How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am Read online

  Of course, I was too inexperienced to achieve it, but I knew inhabiting the character was the goal. I answered them, with a confidence I actually had, “I’ll be famous someday, and you guys will be out of the business.” Even though I hardly ever speak so arrogantly, I learned early on that when I’m confronted inappropriately, I get rougher than the person who confronts me.

  I actually can’t remember one thing that was taught about acting at the Playhouse. I do remember a teacher who for reasons known only to him chose to unzip his fly and zip it up again while teaching.

  The big value there—and it was a big value—was the ongoing opportunity to get up in front of people and do scenes. Obviously, no matter what you aspire to, you’ve got to do it, and I spent a year and a half there acting in front of people. I hadn’t had the opportunity to do that, with the exception of Getting Gracie Graduated in eighth grade and the monologue from Julius Caesar at the University of Miami.

  A nationally known speech teacher came over from Carnegie Tech to teach. She had us all striving for what she called mid-Atlantic speech, and what I called an English accent. I would say five sentences and she had pages of notes criticizing how I spoke. I remember thinking Montgomery Clift and Spencer Tracy didn’t have English accents but sounded like Americans, so I didn’t give a moment’s thought to all those absurd speech notes. Plenty of actors followed her advice, but I’m not aware of any you or I have ever heard of. There’s not a huge demand for actors who sound English in America, and if there ever is, they’ll get them from England.

  My high point at the Playhouse came when I was in a student production of Charley’s Aunt. I played Sir Francis Chesney. In order to get to where I entered I had to crawl behind the set and beneath a window from left stage. I entered and brought the house down with everything I said and did. I thought, “Oh, my God, what a response! Maybe they’ll name a theater after me someday.” When I came offstage everyone was laughing, because there was whipped cream all over the tails of my full-dress coat. I’d picked it up from the floor behind the window where I had crawled. The audience was laughing, but I was thinking, “Maybe not all the laughs came from the whipped cream.” Always the optimist!

  It was a revelation for me first at the Playhouse, then in Uta Hagen’s class and in Lee Strasberg’s class, that there were plenty of gifted people. I saw as many as a hundred over a ten-year period who were as good or better than actors or actresses you see in the movies or on Broadway, but I can count on one hand those who became known. There were too many aspirants for too few opportunities. Also, very few could handle the endless rejection.

  Recently, I read a ridiculous rationale for the cruelty expressed on the television show American Idol. Someone said words to the effect that if you were going into show business, you better get used to cruelty. Rejection? Yes. But there is never any justification for cruelty, and almost always it comes around to bite the person who thinks there is.

  The Pittsburgh Playhouse was also an eye-opener for me regarding sex. I had never run into gay men, so I had no idea how many of the staff and students were gay. Since I’ve always had a lot of male friends, I began to make friends with some of the staff and a local actor who sometimes appeared in the main stage productions.

  Once this actor and I were driving around the park, as I always did with my high school buddies. We parked by the reservoir and talked. At one point I said, “Let’s take a walk around the reservoir.” He said, “Someone might see us.” I had no idea what he was talking about. I said, “Someone might see us? What’ya mean?” He said, “You are gay, aren’t you?” I said, “Me? No, I’m not gay.” It was very uncomfortable in the car as I drove him home. Another gay fellow told me that I just hadn’t met the right man yet. I still haven’t.

  I took a walk in the park with another guy who worked at the Playhouse. I didn’t think he was gay until he suggested we sit on the grass on our jackets. I said I didn’t want to sit on my jacket. He said he didn’t care about his jacket, so he put it down for me to sit on. I tried to quickly think of a way to get out of there with a minimum amount of embarrassment. When he ran his fingers through my hair, I leapt up and took off over a hill. So much for a minimum of embarrassment.

  I should say that on those rare occasions in my life when a woman has come on to me, I don’t run over a hill, but I do withdraw. Since I don’t like that and I’ve never been aggressive toward a woman, it’s hard even for me to imagine how I ever had dates.

  Not long ago my wife and I went to a black-tie event given by a famous female television personality. At some point in the evening, she approached me from the side. I didn’t see her coming. She planted a big smacker on my lips! My wife was standing right beside me, but even if she hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have appreciated it.

  Of course, since so many of the guys at the Playhouse were gay, I had almost no competition, if any, for the girls. I had my first sexual romance with a dazzling girl there. She was the young musical comedy star, not of the school but of the whole theater, and she was a teenager. She later made it to Broadway and the movies. The last time I saw her, about forty years ago, she had suffered some kind of a brain tumor and gained a lot of weight. She asked me if I would hang out with her for an afternoon and take a look at about ten dresses she had put a hold on.

  When I thought of that beautiful young girl and compared her to the heavyset woman I was now talking to who was obviously having some mental difficulties, it was a jarring reminder of what life can do to us.

  More Mistakes

  While at the Playhouse, I was interviewed by the head of the drama department of Duquesne University, a man by the name of Richard Scanga. He signed me up to be an apprentice at the Rabbit Run Summer Theater in Madison, Ohio, where we worked sixteen hours a day and paid them fifteen dollars a week!

  The good news is sometimes we would be given little parts in plays. Once I played one of four leads in a play, and once I was given a song to sing in a musical revue.

  One evening after rehearsal I heard someone from another garage (we had bunks in garages) singing my song, “At the Drop of a Hat.” Naively, I thought, “Must be a catchy song.” The next day the director called me over and said, “Let’s have Jimmy Reilly sing ‘At the Drop of a Hat.’” I said, “Jimmy Reilly?” He said, “Yes.” I wisely chose not to pursue the conversation.

  That was my first experience with being fired in show business, but I don’t remember it bothering me. I didn’t aspire to be a singer. Later, when I was fired for the one and only time as an actor—well, that was the one exception to the rule regarding how I handled rejection. More about that to come.

  The next year they called and asked if I’d like to come back and play a part in a play. They would pay me forty dollars. When I got there, the owner, an older woman, told me the theater had gone union, and she would have to pay me seventy-five dollars, but as they couldn’t afford it, she would pay me the seventy-five and I would return thirty-five dollars to her. I was already in rehearsal for the play, and while it felt wrong, I didn’t fully comprehend how inappropriate it was.

  I was nineteen, and I made a mistake by going along with her. That was in 1954 and I’m writing this in 2008, fifty-four years later, and it still bothers me. I’ve been told I have a “too scrupulous conscience.”

  All I can say is since 1954, I’ve never done anything I considered inappropriate at the time. That doesn’t mean that I’ve never done anything inappropriate. That means my future malfeasance took me years to realize, but I do now.

  As I’ve said, my biggest regret in life is not doing better by my dad as a teenager. I believe the second most serious mistake I’ve made is also irrevocable. It was in the sixties. There were plenty of girls interested in romance and sex. As I pursued that path, often sleeping with a girl once, sometimes a few days or weeks or even months and moving on, the upset I could be causing never occurred to me. None of these young women told me I had caused them pain, but I now know I did.

  O
nly once did a girl openly express her feelings about my “moving on,” and I hadn’t even kissed her, held her hand, or asked her out. It was just an easy chat around a summer stock theater in Pennsylvania. This was in the fifties. I told her I was heading to Hollywood. She said, somewhat shocked, “Just like that?” She meant I was abandoning what she saw as our future relationship.

  Who knows what another person goes through? That’s the main reason I’ve always been nice to everyone. I see all of us as more or less on the ropes. I want people who meet me to have a positive experience, but I now realize I hurt many women in a way I’m truly sorry about.

  On the other hand, I’ve shared these thoughts with current close woman friends, and they basically said I’m being too hard on myself, because the women know what’s going on. I appreciate hearing that, but I still think I was wrong in a serious way.

  Often a man will break up with a woman or a woman will break up with a man not because they prefer someone else but because of loyalty and guilt over a prior relationship. I think it’s a good idea not to get involved with someone who already has a strong involvement, even if they’re not presently seeing that person.

  To Hollywood and Back

  In 1955, at the age of twenty, I headed to Hollywood with some letters of recommendation from Don Hall, a man connected to the summer theater where I was working. Here’s an excerpt from one of them that he wrote to a PR woman.

  Here is the story: I have a slight interest in a local summer theater… you might say that I dabble at it.… This season we secured a young man (20 years old) as a juvenile type. You can believe me, Helen, when I tell you that this kid is not only talented but that he is the most talented young man that I have run across in my 25 years in theatrical work. I would hesitate going any further except that my opinion is backed by almost everyone who has seen him. He never once played a “leading” part this season but people come back week after week to see him. He is tall (6´1˝), very nice looking and has a tremendous personality. That is usual for a juvenile, of course. But his talent is most unusual. He can really act. Each portrayal is entirely different and a living, breathing, believable character. And his characterizations are 100%. There is no doubt that this young man will make the grade. It is only a question of where, when and how soon.

  Upon meeting me, the PR woman described my impact on entering a room as “About the same as someone who’d just left.” Since she felt I had no personal impact, she asked, “What do you do, become the character?” I had no idea what I was doing to elicit the praise in those letters, but attempting with some success to “become the character” was what I was doing.

  I had a similar letter of recommendation to the head of the talent program at Warner Brothers for whom I did a scene from a popular play and movie at that time, Tea and Sympathy. In the story the young man’s sexuality is in question, and he has a sexual encounter with an older woman.

  Not knowing anything about what such a young man might sound like, I chose to lighten my quality. After the scene was over, the man in charge said, “Have your agent call me.” I walked out of the studio on a cloud. “Have your agent call me?!”

  Of course, I had no agent, so I went to a phone booth and looked up agents in the Yellow Pages. I actually got one on the phone and told him what had happened. He said he’d call the studio and I should call him the next day, which I did.

  I excitedly asked, “What do they want to do with me?” He said, “They don’t want to do anything with you. They felt your quality was too light.” “Too light? I was doing that for the role,” I said, but my explanation fell on deaf ears. I asked the agent if I could come in and meet him, but the answer was a polite no.

  If the talent head had engaged me in conversation, he would have seen that my quality wasn’t too light. Just as would later happen, I was good enough that he believed that I was what they were seeing. Looking back, it was fortunate, because I was better served not being in a studio talent program but learning my craft more, getting experience onstage and in television, and not trying to jump into the movies.

  The event that changed my path was that a director I viewed as knowledgeable asked, “What are you doing here? You could become a real actor. You should go to New York and study.” So, just like that, I did.

  The man’s name was John Harding, and I owe him a big debt of gratitude as experience tells me good advice is hard to find in any field. Clearly, very few people give any thought to anyone outside of themselves and family.

  In New York, I moved into a room in the Capitol Hall hotel. It had no bathroom, no stove, no hot plate, and no window. It had a sink. As I recall, there were two bathrooms on each floor. Each was shared by about sixteen people.

  I was fine. I’ve always been unusually focused, and I was focused on how to become a good actor, so the lack of accoutrements didn’t get to me. Since there was no cooking allowed, and it wasn’t financially viable for me to go out to restaurants, I got myself an electric frying pan, which I smuggled past the front desk under my coat. Today I’m way more law-abiding.

  I hid the electric frying pan under my socks in a drawer. I’ve always had a lot of socks. No matter what my financial condition was, for some reason I’ve always had more socks than any one person could wear. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing myself to Imelda Marcos and her shoes, but I’ve always had a lot of socks.

  Anyway, in my illegal electric frying pan I would regularly cook chicken wings, which I got for nineteen cents a package. Today, I still eat chicken wings as much as any other food. According to my recent physical, I’m in tip-top shape. I’m not suggesting you run out and get chicken wings; I’m just saying…

  I think my experience at Capitol Hall—on Eighty- seventh Street between Columbus and Amsterdam in Manhattan—helps me identify with people in shelters. Of course, unlike me, most people in shelters don’t have confidence that someday they’ll be better than fine. Ironically, Capitol Hall is now a homeless shelter.

  I hooked up with my pal from the Playhouse, Julie Ferguson, who had also come to New York to study acting, and we got an audition for the Actors Studio. Julie and I had bonded with one look at the Playhouse as we felt equally silly prancing around the so-called movement class—another concept I have no use for in an acting class. Let it be for aspiring dancers.

  I had no idea the Actors Studio auditioned around a thousand people a year and accepted only a few. Julie and I were not among those few. It was the only thing in Manhattan harder to get into than a private preschool.

  Uta

  Julie and I then auditioned for the legendary acting teacher Uta Hagen and were accepted. I had studied acting for two years, as had Julie—at least. Nevertheless, we were invited to join Uta’s beginner’s class. I later realized that, generally speaking, acting teachers, like dentists, don’t have a high regard for each other. I remember throwing Uta a kiss as we left. I had no way of knowing that would be our last happy exchange for several decades.

  Among the things we were asked to do in class was to carry an imaginary suitcase across a room and open an imaginary window. I asked Uta what the purpose of that was. She deeply resented that I would question anything she said and let me know it.

  Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question again. This time Uta threatened to throw me out of the class. What made it worse was when I wrote my first book and again said I saw no point in all that imaginary suitcase carrying and window opening.

  But I do credit Uta with something she said to me that was very helpful. I was doing a scene in class from the novel The Catcher in the Rye. When the scene was over, Uta said there was a “pure acting moment” in the scene and asked me if I knew what it was. I had no idea. At one point the actor playing my teacher started to hand me an essay I had written. I reached for it, but he took it back to look at it again. Uta identified that moment as the “pure acting moment,” because, as she put it, it was a moment when I didn’t know what was happening. That state of not kn
owing what’s coming next is a state good actors aspire to. It’s called “living in the moment” and not anticipating what’s coming. Learning that concept was very helpful as I tried to unfold what at the time felt like the mystery of acting.

  Decades later, Uta was a guest on my cable talk show to promote a book she had written. Even though she had long since dropped those exercises, before the taping began she let me know she still really didn’t appreciate my writing about the exercises in a book. I even once spoke at her school and again questioned those exercises, but I don’t think Uta heard about it.

  It did seem her feelings toward me were somewhat mixed, because she also said that every time her acting studio asked me for a donation, I sent one. I particularly wanted to do that, because she had charged only three dollars a class.

  As I’ve said, because of all my experience in being kicked out of things, Uta threatening to kick me out of class for asking those questions didn’t affect me that much. After three years she did say about me, “He questions everything, which is the way it should be.”

  I saw Uta one more time at a party about a year before she passed away. She was sitting on a sofa next to a man we both knew, and as I came over to her, she said to the man, “He came into my acting class and acted as though he knew everything.” I said, “That certainly wasn’t what I was feeling, and I’m really sorry that I offended you.” She took my hand and kissed it.

  That observation about me acting as though I knew everything came several decades after Uta acknowledged I was right to question whatever I felt was worth questioning. I believe Uta had it right that time. It’s the same as in journalism: because we question things doesn’t mean we have the answers. America’s recent history tells us once again that the problem isn’t too many questions but too few.

  I have a fantasy that one day I’ll be taking a class with Uta in heaven. Once again I’ll question something, and once again she’ll threaten to throw me out, but it would still be great to see her. If she asked, I’d even carry an imaginary suitcase for her. I can’t imagine a need to open an imaginary window, because my fantasy of heaven is that we’re outside.