Authors: Jerry Stiller
“I have to think about it,” I said.
The assistant director walked in. “We’re ready to rehearse.”
Suddenly I started to laugh. “I’m an actor. I can adjust. Sure, I’m Rico Patrone, the product of a mixed marriage; my father’s Italian, my mother’s Jewish. I was abandoned on a doorstep and sent to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. But I kept the name Rico Patrone.”
Matthau was laughing out loud. “One more thing, Jerry,” he said. “Garber needs a first name. What would you call me?”
Looking at Matthau, I said, “Walter, to me you’re a tall, skinny Zero Mostel. I’ll call you Z.”
“Zachary,” he said. “My name is Zachary. Zachary Garber.” Looking at everyone he said, “Remember, Jerry Stiller here gave me my name.”
“Let’s go rehearse,” said Joe Sargent.
As we were about to shoot, Matthau said, “What do you say in this scene, Jerry?”
“I got no lines.”
“I’ll give you mine.”
And he did.
During the filming, Matthau stayed at the Carlyle Hotel, a Madison Avenue elegance. At 6 o’clock each morning he’d pick me up in his white Rolls-Royce, and we’d run our lines on the way to the locations.
One day Walter took me to lunch at Oscar’s Catch of the Sea. I sat with him and his agent, Lee Stevens, in a booth, talking basketball. While we were waiting to order, a lady approached and said to me, “I really enjoy those Blue Nun commercials you and your wife do.”
“Thanks,” I said.
As she left, Walter joked, “I did
The Odd Couple
on Broadway and you she knows from Blue Nun wine.”
And he picked up the check.
My dream of performing in a speaking role on Broadway came true when I got a call to audition for the role of Carmine Vespucci in the New York
production of
The Ritz
, a play by Terrence McNally to be directed by Bobby Drivas. Drivas cast me despite a terrible audition. After my reading he told me to go down into the cellar to go over the script, which I did. When I came back up he asked me to drop the script and do an improvisation. I did and I ate the scenery. I pulled out all the stops. I went bananas. I played Carmine Vespucci as a deranged “crazo.” Drivas cast me on the spot. The play gave me the chance to costar with Rita Moreno, Jack Weston, and F. Murray Abraham. This was to be a very merry adventure.
The cast included Paul Price, Steve Collins, George Dzundza, Tony DiSantis, Ruth Jareslow, and Vera Lockwood. While the publicity photos were being taken, Rita told a joke about an actor playing the gravedigger in
Hamlet
with Sir Laurence Olivier. The actor riffled through the script saying, “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit … ah, my part, my part.”
We rehearsed at the New Amsterdam Rooftop Theater on 42nd Street, once a jewel of a playhouse where the likes of Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, and Fanny Brice had starred.
There was no steam heat in the theater now; the seats were broken, the ceilings were peeling. The stage looked like pipe-rack city, a mock-up of the Ritz Baths. This show has all the earmarks of a hit, I told myself. Every time I work in a miserable rehearsal space, I feel a hit. I love substandard conditions. It makes me work better. But these were the worst.
One night after a late rehearsal, Philip, the night maintenance man, took us down in the elevator. As we were walking on 42nd Street toward Eighth Avenue, I realized I had forgotten my script. I told Bobby I was going back to get it.
Bobby said, “You won’t have much luck.”
“Why?”
“You’ll find out. We’re going to have a drink at Downey’s. Come meet us.”
I went back to the New Amsterdam and rang for the elevator. I asked the maintenance man to take me upstairs.
“I can’t, Mr. Stiller,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“There’s somebody up there.”
“Who? Who’s up there?” I asked.
“This woman,” he said, looking at me in a strange way. “She’s only there at night,” he said.
“What woman?” I asked.
“She cries at night,” he said. “I’m not going up there. If you want to go, you’ll have to walk.”
“It’s twelve floors,” I said.
“I wouldn’t go if I were you.”
“Are you saying there’s a ghost up there?”
“I’m not saying nothing. I’m just letting you know what I hear.”
“How long has this been going on?” I asked.
“As long as I’ve been here,” the maintenance man said.
“Who is she?” I asked.
“Some famous actress who was shot by her husband when he caught her doing it with some big producer.”
“Well, I think I’ll leave the script till tomorrow,” I said.
“Good idea, Mr. Stiller.”
“Good night, Philip.”
“Good night, Mr. Stiller.”
We spent the final days before the opening in Washington, D.C., rehearsing at a scenery warehouse in a burned-out area near Yankee Stadium. We’d work from late night till morning.
“It’s going to be a hit,” I said. “Nothing can be lower than this dump.”
During this period, Bobby Drivas seemed oblivious to everything. “It’s good to get used to this,” he’d say. “We can catch the desperation of the characters in the show.”
The Ritz
opened in Washington to terrible notices. The theater was close to empty at each performance. Adela, the producer, would not close the play. Drivas and McNally went to work, rewriting each night, switching the order of scenes. Jimmy Coco, Will Holt, and Dolly Jonah also pitched in, reshaping the play. Two weeks later we had something that seemed to work, but still no audiences.
Thanks to Adela Holzer’s unflagging belief in Terrence McNally,
The Ritz
opened at the Longacre in New York on January 20, 1975. The reviews somehow gave the impression that the play was especially tailored to a gay audience. In truth, for the first month on Broadway, most of the people in the audience
were
gay. Many came more than once, wearing different outfits. Miraculously, word of mouth on the show started attracting a straight audience who viewed it as an out-and-out farce. Rex Reed’s great follow-up review in the (N.Y.)
Daily News
undoubtedly turned the show into a hit. When busloads of women started arriving
from Wilkes-Barre and Scranton on Sundays, we knew we were in. The women were our best audiences.
One Sunday matinee, Totie Fields came back after the show. “I loved it,” she said, “and did you hear those women laughing? Can you imagine how much harder they would’ve laughed if they knew what they were laughing about?”
Larry Ford, the stage manager, was put in charge of the asylum. At times the offstage madness was as bizarre as what took place on stage.
One night, during one of my scenes, someone broke through the iron bars of my dressing-room window and stole the .38 revolver and mink coat I needed for my next entrance. Here I was, playing a Mafioso tough guy, and a real crook rips me off. I was humiliated and panic-stricken. I dashed down to the stage and told Larry what had happened.
“What do I do? I can’t go on without my gun.”
Larry said, “Follow the book,” handing me his stage manager’s script as he bolted out the stage door. I was now the stage manager running the show. Five minutes later he returned, carrying a mink coat and a gun.
“Where did you get them?” I asked.
“I borrowed the coat from a lady in the audience, the gun I got from a cop on 48th Street. Now go ahead, do your scene.” And he went back on the book.
Around the fifth month into the run, Jack Weston, who played Gaetano Proclo and always cracked me up offstage, decided to try to break me up onstage. At one turn of the plot, Jack dons a mink coat and a blonde wig, slaps on lipstick, and joins an amateur show already in progress, impersonating one of the Andrews Sisters. This was all done while lip-synching to an actual Andrews Sisters’ recording of “Roll Out the Barrel.” In my zeal to prove to my sister that Jack is gay, I interrupt the act at gunpoint and order him to take off the wig, the mink coat, and the lipstick. At this particular performance Jack added a Groucho nose. Looking me square in the eye, he dared me not to crack up.
I did the lines. “Okay, Gaetano, take off the wig.”
Jack removed the wig.
“Now take off the mink.”
Jack obeyed.
“Now the lipstick.”
He wiped off the lipstick.
I could see him anticipating my breaking up. I said, “Okay, Gaetano,
take off the Groucho nose.” Jack took off the nose, slowly. I took one look at his face, I paused and said, “Put it back on.”
Jack fell to his knees, convulsed in laughter, which set the audience off, stopping the show.
When we got offstage we expected Larry Ford to give us hell. All he said was, “If it happens again, Jack, you could rupture yourself laughing so hard. I don’t want to see that happen to you.”
One matinee day my dressing room door burst open, and before I could see who it was, a man grabbed me in a huge embrace. His head was over my shoulder, and I heard weeping. I still didn’t know who he was as I pulled his body off mine and stared at him, trying to figure out if I knew him.
He was still sobbing. “It’s me, Zinger,” he gasped.
“Zinger?”
“Zinger, one of the Harmonica Rascals.”
“Borah Minnevitch and the Harmonica Rascals?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Remember? We played
Sullivan
together.”
“Of course I remember,” I said. “The Harmonica Rascals. You’re the one who …” Suddenly I recalled the seven original harmonica players and a poor little midget they kicked around. “You’re the one who kicked … Johnny….”
“Yeah! Johnny Puleo. The audience loved it.”
“What happened to Johnny?” I asked.
“He disappeared.”
At this point Zinger or whatever his name was broke down, sobbing inconsolably.
“You were wonderful,” he said, the words choking in his throat.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Not so good, Jerry. She’s not going to make it.”
“Who’s not going to make it?”
“Fran.”
Fran?
“She’s bad, Jerry.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Oh, Jerry, Jerry. You were so wonderful, Jerry. You were the best.”
“I’m sorry about Fran.” Who was Fran? I asked myself.
“We’re broke, Jerry. Not a dime. We have nothing. Can you believe that?” More tears poured out.
“Take it easy,” I said. “How much do you need?”
“How much have you got?”
I checked my wallet, asking myself what was going on.
“About thirty-five dollars,” I said.
“I’ll take it.” More tears and a hug.
Other visitors were knocking on the door, coming to tell me how much they’d enjoyed the performance.
“Here,” I said. “I don’t carry money at the theater.”
“This is fine,” he said. “God bless you, Jerry. I’ll tell Fran.”
He left, and I never saw or heard from Zinger again. If he wasn’t telling the truth, it was the greatest $35 performance I’d ever seen in my life.
The Ritz
ran at the Longacre a year. Bernie Kukoff and Jeff Harris caught a performance and subsequently cast me as Gus Duzik opposite Richard Castellano in
Joe and Sons
, an upcoming CBS TV sitcom. A month later I left
The Ritz
and was on my way to Hollywood.
Richie Castellano’s acting mantra was, “If you don’t want to do a bad take, don’t do a bad take.” Opposite
Joe and Sons
was a new show,
Welcome Back, Kotter
, which swept the hour. After ten weeks, William Paley of CBS made the final decision to cancel us.
At the same time Fred Silverman, the reigning head of CBS, cast Anne as Kate McShane, described as a Kennedyesque lawyer, in a one-hour TV drama of the same name. We rented the home of the daughter of Victor Fleming, the director of
Gone with the Wind
and
The Wizard of Oz
. She was a most generous woman and spoke about her father in glowing terms.
Unfortunately
Kate McShane
was up against
Starsky and Hutch
and disappeared after thirteen episodes. So 1975 was our proverbial fifteen minutes in television, but Anne would resurface on TV many other times over the years. She starred with Carroll O’Connor in
Archie Bunker’s Place
, played the mother-in-law on
Alf
, and with her friend Lila Garrett would coauther the Writer’s Guild-award-winning
The Other Woman
, which starred Anne and Hal Linden.
In December 1975, the movie version of
The Ritz
was to be shot in London. Richard Lester, who had directed the Beatles’ films
A Hard Day’s Night and Help!
, cast me in my old role.
I arrived at my hotel in London. My room, figuratively speaking, was the size of a closet, equipped with a tiny refrigerator, a coin-operated liquor-and-snacks bar, a single bed, and a TV.
I was to play the third lead in the movie, and my contract stipulated that I was to have accommodations at a first-class hotel. Jack Weston was staying at the Connaught, Rita Moreno at the Mayfair. I’d expected to awaken to Big Ben and the sight of Buckingham Palace. My hotel was miles away from the theater district. Five weeks in a room no bigger than a cell. I was furious.
I bolted into the lobby, where I ran into F. Murray Abraham.
“What’s wrong?” Murray asked.
“My room! It’s too small,” I sputtered. I couldn’t finish. “How’s yours?” I asked.
“Small,” he said.
“Are they all that small?”
“I think so.”
We approached the desk clerk. Suddenly Murray shouted loud enough for the entire lobby to hear, “This is Mr. Stiller! This man is a major Broadway star, and you have given him a terrible room. I demand that you change his room at once.”
The desk clerk looked at us in amazement.
“Well, that’s the room we were told to give Mr. Stiller,” he whispered.
“You don’t understand,” Murray exclaimed. “This is a great actor, an artist, and you’re treating him like dirt. This man is a major, major star in the United States.” He drew a breath. “Do you hear me?”
“You’ll have to stop shouting or I’ll have to call security.”
“I’m not shouting,” Murray screamed.
“Murray,” I said, “it’s okay. I love what you’re doing. I’ll just call California and straighten this out.”