How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am (13 page)

One of Grodin’s best performances: bringing to his writing the same insightful humor and persuasive humanity that he brings
to his acting, he has come up with a kind of intrepid explorer’s guidebook through that most treacherous of terrains—the dark
valleys and paper mountains of show business. Like the best of Grodin’s comic roles, it’s about the survival of all of us
who believe we are sane in a world gone mad, a world we need to be part of that seems to need no part of us. When you finish
this book, I think you’ll be glad as I am that Grodin
is
, in fact, and will remain, here.

I’ll always cherish Herb Gardner, even if he had chosen
not
to give me a quote.

Herb once went to a screening of a movie I had written and coproduced. Afterward he was barely speaking to me because he felt
I had cut so much out of my original script, which he loved. We got back on track after I explained to him that we had originally
screened it with all that I had written still in it, and it just didn’t play as well. At that screening with about a thousand
people in the audience, there was only one person consistently laughing out loud—Elaine May.

W
hen I was making the movie
Catch-22
, in 1969 and 1970, I became good friends with Anthony Perkins, who was a good friend of Orson Welles, who was also in the
cast. Tony introduced me to Orson as someone he would enjoy knowing. Something in the way Tony described me suggested I was
a good storyteller, the last thing Orson was interested in having around, because Orson was the storyteller. Orson looked
at me like I was a lamp whose light he would like to turn off.

He also chose to tell Mike Nichols what to do with the cameras whenever he was in a scene, and wasn’t a bit self-conscious
about it.

At some point, a friend from New York who was coproducing a play called to discuss suggestions I might have for directors.
I knew Tony Perkins was interested in directing, and even though he had never directed, I thought he could because he was
so bright and gifted, so I suggested him. He ended up getting the job.

The play was
Steambath
by Bruce Jay Friedman, a brilliant comedy playwright and novelist. The star was comedian Dick Shawn. During rehearsals, Dick
was fired, and Rip Torn took over. Not too long after that, still in rehearsal, Rip was fired, and they asked me to take over.
By that time rehearsals had gone on so long, Tony was in Hollywood keeping a prior movie commitment. A director named Jacques
Levy took over. After a couple of weeks, preview audiences started to come, and the play and I were being received extremely
well. Then they fired me.

The reasoning was the play was working well, but to recoup all the long rehearsal expenses, it would be good to get a name,
and they did—Tony Perkins.

Tony came in. The play opened and wasn’t successful. The feeling was Tony was miscast. The immediate ramification of this
for me was it ended my relationship with Tony. You don’t replace a friend in something where he suggested you as the director.

I wasn’t aware of the impact this firing had on me until I started having dreams about being replaced. This was a first—being
fired at the thing I was the best at.

True to my rebounding nature, a short time later I wrote a play about someone fearing he’s going to be fired as the director.
Alan Arkin starred in it in 1971 in Nyack, New York.
One of the All-Time Greats
opened off-Broadway in 1992, got an excellent review from the
Times
, and had a successful run.

The paths of Bruce J. Friedman, the writer of
Steambath
, and mine crossed years later, after I became known in the movies. He told me that his sons had told him not to fire me,
because I was the reason the play was suddenly working. It always had the brilliant Hector Elizondo in it, but my role was
the lead, the protagonist.

About a year after I was fired, Bruce went to the office of my friend, who was
Steambath
’s coproducer, and said, “Guess who’s playing the lead in
The Heartbreak Kid
?” My friend said, “I know.”

Ironically, the short story on which
The Heartbreak Kid
is based was written by Bruce J. Friedman.

I
n the early seventies, while appearing as a guest with Johnny Carson on the
Tonight Show
, I presented myself as a malcontent, a kind of person bothered by everything. I did this because I felt if I just came out
and said how I was excited about my new movie or maybe told some anecdote about it, it really wouldn’t be sufficient for someone
to stay up late to watch, so I made up a character who was always outraged by this or that.

To this day, decades later, I still play the malcontent with David Letterman. I entered recently in an agitated state, claiming
the stage manager had said to me just before I came on, “Your jacket won’t televise well.” Of course, no such thing happened.

When I began to do this all those years ago with Johnny, people would sometimes genuinely be offended by my responses. Johnny
would ask me how I was, and I’d say, “I don’t want to answer that, because I know you’re not really interested in the answer,”
and the audience would hiss, and they meant it, too! Of course, they would have no way of knowing that I was under exclusive
contract to Johnny Carson as a guest.

I was originally interested in going on Johnny Carson’s show in 1973 to show those people who might have seen me in
The Heartbreak Kid
, in which I left my wife on our honeymoon, that I wasn’t really a cad. Many would say that the persona I felt had to choose
was worse than caddish. Over the years, I continued to play often unsympathetic roles in movies. The doctor who unwittingly
turns Rosemary over to the bad guys in
Rosemary’s Baby
came prior to
The Heartbreak Kid
. To this day, amazingly to me, some people confront me over that dastardly deed. I’ve actually gotten into polite debates
justifying Doctor Hill’s actions.

I followed
Rosemary’s Baby
with
Catch-22
, where I threw a prostitute out the window. When Alan Arkin confronted me in the movie on that, I explained, “A lot of people
are killed during wartime.”

After I did the movie
The Incredible Shrinking Woman
, my mother said more than one of her friends had seriously asked her why I hadn’t helped my tiny wife clear up the mess after
she dropped a number of dishes. In the movie, the camera cuts to a shot of me ruefully shaking my head in the breakfast nook,
but not getting up to help.

I explained to my mother that they couldn’t actually shrink Lily. They just made everything around her superlarge, and if
I had run in to help, I would have appeared tiny as well, and that wasn’t the story. Besides, I said I wasn’t even there on
the day they shot Lily dropping the dishes. My mother advised me to forget about it: “No one will know what you’re talking
about.”

Years later, with David Letterman, we devised a bit where I came out but he wasn’t there behind the desk. He was actually
in his office, but he said on the phone, which the audience could hear, that he was at home. He had an appointment with the
cable people, who were late. I said in an exasperated tone that was really inappropriate, “If you are hosting a show, you
can’t let a cable appointment take precedence.” After my appearance a lot of letters came in saying I should have been more
understanding of David’s situation.

When I began my cable show, Johnny had recently retired. He wrote and asked if I’d like to have dinner with him whenever I
was in California. One night I went to a restaurant and joined Johnny and his wife. As I began to talk about my cable show,
he was openly bored. I found his response funny. I challenged him by asking what he thought was interesting. He then began
to describe an upcoming event in astronomy. I looked at him and said, “You find that more interesting than show business?”
He did. At the end of the dinner, he asked if I would like to join him on a safari in Africa. I said, “What! Sleep in a tent
with you while wild animals try to get at us?” I chose not to go. Another mistake.

When Johnny passed away, I was so sorry to hear that he had been alone, no longer with his wife. It’s always sad to me that
someone who brought so much enjoyment to all of us spent a substantial part of his life in unhappiness.

I have some notes from Johnny I’d like to share with you. I have no memory of what prompted the following note, but it’s the
only one of its kind I’ve ever received from a man—or woman for that matter.

I had received three residual checks for my appearances on the
Best of Carson
DVDs. They totaled eight dollars and change. I wrote Johnny that I always felt that I was a tiny part of the success of the
Tonight Show
, I just hadn’t realized
how
tiny.

Johnny had bypass surgery, and I wondered if this was in store in the future for me as a talk show host, so I asked him to
get me some figures on costs. Ironically, sometime after this letter both Regis Philbin and David Letterman had bypass surgery.
I haven’t had that issue, but if I ever do, I’ll certainly study Johnny’s research.

I also have some notes from David Letterman, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to publish them until at
least
both of us are dead.

M
y encounters with the following icons were relatively brief but for me unforgettable and inform my behavior.

In the midseventies I once had lunch with the great English actor Trevor Howard at his house outside of London. We were sitting
in his garden. At one point he asked, “Is your driver out there in the car?” I said yes. He said, “Have him come in and join
us.” He did. When I left London I gave my driver some money in an envelope. He said, “There could be nothing in this envelope,
and I still consider it a privilege to have driven you.” I believe the lunch with Trevor Howard had something to do with his
feelings.

Especially memorable was the time I was working with Sir John Gielgud. I was going to see the previous day’s filming and asked
if he’d like to join me. When we got to the screening room, he called out to the director, “I hope it’s all right I’m here.
Chuck asked me to come.” Of course, it was. Sir John Gielgud’s modesty was wonderful to see.

Another time I went to a reception after a screening of
The Heartbreak Kid
, the first movie where I played a leading role. Groucho Marx was there, and I was taken over to meet him. He looked at me
and said, “Hated the movie, loved my seat.”

I
n 1974, I was asked to do a two-character play on Broadway called
Same Time, Next Year
. The female lead was to be played by Ellen Burstyn. We had never met, so the producer felt it was essential we get together
just to make sure we got along.

Ellen drove into New York from her house in Snedens Landing, picked me up, and drove us back to her place. I noticed she wore
little or no makeup and was beautiful.