My Happy Days in Hollywood

by Garry Marshall

  When I finished The Flamingo Kid, I hoped for bigger box office receipts than Young Doctors just so I could say that I had improved from my first picture to my second. I don’t need a lot of praise, but I do always like to do better. But what I didn’t expect was that there would actually be good reviews. They would prove to be some of the best reviews of my career. Critics were putting my picture in the same category as Diner and Risky Business. Audiences and critics were suddenly taking me seriously as a director and not telling me to go right back to television. Overall, reviewers thought Matt Dillon was great, Richard Crenna brilliant, and the story a strong, solid comedy.

  A reviewer for the Herald Tribune said that the film was a “delightful surprise” and that Matt “looked like he enjoyed acting” again. Roger Ebert said it was one of the top ten summer movies and had a “surprising emotional impact.” David Ansen, covering the film for Newsweek, wrote about my directing, “This big change of pace suddenly reveals a filmmaker to watch closely.” USA Today called it the best movie about young people since American Graffiti. I was very excited when The Hollywood Reporter said that my movie was a winning version of Goodbye, Columbus because I loved that film. The bottom line was that Young Doctors showed I was funny and The Flamingo Kid showed I was a filmmaker to watch. All I had to figure out was what my third script would be. I felt like I had just been given a golden ticket that said: “Proceed with caution, you may now direct again.”

  12. NOTHING IN COMMON

  Working with the Great Ones—Hanks and Gleason

  IHAD A COMPLICATED relationship with my father. He taught me many things, including how to be in charge and a leader, but we did not have the same close relationship I saw other sons have with their dads growing up in the Bronx. He sometimes treated my sisters and me like business colleagues, as if we shared the cubicle next to him. There wasn’t much I could do to repair the distance between me and my dad, even after he moved to Hollywood and worked with me at Paramount. I did, however, make a pledge to myself that if I ever had a son of my own I would hug him a lot, and tell him how much I loved him and was proud of him. I was able to do that when my son, Scott, was born.

  I was thinking a lot about fathers and sons as I set out to direct my third movie, Nothing in Common, written by Rick Podell and Michael Preminger. The story of an adult son forming a relationship late in life with his dad was set to shoot in Chicago. That’s when it became clear to me that a lot of the movie business is out of town. The problem with that is that I am a homebody. I love my San Fernando Valley house and my office, which are a five-minute drive apart. But the good news about Nothing in Common was that at the time my daughter Lori was going to Northwestern University, my alma mater, just outside of Chicago. So at least I would have family close by.

  I had worked with producers Jerry Bruckheimer on Young Doctors in Love and Michael Phillips on The Flamingo Kid, and both ran in mainstream Hollywood studio circles. But Nothing in Common came to me from another direction. Alexandra Rose showed up at my office one day with the script. She said she was a big fan of The Flamingo Kid and had been one of the producers on both Norma Rae and I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Alex was bright, ambitious, and kind. She was a Phi Beta Kappa from Wisconsin who had the looks and brains to work with anyone. I’m glad she picked me. The moment I met Alex we got along, and I liked that she was a healthy person and took care of herself through yoga and a macrobiotic diet. After years of smoking and bad eating, I was trying to take care of myself, too, and she was a good example.

  Tom Hanks was attached to the script for Nothing in Common from the beginning. It is the story of a hotshot advertising executive who must balance his demanding job with the unraveling of his parents’ marriage and health. The movie centers on the relationship between the son and his father, a Willy Loman–style character whose professional and personal lives are falling apart. I knew Tom casually from passing him on the Paramount lot, where he filmed his series Bosom Buddies near our Happy Days soundstage. He had also done one episode of Happy Days, playing a bully who Fonzie beat up, and even played on the Happy Days traveling softball team a few times. I always thought Tom was a funny and talented comedian, but when we started Nothing in Common he was anything but funny. He was miserable, going through a bad breakup.

  Initially Tom didn’t tell me anything was wrong. This often happens with stars: You sense there is something wrong with their private lives but they are too private to share it with you. You have to do your homework and talk to their agents or managers or personal assistants to find out exactly what is eating at them. Another secret weapon I use to ferret out information is my wife, Barbara. One night we went to dinner with Tom and his wife, Samantha. After the dinner that I thought was great, my wife said, “They are going to get divorced.”

  “How can you tell?” I asked.

  “They didn’t look each other in the eye,” she said.

  A few days later Tom called to tell me he and Samantha were indeed getting divorced.

  Another bump that occurred during preproduction on Nothing in Common was that I learned Tom didn’t want to do the movie. He was locked into a deal with TriStar Pictures, the company that was bankrolling the film. Our producer, Ray Stark, told Tom that if he didn’t do the picture TriStar would block him from working in Hollywood for two years. Even I knew it was not optimal to have a disgruntled star. I didn’t want to walk on eggshells around anyone. I think the best way to confront a problem is to bring it up. So I asked to meet with Tom alone one day.

  During our private talk I told him that I was sincerely sorry about his marital problems and I was sad he wasn’t rushing to do this movie. But I said that the cast and crew and I had nothing to do with his divorce or his contract issues. We were all innocent bystanders, so he shouldn’t take it out on us. After our talk I promised him that I would make a good picture, and that I would somehow find a way to make it fun for him. Shortly after that Tom made peace with the project, and he was a delight to work with for the entire shoot. First, we discussed the character fully, and then I asked him how he liked to be directed. He said, “Louder, softer, faster, slower.” And I said, “Perfect!” Years later I ran into Tom, and he said a famous director once told him before a scene, “I see this scene as chartreuse. Act that way.” Tom had no idea what that kind of direction meant. He was a meat-and-potatoes kind of actor and liked his directors that way, too.

  What excited both Tom and me about the film was the chance to work with the man who had been cast to play his father: Jackie Gleason, otherwise known as the Great One. Jackie was on the fence about doing the film until we had a meeting with him. He was tired and not feeling well, and was hesitating about doing another movie at his age while his health wasn’t good. However, Ray Stark crafted a very convincing argument. He reminded Jackie that his last film was Smokey and the Bandit II. Did he really want to go down in the history books with that being his last movie credit? When Ray framed the opportunity like that, Jackie smiled and said, “Where do I sign on the dotted line?” As I had with Tom, I promised Jackie that if he came onboard I would make a film that we could all be proud of and have fun making. Although it was only my third film, I had already learned that to make the time together work best, you had to have fun. A movie can take up to a year of your life to complete, and if things aren’t going well, that time can seem like an eternity.

  During the film Jackie’s health was fragile on the screen and on the set. Every day he had to be wrapped by 5:00 P.M. So every day, shortly before the clock hit 5:00 P.M., I would have a production assistant play Jackie’s exit music from his television show on a boom box, and he would smile and trot off the soundstage or location set. His wife, Marilyn, had been a good friend of my mother. Marilyn was the sister of June Taylor, who coordinated all the dancers on Jackie’s show, and she knew my mother from her tap dancing days. My mother would have loved the fact that I was directing a movie starring the Great One. It was a little sad that she’d died the year before and was not
around to see the movie.

  As a relatively new director, I found it fascinating to direct a movie with one star on the rise and the other one a legend. Both men could not have been more generous or gracious with each other. One day Jackie’s dressing room trailer broke down, and it would take some time to get him another one. Tom stepped up and said, “Give Jackie my trailer. I’ll wait for the other one.” The truth was that Tom didn’t spend much time in his trailer. He preferred to hang outside and toss the softball with me and other actors and crew. Jackie, however, thought it was bad form to take Tom’s trailer from him. “That’s not necessary,” he said. “Tom’s the star. I’ll wait for another trailer.” But the Chicago heat was escalating, and we didn’t want Jackie to be without air-conditioning. So we came up with a plan: Since most trailers look alike, I had a teamster take Tom’s name off his trailer, drive the trailer around the block, and come back to meet Jackie. The teamster said, “Here’s your replacement trailer, Mr. Gleason!” Jackie accepted the trailer, thinking it was new, and quickly ducked back in to enjoy the air-conditioning. I was learning that when directing a movie, diplomacy is as essential as a solid script.

  Nothing in Common was my first film with drama in it. There were some emotional scenes when Jackie’s character was in the hospital and his son had to leave his job to care for him. One day we shot a hospital scene and it didn’t work. Jackie and I tried to figure out what was wrong with it. He came up with an idea: He felt there were too many opportunities for humor in a hospital room, and we needed to get rid of that humor. He suggested doing a “comedy exorcism” of the room. So Tom came in, and the three of us recited every bad hospital room joke we could think of until we were laughing so hard our sides hurt. We riffed on nurses, needles, bedpans, and more. After we were done we felt better and were able to go ahead with the dramatic scene between father and son. In one tender moment Tom even cried over his dad, which was new territory for Tom as an actor, because he had mostly done comedy before.

  I never like the producers to talk to the actors. Francis Coppola taught me that. There can only be one director at a time, and if the producers start giving the actors notes on scenes, it undermines the strength and influence of the director. So I nearly flew off the handle one day when I saw my producer, Alex Rose, in a private, sidebar-style discussion with Tom Hanks. I was just about to intervene when Tom opened a door and revealed a large birthday cake for me. Birthdays are big deals on movie sets because often you can’t be with your friends and family and have to celebrate with the cast and crew. I’m usually the one planning the birthday surprises. But on this day Alex and Tom fooled even me.

  I think I’m a pretty easy director to get along with, but once in a while I meet someone on a movie set who just doesn’t like my style. On Nothing in Common I was still developing my style of directing, but my cinematographer, John Alonzo, didn’t like it one bit. He had worked on many movies before this one, and most notably shot Scarface and Norma Rae. John thought that he knew more about directing a movie than I did. The truth was that he probably did. But the reality was that he wasn’t the director and I was. This didn’t stop him from suggesting throughout the film that I would direct more effectively and command more authority if I stood on a ladder with a bullhorn. I didn’t want to direct that way. I wanted to direct with a toothpick in my mouth and my feet firmly planted on the ground. It was just something we didn’t see eye to eye on.

  I worked well with Tom Hanks, and I worked hard to make him feel as comfortable as possible. I cast Hector Elizondo as his boss at the advertising agency, and they got along swimmingly. Tom, however, told me one thing he was not comfortable doing was sexy scenes. Maybe it was his divorce, or maybe it was just the way he felt in general about the big screen, but he was not comfortable doing love scenes at that time. We rewrote the script to make him feel more comfortable. While the film was a drama, the romantic part was mostly comedy, so it didn’t call for any heavy love scenes anyway.

  To play one of his love interests we cast a southern cheerleader and homecoming queen named Sela Ward. At the time she told me she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to become an actress. She was mulling over a career as a stewardess, but this movie was a big break for her. I told her I would let her know after the movie was done whether she should head for the airport or stay in film, and I did. (She, of course, went on to work steadily in Hollywood for years and years.) The other love interest we had for Tom was Bess Armstrong, who had much more film experience than Sela.

  I learned on Nothing in Common that as a director you not only have to work with the actors but also have to step back and look at all the other elements that come into play. How is the lighting? How is the wardrobe? Is the makeup subtle or too distracting? I was learning on the job, so I had to rely on the heads of all of those departments to bring me up to speed. In doing research for the movie I went to visit an advertising agency. On my tour I noticed that the ceiling was made of foam so the young copywriters would sometimes throw their pencils at the ceiling and the pencils would stick in the foam permanently. I came back and told my production designer to build that same ceiling so we could throw pencils up at it.

  We shot a scene in which Jackie’s character visits a house of prostitution, and we hired a number of actresses from Chicago to play the prostitutes. When I interviewed the local actresses, they all read well. But there was something missing. I wanted something, a sound or a look, to set them apart from the prostitutes we have seen time and again in the movies. So I said, “Do any of you ladies play a musical instrument?” One woman raised her hand and said, “I play the accordion.” She then went to the trunk of her car, brought back her accordion, and played me a song. I put the girl and the accordion right into the movie. Her name was Isabella Hofmann, and she went on to work in television and many stage plays.

  Nothing in Common represented a turning point for me as a director. I learned that I could get the actors to do what I wanted them to do if I could somehow make them think it was their idea. I discovered this method also works well with studio executives, and I have cultivated this skill throughout my life in film. There was a scene in which Jackie’s character was riding on a ferryboat after being fired from his job as a clothing salesman. The scene was flat, and I knew I had to punch it up. Jackie’s character had some pens with his name on them. So in the scene I wanted Jackie to take the pens out of his pocket and throw them into the water. But I thought Jackie would be able to bring more emotion to the scene if he came up with that idea himself. So I cajoled him down the right road.

  “So you’re sitting on the boat?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Jackie.

  “And you have the pens with your name on them in your pocket?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Jackie.

  “What are you going to do with those pens? You probably wouldn’t keep them now that you are out of work, right?”

  “Maybe I could throw them overboard?” he asked.

  “Perfect. Love it. What a great idea. Let’s shoot it,” I said.

  “Garry?” said Jackie. “Tell me what great idea am I having tomorrow.”

  Jackie saw through my plan. He was just too smart, but he liked my idea and went with it anyway.

  As the movie went along we all got happier. Eva Marie Saint, who played Tom’s mother, was lovely and the consummate professional. Jackie was invigorated by life on the movie set. Tom Hanks started dating Rita Wilson. The happier people became, the more I felt my own creativity growing as a director and as a writer. I was eager to give everyone funny, touching, and interesting bits to do. I gathered material from everywhere, including my own life.

  I remembered I had once seen a documentary on Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini. The film showed him going around the country, having dinner with different officials at each stop. At one point he was having dinner with a member of the chamber of commerce in a small town. The chamber member turned to Toscanini and said, “Sometimes I eat my whole meal with a salad
fork.” Toscanini’s reaction was wonderful. He just stared at the man blankly and didn’t know what to say in return. So I took that moment and put it right into Nothing in Common. Tom went a step further and added the response “Including your soup?” It was a great touch, and one of the funniest scenes in the film.

  As a director you find success on a movie, and you inevitably make mistakes, too. There was a scene in which Tom needed to see Jackie’s swollen and diseased foot in order to realize just how serious his dad’s health issues were. I wanted to show the audience what an edgy filmmaker I was. So I had the prop department make this terribly ugly foot and then shot it up close. Sadly, Ray Stark later told me the scene with the foot cost us close to $10 million at the box office. The foot was too ugly and big, and it turned people off. I learned from my mistake. The first thing I did when the film was rereleased years later on video was cut out the foot. When I look back on it, I realize I should have let Tom “act” his reaction to the foot and put his face on-screen instead of showing the awful foot.

  Nothing in Common did very well in the critics’ corner. I, however, was not able to bask in the success because something distracted me. I learned that my business advisers had gotten me involved in an over-the-top real estate deal in Pasadena and money was being stolen from me. I have never had a head for numbers. To be told that my finances were a mess was overwhelming for me. I had to do something to calm myself down, so I signed up to direct another movie. I knew that if I lost a lot of money in the real estate deal, I would need to make another movie right away anyway. So I said a quick yes to a script called Overboard, and I headed to shoot in Mendocino, California, a town known for its beautiful coastline, bed-and-breakfast inns, and the occasional smell of marijuana. I left my wife in Los Angeles to face the legal battles while I did the only thing I knew how to do at the moment: direct. Barbara and I were both stressed out at the same time, and we didn’t have the leisure time to help each other through it. We both knew that in order to survive financially she had to face the legal challenges head-on with the help of our lawyer friend Marty Garbus, and I had to hustle up as much work as I could to pay the bills. For the first time in my life I took a movie not because I planned to take it but because I needed the paycheck.