Could It Be Forever? My Story (7 page)

M
y father was back in my life. Once he accepted the fact that I was determined to follow in his footsteps and make acting my profession, he tried to help me as best he knew how. He paid for my first professional photographs. He got me connected with agents who could help find me parts to audition for. And – most significantly over the long haul – he asked his manager, Ruth Aarons, who knew as much about the business as anyone, to give me whatever help she could.

Initially, Ruth advised me more as a friend than a manager; for the first couple of years of my career she took no payment from me. She saw no need to take from me a few hundred dollars that I could really use. Ruth became almost like
another parent to me. In fact, I got along better with her than with my father, since I didn’t have any emotional baggage with her.

My father decided that the best way for me to get my start would be to do exactly as he had done – learn my craft in the New York theatre and gradually become a respected ‘working actor’. In this instance, I agreed wholeheartedly with my dad. He was, after all,
the
authority.

My dad had a real flair for comedy, often playing vain, shallow buffoons. He’d most recently been featured on Broadway in the 1964–5 success
Fade Out Fade In,
starring Carol Burnett and staged by George Abbott. Now, in the summer of 1968, he was preparing to co-star with Shirley in a forthcoming Broadway musical,
Maggie Flynn.

My father had rented a veritable castle, high on a hill overlooking the Hudson River in Irvington, New York, about 45 minutes north of Manhattan. It was a stone-crafted mansion, complete with turrets, stained-glass windows, swords and armour. There was plenty of room for him and Shirley and my brothers Shaun, Patrick and Ryan. I could live with them rent free. In fact, there was a pool house I could use so I could have privacy if I wanted to entertain any young ladies.

This would be the first time I’d ever lived with my father, stepmother and my three brothers. I didn’t even meet Shaun until he was about four months old and I was visiting for Christmas. It only made me feel more abandoned and isolated. Later, as my brothers got older, I felt blessed to have them, as I do today. We don’t consider ourselves half-brothers, we’re brothers.

My father said he would help me find a part-time job and I could take acting classes and audition for roles in New York until I established myself as a working actor. It sounded almost too good to be true.

And it was.

For starters, the part-time job my father found for me was in the mailroom of a textile firm in the city. At the time, $1.85 an hour was the minimum wage. The boss said, ‘I tell you what, we’re going to give you $2 an hour.’ I earned $50 a week. After deductions, I took home $38.80, which didn’t do much more than cover the cost of commuting from Irvington to New York City.

The youngest person I worked with was 48. The others working there were 55 and 74. And I was 18. I had to don a light-blue smock and sort mail. I had no friends there and was lonely. I lived in a fantasy world. I just couldn’t identify with those people.

I’d get up early in the morning to catch a commuter train filled with serious-looking people in business suits from affluent Westchester County, whose only goal was to move up the corporate ladder. My whole life I’d somehow felt different from most people. And those feelings were never more intense than while riding on that train and working in that mailroom. I’d tell myself,
I don’t look like these people or think like these people.
I had dreams that were different from theirs. I really wasn’t money-oriented (although I didn’t like being broke all the time, either). I longed to achieve artistic success by being a working actor.

I was starting to have doubts as to whether I’d ever achieve that. In my first few months in New York, I went to nearly 200 auditions for parts on Broadway, off Broadway and even tried out for off-off-Broadway as a last resort, as well as TV commercials and anything else I could interview for. I didn’t get one job offer. Not one. Not even for the smallest part. There’d be 50 guys competing for every part, even if the job paid no money.

I’d be so depressed, so despondent after auditioning. Each new rejection would bring back old feelings from when my dad walked out on me and my mom. I made a much bigger deal out of being rejected than did the other aspiring actors I knew. I was plagued with self-doubt.

I’d think about the fact that I’d never had much success in school. I’d wonder whether I was ever going to have any success in my career or in my personal life. I couldn’t dull those feelings with drugs or drink; I didn’t have much money for any non-essentials. My dad, unlike my mom, wasn’t the sort of person you could hit up for spending money. And
even if I had the money for pot and knew where to get some, I didn’t have anyone to smoke with.

I’d wonder sometimes what the guys back in California were doing – Kevin Hunter, Sam Hyman, Steve Ross, Sal Mineo, Don Johnson and others. All of them, I was sure, had to be leading happier, more rewarding lives than I was. Kevin was the only one I really wrote to. His letters were always a treat; he was such a good writer.

I did nothing but work: half the day in the mailroom, the rest of the time going to auditions or acting classes. I had to cut my hair off for my stupid part-time job. I felt totally alone. Isolated. I lost my identity as a part of the hip, young, 60s generation.

And my father didn’t seem satisfied with anything I did. He criticised everything about me, beginning with my wardrobe. If I wanted to attend high school dressed as a hippie that was one thing. But he was not going to have Jack Cassidy’s son going around New York looking like a bum.

My total wardrobe, when I arrived in Irvington-on-Hudson from Los Angeles, consisted of one pair of regular shoes, one pair of tennis shoes, three pairs of jeans, six shirts and a jacket. Standard teenage gear.

‘How can I present you to my friends, the way you’re dressed?’ he’d ask. ‘And what are you going to wear to work and auditions?’

I had to admit that had been the last thing on my mind. My dad said it was essential I bought a good suit. One day I told him, ‘Look, Dad, I’ve been going through the
newspaper for suits and I found some really good buys. I was wondering if I could go into Manhattan with you?’

He looked at the ads I’d found and declared curtly, ‘Look, you don’t want to shop in those places. I’ll take you into New York and get you some nice clothes.’

I thought,
I’m 18 years old and my dad is going to buy me some clothes. Great! It’s about time
.

After all, he knew I was only clearing $38.80 salary a week.

My dad took me to his tailor at Roland Meledandri, which must have been the most expensive clothing store in New York. He picked out a couple of suits for himself and then put me in a terrific suit. He also picked out an overcoat, a great sports jacket and slacks. The bill was running up to $800 – a fortune in those days – and I was thinking,
This doesn’t feel like me at all.
But I knew my dad was happy.

My dad put his arm around me affectionately as we left the store – at times like that, I could really feel his love for me – and simply asked, ‘Well?’

I mean, what could I say except, ‘Gee, thanks. Thanks a lot, Dad.’

‘Oh, you don’t have to thank me,’ he responded, ‘because you are going to pay for it.’

What?!

‘You’re going to pay me $15 a week until you’ve paid it all back.’

Bastard.

That was a significant day for me. I felt like I was finally seeing my father the way my mother had long seen him. That was a dirty trick to play on a son.

How much can I get my son in debt to me? I’ll take him to the most expensive shop in town and make him owe it to me!

My dad said that no one had given him money when he was young, and he expected me to do exactly as he had done. And you know what? I eventually paid him back every cent.

My relationship with my father was very strange, but I developed a good relationship with Shirley. Anyone who knows her knows it would be hard not to like her. She is a wonderful human being.

But when I was 18, my dad – who hadn’t really been a part of my life at all up to that point – suddenly decided he was going to be my father. In Irvington-on-Hudson he laid down all sorts of ground rules for me that I’d never had when I lived with my mom.

There was always a lot of friction between us. And heaven help me if I told him I’d done something like arrive at an audition 15 minutes late. He’d rage, ‘You don’t show up for an eight o’clock call at eight-fifteen! That’s unprofessional!’

And I’d be like, ‘Give me a break, Dad. I’m
not
a professional yet. I’m 18 years old.’

But he was stubborn. And I was stubborn.

Dad and Shirley went on the road for previews of
Maggie Flynn
prior to its scheduled October 1968 opening at the ANTA Theater in New York. They were out of town when I got hired for my first real professional job in a new Broadway musical comedy,
The Fig Leaves Are Falling
with Barry Nelson, Dorothy Loudon and Jenny O’Hara. It was being staged by George Abbott, the legendary octogenarian director/writer/producer, who had worked in past years with both my parents. I was in four scenes and got to sing two songs with Dorothy Loudon.

My dad and Shirley were thrilled when I telephoned them with the news. Then I telephoned my employers and declared I’d never be going back to that hated job. ‘Send my final cheque to my home. No, better yet, keep my cheque!’ I told them. What did I need with a cheque for $38.80? I was being offered $175 a week – a veritable fortune – to appear in a show staged by George Abbott. In a career spanning five decades, Abbott had worked on more Broadway hits –
Pal Joey
,
On the Town
,
Pajama Game
,
Damn Yankees
,
A Funny
Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
and countless others – than probably anyone else in the business. I could imagine
The Fig Leaves Are Falling
running for many years to come, and me collecting those huge $175 cheques week after endless week. At 18, I had a good imagination.

The Fig Leaves Are Falling
opened at Broadway’s Broadhurst Theater on 2 January 1969. It closed on 4 January 1969.

My dad and Shirley’s show,
Maggie Flynn,
didn’t fare all that much better. Shirley’s popularity as a film star helped generate some ticket sales, but not enough. By mid-January we were all out of work. My dad and Shirley decided to return to California.

Fortunately for me, while we were doing previews in Philadelphia for
Fig Leaves . . .
a casting director from CBS films had seen me and wanted me to screen-test for a movie he was casting. So two days after we closed on Broadway I was on a plane back to Hollywood.

R
uth began managing my career for real. She really cared about me, my dad, and my stepmom. She was an extremely loyal person. If my dad wanted her to look after me, she would, even though there wasn’t any guarantee there’d be much in it for her. She helped me find a good agent to send me out to audition for appropriate parts. Then it was Ruth’s job to help me decide the right career moves.

For those who imagine that show business is all fun and parties and everyone is guaranteed to make a huge fortune immediately, you should consider this: if you hadn’t seen me in any of the three performances of
The Fig Leaves Are Falling
before its untimely close on Broadway, you would have had no other chance to see me perform professionally in
1969 until the year was almost over. I didn’t get the film role I screen-tested for, nor did I get a number of other parts I auditioned for. In the final two months of the year, I was seen on episodes of two television series,
The Survivors
on ABC and
Ironside
on NBC (my first major role on television). And that was it for the year.

My total earnings for 1968 were well below the poverty level. And they weren’t much better for 1969. Even so, Ruth mirrored my great hopes for the future.

I was back living with my mom in Los Angeles and feeling a little too old for that. She covered most of my costs while I saved money, but she made it clear, however, that I’d have to become self-sufficient as soon as possible, because she had decided she wanted to move back to West Orange. She had never really bought into the Hollywood lifestyle. And now, after two painful divorces, she wanted to return to her roots. She felt that spending more time with my grandfather, who was 81 and in declining health, would be good for both him and her.