Easy Street (The Hard Way) A Memoir Read online

  I stand, and he asks, “Do you want to sign with me or not?”

  “Why would I want to sign with you? You’re telling me right now you can’t get me a fuckin’ job for fourteen years.”

  “Well, there’s always a possibility. I’m really good at what I do. If I were you, I’d sign with me and we’ll take our chances.”

  So I signed, but as time went by, nothing changed. I was really not getting any good auditions. Occasionally he would get me into meetings with movers and shakers in Manhattan, but it never led to anything. Ultimately I said to Richard, “Look, you very well may be right in your prediction, but I don’t have time to wait. The way you’re representing me seems to be as if you’re absolutely set on this notion of yours that all I’m doing right now is marinating. I really need to work and need money to feed myself.”

  I then signed with these two beautiful ladies, older ladies who fuckin’ adored me, Pat Baldwin and Shirley Scully. They seemed to be really, really fan girls; they seemed like family, always rooting for me to do well. It was irresistible to not be a part of their world, and we ate dinners together, partied together, went on vacation together—we really became close, and they became like adopted aunts.

  But they too kept running into problems getting me work. It’s so much easier on everybody if you’re a recognizable type, so they were constantly trying to figure out how to market me. Casting directors would say we heard Perlman can act, but does he play teachers? Does he play accountants? Can he be a cop? Or is he a better gangster?

  Here I was, this guy who was basing everything on this chameleon-like approach to acting in which I can play whatever you cast me as, when people preferred to plug me in as an entity, a specific type, a niche. I started to wonder, Holy shit, this motherfucker Richard Astor—as farfetched as it was—he might be fuckin’ right.

  People were saying to me, “You’re just not commercial. You’re not Proctor and Gamble. You’re not the guy next door. We can’t put you in a commercial. We can’t put you in a box.”

  It went along like that for a few years, and it was very frustrating. I acted in stuff that hardly paid and spent an awful lot of time making money by selling jewelry and handbags on Eighth Street and McDougal with my dear friend Burton Levy. Then, in 1979, I get a call from Shirley and Pat. They were all excited with good news: “There’s something going around right now that we submitted you for and they actually want to meet you.” I was listening. “It’s not just a meeting like it usually is with a casting director—the filmmaker himself wants to meet you.”

  I said, “Well, what is it?”

  “It’s very odd. It’s this caveman movie. But . . .”

  “Hold on. Are you shitting me?” The image that came into my head was the movie One Million BC with Victor Mature and Virginia Mayo. That was a low-budget thing in which they wore these leopard skins, carried clubs outta Vic Tanny’s gym, and spoke broken English. I’m saying to myself, Fuck me, this is where I’m going in this fucking business? Fucking cavemen movies with bad fucking eye makeup? I mean, Jesus Christ, this is what I went to fucking graduate school for?

  (CHAPTER 8)

  My Cave or Yours?

  “It’s for a movie!”

  My agents Pat and Shirley tried to convince me to go to a meeting they set up for what I thought was some crapola of a caveman flick. I had only always done theater, and this was my first movie experience. “Ron, you got to get serious about this. We don’t get many shots at movies. In fact, we don’t get any! Would it hurt to just go to the meeting?”

  So I sat down for an interview with this very handsome French guy. In fact, everything about him was handsome. His big, salt-and-pepper colored hair-do was perfectly handsome, and he was wearing designer jeans that were obviously dry cleaned, ’cuz I’d never seen dungarees that had a crease in ’em—handsome! He was wearing a white, furry cashmere sweater wrapped around his shoulders and tied in the front. In addition, he had this thick French accent, which, all in all, made me think this dude was clearly a trust fund baby wanting to dabble in film as a little hobby.

  I was ready to fuckin’ bolt, thinking, Holy shit, man, if I had Daddy’s money, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t use it to make a fucking caveman movie. Ten seconds into the meeting I think, Fuck this, this is a big waste of time, so I decided to start playin’ with the dude—ya know, just for my own edification and enjoyment.

  He had a notepad in front of him and was holding a very handsome pen (can’t remember if it was a Mont Blanc, but I do know it was handsome!). “What is your name?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? Don’t you have a piece of paper there with my fucking name on it? I’m Tony fucking Curtis.”

  Obviously he was going through some sort of checklist. “Have you been trained? What is your training?” He looked up and seemed a little puzzled, but he kept going.

  “Well, I’m housebroken and I can fetch the newspaper from outside the front door in the morning, but every once in awhile I make a mistake and drink out of the toilet bowl.”

  This went on for like twenty minutes, with him seeming unruffled with my total blasé disrespect. In fact, I was being such an asshole that I thought I’d get him to say, “Let’s step outside and settle this.” I was convinced this way-too-handsome dude and his little caveman project were wasting everybody’s time. After a bit he started looking at me with some sort of a weird fascination. It seemed the more disrespectful I was, the more fascinated he became. At the end of the meeting he stood and shook my hand. “That was fascinating—you are fascinating. I’m going to see you and your fascinating self again.”

  “You’ll pardon me if that news doesn’t quite fill me with joy, but if I had a nickel for every fucking guy that ever said that to me . . .”

  “No, you’ll see. I’m going to surprise you. You’ll see me again.” And sure enough, about two months later I got a message from my agents that this very handsome guy was coming back to New York and I’d been invited to attend a two-day session in a dance studio for an audition. I was told that each day might be four or more hours, and I was to wear loose-fitting clothes. It all sounded a bit fuckin’ odd but hey . . . handsome, rich kids with movie money, ya know?

  I didn’t know how odd it was until I showed up at the studio and saw about thirty-five or forty of the strangest-looking dudes ever assembled in one room. Did you ever see the movie Nightmare Alley? It starred Tyrone Power but also had about one hundred real-life sideshow acts and carnival characters in it to add authenticity. This is what this fucking casting call looked like. There was one guy who was eight and a half feet tall whose head was the size of a peanut. Another guy was a certified hunchback, with one eye looking up and the other looking down. Some other poor fucker had one arm growing out of his left hip and another one growing out of the back of his head. The whole room was filled with the freakiest, most gnarled, most scary people I’ve ever seen. It didn’t make me feel all that good about myself, knowing this was my niche.

  There were a couple of bright spots, though. Danny Devito was there. That’s where we met. He was like me—just a guy starting out, auditioning for whatever. But, even though I love him and we’re friends to this day, he is really a unique-looking man. I admire him ‘cuz he also said “fuck it” and made what he was given work for him. Danny, luckily, didn’t get the part, which in turn made him available to do One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and then Taxi. Sometimes life has a way of working out. Also at the audition was an old acquaintance of mine from back in the La MaMa days, Nameer El-Kadi. Although we hadn’t become that close back in the day, he was in one of the casts of The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria when they, by popular demand, remounted it a year later. Little did I know of the “excellent adventure” he and I were about to embark upon.

  The first day of the studio session was an orientation on how cavemen were supposed to move. They brought in these internationally acclaimed mimes to teach us movement. You know the guys who make a living on the street pu
lling rope that’s not there or opening an imaginary window and climbing through it? The whole first day was this kind of orientation with regard to body movement that was to be employed in depicting a species not yet fully formed. The second day had more of the same but culminated with individual improvisations. The idea was to see how we would portray prehistoric behavior. The handsome French guy with the beautifully handsome cashmere sweater wrapped beautifully and handsomely around his shoulders with the jeans with the crease in them was there for both days, keenly observing everything.

  For the improvisation we were told to act as if we had discovered something we’d never seen before and explore it. Each hopeful was given a few minutes to do his take. So I walked in as a caveman, slightly bent over and my arms swinging sort of ape-like. I chose to discover an imaginary tennis ball. I rolled around on it, I kicked it, and I batted at it. I was into my deal for about a minute when the French guy stopped me.

  “There are two things I want you to know,” he said. “Number one, I told you I’d see you again, and number two, I’m even going to see you at least once more after this.”

  I said, “Jesus Christ, I appreciate you trying to be nice and everything but, I mean, stop with the smoke blowing!”

  “Come here for a second. You really don’t believe me, do you? Here are my notes. You see that? No one has done an improvisation that has gotten four stars except for you. I’m going to see you again, and it’s probably going to be in Europe.”

  “Right, see you in Europe. Maybe we could do a spot of shopping at Harrod’s!”

  “I know you think I’m full of shit. I know you don’t believe anything I say, but I’m telling you I’m going to see you again.”

  Well, about a month went by, and I was playing softball in Central Park one afternoon when an actor friend I know stopped when he saw me and came over to chat.

  “Wow, Perl, you gotta be blown away.”

  “About what?”

  “About the fact that you’re on the shortlist for that caveman movie. In fact, it’s sounding like you’re gonna get the offer. That’s the word around town—that you’re going to get the offer.”

  “Well, I guess that’s cool and all, but sorry, dude, if I seem underwhelmed over a fucking caveman movie for some ultra-handsome, rich French guy.”

  “Dude, do you know who that rich French guy is?” I just stared back at him. “That’s Jean-Jacques Annaud. He just won the Academy Award for best foreign film. He’s one of the most celebrated, sought-after filmmakers on the planet right now, and his next movie is going to be the most serious look anybody’s ever taken at what life was like eighty thousand years ago. And you, ya big dope, you’re up for one of the leads.”

  “Are you shitting me?” For the first time, suddenly I’m nervous.

  I got my glove and bat and bailed out of the game to go find the nearest pay phone. I called my agents—they told me it was true. And I started playing the tape back in my head. And all I know was I abused the shit outta this poor French dude.

  “I’m hearing I’m on a short list for one of the leads! How’s that possible? I wasn’t very nice to the guy!”

  “No, the director loves you. In fact, whatever you did, he can’t get enough of it. He thinks you’re terrific and loves the idea of you being in this movie! You are on the shortlist for one more audition.” It turns out that Annaud had been on a thirty-two-city tour to find the perfect cast for his movie Quest for Fire, a big studio movie, green-lit by Alan Ladd Jr., who was running 20th Century Fox at the time.

  About a week later I got a call from Annaud’s staff telling me that I needed to fly to London. They flew me first class and put me up in this phenomenal hotel. In London we did a few days more of mime improvisation training, but this time it was a smaller group assembled. When we were all done no one was told anything aside from “Thank you for coming. You’ll hear from us soon.” We were just all herded to the production office to pick up our per diem cash and our ticket home.

  When I made my way to the production office there was a very friendly secretary there who gave me my money. I thanked her and asked, “By the way, this is my first time in London. Do you know any good restaurants in the area?”

  “You should eat someplace really, really special,” she said. “I like this place called Mr. Chow.”

  “Okay, but why should I eat someplace special?”

  “Because you should be celebrating.”

  “And why is that, if ya don’t mind me being too nosey?”

  She got up and led me by the hand to another room where there was a big board listing the final cast. The second name up there was mine, and that was when I found out, Holy shit, I got the second lead in a major production for 20th fucking Century fucking Fox, a character named Amoukar in the motion picture Quest for Fire. To be directed by the incredibly handsome, incredibly respected Jean-Jacques Annaud! You bet I went to Mr. Chow, even if it was all by myself. That’s how the seventies ended and the eighties started for me. This was not only my first movie; this was also my first movie audition. As I mentioned, my agents had a hard time getting me auditions for movie roles because there was nothing they could figure out to plug me into. I wasn’t really a cop because I was a bit of a hippie. I wasn’t really a teacher, because I wasn’t nerdy enough. I just fell in between the cracks of pretty much everything you could possibly think of. How ironic that the only thing I could really trade off of was this quasi-Neanderthal bone structure of mine with the prominent brow and the deep-set eyes. Weird, right?

  Once I was back in the States I was told to stand by because production was scheduled to start soon. But what happened next sounds like one of those good news–bad news jokes. The good news is, hey, I’ve got the lead in this movie. The bad news is that just as we are about to begin production the Screen Actors Guild called a strike, preventing all American actors from going to work on American-produced films and television. The absurdity was that during a thirty-two-city search for the cast of Quest, Annaud managed to cast nothing but Americans for the four leading roles. This was a big 20th Century Fox film, and you can’t really shoot around a union. The union goes on strike for the first time in twenty-one years just as I’m about to have my movie debut, and we spend the next four months fielding phone calls. “Is the movie still on? Is it off?” “It’s off. Yeah, they’re scrapping it.” “No, it’s on again.”

  Jean-Jacques had already spent three years and probably around $6 million in preproduction, which was a huge amount of money at that time. He had a lot of skin in the game. He did everything he could to keep it going. But the forces at 20th Century Fox cannot make the movie with American actors because American actors are on strike, and American actors can’t cross the picket line. It quickly became a massive clusterfuck.

  My newest dear friend, Everett McGill, and my old friend Nameer El-Kadi had also been cast in the movie, and during this time we did some informal rehearsals, but mostly just to keep close to one another to keep from going buggy. About two months went by, and I got a call from Everett at 5:20 one evening: “Hey Perl, I got bad news for you. It’s off, but this time it’s for real. It’s done. They can’t figure out how to do it. Fox has tried everything possible to figure out a way around the strike. Nobody knows when the strike’s gonna be over. They were supposed to start shooting in Iceland. They blew that location because they lost the window, because it was starting to get way too cold in Iceland and way too dark way too early.”

  “Fuck! So close, and yet so far.” There I was, not only getting my first movie but I was also going to be the lead. It was going to be with 20th Century Fox, and it was going to be a-fucking-mazing, with an Academy Award–winning director to boot. Who was handsome! Goddammit, man, what fucking luck. I looked up at the clock and said, “Okay, it’s 5:30. If I get on the D train right now, I can be at Yankee Stadium by 7:15 to make the night game.” They were playing Oakland.

  I had $100 to my name. General admission seats were like eight bucks, so
I gave the guy at the ticket window the eight dollars and then I pushed in another $30 and told the guy that’s for him. Like I said before, he knew exactly what I wanted without saying a word, and I wound up with the best seats I’ve ever had—on field-level, between first base and home plate.

  I was all fucking by myself after just getting the worst piece of news I’d ever gotten in my short professional career. Maybe the worst piece of news I’ll ever get as a professional. And the beer guy came by. They have these trays of beer in plastic cups covered with cellophane. The tray probably held thirty beers, and I saw only one beer missing. I signaled for him to come over. “How much is that?”

  “Two-fifty.”

  I said, “No. Not one. How much is the whole fucking tray? How much for that?” He says, “The whole thing? You think I’m a fucking Einstein or something? I don’t know how much it is.”

  “What could it be? Fifty to sixty dollars?”

  He said, “Gimme fifty and it’s yours.” I paid him for this big tray and told him to start passing out the beer to everyone sitting around me, saving one for myself. By the seventh inning I had about forty-five new friends and two dozen phone numbers. I was the most popular guy at the game. The worst night of my life turned into the most fun I’ve ever had at a ballgame. The Yankees routed. They hit about seven home runs. Oscar Gamble hit two all by himself. They were on fire that night. It was just win-win-win. It was a magical night, ’cuz I basically decided to meet adversity by just pissing right in its face.

  Sure enough, two days later, I got a call. The movie was on again. They figured out a way to resurrect it. It’s funky, it’s weird, but we were doing it. And it was 100 percent go. At that moment I learned that if a negative thing comes at you, bombard it with positive. That night when Everett called I thought, Fuck this. I’m not gonna give in to how absolutely abjectly depressed I should be right now. I’m just going to go celebrate. And because of that, everything turned positive again. In my head I didn’t accept that the movie was dead, and somehow, once again, the fuckin’ universe came up big!