How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am

by Charles Grodin

  I’m not sure what the network was expecting—most likely a musical special with maybe one or two guest stars—but Paul and Art were more than open to my idea that we make a documentary special intercutting footage of what was going on in America and in Vietnam that provoked Paul to write some of his songs.

  To be upfront with everyone, I sent the network an outline of exactly what the show would be: It would include the Poor People’s march on Washington; footage of our three slain leaders, President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.; and Robert Kennedy with the migrant workers’ leader, César Chávez.

  Paul and I traveled to Delano, California, to meet with Mr. Chávez, and our crew followed Paul and Art around the country, filming them in concert. Paul and I attended a union meeting that César Chávez chaired. The discussion was whether they should have a mariachi band or food—they couldn’t afford both. Paul arranged it so they could. I have a letter from Mr. Chávez thanking Paul and me for giving him so much of our time. He was an inspiration to me, a role model for helping others in need.

  We made the show using the facilities of Robert Drew Associates. Robert Drew was considered by many to be the father of video vérité, meaning documentaries. He had two credits on the special, executive producer and executive in charge of production. He was a self-described Rockefeller Republican—whatever that meant. He had a portrait of Nelson Rockefeller on the wall behind his desk.

  Nelson Rockefeller gave us the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which were the harshest in the nation and responsible for ruining thousands of people’s lives. More about that later.

  Governor Rockefeller, that paragon of virtue, died from having a heart attack while having sex with his mistress.

  Anyhow, while I was working on our special, Robert Drew was off in an editing room of his own putting together an entirely different special from our footage: the making of a song or something.

  When he saw my “rough assemblage,” he called Paul and Art and me into his office and pronounced it “not airworthy.” He then said, “The only way this show can be saved is if Chuck removes himself from control and turns the reins over to me.” Paul and Art looked at me for my response—a thirty-four-year-old newcomer challenged by the father of documentaries.

  I said, “Bob, you’re off in another room making a special none of us have any interest in. I suggest you leave the premises and let me complete what I’m doing.”

  I worked through the night with the editors and took the rough assemblage to its next step: a rough cut. Bob looked at it and said, “That’s the best rough cut I’ve ever seen.”

  When the special was completed, we waited for the reaction. There was a very loud sound of silence, and then urgent meetings were called.

  I was angrily confronted by a representative of the ad agency for the sponsor, AT&T. He said to me, “You’re using our money to sell your ideology!” I asked him what he saw as my ideology, and he snapped, “The humanistic approach.” I was honestly baffled. I said, “You mean there are people against the humanistic approach?” He said, “You’re goddammed right there are!”

  What I was too naïve to understand was that in the sixties as well as today, unfortunately, people will almost always put their economic interests over any concern for equal rights, which this special clearly was calling for, and AT&T felt it might offend some of their Southern affiliates. Also, not everyone was necessarily against the war in Vietnam in 1969. As a result, AT&T removed their name from the special after having paid for it.

  Right around that time, I was having dinner with some friends at the Russian Tea Room in New York. Sitting nearby was the fellow from the ad agency, and we all heard him say, “Simon and Garfunkel are under the spell of this Svengali figure, Charles Grodin.” One of my friends immediately spoke up to let him know I was sitting right there, and any further talk of me or Svengali, for that matter, stopped. The man from the ad agency obviously didn’t know Paul Simon or Art Garfunkel, because I’ve never met anyone with stronger opinions than Paul or Art. The idea that they would be under anyone’s spell, mine or even Svengali’s, is ludicrous.

  I do remember that before AT&T removed their name, the fella from the ad agency had asked for certain changes. One I particularly recall: they were concerned with Coretta Scott King saying, “Poverty is a child without an education.” They wanted me to lower the sound on her speaking. I asked to what level? The answer was, “Make it inaudible.” (I recently learned that my phone service is with AT&T. I hope they don’t read this and make it impossible for me to get a dial tone.)

  We made no changes. Next, I was called in to meet with the head of program practices for CBS, or what would be more popularly known as the censor. His name was William Tankersly. We spoke at length, and he and to their great credit CBS decided to let the special run exactly as we had presented it with no changes at all.

  The Alberto-Culver Company became the sponsor by simply paying for air costs, as I recall $180,000. They also had the late actor Robert Ryan come on before the special, Songs of America, began, to say the network felt that Simon and Garfunkel had earned the right to express their opinion.

  On the broadcast, the American public heard “Bridge Over Troubled Water” for the first time. It was played over a shot of the train carrying Robert Kennedy’s body across the country as people on train platforms stood in silence, saluting or weeping. After that we went to our first commercial break, and one million people switched to another channel.

  The special did not get a good rating. The Washington Post ran an editorial expressing amazement that the special even got on the air. The Nixon White House requested a copy of it, and my agent suggested I pursue work in some other aspect of show business.

  However, the special became a CBS entry in the worldwide Montreux Television Festival, and forty years later the Paley Center for Media, formerly known in New York as the Museum of Television and Radio, is hoping to honor the special, Paul, and Art.

  Beginning with that special, I’ve always been identified with being on the left. The truth is I don’t have any politics and actually have more positions that would be considered conservative than liberal.

  When I had my cable show, I often spoke about the homeless and people in dire need, or those I felt were being treated unfairly. I also was on television during the impeachment of President Clinton, which I was strongly against, but then it turned out most on the right agreed with me. Recently, I was contacted by a group that wanted me to join them in trying to impeach President Bush. I had no interest in that, either.

  People tend to make snap judgments, because they don’t have the time or intellectual energy to look further. Once I spoke at an event where one of the other speakers was the late William F. Buckley, Jr. I said I don’t measure people by right or left or liberal or conservative but by those who care about others and those who don’t. Mr. Buckley let me know he appreciated what I had to say, even though some of his positions, in my opinion, obviously lacked compassion. May he rest in peace, his positions were heartfelt, but that doesn’t make him, if you’ll pardon the expression, right.

  I believe everyone should work for a living, but those who are truly unable should not be abandoned by the government. I think we should have much greater punishment for bullies.

  I do not think drugs should be legalized, and I believe we should have stronger protection and punishment for drinking and driving. I’m against the estate tax. Frankly, I see myself as a compassionate conservative—whatever that or any label means. I have a friend who always identifies himself as a Reagan Republican, but he can’t tell me what that means. I don’t know, either. The two R’s work nicely, though, just as the two C’s in compassionate and conservative do.

  I am willing to give up certain rights to privacy for more security. On other questions I respond specifically given the circumstances of our times, and I’m not even remotely uncomfortable in saying, “I don’t know.” That’s why I say I have no politics, unless you want to sa
y paying a lot of attention to people in dire need is a political position instead of a human one.

  Years ago I became good friends with a New York Mets pitcher who at this writing is part of the New York Yankee broadcasting team, Al Leiter. Recently, a reporter wrote me and said he was doing a story about Al, who may or may not run for political office, and Al suggested he talk to me. The reporter wrote in his letter that Al had told him, “Even though Chuck and I are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, we’re friends.”

  I called Al and asked him what made him think we were on opposite ends of the political spectrum? Al then asked me a series of questions. One was, “How do you feel about all this f this and f that?” He seemed surprised that I was as much against it as he was. He then asked me a number of other political questions and was startled to learn that our opinions were almost identical. Al knew that for years I was hanging out with a very famous liberal, so he assumed I was one, too. I told him my friend and I were always in a constant debate.

  You really don’t know who anyone is or what they feel unless you ask them specific questions or live with them.

  Benefactors

  Of course, my first benefactor was Eleni Kiamos, my classmate at Uta Hagen’s who as I’ve said introduced me to a woman friend who put me in a lead in a off-off-Broadway show, which led to my getting an agent. Eleni then introduced me to Lee Strasberg, then to a casting director, which led to my starting to work in television. It’s only all these years later that I realize how much Eleni did for me when I was beginning, when you really need a benefactor. I always adored her without fully grasping how many doors she opened for me.

  Then, of course, there’s Gene Wilder, who put Renée Taylor in touch with me, which led to my meeting Elaine May. I always considered Gene a major benefactor of mine.

  I first met Elaine May at Gene Wilder’s apartment. She walked over to me and said, “Gene says wonderful things about you.” In a misguided effort to amuse, I said, “Boy, you’re really coming on.” She looked at me as though she had no idea what was happening. When she left, I gave her my coat, because I thought she’d be cold outside. Talk about a confusing encounter.

  In a later meeting, Renée Taylor and Joe Bologna asked me if I would mind if Elaine May came to see Lovers and Other Strangers, which I directed when it was previewing on Broadway. I said, “I’d love to hear anything she says.” All I remember about that meeting is Elaine prefacing every observation with something like, “I’m sure Chuck has already thought of this.”

  A couple of years later I was directing Renée and Joe in a piece they had written for Public Broadcasting. It was a scene with a couple in bed. Halfway through rehearsal I said to Joe, “You should be directing this (Joe was a director), and I should be playing your part.” Joe said, “Well, we based the character on you.”

  I climbed into bed. Joe took my seat in the director’s chair. Elaine May saw the piece and told me she was being asked to direct movies, and she was going to put me in the next one that came along that was right for me. That was The Heartbreak Kid, which a lot of major stars wanted to do, but she said she wanted Charles Grodin. Most people in show business had never heard of me at that time.

  Elaine then persuaded Warren Beatty to put me in Heaven Can Wait. I then did Ishtar with her. I believe that movie may be too hip for a lot of rooms. People familiar with the nightclub circuit might be very surprised by who’s onstage at times. I got excellent reviews in Ishtar, and that had something to do with my being cast in Midnight Run.

  I’ve known Elaine May for over forty years, and since that first meeting I’ve never had one uncomfortable moment with her. As I’ve said, she’s always been my biggest supporter in show business. She was once quoted as saying about herself, “I’m not warm, but I’m polite.” Around me she’s warm as well as polite. As a director, she never criticizes. She’ll suggest something else.

  Of course, I love Elaine May.

  Once, in the 1960s, I was delivering a handwritten script (which is how I still write) to Studio Duplicating, a typing service on West Forty-fourth Street in Manhattan. I can still hear George, the nice man who always answered the phone, “Hello, Studio.”

  One day when I delivered my latest longhand script to be typed, he said for reasons still not entirely clear to me, “Do you know Herb Gardner?” I later learned that Herb Gardner delivered his scripts printed in longhand. I, at least, wrote in what is known as script. There were probably other reasons why George asked, “Do you know Herb Gardner?” He was prescient, because circumstances or fate got Herb Gardner and me to meet about a year later, and I’ve never had a closer friend than Herb.

  Before I met Herb, I had heard him on the great Jean Shepherd’s radio show. Herb presented himself as the PR man for the Atlantic Ocean. “We’re deeper. We have more fish.”

  My first interaction with him came when Elaine May told him to get me for a role in his play The Goodbye People, which they were going to do in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. My girlfriend at the time was going to be in it, and I would be there anyway.

  I told him I didn’t know how to play a character who says whole sentences while he’s sleeping. Looking back, I’m amazed he didn’t persist, because as I later discovered he was known to be endlessly persevering. I didn’t do the play, but we instantly became friends. The brilliant Bob Dishy played the part, and he pulled it off beautifully.

  Herb taught me so much by what many saw as his “odd behavior” and I saw as artistic courage in action. In many ways he became a role model to me, and I know to many others—not only by what he wrote, but by who he was.

  Herb died in 2003. He had been in the process of dying for several years, no doubt because of his lifelong habit of always having a cigarette in his mouth or at least in his hand. One of my biggest regrets in life is that I not only didn’t say anything to him about smoking, I apparently didn’t even notice sufficiently. There was so much about him that would keep you from noticing the cigarette. He was as compelling a personality as I’ve ever met. He wrote A Thousand Clowns when he was in his twenties. If you choose to read it, you won’t be sorry.

  A good example of Herb’s integrity came during a period when he was getting many offers to turn A Thousand Clowns into a television series. He really could have used the money but he declined, saying, “Because I wouldn’t be able to oversee the quality of each segment.”

  I worked with Herb in 1974. His play Thieves had opened in New Haven and Boston and gotten bad reviews. Marlo Thomas called me in California where I was making movies and asked if I would come to Boston to take a look at it. She was considering going in and replacing the lead actress. I flew to Boston and watched the play, with Marlo sitting next to me taking a quick look at me every minute or so to see my reaction. Herb and Marlo and I met afterward and I said, “I don’t know how good I can make it, but I can make it better than this.” That was enough for Marlo to step into the leading role.

  One evening after a performance, Herb and I sat in the back of the theater and two women walked up the aisle, saw us, and snickered in disdain. “They’re trying to fix it!” The producers left the play, as well as the director. I became the director and the producer along with my friend from all those years ago in summer stock, Richard Scanga, who actually had experience as a producer, which I didn’t have. I began to work with Herb on the script. I asked him to cut certain passages I felt didn’t work, and he refused even though the play hadn’t gotten good notices. Herb simply said, “I’d rather close it than cut those sentences.” Instead of that attitude alienating me, it intrigued me. He did agree with me on enough changes that the play opened in New York, and despite getting mixed notices, it became the longest-running play in New York that season. The run, of course, had a lot to do with Marlo’s ability to draw a crowd.

  Among the many things that Herb did for me over the years was to suggest me for Same Time, Next Year. He also gave me the idea for my play The Price of Fame. He introduced me to many people I pr
obably never would have met. I became friends with Paddy Chayefsky, Jules Feiffer, Shel Silverstein, Dick Schaap, Jule Styne, Jimmy Breslin, Elaine Stritch, and Bob Fosse.

  One night at a gathering at Herb’s apartment, Bob Fosse started to tease me about my plan to open on Broadway in a two-character play, Same Time, Next Year. He said, “With two characters they’re going to have to love everything you do. They’re going to have to love the way you sit, the way you stand, the way you walk.” That was Fosse’s sense of fun, which frankly I enjoyed.

  Herb stepped in to stop him from talking to me that way, but then I said to Fosse, “Well, in the movie of [and I named a movie he directed], you had lots and lots of people, and that wasn’t successful.” Although we traded insults, Bob Fosse and I really liked each other. I once took a very glamorous movie star who was onlya friend of mine to a party at his apartment. He took one look at her and was immediately smitten and made his move. Then feeling guilty—believing she was my girlfriend—he went to another room and gave me a CD of the original score of Evitabefore it opened on Broadway. He and my movie star pal shared great times together.

  Later in my relationship with Herb, he and his wife, Barbara, took me aside and told me they felt I was dominating their dinner parties too much, which is definitely a flaw of mine. Instead of retorting by saying, “Well, you… ,” I accepted their valid criticism, simply because I agreed with them. If somebody’s not on, I will jump in and take over, in hindsight even in myopinion inappropriately.

  On the other hand, at some gatherings after that when there would be a lull, people would look at me, but I didn’t jump in. Over the years I listened to other criticisms from Herb, some of which I didn’t agree with, but I chose not to rebut him because I knew he was coming from a place of genuine love for me. Here’s an example of what I mean. It’s a quote that he gave me for my first book, It Would Be So Nice If You Weren’t Here.