How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am

by Charles Grodin

  One of Grodin’s best performances: bringing to his writing the same insightful humor and persuasive humanity that he brings to his acting, he has come up with a kind of intrepid explorer’s guidebook through that most treacherous of terrains—the dark valleys and paper mountains of show business. Like the best of Grodin’s comic roles, it’s about the survival of all of us who believe we are sane in a world gone mad, a world we need to be part of that seems to need no part of us. When you finish this book, I think you’ll be glad as I am that Grodin is, in fact, and will remain, here.

  I’ll always cherish Herb Gardner, even if he had chosennot to give me a quote.

  Herb once went to a screening of a movie I had written and coproduced. Afterward he was barely speaking to me because he felt I had cut so much out of my original script, which he loved. We got back on track after I explained to him that we had originally screened it with all that I had written still in it, and it just didn’t play as well. At that screening with about a thousand people in the audience, there was only one person consistently laughing out loud—Elaine May.

  Steambath

  When I was making the movie Catch-22, in 1969 and 1970, I became good friends with Anthony Perkins, who was a good friend of Orson Welles, who was also in the cast. Tony introduced me to Orson as someone he would enjoy knowing. Something in the way Tony described me suggested I was a good storyteller, the last thing Orson was interested in having around, because Orson was the storyteller. Orson looked at me like I was a lamp whose light he would like to turn off.

  He also chose to tell Mike Nichols what to do with the cameras whenever he was in a scene, and wasn’t a bit self-conscious about it.

  At some point, a friend from New York who was coproducing a play called to discuss suggestions I might have for directors. I knew Tony Perkins was interested in directing, and even though he had never directed, I thought he could because he was so bright and gifted, so I suggested him. He ended up getting the job.

  The play was Steambath by Bruce Jay Friedman, a brilliant comedy playwright and novelist. The star was comedian Dick Shawn. During rehearsals, Dick was fired, and Rip Torn took over. Not too long after that, still in rehearsal, Rip was fired, and they asked me to take over. By that time rehearsals had gone on so long, Tony was in Hollywood keeping a prior movie commitment. A director named Jacques Levy took over. After a couple of weeks, preview audiences started to come, and the play and I were being received extremely well. Then they fired me.

  The reasoning was the play was working well, but to recoup all the long rehearsal expenses, it would be good to get a name, and they did—Tony Perkins.

  Tony came in. The play opened and wasn’t successful. The feeling was Tony was miscast. The immediate ramification of this for me was it ended my relationship with Tony. You don’t replace a friend in something where he suggested you as the director.

  I wasn’t aware of the impact this firing had on me until I started having dreams about being replaced. This was a first—being fired at the thing I was the best at.

  True to my rebounding nature, a short time later I wrote a play about someone fearing he’s going to be fired as the director. Alan Arkin starred in it in 1971 in Nyack, New York. One of the All-Time Greats opened off-Broadway in 1992, got an excellent review from the Times, and had a successful run.

  The paths of Bruce J. Friedman, the writer of Steambath, and mine crossed years later, after I became known in the movies. He told me that his sons had told him not to fire me, because I was the reason the play was suddenly working. It always had the brilliant Hector Elizondo in it, but my role was the lead, the protagonist.

  About a year after I was fired, Bruce went to the office of my friend, who was Steambath’s coproducer, and said, “Guess who’s playing the lead in The Heartbreak Kid?” My friend said, “I know.”

  Ironically, the short story on which The Heartbreak Kid is based was written by Bruce J. Friedman.

  Appearing on Johnny Carson and David Letterman to Show the Real Me?

  In the early seventies, while appearing as a guest with Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, I presented myself as a malcontent, a kind of person bothered by everything. I did this because I felt if I just came out and said how I was excited about my new movie or maybe told some anecdote about it, it really wouldn’t be sufficient for someone to stay up late to watch, so I made up a character who was always outraged by this or that.

  To this day, decades later, I still play the malcontent with David Letterman. I entered recently in an agitated state, claiming the stage manager had said to me just before I came on, “Your jacket won’t televise well.” Of course, no such thing happened.

  When I began to do this all those years ago with Johnny, people would sometimes genuinely be offended by my responses. Johnny would ask me how I was, and I’d say, “I don’t want to answer that, because I know you’re not really interested in the answer,” and the audience would hiss, and they meant it, too! Of course, they would have no way of knowing that I was under exclusive contract to Johnny Carson as a guest.

  I was originally interested in going on Johnny Carson’s show in 1973 to show those people who might have seen me in The Heartbreak Kid, in which I left my wife on our honeymoon, that I wasn’t really a cad. Many would say that the persona I felt had to choose was worse than caddish. Over the years, I continued to play often unsympathetic roles in movies. The doctor who unwittingly turns Rosemary over to the bad guys in Rosemary’s Baby came prior to The Heartbreak Kid. To this day, amazingly to me, some people confront me over that dastardly deed. I’ve actually gotten into polite debates justifying Doctor Hill’s actions.

  I followed Rosemary’s Baby with Catch-22, where I threw a prostitute out the window. When Alan Arkin confronted me in the movie on that, I explained, “A lot of people are killed during wartime.”

  After I did the movie The Incredible Shrinking Woman, my mother said more than one of her friends had seriously asked her why I hadn’t helped my tiny wife clear up the mess after she dropped a number of dishes. In the movie, the camera cuts to a shot of me ruefully shaking my head in the breakfast nook, but not getting up to help.

  I explained to my mother that they couldn’t actually shrink Lily. They just made everything around her superlarge, and if I had run in to help, I would have appeared tiny as well, and that wasn’t the story. Besides, I said I wasn’t even there on the day they shot Lily dropping the dishes. My mother advised me to forget about it: “No one will know what you’re talking about.”

  Years later, with David Letterman, we devised a bit where I came out but he wasn’t there behind the desk. He was actually in his office, but he said on the phone, which the audience could hear, that he was at home. He had an appointment with the cable people, who were late. I said in an exasperated tone that was really inappropriate, “If you are hosting a show, you can’t let a cable appointment take precedence.” After my appearance a lot of letters came in saying I should have been more understanding of David’s situation.

  When I began my cable show, Johnny had recently retired. He wrote and asked if I’d like to have dinner with him whenever I was in California. One night I went to a restaurant and joined Johnny and his wife. As I began to talk about my cable show, he was openly bored. I found his response funny. I challenged him by asking what he thought was interesting. He then began to describe an upcoming event in astronomy. I looked at him and said, “You find that more interesting than show business?” He did. At the end of the dinner, he asked if I would like to join him on a safari in Africa. I said, “What! Sleep in a tent with you while wild animals try to get at us?” I chose not to go. Another mistake.

  When Johnny passed away, I was so sorry to hear that he had been alone, no longer with his wife. It’s always sad to me that someone who brought so much enjoyment to all of us spent a substantial part of his life in unhappiness.

  I have some notes from Johnny I’d like to share with you. I have no memory of what prompted the following
note, but it’s the only one of its kind I’ve ever received from a man—or woman for that matter.

  I had received three residual checks for my appearances on the Best of Carson DVDs. They totaled eight dollars and change. I wrote Johnny that I always felt that I was a tiny part of the success of the Tonight Show, I just hadn’t realized how tiny.

  Johnny had bypass surgery, and I wondered if this was in store in the future for me as a talk show host, so I asked him to get me some figures on costs. Ironically, sometime after this letter both Regis Philbin and David Letterman had bypass surgery. I haven’t had that issue, but if I ever do, I’ll certainly study Johnny’s research.

  I also have some notes from David Letterman, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to publish them until at least both of us are dead.

  Memorable Encounters

  with Icons

  My encounters with the following icons were relatively brief but for me unforgettable and inform my behavior.

  In the midseventies I once had lunch with the great English actor Trevor Howard at his house outside of London. We were sitting in his garden. At one point he asked, “Is your driver out there in the car?” I said yes. He said, “Have him come in and join us.” He did. When I left London I gave my driver some money in an envelope. He said, “There could be nothing in this envelope, and I still consider it a privilege to have driven you.” I believe the lunch with Trevor Howard had something to do with his feelings.

  Especially memorable was the time I was working with Sir John Gielgud. I was going to see the previous day’s filming and asked if he’d like to join me. When we got to the screening room, he called out to the director, “I hope it’s all right I’m here. Chuck asked me to come.” Of course, it was. Sir John Gielgud’s modesty was wonderful to see.

  Another time I went to a reception after a screening of The Heartbreak Kid, the first movie where I played a leading role. Groucho Marx was there, and I was taken over to meet him. He looked at me and said, “Hated the movie, loved my seat.”

  The Unexpected

  In 1974, I was asked to do a two-character play on Broadway called Same Time, Next Year. The female lead was to be played by Ellen Burstyn. We had never met, so the producer felt it was essential we get together just to make sure we got along.

  Ellen drove into New York from her house in Snedens Landing, picked me up, and drove us back to her place. I noticed she wore little or no makeup and was beautiful.

  We spent several hours at her house talking about the play and from the very beginning liked each other very much.

  I had arranged for a car to come get me and take me back to the city. As I got up to leave, Ellen said, “I have to tell you something. I have an ex-husband, Neil, who overdosed on LSD. It’s had a permanent effect on him. At one point he called himself Neil Nephew. He’s confined in an institution, but he periodically manages to escape and seeks me out as well as any man I have anything to do with personally or professionally. I’m terribly sorry to lay this on you.”

  For a moment, I was speechless, then managed to say as casually as I could, “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.”

  Of course, just the opposite was true. Of all the things I’ve ever done, acting requires by far the greatest concentration as well as relaxation, and the idea that my costar’s ex-husband might escape from an institution and appear at any time and do God knows what wasn’t exactly what I had in mind as an aid for my concentration or relaxation.

  Nevertheless, I continued to reassure Ellen not to worry one moment about it.

  As soon as I got back to my apartment I called the producer who, if memory serves, already knew about this. I asked that a meeting be called to discuss how to deal with the situation. I asked Herb Gardner to be my representative at the meeting, as I was going to try to think about this as little as possible. It was decided that there would be guards at the theater to keep an eye out and a photo of Neil discreetly placed in the box office.

  I guess no one thought much about the rehearsal period, because a week in, Ellen looked past me and said, “Oh, it’s Neil.” I turned and saw an average-looking fella staring at us. Ellen walked over to him. I went over, sat down in a chair, and looked the other way. I don’t remember if we resumed rehearsals that day, but soon we moved on as though it hadn’t happened. I asked no questions, and no one spoke about it to me.

  Sometime a few weeks into rehearsal the extremely experienced director said that the new-to-Broadway playwright told him he would just as soon not open the play out of town in Boston if this was what it was going to look like. In other words, he was suggesting we consider closing the play in rehearsal. I said, “This isn’t what we’re going to do in front of an audience. We’re figuring out the roles.” Ellen Bursytn and I had to play our characters five years older in each of the six scenes—not a job for your boy or girl next door.

  The play was a smash in Boston. There was an unusual moment during the run there. One day, from across the large lobby of the hotel where we were staying, the late Van Johnson, a great movie star, called out to me, “You work so hard.” My dad would have been proud.

  Same Time, Next Year was a standing room only hit in New York, with lines around the block. Lucille Ball came backstage to say hello to me, sat down at the makeup table, freshened up her makeup, and without turning around said to me, “We should work together sometime.” When Bob Hope came, they could only find a seat for him in the balcony. I had an earlier experience with Bob Hope.

  One time early in my experience with Johnny Carson, I evidently went so far that the executive producer, Fred De Cordova, said to my friend the talent coordinator, “We won’t be seeing Mr. Grodin for a while.” After Johnny’s monologue hadn’t been received as it normally was, I had come out as the first guest and said, “Rather than me trying to be funny in this atmosphere, why don’t we run a clip from an earlier appearance where I was.” Before they banned me, they received an appreciative call from Bob Hope wanting to know, “Who is that kid?”

  Ellen won a Tony Award for her performance in Same Time, Next Year, and we both won an Outer Critics Circle Award.

  This naïveté that was expressed by the playwright of Same Time, Next Year when he suggested we should possibly close the play in rehearsal manifested itself from when the producer Ray Stark called me after the first reading of Seems Like Old Times with Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, and me to ask, “What are we going to do about Chevy?” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “He’s ad-libbing all over the place.” I said, “Ask him not to.” They did, so he didn’t, and was incredibly charming in the role.

  It happened again after the first reading of The Heartbreak Kid when they discussed replacing me, because I had begun “working on the part” instead of performing it as I’d done in the screen test. Elaine May reminded them they’d already seen me perform it.

  My point in saying all this is it’s shocking how many people in positions of real authority, right up to the president, of course, sometimes absolutely don’t know what they’re talking about. That’s why all the rejection I’ve dealt with never affected me in the way you might think. I don’t accept that the rejecter knows what he or she is talking about.

  For example, when one of my plays is rejected, that’s meaningless to me as far as its value is concerned, because someone who’s reading it rejected it, but I’ve already seen it performed in front of a highly appreciative audience. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have sent it to anyone.

  Recently, I gave a Broadway producer a play of mine that has four stars committed to playing the four roles. I explained I’d seen it read several times to large audiences and that it had received an outstanding response. The producer read it and was completely dismissive of it. It didn’t get me down because I felt I was dealing with a fool. Gene Wilder said, “With you writing it and those names connected to it… ,” and then he just shook his head.

  Over the years, especially in movies, I’ve offered a lot of ideas—script changes and so forth. Th
ere are exceptions, of course. Neil Simon’s Seems Like Old Times quickly comes to mind. Not only would someone come over to you if you left a “the” out, but once in a scene where Robert Guillaume was playing the piano I was standing behind him tapping my fingers on his shoulders and was told to please don’t do that. I’ve never experienced the control that was exercised over that movie. In fairness, it was a big hit, but I believe you limit me and others with that strong a controlling hand over my hand’s tapping. I mean, c’mon…

  On many films, I let the director know that I may offer a lot of ideas, and I quickly add that if they aren’t embraced, my disposition will be the same as if they were. As a producer, director, or writer, I would welcome any actor’s suggestions with the understanding that if they weren’t accepted, “no sulking allowed.” I never sulk or pout as I’ve seen others do when they don’t get their way; it can put a dark cloud over everything.

  I had a lot of thoughts about Same Time, Next Year that I shared with the playwright and the director, and they were used. As I’ve said, if they weren’t I would have gone right ahead in good spirits with the script that I signed on to do.

  It wasn’t evident to me how much the playwright’s wife, and I assume the playwright, resented all of this, since my ideas were accepted without any discord, and the play was a smash. That’s why I was very surprised at what happened at a party after I had left the play—which, by the way, angered the producer, even though I had fulfilled my contract of staying with it for seven months after the Broadway opening. The producer assumed I had a big money offer to do a movie, but I didn’t. I just felt that with rehearsal and the out of town tryout and previews, it had been almost ten months, and it was enough. To make matters worse from the producer’s point of view, when I chose to leave, Ellen Burstyn did as well.