for the changes in the industry in general, but I adopted the attitude that if my entire career came to a screeching halt, my family and I would still be secure.
My point is that I don’t keep much money in the bank. For me, it’s better to reinvest it, wisely, or put it to use taking care of my family and friends. Though they never ask me for money, I love being able to take care of them when I can, like putting my sister, Marissa, through college at San Diego State University.
Granted, in my twenties I was only beginning to have a grasp of what this all meant. I never had financial goalposts set in my mind. Money was important to me, sure, but I’ve never thought about it in those benchmark terms. Mom did have the right idea, though, when she urged me at age eighteen to buy that first little house—which I still own today. Well, it’s actually in the process of being torn down so I can build three condos on the site. With the investment in other properties in the Chula area that I made after that, I have come a long way since buying that first house. And now that I’m living in LA, I have a dozen properties here too.
My business instincts have improved since my late teens, for sure, and I don’t have to worry about the upkeep as my mom manages all of my properties for me. Also, investing in real estate is fairly practical. People will always need a place to live. Plus, I’ve watched entrepreneurs like Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger make their fortunes by buying property, so I’ve been reasonably confident that real estate investment is making a safe bet. So far so good—even if I’m by no means at the level of The Donald or the former Governator.
But none of this security or sanity came overnight. Career-wise, the post-SBTB road turned out to be much rockier than I’d anticipated. The more time I had on my hands without my next acting role after the series ended, the more I questioned my decision not to go to college. It was sometimes a dark place. Besides worrying about how I was going to make money going forward, for the first time in my life I started questioning and doubting my abilities. The questions ate at me. Had I only lucked out as a child actor? Was this what I really wanted to do? Had I “made it” only to see it all fade? Was this as good as it was going to get?
Most of the time, I was my usual upbeat, high-energy self, going strong and doing smaller roles as they came my way. But there were periods when the calls were less frequent and more suited to actors just starting in their careers. Like an athlete, I had to pump myself up with pep talks, telling myself that of course I was unique enough and special enough in terms of my talent and passion—that I had something authentic of my own to offer. There weren’t many people like me in the industry, as far as I could tell. Not many young Latinos were taking the path I had chosen, no question. And I felt as if I had a certain energy that made me stand out and that I hoped was infectious to others. That I could contribute to any project—and elevate the work in general.
My saving grace during these slow periods was having a great family who loved and supported me. That, and turning over all of that which I couldn’t control to my higher power. Family and faith have always served me, in good times and bad, as have those events that seemed to come along and put everything in perspective.
One such event took place during these years when the family became concerned about how seldom we’d seen or heard from my favorite cousin, Louie, who’d grown up right across the street from me. Louie, my good-looking primo with the smile that lit up the room whenever he entered it, had moved away from Chula Vista to Minneapolis when he was about nineteen. The strange part was that he had been going to college locally for a short time and then abruptly moved. We were all busy with our own lives, so we didn’t think much of his sudden departure when it happened. At first, he appeared to make regular efforts to come back and visit the relatives and the gang from the neighborhood.
On one of his visits, I heard some of the cousins say Louie had been seen in the Hillcrest area of San Diego, a neighborhood that had a large gay community. Some of the relatives began to gossip about how they’d always sensed he was different. But I didn’t care—it was none of my business, and I just wanted him to be happy. He never really opened up to me about being gay, and though I regretted not having done more to let him know he could always talk to me, I figured, well, he would have said something if he wanted to.
On one of his visits, Louie finally told his brother that he was gay but that it was too difficult to come out of the closet, as a Latino and as a Catholic.
While this conversation went well, and Louie’s brother expressed our family’s love and support, it didn’t get Louie to open up and tell the rest of the family. He insisted he just couldn’t. It was so sad. We started seeing him less and less until one day I came into the house and heard the strangest, most mournful sound. My father had just been told that Louie, his brother’s son, had taken a huge overdose of pill
s and had gone to sleep for good.
That was the first and only time I ever saw my father cry. My dad is a real tough guy, and to see him cry just broke my heart. Louie’s death put all my so-called worry about my career and whatnot into perspective, reminding me how fragile life really is. Seeing my dad crying so inconsolably made me cry. I promised to find a way to honor Louie’s memory if the opportunity ever came along to do so. The truth is, I never thought about it this way until now, but I have to believe that the opportunity did come—sooner than I could have guessed.
• • •
“Greg Louganis?” I asked my agent when I was first sent the script for a movie of the week that had been in search of its star.
“Take a look and let me know what you think,” my agent suggested, not selling the project one way or the other.
True, I might not have been the obvious choice to play Greg Louganis, the Olympic gold medalist and gay icon, but from the moment I read the script, I sensed that this was the role I’d been waiting for. It could definitely help me shed the skin of my A. C. Slater persona and usher in new possibilities for my career. What’s more, I had been a major fan of Greg Louganis since the day I saw him compete in the 1984 Olympics. He also happened to be from San Diego, which enhanced our connection in my view. And when, a short time later, I was offered the role, I was thrilled. From an acting standpoint, at the age of twenty-three, I wanted and needed the challenge and the shot to be seen in a new light—as a serious adult, no longer a kid actor, and nothing like Slater. This was my chance to prove myself and bring the behind-the-scenes story of Greg Louganis to an even larger worldwide audience.
The movie was based on Greg’s bestselling memoir, Breaking the Surface, and there was great pressure both to do the book justice and to accurately depict what he went through in his career, especially at the time of the Olympics. Not just that, but as I was portraying someone who was still alive, that meant he and his friends would be watching closely to see whether I had captured his essence as a young man and champion.
