My favorite was a woman by the name of Beatrice MacLeod. (Now, there’s a name you can’t forget!) As a drama teacher, she knew how to bring out the best in me. I learned so much from her in my years there. But more than that, I think she was one of the smartest and most creative women I ever met. She was trained at Yale University, and her husband was the head of the psychology department at Cornell. I admired the way she gave of herself, as a teacher and as a human being. In fact, she gave me a leg up financially: she noticed me working as a server in the dining hall and knew I was a scholarship student who was struggling to find money to pay for books and living expenses, so she hired me to mow her lawns and trim hedges at her home. She was a very special lady.
The head of the drama department was named Eugene R. Wood, and he was quite a fellow too—directing us in plays by Chekov and Moliere, some real heavy stuff. He said of our class, “This is the best acting group we’ve ever had.” And I don’t think he was exaggerating. But the really fun thing is that whatever we were doing as a group, whatever my peers and I brought to the table, it got his juices churning again to get back on the stage himself. After we all moved on, so did he. He left the school to pursue his acting career anew. A couple of friends and I went to see him on stage in New York City a few years later, when he played a small role in The Pajama Game at City Center.
I don’t believe in that awful saying, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” I don’t think that’s true at all. I think sometimes those who can do it very well, but they also want to pass it on and to help maneuver other people into being better. That’s a talent in and of itself. I was fortunate to encounter many gifted teachers at Ithaca College.
I also made some great friends, and together we started writing and producing our own material. One year Ted Mack came up with The Original Amateur Hour, a television show that was like the Star Search or America’s Got Talent of its day. My friend John Bartholomew Tucker and I put together a vaudeville act with Barbara Randall—a beautiful, smart, talented performer who had been named Miss Subways in New York City one time—and we called ourselves “The Sophisticates of Comedy.” (We were teenagers! What did we know about sophistication?)
Anyway, I can’t recall if we lost to a bird act or a dog act, but we came in second place. That was pretty encouraging stuff, and John and I would never forget it. In fact, with John’s talents as a writer—he could write all kinds of songs and lyrics, almost anything, really—combined with my talent for interpretation, the two of us were convinced we could make it on our own. Sometime during our junior year we told ourselves, “Who needs college? Let’s put together a vaudeville act and go hit the big time!”
So we did. We quit school. I spent some time in John’s hometown in Pennsylvania and we started writing. We came up with this incredible vaudeville act. We were so excited! There was just one problem. As we went looking for theaters to put up our act, it suddenly hit us: vaudeville was dead. Nobody wanted to see it anymore, and none of the theaters were interested in hiring us.
Dejected, I decided to head back to school. The University Club of Pleasantville arranged to give me a loan, since I had (rather naively) given up my scholarship. But my friend John was instrumental in convincing me to do something very important when I went back. He convinced me to change my major from a bachelor of science degree in drama education to a straight-up performance degree—a bachelor of fine arts in drama.
He said, “Look. Everybody else is going for teaching. I know when you start out, if things don’t go the way you want, you’re going to teach. You’ll have that to fall back on. Now, suppose you don’t have that to fall back on. Then you’d be forced to stay in the game. To stay in there!”
It was very idealistic—but isn’t that how you’re supposed to be when you’re young?
I thought about what John said and I went to my mother to ask if she would mind if I switched majors. “If that’s what you want to do,” she said, “do it.” So I did.
I would think about that decision many times over the next few years, whenever I hit a rough patch. And believe me, there were plenty of rough patches. If I could have gone to teach, to make some steady income, would I have done it? I’ll never know, because I didn’t have the option. I had no choice but to stick it out.
I think that made a difference, and I’m thankful to John for that.
After all, I wasn’t looking for a fallback career. I wanted to act. I wanted to be onstage. And I wanted it bad enough that I was not only willing but eager to do that crazy thing actors do—to go off into the great unknown, to the big city where actors either find their footing or get their hats handed to them on their way out the door. After donning my cap and gown and picking up that diploma, it was time to leave behind Ithaca and Pleasantville and everything I’d ever known.
Time to put myself to the test—to see if I could make it after all.
3
THE BIG APPLE
MANHATTAN WAS ONLY THIRTY MILES SOUTH of Pleasantville, but it might as well have been a million miles away. How do you find a job with all those millions of people? How do you find an apartment? I only had one “in” that I knew of, so I gave it a shot.
Vince Klemmer, a friend of mine who was a very good actor and looked a little like a young Kirk Douglas, had quit college in his second year to move to New York City. I heard he had landed a job as an electrician at Radio City Music Hall, so I gave him a call and said, “Vince, think you can help me out?” He said, “Yeah! Maybe I can get you a job as an usher.”
Lo and behold, just like that, he did.
The only time I had been to Radio City was when I was young and my mom took Ronnie and me to see the Christmas Spectacular. We had lunch at the Horn and Hardart Automat. I had an egg salad sandwich. Then in high school, I cut school one day—the first and only time I ever did that—to see the The Al Jolson Story on that gorgeous big screen. Wow, was that something. Now I was going to work there, making a salary of thirty-four dollars a week! That sounded like a lot to me, but I had no idea how expensive New York City really was. I sure found out fast.
Vince needed a roommate, so I moved in with him and another guy, a pianist, way up on 71st and Central Park West. With three of us splitting the rent, we could almost afford it. Radio City is on 50th Street and Sixth Avenue, which runs up the middle of Manhattan. I couldn’t afford to take the subway every day or I wouldn’t have any money left at the end of the week. So I walked. Let me tell you, that’s a long walk every day. So long that I’d have to stop to catch my breath every once in a while. For some reason, I always seemed to stop in front of this one particular men’s shop on Sixth Avenue. It had a display in its window for Fruit of the Loom underwear: sixty-nine cents a pair—and I couldn’t afford it.
I would stop and look at that underwear and think . . . Someday. (Now I go in and buy a six-pack, just like that! I’ve really made it, I tell you!)
It didn’t take long before they promoted me to elevator operator at Radio City and raised my salary to thirty-seven dollars a week. And one day, who should step into my elevator but Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz! I was speechless. I had to be speechless; I was working. I wasn’t supposed to talk to people like that. But wow, what a thrill to be the guy to take them up in my elevator for their big movie premiere. To be standing inches away from two of the most famous people in the world was breathtaking.
I lived for those sorts of thrills, because let’s face it, on that kind of salary, New York was a struggle. All I could afford to eat some days was a roll. The delis would let you take as much butter as you wanted, so I’d pile on the butter and make it a meal. I couldn’t afford to get a sandwich from the Horn and Hardart Automat in Times Square, but the ketchup there was free. So like some of the other struggling actors, I learned to take some ketchup and mix it with hot water, which was also free, and to savor that tasty “ketchup soup.” Other days, when I just couldn’t take it anymore, I’d buy myself a hot dog. I’d pile on the mustard and relish a
nd onions and sauerkraut, whatever they had to offer on the side of the hot dog cart, as much as I could, knowing it would be my meal for the whole day. Man, if hot dogs made me happy before, you should have seen how happy they made me then. The hot dog vendors must’ve thought I was a crazy person the way I oohed and aahed and mmmed!
It really didn’t feel like that big of a struggle at the time. I was young. I was happy to get to work in that magnificent building. I was thrilled to go to work each day and be near so much talent, including those beautiful Rockettes—even if they hardly ever took a second glance at the bald kid working the elevator.
The problem was that agents weren’t giving me a second glance either. I went all over town looking for an agent, but no one was interested in representing a young man with a bald head. I had no idea what a problem it would be. Back at Ithaca, I played older guys all the time. But here, in the real world? Older guys played older guys, and no one wrote parts for a twenty-two-year-old who looked like me.
I knew what I needed to do. I needed to buy myself a hairpiece.
Hairpieces were something special. A good one cost a lot of money. I knew that. I kept putting money aside, but after saving for what felt like forever, I could only come up with a measly twenty-five dollars. My roommate Vince, who was such a great guy and was doing pretty well for himself as an electrician, saw me struggling. He knew how badly I needed that hairpiece, and would you believe he gave me a hundred dollars out of his own pocket to go get some hair? “I can’t have a roommate with no hair anymore. I’m sick of it!” he told me. Ha! Combined with my own savings, I was sure I could afford any hairpiece I wanted. I was so grateful and excited.
I ran right down to a place called Senz Brothers, somewhere between 50th and 60th Streets, and climbed the narrow wooden staircase to the second floor. I was greeted by a man with a shaved head, which was startling. You didn’t see many fully shaved heads in those days.
“Hello there,” he said. “I’m Ziggy. Can I help you with something?”
I swear, for the rest of my life, anytime I’ve gone into a hair place there’s a guy name Ziggy. Anyway, I said, “You sell hair. I need hair!” So Ziggy walked around and looked at my head and said, “Well, I tell you, it’ll cost between five hundred and six hundred dollars.”
I was shocked. “All I have is a hundred and twenty-five dollars,” I told him, and he basically replied, “Tough. Come back when you have five hundred!”
I explained that I worked at Radio City making thirty-seven dollars a week, and that I couldn’t get an agent because of my bald head, and that it would take me forever to save that kind of money. But he wouldn’t budge. So I left, dejected.
As I was walking down the stairs, I heard, “Hey, kid. Come back up here.”
I turned around and followed Ziggy to the back of the shop where he pulled open a curtain to a room with a long table, and on that table was a block with a hairpiece. He said, “Sit down there.” He was very bossy. I sat down and he put it on my head. “What do you think about that?”
I swear it was like looking into a magic mirror. Are you kidding? “It looks fantastic!” I said. (To tell you the truth, if it had looked like a bird’s nest it wouldn’t have mattered to me. It was hair!)
“If you want it,” he said, “you can have it for a hundred twenty-five.”
“How come?” I said. “You told me five hundred.”
“The truth is, somebody came in this morning to get a new one. He didn’t have any use for this. He left it here. So I’ll let you have it for a hundred twenty-five.”
I pulled that money out so fast. I thought, Oh boy! Wait ’til the Rockettes see me now!
I was curious about something, though. Before I left I said, “Ziggy, if you don’t mind me asking, who did this hair belong to?”
“I can’t tell you that!” he said. “That’s private information.” I shrugged my shoulders and started to leave, and two seconds later he said, “You really want to know? It belonged to Andre Baruch.”
“No kidding!” I said. Andre Baruch was a famous radio personality in New York who was known for his deep, booming voice. I swear to you, from that moment forward, I spoke with a deeper voice whenever I wore that hairpiece.
Decades later, I told the story of my secondhand hair on The Tonight Show. A week later, I got a call on the set of The Love Boat. “Gavin, there’s a phone call for you.” I asked who it was. “Somebody named Baruch?” I thought, Wow! I picked up the phone and there was that big, booming voice: “Gavin, this is Andre Baruch!” I said, “Oh, what an honor for you to call me.” And he said, “Bea and I are in town now, and I’m wondering: Would you be interested in another hairpiece?” We laughed and chatted, and he invited me down to Florida. He and his wife, Bea Wain, who was a major singer during the big band era, had a radio show down in Florida, all those years later. The whole thing was just a hoot.
Anyway, that was that. I now had hair.
Coincidence or not, life changed pretty quickly for me after that. For one thing, I caught the eye of one of those Rockettes!
St. Patrick’s Cathedral sponsored an Easter breakfast at the Waldorf Astoria in those days. I had been to mass many times at St. Patrick’s since moving to New York, but for some reason my mother thought it was important for me to go to that Easter breakfast. “I don’t know, Mom. I don’t really have money to spend on something like that,” I told her.
“Well, I’ll loan you the money,” she said, and she did. She insisted that I go. To this day I’m not sure why, but I took that $1.25 and bought a ticket. I went to mass by myself, received holy Communion, and then walked over to the Waldorf. My ticket put me up on the third-level balcony in the Waldorf’s grand ballroom, but there weren’t any reserved seats. The place was packed! Finally I saw a couple of empty chairs at the end of one table, and I recognized some of the girls who were sitting there. They were dancers at Radio City.
The Rockettes did a number in those days where they all came out in a big circle, and the announcer said their names and where they were from. Lo and behold, I recognized this one beautiful brunette from that show. I could hear the announcer’s voice in my head: “. . . and now, Joan Rootvik . . . Rootie! From Seattle, Washington!” There was a seat open right next to her, and for a moment, I hesitated. I honestly thought she was far too beautiful for me to sit next to. She was wearing this Grecian goddess sort of dress, and it was purple—one of my favorite colors. She was stunning. But I finally got up the courage and asked if that seat was open. She smiled and said it was.
She was kind. She was gracious. If I hadn’t already been taken by her looks, I would’ve been taken by her personality alone. I was just taken by her. Best of all? She laughed at my stories.
The two of us started going together. We couldn’t really go to the movies or anything like that. There wasn’t enough money between us to do very much at all. But we would see each other, and walk together, and sometimes we’d save up enough money to go to a little restaurant nearby where some of the other dancers would go.
I fell in love, and the more I learned about her, the more perfect it all seemed. Her father’s name was George; my father’s name was George. Her mother’s name was Rose Margaret; my mother’s name was Margaret. They were all Catholics. It was just perfect.
She didn’t seem to care that I was an elevator operator. She saw something in me. She believed in me. I made her laugh! I was thrilled.
As the months stretched on, I tried not to let the lack of food or the lack of agent bother me. I fed myself in other ways. Nourishing the soul, as it were. I took acting classes. I landed a couple of small parts off-Broadway, performing in front of tiny audiences, but audiences nonetheless. Rootie came to see me and was a big supporter of everything I did. I fell more in love with her by the day. And I wanted to be able to do right by her.
I realized I needed to make more money in order for us to have a future together. So even though it would take me away from the New York stage, I auditioned fo
r a road company. I wound up getting cast on a tour of Androcles and the Lion. I don’t remember what the salary was, but it was significantly more money than I was making at Radio City. So I quit that job, kissed Rootie good-bye for a short while, and hit the road. It was a children’s show that toured to schools. We had to set up and perform at seven in the morning. We had six actors all crushed into a station wagon with a trailer off the back to hold our gear. I remember at one point the trailer broke loose, and the head of the lion costume wound up smack in the middle of the highway. Can you imagine what people must have thought?
Coincidentally, I played the part of a captain in that show—only this captain wasn’t a likable character. Kids hated him! They threw stuff at me. They booed when I came onstage. I heard more booing during that road trip than I heard for the entire rest of my career.
I pinched my pennies along every inch of the road during that Androcles and the Lion tour—washing my shirts in the sink instead of taking them to the laundry, staying in rather than going out carousing, splitting the cost of hotel rooms by only paying for one of us and then sneaking in when the manager wasn’t looking. By the time it was over, I was able to pay back all of my student loan debt and put some money aside for Rootie and me to start a life together.
I was glad to get back to Rootie and to my beloved New York City when that tour was over. But as I jumped back into the grind of auditions and agent-seeking, things still weren’t working for me. Getting the hairpiece had given me the confidence and ability to at least get seen. But there was something more: I felt as if my name was getting in the way of my success. “Allan” just wasn’t strong enough. It wasn’t memorable. It didn’t have a nice ring to it. And “See” was always confusing to people, especially in the multicultural city of New York. I had always been told that “See” was a Chippewa Indian name and that my dad had Chippewa blood. But later in life my mother said that wasn’t true. So even I didn’t know where that name really came from. I went through life getting responses like, “See what? See this?” I’d go to pick up something I ordered at a store and the cashier would say, “Oh, with a name like See, I thought you’d be Chinese.” So I finally said, “Enough.”
This Is Your Captain Speaking: My Fantastic Voyage Through Hollywood, Faith & Life Page 4
