Jason Priestley

by Jason Priestley

I found an iffy car rental place way out in the Valley that was happy to rent a car to a seventeen-year-old Canadian kid. My red Yugo cost something like $19 a week, so I was happy with it, and my new place was fine. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time at home anyway. My first couple of weeks I spent quite a few nights on the phone with Holly, who kept asking, “When are you coming back to Vancouver?” After one of these calls, I dialed her back and said, “Fuck it, I’m coming this weekend.” I could not wait another second to see her again. I bought a plane ticket and headed back to my hometown.

  When I landed at the airport, Holly picked me up in a shiny red Porsche 944 that was as dazzling as her smile. I jumped in with my overnight bag, and we headed to the charming turn-of-the-century Georgian house she rented in Shaughnessy. There had been plenty of buildup on our phone calls. There wasn’t much talking that weekend, but we got to know each other intimately. I never wanted to leave. But come Monday morning she had to be on set, and I had to return to L.A. to try to find a job. The irony that I had lived in Vancouver my entire life was not lost on me. But what the hell . . . I began flying back to see her as often as I possibly could. That’s what you do when you’re young: buy plane tickets when you don’t have any money, fly three hours to see your girl for one night, then turn around and fly right back to L.A., smiling the whole time. Why wouldn’t I do that every chance I got?

  Luckily, Holly came home to L.A. as often as she could. Her schedule on 21 Jump Street allowed her to spend a decent amount of time in Los Angeles. Right from the start I was seriously overmatched . . . what was I thinking? Holly was five years older; a beautiful, accomplished young woman who had lived in Paris and worked all over the world. She was interested in a relationship with me? I was like a deer in the headlights. I gave it my best shot, believe me. What I lacked in knowledge and experience I certainly made up for in enthusiasm.

  Holly’s mother, Dolores, a talent manager, and her brother, Matt, probably wondered about Holly’s unusual choice for a boyfriend, but they were gracious and wonderful people who immediately embraced me. Holly and her mom had just bought a house in a Beverly Hills–adjacent neighborhood that needed some fixing up. I headed over there on weekends to help them remodel and paint. The Robinsons welcomed me into their family, pretty much, and for a Canadian kid newly dumped in Los Angeles, the friendship and warmth they offered was invaluable.

  Sometimes, conveniently for our romance, I had to return to work in Vancouver. In the fall of 1987, I booked an episode of MacGyver there. The star, Richard Dean Anderson, was a delightful guy; originally from Minnesota, he remained very down-to-earth despite the popularity of the show. He was ridiculously handsome—the George Clooney of his day. He was the hottest star on television, never married, who dated an endless string of models and actresses, each more stunning than the last. Still, no one managed to tie him down. He had charm to spare plus a great sense of humor about the show and the way his character was always able to save the day with a book of matches and a pipe cleaner . . . or whatever he happened to have on hand that week.

  Once again, I arrived on set to find my old friend Bernie. We were cast as best friends, the teenage sons of MacGyver’s childhood friends. In our episode, entitled “Blood Brothers,” Bernie got in way over his head with drugs, and gang members came after him. I played the loyal friend who tried to help and took a bullet for my efforts—though MacGyver saved me in the end, of course. “Dude, tell me what you’re doing!” Bernie said the minute we had time to talk.

  “Living in L.A., man!”

  “Oh, man,” he said. “I need to be in L.A.!” My old friend was doing quite well for himself. I wasn’t surprised; he was an immensely talented actor. He had just shot a key role in Jodie Foster’s movie The Accused as the haunted witness to her vicious gang rape. But Bernie could be erratic. He showed up four hours late one day to the set, with his hair dyed a different color and a ring in his nose, looking like he’d slept outside all night (he probably had). The producers were not pleased at the delays this caused as the makeup department frantically bleached his hair back to its regular blond shade and tried to fill in the hole in his nose.

  Naturally, he emerged from the trailer to do brilliant work. He was absolutely amazing once the cameras rolled that day, so all was forgiven. Plus, he was truly remorseful. I was bemused by his behavior, but it was just one day and he’d quickly redeemed himself, so I shook my head for a minute and forgot about it. As shooting wrapped we talked about our futures, and Bernie made a snap decision.

  “Let’s go back together—we’ll take my car! I just bought a Caddy! Let’s go in that! I’ll drive.” Bernie had no driver’s license, but he did somehow own a huge beast of a Cadillac. That was very Bernie. I cashed in my return plane ticket and bought some gas.

  “We’re going to Hollywood in my Coupe de Ville!” Oh, that car: a harvest gold 1967 Coupe de Ville with a vinyl top. It was gigantic. The backseat was longer and wider than most beds; we took turns resting back there on a few brief breaks. The shocks were blown. The stereo—and by stereo I mean the cassette player—was tied up with a hockey skate lace, swinging under the dashboard. We blasted Elvis Costello tapes all the way to L.A. and drove straight through. Coffee and NoDoz, coffee and more NoDoz. It was an epic road trip, twenty hours straight, ending triumphantly at my friend Dave Sherrill’s pad in North Hollywood. The Canadians had arrived to take over L.A.!

  North Hollywood

  91601

  Bernie and I rented an apartment together at 5050 Klump Avenue in North Hollywood: your basic Valley craphole. We were super-excited about living together and about our new lives in L.A.

  For the next six or eight months, my life became a routine of living in L.A. and auditioning for roles, running out of money, then getting offered jobs back in Canada, taking them, getting paid, coming back and living in L.A. . . . and on and on it went . . .

  One night, I returned to our apartment after a long-delayed flight from Vancouver where I was shooting Danger Bay. I was tired and wanted to rest, but when I walked into my room, I found some random guy asleep in my bed.

  “Bernie!” I yelled. I went back out in the living room, where my roommate was crashed on the sofa. This is where he could generally be found unless he was working. “Wanna tell me who that tall skinny guy in my bed might be?”

  “Oh right, dude. That’s Brad. He’s been staying here while you were gone, but he’s a really cool guy—an actor, you’ll like him.”

  The stranger woke up and came wandering out, half asleep. “Hey, man, we didn’t know you’d be back. Sorry about this.” Brad Pitt was the nicest midwestern guy imaginable. We became fast friends, and suddenly the three of us were living in our two-bedroom craphole apartment. Brad slept on the couch and looked for a more permanent place to live. We lived on Ramen noodles and generic beer—the kind that came in white cans labeled BEER—and Marlboro Light cigarettes. We were all broke.

  We didn’t even own a television set! Our “entertainment system” was an ancient Akai boom box with some cassette tapes scattered around, and a keyboard Bernie liked to tinker with and make music. Just for fun, we used to have competitions over who could go the longest without showering and shaving. Brad always won. Having to go on an audition meant cleaning up, which is what usually put an end to the streak.

  One of our favorite pastimes was to get into Brad’s car—a crappy blue Nissan 200SX he fondly called Runaround Sue—and strap on our seat belts. “Seatbelt Dummies” was the name of the game. This was back in the days before airbags. We’d drive around looking for things to crash into . . . Dumpsters were ideal, because they rolled slightly. The idea was to go flying forward with as much force as possible until the strap at your waist jerked you back, practically cutting you in half. We wouldn’t crash into anything that hard . . . but certainly Runaround Sue’s front end had a lot of dents in it. It was the funniest thing ever. All the guys we hung out with—a loose group of mostly unemployed actors—loved it.

  C
an you tell that it was a much easier and simpler time, the late ’80s? Brad and Bernie and me, running around Hollywood with the cool stonewashed jeans and the big feathered hair. Things were very different then in the dating world; everyone kept their lives much more compartmentalized. There wasn’t a lot of group socializing. You hung with your boys, the girls hung with their girls, and couples went out on dates by themselves. No one was particularly anxious to mix.

  I was perfectly happy hanging out with my crew; otherwise, I went on auditions and spent every minute I could with Holly. Brad eventually landed a role on Head of the Class and had a brief fling with Robin Givens, who’d recently left her husband, Mike Tyson, in a blaze of headlines. Bernie, who was still involved with a girl from Vancouver, Lisa Wolverton, appeared in a movie with Patrick Dempsey about a pizza guy, then in another movie with Jason Bateman. Those early days in L.A. when we were broke, just scraping together enough money to stay in L.A., were a great time in my life.

  With my limited budget, I happily accepted an offer from the Robinsons to join them in Tahiti for Christmas of 1987. All the Robinsons were going; they had rented several bungalows for everyone to stay in, so all I had to do was buy my plane ticket. The tropical setting was magical, but it did not turn out to be the dream trip we had all envisioned. We were riding around the island on rented scooters one hot afternoon when Holly’s mother, Dolores, crashed. She had to be rushed to the hospital and have immediate surgery on her foot. Fortunately, she was fine, but the incident threw a pall over the vacation. It was an omen. It was becoming clear that Holly and I would soon part ways.

  When we returned home from Tahiti after New Year’s Day 1988, it was clear the relationship had run its course. Like many breakups, it wasn’t totally clean and over with one discussion; there was a bit of back and forth, and some anguished discussions and second thoughts, but the romance soon had come to an end. As of course it was destined . . . I was eighteen years old; we weren’t going to stay together forever. There were certainly more suitable mates on her horizon as well.

  Though the romance was over, Holly meant too much to me in every way to lose touch. We salvaged a friendship out of what had been a sweet youthful fling and have remained friends to this day. Holly is a beautiful, sophisticated woman, and she set the bar very high in terms of romantic relationships. I could not have asked for a more idyllic first love.

  Vancouver

  V5K 2H9

  Brad came home one day and said, “Hey, I found a little house for rent over on La Jolla in West Hollywood; right across the street from the Comedy Store. I’m going to move there; it’s a two-bedroom place if either of you want to move in.”

  Bernie looked at me and said, “Jason. Whattaya wanna do?”

  I said, “You take it. I’m going back to Vancouver.”

  The writers’ strike of 1988 was upon us. The main disagreements between the writers and producers included residuals for hour-long shows and expanded creative rights the writers were demanding (like the choice of actors and directors for some projects). The strike would last for 155 days and bring the industry to a standstill. There would be no production. Hollywood would be shut down.

  There would be work in Canada, though, and there was nothing keeping me in L.A. So I packed my bags, wished Bernie and Brad well, and bought a ticket home.

  When I got to Vancouver, I reached out to my old friend Bruce Corkham to see if I could crash at his place for a bit until I figured out what my living situation would be. He told me he and his roommate, Sam, had an extra room that I could have and we could all split the rent.

  “Perfect,” I said. And I moved in.

  I soon learned that living with two guys from Halifax means living with everyone they’ve ever known from Halifax. Maritimers are legendary for their hospitality. And Bruce and Sam were no exception.

  One day I came home in the middle of the afternoon to find a girl sitting at our kitchen table, drinking my whiskey.

  “Hi,” I said. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Sarah,” she said.

  “So, Sarah, why are you drinking my whiskey?” I asked.

  “Oh. Hey. I didn’t know this was yours,” she said. “Sorry about that.”

  “No problem, but maybe you could pour me some.” I pulled up a chair. We started talking and she told me she was a musician, a singer specifically, visiting from Halifax to find a manager. She was looking to further her music career in Vancouver, because that’s where everything was really happening. And they did go on to happen for her, in a big way. Her first album, Touch, would appear a year later. I have stayed in touch with Sarah McLachlan ever since, following her happily as her concert venues grew bigger and bigger, and am delighted to say she is still a friend of mine today.

  I was working pretty steadily in Canada, but the writers’ strike seemed to be coming to an end in L.A. Finally, my agent called me and said, “I’ve got a movie offer for you! But you have to work as a local and get yourself a work permit. I’ve got the name and number of an attorney who can work this out for you, but you’ve got to come now. I mean, right now. Jump on a plane.”

  I called my buddy Dave Sherrill to see if I could stay with him for a month, immediately flew down to L.A., and went back to that shady car rental place and got that same red Yugo for $19 a week. I went to see a very high-powered immigration attorney in Century City, and he made the work permit happen.

  Temptation Blues, or Nowhere to Run, as it was called when it was finally released, starred David Carradine, the actor and martial artist who was newly sober at the time and still a bit fragile. The movie was set in 1960 in rural Texas, and David spent a lot of time wandering around the set with a gun over his shoulder. It wasn’t a great film; the tagline was “Hot-Blooded Teenagers . . . Cold-Blooded Murder.” I played one of a bunch of high school seniors with a terrible secret. In real life, David had no teeth—they had been kicked out by a horse if I remember correctly—and he kept his new teeth in his front shirt pocket. He never put them in when he was relaxing off-camera or rehearsing.

  We’d go over our lines once or twice, and when it was time to take our places, he’d say to the director, “Yeah, we gonna shoot this one? If so, I’m gonna put my teeth in.” He’d pull his teeth from his pocket, pop them into his mouth, and say, “All right, I’m ready to go.” It was hysterical. I didn’t mind that he was a little crazy; this was David Carradine, the legendary kung fu star. It’s characters like him that make this business great. He was truly larger than life.

  But that movie ended. As they all do. And I had to figure out what my next step was going to be. I didn’t know it then, but the next three months would change my life forever.

  The Valley

  91523

  A month of sleeping on Dave’s sofa had not only given me an appreciation for a good bed, his roommates’ cats had given me scabies. I didn’t even know what scabies were. I’d never even heard of them. But I can tell you, they were not fun. The ugly, itchy skin rashes were not what any actor wants to show up with at an audition.

  One day, Dave said to me, “Let’s take a drive.”

  I said, “Okay.”

  We headed north on 101. Dave asked me, “So what are you going to do now that the movie is done?”

  “I don’t know. . . . Head back to Vancouver, I guess,” I replied.

  “You can’t go back there, Jason.”

  “What do you mean? Why not?”

  “Because you’re here! Why would you ever go backward? You’ve got your papers for a few months, so stay. This is where it’s at! Bank on your success! You need to bet on yourself succeeding. You will make it here, Jason. Don’t go back to Vancouver.”

  I listened to what he said.

  “Look, I’m gonna move out of that place. Let’s get a place together. We’ll be roommates. You have to count on success.”

  I knew Dave was right. I just needed to hear it. Obviously, I said yes, and Dave and I started to look for a cat-free apartment that very da
y. And we found one. In Malibu Canyon.

  I owe a lot to Dave Sherrill. He was a great friend to me early in my career. And as he was older than I, he was a great teacher in many ways. Had Dave and I not had that talk in his car that day, I would have returned to Vancouver and the same busy career I was enjoying. But that was nothing compared to what was on the horizon for me in L.A.

  Van Nuys

  91401

  Like many actors who appear to burst on the scene out of nowhere, it took me a good ten years to become an “overnight success.” Meanwhile, it was audition, audition, audition. Hustle, hustle, hustle. And broke, broke, broke. I had turned in my rented Yugo and bought a used Honda Interceptor 500 motorcycle with my movie money, promptly racking up parking tickets all over the Valley, plus a speeding ticket one day on a canyon road.

  Naturally, I forgot all about my speeding ticket, thinking it was no big deal and I’d take care of it . . . sometime. Eventually, it went into warrant status. I was driving around Laurel Canyon one afternoon, going to visit some girl, when I ran out of gas. This was a not-infrequent occurrence, because I rarely had the cash to put more than five or six dollars’ worth of gas in at a time. As I pushed my bike up the road to the gas station ahead, a cop car came up behind me. I was happy to see him—I thought he might help me. “Hey, Officer, I ran out of gas. I’m just pushing this down to the gas station,” I told him.

  “You go ahead and push it down to the station. Then you’re going to lock it up and come with me. I just ran your plates, and there’s a warrant out for your arrest, Mr. Priestley.”

  I nearly fell over. “What? Hold on!”

  “Let’s move it,” he said. All was explained down at the gas station. At least the cop didn’t confiscate my bike; he let me lock it up and took me to the Van Nuys jail, where I languished in a waiting room. I had one phone call, so I called my roommate, Dave. With all the overdue fines, penalties, and interest, it was going to cost $283 to get out, a sum that nearly killed me. Dave showed up with three hundred bucks and bailed me out. We then returned to the station, picked up my bike, and filled it with gas. I paid him back with what little money I had in the bank. That was one expensive trip, and I never even saw the girl!