How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am

by Charles Grodin

  They were giving awards to banks and families in the area who had given money and done good deeds. One woman donor gave a very serious speech that ran three times longer than anyone else’s. As she walked away, I returned to the podium and said, “Very funny.” That was it! The audience laughed, but it was inappropriate. I’m not exactly banned from appearing at the aquarium, but let’s just say I’m not their first choice to host—or second or third.

  Another time I spoke at a book party for Ellen Burstyn at the Carnegie Foundation. I wasn’t aware I’d said anything offensive until my publisher called the foundation to arrange for a book party for the last book I worked on. They were told in effect that the foundation was booked every night for years to come. This really bothers me when I think I might have unknowingly offended Ellen, for whom I have nothing but fondness. I know I said I had to leave to see the New York Giants play football on television. On second thought, that really is offensive. The lesson? Think at least three times about doing or saying something that can be taken different ways. Kind comedy is the toughest. Ask Don Rickles.

  More recently, a friend asked me if I would moderate a discussion about the European Union at the New York Public Library. I said I really didn’t know anything about the European Union. My friend said this was all scripted, and different actors would play the roles of intellectuals from different European countries using the intellectuals’ own words on the European Union.

  I got the script and found it fairly obtuse. I asked if I could meet the people at the library to gain a better understanding of the event. When I did, I asked them what percentage of their audience they felt would understand all of this. One man said about 8 percent. There was laughter and jokes all around, and I agreed to do it.

  On the night of the event one of the people from the library approached me and the other members of the company to say there would be a European supermodel (whatever that means) arriving at some point in the evening, and when she arrived we were to stop our presentation so she could say a few words.

  When I realized he wasn’t joking, I said incredulously, “You actually want us to stop our performance so a European supermodel can say a few words?” The man stared at me a moment, went away to consult with one of his colleagues, then came back and said that on second thought we shouldn’t stop our performance if the supermodel were to arrive in the middle of the presentation.

  Happily, she arrived before the performance and gave a little speech.

  I felt the show went extremely well. The actors representing the various European intellectuals were masters at their dialects, and the audience really seemed to enjoy the evening.

  Afterward I phoned the fella at the library to see how he felt about it. Generally, people call me after an event, but he didn’t, so I called. When the call wasn’t returned, I phoned again. From his assistant’s attitude it was clear there would be no return call, and there never was. Just one of the many situations where I unintentionally offended, even though I have no idea how.

  I’ll try to be more careful.

  Socializing

  In recent years I don’t much like to go out in the evenings, even locally, but sometimes I feel that I have to show up at friends’ dinner parties or they’ll think I’m mad at them or something. I can have a good time when I go out, but for me, as for a lot of people, the looser the better. I honestly think this attitude of “leave me alone” started unconsciously with my resentment at “single file, no talking” in grammar school.

  I particularly don’t like sit-down dinners or place cards or all those rules, which, of course, offends the people who do like them. Some hostesses at sit-downs want you to sit there for a pretty long stretch after all the courses. It seems to me men have a tougher time doing that than women. As I walk around, I sometimes peek into the dining room and see the men who are too afraid to get up sitting there in what to me looks like pain.

  The only kinds of dinner party rules I like are come when you want, or don’t. That’s okay, too. Walk around when you want, leave when you want. That’s my “do unto others.” Y’know the classic novel Great Expectations? I have no expectations. It’s more relaxing. I’m not saying I’m right about this, but I bet there are millions of people who feel as I do. The really tough sit-down place-card deal is when at some point the hostess or host asks everyone to respond to a question. A recent one was “How did you meet your spouse?” No big deal, right? It was for me. I can’t really tell you why. I just know that as the people around the table dutifully told their spouse meeting stories I was silent, then tense, then I started making jokes.

  Stuff like “I don’t for a minute believe that’s how you met him.”

  Graciously, I hope, I managed to leave the table before my turn came. I have a pretty good spouse meeting story, too, which I’m going to tell you. I just didn’t feel like sharing it with a group of people, some of whom I barely knew. I can write about it, but that feels different.

  Generally, I choose to share that only with close friends who probably already know how I met my spouse.

  I think what I just said is fairly defensible, but my behavior at one dinner party wasn’t.

  Even though I have a tendency, like most of us, to be on my side, in this one even I can see I was out of line. The host asked everyone their thoughts on the election. It wasn’t take your turn as we go around the table and it wasn’t obligatory, although a few times the host looked at me and said, “Chuck?”

  I asked the host if I could use his treadmill, then got up and left the room. I actually thought about using the treadmill but chose to just sit in the living room, where the hostess soon joined me. She didn’t want to discuss the election, either.

  I know this, though. As bad as I am with all of the above, if anyone ever starts a game of charades, the sound of tires screeching into the night means Charles has left the building.

  Regrets

  The book of mine that is most often referred to was my first. It Would Be So Nice If You Weren’t Here: My Journey Through Show Business was about what to do if they keep telling you to get lost. Well, if not “Get lost,” certainly almost never “Come here.”

  In hindsight I should have said I had a consistent number of what would be called minor successes along the way. In other words, to eventually succeed, more than one person has to notice you can be good, and it can’t be family members. In 1953, the head of the department of drama at the University of Miami, Lee Strasberg six years later, and, in between, a lot of people of so-called lesser stature took note of me.

  If about 5 percent or less of us entering show business make a living, think hard about whether you can be in that 5 percent. If you think so, then try. But don’t grow old trying! People who know more about this than I do estimate that 1 or 2 percent out of millions achieve significant success.

  That’s a message I wish I’d made clearer in my first book, because I’m afraid I might have encouraged people to stick with it who possibly would have been better served not doing that after a period of time. Again, you don’t want to grow old trying.

  If it hadn’t been for Mike Nichols, would Dustin Hoffman have had the career he’s had? If it hadn’t been for Mel Brooks, would Gene Wilder have had the career he’s had? If it hadn’t been for Elaine May, would I have had the career I’ve had? As I’ve already said, you can be really good at what you do and not make a living in show business.

  Have more than one field if you can. Being in show business really allows that because so few people work but so many are really good. It can be a heartbreaking profession.

  Another regret I have, I wish I had realized earlier that if a friend wants to borrow money, if you can afford to, give it rather than loan it. Unless the friend absolutely insists it has to be a loan, which only one friend of mine did, make it a gift.

  It is not that unusual for friendships to end because the person who has borrowed the money and can’t repay it disappears from your life out of embarrassment. This happened to me wi
th a woman friend who wanted to borrow some money to videotape her father in his later years. I lent it to her and never heard from her again.

  I was at a dinner party at a restaurant where the host and everyone went someplace afterward to hear one of the guests speak about the state of the world. I’m not really interested in going out to hear anyone speak on the state of the world, especially after being out for a couple of hours at dinner, and I know I offended the speaker by not joining the group to hear him. Most likely he wouldn’t have believed the truth, so I should have said on arriving that I had to leave after dinner. Maybe I could have said I was going to perform a tonsillectomy or have one performed on me—something.

  Many years ago I had two women friends. We were as close as anyone could be. Eleni Kiamos, the friend who did so much for me in the early part of my career, died of colon cancer in her fifties. I first saw Eleni excel as an actress on a live one-hour television show, while I was still at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Eleni believed in putting her faith in the Lord. She contracted colon cancer. When she told me her symptoms, I persuaded her to see a doctor, but it was too late.

  I met Luanna Anders a decade later. Luanna once came to visit me when I was making a movie in Mexico. We were in the swimming pool one night, and she said she was taking a writing class and had a new boyfriend. Since Luanna and I were never romantic, I asked what she was doing in Mexico with me. She said simply, “You asked me to come, Chuck.” Luanna put our long-term friendship ahead of her writing class and new boyfriend.

  She developed breast cancer, and just as Eleni had, she chose not to see a doctor but to put her faith in her religion. By the time she saw a doctor it was too late.

  There’s no solace for me in that story except to say that the man who was Luanna’s new boyfriend in 1978 remains one of my closest friends to this day. My wife and I are guardians to his and his wife’s children.

  I miss Eleni and Luanna so much that even though they’ve been gone for decades I remember their phone numbers without needing to look them up. As I’ve said, I deeply regret I wasn’t sufficiently aware of Herb Gardner’s smoking. It’s less odd that I knew nothing of my female friends’ health issues, but I so wish I had.

  Peter Falk

  One of my favorite people is Peter Falk, who as well as being unique is wise. Unfortunately, at this writing, he’s suffering from Alzheimer’s.

  When I turned fifty, I started to get in touch with my mortality in a really uncomfortable way. I asked Peter his feelings on the subject, and I’ll never forget his answer: “I figure if so many people have done it [died], I can do it.” It actually helped—a lot.

  I once asked him to star in a movie I wrote. He loved the writing but said, “Nothing happens in this movie.” It was made, but Peter was right. It really wasn’t what we expect from a movie.

  One day I took him to spend some time at Walter Matthau’s house. They had met but didn’t really know each other. As we left, I asked Peter what he thought of Walter. He said, “I never know what to say to Walter. I just don’t know what would interest him.”

  Peter’s greatest charm is his ability to be interested in just about anything, a trait in which I’m sorely lacking. At a New Year’s Eve dinner I sat a close friend next to him. Afterward, I asked her what she thought of him. She said, “He’s more interested in what I have to say than I am.”

  As big a treat as he was on Columbo, he was an even bigger treat in person.

  Henry

  Of course, it’s an inevitability of life that as we get older we lose loved ones. In my experience it’s most unusual that we would also gain new loved ones, but that’s what happened to me ten years ago when I met Henry Schleiff, who now runs the Hallmark Channel.

  It certainly wasn’t love at first sight. He was working for a television syndicator and wanted to meet me to discuss cohosting a morning talk show with the beloved Dana Reeve, Chris’s wife. We met in my agent Jimmy Griffin’s office. Henry sat on a sofa, Jimmy sat behind his desk, and one of my producers, Clay Dettmer, sat on a chair to my left.

  Henry first said the show would air at nine a.m., which was when my close friend Regis Philbin was on with Kathie Lee. Even though I knew it was out of the question, because I would never compete with a friend, not to mention lose to Regis, I didn’t interrupt, as Henry had clearly prepared for this meeting, which he proved by pulling an envelope from his jacket pocket and began to read to me scribbled notes he had written on it.

  Surprisingly, they weren’t notes about his ideas for the show, but criticism of me as host of my nighttime cable show. I could see Jimmy and Clay eyeing me warily, waiting to see if I’d get up and leave—or worse—but I was so taken with Henry’s nerve that I didn’t interrupt him.

  He said he felt my monologues sometimes ran on too long. I didn’t disagree, so I didn’t say anything. He wondered what I was looking at when I sometimes looked to my right of camera, where someone was standing with a note on a card reminding me of my next subject. That was something I soon abandoned, so even though I again didn’t disagree, I still didn’t say anything, because I was marveling that a stranger was giving me all these notes without being asked.

  I chose not to do the morning show, but it was an odd beginning to a relationship that was to become so important.

  I next ran into Henry at an event for our mutual friend Regis. He approached me with his wife, Peggy, who also became a dear friend. He knew that I was very close to a legendary broadcaster, and he wanted me to tell my friend that he was welcome to do anything, anytime, for Court TV, which Henry was then running. I told him my friend had retired and wasn’t interested in coming back to TV. Peggy then said to Henry, “Why don’t you invite Chuck to do whatever he wants on Court TV?” Henry paused for a moment and then said, “Sure.” That’s all.

  Sometime later I asked to meet with him. His head of daytime programming, Marlene Dann, who had been my wonderful producer at CNBC, was there with another woman. I told Henry about the interviews I conducted with women who were in prison under the Rockefeller Drug Laws. The time was getting close to a decision on clemency, so I said I felt it might be useful for me to interview the women’s children on Court TV and send those interviews to Albany to perhaps help the cause. When I finished talking, Henry leapt to his feet and basically repeated everything I had just said, except he did it pacing around with great excitement and waving his arms. I found it odd and strangely charming. When I left, I had a feeling this program was going to happen, but I heard nothing for a week or so. I called Marlene Dann to ask what was up. She said, “When you left, Henry turned to me and said, ‘He’s going to cost a lot of money.’”

  I called Henry and asked him if money was an issue. He said it was. I said, “How about I do it for nothing?” That was always my intention anyway. He quickly replied, “It’s a deal.” I interviewed two kids, sent the video to Albany, and it definitely helped in getting clemency for their mothers.

  I began to run into Henry at various events and realized that he was the single funniest person I’d ever met. That was a big deal for me. We began to chat on the phone, and he would consistentlysay things that I would write down and would ask his permission to use in a play I was writing.

  Here’s an example: it’s absolutely true, and no name is changed. A friend of ours had a colonoscopy. Henry went into the recovery room and told our groggy friend, “Everything’s fine. There’s one slight complication. Doctor Schmeerin can’t find his watch.”

  Once Henry called me after he had hernia surgery and said, “I’m not allowed to laugh. That’s why I called you.” Most of his jokes are on himself and his bad golf game. He told me recently that people call his club wanting to know when he’s playing so they can have a winning day.

  Along with his unending humor, he has also stepped over the line twice with me in recent years. I called him on it both times, and he more than made up for it in the following weeks. In my experience, that’s not necessarily the norm.

  He
had Ethel Kennedy call me to host an event at her house. She said, “I hear you’re not only highly respected, but beloved.” I said, “Can I ask you a question?” She said, “Sure.” I asked, “Who is this really?”

  For me, and I’m sure for most everyone to have someone in your life who is not only a tremendous human being, a wonderful father, and also consistently hilarious is like a dream.

  Oh, yeah. Henry read an earlier draft of this book and told my editor, “This can’t be the final draft, because I’m not in it.”

  Now, he deservedly is.

  Jack Paar and Regis Philbin

  I remember first appearing on Regis’s show in Los Angeles in the seventies. The movie Heaven Can Wait had come out. Regis said there was talk of my getting an Academy Award nomination and asked if I was going to do anything to promote that idea. I said, “Other than the blimp, no.”

  The movie received eleven nominations. I wasn’t nominated. Maybe the blimp wasn’t a bad idea. I’ve never really been able to get behind the whole award thing, although I’ve never turned one down. I mean, you could have an elderly man competing against a teenager for Best Actor. Maybe if everyone played the same part I could buy it, but, of course, there are drawbacks to that concept.

  Through the years I continued to appear with Regis and a number of different cohosts. Kathie Lee and I had and have a warm relationship, as I do with Kelly. Somewhere along the way, I became friends with Regis and Joy, who by the way is a joy. The degree of interest she has in what I say is deep and sincere, and in that way she reminds me of Peter Falk. She is Regis’s protector in every way you can imagine. “Don’t have that dessert,” and just love—lots of love.