It felt like I was falling into lower and lower levels of hell.
One day when I was feeling especially pissed—my head aching and my heart heavy—I was driving up Laurel Canyon in the Caddy convertible that Rick Rubin had completely refurbished and customized for me. Suddenly I heard this car behind me honkin’ like crazy. I turned around to see that it was Eddie Murphy in his Benz.
“Dice!” he shouted. “Pull over!”
I pulled over, and naturally I was glad to see him.
“Remember back at the Comedy Club when I was a little nervous, you’d come over and say, ‘Hey, you got nothing to be nervous about. You’re Eddie Murphy.’ Well, I’m here to tell you, you’re the Diceman. And don’t let ’em fuck with you. For a long time, Dice, they fucked with me. Now they’re fucking with you. But just don’t let ’em get to you. Stay strong.”
THE RETURN OF DOLLFACE
AROUND THIS SAME time, as if things weren’t negative enough, here came more: Dollface—wife number one—decided to sue me, even though I had generously paid her off when we first got divorced. Seeing all this amazing money I was making, she figured that some of that belonged to her. How did she come to that conclusion? Simple: she was listening to super-lawyer Marvin Mitchelson, famous for crushing the nuts of husbands and inventor of the palimony suit. Dollface wanted millions. Why? Because, according to her, she helped me develop my act. This really made me laugh, because—and this is the goddamn fuckin’ truth—I never made Dollface laugh. Not only did she, a hayseed from Iowa, have nothing to do with my act as a wiseass street character from Brooklyn, she never thought my act was funny!
All this was in my brain when I was having lunch at Caffé Roma in Beverly Hills with Mickey Rourke. Mickey’s cut from a similar cloth as me; he don’t go with the flow. That made him a great guy to talk to when the establishment was coming down around me.
“We’re the ones with talent, and they’re the ones with the swords,” said Mickey. “But you know something, Dice, in the end talent is the sharpest sword of all. Talent cuts through everything. They’ll never keep you down—as long as you don’t forget how good you really are.”
For me, Mickey was a real-life Rocky. And Rocky was just who I needed. Mickey was also a good listener. I told him all the bullshit with Diller and how I knew it wouldn’t be long before Sandy Gallin and David Geffen followed his lead and dropped me like a hot potato. I told him how Dollface was coming after me and how the Marvin Mitchelson firm even tried to serve me with papers when I was doing SNL but couldn’t get through security.
“Don’t look now, Dice,” said Mickey, “but look who’s looking at you from a table out there in the patio.”
I looked around and spotted him right away. It was Marvin Mitchelson having lunch with Reggie Jackson’s ex-wife. Soon as he saw me, he got up to make a call.
“You wanna split?” asked Mickey.
“Fuck it,” I said. “They’re gonna serve me sooner or later. Might as well be sooner.”
Not twenty minutes later, the server came over to our table and handed me the legal document that said Dollface was going after my bread. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mitchelson smiling. Well, guess what? I was smiling too, motherfucker. I got up and went over to the big-shit lawyer and said, “I know how big you are, and I know what you’ve done. But I’m gonna tell you right here and now—you ain’t getting a fuckin’ nickel outta me. So if you’re doing it for the publicity, great. Smart move. Good way to keep your name in the papers. But if you’re doing it for the money, you’re fucked.”
He didn’t say a word.
After that, I prepared like crazy. I knew my case was ironclad, ’cause I already paid her all the alimony in full. I also knew there was no way in hell Dollface could prove that she helped me with my act, something I developed long before I ever met her.
When my deposition started, I walked in dressed as Dice, not Andrew. I had the leather and the fingerless gloves and even the Danny Zuko/John Travolta curl dancing off my forehead. Naturally that threw Mitchelson and his minions off their game. When I started answering their questions, they were even more bewildered, ’cause now I was talking like Andrew, a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn, calm and polite and respectful. By the time it was over, my prediction came through. I had to pay my legal fees, but fuckin’ Mitchelson and Dollface didn’t get shit.
STILL ROCKING AND ROLLING
WHAT REALLY BROUGHT up my spirits was that, despite all the backlash, my fan base stayed strong. Not only could I still fill arenas for the rest of 1990, I could fill ’em for the next five years or so. I’m not saying that I didn’t suffer a fall—but that fall was off in the distance. For the moment I was still rocking and rolling.
• • •
Now I gotta be doubly honest. Yes, I was happy that I could still work giant venues. But no, I wasn’t happy that my movie career had been torpedoed before it got off the ground. And yes, I was still in love with Trini. In fact, we got married in 1992, when Max was two. Max went on the honeymoon with us. When I held my son in my arms, I melted. He was my everything. But I can’t lie about the fact that my relationship with his mother was going through heavy changes.
Like all human beings, Trini had problems, but I don’t wanna lay ’em out here. I wanna respect her as the mother of our children. It’s easier for me to lay out my own problems.
• • •
Because Hollywood had kicked me in the balls, I was even more determined to get back up and fight. In a weird way, gambling became part of my fighting spirit.
This one time, for instance, I was at Bally’s in Atlantic City with Grandma Shirley, Mom’s mom. I loved Grandma Shirley, the coolest grandmother around. She had the gold lamé shirts and the designer slacks and the high heels. I loved being around her, especially that night, because I walked away from the blackjack table to the tune of $40,000.
When the cards are smiling in your face, it’s the greatest feeling in the world. To take the sting outta the Ford Fairlane fiasco, I went after that feeling as much as possible. And when I hit a winning streak, I wasn’t selfish. I spread the wealth. I heard stories of how when Sinatra was riding high, he always carried fifties and hundreds ’cause they were the tips he gave. I heard the same kind of stories about the beautiful way that Elvis took care of his people.
Let’s say I was up two hundred thousand or so. After the big win, I’d go back up to my suite with Club Soda Kenny, Hot Tub Johnny, and Happy Face.
“You know the game, fellas,” I’d say.
Then I’d grab a stack of chips and toss them in the air. It was all for my guys. They kept whatever they caught. Incredibly, they all came out about even.
It wasn’t that my crew lived on tips. They got good salaries. When we were in Brooklyn walking through the Kings Plaza mall I bought tons of shit—everything from gold chains to sweatpants—and gave ’em to my guys, just for the hell of it. When I learned of a special occasion—let’s say Happy Face was getting married—it was nothing for me to give him five Gs, just ’cause I wanted him to know how much his happiness meant to me.
In the early nineties, I went through some crazy gambling periods. I don’t say this to shock you, but only to tell the truth: on three straight nights at Caesars in Vegas I lost $700,000 each night at blackjack. That’s $2.1 million in less than seventy-two hours. Was I fucked up over it? Not really, ’cause back then I was my own bank. It bothered me, sure, but I had to try to wipe the loss away and start fresh the next time I hit the table. You can’t gamble scared. You can’t gamble weak.
I have three rules: I don’t gamble when I’m tired, I don’t gamble when I’m angry, and I don’t gamble when I’m drunk. In short, I keep my head clear. And I know the game.
• • •
One day I was back in L.A., in my tank top and shorts, about to go to the gym. On my way, though, I took a detour and headed to the airport instead. I jumped on a one o’clock flight to Vegas, landed at one forty-five, and ran over to the Mirage. M
y plan was simple: I was gonna win a hundred thou at blackjack and be home by dinnertime.
Except it didn’t work out that way.
Still in tank top and shorts, I was at the tables at the Mirage when, by three o’clock, I was down a half mil. The Mirage, of course, knowing who I was, wasn’t upset. They gave me the credit ’cause they knew I was good for it. I walked out of the hotel. Bright, clear, sun-drenched Vegas afternoon. Since no one knew what I’d just lost, I was still feeling in control. I went over to Bally’s and walked up to the tables like I didn’t have a care in the world. You can’t let ’em see you as a loser.
“Hey, Dice,” said the Bally’s casino manager, “didn’t know you were in town.”
“Came in for some meetings,” I said. “I was just working out and I figure I’ll relax for a minute.”
“No problem, Dice. How much you need?”
“Start me off with a hundred thou.”
I took the hundred and started winning. I let the Bally dealers know not to fuck with me. I didn’t want no chitchat. I didn’t want no distractions. I wanted the same dealer and I didn’t want him taking breaks. I needed to be serious. I needed to focus like a laser beam. And I needed to win. When I got to $550,000, I stopped.
“You’re having a good day, Dice,” said the manager. “Lemme buy you dinner.”
We went to the Italian joint inside Bally’s.
Soon as we were eating, I asked the guy, “Will you set me up with a limo and plane back to L.A.?”
“No problem. How you want the money?”
“Make a check to the Mirage for a half a million and give me the rest in cash.”
“When where you at the Mirage?”
“Early today before I came over. Ran into some bad luck over there.”
I could see the manager was about to kick himself. That’s because if he’d known I’d been losing at the Mirage, he would have had his people mess with me at the table. Every third or fourth hand they’d have switched up dealers. They’d have found ways to fuck with my flow. He realized that, in my own way, I had played him.
But casino managers are reputable people, and this guy honored my request. I took the check and delivered it to the Mirage on my way to the airport. When I got home that night I was still wearing the same tank top and gym shorts, except that in my right pocket there was a bulge of cash that came to a cool fifty Gs.
• • •
Funny thing what your mind can do.
When things were going great, I couldn’t be beat.
But when my movie career collapsed and my emotional pain started seeping inside my soul and taking over, I couldn’t win a bet. It was uncanny. Every table had my number; every casino crushed me. Dealers couldn’t lose. I’d pull two pictures, the dealer would draw a blackjack. I’d split aces, I’d get dealt a two and a three. Most dealers liked me and felt my pain. They’d shake their heads. Every blackjack session turned into a bloodbath. One morning, around four A.M., after getting absolutely annihilated at Caesar’s, Kenny and I walked back to Bally’s, our heads down, not saying a word. The world felt like it was closing in. To this day we call that morning the “losers’ walk.”
I shook it off—or tried to. Even after I lost a hundred grand at Bally’s the following night.
The day after I was totally out of cash.
“How much money you got on you, Wheels?”
“Twenty bucks.”
“Pay for the cab, okay? Let’s go.”
“Where we going?”
“The Mirage. My luck’s gotta change.”
It didn’t.
I sat in front of a dealer with a shitty attitude as I dropped more than half of my seventy-five-grand marker. Finally, the shift ended and a new dealer and floor manager came on. The dealer smiled at me. “Archie,” his name tag read. He was a quiet black man from Louisiana. I smiled back at him. I liked him. Liked his vibe, liked his manner, liked how he shuffled the cards. Soft hands.
Maybe. Just maybe . . .
Archie asked me to cut the cards in the shoe. I sliced the six decks in the middle with the yellow card and Archie tilted the shoe away from me. I turned to the floor manager, a short, stocky woman with beady brown eyes that looked like a couple of rat droppings. “Excuse me,” I said. “Could Archie please face the shoe toward me?”
“No,” she said. She didn’t say, “And by the way, fuck you,” but she might as well have.
I took a breath, closed my eyes, calmed myself. I was not going to allow this lady to ruin the new vibe I was feeling at the table. I took out a cig, flipped open my Zippo, lit my smoke with all the flair of the Diceman. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the short, stocky floor manager frown and back up a step.
Unbelievable, I thought. I’m losing my ass, and this one’s giving me attitude.
I blew a smoke ring, watched it rise and disappear into the chandelier above me.
I’m gonna change the energy right now. Not gonna let her get to me.
I smiled at her. “I’m playing over at Bally’s. How’d you like a couple of comp tickets to the show tonight?”
She made a face like I’d just asked her to suck my dick in the middle of the casino. “No. Thank you,” she said.
I looked up at Wheels. We both rolled our eyes. Great, I thought. I’m forty-five K in the hole and I got a floor manager who’s a Dice hater.
I turned my attention to Archie. I held up a chip. “So, Archie, here’s the deal. See this five-thousand-dollar chip? It’s yours. No matter what. That’s your tip.”
I pushed that chip aside and then placed a five-thousand-dollar chip in each of the six circles in front of me. My last six chips. I stood up and spread out. The table was mine. A few people eased in behind me to watch.
“Let’s do this, Archie. It’s you and me.”
He dealt my six hands. I stuck on each one.
Archie busted.
I was up sixty thousand.
I felt the floor manager shifting her weight. I refused to look at her.
I let the sixty ride.
I stuck again on all six hands.
Archie busted.
The crowd, growing behind me, let out a collective sigh followed by a small cheer.
I was up $120,000.
I let it ride.
I won all six hands.
I was up $240,000.
I counted out seventy-five thousand in chips, the marker I owed the Mirage, and put those chips aside. I was now playing with $165,000.
I played fast and loose for the next twenty minutes, building my stack to $250,000. The crowd behind me had now gotten two deep. I’d become the show in the casino.
I sat down in the middle chair directly facing Archie.
“All right, Archie,” I said. “This is how I wanna do it.”
I lit another cig, took a drag, allowed the smoke to fill my lungs. I never enjoyed a cigarette more.
“I promised you that five-thousand-dollar chip. I’m a man of my word. So you can take it. It’s yours. Or . . .” I took another long drag, let the smoke out. “Or you can play along with me. What I want, right now, for both of us, is a blackjack.”
He laughed and looked down at the green felt of the table. Then he raised his face and cocked his head as if we were a couple of gunslingers.
“I’m with you, Dice,” he said.
“All right. But. There’s a catch.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“It can’t be just any blackjack. Got to be the ace of spades and the king of spades. That’s the only thing it can be. Can you do that for me?”
“Well, that . . . I don’t know . . . I can’t promise that . . .”
“What? You don’t believe in me? You don’t believe in yourself? Archie, you gotta believe.”
I whirled on the floor manager, who was staring at me with some weird combination of amusement and disgust. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” I said to her. “I’ll bet everything in front of me against your entire salary for the next ye
ar that Archie will deal me the ace and king of spades. What do you say?”
“No. Thank you,” she hissed.
I looked back at Archie. Now he was smiling.
“Do it, Arch,” I said.
He slid the first card out of the bottom of the shoe.
Ace of spades.
The crowd behind me gasped.
I have to say, as Archie pulled the next card out in what seemed like slow motion, I turned away.
I didn’t have to look.
The roar of the crowd behind me told me what it was.
“Holy fuck,” Wheels said. “Holy fucking shit. I don’t fucking believe it.”
King of spades.
“You gotta admit, a fifteen thousand tip is better than five,” I said to Archie, who was staring at the cards, his hand trembling.
Wheels and I gathered up the chips to more applause. I cashed out at the cage and handed Wheels ten thousand dollars. “Thanks for lending me the twenty,” I said. “Cab ride back’s on me.”
Least I could do after winning half a million.
OLD SPICE
I LET WHEELS open for me at Caroline’s in New York. I also took him into Radio City Music Hall. Before long he was touring the country with me, and Downtown Ronny, his manager, was along for the ride.
When we got off the road and returned to Brooklyn, I learned that Downtown wanted me to go to Bay Ridge and meet a friend of his.
I had no problem with that.
The guy was holding court at the social club where the wiseguys played cards and sipped espresso. He was wearing a silk suit and was smoking a good cigar, had a nice haircut, and smelled of Old Spice. I wanted to ask him, Can’t you afford nothing better than Old Spice? but I kept quiet. We ate cannoli. We talked about Brooklyn. We talked about the weather. We talked about his country house upstate. He had fifty acres and a private lake with ducks. He loved ducks. Did I like ducks? Sure. Did I want to go upstate to see his ducks? Wish I could, but I gotta work.
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