For whatever stupid reasons, I got my hopes up. I really fooled myself into thinking that Dollface was gonna get there in time for my New Year’s gig.
All day I kept waiting for the phone to ring in my hotel room. But it never did. And there I was at eight, standing in the lobby and looking around to see if Dollface might be running through the door in time to catch my act.
That’s when this chick—I’ll call her Jane—came up to me and said, “Excuse me, Andrew. May I call you Andrew?”
The way Jane looked, she could call me anything she wanted.
“I want to thank you for mentioning me in your interview,” she said.
“What interview?” I asked.
“The one in the newspaper today where you talked about the nice fan letter you got. Well, I’m the fan who wrote it.”
“Oh, so you’re the nice lady who’s been writing me?”
“I sure am.”
“Wow! That’s beautiful. And you’re coming to the show, right?”
“I am.”
“Where’s your date, Jane?”
“I came alone.”
“Then you’ll meet me after the show?”
“I’d love that.”
After the show she was right there.
Back in my hotel room, two very horny people fucked each other till they were delirious. The pussy wasn’t just good. The pussy was spectacular. She was giving it up not only willingly but sweetly. Some pussy is tight and terrific but fishy. Some pussy is sour. Her pussy was sweet. Jane was sweet. Blowing me and kissing me and riding me until we both hit the jackpot together. This was the era when women were talking about G-spots. Well, every spot on Jane’s beautiful luscious smooth-skinned curvaceous body had a G written all over it—her earlobes, her fingers, her creamy soft thighs, her hips, her hot little ass.
Round ’bout midnight, just after we had gone around the merry-go-round for the second time and both grabbed the brass ring, the phone rang.
It was Dollface.
“Andy,” she said. “Just calling to say happy New Year.”
“Hold on,” I said, handing the phone to Jane. “Just say ‘Happy New Year,’ ” I told Jane.
“Who is it?” Jane asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said.
And in the sexiest I’m-so-satisfied-because-I’ve-just-been-fucked-so-good voice I’ve ever heard, Jane took the phone and told Dollface, “Happy New Year.”
When I got back to L.A., me and Dollface were barely able to talk to each other. She kept up the lie that there wasn’t someone else. Now she wanted to talk about being an actress. If I had seen she had any talent, I would have encouraged her. I always encourage people with talent. But I couldn’t bullshit her. And that made her resent me more.
I started off looking to get laid because I wanted to get even, but then some of the women I met became legit girlfriends. There was a hot cocktail waitress in Vegas named Mable, who to this day is close to me and my sons. And Sue, a chick in New York who owned a boutique leather shop off Columbus Circle.
“Maybe you can try one more time,” my dad urged me when I was back in New York visiting my parents. “I’m not saying it’ll work, but it’s worth an effort.”
So I called Dollface in L.A. to say I was coming home and maybe we could talk. But, just like before, the fuckin’ phone was always busy. I’m sure she took it off the hook—either to aggravate me or to avoid disturbing the hot fuck she was getting from her boyfriend.
On the spur of the moment, I decided to head back right then and there. I ran out to the airport and caught the early morning flight that landed at LAX at eight A.M. A pal picked me up and drove me to the Laurel Canyon apartment. First thing I noticed was that my ’70 Caddy convertible wasn’t there. Neither was Dollface. So I went in, made myself a pot of coffee and waited. Half an hour later Dollface came strolling in carrying a little overnight bag.
“What are you doing here?”
“I live here, remember?”
She was all flustered. She didn’t know what to say. “I just . . . I just had to run out to get a few groceries.”
“I don’t see no groceries. I just see your overnight bag.”
“I had to see a sick friend last night.”
“The only one who’s sick around here is me, for believing these lies for so long.”
“Who are you to talk that way to me? You have girlfriends. You’ve even thrown them up in my face.”
“Only after I found out about you. But look, it doesn’t matter. Once a cunt, always a cunt. I’m out.”
I went to the bedroom, threw my shit in a couple of suitcases, and got the fuck out. I drove the Caddy directly to the offices of Jacoby and Meyers and got a $350 divorce.
Dollface didn’t like that. She was saying she deserved something. I was saying she didn’t deserve shit. A smart friend said, “Look, you’re gonna be a big star. You know it and I know it. So rather than have her come after you when you’re making big money, give her a settlement. Keep her happy so she’ll go away.”
Made sense. I offered her 4Gs down and a G a month for the next eighteen months. She took it and went away, for the moment.
• • •
But with the bad comes the good. Around that time, John Hughes cast me in Pretty in Pink with Molly Ringwald. To keep up the plan of increasing my name recognition, I asked him if I could call my character Dice. “No problem,” he said. I got only one scene, but I made so much of it that Hughes turned it into two. That was where I wrapped my arm around my head to light my cigarette. This gesture turned me into a cult favorite of comedy film fans and became one of my most beloved signature moves.
CRIME STORY
I WAS BACK in New York when I got a call that Michael Mann, the famous producer-director who did Miami Vice, was doing another big TV series called Crime Story. I was called in to read for a casting director, who told me I’d done a good job. Looking into the camera, though, I couldn’t help but say, “Hey, Michael, how come you ain’t here? You too much of a big shot to come to my audition?” Probably not a good idea, but since my chances of landing a role on a network TV series were less than great, why not take a chance and say something he’d remember?
I promptly forgot about the audition, and for months afterward I didn’t hear a word. Besides, my comedy club career was moving ahead. I got a gig at Rascals, a club in West Orange, New Jersey, where I’d developed something of a following. It was a 425-seat club owned by a guy who became a big supporter and loyal promoter.
I got to New York on a Wednesday to open at Rascals on Friday. That Thursday I was at my folks’ apartment in Brooklyn when I got a call from an agent back in L.A.
“Fantastic news,” she said. “You’ve been cast in Blind Date, the new Blake Edwards film with Bruce Willis.”
“Great. When are they shooting?”
“This weekend. They need you for about a week.”
“Where?”
“L.A. I’ve booked you on the red-eye that leaves New York first thing tomorrow.”
“Unbook me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m at Rascals all weekend.”
“Fuck Rascals. This is Blake Edwards, the man who did Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Pink Panther. Kim Basinger is costarring. It’s a big film.”
“But it’s a big weekend for Rascals. They’re sold out Friday and Saturday. I can’t let the owner down. It’ll cost him a fortune.”
“You’ll make it up to him one day.”
“Listen, I can’t do it.”
“Misplaced loyalty has you confused.”
“I’m not confused. I’m playing Rascals.”
“It’s a juicy part. You get to do your Travolta thing in a disco.”
“I’ve done the Travolta thing before.”
“Not on the big screen like this.”
“Sorry, my mind’s made up.”
“You’re making a mistake,” she said.
“Maybe, but it
won’t be the last.”
On Friday I was fast asleep in my boyhood bedroom when my mother came in to wake me up. I was groggy; my mind was in a fog. For a second, I thought I was back in grammar school.
“I don’t wanna go to school today, Ma.”
“An agent is on the line.”
“Tell her I don’t wanna go to school. I don’t wanna to talk to her.”
“She’s calling from California.”
“Tell her I’m not talking. I’m not doing that movie.”
Mom told her.
At noon I was at the kitchen table, where Mom was fixing me a bialy with butter and bacon, my favorite. The phone rang. Ma answered. Her look told me that it was the agent. I signaled No, I ain’t talking.
“He’s out,” Mom said.
An hour later, the agent called again. I saw that I was just gonna have to tell her myself.
I picked up the phone and said, “I’m not taking the fuckin’ movie.”
“I’m not calling about that fuckin’ movie,” said the agent. “I’m calling about a television series. Michael Mann.”
“I auditioned for that months ago.”
“Apparently the audition went well, ’cause you’ve been cast. Twenty-five hundred dollars a week. Seven episodes guaranteed per season. The network sees it running for at least five seasons. They start shooting in Chicago on Monday. Can you make it?”
“Sure, I can make it—and only ’cause I turned down that Bruce Willis thing.”
“I realize that. Your luck fell into place.”
“You call it luck. I call it loyalty.”
• • •
Michael Mann’s Crime Story was a big deal. Centered in Chicago and Vegas in the early sixties with a great pop music soundtrack and fantastic fuckin’ cast, it set the stage for movies like Scorsese’s Goodfellas and Casino and TV shows like The Sopranos. The big criminal was played by Tony Denison and the chief cop was Dennis Farina. The pilot, where my thug character Max Goldman first appeared, was directed by Abel Ferrara, who’d go on to do King of New York with Christopher Walken. Everyone from Kevin Spacey to Julia Roberts to Gary Sinise to David Caruso to Stanley Tucci to Deborah Harry to Miles Davis to Michael Madsen acted on the show. Most of the characters were based on real-life people. It was a powerful, hard-hitting drama.
BABY ELEPHANT IN THE RAIN
AFTER THE FIRST weeks in Chicago, I had some drama of my own. Michael Madsen came to town to shoot a couple of episodes. We were both at the Ambassador East Hotel, got friendly, and started hanging out. This was before Madsen got famous for making those Tarantino movies, like Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill. In person, he came across the same way he does on screen: a macho tough-talkin’ cigarette-smokin’ drinkin’ fuckin’ animal. My kind of guy.
“Chicago’s all about drinking,” he said. “All about bars.”
“I’m not that crazy about drinking,” I said, “and I don’t really hang out at bars.”
“That’s gonna change tonight, Dice,” he said.
And it did.
We hit the corner bar, which, according to Madsen, had been there for a hundred years and served up some famous cocktails. It only took two to get me plastered. There were a couple of cute chicks at the end of the bar who seemed friendly. We bought ’em some drinks and started chatting ’em up. I figured this evening was gonna end up beautifully for both Michael and me. So the four of us left the bar together and were walking along the street and I was closing in on my girl for a little kiss and a little feel and she was willing. She was going along with the program just like Michael’s girl was grooving with him, then bam—there was a cloudburst and the rain started coming down in buckets. Rather than add to the sexiness of the situation, the rain got the girls giddy. They started running down the street, heading back to the bar.
“What are you gals doin’?” I asked. “Let’s go to the hotel.”
But by then they had made their way back to the bar. Michael and I both figured they were too much trouble. We let ’em go, and now it was really fuckin’ raining—I mean it was a deluge—and him and me were running back to the hotel, no umbrellas, no coats, getting soaked. It was then that we saw this whale of a woman dancing in the middle of the street with her shirt off and her dress pulled up to her waist. When I say a whale of a woman, I’m talkin’ somewhere between three hundred and three hundred fifty pounds. She had her mouth open, drinking in the rain. She was crazy drunk and singing at the top of her lungs. She had a pretty face and big brown smiling eyes, and the way she was twirling around she looked like a dancing baby elephant. Because I was tanked up myself, I went over and started dancing with her. This made her happy. She encouraged me in this sloppy rain dance to the point where she was grabbing my ass so she could grind up on me. It became a sports event. It became an athletic challenge, and neither of us backed down. Madsen couldn’t believe his eyes. Neither could several other passersby, but me and my plus-size honey, we didn’t give a shit. We were into it.
I can’t lie and tell you that I wasn’t excited to see that each of her tits was bigger than my head. I was plenty fuckin’ excited as, dancing and grinding like fools, we kept moving closer to the hotel.
“You’re crazy, Dice,” was all Madsen kept saying. “You really aren’t gonna do this, are you?”
“Fuck yes, I’m doing it!” I said.
“Fuck yes, he’s doing it,” said Baby Elephant.
Shaking his head in wonder at the madness of the Diceman, Madsen went off to his room while me and Baby Elephant, who was practically out of her clothes already, couldn’t wait to get to mine. The second I closed the door behind us she threw me on the bed, ripped off my pants, and climbed on top. At first I was scared that this house of a woman would suffocate me. I was scared that back in Brooklyn Jackie and Fred Silverstein would have to read the news about their son being literally fucked to death in some Chicago hotel room. I was also worried that the healthy, normal-sized, circumcised Jewish schlong belonging to me wouldn’t be up for the job. Or wouldn’t be adequate for the job. On both counts, though, there was nothing to worry about, because Baby Elephant liked what she was getting and knew how to position herself to get more. I liked how her freak-sized tits were slapping me in the face. I liked how her nipples were so fuckin’ enormous I couldn’t even get my mouth around ’em. I liked how her mouth was so fuckin’ enormous that when she finally got off me to suck me, she was able to get my cock and my balls in her mouth all at once. I wasn’t worried that she was going to bite ’em off, because I knew she wanted dick too bad to do anything to hurt my chances of banging her even harder.
Act 2 turned into something of a wrestling match. She actually threw me off the bed and went after me on the floor. At this point I would not be outdone. I would not be snuffed out. When she came at me, I grabbed her, flipped her on back and went in for the kill. I threw myself between her thighs, which were big as fuckin’ oak trees. I was bouncing up and down like she was a human waterbed or a trampoline made up of nothing but pussy. I could feel myself—I mean all of myself, cock, ass, legs, chest, head—falling into that pussy. I liked falling into that feeling. But now it was time for Act 3.
Act 3 took place in the bathroom. Don’t ask me why, but Baby Elephant climbed up on the marble counter and situated herself so her oak-tree thighs were spread apart and her dripping pussy was pushed out in my direction. I was scared her weight would bring the counter down. But at this point, who gave a shit if we brought the whole fuckin’ hotel down? I still had the energy and she still had the desire for me to keep slamming her with my overworked but still stiff dick, my sweaty balls slapping her sweaty thighs, until she squirt-came like a fuckin’ fire hose.
“Is that enough?” I asked, proud of myself for having climbed Mount Everest.
“For now,” she answered.
• • •
Next morning, I was on the van with Michael Madsen and Dennis Farina.
“Dice wound up with a date last night,” said Madsen
. “Didn’t you, Dice?”
I had a hangover from hell. Even worse, every bone in my body was sore from my massive wrestling match with Baby Elephant. I didn’t bother answering.
“What’s wrong, Dice?” asked Michael. “Didn’t that lovely young thing last night show you a good time?”
I still had nothing to say to Madsen. But to the driver I said, “Pull over.”
That’s when I got out of the van and puked my guts out.
• • •
I don’t want you to think that I regret my sexual encounter with Baby Elephant. It was the drinking part that got to me. The booze part was still another reminder of how drinking fucks up my digestion. No matter; on the set that day I still acted my ass off and got high marks from the director.
I felt that Crime Story, which aired for two seasons, would send my acting career into orbit. Maybe if it had been picked up for another two or three seasons, that would have happened. Who knows? All I do know, though, was that while I was in Chicago shooting the series two other things happened that changed my life.
The first had to do with a woman named Trini.
The second had to do with a comic named Rodney.
TRINI
ON MY SECOND trip to Chicago—this was after my wrestling match with Baby Elephant—it was summertime. I checked back into the Ambassador East and immediately went out for lunch. I was starving. I was walking past this storefront with the windows blacked out when I heard a tap tap tap. Some guy was trying to get my attention. I thought nothing of it and kept walking until another tap tap tap. I still didn’t stop until this guy came running out of the door and said, “Ain’t you Andrew Dice Clay?”
“Yeah.”
“I seen you on that Redd Foxx Dirty Dirty Jokes tape. You’re hysterical.”
“Thanks.”
“You gotta come in and meet my friends.”
“I’d love to, pal, but I’m starving.”
“We’ll get you a burger. Come on in.”
I went in and saw it was a bar/restaurant joint that hadn’t opened yet. This guy and a friend were playing pinball. They made a big fuss over me—they were both fans—but even with the flattery and the promise of a burger I was about to leave, since I had nothing much to say to these guys. The reason I didn’t leave, though, was because a great-looking chick was walking toward the pool table. Without saying a word, the chick convinced me to stay. She had that girl-next-door look: blond, blue eyes, sweet face, gorgeous smile, gorgeous body.
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