“Go ahead,” I told my two fans. “Order the burger.”
While we were waiting, we started chatting. They wanted to know about the comedy game. I wanted to know about the blonde, but the blonde wasn’t talking.
“Who are you, the mysterious silent type?” I asked her.
“Who are you, some guy out of Brooklyn?”
“I am. And wherever you’re from, it can’t be far from Brooklyn.”
“Jersey.”
Her voice reminded me of Cathy Moriarty in Raging Bull. It had that gravelly, sexy quality that made me want to get to know her.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Kathleen.”
Strange, I thought, that was the name of my first wife. Oh well . . .
“But,” she said, “they call me Trini.”
“Would you like to have lunch with me, Trini?”
“I already ate. I’m off for a walk to the river.”
“That sounds all right to me.”
“Hey,” said the guy who had tapped on the window, “what about your burger? You said you were starving.”
“I just lost my appetite,” I said, and then left with Trini.
She was happy to have me for company. She gave off this super-friendly vibe, and she had a beautiful spirit.
“What were you doing back in that joint?” I asked.
“There’s an employment agency upstairs. I’d just given my application and was passing through. I just got here from Jersey and I’m looking for a job. You live in Chicago?”
I explained who I was and what I did. She was intrigued by Crime Story, but I’m not sure she believed that I was really an actor.
“To prove it,” I said, “come back to my hotel and see the script I got to memorize. You can help me learn my lines.”
Trini was not quite ready for that, but I could see she was liking my company. I liked how openly she spoke. She told me that she came to Chicago to live with her boyfriend. I didn’t like hearing that. But I did like hearing that she and the guy broke up. Now she was living with her ex-boyfriend’s mother.
“I haven’t heard of that arrangement before,” I said.
“The mother and I got close,” said Trini. “Turns out she’s a lot nicer than her son.”
“Well, you’ll see that I’m also a lot nicer than her son. I think you should help me with my lines.”
I didn’t push it, because I felt like she was moving in my direction. We found a little neighborhood place, the old-fashioned kind with the red checked tablecloths and the travel posters of Venice on the walls. The more we were together, the easier the conversation. She wanted to know if I was involved. I told her about Dollface and how that was over. Trini listened like she cared. She let me tell my story without interrupting. She laughed at my stupid little jokes and didn’t hurry through dinner. She let those good feelings linger.
After dinner we walked around for an hour or so, and I led her back to the Ambassador East.
“Come on up,” I said. “Absolutely no fooling around. Just work. I got to learn this script or I’m in big trouble.”
We hung out in my room and she even stayed the night, but all we did was make out. We hung tight for the next few days until I had to leave for California. Soon as I was back in L.A., I called her. Her ex’s mother answered and said she wasn’t there.
“Just tell her that Andrew called and to call me back, please.”
“Will do.”
I expected to hear from her that night, but I didn’t. I figured she was probably busy. Probably had a new job. No problem. So I called the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. It was always the ex’s mom. She was always polite and said she’d be sure and let Trini know. But Trini was in no hurry to call me back.
This went on for over a week. I was devastated. I was thinking, Here’s a chick I really dug. This is a chick I had a great connection with. The feeling was real. I could tell she dug me. Not just on the surface, but dug me deep down. But that goes to show what I know about chicks. So all I am is a toy to her? Well, maybe I had it coming. Maybe that’s my payback for treating some chicks like they’re playthings.
I tried to forget her. I tried to chalk it up to experience, but I couldn’t get her outta my mind. Every moment with Trini lingered. I kept replaying them and trying to see where I’d missed the mark. Where I got the signals fucked up. Where I failed to see that this woman really didn’t give a shit about me.
All this was on my mind while I was at the Comedy Store on Sunset, hanging out with Mickey Rourke, the star of Diner, Body Heat, and, later, The Wrestler, who had become my new best friend. This was a big thrill for me, because when it came to acting, Mickey was up there with Brando. He was so fuckin’ good he scared me. He’d seen my act a couple of times and had become a fan. Even better, Mickey had turned out to be a down-to-earth guy, like someone from the neighborhood, a guy I’d known my whole life.
Mickey knew I was a night owl like him, so he’d call me at all hours. “Hey, Dice, wanna smoke a pack of Marlboros and hang out at Fatburger?” So, that’s where we would go. Mickey and I, sitting outside Fatburger on La Cienega, smoking and bullshitting until four A.M.
So this night I was at the Comedy Store with Mickey when the doorman came over and said, “Dice, you got a call.”
No one called me at the Store. If it was a casting agent or a promoter, they’d call my dad. If it was a friend or a chick, they’d be calling me at home.
“Who’s calling me here?” I asked.
“Got no idea, Dice, except to say that it’s a female.”
“Old or young?”
“It’s not your mother, if that’s what you mean. She’s young.”
I went to the phone, not knowing what to expect.
“Hello, Andrew.”
It was Trini.
“Where you been?” I asked her.
“That’s what I’m about to ask you.”
“I’ve called you a million times.”
“You haven’t called me once.”
“I left word with your ex’s mother.”
“Well, that explains everything.”
“Explains what?”
“Why I never got the messages. She wants me back with her son.”
“That nasty . . .”
“She’s a nice lady. It’s just that she doesn’t have a nice son.”
“Stay away from her son.”
“I told you we broke up. When you are coming back to Chicago?”
“Now that you’re calling me, sooner rather than later.”
When I got back to Rourke, I was all smiles.
“You got that gleam in your eye, Dice,” he said, “like you’re about to get laid.”
“It’s better than that, Mickey. A lot better.”
• • •
On my next trip to Chicago, Trini ran over to the Ambassador East soon as I arrived. It wasn’t even about jumping into bed. It was just about being together. We were happy; we ran out and decided to see a movie. Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. It’s a horror flick that’s funny and scary and a big kick in the head. Trini was squeezing my hand the whole time. Afterward we went shopping together. I had to get some clothes. At Marshall Field’s she was posing in front of the mannequins, wearing my sunglasses and trying on men’s leather motorcycle jackets. She was doing me. She was cracking me up.
We walked to an outdoor café for an early dinner. At a table across from us there was older couple in their seventies. The old man had his arm around the old lady. He was looking in her eyes like he was a teenager in love.
The words came spilling out of my mouth. “That’s us in forty years.”
Trini looked surprised.
“You mean that?”
“I don’t say nothing I don’t mean.”
“For a comic, you’re getting awfully serious, Andrew.”
“When I see what I want, Trini, I get so fuckin’ serious it’s crazy.”
“Now you’ve got me
thinking crazy.”
“Good,” I said, “ ’cause I see us living a crazy life together.”
RODNEY
RODNEY CAME CHARGING through the front door of Dangerfield’s at Sixty-First and First Avenue like a storm, a fuckin’ hurricane. He didn’t just enter a room. He blew up the room. His raincoat was flying open and he was still taking it off as he got onstage and, without being introduced, just ripped into it.
“I don’t get no respect. My wife, she don’t give me no respect. The other night she’s up saying sexy things. I looked up, she was on the phone. No respect. I got no respect, I got no sex life. The dog keeps watching me in the bedroom to learn how to beg. I said to the dog, ‘Watch my wife and learn how to roll over and play dead.’ When my wife does have sex with me, there’s always a reason. The other night she used me to time an egg. Even my kids, they don’t respect me. I tell my son, ‘Someday you’ll have kids of your own.’ He says, ‘So will you.’ Doctors, they don’t respect me. When I was born the doctor tells my mother, ‘We did all we could but he pulled through anyway.’ I tell him, ‘Doc, my gums are shrinking.’ He says, ‘Stop brushing your teeth with Preparation H.’ My proctologist, you think he gives me any respect? No, he sticks his finger in my mouth. You’d think my mother respected me. Think again. She breast-fed me through a straw. Even the hooker, she don’t respect me. She says, ‘Not on the first date.’ ”
This was the great Rodney Dangerfield in his club. He was a big bulky guy who was always puffing on a cigarette or a cigar and tugging at his tie. He had this nervous, sweet manner of someone who couldn’t sit still. I loved him and I loved his club. I loved the club not just because it was Rodney’s, but because of the legends that were born there—everyone from Roseanne to Seinfeld to Kinison to Jim Carrey to Tim Allen. I also loved it because I became one of the legends who was born there. It took years, though, before that happened.
• • •
Before I moved to L.A., I’d gotten up onstage at Dangerfield’s to do my Jerry Lewis/Travolta act. That’s when I first met Tony Bevacqua, better known as Babe, the character who ran the club for Rodney. Babe had this Beatles haircut and a preoccupation with filing his nails. No matter what was happening in the place, Babe never stopped filing his fuckin’ nails. He was a good guy, though, because he’d give young comics a chance. “We’ll give you a hamburger, you’ll go onstage”—that was Babe’s standard line.
During the first time I did my act at Dangerfield’s, I was still dressed as Jerry Lewis when I started picking on audience members. To one guy in the back I said, “Holy shit, you look like a disaster. You look like a good argument for mercy killing.”
After I was offstage, Babe came over. I thought he was gonna compliment me on all the laughs I got. Instead he said, “Hey, what was the idea of picking on Rodney?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“That guy you were shredding—that was Rodney.”
“The way the spotlight was blinding me, I couldn’t see. All I could see was some guy who wouldn’t pull his face outta his food. I had no idea.”
“Well, now you got a good idea.”
“Should I go over and apologize?”
“No, he’s already gone.”
My father reassured me, saying, “He’s probably not even angry. After all, he’s a pro. He had to recognize that you’re a great talent on your way up.”
Dad’s words helped, but I still felt like a schmuck for having gone after the one guy I had no interest in pissing off.
Six or seven years later, after I made some noise in L.A. and got the part in Crime Story, I came back to New York because I wanted to get on one of Rodney’s Young Comedians Specials on HBO, where careers were being launched. Babe had taken a liking to me. He kept saying he’d make sure that Rodney came again to see me when I played the club. That seemed to take forever. Meanwhile, the other guys I started out with—like Seinfeld and Kinison—were featured on the special, and as a result, their careers took off.
Finally my dad got a call from Babe.
“He’s coming tonight,” he said. “Tell your son I’ll put him on while Rodney’s here.”
I was ready. We drove to the city and, just like he promised, Rodney came storming into the club. Five minutes later Babe had me onstage. I didn’t hold back. I fuckin’ killed. I had my Elvis energy going. I had everyone in the club howling at the nursery rhymes and the whole Dice deal. After my standing ovation, I came down and looked around for Rodney. He was talking to some chick at the bar. I tried to get his attention, but he didn’t even look at me. Not a glance. I figured by now he would come up to me and say something. I figured he had to acknowledge how I’d just leveled his fuckin’ club. But nothing.
“This ain’t right,” I told my dad. “We come all the way in here from Brooklyn just to perform for Rodney and I don’t even get a thank-you. I’m going over to say something.”
“Leave him alone,” said Dad. “He’s a busy man.”
“I don’t care how fuckin’ busy he is. He’s gonna know I’m here.”
“He already knows that, Andrew. Leave him alone.”
Ignoring Dad’s advice, I marched over to Rodney, who had put on his raincoat and was ready to leave.
“Rodney,” I said, “I came in to do this showcase just for you.”
Tugging at his tie and giving me his jerky head motions, he said, “You’re okay, kid.”
“But how come you’ve haven’t put me on your special?”
“I gotta run. Gotta go.”
“I know why you haven’t picked me,” I said, my anger getting the better of my judgment. “It’s ’cause I’m better than you and you know it.”
“That’s funny, kid, that’s great. You’re better than me. You’re better than everyone. You’re okay. I like you. I gotta go.”
And with that, he was out the door. I wanted to chase after him and give him more hell, but I looked over and saw my dad, who had an expression on his face that said, Leave him the fuck alone! So I backed off.
• • •
Back in L.A., both my hopes and frustrations mounted when a manager named Barry Josephson told me that he was setting up a meeting with his boss, Sandy Gallin. In the eighties, Gallin was one of the most powerful managers in show business. At one time or another, he had managed Sylvester Stallone, Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, Cher, Whoopi Goldberg, Neil Diamond, and Michael Jackson.
“I’ve been telling him about you for a couple of years now,” said Barry, a regular at the Comedy Store. “He’s ready to meet you.”
“Why don’t you have him come to the Comedy Store to see me work?”
“Sorry, Dice. Sandy doesn’t come to you. You come to Sandy.”
I’d been around long enough to know that Gallin was part of what was known as the Gay Mafia. Along with his close friends David Geffen, whose label put out Guns N’ Roses’ records, and Barry Diller, who ran the 20th Century Fox movie studio, he was part of an out-of-the-closet Hollywood powerhouse. Given that, would he hate my brand of comedy?
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Barry. “Sandy’s a pro. He knows funny is funny. The great ones make fun of everyone. I’m telling you, Dice, he’s gonna love you.”
Not only did Gallin not love me, he didn’t even look at me. I got to his office in a state of high fuckin’ excitement. I was doing everything in my power to win this guy over, because this guy could turn me into a superstar. I was pulling out all the stops. But he was at the far end of a conference table talking on the phone while paging through a script. He barely nodded his head in my direction. When he finally got off the phone, he focused completely on the script. I did everything but tap dance on the table to get his attention. But I’m not sure he heard a word. He dismissed me with a smile and not a word of praise.
“Fuck him,” I told Barry afterward.
“You can’t tell with Sandy,” said Barry. “He’s not demonstrative. He was probably crazy about you. You’ll probably hear from him next
week.”
“I ain’t holding my breath.”
I chalked up the meeting to just another example of Hollywood horseshit. Barry meant well, but he didn’t have the power to convince his boss that I was worth managing.
So it was back to the drawing board.
In my case the drawing board was always the Comedy Store, not only the best place for honing my material but the best hope that a director or producer or manager or any motherfuckin’ macher might come in, see how I was slaying the crowds, and take me to the next level.
That macher turned out to be Rodney. A year or so after he saw me in New York, he showed up at the Comedy Store on the Strip. Word was that he was in the final throes of selecting the talent for his next installment of HBO’s Young Comedians Special. With Rodney in the audience, I dug down deeper than usual and came up with the energy I needed to pulverize the room. When my half hour was over, they were standing and screaming for more. I would have given ’em a little more, but I wanted to get to Rodney before he slipped outta the club.
Like in New York, he was on his way out the door when I caught him.
“Rodney, am I on the special?”
“You’re okay, kid. You’re okay.”
“But what does that mean?”
More tie tugs, more head jerks, and then, “You’re a wild man.”
“I think I did pretty good tonight, don’t you?”
“Lemme talk to you later.”
“You’re always talking to me later, Rodney, but you’re never talking to me at all. Just give it to me straight.”
“You’re gonna be okay, kid.”
“I need to know. Am I on the fuckin’ special or not?”
“You’re a wild man, I’m tellin’ you, you’re really out there.”
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