The Actor's Guide To Greed

by Rick Copp

  “It’s even worse for actors,” I said, trying to offer my own perspective on the hardships of carving out a lasting career in Hollywood. “You get pigeonholed from one role. For years, I tried to break out of that child-star box they put me in, and then, when I finally prove I can do drama as a young adult on that Homicide episode, all the casting agents say, ‘We saw him as the cop, but can he do comedy?’ Everybody forgets I had my own sitcom!”

  Wallace was looking blank again. He had been enjoying his rant, and as actors are prone to do, I had shifted the attention from him onto myself.

  Katrina pouted, annoyed that I would so blatantly steal the focus from her husband.

  More backpedaling. “I’m just saying, I know how frustrated you must be.”

  Wallace shot a glance at his wife, as if to say, “Can you believe this guy?” Then plowed on. “I socked some cash away after the Knight Rider fiasco. Took some time to regroup, consider what it was I really wanted to write, and you may not believe this, Jarrod, but—”

  “Wallace wrote a play,” Katrina chimed in, excited and proud of her husband.

  There was an awkward silence. Clearly Wallace wanted to tell me this exciting news himself. He glared at Katrina, but her enthusiasm was bubbling over with such intensity, she didn’t even notice.

  “It’s a murder mystery. Wallace’s agent absolutely loved it. He said Wallace is going to be the next Ira Levine.”

  “Who?” I said, recognizing the name as my dentist on the West Side, not a famous playwright.

  “Ira Levine,” Katrina said, obviously put off by my stupidity. “The guy who wrote Deathtrap and Boys in the Band.”

  “Levin,” Wallace hissed. “Ira Levin. And it wasn’t Boys in the Band, it was Boys from Brazil.”

  “Whatever,” Katrina laughed. “It was about homosexuals in Rio.”

  I bit my tongue.

  Wallace sighed. “Boys in the Band was about homosexuals in New York. Boys from Brazil was about breeding young boys to be Nazis.”

  “Were the Nazis gay?” Katrina said, completely serious.

  “No!”

  I quickly intervened. “What’s your play about, Wallace?”

  The tension immediately drained out of Wallace’s face. He loved talking about his work. “It’s set at a bed-and-breakfast in Manchester, England. A rainstorm traps the guests in the house for the weekend, and one of them is an escaped killer. No one knows who it is, and the bodies start piling up, and there is a detective from America who ultimately exposes the killer—”

  “Turns out it’s the Danish countess with a split personality,” Katrina said.

  Wallace’s face flushed with anger and he turned to his wife. “You just told him the ending.”

  “Well, you can pretty much guess it by the end of the first act,” Katrina said.

  “No, you can’t!”

  Somehow I remembered these two much happier. In one more attempt to defuse the situation, I said, “Sounds very Agatha Christie.”

  It didn’t work. Wallace spun around and barked, “No! She was all about the puzzle. My play is a deep psychological portrait of a mind gone mad!”

  “It was fun to research too,” Katrina cooed. “We traveled to England, met with some psychiatrists, even took lessons at the shooting range so Wallace could conceive a plausible murder.”

  “I learned I don’t like tea and crumpets, despise head shrinks, and I can’t shoot a rifle worth shit. Katrina fared much better,” Wallace said with a thin smile.

  Katrina reached into her bag and pulled out a copy of the script. “Wallace was hoping we’d run into you tonight,” she said. “He wants you to read his new play.”

  “Why should he bother?” Wallace huffed. “You already told him the ending.”

  I snatched the script from Katrina. “I’d love to read it,” I said, hoping to make a fast getaway soon. I glanced over to Charlie. He was half done with his scone and about to dive into the other half. This was a disaster. I was stuck with these two lunatics, and I was going to miss out on him offering me half of his scone!

  I was just about to pry myself free when Katrina said, “We’d like you to be in it, Jarrod.”

  This stopped me in my tracks. “It’s getting produced?”

  Wallace beamed. “Yes. We got the financing last week. Rehearsals start a week from Monday.”

  “Here in town?” I said.

  Wallace shook his head. He wasn’t about to tell me. He wanted me to guess.

  “Broadway?” I said, straining to hide my incredulity.

  He shook his head again.

  “London! The West End!” Katrina said while clapping her hands excitedly.

  Wallace narrowed his eyes so hard they almost disappeared. “I wanted him to guess, Katrina.”

  “Sorry,” she said without a hint of remorse. I got the feeling Katrina wasn’t as dumb as she pretended to be. She just liked pissing off her husband.

  “Are you serious?” I said.

  “I brought your name up to our producer, and he went wild,” Wallace said. “He thinks you’re prime for a comeback. British audiences adored Go to Your Room. They all want to see what you look like now. They’d flock to the theater in droves.”

  Macauley Culkin did a play in London, and it reignited his whole career. A flashy role in an edgy independent film. A funny turn on Will & Grace. He was back on the map. This play could do the same for me.

  “Who would I play? The American detective?”

  Wallace almost laughed but caught himself. “No. His gay valet.”

  “Wallace said he was visualizing you in the role the whole time he was writing it,” Katrina said, resting her head on Wallace’s shoulder. After an uncomfortable moment, he flinched and she moved her head upright again.

  The gay valet? It sounded like Wallace wanted to cash in on my tabloid notoriety. But honestly, I didn’t really care. I had always dreamed of appearing on stage in the West End. The same dusty old theaters graced by the likes of Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud, Dame Judi Dench, and supermodel Jerry Hall. All the greats!

  I noticed Charlie raise an eyebrow as I talked in hushed tones with Wallace and Katrina. He knew we were conspiring about something and was curious as to what I was getting mixed up in now.

  I told Wallace I would read the play tonight and give him a call first thing in the morning. A part of me didn’t even have to read the play. I knew I was going to England. This was fate. I didn’t know which notion was more outlandish. Me on a London stage or Wallace Goodwin’s name on the marquee.

  As I left Wallace to scold Katrina for giving away his precious ending, I bounced back over to Charlie, snatched the last piece of scone out of his fingertips, and popped it in my mouth.

  “You really think you deserve that for leaving me here alone all this time?” Charlie said.

  “Wallace wrote a play. And he wants me to be in it.”

  “I thought you said Wallace was a hack.”

  “I never said that. He just needed to stretch himself creatively to demonstrate his real potential.” Of course, I probably did tell Charlie at one time that I thought Wallace was a hack. But actors are adept at rewriting history when there is a part at stake.

  “So is it going up at one of those little theaters on Santa Monica Boulevard?” Charlie said.

  I shook my head. Like Wallace the sadist, I wanted him to guess.

  Charlie’s eyes lit up. “Broadway?”

  “London!” I couldn’t contain myself. “I’m doing a play in London!”

  Charlie smiled, genuinely pleased. “That’s great, babe.” But then, the issues involved in this decision began sprouting up. “How long will you be gone?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I haven’t even read the play. I may hate it.”

  But we both knew I’d love the play. No matter how bad it was. In my mind, I was already on that plane with my passport and a London walking-tour guide.

  I swiveled around and spotted Laurette and Larry at a corne
r table, sipping extra foam lattes and sharing an oatmeal raisin cookie. Laurette had her hand over Larry’s, and I presumed she was reassuring him that his new movie had some artistic merit and was not going to be a career killer.

  I leaned down and kissed Charlie on the forehead. “Be right back.”

  Racing over to Laurette, I blurted out, “I’ve been offered a play in London!”

  Laurette glanced up at me as if she didn’t hear me correctly. “I’m sorry?”

  “Wallace Goodwin wrote a play—”

  “That hack wrote a play?” Laurette said.

  “Keep your voice down,” I hissed. “He’s right over there.”

  Laurette left Larry to sulk over his film’s reception, promising to return soon. She grabbed my arm and dragged me outside so we could have a little privacy.

  I filled Laurette in on all the details, and she squealed with delight. She knew how much this meant to me. She knew what a great opportunity this would be for my career. And she knew in a matter of weeks she would be on a shopping spree at Harrods.

  “Sweetheart, this is sensational news,” she said. We both looked back inside to see Wallace and Katrina in deep conversation with another couple. Wallace was grimacing as Katrina spouted stories animatedly. I wondered if Katrina was revealing the ending of Wallace’s play again just to get his blood boiling.

  “I never thought he had it in him,” Laurette said. “You never know, I guess. He could be the next Ira Levine.”

  Unlike Wallace, I chose to let it go.

  “You’ll be great,” Laurette said. “Just great.”

  “Now, I don’t want this conflicting with any jobs you may be working on lining up for me.”

  Laurette stared at me, not sure how to respond.

  “You know, there might be another film on the horizon or a recurring role on a series that you were going to send me out on . . .” I was losing steam. I could see it in her eyes. “Nothing, huh?”

  Laurette didn’t want to hurt me, so she tried to be diplomatic. “It’s really a bad time for everybody. Pilot season is months away. Movies are going after big names right now . . .” It didn’t work.

  “So flying off to London is probably a good idea?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “Besides, Larry and I are leaving for Maui in a few days. We’ll be gone for three weeks. So I won’t be lining up auditions for you anyway.”

  “Three weeks? But he’ll miss the opening weekend of his movie!”

  Laurette leaned in, and whispered in my ear. “That’s the idea.”

  Poor Larry. When I met him he was indestructible. And after a mere twenty-seven-day shoot in south Florida, he was now a pariah. I knew what he was about to go through. I had weathered the ups and downs of a stormy Hollywood career myself. You just keep trudging on, never giving up, and one day, destiny might shine on you and you’re rewarded with a second chance to recapture the glory of the past. Most people give up and move on to a new path. But a few of us diehards remain steadfast gluttons for punishment.

  “This play couldn’t have come at a better time for you,” Laurette said. “It’ll perfume some of the smell you’re going to get from this stinker of a movie.”

  She was right. Wallace Goodwin’s stage thriller was looking to be not only a dream come true, but also a much-needed career move.

  Wallace Goodwin’s play Murder Can Be Civilized wasn’t half bad. I didn’t find it to be a searing psychological portrait of a mind gone mad by any stretch of the imagination. Wallace’s artistic claims were a bit exaggerated. But as a light romp that poked fun at the clichéd Agatha Christie murder-mystery conventions, it worked brilliantly. Sometimes perennial unemployment can really hone a writer’s craft. The secondary role of the gay valet was also a surprise. It wasn’t a stock role by any means. Damien Sheffield was a blisteringly sarcastic, ruggedly sexual, and dangerously cunning concoction full of bravado and swagger. He was hiding a multitude of juicy and scandalous secrets, which bubbled over at the worst times. And he didn’t even get knocked off until late into the third act. So I was looking at a wealth of time onstage.

  I finished reading the script just after midnight, keeping Charlie awake by spouting aloud some of my character’s more colorful lines. When I finally put the play down, Charlie had already dropped off to sleep. Our Pekingese, Snickers, was curled up at the foot of the bed snoring softly. I was going to be up all night, my mind racing at the exciting prospects of a new career in the theater. This was the break I had been waiting for.

  The following morning, I rang up Wallace and told him how much I loved the play and wanted to do it. He had already been in contact with his London producers to alert them to my interest. Within an hour, Laurette had received an offer, and by lunchtime, the deal was closed. I was to report to the old Apollo Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue in London on the following Monday. Laurette and Larry postponed their Maui getaway a few days to allow her some time to finish up the details of the contract.

  After that, the news just got better. In a stunning coup, the producers locked up Academy Award–winning actress Claire Richards for the leading role of the countess. Claire was one of the star students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in the late seventies and then went on to start up the internationally renowned Cheek By Jowl repertory company that boasted such names as Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Fry, and Emma Thompson. During her tenure there, she played a number of career-making Shakespearean heroines. In the mid-eighties, she made a seamless transition to film, appearing in projects alongside an impressive brood of hard-drinking, well-respected English actors such as Michael Caine, Peter O’Toole, and the late Oliver Reed. Toward the end of the eighties, she adopted a flawless American accent to play a farm wife left alone by her husband’s suicide to battle land grabbers, tornadoes, and a shifty con man played by Aidan Quinn. The film Songs from the Heartland garnered seven Academy Award nominations. It won two. Best score and best actress in a leading role. Claire Richards was Hollywood royalty. And I was about to be her costar in Wallace Goodwin’s play. I didn’t know whether to scream for joy or throw up from nerves. How was Claire Richards going to react to the news that she was sharing the same stage with Jarrod Jarvis? The only award I had ever gotten for acting was from some child-development organization for convincingly playing a bed wetter during the fourth season of Go to Your Room.

  I decided to put my reservations aside and prepare for my extended trip overseas. Luckily I was so busy renewing my passport and shopping for a new “serious actor” wardrobe at Fred Segal, I barely noticed the savage reviews that hit the papers on the day Creeps, a film by Larry Levant, opened in two hundred theaters. I did manage to catch a few of the choicest sound bites. “This film gave me the Creeps. And not in a good way!” screamed USA Today. “I was hoping the axe-wielding killer would step off the screen and put me out of my misery!” declared Rex Reed. And in a nod to my appearance in the film, Richard Roeper of Ebert and Roeper said, “Baby, don’t even think about going to this movie!”

  The film opened well below the top ten moneymakers for the weekend, barely grossing a quarter of a million. We would be gone from multiplexes within a week. But I didn’t care. Creeps would soon be just a distant unpleasant memory. In a few days, I would be sharing a bottle of scotch at Kettners with Ian McKellan and Maggie Smith and swapping war stories about our show-business experiences.

  I had committed to four weeks of rehearsals and a three-month run. The producers would put me, my fellow castmates from abroad, and the Goodwins up at the swanky Savoy Hotel in Covent Garden during the duration of the play. I was ecstatic. This was shaping up to be my best job ever. I couldn’t imagine anything going wrong. Of course, whenever I say that, something usually goes wrong. And this time, it shook my entire world.

  Chapter 2

  It was an idle Tuesday. Less than a week before I was scheduled to leave for London. Laurette and I were having lunch at Dalt’s, a chain restaurant located across the street from Warner Brothers in Burba
nk that boasted an artery-clogging menu of comfort food. Laurette and I made a pact before we picked up our menus to order salads for our entrees, but caved to the temptation of noshing on their delectable fried onion rings as we debated on whether to get the stir-fry salad or the chicken Caesar.

  Laurette had faxed the signed contract to the producers in London that morning, so we felt an impromptu celebration was in order.

  “What am I going to do with you gone for so long?” Laurette sighed.

  “You’re coming over to see me, right?”

  “Of course. But I can’t stay the whole time. I have other clients, you know.”

  I always forgot about Laurette’s other clients. Most actors prefer believing their manager’s entire life is solely dedicated to finding them employment. It helps us sleep at night.

  “I’ll try to fly over for opening night after we get back from Hawaii,” Laurette said, dipping a thick battered onion ring in a small paper cup of ketchup and then tossing it in her mouth. “And of course I’ll do a little shopping, but we’re only talking a few days.”

  The harsh reality of this job was finally settling in. No Charlie. No Laurette. No Snickers. And no Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America to update me on all the world’s overnight news as I shaved and did my sit-ups in the morning. I could only hope the British version of Diane would be as warm and soothing when I woke up and flipped on the TV.

  “Four months is an awfully long time to be over there,” I said.

  “You’ll have a blast,” Laurette said. “You probably won’t even want to come home when it’s over. The Brits love kitsch. They all remember Go to Your Room. That crappy show is syndicated everywhere! You’ll be a guest on Graham Norton, and the whole country will fall in love with you.”

  Graham Norton was an openly gay, outrageously funny talk-show host Charlie and I watched religiously on the BBC America cable network and more recently on Comedy Central. My name had just enough camp value to possibly get me a spot on his show. But I was getting ahead of myself. I hadn’t even started packing yet, and already I was sitting on a couch next to Hugh Grant chatting up Graham.