The Masked Man: A Memoir And Fantasy Of Hollywood

by Tom Wilson

  "Any plans for a fourth movie?"

  "What's the deal with the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" people?"

  It's true, "Buffy" had nothing to do with any of the "Back To The Future" movies, so I was surprised that so many people would ask me about them. After asking around, I found out that their tables were right around the corner from the Cafe Eighties, the line of goth vampirettes was miles long, and they really were charging fifty bucks, so I was experiencing Vampire blowback as fans turned the corner.

  "It cost fifty bucks for their picture!" a guy in a down vest waving a light saber complained. "They won't look at you, but then they all sign "Peace" on the picture! What's that about?"

  "I have no idea, sir. If you'd like me to sign a Back To The Future photo as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I'd be happy to do it."

  He stared off into the distance."Uh, no, that's okay. Hey, was that real manure? Hey, Pauly! Where's Rocky? Ha!"

  A man came up behind him and began speaking in a high pitched voice. A man in his thirties, not a boy, wearing a very large puppet of a bat that swallowed his entire right arm. A bat with a three foot wingspan, ugly and threatening, but speaking with a high, squeaky voice that he must have used in the strange videotaped audition he sent to try to replace Frank Oz as the voice of Miss Piggy.

  "So nice to meet you, Mister Biff!" the bat said, not the guy.

  I looked over at the puppeteer. "It's Tom," I told him.

  "Over here!" the bat said, "I'm over here! Don't talk to him! Talk to me!"

  "Okay, bat puppet," I said, "It's Tom! Got it, puppet?"

  "Oh, I am a bat! I have the wingspan of a vampire bat, with the articulation of a fruit bat! Amazing, huh?! Call it creative license!"

  I had no idea what to say to the bat as it flew away, and the two men standing behind it came to the table in the middle of a heated exchange about obscure plot points.

  "Okay, here's what you're forgetting, Scott," the short one said, adjusting vintage Star Trek memorabilia in the pockets of his safari vest, "One little piece of vital information. Hi."

  "Hello," I said.

  "Wookies live in the tops of trees, and EWOKS LIVE ON THE GROUND, and the one thing you seem to be forgetting…DIFFERENT PLANETS!"

  "So what?" Scott said, walking to the edge of my table.

  "So what? DIFFERENT PLANETS, IDIOT!"

  "I love you in StarGate SGI," Scott said to me.

  "I'm pretty sure I'm not in that," I said.

  "He's not in StarGate, Mister Ignorant," the short guy said, rolling his eyes and looking at Bernie Koppel for support.

  Scott blocked the view of the people behind him who knew who I was, adjusting movie posters and vintage Hot Wheels cars in his shopping bags. "Okay," he said, "Well, who are you?"

  "I'm Tom Wilson, you might know me from--"

  "Hey, Lou Ferrigno!" Scott said, and the short guy looked at Bernie Koppel for another moment to give them enough cover to walk away from me quickly.

  "Ho - kay," I said, "I get it now, it's Saturday," standing up to stretch and look hopefully toward the exit door, as the Buffy the Vampire Slayer line actually wound in front of several tables, blocking some tables completely.

  "You ah blocking my table!" Lou Ferrigno said to the disinterested vampires, "Nobody can see me!!"

  "Hey, guys! Vampires! Whoever you are! Could we have the line move around this way," I said, "so that people can see our tables?!"

  The response was something you might see in one of the very zombie movies these kids love so much. I was given the blank stares of the undead.

  The afternoon dragged on, with Lou trying to move into a better position, and people calling me a butthead and taking a photo with me, while apologizing for being broke thanks to the Buffy cast. When five o'clock came, the low level celebrities who didn't sell much of anything began to sadly stack unsigned, unsold photos of themselves, speaking in hushed tones to each other about airline weight restrictions and shipping options from the hotel. I'd done a bit better than the "Deep Space Nine" people, but sure didn't need the canvas bank deposit bag with the lock on it I'd brought to town, ready to stuff with cash over the weekend and have security guards escort me to a safe deposit box at the front desk. I didn't need the lock, the bag, or the guards, since it looked like I made about as much as Mrs. Kravitz from "Bewitched." And as I stood up to stack my remaining glossies and go, a sincere fan walked up to shake my hand.

  "Let me tell you something, Mr. Wilson," he gushed, "You are one of my favorite actors. So underappreciated, yet so solid in everything you've done! I admire you so much."

  "Thank you, that's very nice of you to say," I said, deciding not to chuck my pile of photos in the trash can behind me.

  "And the fact is, you are soooo nice to every single person who approaches you, unlike some people!" he called over his shoulder toward "Seventies-Land."

  "It's very nice to meet you, can I sign something for you?" I asked.

  He hesitated, looking sheepish.

  "Hey," I said, exhausted and magnanimous, pulling out a freebie, "This one's on me!"

  "Here's the thing," he said, "I've spent sooo much money today and I am suuuuuch a big fan of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," and it's like, fifty bucks for their picture, and they're almost leaving, soooo…Can I borrow seventeen dollars?"

  Then an actor I recognized from black and white television shows walked by me, carrying a heavy box.

  "See you next weekend in Omaha?" he asked.

  "No, I'm not going to Omaha," I said.

  The kid still pleaded with outstretched hands. "You can't just help me out with seventeen dollars? Come on, man, how much did you make today?"

  "What do you mean, how much did I make?"

  "We fans have done a lot for you," he said, pushing his face closer to mine, shining with a day's worth of oil, "Least you could do is help somebody out. I said BORROW! I would pay you back!"

  "I made seventeen-fifty today, and I need some train fare, so, sorry about that." I said, zipping stacks of glossy smiles back into my bag, hurling it over my shoulder and walking away.

  "You're serious! You're not gonna give it to me?"

  "Nope," I said, "I gotta go."

  Before I go on with this story, I want to stress that I did not push the guy at all. What happened was, another man who hadn't been able to find me, finally came around the corner, wearing a Marty McFly down vest, and a baseball cap of swirling colors.

  "BIFF! FINALLY!!" he said.

  "Who is he?" the beggar asked the kid.

  "I'm Dennis the Menace," I said, starting to walk away.

  "No, seriously," he said.

  "Seriously. I'm Dennis the Menace."

  The fake McFly pulled out a DeLorean model and a camera.

  "Can I take a picture with you?"

  "Would you like to buy one, or--"

  "Oh, I can't buy one," he said, "Does it cost money just to take a picture with you?"

  I tried to sigh only lightly as I dropped my bag on the ground.

  "Sure, come on," I said.

  "Would you take our picture?" McFly asked the beggar-fan.

  "You want me to take it? Sure."

  I beckoned McFly over to me, and put my arm around him, smiling as he handed his camera to the Buffy fan, still looking at me.

  "You're Biff," he said.

  "Duh!" McFly said, "The one and only Biff Tanner!"

  "Tannen," I said.

  "I thought you were the guy from Police Academy," Buffy said.

  "Go ahead and take it. Here we go!" I said.

  He held the camera at his side and looked at the fake Marty. "Would it be possible to borrow seventeen dollars to get a Buffy autograph?"

  "Hey, man, come on," I said, "Take the picture."

  "You need to borrow money?" McFly said.

  "Just seventeen bucks for an autograph. I have most of it."

  "Sir, let's just take the picture, okay? You guys can talk about it later."

  "Why? Because you h
ave somewhere to go, jerk? You haven't been in a movie for, like, a century. It's just seventeen bucks."

  "Can you take the picture?" McFly said, "Please?"

  "Why do you want to take a picture with him? What's he done in the past century, unlike Buffy!"

  Again, I did not push him. I reached out to grab the camera so we could ask somebody else to take the photo, and my arm got caught in the armhole of Marty McFly's down vest, which sent it in a flatter trajectory, hitting the Buffy fan in the forearm as I grasped for the camera. He turned away from me, yelling "I'll do it I said!" but when he turned away, I lost footing on the linoleum and pulled on his arm enough to send him to the ground, where he smacked his elbow a little, and immediately got as loud as any idiot would, looking for an easy out of court settlement.

  "He pushed me! Biff pushed me!!"

  I snatched up the duffel bag and headed for the exit, jogging lightly and smiling at everyone who watched me pass, in case I needed character witnesses.

  "Biff!" McFly called out after me, waving his model DeLorean, "The picture!" "You saw it! That has-been pushed me!"

  The hotel doors slammed behind me, and in the whoosh of air I could hear the voice of Jay North calling "Thoraziiiiiiine!" I walked outside and away from the hotel, still stuffing photos and pulling zippers closed while moving fast. The wind whipped from the river behind me through the rows of brick colonial houses toward the train station a mile away, where I was catching the train to Philadelphia, my hometown and the location of my next real gig, a standup comedy show the next night. I hitched my bag over my shoulder again, heavy and carving a groove into my chest, picking up speed and passing dim bars and darkened acoustic coffee houses, hopping over cobblestone puddles and fluttering pages of newspaper.

  It took the entire train ride, and a three block walk from the station before I realized I was being followed.

  TWO

  Philadelphia's Thirtieth Street Station is a magnificent edifice of stone and steel, built back when cities thought that people might like to look at things, and I carried my bags across the worn marble and under the winged Angel of Resurrection statue toward my new hotel, still shaking off the memory of Star Wars, Star Trek, Star Gate, anything with the word "star" in it, and especially Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I slowed my stride when, a block and a half ahead of me, standing under the orange wash of a neon parking sign there was a person standing so still that he looked like a cardboard cutout outside a video store, staring ahead and swaying slightly in the breeze. It was very late, on a very deserted street, and I kept approaching him, still considering the possibility that he was a mannequin, since his silhouette showed that he was wearing a cowboy hat, as well as a gunbelt. I considered crossing the street toward him and walking to my hotel with the life-sized video poster of a cowboy under my arm. Though I had no idea what I'd do with it, still, I mean, free poster.

  I crossed the street to the side the silhouette was on, and froze at the double yellow lines on Chestnut Street, as the outline turned, took his gloved hands from his sides and hitched his thumbs into the front of the very real black leather gunbelt, silver beams of full moon glinting off the steel of two pistols. It was a person, a real person late at night, with guns. I turned quickly and hopped back to the opposite sidewalk, moving forward and trying to get some distance between us. It was too far to walk the other way and go around the block, but after the day I'd had in New Jersey, there was no way I was going to pass a few feet in front of another deranged downtown trick or treater. I didn't have spare change to hand over, didn't want to catch his eye and nod a wordless, late night hello. I wanted to skip this block and get to the next one, past this guy and thirty seconds closer to a tightly made hotel room bed, with my feet sliced under the slippery comforter.

  There's a powerful stride that a guy my size can take sometimes on a dark street, the walk of the big man in no mood to chat. I inhaled a breath, increasing my chest size by six or eight inches, slightly spread my arms to widen the mass of shoulders, and took on bigger chunks of earth, planting big slabs of leg one in front of the other with no plans on stopping for anything or anybody. Basically, this chesty posture, along with the macho gait says "Get out of my way. I am big, you can't stop me, and you really shouldn't try. Step in front of me and you might just get injured by accident, when I plow you into the pavement "by accident."

  I stomped by the cowboy standing across the street, taking a cautious glance at him when we got close, only to see him turn and begin walking along with me, keeping pace from across the street. Here we go again. Yet another Buckaroo insomniac stalker to make my life interesting.

  I meet my share of unusual people who come to see me perform. Most are dressed like Marty McFly in Back To The Future with a denim jacket, down vest, a Walkman with headphones around their neck and mirror sunglasses, just like the guy at the convention. It happens. But a sharp, cream colored cowboy hat, steel blue shirt, black holster and cowboy boots? I stepped over rolling pages of windswept newspaper, walking in even longer strides, as he began jogging to keep up with me on the other side.

  Only twice before in my life have people dressed up like a cowboy to meet me, both on a press junket for Back To The Future III. I played the murderous gunslinger Mad Dog Tannen, and a gleeful reporter in Tokyo, Japan burst into my room at the Imperial hotel for an interview, dressed in a K-Mart cowboy outfit – brown velour vest, five point tin sheriff's badge, and truck stop cowboy hat, beaming a wide smile and repeating over and over "KRINT EAST-Ah-WOOD!!"

  "Nice to meet you!" I said.

  "KRINT! EAST-AH-WOOD!" he repeated, nodding like an electric toy.

  "Oh! Clint Eastwood! Yes!" I said, clueless as to why the guy wanted me to see him dressed as Clint Eastwood. Later in the same trip I went to Paris, and another reporter moseyed into the Plaza Athenee hotel in natty French cowboy attire, the felt hat tipped over an eyebrow just-so, and didn't ask one question about cowboys, the west, or even the film I'd flown over there to promote. He only mumbled a barrage of questions about French films, none of which I had ever seen, or ever plan to. After a long list of fabulous French directors that I'd never heard of, cowboy Jaques heaved a patronizing sigh toward the big, ignorant American actor and asked my opinion of the director Colline Serreau, who made the original French version of the cinema classic "Three Men and a Baby," with Tom Selleck, and those guys from "Police Academy" and "Cheers." Tired of being sneered at as an ugly, uncultured American, I leaned back into the hotel sofa, crossing one leg over the other, and rumbled a thoughtful baritone "Oh, now he is good. I enjoy his work," which got me an ice pick stare from under the front brim of the Cowboy hat.

  "Zat ees a woman," he hissed.

  "Oh."

  From the peeks I took across the street at this guy, the outfit looked brand new. Polished, pressed, the street lights cutting shadows across creases that were sharper than a Wayne Newton leisure suit. The light blue shirt with rawhide laces criss-crossing at the collar, and that hat. It wasn't ivory, or cream, or a light beige. It was white. Clean, perfect white. He was keeping pace with me, and if I hadn't been carrying a duffelbag full of unsold photos of myself and a bunch of bottles of water I'd pilfered from the celebrity lounge at the convention, I would have started running, checked to see if he was running after me, and if he was, a quick gear shift to arm pumping, wild legged, fleeing animal.

  I couldn't run, but kept up the "I was a nightclub bouncer not too long ago" stride and kept pounding down Chestnut Street, until an intersection came up and I took a right, walking away past hoagie shops and revolutionary war musket ball souvenir places that pop up all over the streets of Philadelphia, cradle of liberty, city of brotherly love, and home of this cowboy psycho who made the same right turn after me and began closing the gap between us.

  I was close to the "Roundhouse," the headquarters of the Philadelphia Police department, with its Freudian architecture – two large cylinders joined by a connecting corridor – an office building shaped like a pair
of giant handcuffs. In the middle of thinking "Where are the police, and how fast can I get through the door?" he walked up behind me, and I turned to face him, ready to either sign a quick autograph, or swing the duffelbag right at his head and run.

  Boots. Guns. Gloves. I scanned the perfect outfit from the ground up until I stared into blue eyes staring out of the holes of a mask. He was wearing a black mask. I am not kidding even a little bit. Mask.

  That close to me, I saw him under the yellow street lights and dropped the bag to the ground, stunned. It wasn't a cowboy psycho, or a well meaning fan, or a Japanese reporter, or an angry friend of that Buffy guy I'd ticked off at the convention.

  It was The Lone Ranger.

  No, not a guy dressed up like the Lone Ranger. It was The Lone Ranger. THE Lone Ranger.

  I was stunned silent, standing before him, as steam hissed out of a construction pipe a half block behind his shoulder. He could have taken my wallet right then, because I couldn't move or speak. He didn't say anything either, he just stood there, giving the slight smile of a weathered champion of the American way. A smile that told me that he meant me no harm, but he didn't intend for any harm to come to him either, in case I was thinking about swinging the bag.

  "Hello, friend," he said, in the rough tenor that I immediately recognized from the T.V. show as the voice of the Lone Ranger. This was the Lone Ranger, the real Lone Ranger who was following me. I stared in shock for a few dizzy seconds, until it occurred to me that the Lone Ranger is a fictional character and not an historical figure from American history, especially a live one. Though actors portraying Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson often roam the streets of Philadelphia, answering questions for wandering tourists, I'd never heard of a colonial historical site that featured the Lone Ranger. I had to remind myself that T.V. is fake, in the same way I've had to remind thousands of people that I'm not really a stupid bully and I've never treated Michael J. Fox with anything but hearty friendship and professionalism. It's all pretend, I've pleaded so many times. Cars don't fly, time travel doesn't exist, and when a five foot, two inch guy punches me in the face, I don't get knocked unconscious. It would be impossible for the Lone Ranger to be standing in front of me in a deserted intersection at two in the morning in Philadelphia.