By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There: A Memoir

by Tom Sizemore

  Still, sometimes I feel like I’ll never escape my past. In September of 2011, when a friend who was staying with me was arrested for erratic driving, the cops came to my place to get him and arrested me as well—claiming that I hadn’t finished my community service even though I’d finished it in April and had actually done extra hours. It was all because of some clerical mistake, which I told the police, but they just didn’t care. Because I had just started shooting Hawaii Five-0 and I knew this wasn’t the kind of thing I needed at all, I pleaded with them, saying, “All you have to do is press a button and you can see the truth—I know it’s something you can do. And if you arrest me again, I might get fired from my job.” They didn’t care and I didn’t expect them to. Yet it was my first time getting arrested sober and let me tell you, the experience was very different; my fear level was markedly lower because I had nothing to hide. But then, of course, the press got ahold of the information and the headlines read TOM SIZEMORE ARRESTED AT DRUG HOUSE. The truth is that I was arrested at home, I was only in custody for about two hours, and when they found out that I was telling the truth, they couldn’t have gotten me out of that jail fast enough.

  Then, about two months later, a girl I’d been seeing, Megan Wren, was reported missing. She lived in my building and even though I consider myself pretty savvy about these things, I didn’t know she was a heroin addict, because she was very smooth and clever about hiding it. Once I realized she had a drug problem, I tried to get Bob Forrest to come talk to her and also tried to help get her into different rehabs. She didn’t go or clean up and her father had filed a missing persons report when he hadn’t heard from her, after which somebody told him she’d been spending time with me. TMZ found out and published a story that said my girlfriend was missing and I was wanted for questioning. I hadn’t heard from her for a couple days, but I got ahold of her. She had no idea what was going on but as soon as she heard that she’d been reported missing, she walked right into a police station and the whole thing was cleared up. Still, the headline remained. A good thing came out of it, though, in that the scandal totally woke Megan up and she went to rehab.

  All I can do is remain positive and healthy and consistent. My son Jagger will say to me, “Dad, are you going to stay this time? Are you going anywhere?” I feel sad that I’ve made them nervous and created this anxiety, but it makes sense. It’s a result of all those times I’d say, “I’ll be right back, I’m going to the store,” for instance, and not come back because I’d gotten high. More than anything, I don’t want to hurt these kids. They’re entirely innocent and didn’t ask for any of this bullshit.

  Most of my time these days, honestly, is spent working, and when I’m not working, I’m trying to relax. My life isn’t really all that exciting. I take a bath every night. When I was growing up, we only had a bathtub, until we were able to jerry-rig a showerhead to it and make it into a shower, so I’ve somewhat always equated baths with being poor. But when I was married to Maeve, she took a lot of baths, and I would see her in there, luxuriating with all of her salts and bubbles, and think how nice it looked. Now I do that myself.

  But the focus, really, is on work. Even though I know it’s not possible, I want to make up for lost time. So I played a government operative in a Bernie Madoff movie, Madoff: Made Off with America, which was ironic in that I think I was just about the only actor he didn’t steal from—I didn’t have any money to steal when he was in his prime, and besides, I was a bit caught up in my own pyramid scheme with myself.

  I did a movie called An Evening with Donald Klemsky, where I played a blind man, and another called El Bosc, in Barcelona with Oscar Aibar, who’s a very big deal in Spain. He’s Pedro Almodóvar’s protégé, and his movies are a sort of amalgamation of comedy and sci-fi. I also shot a movie called Company of Heroes in Bulgaria with the football player Vinnie Jones. It was based on a computer strategy game and follows a group of soldiers during World War II. I made an independent movie called Five Hour Friends, where I played a golfing ad executive who’s fairly committed to ephemeral relationships, until he meets an outspoken attorney. And I shot a horror movie called Slumber Party Slaughter, which was made by the grandniece of silent movie actor Lon Chaney. I play an actor with a substance abuse problem, and while I’m not exactly sympathetic, you can see that I’m a good guy. This was definitely a case of life imitating art. The writer-director, Rebekah Chaney, actually wrote the part for me while watching me on Celebrity Rehab.

  The work is coming and it’s coming fast—just like it did in the beginning of my career. They may not all be my dream movies but I get that I’m rebuilding what I lost and that it doesn’t all materialize perfectly and in an instant. That’s probably for the best. A slow build means that if I do eventually get everything back, I’ll be able to understand and appreciate how much it’s worth.

  SOMETIMES, OF COURSE, I miss the drugs. I miss feeling immune to the suffering of growing older. But at the same time, that’s life, man: you’re born alone, you die alone. When you’re going to go, you want to look back and say, “I did something: I traveled, I met people, I was a citizen of the world, I showed kindness, I found a vocation, I became a certain person,” and you’re not going to be able to do that if you’re on drugs. Even if you had all that before you started doing drugs, like I did, you won’t be able to keep it. You’ve got to stop. Robert Downey Jr. stopped. River Phoenix, Brad Renfro—those guys didn’t stop and they’re not here anymore. When River died, out there on Sunset and Larrabee, asking for his brother—well, it just broke my heart. It broke all of our hearts. Before that, I felt invulnerable. I was becoming a star. But I was forever changed when River died. We all were. But of course, it didn’t stop us from continuing the downward trajectory.

  Now that I’ve been sober a little while, I can see my life coming full circle. I recently finished playing a wiseguy in the sequel to Raging Bull, and the script was written by a guy I’ve known for fifteen years, Rustam Branaman. We’d met back when I did Devil in a Blue Dress and had seen each other over the years, because he was friends with Downey and a few other people I also knew.

  Once, when I was deeply into the meth but still had my Benedict Canyon house, Rustam and I started talking about De Niro and I doing a movie that Rustam would write and direct. I was pretty far gone at that point and one night, when I was really high, I videotaped myself working out on a Precor machine and talking to Rustam—basically giving him ideas for the meeting. Because I was high and somewhat confused, my notes and ideas were sort of about the movie and sort of about me, and then I went off for an hour or so about how he should actually make the movie the story of my life. I called Rustam and asked him to come over, telling him I had something for him to watch. I think I made it sound like it was a ten-minute tape or something. So Rustam came by and I put the video in. He watched it for about twenty minutes and saw I was clearly gakked out of my mind. “All right, I think I get what you’re going for,” he said as he started to get up to go. But I wouldn’t let him leave. In my delusional state, I thought he had to see the entire three-hour tape so that he could see how brilliant my ideas were. He kept saying, “Tom, I’ve got to go,” but I would jump up and say, “No, it’ll be over any minute now—just watch this one part!” Then, if at any point I thought he wasn’t paying perfect attention, I’d stop the tape and quiz him on what he’d just watched. He was such a good sport about it; he’d been sober a long time and he just listened to me run my mouth and watched the tape until I got tired. Then he said, “I think maybe you should get some sleep,” and left. The next day, Jessie, who was living with me at the time, said, “I’m not sure it was such a good idea to show him that whole tape.” I thought she was crazy and told her so.

  A few years later, in the summer of 2004, I was driving with Jessie down Santa Monica Boulevard toward Bundy Drive and I suddenly couldn’t find my meth pipe. I was on my way to get drug-tested because I was on probation, but I was so addicted at that point that I needed to get hig
h and then figure out a way to pass the test. I went into this full-blown panic just as we were reaching Bundy, and then I remembered that there was some sort of a head shop around there, which would solve my two problems in one fell swoop: I could get a pipe and also buy synthetic urine so I could pass the test. So I stopped the car and started running around looking for this head shop. Finally I saw it and I went running in there, telling them that I needed a pipe and synthetic urine. They handed me the pipe and I asked to use their bathroom so I could go smoke some meth; the guy who worked there just gave me this look that said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I was standing there holding the pipe, sweating profusely because it was the height of summer, about to go smoke meth, when who should walk in but a fresh-faced-looking Rustam. He happened to have an office above the head shop because the rent was cheap.

  Then, a couple years after that, I called up Downey and lied and told him that I was sober because I knew it was the only way he would see me. It was when I was really circling the bottom of the drain—when I didn’t have anywhere to live, a car, or a penny to my name. Robert and I hung out for a few minutes before he saw that I was high, and I guess he realized that he was too new at being sober to be around me in that state. So he called up Rustam and said, “Can I hand Tom off to you? Maybe you can say something that will motivate him to get sober.” So Rustam came and met us at Mulberry Street Pizza in Beverly Hills. I was too high to eat, but I knew I could get some money off Rustam, so I asked him if I could borrow twenty bucks. He gave it to me and I thanked him by excusing myself to go to the bathroom and then climbing out the bathroom window. I was paranoid from how much speed I was doing and got it in my head that maybe Rustam was some super-sober guy who would chase me down, so I started running. I ended up at a nearby gas station because I knew a guy who sold meth there; once I bought the drugs, I called up the sober-living house where I was living and essentially forced the guy who answered the phone there to come pick me up and take me to a dope house.

  But it’s funny how life works. I got cast in the Raging Bull sequel and when I saw the script, there was Rustam’s name on it. I hadn’t seen Rustam in eight years—since I took the twenty bucks from him and snuck out the pizza parlor bathroom window. When I got to the set for the first time, I went around asking everyone where he was. An assistant went and got him. When Rustam saw me he just looked me in the eyes, saw that they were clear, and said, “So, it’s really true—you really are sober.” Here was a guy who had all but begged me to get sober in the past, and he was looking at me and seeing that, against all odds, I had actually changed.

  Jake LaMotta was on the set that day too. It was his ninetieth birthday and the crew had arranged to have a girl jump out of a cake as a surprise for him. Now, I had become pretty fascinated with La-Motta because I’d been so fascinated with De Niro after seeing Raging Bull, and because I’m always going to admire a tough guy. LaMotta’s still tough, even at ninety. And maybe it’s because inside I’ll always be a poor kid from Detroit who may act hard at times but inside is scared of the dark, but LaMotta inspires the hell out of me. Through a combination of genes, coincidence, ambition, and a hell of a lot of luck, I have finally—like LaMotta—come to see what being tough actually means. So I can’t tell you what it meant to me when Jake went out of his way to find me on the set so he could say, “You look great, Tom. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

  I told him what I’m going to tell you: that’s the plan.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’D LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE the following people: Anna David, Aaron Sizemore, David Vigliano, Charles Lago, Maeve Quinlan, Beth Holden, Bob Forrest, the staff at 1010 Wilshire Boulevard, Antoine Fuqua, Judy Sizemore, Heather Kaden, and Sarah Durand.

  —Tom Sizemore

  Thanks, first and foremost, are due to Tom Sizemore for trusting me with the task of sharing his life with the world. Thanks as well to Sarah Durand, who taught me how truly supportive an editor can be, and David Vigliano. I am deeply indebted to Aaron Sizemore, Damian Sullivan, William Smith, Heather Kadin, and Beth Holden for helping me to round out the story. Thanks as well to Hugh Gaspar, Thomas Edward Sizemore, Sr., Scott Silver, Peter Bogdanovich, Bob Forrest, Chris Steffen, Jessie Tuite, Jesse Baget, Rustam Branaman, and Peter Lenkov.

  —Anna David

  My mom was and still is beautiful. She and my dad met when she was 13 and he was 14. (Copyright Judith K. Sizemore)

  My dad with Aaron and me. My dad’s high school picture literally said “Boy Genius” below it, and he expected the same from his boys. (Copyright Judith K. Sizemore)

  With my younger brother Aaron when I was six. We shared a bedroom and when noises would frighten me late at night, he’d try to stay awake until I fell asleep. (Copyright Judith K. Sizemore)

  With my grandparents, Blevins and Vina Sizemore. Blevins worked at a machinist shop, but they were still dirt poor. (Copyright Judith K. Sizemore)

  Me as a baby. I was supposedly saying complete sentences by the time I was two and reading by the age of four. (Copyright Judith K. Sizemore and Thomas E. Sizemore, Sr.)

  Me and Aaron with our mom, who’s holding Paul. This is our last Christmas before my mother, Aaron, Paul and I moved back to Detroit. I was 16 and in 11th grade. (Copyright Thomas E. Sizemore, Sr.)

  Kissing my mom’s mom, Grandmother Mildred Schannault, at my wedding. When my mom was growing up, Grandma and my Grandpa Schannault made their house into an after-hours joint to earn extra money. (Copyright Judith K. Sizemore)

  With Bruce Willis, my costar in Striking Distance. This was also the movie where I met Robert Pastorelli, who ended up taking me to my first AA meeting. (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  With Robert De Niro, my dad and Maeve on the set of Heat. My dad asked De Niro to take care of me and De Niro laughed and said he would try. (Copyright Aaron Sizemore)

  With Michael Rappaport (third from left), Edie Falco (fourth from left), my then-girlfriend Vanessa Lasky (last on right) and some friends. Michael and I met on True Romance. It was only a week of work but starred some of the greats: everyone from Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper to Samuel Jackson, Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman and Chris Penn (Sean’s brother). The late Tony Scott directed the film. (Copyright Thomas E. Sizemore, Jr.)

  Me and my dad with Gary Oldman and his kids. (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  Me with actor Michael Wincott (on the right) and another friend. We worked together early in my career, on Born on the Fourth of July and Strange Days. (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  On Devil in a Blue Dress. That was a terrific movie I made in between Natural Born Killers and Strange Days. (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  Me playing Scrooge in a Wayne State University production of A Christmas Carol. My little brother Paul played Tiny Tim. Wayne State was where I first started to get positive feedback about my acting. (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  On the set of Flight of the Intruder with my costar Brad Johnson, the late Mace Neufeld, the legendary producer, and my former manager Suzan Bymel. (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  On the set of Hustle, the Pete Rose movie, which was directed by the great Peter Bogdanovich. Peter told me he didn’t worry about people’s reputations because John Ford’s wife had told him, “If you want to stay in the movie business, never believe everything you hear and only believe half of what you see.” (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  On the set of Red Planet with Simon Baker, during an all-too-rare moment when everything wasn’t going awry. (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  On the set of Robbery Homicide Division. I was working with my Heat director, Michael Mann, and doing some of the best work of my career, but my life was on the verge of falling apart. (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  On the set of Black Hawk Down with William Fichtner. I stayed sober on the set by playing a lot of chess with Ewan McGregor; I think he beat me 664 games in a row. (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  On the set of Flight of the Intruder. Willem Dafoe, whom I’d met on Born on the Fourth of July, was in
it, as was Rosanna Arquette—someone Edie Falco and I thought of as the epitome of a famous actress when we were struggling. (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  My twin sons, Jayden and Jagger. If they misbehave, I give them a “time out” but I try to tell them, “I don’t approve, but I love you.” (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  On the set of Strange Days. It was my second time working with Juliette Lewis while we were involved. We worked for 17 weeks of all night shoots. (Copyright Tom Sizemore)

  Me photographed by Sean Penn at the famous hotel, Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood. Sean used to take photos of his celeb friends at the Chateau and was the guy I always called whenever I got into a jam with a woman because he’s really good with women. (Copyright Sean Penn)

  On the set of Saving Private Ryan with my dad and stepmom. My dad didn’t come to a lot of my movie sets but he flew to Wexford, Ireland for this one. Maeve and I were patching things up again and she spent a lot of time on the set as well. (Copyright Tom Sizemore)